Non-autistic people often would mistake my refusal to go somewhere or do something for a simple stubbornness or a phobia of some kind, and would try to pressure (sometimes in a ‘you must face your fear to overcome it’ way) me into doing it, and get angry when that either doesn’t work at all, or if I do that - I’d be “off” for quite a while - they think I’m doing so just out of spite.
But the thing is, it’s not that. That high-need autistic kid screaming at the top of their lungs, shaking, falling on the ground and pushing or even biting those trying to drug them somewhere - that’s me inside. I’m just masking that with trying to reason my way out, trying to present as a ‘functional adult’, but inside I just have that autistic block and am on the verge of a serious meltdown, and there always are reasons - my autistic reasons - why I refuse (like that bridge doesn’t look safe, I don’t do trespassing, I know that going to that place I would need to deal with so much stuff I’d not be able to maintain my mental health in functional limits etc) - it’s not ‘phobia’ or ‘spite’, it’s just a block - that may look like major overreaction to non-autists, but is actually orders of magnitude smaller outside, where they see it, than it’s inside.
Do you also have those blocks? Did you find any ways to communicate them successfully to non-autistic people without actually falling on the floor, screaming, biting or running away and hiding?
@span actuallyautistic
#autism
#neurodivergence
