Unhappy Halloween

I had a black cat cross conspicuously, auspiciously and slowly in front of me today. There is some witchiness in the air.

I guess this was my Halloween costume. Couldn't find my Halloween vibes tie dye; hope it's in the laundry. It always amazes me how things go missing in such a small space.

The title is me coming to terms with a sensory issueAutism-pediaSensory experiences and overloadWhat over-responsivity, under-responsivity and sensory seeking are like for autistic people, how they relate to daily life, what overload, meltdown and shutdown feel like from the inside, and what research shows about changing the sensory environment.Read the entry →:

• I don't like pumpkin
• I don't like the spices of the pumpkin
• I don't like pumpkin pie
• I don't like the smell of fresh, wet pumpkin
• And I really don't like the feel of it

This seems like a normal aversion to pumpkin, but there's more here. I've certainly met other people who are no friends to the pumpkin. Are they all autistic? Nope.

Pumpkin pie gets into one of my bigger food sensory issuesAutism-pediaEating and sleepHow eating and sleep differ for many autistic people, from selective eating and its overlap with ARFID and anorexia to how common sleep problems are, what the melatonin trials found, how CBT-I has been tested in autistic adults and how hard sleep care is to reach, and what body-clock studies suggest. A research summary, not medical advice.Read the entry → from childhood. It has a soft, baby food like consistency for me. I don't like that. This started young for me and I had mostly forgotten about it until going through the diagnosis processAutism-pediaAssessmentHow autism is diagnosed under DSM-5-TR and ICD-11, how accurate the standard tools and screening questionnaires are in children, adults and women, and how well clinicians agree.Read the entry →. Apparently this soft food issue is common with autistics.

For me it was most pronounced with the afternoon snacks on offer at my babysitter's-- usually pudding or jello. There are a lot of desserts which feature this soft blended consistency in particular. This was the crack stuff that came in the little boxes, loaded with sugar. It should have been perfect for my little kid cravings. It was for all the other kids, but I couldn't eat it. Lots of other foods were on this list, some that I was made to eat anyway, something to do with starving kids in Bangladesh I believe.

Some textures went the other way. I loved them. Peanut butter and bologna sandwiches that I somehow talked my dad into, likely 'cause I wasn't a fan of that gross bologna mystery meat. But, I also remember how much I liked that the combo would stick to the roof of my mouth. I had a lot of weird sensory stuff as a kid, but at some point learned to stop talking much about it as I learned to maskAutism-pediaWhat masking isWhat masking (camouflaging) means, where the words come from, the three-part model and the compensation framework, what masking looks like day to day, and how it compares with the social adjustments everyone makes.Read the entry → so many other things.

But, here's where things get tricky. A lot of my soft food sensory issues have gone away over time. I can now eat cottage cheese and do so regularly, along with many other soft foods. Cottage cheese took about 40 years, I think it ticked a few boxes in the sensitivity chart. Does that mean I'm not autistic? And, this is the game that I play with myself over and over again. Even with a diagnosis in hand. But here we come full circle: autistic people question identity and experience identity confusionAutism-pediaImposter syndrome and doubtSome autistic people, after a diagnosis or self-identification, come to doubt they are really autistic. Where the idea of imposter feelings comes from, why it resonates, what small studies of late-diagnosed adults record, and the arguments it feeds.Read the entry → much more frequently and deeply than neurotypical people. So this constant reevaluation of my autism when I very much know I'm autistic is the tight little circle that leads back to the start. Yes, I am autistic.

On this games I play theme, I really enjoyed Devon Price's piece, There Are No Social Rules. Many, many rules don't exist, but people enforce them anyway. I have more thoughts on this, but will save them for the right time and blog. I already have one blog riffing off another Devon Price piece that isn't done yet. This is how it goes and goes, hard for me to .. finish. Speaking of hard to finish, you should go to the ask me anything section of Devon's site for an eye popping read on the autocompletes.

Last stream in the consciousness for this one follows from the trouble finishing. I am going to take up a writing prompt project to help keep some focus on this and to find my voice a bit more. For November I'm going to write something every day based on a King Gizzard lyric that is rattling around in my head. Some will inevitably be long and rambling, others short and perfunctory, but it will keep me moving forward. The Gizzards are in hibernation now for the Australian summer and presumably creating 10 more albums or something. In the meantime, maybe Stu will keep restlessly posting to his YouTube thing from this year- my name stu.