Autism Thought Patterns & Compulsions

Types of Thoughts

Looping thoughts or Rumination

Looping thoughts are the same thought circling in my head over and over again with no relief from it at their worst these have made me not want to be here. I Sometimes pray to god to make them stop and yet I don’t even know if he exists but they send me into despair.

How to Date With Autism

I had a suggestion from a reader of one of my answers to cover this topic and I am thankful they gave me that idea. I feel like I might be able to help give some insights into keeping safe whilst dating as an aspie and how to prepare yourself emotionally for it too. I am not speaking on behalf of anyone with autism except myself. I do believe much of this information could be valuable to them though and perhaps it could even be valuable to NTS too. I will discuss in detail what worked for me and against me and sadly autism goes against a lot of us. I had many experiences but don’t base your potential experiences of mine because you might be lucky enough to find that you meet lots of the nice NTs. My situation in life meant my only way to meet people was online and I was very isolated. If you are autistic you might have to do a lot of changing not to suit the NT but to suit yourself after years of trying to suit the NTs. My article covers dating from the perspective of an autistic woman but I think some men with autism could find it helpful too.

Aspergers and Pressure to Get A's

Encouragement vs Pressure

Hello I think that it is normal for loving parents to want the best for their child and for their future. I think that some parents get lost in their ability to realize when their expectations are becoming unfair or unrealistic. From what I have read Asperger's means you either have average or above average intelligence and regardless to which of those categories you fall under. It is unreasonable and insensitive for someone to demand you get A results.

I also read that aspies don’t have learning disabilities but they do have learning difficulties. When someone has impairments of any kind often, they are fighting their hardest to be just like everyone else. A child should grow up knowing that their best is truly enough and that no matter what they are loved regardless. I am going to discuss below why the assumption that you should get A’s because you have Asperger's is pretty ridiculous. All opinions written here are just my own and I do not mean to offend anyone.

How Autism Feels on the Inside

I will try my best to give an idea of how Autism feels on the inside and it is based only on my own experience of it because it is a very difficult thing to describe and everyone who has it is affected differently.

As an adult with autism or Asperger's, how do you stay safe and make sure no one manipulates and takes advantage of you?

My answer to someone who wants to know how to stay safe with autism.

I honestly wish I could give you an amazing answer that aspies could read and even print off to make use of to always be safe. My answer is drawn from numerous bad experiences with abusive people and sexual predators. I wake up each day wishing I I could forget the painful and haunting memories of the past. This is just my opinion and I don’t speak for every autistic person or anything (we already have enough people doing that without our permission.) but I feel that staying safe is near to impossible for many of us and I am about to explain why that has been the case for me.

Things You Should Never Say to a Person With Autism

Hurtful and Invalidating Comments

Things you should never say to an Autistic person are any of the general invalidating things that people tend to say on a daily basis. Things like “you don’t give off any hints of being autistic,” Or “you don’t look autistic,” it shouldn’t really need explaining why these comments are distressing but as an Autistic woman who was not diagnosed until I was 26 years of age. I have become quite good at masking my struggles and blending in. When I didn’t, I suffered abuse, bullying and violence. It is not a compliment to say “you don’t look Autistic” to someone who has had to change everything about themselves and act more normal for survival. You might have the best of intentions and truly believe you are complimenting someone by saying it or perhaps even encouraging them but for me, it is an insult and many other Autistic people feel the same way.

What kind of partner should a person with autism seek, a fellow Aspie or the complete opposite?

I am excited to answer this because I have so many thoughts on the topic and advice based on my own horrible and sometimes heartbreaking experiences trying to interact with NTs and I do hope I can add some valuable insights. I do not speak on behalf of every autistic person because we are all unique and I do want to make that very clear in all of my posts. I am going to give you a fuller picture of why it might be difficult for an autistic person to communicate with a NT and vice versa because communication problems and a lack of patience on their part are the reason why I lost a lot of NT people who I actually cared about.

The Penguins with Differently Coloured Shoes

This was a response to someone on Quora who was feeling down about being autistic and having no friends and thinking his family don’t care about him. 

Imagine You Were a Penguin

Imagine you were a penguin with yellow shoes (an odd analogy I know but stick with me) and you loved your yellow shoes but everyone else was wearing pink shoes. Your yellow shoes are part of what makes you who you are and the pink shoe wearers were to ask you to paint them pink instead. Would you? I would and that is part of why I end up feeling how you are feeling now. The pink shoes wearers can move between pink, yellow, green basically any colour from the vast array of colours that exist in this world.

They can chop and change and still be happy with their shoes but for us, we can’t change our shoes and we can’t simply take them off. All we can do is paint them pink but they will still be yellow underneath and as soon as we get home, we are going to want to breathe a massive sigh of relief and paint them yellow again. It would get annoying to have to paint your shoes every day and it would be exhausting to have to keep changing them to pink and then yellow and then back to pink again.

Life After Escape and Pregnancy

Withdrawing from the World 

After escaping I withdrew from the world and became much like The Grinch for a while. In terms of locking myself away and being depressed and full of self-loathing. I was blaming myself for everything and all the times when people would get angry at me and I wouldn’t even know what I had done wrong. I didn’t know I had autism at that point in my life but I knew something was horribly wrong. I wasn’t coping with living alone because I was never taught how to do a single thing for myself and I couldn't have learned it because my dad insisted on doing those things.

Blog Post About Being Made to Protect an Abuser and Advice for Those Who Have Been There

 About

I want this blog to address the overwhelming and life-altering impact of childhood abuse and I also want to discuss the impact of being asked or (in my case) forced to carry the burden of someone else's wrongdoing. I want to ask quite simply why? Why do those who abuse survivors gather the courage to confide in and those who are supposed to care for and protect them fail to do so?