Why Autistic Life Can Be Terrifying

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This is the best autism media I've ever seen.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xumPgktA_Gg


Living in Fear - Why Autistic Life Can Be Terrifying
Autistamatic



Please watch and comment on your thoughts.

The most common autistic experience -- yet finding myself not relating to it. At all.

I don't even understand the experience of the basis of needing to mask in order to feel safe.
I know the theory and reasoning, I am able to imagine and see the patterns in the stories, but that's not how I lived my life so far.

I don't even fear said cliches unto me -- like everyone's reactions says more about them than about me.

I don't even fear the 'degradation' and 'exclusion', whether it's patronization or fearfulness -- because I know how to turn around the social implications against them. Apparently that's not a common thing even amongst NTs.

I don't even fear legal disclosure and rejection -- but really, I don't even mask. I don't fear being 'found out'.

I don't even fear the comparisons and ignorance -- if someone thought I wasn't autistic for 'having more emotion and not having social anxiety', I'd laugh at them.
And if something thought I'm not autistic for 'not being a savant or a nerd', then I'll laugh at them and call them ignorant.

I don't even keep autism a secret -- it's really none of their business.
And it's not like I have certain needs. Advantage or disadvantage, I don't fear it.

I don't need to mask in order to figure out how to 'vibe' and 'have team spirit';
And I don't think this is a common social skill at all. Not an everyday layperson NT level of interaction.

I understand transferences well -- that's how to take over a room and control a crowd to an extent, I just need better emotional regulation (in which I found my main problem with it has nothing to do with autism) and sustained wider scope of environmental awareness.

I barely have basic the fear of uncertainty -- it's not even something I experienced on a daily basis.
Maybe it's individual, maybe it's cultural. I don't know. I've yet to figure that one out.


Video can represent the reality of the majority of passing autistics.
Except me apparently. It means it's something I have to understand well if I ever had to be an advocate.

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I never masked either, apart from using social manners and trying to seem like a normal person at work. I didn't know I was autistic during my career but I knew for example that it wouldn't be polite to pull my shoes off and play with my feet stim in a professional setting. The part I relate to very hard is that I was always called out for being honest/blunt, for having consistent ethical standards, and for refusing to condone s**t behaviour in my classmates or coworkers. I still deal with that today. I don't fake smile etc and it really offends a lot of people. I'm one to speak up and defend myself just like he does. It's not always easy though.

Thank you for Posting this Isabella .....

I’ve seen this person’s YouTube channel before, he’s very committed to the ND movement.

While I can relate to much of what he says and have experienced my share of discrimination due to autistic behaviour especially in the workplace.

I’ve actually been directly told once Im not getting the job because of that behaviour.

Yes autistic life can be terrifying but he avoids the elephant in the room that it’s the condition itself that makes it so.

He’s heavy on the SJ side referencing gays and black people who are autistic although ignores the fact that most gays and black people without autism have perfectly good lives here in the west, even those that don’t are usually not imprisoned by their brain.

He at least makes reference to the fact that he’s privileged but again ignores the elephant in the room which is the real reason he’s privileged is because he has a milder form of autism.

This milder form allows him to have a job, wife live a relatively normal life and run his own YouTube channel where he talks without much verbal impairment.

Such abilities denied to others with a more severe form of his condition

The mild form of a what can be a serious disabling condition he and others like him are against research to treat.

Though I never knew I was on the spectrum so the few times people called me "Autistic" as an insult, it did not hurt because I never knew I was!

BUT the other aspects I knew too well! The being told off for things that everyone else should be doing when I was the one in the right. Was taken in the office because I followed company rules where everyone else did not, and I was told if I didn't break company rules I would get the sack for not being a "Team player". (My actual work was different to theirs as I specialized so the statement was puzzling). When I pointed out if I was sacked for actually complying with company rules, then if they sack me everyone elses job is gone especially the one sacking me, as I would take it further, then he backed down but I recieved loads of hidden bullying after that and was forced to work double the hours I was paid for until I handed in my notice after a breakdown.

But yes. Loads of occasions I was "In the wrong" for being right!

And yes, it does effect ones life to the point when one is scared to get to know people and wants to avoid people as one fears what can happen if people turn on you.

Once had a whole class start bullying me in college and I was about to plan my escape by jumping through a classroom window as without warning the whole class suddenly turned on me, and while I was standing on the desk trying to work out if I could jump onto the top of a tall tree near the classroom (Was a high up classroom with a road underneath it as lorries could drive through) and the lecturer came in and I was then told off for standing on the desk and everyone in the class pretended they were innocent. I still avoid being in buildings with lots of people in them unless I can be near a door to make a quick exit...
(I remember when I used to (in my 20's) attend a church and they gave me a deacons job (They cslled me a doorman as they didn't want it to be official) as I would only sit right at the back where the door was! It was funny because I asked what I was required to do. Open up the church, and put fresh water in the pulpit for the speaker, and make sure the flowers had water, and also then as people started coming in, shake their hands and hand out the hymnbooks. (I was also near the lightswitch so I was signalled from the front if they needed the lights off for the overhead projector to be used). Why it was funny is it was a newly built "Modern" church building as the old chapel was knocked down and someone I was in school with wanted me to attend, but the church wasn't ready until I was in my 20's, so it was a new church. And it had high windowsills with flowers in a vase on each windowsill as well as the flowers at the front, so I reached up and watered all the flowers. Now the church leader was also a builder by trade and he had built the church, but during the time I was there he had been on the roof and in the attics looking for the source of a damp problem which I thought nothing of because I didn't realize... A couple of years had passed and I commented to the deaconess (An elderly lady who has since passed away but she dien't look her age) and I said "There's long lasting these flowers are"...
She said "Their plastic".
"Are they?" I replied. "I've been watering them thre last two years! "
With that she laughed as she realized where the dampness had come from and said "Whatever you do, don't tell ++++ (The church leader) as he will not be amused!

Autistic girls and women are at heightened risk of sexual abuse, exploitation, domestic violence and manipulation whether they and the other party/parties know their neurotype or not.

I don't think it's fair to suggest racial minorities, gay people, or trans people don't experience additional struggles being accepted worldwide, especially if they're autistic and lack access to diagnostics or family/cultural support.

You're right that he didn't specifically mention nonspeaking autistics but as a person with mutism I felt it was implicit and I was not offended.

for much of my life i did not have the clue that i should be terrified, it was more like "deer in the headlights" paralysis.

perhaps i was not aware that i had sensory limits that were disabling should they be breached. or mebbe lucky that it did not get that far?