Handflapping

I don't remember flapping as a child.

Of course. I also remember it being easier to communicate, and all signs point to me being one of those unusual people who as they go through adolescence and early adulthood, get more stereotypical autistic.

Either way, I don't remember flapping as a child. I might have handflapped some, but I don't remember doing so. I know that in high school and since then I've had stims, and I'd assume I did before then, but what they were wasn't necessarily hand flapping.

I hand flap now. Mostly when alone, but not only. It varies entirely on what's going on.

But, the more I read about what people have gone through, the more I read, about Quiet Hands, the more I read about people having stims taken away and them ending up self harming, the more I end up hand flapping.

The first time I remember handflapping was after spending time with someone who flapped - it was like I picked it up from her. I started using the stim that she was using. From that, it started generalizing. I started having multiple different types of flaps. I now have an excited one, a hurrying one, a wanting a communicate one, a "this person gets it" one, a "I'm proud to be autistic" one (which comes out after reading well written things by autistic self advocates).

And while I don't remember flapping as a child, its a stim that feels like I can communicate through. Of all my stims, its the best to communicate through.

It makes so much sense that people hand flap.

I'm doing it more and more. And I'm not ashamed.

Because, really. Communication is communication. Curling up in a ball because you can't speak, is communication. Typing, and making your phone speak is communication. Hand flapping excitedly is communication.

Whoever says it all has to be speech is just wrong.

I can flap and people can learn what I'm thinking from that.

Quiet Hands might mean to many that they need to stop.

But to me, it means if they got hurt, then really, there's even more no reason to not be open about who I am as this becomes more and more natural. It makes me want to hand flap. It makes me want to not only show who I am, but use my hands to do so.

Flap away.

The cost of logic

This was discussed the other day with my counselor, and I realized, its probably something that people don't know as much about.

Sometimes, there are specific triggers, that hit my mind, and I lose the ability to process. This makes sense. It breaks my ability to process, because instead there's this other stuff taking over.

But, in particular, the idea of someone acting in a negative mood and telling me they're not, at the same time, breaks me. It takes all of what's going on in my head and crunches it up and says NO. And then I need to get as far away from people as possible.

Because, you see, what this is doing is saying that every bit of the things I've built up for how to understand people are WRONG. People are not trustworthy, and not only that, my brain's understanding of them isn't trustworthy. I can't trust my own sense of what's going on. Everything is wrong, and I can't understand it. I can't be near it until I have managed to sort it out, figure out what's true, and what's false, and piece it back together. Until people are people, and truth is truth, and lies are lies, and my sense of what's going on is trust worthy.

When I'm interacting with people, I'm not doing so intuitively. I'm analyzing it. I'm analyzing it all. So, when my analyzation has been broken, been told its wrong, I don't have intuition to fall back on. And that's what happens. The analyzing requires the ability to trust the analyzing. And when the analyzing has been told its its innately wrong, then how can I trust it? I need to reset it. To tell it, that no. It's correct.

And until that point, people are absolutely terrifying, because I have no sense of what they are doing, or why. Without my analyzing, I don't know what's going on, and without knowing, its scary. So I want to be as far away from people as I can. So I run, and I hide. Because they scare me because I don't know if they'll hurt me. I have no way to get reassurance they won't. Someone who is coming to hurt me, and someone who's coming to reassure me, and someone who's just being neutral are the same at that point. They're all to be avoided, to make sure to avoid the person who'd hurt me, whether they'd hurt me purposefully or by mistake.

And then, I rebuild, and I wait, until something else is too much. And it'll happen, because I can't just take everything. But when I break, its not just being frustrated, its more than that.

Noise

Reading, wanting to communicate, struggling to get ideas out. Okay, I'll sit down and write. I can do this now. It's a way to get ideas out. I can explain how I feel and how I live.

Right, I have stuff to do on this topic. That's a specific thing to do. Explaining about how life is harsh, and you can't just always focus on how you cope, because if you do that then you deny what people deal with.

Writing. Starting to get in the right mode. I can do this. It's starting to work. I've been stuck not managing to do this for months, but its starting to work now.

Type type. type type. type type.

People coming up and trying get me to do other stuff, interrupting all my thoughts. Losing it. Losing it all again. Don't want to lose it.

Please, let me keep the right mindset. Please. Wrapping up. Curling up. Smaller, smaller. Pulling in.

Walking away, realizing they were interrupting me, maybe kept it, back to trying. Writing quick ideas down to remember thoughts.

RING RING

Stupid phone.

SQUAWK

Too much noise.

Talking. So much talking. Squawking. Squawk squawk. Thoughts are running away. They're leaving.

Getting harder to string ideas together. Can communicate well enough to make people think I'm functioning, but mentally I'm lost. Anything I want to do is gone.

All the noises. Too many noises.

Clenching up. Don't want to hear it all.

Feel like I'm going to burst.

Want to just manage to do something effective. Why can't I be effective?

Bark bark bark bark

Even more. Why more?

Holding head. Typing. More headache.

Questions? I'm supposed to answer questions? Right, yes I can do that.

I'm going to just hide now. Maybe the noise will stop eventually.

Rock rock. rock rock