Autism/neurodivergence club

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

1 hour ago, Deception said:

This story used to be a bit distressing to tell but now I am okay with it.

 

I was diagnosed with autism at an extremely young age.

When I was really little, in elementary school, my mom sent me to a place that was most likely ABA therapy, although I am not sure. If you don't know what ABA is, it is basically a highly repetitive method that is more training than teaching, designed for cognitively disabled autistic kids. I was autistic, but definitely not cognitively disabled, so it did NOT work for me. I started to dread going there for days before my sessions.

The place was called Blue Sky. Here is how it worked. First, they built up my trust of the place, letting me jump in a ball pit and play around with other kids. Then they started ABA. I don't want to frame them as evil - the method really does work for some people - but I certainly thought they were evil at the time. Here is a list of some the things they did. I am sure there was more but these three I can remember.

• The Idiot Flashcards:
  • The Idiot Flashcards is my name for a deck of flashcards they used for me. It just had cards with images on them, of very basic objects. I remember one was an excavator. There may have been an apple or something too, I don't remember the specifics very well. They would show me a card, and then ask me, "what is this?", in a very slow voice. Obviously, I got everything right, because I wasn't cognitively disabled. Except for one thing. There was a backhoe loader (basically imagine a cross between an excavator and a bulldozer) on one of the cards. I called it a backhoe loader, because that is what they are called. They apparently wanted me to call it an excavator and thought I was wrong. I refused to call it an excavator because that isn't what it was, and that must have proven to them that I was disabled. 
• The Map of Boredom:
  • This Map of Boredom was a gigantic mat on the floor, with roads and buildings on it. They gave me a toy car and told me to bring it to one of the houses. I picked up the car and put it on a house. They instantly failed me on that task, instead of telling me I was supposed to use the roads. My theory is they thought I was too stupid to understand if they told me.
• The Terrible Tracks:
  • Liking the names I am coming up with? This is the best one so far, I think. The Terrible Tracks was a toy train track set. I could snap the pieces together and make a track. Except they were all broken!!! They then expected me to build at track, which I couldn't do because the track pieces wouldn't fit together. They were BROKEN! Somehow the adults didn't notice this.

 

Eventually I got fed up with the place and started begging my mom not to make me go. The next season, I was taken out of the ABA program but placed DIRECTLY INTO SOMETHING ALMOST AS BAD!!!

The new group was still at Blue Sky. The program was simply called "social skills", and there was a group of kids. They would give us situations so long they were impossible to remember, with no context whatsoever, and then expect us to tell them what the right thing to do would be. In addition, not a single kid there had the same problems as me. One had anxiety, another had speech delays, a third was very good at saying nothing in a lot of words when he didn't understand things. One was way too old and was clearly masking heavily.

Sometimes problems would come up, or I would ask a normal question to an adult in the room, and the adult would give me this dumbed down, useless answer, thinking I wouldn't be able to understand a normal one.

Eventually, I lost control. I tried to escape the room. An adult caught me. The first time I argued with words. The second time I wasn't so nice. I got violent. This started happening every day. Eventually they told my mom. She was MAD. She punished me and said I would get another punishment whenever I misbehaved there. I didn't stop - I couldn't control myself. Eventually they started threatening to kick me out. I was relieved... until my mom said if I was kicked out, I would be cleaning the bathroom for an hour every Monday when I would have been at Blue Sky.

I managed to control myself after that. For a few days, at least. Then it started again.

 

Then the strangest thing happened. My mom just stopped sending me there after that attack. She must have realized something, although I have no idea what. She didn't punish me, and she completely cut the program out of my life. From that point on we both just tried to pretend that Blue Sky had never existed.

 

 

Does anyone else here have a story like this, of someone trying to "fix" you?

@CoderDrag0n8 @Entr0pic @Factor @Keteᛕ @Ink and Embers @Usseewa

@Hmmm lies @Adonalsium Will Return

No. That's weird. I had good parents, and I was never diagnosed with anything

[Usseewa ✾ She♡They ✾]

2 hours ago, Deception said:

This story used to be a bit distressing to tell but now I am okay with it.

 

I was diagnosed with autism at an extremely young age.

When I was really little, in elementary school, my mom sent me to a place that was most likely ABA therapy, although I am not sure. If you don't know what ABA is, it is basically a highly repetitive method that is more training than teaching, designed for cognitively disabled autistic kids. I was autistic, but definitely not cognitively disabled, so it did NOT work for me. I started to dread going there for days before my sessions.

The place was called Blue Sky. Here is how it worked. First, they built up my trust of the place, letting me jump in a ball pit and play around with other kids. Then they started ABA. I don't want to frame them as evil - the method really does work for some people - but I certainly thought they were evil at the time. Here is a list of some the things they did. I am sure there was more but these three I can remember.

• The Idiot Flashcards:
  • The Idiot Flashcards is my name for a deck of flashcards they used for me. It just had cards with images on them, of very basic objects. I remember one was an excavator. There may have been an apple or something too, I don't remember the specifics very well. They would show me a card, and then ask me, "what is this?", in a very slow voice. Obviously, I got everything right, because I wasn't cognitively disabled. Except for one thing. There was a backhoe loader (basically imagine a cross between an excavator and a bulldozer) on one of the cards. I called it a backhoe loader, because that is what they are called. They apparently wanted me to call it an excavator and thought I was wrong. I refused to call it an excavator because that isn't what it was, and that must have proven to them that I was disabled. 
• The Map of Boredom:
  • This Map of Boredom was a gigantic mat on the floor, with roads and buildings on it. They gave me a toy car and told me to bring it to one of the houses. I picked up the car and put it on a house. They instantly failed me on that task, instead of telling me I was supposed to use the roads. My theory is they thought I was too stupid to understand if they told me.
• The Terrible Tracks:
  • Liking the names I am coming up with? This is the best one so far, I think. The Terrible Tracks was a toy train track set. I could snap the pieces together and make a track. Except they were all broken!!! They then expected me to build at track, which I couldn't do because the track pieces wouldn't fit together. They were BROKEN! Somehow the adults didn't notice this.

 

Eventually I got fed up with the place and started begging my mom not to make me go. The next season, I was taken out of the ABA program but placed DIRECTLY INTO SOMETHING ALMOST AS BAD!!!

The new group was still at Blue Sky. The program was simply called "social skills", and there was a group of kids. They would give us situations so long they were impossible to remember, with no context whatsoever, and then expect us to tell them what the right thing to do would be. In addition, not a single kid there had the same problems as me. One had anxiety, another had speech delays, a third was very good at saying nothing in a lot of words when he didn't understand things. One was way too old and was clearly masking heavily.

Sometimes problems would come up, or I would ask a normal question to an adult in the room, and the adult would give me this dumbed down, useless answer, thinking I wouldn't be able to understand a normal one.

Eventually, I lost control. I tried to escape the room. An adult caught me. The first time I argued with words. The second time I wasn't so nice. I got violent. This started happening every day. Eventually they told my mom. She was MAD. She punished me and said I would get another punishment whenever I misbehaved there. I didn't stop - I couldn't control myself. Eventually they started threatening to kick me out. I was relieved... until my mom said if I was kicked out, I would be cleaning the bathroom for an hour every Monday when I would have been at Blue Sky.

I managed to control myself after that. For a few days, at least. Then it started again.

 

Then the strangest thing happened. My mom just stopped sending me there after that attack. She must have realized something, although I have no idea what. She didn't punish me, and she completely cut the program out of my life. From that point on we both just tried to pretend that Blue Sky had never existed.

 

 

Does anyone else here have a story like this, of someone trying to "fix" you?

@CoderDrag0n8 @Entr0pic @Factor @Keteᛕ @Ink and Embers @Usseewa

@Hmmm lies @Adonalsium Will Return

i read most of this but disjointed so in diferent pieces differeent tiymes. your post that is .comma.

that sounds kinda........ yeah.sorry that happened to you, Deca.

hmm.. did smth like tht happen to me? i mean i am diagnosed adhd and not autism, but... idrk tbh. i never went to any programmes or anything like that.  idk srry

i feel like.. uh.. some people have told.me my adhd things are problems and the like, yk. idrk what is from adhd tbh atp, but like when i forgot things or procrastinated or sometimes when figdgety i think... when energetic... idk. dont remebe nothin' man

 

÷×÷∆•∆÷×÷

 

uhh does any1 else make humour jokes or references or suchstuff like that butwhich people (cough adults-type cough) and they kinda just smile/laugh and clearly probably dont get it or ignore it or barely heard you...?

 

also uhhhh i keep like a lot of times i cant eat with my hands cuz it makes me feel... badddd. sort of ocd-ish but idk. like especially after i wash my hands or when im out somewhere or after i tocuh something (like phone, objects, etc.) then i pick up popcorn or a potato chip or a frenchyfry or candy or a sammich or jsut anything and then i like shudder and its so dirty and like i eat it and shuddering and wipe my hands off or just have troubke eating cuz everyeach time i think of my hands and dirty or something and gah i just cant man and i gotta eat wit utensils or with a napkin around the food or summin like dat, yk? and then also i soemtimes just cant tocuh my hands to snythin' so i keep them hoverin' a bit.. and i just shudder a lot man like my skin be crawlin' and oh ado...

but then other times i use my phone while eating summin wit my hands or used to... maybe. i use utensils a lot tho ehen some kther people dont... but its like when i think abt it it gets bad, when i obsess/focus on my fingers and how dirty they are and the food in touching, or like i wear fingerless gloves like all the time, and sometimes like dump some candy unto my hand but its on the glove and i dont wash my fongerless gloves (idk if i should or not lol) but they touch stuff like surfaces and all that such, and i dont wash and i eat  

god lord oh ado

[Deception He/Him]

4 hours ago, CoderDrag0n8 said:

No. That's weird. I had good parents, and I was never diagnosed with anything

My parents weren't acting bad, exactly. I think they just had a few issues. My dad viewed autism as an abstract concept and still hasn't accepted that it is a reality happening with his son. My mom had a few things stopping her from pulling me out. I think one was that I was freaking out at Blue Sky, so she thought I needed help (which I did), so she sent me to Blue Sky again to get that help. Another problem was that she is extremely weird about sunk costs. If she pays for something long term but the thing turns out to have negative returns, she will still stick with it to "not waste money".

Idk you can interpret that how you want.

 

3 hours ago, Usseewa said:

uhh does any1 else make humour jokes or references or suchstuff like that butwhich people (cough adults-type cough) and they kinda just smile/laugh and clearly probably dont get it or ignore it or barely heard you...?

I used to.

Then I started masking.

 

3 hours ago, Usseewa said:

also uhhhh i keep like a lot of times i cant eat with my hands cuz it makes me feel... badddd. sort of ocd-ish but idk. like especially after i wash my hands or when im out somewhere or after i tocuh something (like phone, objects, etc.) then i pick up popcorn or a potato chip or a frenchyfry or candy or a sammich or jsut anything and then i like shudder and its so dirty and like i eat it and shuddering and wipe my hands off or just have troubke eating cuz everyeach time i think of my hands and dirty or something and gah i just cant man and i gotta eat wit utensils or with a napkin around the food or summin like dat, yk? and then also i soemtimes just cant tocuh my hands to snythin' so i keep them hoverin' a bit.. and i just shudder a lot man like my skin be crawlin' and oh ado...

That is without a doubt a good thing.

Eating with your hands after touching stuff is just as disgusting as you think, and more people should recognize that, me included. Having an actual disgust reaction means your body is protecting you from germs a lot better than most people. Most people, me included, sort of know that touching stuff and then eating is bad, but don't really act on it, and don't get disgusted when they do it. Then they get sick.

[Usseewa ✾ She♡They ✾]

13 hours ago, Deception said:

I used to.

Then I started masking.

i still do it and dont learn lol...

it just feels bad tho.....

13 hours ago, Deception said:

That is without a doubt a good thing.

Eating with your hands after touching stuff is just as disgusting as you think, and more people should recognize that, me included. Having an actual disgust reaction means your body is protecting you from germs a lot better than most people. Most people, me included, sort of know that touching stuff and then eating is bad, but don't really act on it, and don't get disgusted when they do it. Then they get sick.

Yeah true..

yaeh yür raiyght

i stil eaht stuf afftre tüch'n' stuffe, büht i güdde.

lol

anyway uh yeah

 

i also love like.. *kinda* doing parkour stuff but not really but sort of, but it's also not always appropriate or socially acceptable or whatever. Like sometimes I run and jump on picnic tables and then run on it and jump off, or run through a place and jump on the chairs, or sit on railings, and when i was yungrr on th' playgrund i loved going weirdly on the structres lol, like standing on them and hanging upside-down frum th' munkeybars and such, and i jump over the back of a couwch and onto it, or toss things (phone, book, packaged food) into the air spinning up and then catch (or try to catch) it, and i have the urge to run up to a car and jump up onto the hood and then up onto the roof and then down (but haven't done it yet for uhm maybe-obvious reasons), and i like sitting weirdly like as i said on railings or like back/arms of couch or whatver, and yah

idk heheteheuwu:3

 

edit: i love doing it but cant often

Edited 9 hours ago by Usseewa

[Akimikoisthecutest]

18 hours ago, Deception said:

This story used to be a bit distressing to tell but now I am okay with it.

 

I was diagnosed with autism at an extremely young age.

When I was really little, in elementary school, my mom sent me to a place that was most likely ABA therapy, although I am not sure. If you don't know what ABA is, it is basically a highly repetitive method that is more training than teaching, designed for cognitively disabled autistic kids. I was autistic, but definitely not cognitively disabled, so it did NOT work for me. I started to dread going there for days before my sessions.

The place was called Blue Sky. Here is how it worked. First, they built up my trust of the place, letting me jump in a ball pit and play around with other kids. Then they started ABA. I don't want to frame them as evil - the method really does work for some people - but I certainly thought they were evil at the time. Here is a list of some the things they did. I am sure there was more but these three I can remember.

• The Idiot Flashcards:
  • The Idiot Flashcards is my name for a deck of flashcards they used for me. It just had cards with images on them, of very basic objects. I remember one was an excavator. There may have been an apple or something too, I don't remember the specifics very well. They would show me a card, and then ask me, "what is this?", in a very slow voice. Obviously, I got everything right, because I wasn't cognitively disabled. Except for one thing. There was a backhoe loader (basically imagine a cross between an excavator and a bulldozer) on one of the cards. I called it a backhoe loader, because that is what they are called. They apparently wanted me to call it an excavator and thought I was wrong. I refused to call it an excavator because that isn't what it was, and that must have proven to them that I was disabled. 
• The Map of Boredom:
  • This Map of Boredom was a gigantic mat on the floor, with roads and buildings on it. They gave me a toy car and told me to bring it to one of the houses. I picked up the car and put it on a house. They instantly failed me on that task, instead of telling me I was supposed to use the roads. My theory is they thought I was too stupid to understand if they told me.
• The Terrible Tracks:
  • Liking the names I am coming up with? This is the best one so far, I think. The Terrible Tracks was a toy train track set. I could snap the pieces together and make a track. Except they were all broken!!! They then expected me to build at track, which I couldn't do because the track pieces wouldn't fit together. They were BROKEN! Somehow the adults didn't notice this.

 

Eventually I got fed up with the place and started begging my mom not to make me go. The next season, I was taken out of the ABA program but placed DIRECTLY INTO SOMETHING ALMOST AS BAD!!!

The new group was still at Blue Sky. The program was simply called "social skills", and there was a group of kids. They would give us situations so long they were impossible to remember, with no context whatsoever, and then expect us to tell them what the right thing to do would be. In addition, not a single kid there had the same problems as me. One had anxiety, another had speech delays, a third was very good at saying nothing in a lot of words when he didn't understand things. One was way too old and was clearly masking heavily.

Sometimes problems would come up, or I would ask a normal question to an adult in the room, and the adult would give me this dumbed down, useless answer, thinking I wouldn't be able to understand a normal one.

Eventually, I lost control. I tried to escape the room. An adult caught me. The first time I argued with words. The second time I wasn't so nice. I got violent. This started happening every day. Eventually they told my mom. She was MAD. She punished me and said I would get another punishment whenever I misbehaved there. I didn't stop - I couldn't control myself. Eventually they started threatening to kick me out. I was relieved... until my mom said if I was kicked out, I would be cleaning the bathroom for an hour every Monday when I would have been at Blue Sky.

I managed to control myself after that. For a few days, at least. Then it started again.

 

Then the strangest thing happened. My mom just stopped sending me there after that attack. She must have realized something, although I have no idea what. She didn't punish me, and she completely cut the program out of my life. From that point on we both just tried to pretend that Blue Sky had never existed.

 

 

Does anyone else here have a story like this, of someone trying to "fix" you?

@CoderDrag0n8 @Entr0pic @Factor @Keteᛕ @Ink and Embers @Usseewa

@Hmmm lies @Adonalsium Will Return

I thankfully don't. I was only diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety....

[Deception He/Him]

6 hours ago, Akimikoisthecutest said:

I thankfully don't. I was only diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety....

Thankfully

 

7 hours ago, Usseewa said:

i also love like.. *kinda* doing parkour stuff but not really but sort of, but it's also not always appropriate or socially acceptable or whatever. Like sometimes I run and jump on picnic tables and then run on it and jump off, or run through a place and jump on the chairs, or sit on railings, and when i was yungrr on th' playgrund i loved going weirdly on the structres lol, like standing on them and hanging upside-down frum th' munkeybars and such, and i jump over the back of a couwch and onto it, or toss things (phone, book, packaged food) into the air spinning up and then catch (or try to catch) it, and i have the urge to run up to a car and jump up onto the hood and then up onto the roof and then down (but haven't done it yet for uhm maybe-obvious reasons), and i like sitting weirdly like as i said on railings or like back/arms of couch or whatver, and yah

Same.

Masked just like the jokes, though (at least in public).

I think it has something to do with how neurodivergent brains get bored so much. Autistic people have entirely different things that we enjoy, and ADHD is a dopamine thing directly linked to fun and the reward system. Both result in getting bored.

And randomly parkouring over stuff is definitely fun and instantly rewarding, so to escape the boredom, people do it. Also, I guess it could be like stimming (fidgeting) in a way, especially if you are hanging or sitting in a weird way.

idk I'm not a neuroscientist but that's my experience at least.

 

I also toss things into the air. Most frequently my Kindle. It's just kind of thrilling. Like, if I drop it, it might break, which makes it fun. Usually, I have the common sense to not do it over hard surfaces. I haven't actually broken anything... yet.

 

Ugh the autocorrect hates me.