My routines not only help me functioning in everyday life and carry me through difficult times, they also make me experience the best day of my life every day. 🤗
#AutisticJoy #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #neurodivergent @autistics
autisticjoy
![Avatar for [a]mayz[ing]’s gaze](/proxy/identity_icon/507740677641041258/754d257e22.jpeg){kind=icon}
Yesterday I got to see a former poetry slammer - now comedian, whose career I have followed for over 10 years live for the first time.
When I got the ticket in January I was overjoyed. But the closer the date got, the more apprehensive I got. I was so scared to be hyped because I know how the saying goes. “Never meet your idols, you might get very disappointed very quickly.”
In the last couple of years he disclosed his own late-diagnosed neurodivergence as an AuDHDer and made it a bigger topic in his art.
He was one of the most influential poetry slammers who inspired me to start writing my own texts. I knew several texts by heart and honestly, I still know many passages of texts even now.
The hesitant tiny bouncy flapp flapps started when we arrived at the venue and I when the program was just so fucking amazing I spent all of the break bouncing up and down outside because I was overflowing with joy.
I laughed more and harder then the last couple of month combined.
After the show he gave autogramms and I swear my brain short circuited.
No words, just a shitton of happy chemicals. Bouncing up and down in front of him, hands flapping, a completely unmasked version of me.
I got a bit self-conscious when I heard people cooing behind me afterwards and I am still unsure how I feel about it.
During his performance he made some points that to me sounded like back-references to an old text of his and I just loudly blurted out a phrase from one of his former poetry slam texts from freaking 10 years ago. He immediately got the reference and was taken aback, even though he also looked happy and shocked. When the other people applauded after the show I made a finger heart and he saw it made one back.
I cannot put into words how happy all of this made me. I will forever treasure this.
The point I originally wanted to make was, how annoying it is that not only the big sad feelings but also the big happy feelings are exhausting.
But now I’m just happy all over again, having written this.
Brain is a mess in both good and bad ways.
#AuDHD #actuallyautistic #specialinterest #autisticJoy @autistics @actuallyadhd
Edited 131d ago
I still think that Dylan Thomas' "Fern Hill" is a perfect poem... So I'm sharing it here, if you need a poem today. Maybe read it out loud, it's got such a lovely music to it.
🇨🇦Does anyone like to hear anecdotes of autistic joy?
I just read a post talking about autistic people's love of trains, and while I don't share that particular one exactly, I do have one or two other loves when it comes to infrastructure.
When I was in elementary school, we had a vending machine for milk, but it was always out of order. This made me sad because there was just something about getting nourishment from a machine that captured me. It wasn't until the last day of school that, on my way out with my mother, I noticed that the machine was now working. I insisted that she buy me some milk from it, which I'm sure seemed weird, but even by then I was used to being unusual.
The apex of this particular love came when my older brother took me to the college he was going to (I was still pre-teen at that point). I don't remember why we went there, but he took me to the lunchroom (or whatever it was called) to get something to eat. All along one wall was a bank of vending machines of every kind. And along another wall were floor to ceiling windows overlooking the airport (we were a few stories up).
The high I felt, eating my favorite soup* from a can both from and pre-heated by a machine while watching planes come and go was indescribable. I desperately wanted to go back but alas, never got to.
* Actually I'm not sure if it was my favorite soup at the time, or if that's when it became my favorite soup. 🤷
Another anecdote of autistic joy.
This one takes place after the first Addams Family movie came out. Two neurodivergent friends and I (one was autistic, one ADHD, with me audhd; funny how we tend to form these trios) would go to the same dollar theater several times a week to go watch this movie. The employees there came to recognize us. We'd fill the time before the movie singing the lyrics to the TV show's theme song (with appropriate finger snapping of course). I even started bringing printouts of the lyrics in case anyone else wanted to join in. No one ever did though. In fact, there was seldom more than a few people in the theater with us. Maybe for the best? 
And since the three of us were also playing the Vampire ttrpg at the time, our GM decided--after us having watched the movie one afternoon--to play a game right afterwards where our characters were invited to an Addams party. What a blast that was!
