OCD isn’t quirky, it’s not just being clean. It’s a deblitating condition that can define and leave you unable to function for full days. It has almost nothing to do with cleaning for me. It’s not always consistent in how bad attacks are, with some days being better than others.
I just spent 4 hours cleaning my keyboard of every scrap of cat hair because I believed that I had to be excruciatingly clean in this one area of my life or I was bad. Then wondering if this obsession made me a psychopath. I have this OCD: sheppardpratt.org/news-views/sto…
I wrote about one area this has impacted my life. I’m pretty sure I gave myself aphantasia because I forced myself to do the things I did and saw things in graphic detail that made intrusive ego dystonic thoughts unbearable. roryreckons.blog/2021/03/19/let…
Have to mute this now... because it acts as a trigger so much.
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We desperately need Autistic diagnostic tests written by Autistic people. It’s really obvious all the current ones were not developed with wide enough input and it’s leading tons of people to believe they are not Autistic.
Nearly all of them are based on theory of mind. The false belief that Autistic people cannot think about what other people think correctly. It’s been absolutely rubbished due to the double empathy problem.
Dysgraphia is a poorly understood specific learning disability. It’s not just handwriting. It’s whenever you write. It causes a lot of issues, certain grammatical rules take a long time to learn. I often make “careless errors” that are due to dysgraphia. 1/2
For example:
“Autistic person”
“person with autism”
These are exactly the same in my mind. I know the reasoning for using identity-first but I took a long time to actually use this, as my brain still sees these exactly the same.
Sentence structure is the other issue. 2/2
My tweets are usually carefully edited multiple times for this. It was hell doing essay exams with this undiagnosed. It’s often not detected.
A story here, a few years ago my wife and I were in a car accident, the guy left the scene, we both had massive whiplash, she also injured her knees. I didn’t react properly. I felt awful but I have been gaslight so much over pain. I am hyper aware of her pain now.
I broke my arm and was told to have a cup of soup and a bath. I broke my collarbone and it just reset in the wrong place. My doctor and my work denied my Crohns pain for a year as hypochondria.
Ever get ABA’d out of feeling pain? I have. I burn myself all the time without noticing now.
Because a lot of neurodivergent people like to consider every possibility when designing a system, the best thing you can do is give them specific requirements. I personally short circuit when the scope of design is too large. Give explicit instructions, answer all questions.
If you don’t know say: “I don’t know”
Don’t patronise us and change your voice like we don’t understand language. Assume competence always.
The worst responses I received:
“Just make it good”
“You figure it out”
“Why are you asking this question? It’s clear what I meant”
“Now you’re just being difficult”
“I’ll do it myself”
I achieve more in 4 hours than I do in 8 due to the constant worry about the consistency I need to keep up. I also need to recharge a ton, but I work with the passion of 1000 suns when I work.
Programming wasn't a good career for me, due to the fact I have dyscalculia - I would often make off by 1 errors.
I spent more time bug fixing a lot of awful things I did due to this.
My hypothesised dimensions:
Tics/Fidgets
Need for Routine
Impulsivity
Emotional Sensitivity
Anxiety
Depression
Hyperfixations
Hyperfocus
Social Difficulty
Logic Processing
Masking