Let's start May off by looking back on everything that was covered during the months of March & April. Also, if you are new here, WELCOME! I am so glad to have you here! 💕 March's Blog Topics:
April (Autism ACCEPTANCE Month)'s Blog Topics:
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Throughout this blog, I have briefly mentioned how harmful ABA therapy is to autistic people, but I haven't gone into a whole lot of detail regarding what ABA therapy actually is & WHY it's such a problem. So, I'd like to take a moment right now to talk about that. Now, I'm gonna be upfront with you by telling you that I'm absolutely no ABA expert & I've had to do a lot of research in order to have enough content to write about in this blog post. What IS ABA Therapy? ABA stands for "applied behavior analysis" & simply put, it is a behavioral therapy specifically designed for autistic children. The History Of ABA Therapy: The Lovaas Method, later known as Applied Behavior Analysis, was developed by a man named Dr. Ole’ Ivar Lovaas in the 1960s. The premise was to use behaviorism to "treat" autistic individuals. ABA therapy focuses purely on behaviors with a goal to make the autistic child "indistinguishable from peers." When Dr. Ole’ Ivar Lovaas was practicing ABA therapy, he used rewards for desirable behaviors, as well as abusive punishments (including electric shock) for undesirable behaviors. The Problems With ABA Therapy:
There is SO MUCH controversy regarding ABA therapy in the autism community. While the majority of autistic individuals passionately dislike every aspect of this type of therapy & speak out against it; their parents, their teachers, & their medical professionals often disagree; calling it a miracle that "cured" their child of her or his autism or made significant improvements to their child's autism. Well, that simply isn't the case at all. And this is why.
One of the last things I learned about when I became aware that I am, in fact, autistic, are the problems autistic people have with self-care. Now, I can tell you that in some ways, being as germaphobic as I am is a real blessing because that is why many of these self-care tasks actually get completed. If I wasn't so finicky about cleanliness, being a hygienic person would be much more of a problem for me. All my adult life, I have had to complete self-care tasks in a certain way in order for them to get done at all, or in order for them to get done in a timely manner, depending on what the task is. I know that if you are an allistic, or a non-autistic person, you are probably wondering what exactly makes self-care so difficult. This is why.
Let's take a moment now to talk about various self-care tasks.
Showering 🚿 Steps Involved:
That is over SIXTY steps (because some of these steps are actually two or three steps) that need to be completed in order to take a shower every night. Doing that EVERY single NIGHT is EXHAUSTING. I take a shower immediately after dinner every single night in order to ensure that my shower is completed in a timely fashion. If I didn't do that autistic inertia would get in my way. I don't use a hair dryer, so I like to shower several hours before going to bed. I don't use a hair dryer because:
The other night, my mom came knocking on the door after I had already taken my clothes off because she had taken her glasses off & couldn't remember where she put them. And she couldn't see to find them. She wanted ME to find them for her of course. I told her I couldn't because I had already taken my clothes off in preparation for my shower. Putting my clothes back on after I had taken them off just wasn't possible due to my executive functioning difficulties & autistic inertia. Asking a neurotypical person to do this might annoy her or him, but for an autistic person like myself, putting my clothes back on after I had taken them off would make it so my shower take many more hours to get completed. And following the routine of getting my shower done by a certain time is EXTREMELY important to me. If I wasn't so germaphobic, my shower might not get done at all with such an interruption, but I have certain rules that I follow. They are:
If my dad hadn't been home & able to find my mom's glasses for her, I know this would've turned into an ugly fight. The entire mindset of not being able to put clothes back on after taking them off is a foreign concept for neurotypical people & is one of the many things that make living in a neurotypical world so stressful & so frustrating. Especially when those people just tell me I'm strange & they don't take the time to understand the way I live or WHY I do the things I do. By the way, my mom's glasses ended up being in her bathrobe pocket, a location I would've NEVER looked in, even if I HAD tried to find them. Childhood Difficulties: Growing up, my dad continued to wash my hair in the kitchen sink until a very old age because I just couldn't tolerate doing it on my own. My mom told the neuropsychiatrist who evaluated me for autism that washing my hair when I was a child was incredibly difficult because I would scream if even one droplet of water made it into my eye. Eventually, my parents forced me to wash my own hair in the shower & that was so, so, SO HARD. And it caused so many fights & so many meltdowns. Putting my head under the shower water felt no different than as if someone was pouring rubbing alcohol over my head. And then it seeped under my eyelashes & into my eyes despite the fact my eyes were squeezed shut. No joke. As time went on, I came up with the coping mechanism of using a face cloth to shield my face from the water & that is something I still use to this day. This is why I decided to call my blog Splashed With Water. I talk more about it in my first blog post, if you would like to go back & read it. Rather than boring you, by giving you the step-by-step breakdown of the rest of the self-care tasks, I'll just talk briefly about the following: Dressing 👚 I have to get dressed the second I wake up because with autistic inertia, it will get to be two o'clock in the afternoon & I'll STILL be in my pajamas. Brushing Teeth 🪥 Until I was in middle school or high school, I used a children's strawberry-flavored toothpaste. My mom forced me to change to a normal "adult" toothpaste at some point around the teenage years. Because it's what normal people use. Until I got more used to it, the minty flavor made it feel like my mouth was literally on fire. 🔥 And I just had to live with it. When I was talking about this during my autism evaluation, my evaluating neuropsychiatrist asked me why I couldn't use a non-mint flavored toothpaste. My response? My mom told me I had to use mint because that's what EVERYONE uses, that's what "normal" people use. I always felt like I was abnormal & needed to force myself to be "normal" in order to be accepted. And my efforts didn't work because I STILL wasn't accepted. I still can't use mouthwash, even though my dentist recommends it because the mint is too strong & it burns my mouth. Mint is a flavor that autistic people tend to be way oversensitive to. Now it all makes sense to me, but my mom still makes fun of me because I adamantly dislike mint-flavored anything, including ice cream & chocolate. How could someone dislike certain flavors of ice cream & chocolate? 🤷🏻♀️ Using The Toilet 🚽 Due to autistic inertia & executive functioning difficulties, I have great difficulty getting up to use the toilet if I'm not already in the standing position, so if I happen to be in the standing position, I literally act like it's a bathroom emergency when it isn't because I know that if I didn't do that, I'm not going to use the bathroom until I take a shower that night, many hours later. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it's absolutely true. When I was a child, I wouldn't flush the toilet after using it because I was completely terrified of the sound it made. I also wouldn't use the bathroom if my mom happened to be doing laundry at that time. The spontaneous & LOUD sound that the washer & dryer made would scare the living daylights out of me! WELCOME to the first Autism Acceptance Month blog post of 2024! Today, I wanted to take a few steps back & go over some autism terms & what they mean. I use many of these terms throughout my blog & I try to provide definitions as I write. It's always good to take the time to pause & review what some of these terms mean though. And there's no better time to do that than when we're kicking off Autism Acceptance Month! Important Autism Terms & Definitions:
Happy first day of Autism Acceptance Month & Happy April Fools Day (a day that is surely hated by the majority of the autistic community for obvious reasons)! But, today is special for another reason, too— it's Splashed With Water's 1st birthday! I began this blog as a way to spread awareness & acceptance of autism in my community & beyond; launching it on April 1, 2023 as a way to kickstart my first-ever Autism Acceptance Month with a BANG! I wrote precisely eighty blog posts over the last year, so I thought a fun way to celebrate Splashed With Water's 1st birthday would be with blog superlatives. After today, I'll do my very, very best to write about a different Autism Acceptance related topic most days of the month. That's what Autism Acceptance Month is all about after all, right?! Thank you so much for spending your time, hanging out with me, in my little corner of the internet, as I like to call it! 💕 Blog Superlatives:
Let's start March off by looking back on everything that was covered during the months of January & February. Also, if you are new here, WELCOME! I am so glad to have you here! 💕 January's Blog Topics:
February's Blog Topics:
Happy New Year! Let's start the new year off by looking back on the key events of 2023. Key Events Of 2023:
Next, let's look back on everything that was covered during 2023. I began this blog on April 1, 2023; the first day of my first ever Autism ACCEPTANCE Month; with the idea that beginning my blog on that day would give me a plethora of topics to blog about right from the start. I wanted to begin by educating others about autism as best as I knew how (by writing) & as the month of May approached, blog posts would get more & more personal. Looking Back On 2023 Blog Posts: April, Autism ACCEPTANCE Month
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Let's start December off by looking back on everything that was covered during the month of November. (Can you believe it's December already?!) Also, if you are new here, WELCOME! I am so glad to have you here! 💕 November's Blog Topics:
Let's start November off by looking back on everything that was covered during the month of October. (Can you believe it's November already?!) Also, if you are new here, WELCOME! I am so glad to have you here! 💕 October's Blog Topics:
Today is a big day for me because it marks my one year anniversary of my autism evaluation & me getting the validation I waited precisely four months & four days for (I can't believe it!), so in celebration of that, here are some things I've learned about myself over the past year, four months, & four days:
Looking Back On Six Months Of Blog Posts!
April's Blog Topics:
Let's start October off by looking back on everything that was covered during the month of September. (Can you believe it's October already?!) Also, if you are new here, WELCOME! I am so glad to have you here! 💕 September's Blog Topics:
I thought it would be good to start September off by looking back on everything that was covered during the month of August. Also, if you are new here, WELCOME! I am so glad to have you here! 💕 August's Blog Topics:
I thought it would be good to start August off by looking back on everything that was covered during the month of July. Also, if you are new here, WELCOME! I am so glad to have you here! 💕 July's Blog Topics:
I thought it would be good to start July off by looking back on everything that was covered during the month of June. June Highlights:
On a completely different note, if you are new here, WELCOME! I am so glad to have you here! 💕 June's Blog Topics:
Today is my one year anniversary of me finding out I'm autistic (I can't believe it!), so in celebration of that, here are some things I've learned over the past year:
I didn't post nearly as many times during the month of May as I did during the month of April, but I tried to post at least a couple times a week. So, I thought it would be good to start June off by looking back on everything that was covered during the month of May. Some of these posts were funner for me to write because since Autism Acceptance Month was now over, I could spend my time telling you about my personal experiences rather than educating you about autism in general. The first couple weeks of May were very stressful for me, & for my family, due to some situations that we were dealing with having to do with my grandpa. Some of those posts were difficult for me to write because I just didn't have the stamina due to the stress. Stress is something that I have never been able to deal with successfully. It causes me to just shut down & it takes a very long time for me to recover from it. That is a commonality among autistic people. Thank you so much for bearing with me & I hope my stress didn't come through too much in my posts during the first couple weeks of May. Also, on a completely different note, if you are new here, WELCOME! I am so glad to have you here! 💕 May's Blog Topics:
Since I posted so many times during the month of April, I thought it would be good to look back on everything that was covered during April, or Autism Acceptance Month. I had been thinking that I wouldn't post quite as often once Autism Acceptance Month was over, but I have been finding blogging very therapeutic, so who knows?! Also, if you are new here, WELCOME! Side-Note: I gave a stack of business cards to my physician, who asked me if it would be okay to give my cards to some of her patients. If you received one of my business cards from your physician, I wanted to welcome you personally. Especially since you & I likely have some similarities to our stories, don't be too shy to reach out! 💕 Autism Acceptance Month Blog Topics:
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AuthorHello! My name is Kim, I didn't know I was autistic until I was in my thirties, & this is my story. Categories
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