u/AutisticUrianger

Hiya. I need to vent about behaviour I have witnessed in other autism subs. They treat lack of hygiene as a moral failing, as a conscious decision, they say "you're an adult you can learn", they call it weaponised incompetence, and it's so frustrating and devastating to see. I need hands on assistance in the shower or I don't wash. According to these people I'm disgusting and lazy. We have the same disability, why are you so obsessed with lauding your ability to function over others? How can you have autism and not understand that some people experience symptoms you don't? How can you be so cruel about people more disabled than you?

I remember a couple of years ago a comic went popular where an autistic person meets another autistic person who is 1% more autistic than them and gets mad. And everyone in the tags was like "haha this is me I find it so annoying when another autistic person around me can't mask" and how did anyone let that slide? That's just ableism. I'm just so upset. I tried defending someone's lack of hygiene in another autism sub and suggested that they may be in need of a carer, and I got down voted, while all the other comments were focused on blaming the person for being gross and lazy. I don't understand. More and more I start to feel radicalised and resent these kinds of people and it makes me afraid to interact with LSN autists in case they share these opinions about people with my level of needs.

Hiya. So we have had a lot of problems speaking since January, we experienced burnout and entered a verbal shutdown that just kind of never left. We used to be hyperverbal but now semiverbal more accurately describes. I rely almost entirely on aac to communicate, I can hum and make gestures, and sometimes I can manage a word or two, but for the most part, when talking to other human beings, nothing will come out.

But it seems to be situational. I have considered perhaps selective mutism, but it doesn't feel like an anxiety thing. It feels like my brain unplugs the wires connecting my thoughts to my mouth. The way it seems to work is; I can't speak to other people. However, I have two pets, and I can whisper to them to command them. It's strenuous and feels uncomfortable and difficult, but I can do it. I also, when alone, frequently whisper to myself as well. When I whisper to myself, it seems to be at its most natural. Like I don't even think about what's coming out of my mouth, I'm just processing my thoughts. I have theorised that it's because commanding my pets is related to muscle memory, and I'm not trying to convey a conversation with someone else, I'm not having to search for words and send them to my mouth. And when I ramble to myself, in a similar way, I'm not trying to convey my thoughts to anyone else but myself, so it doesn't matter how it sounds. Idk how plausible it is. But it makes me feel stressed and bad because when I catch myself rambling on my own, I start mentally beating myself up for not being able to speak to people, or convinced I'm doing it for attention. It's very frustrating because I have had many situations where I have been unable to communicate stuff because I had left my aac in another room, and if I was just faking it, surely I could have broken character to say what I needed?

Does anyone else experience speech like this? Getting used to my current level of verbality has been a big ordeal.