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:
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The saying, "Everyone's Irish on Saint Patrick's Day!" is something I've never understood. 🍀 Like many American households, every year on March 17th, my family has corned beef & cabbage for dinner. A dish my mom has forced me to eat on this particular day ever since I was a little girl that I can barely manage to stomach. Corned beef is pretty terrible itself, but the cabbage is even worse because I can't eat it without feeling sick. Autistic people tend to be finicky eaters, often being overly sensitive to the textures & the flavors of the food they eat. This has been an uphill battle that I have been fighting my whole life. I had a disagreement with my mom about my feelings regarding corned beef & cabbage last year. "Why do we have to eat corned beef & cabbage on Saint Patrick's Day if we're NOT Irish?" I said to her. "But, we ARE Irish because everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick's Day!" my mom exclaimed. "If everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick's Day, then how come everyone isn't Asian on the Lunar New Year?" I asked, truly curious. I love the Lunar New Year because it means eating delicious dumplings & noodles, celebrating my Chinese heritage, & dressing my dog up in a fancy silk Chinese jacket. "Because being Asian isn't fun. If you're not Irish on Saint Patrick's Day, you're not American." my mom said to me. I knew my mom was right because most people don't think being Asian is fun. We're discriminated against, too. "Well, then I guess I'm not American," I said glumly. I was hurt by this because I've always been proud to be an American. But, how does being American require me to be Irish on Saint Patrick's Day if I'm not Irish? I'm autistic, which means I am literal & I just don't understand how someone can be Irish on one particular day of the year if (s)he isn't actually Irish. 🤷🏻♀️ When you think of Saint Patrick's Day, you probably think of glittered shamrocks 🍀, green beer 🍻, green rivers, leprechauns, &, of course, corned beef & cabbage. Well, what if I told you that if you were actually in Ireland on Saint Patrick's Day 🇮🇪, you wouldn't see ANY of those things, except for maybe the glittered shamrocks? Yes, this is absolutely true. To begin, leprechauns are not cute, jolly, friendly cereal box characters that we all imagine that they are. But, they are mischievous, nasty little fellows that Irish people do not want partaking in their Saint Patrick's Day festivities. And just as much as the Irish would not pollute their beer or their rivers with green dye, they would not eat corned beef & cabbage, especially on Saint Patrick’s Day.
The History Of Corned Beef & Cabbage: In Ireland 🇮🇪, cows 🐮 have always been a symbol of wealth & were considered a sacred animal. In fact, from early on in Irish history, cattle were not used for their meat, but they were used for milk & dairy production & farming. Because they were so sacred & expensive, cows were only killed for their meat if they were too old to work or to produce milk. So, beef is not part of the diet for the majority of the Irish population & is typically only enjoyed by the very wealthy during a celebration or festival. In both historic & in modern Ireland, pigs are the most prevalent animal bred only to be eaten, so pork is the most eaten meat in Ireland. When the Irish immigrated to the United States, they often faced discrimination & lived in slums with the Jews & the Italians. In contrast to in Ireland, beef was inexpensive in the United States. When the Irish immigrants first tasted corned beef at Jewish delis, they noticed its similarity to Irish bacon. They paired it with cabbage for its cost efficiency. So, eating corned beef & cabbage is NOT an Irish tradition. It is an Irish immigrant tradition that was created right here, in America when Irish immigrants substituted beef for pork & cabbage for potatoes because of its affordability. Some Fun Saint Patrick's Day Facts:
Side Note: Until I sat down to write this blog post, I didn't know any of the above facts with the exception of the corned beef & cabbage one. For YEARS, I have tried to convince my mom to forgo the dreadful corned beef & cabbage meal because it isn't actually an Irish tradition, but sadly, it has never worked. 🤷🏻♀️ So, whether you're Irish on Saint Patrick's Day or you're Irish the whole year through, Happy Saint Patrick's Day! And if you're NOT Irish on Saint Patrick's Day or on any other day of the year, I feel your pain. 💚 Since Valentine's Day was earlier this week, I wanted to write about love, experiencing it, expressing it, & how it looks differently for autistic people than it looks for allistic, or non-autistic people. But, before we begin... What IS Love? Love is a complex mix of emotions that is everyone in the world experiences, whether they are neurodivergent or neurotypical, autistic or allistic, disabled or non-disabled, etc. It is associated with certain behaviors & strong feelings of affection, protectiveness, warmth, & respect for other people (e.g. family, friends, romantic partners, etc.), animals, principles, interests, hobbies, &/or religious beliefs. How Autistic People Experience Love: Widespread stereotypes suggest that autistic people are incapable of feeling love, romantic or otherwise. However, the reality is that autistic people experience love quite intensely (often much more intensely than allistic people). Interestingly, brain scans of autistic people show that when we express feeling love & affection for someone, different areas of the brain are activated than for allistic people. The empathy circuitry of the brain is also working differently. We, autistic people, are typically extremely attached to our close relationships, often more so than allistic people are. This is because we usually have significantly less people that we are close to than allistic people do. Like allistic people, we have a deep desire for those types of relationships, making the close relationships we do have so much more important to us. With this being said, it is important to remember that autism is a spectrum. So, autistic people experience & express love in unique ways that can vary quite drastically from each other. Our experiences & expressions of love are greatly influenced by our individual strengths, challenges, & sensory sensitivities. How Autistic People Express Love: While autistic people feel love & empathy very intensely, often much more intensely than you do, it may be very difficult or impossible for us to express our love & empathy for you in ways that make you feel loved & cared about. Some ways that we express our love include:
Many autistic people experience what is called "limerence." This is when the person we are romantically interested in becomes a special interest. We fixate on every aspect of their being, want to learn about all of their favorite things, or start to picture the rest of our lives with them after just a few (maybe even one) interaction(s). This can sometimes lead to a devastating end when the effort isn't reciprocated or worse, we can't see that it isn't being reciprocated. Tips For Loving An Autistic Person:
Benefits Of Loving An Autistic Person:
A Few Other Things To Remember:
With today being the Lunar New Year (the year of the dragon!), I just wanted spend this blog post telling you about Asian culture & autism. My mom's side of the family is of Chinese descent & while I definitely have had an American upbringing, Asian culture has had great influence over the way I was raised. In the Asian culture, you are taught from a very young age that all of your personal difficulties are to remain inside of the home. In fact, if you were to be open about your challenges in public, you would likely be thought of as a disgrace. Unfortunately, the majority of Asian Americans still have this mindset to this day. One of the times my mom taught me about this was when she talked to me about hiding the bottles of antidepressants that I was taking before my grandparents arrived for a visit (particularly because of my grandpa's background in pharmacology) in order to prevent questioning & criticism. Moments like these are probably why I have always been more comfortable confiding in my dad than my mom, both as a child & as an adult. I have always felt like the fact that I have had lifelong mental health difficulties, & now autism, is something to be ashamed of because in the Asian culture it is. Another example of this occurred many, many years ago when my grandparents took my mom & my aunt on a tour of China. I remember my mom telling me that everyone wanted to take pictures with a person in their tour group who was using crutches. The reason why? If you're using crutches or a wheelchair in China, you generally don't leave your home. So, that's not something you ever see out on public streets. Asian Americans love to pride themselves in (& even brag about) which colleges & universities they got into & their SAT scores & then later on, how successful their careers are. I remember my grandma telling me about a time in school when she cried (something I have never seen her do EVER) because she got a 98 on a test. I can't picture myself ever crying over a 98. In Asia, when students don't do well on a test, even if it was the entire class that didn't do well, it is never the teacher's fault. It is never because the teacher didn't teach the material well enough or the test was written poorly, for example. It is always because the student didn't study hard enough. When a child has a disability that makes achieving the types of academic & professional successes that Asian people strive for much more difficult, such as autism, it poses a very significant problem for the child & her or his family. Asian Americans don't have any issues asking for help when it comes to furthering their child's academics or career, but when it comes to autism, they tend to refuse help & then the child is left to suffer alone, in silence. When children are diagnosed with autism in China, they are often sent to costly private treatment centers for ABA therapy. However, while this type of therapy is the most common type of therapy for autistic children, it is an extremely traumatic type of conversion "therapy" that essentially teaches autistic children to act in ways that make allistic, or non-autistic people more comfortable. Children who have received this type of therapy often develop post traumatic stress disorder by the time they reach adulthood.
Sadly, autism is still a relatively new condition in the Asian community, with China first recognizing it as a neurological disability as recently as 2006. In fact, many Asians have heard about autistic non-Asians, but they've never encountered an autistic Asian before. This is because less than one percent of autistic Asians have been evaluated for autism, let alone are receiving support for it. The thought that ninety-nine percent of autistic Asians are undiagnosed is quite staggering. Asians are likely not diagnosed with autism because they are afraid of being a disappointment, something I felt that I was until shortly before my thirty-second birthday, when I learned that I was autistic. 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
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Since Thanksgiving was just last week, I thought I'd spend this blog post telling you about what I'm thankful for. And no, autism didn't make the list. As I have said many times in this blog before, while many autistic people see autism as a superpower, something unique & wonderful about themselves, I see it as a hardship & a burden. Something that has very much gotten in the way of me achieving the white picket fence lifestyle I have dreamt of ever since I was a little girl. I had an interesting conversation with my mom last night, so before we move onto what this blog post is really about, I'd like to talk for a moment about Autism Acceptance. My mom made a comment about how I have accepted my autism, but I was quick to correct her. "I haven't accepted my autism. That's one of the things that I hate the most about myself & I wish it would just go away!" I said to her. "But you write all about it in your blog. You're very open about it there," my mom said. "I haven't accepted it though & I probably never will. I can write about it without accepting it. I'm open about it because I want people to have a better understanding of me. I hate my autism!" I exclaimed. "Okay, acknowledge then. You acknowledge that you have autism," my mom said, correcting the verbiage that she had been using. Yes, I acknowledge that I'm autistic. And I'm open about it, too. I'm trying to use my diagnosis to help others have a better understanding of me & to be more accepting of people who are a little bit different from them. But, accepting my autism? I'm far, far, FAR away from that. And to be completely honest with you, I can't see myself ever accepting it. I mean, autism has made my life so much more difficult than it would've been if I was neurotypical. Autism is something I want to stomp on, throw into a fire, & never see again. You get the picture. Feeling that way about my autism isn't acceptance. I wish I could get to the place of autism acceptance, but I haven't gotten there. And I don't think I ever will. What I'm Thankful For:
However, there are certain life experiences, things I have learned, & perspectives that I have that I only have because I am autistic. And that is what I'm thankful for. While I am definitely NOT thankful for autism itself, I do have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, that is related to autism in one way or another. Those things include, but are not limited to...
Happy Halloween! Well, maybe it's a Happy Halloween to you, but it's not for me. I've never liked this haunting holiday. So, there. I've come out & said it. I don't like Halloween! Now, having said that, if you're a Halloween-loving person, that's no biggie. In fact, one of my closest friends has a Halloween birthday & I just love her excitement around this frightful day. But, for me, Halloween just isn't my day. And that's okay, too. This Is Why:
I don't dislike everything about Halloween, so this is what I do like about the holiday:
Halloween Challenges For Autistic People:
How You Can Help:
I had a very interesting conversation with my dad about why I've never been successful in the workplace that I'd like to tell you about. I had been sitting at the coffee table, filling out paperwork about my disabilities all afternoon & the last question stumped me: Use this space to write any additional information about why you cannot work. I had put SO much information on all of the other pages of that form explaining why I cannot work that I simply felt like I didn't have anything else to add unless I repeated myself. So, I asked my dad, "Why do you think I cannot work? I want to see if you have any other ideas that I haven't thought of already." My dad has a better understanding of me than most people do because we're so similar to each other. He took a moment to think & then said, "My impression of it is that it's because you can't handle criticism. And because of that, you work ineffectively, which then causes you to get fired." I had never thought of it that way before, but what my dad said was absolutely true. I can't handle criticism. Before we go any further though, I'd like to clarify something. It isn't that I CAN'T work because truthfully, depending on the specifics of the particular job, I CAN work. What I can't do is work for someone else, in the traditional sense. If it's a job where someone is supervising me, that's the problem. Interactions with supervisors are the biggest issue for me in the workplace. While I had never thought of it like how my dad summed it up before, supervisors criticize, whether they're doing it now or they're going to do it in the future. That's what makes me shutdown around them. Interacting with someone who is either actively criticizing me or will criticize me at some point in time causes my brain to completely shutdown. This makes it impossible for me to function, as terrible as that sounds. Total comfort & feeling like I'm not going to be criticized or judged is key in order for me to not shut down. Shutting down at work just doesn't work, supervisors don't know how to interact with me in a way that doesn't cause me to shutdown, & that's why I can't work. This blog post is about what you need to know before criticizing an autistic person, although chances are, if you're reading this, you have already done it at some point in your life. I'm gonna throw in some info about how it feels to be criticized as an autistic woman, too. Why We're So Sensitive To Criticism: Bad Experiences With Criticism: Bullying & being left out are forms of criticism. Every autistic person you talk to will have something to tell you about experiences with those two things. The teasing, the mocking, the name-calling, the fact that no one wanted to be our friend, & MORE. Both bullying & leaving us out does real harm that affects us, autistic adults, many years later. It still affects me today more than I would like to admit. The bullying I endured when I was seven all the way through my early twenties did real harm & it still haunts me to this day. As a fresh college graduate & as an adult, I was constantly criticized by my parents, as well as by other caring family members. I personally believe that Asian & Jewish families expect more from their children than all other ethnicities do. Think about the number of Asian & Jewish doctors & scientists that are out there! Because I have a Chinese mother & a Jewish father, my parents unknowingly set unrealistic expectations for me from a very young age. Once my college graduation was upon me, I quickly discovered that I couldn't live up to those expectations, but I didn't understand why. Being constantly asked if I was happy with my life (I wasn't & I'm still not) & if I worry about what will happen to me when my parents die (I did & I still do) hurt immensely. Not only that, I had no explanation & no understanding of why I couldn't get to the place I needed to be in order to meet their expectations. Living almost thirty-two years of my life feeling like I was a disappointment to my family was extraordinarily difficult. It was even more difficult that I wasn't only disappointing my family, but I was also disappointing myself because I had the same expectations of myself that my parents had of me. I certainly don't blame my parents for any of this because I know that if they had known that I was autistic all this time, those expectations wouldn't have been put on me like they were. However, feeling like I was always falling short & I was never good enough put such a damaging amount of pressure on me for so long that it still affects me to this day to the point where sometimes I forget that their expectations of me have changed since my autism diagnosis. The Criticism Is Constant: I remember being constantly criticized for my behavior ever since I was a young child. Many other autistics have had the same experiences as I have had with this. "Look at me while I'm talking!" "Why do you have that grimace on your face?" "Why are you smiling? That's not funny!" "You shouldn't have said that. You should've said this." "Your face looks funny. Are you okay?" All of the above things have been said to me numerous times throughout my life. Unfortunately, an autism diagnosis hasn't stopped these types of criticisms from happening. My behavior & every move I make have been criticized so much that I simply can't handle any more of it. We're Stressed:
Us autistic people live very high-stress lives. Things that seem so minuscule to you really stress us out. We're sensitive to a lot of things like light, noise, our physical environment, & emotions. For example, I remember a time where my mom insisted that I attend a neighborhood Christmas party. I really didn't want to go because I was expecting to watch Christmas movies in my pajamas that night & now I had to be dressed & socialize with other people. I wouldn't have had such a problem with this party if it wasn't for the fact that it came on suddenly & I had no time to mentally prepare for the fact that I had to attend this party that night. I was in college at the time, so I was definitely old enough to stay home. It just wasn't okay with my mom. The sudden change in plans caused me stress & displeasure & when I expressed that to my parents, I was criticized for how antisocial I was being. This resulted in a complete meltdown. I felt like no one cared about me that night because no one stopped to listen to my thoughts or feelings. When I eventually made it to the party, I ended up standing like a statue against a wall for the few hours we were there because the criticism I received just prior to arriving at the party made it so that I didn't have the emotional capacity to socialize with anyone. We Have Low Self-Esteem: Many autistic people, myself included, suffer from low self-esteem. This is often the result of external factors, like bullying & being left out when we were younger (discussed in more detail above↑). When we have low perceptions of ourselves, it makes us more sensitive to criticism. Low self-esteem also makes us unable to understand or interpret criticism. Even when criticism is communicated with the best of intentions, ALL criticism can make us extremely anxious, which has long-lasting effects on us, crushing our self-esteem even more. Every single time I'm criticized, I feel like I can't do anything right. In fact, I feel like that regardless of whether or not I'm criticized. I know that this is because of how much I have been criticized during the course of my life. Many other autistic people feel this way, too. Our Feelings Are Often Dismissed: I have gone through my entire life feeling like my feelings don't matter. I have always felt like when I speak up, my thoughts & feelings are brushed to the side. I've been talked over & ignored more times than I can count. This not only makes us extra sensitive to criticism, but it makes us think we're being criticized when we're not being criticized at all. What Is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria?: Although not a clinical diagnosis, rejection sensitive dysphoria, or RSD, is when perceived rejection or failure causes so much intense emotional pain that it becomes very difficult for a person to cope with his or her feelings. Autism & RSD: Many autistic people struggle with RSD & I certainly believe I am one of them. However, this isn't an issue for every autistic person. Increased rejection & punishment for not meeting neurotypical standards puts autistic people at higher risk for experiencing RSD. Also, since autistic people often have different sensory & perceptual experiences than allistic, or non-autistic people, they often experience more intense emotions. Autistic people with strong emotional sensitivity tend to experience social & interpersonal rejection stronger than allistic people, which can increase rejection sensitivity. Complications Of RSD For Autistic People: While most people do not enjoy being rejected or criticized (I mean, who would?), RSD goes beyond simply disliking rejection. RSD is so intensely emotional & can even be physically painful. The desire to avoid this unbearable pain & discomfort often leads to increased masking behaviors, which puts the autistic person at higher risk for burnout. Additionally, RSD can trigger mental health issues in autistic people including anxiety, depression, & eating disorders. So, before you criticize an autistic person, remember that while no one likes to be criticized, criticism is often much, MUCH harder for us to take than it is for the allistic population to take. And if your criticism causes us to shut down or to act unconventionally, please treat us with love, care, & understanding. It's what we need most of all. 💙 September 2nd, as well as the several days following it have been hard days for me ever since I can remember. The reason why? My birthday is over. It feels weird & inappropriate typing that out because what thirty-something-year-old still loves her birthday as much as she loved it when she was a child? 🙋🏻♀️ That would be me. This Is The Main Reason Why: My life is so isolating. Most of the time, I feel like I'm a fly on the wall. The whole world is going by & I'm just sitting there watching from a distance. I blame autism for my isolation. I have vivid memories of my maternal grandfather, my Gung-Gung, saying to me when I was a preteen & a teenager, "You're so pretty. If you would just talk more, you would have so many friends," & then giving me a squeeze. I don't remember what my response to him was, but I knew that while I completely agreed with him, doing that wasn't possible. I couldn't talk more. In fact, whenever I did talk, it caused panic & anxiety because I felt like I couldn't say the right things & I had a tendency to stumble over my words. Also, if I was ever wrong about something, I felt like my whole world came crashing down & I wanted to hide under a rock & never come out. This is probably also why my dad has told me multiple times that I'm always right. I only speak when I'm 1,000% certain that I'm right. This is why I never, ever, ever, ever raised my hand in class when I was in school. And those are also the reasons why I had such a hard time making friends as a child. When I had friends over when I was growing up, I got a sense of relief when they went home because I could finally relax & I would no longer have to be so tense over keeping a conversation going. Now I know that the reason for these struggles was that I was unknowingly autistic. Throughout my entire life, I have always either had just one friend or no friends at all. Sometimes, there was a group of friends that I was a part of, but whenever that was the case, I was always on the outside, never really fitting in & only truly being friends with one girl in the group. If they were gonna leave someone out, it would always be me. My ability to make friends hasn't changed since. My birthday is the one day out of the whole entire year where everything is about me. It's the one day a year where I feel like people remember that I exist. I hear from people I haven't heard from in 365 days, since my last birthday. Once my birthday is over, once September 2nd arrives, all of that stops & I go back to being a fly on the wall & feeling like no one remembers I exist. I wish I could feel like people loved & cared about me on days other than September 1st. My birthday celebration with my family is tomorrow, so luckily, the celebrating isn't over just yet. The Birthday Blues:
Believe it or not, the birthday blues or birthday depression is a pretty common experience. It is not a diagnosable mental health condition, but many people experience sadness in the days leading up to their birthdays. People experience it for many reasons, including but not limited to fears about aging & dying, not having people to celebrate with, having expectations that are not met, having experienced a traumatic birthday in the past, & not being in the place in life where they think they should be. For me, I don't experience these feelings in the days leading up to my birthday, which is the definition of the birthday blues. It is the days following my birthday that are the issue. Besides the issue that I described above, every year, there is at least one person who forgets my birthday who should have remembered. I also have experienced sadness the past several years around the issue of not being in the place in life I think I should be. I now know that this due to unknowingly being autistic, so now that I know this about myself, I can take the steps that are necessary to move forward in my life. Autistic Birthday Experiences: Autistic people experience birthdays a lot differently than allistic, or non-autistic people do, so before ending this blog post, let's talk about how I experience my birthdays now & how I experienced them as a child. Being The Center Of Attention: I've never liked this. This is why I was always glad that my birthday was at the very beginning of the school year, before they started announcing birthdays over the intercom. I need to get to a certain level of comfort with someone before I'm comfortable being wished a happy birthday by that person, so I'm not someone who likes everyone knowing when my birthday is. This is also why I stopped having birthday parties at such a young age & wanted to have weekends away with my family instead. I never liked the amount of attention I got at birthday parties, especially because I was never confident that my reaction or facial expression were gonna be appropriate in every situation (& to be honest, they probably weren't). Singing Happy Birthday: I never knew what my face should be doing at this part of a birthday party. Does my face look okay? Is now an okay time to smile, should I have a straight face, or a totally different expression I haven't thought of? And who should I make eye contact with? I never knew & everyone was looking at me, the birthday girl, so now wasn't the time to screw this up! Opening Gifts: I never liked surprises because I never knew if I was reacting to them appropriately. In fact, I remember saying to my mom once, "Don't you ever throw me a surprise party!" And she never has. When I said that to her, I didn't think she ever would, but I just wanted to make sure. With gifts, if I knew what it was ahead of time, I could try to prepare myself. I've always had this fear of not being able to hide when I didn't like the gift I just opened, but I also had a fear of looking like I didn't like something when I really loved it. I've often had a hard time matching my facial expressions to the way I really feel. Happy Independence Day! Due to the holiday, we're gonna spend some time today talking about the difficulties that fireworks can pose on autistic individuals & their families. For many people, fireworks are magical & fascinating, filling up the night sky with mesmerizing colors & patterns. The perfect way to cap off a fun day full of patriotic festivities, whether spent at a picnic, a barbecue, the beach, or by the pool. However, this isn't the case for everyone. One of the groups of people fireworks can effect negatively are autistic individuals. My Personal Experiences With Fireworks: As a child, I didn't have the sensory sensitivities that autistic children stereotypically have. Because I was generally not bothered by most sounds or lights, fireworks didn't bother me the way that they typically bother many other autistic individuals. However, going to firework displays was still an incredibly traumatic experience for both me & my family. The reason for this was simply the time of day that fireworks happen. Obviously, fireworks happen at night, but due to the dizzy spells I endured from the time I was six years old until I was seventeen years old, I would almost always have one of those dizzy spells whenever we went to see fireworks. Dizzy spells were often triggered by tiredness, so they were much more likely to happen during nighttime activities than during daytime activities. This made nighttime activities, including something as simple as going out for dinner, very stressful for me & my family. I constantly felt like I was ruining my family's fun because of something I could not control. So, I often found myself trying to hide my dizzy spells for as long as I possibly could & being afraid of telling my parents that I could feel a dizzy spell coming on. If you would like to read more about my experiences with dizzy spells, I go into more detail about them in my previous blog posts about the coronavirus pandemic & about vestibular processing. As an adult, my after-dinner routine consists of taking a shower, getting in my pajamas, & then snuggling up with my two dogs for the rest of the night. In fact, most nights, I'm in my pajamas prior to 8:30pm. The idea of going out into a crowd of people, being eaten alive by mosquitos, being away from my dogs, & not being able to wash off the germs of the day until late at night sounds incredibly unappealing, in most situations, except if I was visiting family from out of town or vice versa or if I was at Disney World or someplace where the fireworks display was absolutely spectacular. Fireworks Are Fun!
Some autistic people really enjoy fireworks & being someone who finds fireworks enchanting & magical, I am one of them! What I don't like about fireworks is the fact that due to the time they happen, they are extremely disruptive to my nightly routine. Plus, it's so much hassle to get there & there is so much waiting involved for a display that is usually relatively short. But They Can Be Painfully Loud... And I really mean this. I am not an autistic person with auditory sensitivities, but to some autistic people, this can be incredibly overwhelming. Even though to you, the sound is far away in the night sky, your autistic loved one may be hearing it as if the fireworks are exploding in his or her own ears. ...And Painfully Bright! Yes, fireworks can actually hurt. All of the bright sparkles that make fireworks look so cool & awe-inspiring, as well as the strobe-like effects they create, can cause big problems for autistic people. Once I outgrew my childhood dizzy spells, which were often triggered by certain frequencies of lighting, I no longer had sensitivities to lights. Many autistic people hate bright lighting, making fireworks an overwhelming & difficult experience for them. Just like certain frequencies of lighting triggered my childhood dizzy spells (which likely were a migraine or a seizure variant), these same types of lighting can trigger seizures in autistic people, something many autistic people struggle with. While I've never heard of someone having a seizure due to an overload of fireworks, merely knowing the effect that certain types of lighting has on certain people can be very overwhelming & cause a lot of anxiety for them. The Crowds & The Music Are Loud, Too! Firework displays always include people & almost always include music. Loud voices & loud music can be just as hard on autistic ears as fireworks are. Also, because of our difficulties being able to read people's tones of voice, it can be hard for some autistic people to tell the difference between voices raised due to excitement from voices raised due to anger. This gives us a whole other level of anxiety that neurotypical people do not experience. Weather Sensitivities: Another consideration to take into account is the weather. Some autistic people cannot tolerate humidity. Others have sensitivities to water, so they would have issues if it's raining. Personally, I have an issue with raindrops touching my face, so I'm always shielding my face from rain! How You Can Help:
Happy Easter, Splashed With Water readers! Due to the holiday, we're gonna talk about something different today: Easter egg hunts. You may ask, "What do Easter egg hunts have to do with autism?" The truth is, Easter egg hunts actually have a lot to do with autism. The reason why? I absolutely HATED them! This Is Why.
Some things that aren't talked about quite as often are the gross motor difficulties & the processing delays among autistic children & adults. I have experienced gross motor & processing delays & challenges ever since I can remember. I had fine motor challenges as well, but the gross motor challenges were definitely more of a struggle & were most definitely more pronounced. I hated Easter egg hunts because my younger brother found all of the eggs before I even found just one egg. Imagine being a little girl & how sad & frustrated that would make you. I remember one Easter, my mom pulled my brother aside & told him that she knew the Easter Bunny personally (impressive!). She told him that she talked to the Easter Bunny who said that since he hid sixteen eggs, he's only allowed to find eight because he needs to leave some for his sister to find. The reason why I still remember the exact number of eggs the Easter Bunny hid all these years later? Autism! This solved the Easter egg hunt problem, but what I remember about them is my younger brother finding all of the eggs & me finding none. I didn't know I was autistic at the time, but I know the reason for this happening was because of the gross motor difficulties & the processing issues that being autistic caused. |
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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