her,,, expolde
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more neurodiversity talk
so building off of what I was talking about earlier, another thing I really struggle with is mediating volume. I talk way too loud, all the time. Even when I really need to lower my volume (e.g. when I'm talking about my parents within their house) I often find my voice growing in volume without my control. There have been many times where people would tell me to shush because I said something way too loud at an inappropriate time. I find it almost impossible to intentionally talk quietly, especially when I'm excited. I think that my volume of speech literally approaches shouting, especially when I'm passionate about something. I know that it is a known thing that some autistic people talk very loud, and I am now wondering if that is me.
I also blurt things out at inappropriate times, and it has caused me a lot of grief in the past because I often know that what I just said was rude and unkind, even if I didn't mean it that way and I was just vocalizing a random thought in my brain. I have a hard time stemming the thoughts from escaping my mouth once they're there. Weirdly enough, I don't talk to myself much these days (I used to talk to myself a lot as a kid, I do wonder if voice dysphoria has something to do with it.) But when I'm with friends — oh god. I cannot control my volume at all and I marvel at people who can.
volume
Volume can be one of the trickier traits to master control of. I am a quiet person and speak quietly but when stressed or anxious I can get louder and lose my control of it. I tend to talk inwardly almost always because of my upbringing so I can vet and parse my thoughts before they blurt out. But I can sometimes cut someone to the bone offhandly if I do not think before I speak. I can be like a sledgehammer if I let my bluntness loose.
I think these can also be worked on, it is basically slowing down your processing and parsing your thoughts before you speak. But I know it can be difficult to master that, it will feel like you take far longer to speak but it may help you more in the long run especially when speaking can stress you, be it how people react to what you say and for how you speak too
@khizuo@hexbear.net I wonder if hyposensitivity has something to do with the volume? I have really really perceptive hearing, and growing up I was accused of "mumbling" a lot, so for me I think my speaking volume is related to my sensory perception of how loud or quiet an environment is (and how loud or quiet my voice sounds out my mouth)
Taking longer to speak but being more careful sounds like a good skill, I gotta figure out how you talk inwardly @magi@hexbear.net
Shoot I was gonna split this up into two posts but phone not selecting text
It very much could be. I speak very loudly no matter the volume of my surroundings — I have a distinct memory of talking very loudly in my high school atrium (a very echoey place that people generally try to talk quietly in), swearing at a high volume, and getting told by my friend to quiet down because all the teachers could hear me swearing. I don't know if it's hyposensitivity, but in general I have very bad perception of the outside world and what is appropriate for it.
Pretty common, swear like a trooper myself lol
I can list my traits lol easy enough I have a list.
Hyposensitivity list
Hyposensitivity
Tactile hyposensitivity CW a little here but relevant.
Olfactory hyposensitivity
Taste hyposensitivity
Visual hyposensitivity
Vestibular hyposensitivity
Proprioceptive hyposensitivity
This is more something you have to work on and be conscious of, like stopping yourself from speaking for a second and think about what you are going to say then say it. It's like in internal filter.
damn, when i figure mine all out under the mask i gotta make a list like this
this is the one that stood out to me, me too
I have high pain tolerance, I broke my forearm in two and sat for 8 hours with no pain relief. (I had a sip of tea which forced that before I got put to sleep to have it put back in place)
<name>'s dark past
oh wow, this unlocked a core memory for me... i broke my arm in elementary school and i distinctly remember looking at it, feeling no pain, and then seeing the S shape it was in, and thinking to myself "I shouldn't walk like this, i should start screaming" (I was also really scared when I saw it). tbh i don't think my reaction here was actually indicative of a high pain tolerance, i think this is a pretty normal shock reaction w/ endorphins/adrenaline etc.
in the ambulance, apparently i told the techs that i wanted to die, and that ended up with the cops questioning my mom about abuse (i mean, they didn't abuse me physically or intentionally abuse me, but they truly were not equipped for how much trouble i was in 80 different ways and got 0 good advice for how to really treat me well)
...it was the day before my birthday, so I insisted they didn't keep me overnight (I think I got an n64 that year), so i just remember having a doctor set my arm while i was awake lmao i can't believe he actually did it. i remember thinking the nitrous oxide they gave me did nothing, but i was determined to go home.
actually this is a funny memory to me
sometimes it isn't all bad
Yeah part of my lower arm was under the upper forearm so I had to be put to sleep to have it put back and then a full arm cast. (which meant sleeping with my arm up in the air)
When it snapped I passed out straight away with the shock of the snap. When I came round to it I looked at it and went "oh I think that's fucked" lol I slipped in school down a hill and had to have it washed because it was covered in mud. But it only really started to hurt about 6ish hours in, think the adrenaline had worn off then and I'd then to wait a few more hours before they'd do the operation to get it sorted lol.
oh nooooo
I once planned on having surgery and finishing moving out on the same day once. Fortunately planned ahead and basically had everything done before the surgery (just had to strap a small mattress to the roof after). Didn't plan on general anesthetic, but they insisted (just had a pin removed from my collar bone). Fortunately they were really light on it, so I was awake and out the door quickly.
Next time I was in the ER, I got out of GA by mentioning my sleep apnea. Got ketamine instead. They just were trying to pull my wrist back into place. Didn't work (ended up having actual surgery to get a plate installed at a later date, which I definitely wanted to be asleep for that and the surgeon said the ER was wasting their time trying to fix it non-surgically).
Last two times I broke a bones enough to need surgery (collar bone and wrist), I'd have described the pain as a 0-2 on scale of 0-10. Both times, I was waiting on the side of the road for like an hour and think the adrenaline largely wore off during that. The wrist injury was funny because someone came running to me to check if I was okay with an obviously shocked reaction to my face (I scraped my chin a little), but I was worried like my nose was broke or something based on their reaction but he couldn't communicate properly because he was too shocked. Once I realized he was over-reacting to a little blood, I pulled my sleeve up to check my wrist and it was very obviously broke and I was like "this is the kind of thing I'm looking for" kinda bluntly.
whoa yeah pain tolerance is such an interesting topic - i know it's mentioned in some of the autism-specific books I read as well but I imagine even outside of ND people (not implying that you are or aren't ND of course) there's variation.
s3x
It is funny to me how much kink stuff comes up regularly in books I read about autism as soon as they start to intersect with queer works. I've always had a sense that queer communities had a closer relation to kink, but Devon Price (in Unmasking Autism) includes this quote (and I believe he talks about it in the first person as well):
(from Chapter 7. Cultivating Autistic Relationships)
I never thought about it in this light before - but there seems to be overlap here between queer, ND, and kink, and I think that that unique relationship to pain is at the center of it.
waow
I relate to some of this a lot. A couple questions though:
Is there a good way to cope with this/engage with it? I love this so much but obviously stuff is dirty and I shouldn't, or something.
Could you explain this one a bit, maybe how it is different from how NTs would prefer food? Because I definitely love and crave intense, specific flavors but I didn't connect that with autism.
Similar question, this one I don't think I experience, but what is that like for you?
Thank you, I always like reading you talk about your autism.
Can buy stuff that is easy to clean, I have snake bites so I play with the backs that are through my lip, but I want to get my tongue re-pierced to be able to play with it in my mouth again lol Get something that you can clean properly. You can get chew necklaces for example that would fit that.
I think it would probably be similar to some NT people but maybe more intense, I'd eat phaal curry for example which is one of the hottest curries you can eat. I just really like extreme flavours, like spicy heat to where it would probably hurt to eat lol.
Sometimes my vision would duplicate an object and i'd see them like drifting, again happens more when I'm exhausted or battery is low. Also more prone to it because of my astigmatism, can look up diplopia. I mainly have horizontal but it's infrequent thankfully.
No worries, I like talking about it, I did a lot of research lol
ooh, I hadn't considered your piercings being that way. Piercings rock, can't wait to get some. I actually didn't know you could get chew necklaces, maybe I should try something like that.
The seeing double stuff is wild, I had no idea.
Yeah the backs through my lip are fun to poke at or play with my tongue lol. Theres a surprising amount of stim toys now
Yeah some of my vision stuf can be strange when it happens. Doesn't usually last long though
I'm really sensitive to loud noises and have sharp hearing so I tend to speak really quietly and frequently think other people's normal speaking volume is too loud for how close they are to me
I feel like I don't have a useable "normal people" volume, I'm either too quiet at my normal conversational volume or too loud if I get excited about something or get pissed off
My hearing is in the upper range, I have misophonia and can literally hear a pin drop lol I am very quiet too, I usually get people asking me to turn up the volume. Some people can be very loud and I have to ask them to turn the volume down. lol
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same
If I'm not putting active focus on it, without making behaviours I'm most probably speaking at Public Speaker Banging Lectern volume
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Public Speaker Banging Lectern is a good way to describe my speech patterns in general tbh.
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Which ngl is kinda based. I like that, big fan!!
my best friend has been on the receiving end of way too many loud, gesticulated speeches. i think i have one at least twice every time we talk.
Again just
luv me neurodiverse forms of communication.
super based!
I get loud when excited too, ask my wife I SHOUT about a good turn based strategy
i don't know why that makes me so happy to hear lol, i can relate
Autism gang, that's why
My brother is frequently too quiet to hear and sensitive to loud talking and I'm the type to talk like you're on the other side of a wall even if we're right next to me. Like, even if he's trying to be loud, he's still typically quieter than my normal talking voice.