I’m Not Intersex And I’m Not Deaf And I Don’t Have A TBI Or A Learning Disability Or Schizophrenia

Mental illness advocates as soon as a mentally ill person acts kinda weird:

Mulling over something right now.

My journey into understanding neurodivergence and my own AuDHD-ness has changed how I doctor, and sometimes I can see this when looking at things like auto text scripts I set up previously.

For example, when it comes to picky eaters, I used to do a lot of education about how to get kids to eat, discussing strategies like gamifying intake of fruits and vegetables, enforcing #-bite rules, and having cutoff times for meals. I also put a lot more weight on having a balanced, whole-food meal. The only thing I discussed that was focused on any underlying reason was involving kids in meal prep, though I didn't necessarily have a reason as to why. And, to be fair, these strategies work for picky, NT toddlers.

Contrast that to today, where I'm asking questions about texture sensitivities and taste preferences. I'm acknowledging that processed foods are more predictable than fresh. I'm discussing meal prep involvement as a means of sensory food play. I'm discussing about how stressful #-bite requirements can be and I'm encouraging having safe foods available and permissable - not as a means of giving in, but to make trying a new food less stressful. I'm also acknowledging that some food is better than no food, as long as we get the basics/macros in as we can always supplement micros with multivitamins.

These are things that weren't taught when I was in medical school or residency. I attended in 2015, just after the DSM changes and the focus then was, and largely still is, eating a "well-rounded", normativized, white, upper-middle class diet. Anything other than that was treated as subpar and is bad medicine, let alone parenting.

You know the other thing? When I started asking, do you know how many of my picky eaters DIDN'T have some kind of sensory basis to their eating patterns? Do you know just how many undiagnosed, unseen neurodivergent kids are out there, masking along, not making waves, with equally ND parents who don't know otherwise?

The number of times I see at least one parent squirm when I start asking the kids, especially older kids, autism symptom questions and autism distinct anxiety questions... Why, if I had a nickel for every time, I would definitely have more than two. It's not a coincidence.

how can you eat the fried hearts of something that once was alive and had a beating heart? do you feel any guilt? i hope you do.

please google what an artichoke is

We got a grand total of five trick or treaters and I missed them all because I was stuck in meetings 😔

All after I stayed up late last night turning the house into a giant monster.

So if you see this I am mentally handing you a goodie bag. Happy Halloween! 🎃

Lydia Deetz 🖤

"autism/neurodivergence isn't an excuse!" "I'm autistic and I act normal!!!" and phrases like that are usually said by other neurodivergent folks who are probably more functional and sociable, but the reality is that it's still a disability that is ON a spectrum. sometimes it is an "excuse"

people forget not all autistic folks act the same and some are very high support needs and will say and do things that may be "off-putting" or heavily misguided. please kind about autistic folk who need help with basic tasks or can't socialize well. the ones who are "weird" and don't understand boundaries correctly.

My doctor and therapist: now with this autism + ADHD diagnosis you need to learn to unmask because masking all the time will make you burn out again and feel like shit

Other people: well it's just interesting how after getting the diagnosis you suddenly start behaving like that I mean I'm not saying you're faking it's just funny how you suddenly cannot be normal like you were before

Whatever the person behind SparkNotes' twitter is being paid it's not enough pt. you can't pay me to dig up which part this is

Still thinking about when i told my soon-to-be therapist that after i got diagnosed my parents decided to show me rain man to teach me about autism and they looked genuinely horrified

some spn inspired (but not directly related) angels I painted a while back

titles (in order):

“you can’t just pick up strays, what if it’s infected with something”

“look can’t this wait til later, I’m literally in the middle of something”

“if you’re just going to scream at me then I’ll go ask someone else for directions”