Part one of my playthrough of The Legend of Zelda is now on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fb_K4xRHeU I’m raising funds for Autistic Self Advocacy Network, and there’s one day left to donate. Every $40 raised adds 30 more minutes to find and defeat Ganon. Donate through Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/charity/robotspacer #Autistic #ActuallyAutistic
actuallyautistic
Yesterday we raised $1651 for Autistic Self Advocacy Network?? Incredible. This was a great way to spend my birthday and everyone’s support of ASAN means a lot to me. I’m back at it today for another ~10 hours of The Legend of Zelda. I’ve completed 1½ labyrinths and our map of Hyrule is coming along nicely. https://www.twitch.tv/robotspacer #Twitch #Autistic #ActuallyAutistic
@autistics #ActuallyAutistic is there really a difference?
Edited 98d ago
@autistics #ActuallyAutistic also:
I am done enduring.
—Claudia, Interview with the Vampire (2022)
Today I received an email notification that my application for a blue badge (what we call a disability parking permit, in the UK) has been successful. This made me very happy. Although why, is a little complex.
The most obvious and main reason was that I know from my experience of transporting people with one, just how much it will make my life easier. No more hunting for a car parking space within range of my even being able to get somewhere. Or the spoon cost of not being able to find one and having to change my plans. The ease of being, more often than not, just outside the entrance. Not to mention that it is often free parking.
But there was also a secondary element. Which was that it felt validating. I'm not saying that I want to be disabled, or the way I am. But, having something like this kind of confirm just how disabled I am, somehow makes it more real. Not always a good thing. But, in this case, it felt like a confirmation of what I knew, but had room to doubt. Was I making too much of it, was I wrong to see myself as disabled as I thought I was? My mind, and I suspect not just mine, works this way.
But then, simply put, it's often easier to doubt ourselves and believe others, than the reverse. Perhaps that's because we are simply human. Social creatures, even if only in our way, that rely on the feedback and reassurance of others. Perhaps it is a deeper society indoctrination that runs so deep it may never be overcome entirely and when we are not thinking about it, we look outwards for the external verification that we have been taught is the only true authority, even though we know ourselves far better than anyone else can.
Or perhaps it's because of the one thing most of us have been taught through our lives. That what we know in our hearts is true about ourselves and the world we live in, never is. That we are always wrong, never right.
Diary of an AuDHD Squirrel. Day 977 , Wednesday 01/07/2026
Wednesday started early, as gym days do.
Not a bad gym session, up to 130lbs(?) on the leg press, I started on 90 so happy with that progress!
Got home & after doing the main chores settled down for some breakfast.
Sophie mog has discovered that if she waits for the sound of me finishing my coffee then there is a high chance of a brush. That cat is utterly brush addicted! We had at least 3 brush sessions a day!
Spent the afternoon exploring in Starfield. The Bethesda devs have outdone themselves with curiosities to discover!
Chicken kievs & salad for tea with strawgogs & ice cream for pudding!
Finished the day by watching Springwatch (I know!) & starting to re-organise the contents of the old unit in the lounge that was replaced with the set of bookshelves from me late MiL’s house. Some canny redistribution of assets & even some binning off of stuff ensued!
More to do but I am happy with the start I made!
Final Thoughts.
It’s not been a bad day - I even managed to plant out the dragon tree stems - hopefully they will take & we will have 3 for the price of 1!
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
@autistics
#TimsASDjourney #ActuallyAutistic #Neurospicy #TheMammutMoves
Diary of an AuDHD Squirrel. Day 950 , Thursday 04/06/2026
Up at just before 7am because … neighbours!
Git breakfast & did my chores - initially I was going to have an easy day to rest my back but my ND brain was having none of that so I spent several hours building the bottom half of the flat pack desk Mrs S ordered for her ‘study’.
It’s actually 4 pieces of furniture in one - there is a narrowish book case as one leg, a cupboard with a shelf & a draw as the other leg. Then (& this is tomorrow’s job because it will need 2 people to lift it into place) there is a set of overhead cupboards & a couple of small shelves that sit on the back of the desk top. Finally there is the actual desktop which comes with a built in power supply (that one has to fit as part of the build) & LED lighting strips.
Watched ‘Silence of the Lambs’ while I worked, with pauses as required by particularly arsey fittings.
Managed to squeeze in some NMS & some Starfield.
Final Thoughts.
Not a bad day at all - on a bit of a roll at the moment. The only fly in the ointment is that I am really, really struggling to engage with folk at the moment!
I don’t know if it is that I am simply overwhelmed by all that is going on or if my hermit style tendencies are ratcheting up a notch or 3!
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
@autistics
#TimsASDjourney #ActuallyAutistic #Neurospicy #TheMammutMoves
post hatching I’m still forever in the same situation I’ve always been in, of talking all day, look at my output here, and still being continually surprised that no-one knows where I’m at
.
I mean, it’s a complex stance to be sure, but the world is full of things people do that are too complex for me, I can’t even begin with music theory or chess or even language
.
but genetics and neurotype don’t work that way, it’s not a spectrum from simple to complex whatevers, it’s usually specific, isn’t it. Neurodiversity’s spiky ball of traits shows that types are brilliant in some areas and slower in others, like in the absent minded professor meme, which is real in many cases, just because you grok relativity doesn’t prove you can tie your shoelaces.
.
I am feeling spectacularly rare over here. 😳💜💜💜
.
@autistics
#ActuallyAutistic #ND #AuDHD
I wish I could use #AI to sneak in the line "You're a horse; I'm a Zebra". This is a reference to the "Horse vs. Zebra" metaphor (of Autistic people being more like Zebras, as compared to Neurotypicals being more like horses).
@autistics #ActuallyAutistic #HipHop #Lofi
"Think Different", by Nujabes, featuring MC Substantial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6oU080Gz5M
Diary of an AuDHD Squirrel. Day 951 , Friday 05/06/2026
Friday started early, it being a day of ritual torture - AKA ‘The Gym’!
Pushed myself a little too hard & my heart rate went a little bananas so I had to take a bit of a rest & let it all calm down a little - Nothing too dramatic but a warning not to be ignored.
Got home & after breakfast did my chores.
Then built the top part of Mrs S’s new desk, tomorrow will see the 2 halves joined & powered.
Spent the afternoon near Alpha Centauri (in Starfield) I am liking this game a lot, it has elements of Elite & NMS while maintaining it’s own unique identity!
Takeaway for tea & then continued our Babylon 5 fest - still on season 1 so a long way to go!
Final Thoughts.
Not a bad day, long may this streak last! (🤞)
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
@autistics
#TimsASDjourney #ActuallyAutistic #Neurospicy #TheMammutMoves
New Blog: Profound Effect of Small Kindnesses
I read a beautiful post by @oddtail about cis allyship for trans women that got me thinking.
Obviously, the experiences of a trans woman and a late-diagnosed autistic cis woman are completely separate things. It resonated with me deeply: with the joy of women being able to live as themselves, and with my relationship with sisterhood.
A Perfectly Normal Autistic Woman
Plushies on a desk, never really understood them, never thought it was me. Never understood how that was joyful.
I bought a tiny machined metal flashlight for my keychain, USB rechargeable and magnetically detachable from the base. I will probably never use it as a flashlight.
Every time I unlock my door, the metal cylinder feels perfect in my hand. Right weight, right feel. I feel good every time I use it.
Oh, I get it now. Joyful.
Today is my 29th birthday. My goal for the day would be to get $30-$40 for transit fare and a another $15 to pay renewal for my IDs.
etrans: tasiathereader@gmail.com
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/ourinsatiabesouls
#BlackMutualAid #MutualAidRequest
#BlackMastodon #queermutualaid
#HelpFolksLive2026 #Queercrowdfund
#disability #disabilityaid #actuallyautistic #DisabilityCrowdFund #MutualAid
@mutual_aid @mutual_aid@starflower.space @MutualAidVisibility @anarchomutual @blackfedi
Still trying to raise money for my dentist. I got a $75 loan from someone in my local Facebook group if I can't raise another $20 I will return it and cancel the appointment.
etrans: tasiathereader@gmail.com
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/ourinsatiabesouls
#BlackMutualAid #MutualAidRequest
#BlackMastodon #queermutualaid
#HelpFolksLive2026 #Queercrowdfund
#disability #disabilityaid #actuallyautistic #DisabilityCrowdFund #MutualAid
@mutual_aid @mutual_aid@starflower.space @MutualAidVisibility @anarchomutual @blackfedi
RE: https://mastodon.social/@filmfreak75/116677213465697393
@autistics #ActuallyAutistic so hell has frozen over in my world...
…my board met today to "debrief" re the HR meeting…
…after over a year of me sounding the alarm bells re the the issues with HR and how they have been targeting the board because of me…
…and now THEY FINALLY BELIEVE ME…
…i feel so seen and if i’m honest, disregulated for some reason
"The number of autism diagnoses has sharply risen, especially among women and girls – largely because of a softening and broadening of how we define the condition."*
Softening and broadening?
Interesting wording.
I need to find new places to hang out with other autists. What's your favorite digital nook for us? No matter subject matter, share it! Be it some Discord server or a forum or a newsgroup, as long as it's accessible via the interwebs infrastructure, I'd like to know about it! I'd like to know about physical places too, but me chances to getting to them are vanishingly low... 
Today I’m in a celebratory mood. On one hand, it’s Pride weekend in Berlin, and I’m on my way to the Internationalist Queer Pride march, a valued alternative to the commercialized and pinkwashing-ridden CSD. On the other, all 6 episodes of the first season of my #ActuallyAutistic podcast The Autistic Rant Hour are now online and available to binge.
Being a queer and disability activist doesn’t stop at making sure we have the right to change our names and change or delete our gender markers, to love whomever we choose or have the right to self-determination along with needed support and accessibility measures.
It also means standing up for the rights of people in intersecting struggles: migrant rights, asylum rights, worker rights, bodily autonomy, the right to live free of oppression, eugenics and apartheid, and the right to live at all, in times where folks are hunted down, locked up, denied life-saving medical care, ethnically cleansed and genocided, in more countries than anyone would have believed would still be the case in the 21st century.
My guest on the closing episode of Season 1, Tal’y Wozner (she/her), is the kind of person who understands that and who has always been part of this kind of struggle, resisting intersectionally and challenging preconceptions, both outside and inside queer spaces and discourse. This is why it was such a pleasure and a privilege to have her on the show, even though she isn’t autistic (how dare she!). Tune in to hear us discuss the different challenges of accessing places and services: I from the autistic perspective, and she from the mobility perspective. Together we not only explain the challenges, but also dig into their systemic reasons and reach some conclusions about the meaning of community and how disabled people can be there for each other to make going places more accessible than it, infuriatingly, is.
Get The Autistic Rant Hour wherever you get your podcasts, or see here for links to various platforms, RSS, online player and human-proofread transcripts: https://prepped.to/podcasts/autistic-rant-hour
#podcast #podcasting #disability #disabilityJustice #disabilityLife #autistic #autisticLife #CP
@autistics #ActuallyAutistic doing a required annual work training and this phrase was just used:
[Being able to recognize when someone is “off”]
…personally find this extremely loaded and open to weaponization…
…just me?
Diary of an AuDHD Squirrel. Day 973 , Saturday 27/06/2026
A quiet Saturday, the weather is starting to cool a bit which is very welcome!
Final Thoughts.
Still struggling with the whole concentration / reading thing. I’m hoping once the weather cools & I get some headspace this will pass.
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
@autistics
#TimsASDjourney #ActuallyAutistic #Neurospicy #TheMammutMoves
#actuallyAutistic Has anyone tried energy accounting/budgeting? How did you figure out both how much each *thing* costs and how much you have to spend each day? @autistics
Diary of an AuDHD Squirrel. Day 915 , Thursday 30/04/2026
I managed a bit of a lie in this morning, getting up at around 07:15.
Well the builders finished everything off this morning, just the scaffolding which should go tomorrow.
They have left something of a mess though, I’m hoping that the lime from the cement doesn’t leech in to the pond!
I may well move the pond back more or less to where it was be before at the bottom of the garden, it’s Lovely right by the house but it is so in the way!
There are more important things to sort out first though & everything depends on wether I can find the motivation to actually do stuff in the real world.
Final Thoughts.
Struggling to do stuff around the house, it all seems so pointless.
I need to go shopping tomorrow at some point, otherwise we will be back eating the barely edible stuff Mrs S gets.
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
@autistics
#TimsASDjourney #ActuallyAutistic #Neurospicy #TheMammutMoves
#NTPsychology
a New Yorker Magazine sort of cartoon panel, Everyman, you, on the couch, psychiatrist peering over his clipboard, speaking,
“Obviously, Low Self Image is going to be a problem. I mean, look at you.”
😜
.
@autistics
#ND #AuDHD #ActuallyAutistic #Psychology
Edited 74d ago
I have a provocative view. It's #ActuallyAutistic people who are willing to go against the grain of the Social norm and push back against "network effects" which eventuate in a psychologically toxic situation of enshittification.
"Network effects" - which eventuate in a psychological dead end, once the Musks, Bezos, etc types of the world monopolize the very fabric of Society - can't be escaped without the help of the #Autistic.
The autistic aren't beholden to the emotional gravity of the "Network Effects" (which are sort of like a "black hole" which is nice in the short term, but becomes a Torment Nexus in the long term) anywhere near as much as Neurotypicals. As an autistic person, would you agree?