As I write this, I've just gotten back from an anti-trump rally.
You may have guessed, but I am devastated over Clinton's loss of the electoral college. But, something that gives me hope is her winning the popular vote.
That means the majority of those who voted voted for her and not for that fascist pumpkin.
I'm very burnt out and can't think very well, so I'll leave you with a list of good rally chants
1. -Show me what democracy looks like
-This is what democracy looks like
2.No borders, no nations, stop deportation
3.Black Lives Matter
4. No Trump, no KKK, no racist USA
5.hands too small, cant build a wall
6. Donald Trump, go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay
7.-My body, my choice
-Your body, your choice
That's all I can think of... tonight.
Nov 11, 2016
Nov 3, 2016
Daily Routine
Every day, at least once a day, I have to go for a walk to the local playground. The time isn't set exactly, it just has to happen at some point during the day after I get home from school.
All I do there is sit on the swings, listen to music, and daydream, but it's been ingrained into my daily routine for about six years now.
In a couple of years, I'm going to graduate high school and go on to college where my routine won't be based on the daily, but rather the weekly, which is something I've never experienced before beyond school Monday-Friday, and nothing on Saturday or Sunday.
When I was little and I still went to church, there was also Sunday morning worship and Wednesday evening worship. Being the queer that I am, it's needless to say I haven't been in many years.
My routine has been for the past few months or, the following:
-Alarm at 6:15
-turn off
-Alarm at 6:45
-turn off
-check social media
-use restroom
-put clothes on
-obtain bag, prozac bottle, can of monster energy, glasses, jacket, iPod, phone
-skedaddle to bus stop
-bus goes to school
-wait for the wheelchairs to get unloaded from a different bus
-go inside school
-drop things off in AP art room
-Go to cafeteria to get breakfast
-Bagel and cream cheese with apple juice
-go to Puterbaugh's room and talk about Homestar Runner
-go to AP art room for class
-eat breakfast
-take prozac
-start drinking monster
-start art, approx. 8:04
-clean up
-go all the way around the spanish steps and back down the other side of wing 4
-go up back stairs
-into physical science room
-try to survive 8:50-9:40
-go across walk way
-down the stairs at the other side
-first door on the left, 9:45-10:35
-talk about upcoming election
-hide annoyance at sports talk
-back up the stairs
-2nd door on the right
-enjoy the safest class possible 10:40-11:30
-across walk way and down other flight of stairs
-3rd door on the right
-Survive Fancett's screaming 11:35-12:30
-drop things in orchestra room
-go to cafeteria
-get cheese pizza, and 2-3 other things I'll eat
-give milk to friend
-go back to orchestra room
-eat lunch
-chat with friends
-walk up the art wing
-down the main hallway
-up the first flight of stairs by door 1
-6th door on the right, 1:05-1:55
-Brumbaugh looks like DnD Greg
-up math wing
-keeping walking to the walkway
-across walkway
-down back stairs
-survive loudest class possible 2:00-2:50
-skedaddle to bus
-2nd to last stop, get off approx. 3:15
-get any mail
-drop mail on table
-drop bag by table
-upstairs bathroom
-wash hands
-retrieve lappy
-social media time
And then it gets muddled. there are three things that always happen when I'm home.
1-Walk
2-Dinner
3-Gas station run
The gas station run always goes after a walk. Dinner can come before or after a walk.
This routine is going to change soon though, because I'm going to start implementing more vegan foods back into my diet.
I haven't eaten meat or eggs in many moons, and was a full vegan for a while until I got sick (for other reasons) and couldn't eat anything besides potatoes, which made it worse. My mom decided to blame it on veganism and bullied me into eating dairy, but she's since relaxed a bit.
All I do there is sit on the swings, listen to music, and daydream, but it's been ingrained into my daily routine for about six years now.
In a couple of years, I'm going to graduate high school and go on to college where my routine won't be based on the daily, but rather the weekly, which is something I've never experienced before beyond school Monday-Friday, and nothing on Saturday or Sunday.
When I was little and I still went to church, there was also Sunday morning worship and Wednesday evening worship. Being the queer that I am, it's needless to say I haven't been in many years.
My routine has been for the past few months or, the following:
-Alarm at 6:15
-turn off
-Alarm at 6:45
-turn off
-check social media
-use restroom
-put clothes on
-obtain bag, prozac bottle, can of monster energy, glasses, jacket, iPod, phone
-skedaddle to bus stop
-bus goes to school
-wait for the wheelchairs to get unloaded from a different bus
-go inside school
-drop things off in AP art room
-Go to cafeteria to get breakfast
-Bagel and cream cheese with apple juice
-go to Puterbaugh's room and talk about Homestar Runner
-go to AP art room for class
-eat breakfast
-take prozac
-start drinking monster
-start art, approx. 8:04
-clean up
-go all the way around the spanish steps and back down the other side of wing 4
-go up back stairs
-into physical science room
-try to survive 8:50-9:40
-go across walk way
-down the stairs at the other side
-first door on the left, 9:45-10:35
-talk about upcoming election
-hide annoyance at sports talk
-back up the stairs
-2nd door on the right
-enjoy the safest class possible 10:40-11:30
-across walk way and down other flight of stairs
-3rd door on the right
-Survive Fancett's screaming 11:35-12:30
-drop things in orchestra room
-go to cafeteria
-get cheese pizza, and 2-3 other things I'll eat
-give milk to friend
-go back to orchestra room
-eat lunch
-chat with friends
-walk up the art wing
-down the main hallway
-up the first flight of stairs by door 1
-6th door on the right, 1:05-1:55
-Brumbaugh looks like DnD Greg
-up math wing
-keeping walking to the walkway
-across walkway
-down back stairs
-survive loudest class possible 2:00-2:50
-skedaddle to bus
-2nd to last stop, get off approx. 3:15
-get any mail
-drop mail on table
-drop bag by table
-upstairs bathroom
-wash hands
-retrieve lappy
-social media time
And then it gets muddled. there are three things that always happen when I'm home.
1-Walk
2-Dinner
3-Gas station run
The gas station run always goes after a walk. Dinner can come before or after a walk.
This routine is going to change soon though, because I'm going to start implementing more vegan foods back into my diet.
I haven't eaten meat or eggs in many moons, and was a full vegan for a while until I got sick (for other reasons) and couldn't eat anything besides potatoes, which made it worse. My mom decided to blame it on veganism and bullied me into eating dairy, but she's since relaxed a bit.
Problematic Special Interest
Oh child! This post contains some Swear Words!
When you're autistic, you're bound to have some really weird special interests. One of mine is the cannibalistic serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer.
I can't give any real answers as to why this special interest sprung up, or why it fixates on Dahmer. Likely because of the nature of his crimes.
What I don't understand are the people in the "true crime community" who call serial killers and mass murderers "Gods" and "cinnamon rolls". Like, no? They are neither? They are, or were, murderers who committed horrible crimes against humanity and deserved all, if not more, of the punishment they were given for what they did.
It's hard to make friends in the community when you're 100% on board with social justice, very anti-gun, and your blog description proudly states "Black Lives Matter", but I'm not going to change or hide these parts of myself to fit into the mold.
Of course, with any special interest comes people either being fucking weird about it or people making fun of you for it. I want to spend my days scripting Homestar Runner and telling people about what Jeffrey Dahmer did but people don't want to hear any of that! It's either "Shut up, stop talking in that voice" or "What the fuck is wrong with you why are you so excited about a cannibal?"
It sucks! It sucks a lot! If you activate my trap card, "info dump", expect a fucking info dump!
(Frustrated screaming)
When you're autistic, you're bound to have some really weird special interests. One of mine is the cannibalistic serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer.
I can't give any real answers as to why this special interest sprung up, or why it fixates on Dahmer. Likely because of the nature of his crimes.
What I don't understand are the people in the "true crime community" who call serial killers and mass murderers "Gods" and "cinnamon rolls". Like, no? They are neither? They are, or were, murderers who committed horrible crimes against humanity and deserved all, if not more, of the punishment they were given for what they did.
It's hard to make friends in the community when you're 100% on board with social justice, very anti-gun, and your blog description proudly states "Black Lives Matter", but I'm not going to change or hide these parts of myself to fit into the mold.
Of course, with any special interest comes people either being fucking weird about it or people making fun of you for it. I want to spend my days scripting Homestar Runner and telling people about what Jeffrey Dahmer did but people don't want to hear any of that! It's either "Shut up, stop talking in that voice" or "What the fuck is wrong with you why are you so excited about a cannibal?"
It sucks! It sucks a lot! If you activate my trap card, "info dump", expect a fucking info dump!
(Frustrated screaming)
Nov 1, 2016
Autism and Auditory Input: Part 2, How I Survive School (in Regards to Excessive Noise)
Let me tell you: when you're autistic (or have sensory processing disorder), the world is Very Loud and Disorienting.
My iPod died while I was checking out at Krogers, just in time for me to hear someone's very loud phone call and several cash registers beeping at the same time. Luckily for me, I made it out in one piece.
When I'm at school, my go-to situation for navigating halls and concentrating on work in class is to first put in my earbuds (which are noise-isolating already) and then put my noise-cancelling headphones on over those. Total isolation of what I want to listen to with none of what will hurt!
I especially enjoying listening to Cool Games Inc. podcasts when in this set up. I tend to get weird looks when I start laughing over something Griffin or Nick said, but I'm having too good a time to care!
With as much as I have to do to get through the day, you'd think my teachers and classmates would catch on and realise that they don't have to yell to get their point across, or aggressively scoot their chairs, or throw their water bottles, or chew their gum like cud, or bang their fists on the table in a half-assed attempt to make a beat (guess what? you suck!), or eat every food like it's a bowl of small animal bones, or... make any noise near me, ever.
Big classes, like my physical science class (filled with underclassmen, too!! The freshmen this year are okay, but the sophomores are insufferable!), are just the absolute worst!
But, for my smallest class of the day (AP studio art), things are much more calm (for an art class) and there's more space for activity. Since it's a self-guided class, I'm free to make any type of art and experiment without the teacher (or fellow classmates) breathing down my neck.
Of course, she still looks at our work and grades us for our projects, but it's up to us what we create. We have no guidelines besides those set for if we submit our portfolios to AP board at the end of the year.
My sound isolation set-up is perfect for this class - I'm never afraid of missing important information, because there never is any, and I can focus my entire attention on the work in front of me.
By the way, whoever said autistics aren't creative can kiss my ass.
In my other classes, however, I do have to be wary of a number of things, including:
-Getting all instructions I need (preferably in writing. Please.)
-Is this mandatory group work (the bane of my existence) or can I work alone?
-Will there be more instructions later?
-How much time do I have to complete this task? The whole period or just a short part of it?
-Can I even focus with all the extra sensory cushion, or will I just doodle in the margin the whole time and upset my teacher?
I'm in a kind of autistic limbo at school. I'm very smart, so I'm in mostly advanced and AP classes, but the way school is structured goes against everything in my body, so I pull a C-D-F average in all of my classes.
Spreading all this effort across seven classes is really hard work, but my teachers all want to ignore my disability just because I'm smart. It's rarely that the subject material is hard, it's normally I either:
A) Can't compute the English language at that time
B)Get confused while trying to read the question and get increasingly frustrated until I reach a melting point or
C) I'm tired, hungry, in pain, or a combination thereof.
And sometimes, I forget my headphones either in another class or at home, and then I can't focus in any sense because then Everything Is Happening At Once. I have a hard enough time functioning with all in the internal input from my body (oh chronic pain, how I hate your guts), you Can Not expect me to be like my peers in a room full of tapping feet, clicking pens, popping gum, loud swallowing, coughing, sneezing, desk pounding, water bottle flipping, snoring, breathing, and a yelling teacher.
I've been told that teachers aren't yelling most of the time, but why should I believe that? It's loud and it hurts, that sounds like yelling to me!
If any teacher or aspiring teacher is reading this, trust me: your voice can carry just fine without yelling. I tell actors this constantly just doing tech for the drama club, I don't want to leave the theatre and have to tell all my teachers to please, Please stop yelling!
(Oh boy, I hope this is coherent!)
My iPod died while I was checking out at Krogers, just in time for me to hear someone's very loud phone call and several cash registers beeping at the same time. Luckily for me, I made it out in one piece.
When I'm at school, my go-to situation for navigating halls and concentrating on work in class is to first put in my earbuds (which are noise-isolating already) and then put my noise-cancelling headphones on over those. Total isolation of what I want to listen to with none of what will hurt!
I especially enjoying listening to Cool Games Inc. podcasts when in this set up. I tend to get weird looks when I start laughing over something Griffin or Nick said, but I'm having too good a time to care!
With as much as I have to do to get through the day, you'd think my teachers and classmates would catch on and realise that they don't have to yell to get their point across, or aggressively scoot their chairs, or throw their water bottles, or chew their gum like cud, or bang their fists on the table in a half-assed attempt to make a beat (guess what? you suck!), or eat every food like it's a bowl of small animal bones, or... make any noise near me, ever.
Big classes, like my physical science class (filled with underclassmen, too!! The freshmen this year are okay, but the sophomores are insufferable!), are just the absolute worst!
But, for my smallest class of the day (AP studio art), things are much more calm (for an art class) and there's more space for activity. Since it's a self-guided class, I'm free to make any type of art and experiment without the teacher (or fellow classmates) breathing down my neck.
Of course, she still looks at our work and grades us for our projects, but it's up to us what we create. We have no guidelines besides those set for if we submit our portfolios to AP board at the end of the year.
My sound isolation set-up is perfect for this class - I'm never afraid of missing important information, because there never is any, and I can focus my entire attention on the work in front of me.
By the way, whoever said autistics aren't creative can kiss my ass.
In my other classes, however, I do have to be wary of a number of things, including:
-Getting all instructions I need (preferably in writing. Please.)
-Is this mandatory group work (the bane of my existence) or can I work alone?
-Will there be more instructions later?
-How much time do I have to complete this task? The whole period or just a short part of it?
-Can I even focus with all the extra sensory cushion, or will I just doodle in the margin the whole time and upset my teacher?
I'm in a kind of autistic limbo at school. I'm very smart, so I'm in mostly advanced and AP classes, but the way school is structured goes against everything in my body, so I pull a C-D-F average in all of my classes.
Spreading all this effort across seven classes is really hard work, but my teachers all want to ignore my disability just because I'm smart. It's rarely that the subject material is hard, it's normally I either:
A) Can't compute the English language at that time
B)Get confused while trying to read the question and get increasingly frustrated until I reach a melting point or
C) I'm tired, hungry, in pain, or a combination thereof.
And sometimes, I forget my headphones either in another class or at home, and then I can't focus in any sense because then Everything Is Happening At Once. I have a hard enough time functioning with all in the internal input from my body (oh chronic pain, how I hate your guts), you Can Not expect me to be like my peers in a room full of tapping feet, clicking pens, popping gum, loud swallowing, coughing, sneezing, desk pounding, water bottle flipping, snoring, breathing, and a yelling teacher.
I've been told that teachers aren't yelling most of the time, but why should I believe that? It's loud and it hurts, that sounds like yelling to me!
If any teacher or aspiring teacher is reading this, trust me: your voice can carry just fine without yelling. I tell actors this constantly just doing tech for the drama club, I don't want to leave the theatre and have to tell all my teachers to please, Please stop yelling!
(Oh boy, I hope this is coherent!)
Oct 31, 2016
Sensory Overload from Menstruation and Halloween Costume
Content Warnings: periods, blood, unsanitary (all text, no photos. that would be gross. there is a photo of my costume though!)
Everyone who experiences menstruation agrees that it totally sucks.
For non-binary and "trans masculine" folks, there's the added edge of dysphoria. For autistics and others with sensory processing disorder, the physical pain is unbearable.
If you fall under both of those categories, like myself, you're looking at a recipe for a major meltdown. And whenever my faulty uterus decides to menstruate, that's almost all I experience for both three days before it happens, and the entire timeline of my cycle.
When I say "faulty", I mean I rarely have 3 periods in a row. This month marks the first time this has happened in over a year.
It doesn't exactly help that my cycle is heavy and erratic. I can bleed through overnight pads in less than two hours, I frequently take the absolute maximum dosage of both ibuprofen and Tylenol (guess what, neither of them touch my cramps), and I get very sick.
In the three days before my cycle starts, I become even more of an emotional roller coaster than usual and get near-constant motion sickness. Thanks to pre-menstrual cramps, you can catch me in my PJs crying from unnecessary pain.
When it finally happens, it's so painful and I can barely walk or eat. Earlier today, for example, I had a meltdown while trying to clean myself up from a combination of pain, mess, and embarrassment.
The white jeans I had been wearing (dangerous decision) for my Homestar Runner costume were absolute hell to have anywhere on my body because of how awkwardly they fit, and had a couple blood spots, so those had to be changed.
I'd bled so much that the entire right leg of my boxer briefs was soaked (surprisingly, that didn't leak through my pants), so I needed new underwear as well.
At this point, I couldn't stand the feeling of my Homestar shirt any longer, so I needed a new T-shirt, preferably a soft one.
But of course, when I went to the bathroom to clean up, I forgot all of that.
Thankfully, my favourite jeans were already on the floor in there, but I had to awkwardly waddle to my room to get a shirt and underwear. Once I made to my room, I lost it. I couldn't take the sensation of all that blood and pain any longer and spent the better part of an hour uncontrollably sobbing.
It was definitely one of my more mellow meltdowns, considering nothing got thrown and I didn't bite through any clothing. I attribute that to the fact that I was home alone during that time.
After I calmed down enough to go through the motions of getting cleaned up and getting dressed, I slept for four hours. Meltdowns are exhausting.
I had a decent day as Homestar, though! I take every opportunity to talk like him I can get.
Everyone who experiences menstruation agrees that it totally sucks.
For non-binary and "trans masculine" folks, there's the added edge of dysphoria. For autistics and others with sensory processing disorder, the physical pain is unbearable.
If you fall under both of those categories, like myself, you're looking at a recipe for a major meltdown. And whenever my faulty uterus decides to menstruate, that's almost all I experience for both three days before it happens, and the entire timeline of my cycle.
When I say "faulty", I mean I rarely have 3 periods in a row. This month marks the first time this has happened in over a year.
It doesn't exactly help that my cycle is heavy and erratic. I can bleed through overnight pads in less than two hours, I frequently take the absolute maximum dosage of both ibuprofen and Tylenol (guess what, neither of them touch my cramps), and I get very sick.
In the three days before my cycle starts, I become even more of an emotional roller coaster than usual and get near-constant motion sickness. Thanks to pre-menstrual cramps, you can catch me in my PJs crying from unnecessary pain.
When it finally happens, it's so painful and I can barely walk or eat. Earlier today, for example, I had a meltdown while trying to clean myself up from a combination of pain, mess, and embarrassment.
The white jeans I had been wearing (dangerous decision) for my Homestar Runner costume were absolute hell to have anywhere on my body because of how awkwardly they fit, and had a couple blood spots, so those had to be changed.
I'd bled so much that the entire right leg of my boxer briefs was soaked (surprisingly, that didn't leak through my pants), so I needed new underwear as well.
At this point, I couldn't stand the feeling of my Homestar shirt any longer, so I needed a new T-shirt, preferably a soft one.
But of course, when I went to the bathroom to clean up, I forgot all of that.
Thankfully, my favourite jeans were already on the floor in there, but I had to awkwardly waddle to my room to get a shirt and underwear. Once I made to my room, I lost it. I couldn't take the sensation of all that blood and pain any longer and spent the better part of an hour uncontrollably sobbing.
It was definitely one of my more mellow meltdowns, considering nothing got thrown and I didn't bite through any clothing. I attribute that to the fact that I was home alone during that time.
After I calmed down enough to go through the motions of getting cleaned up and getting dressed, I slept for four hours. Meltdowns are exhausting.
I had a decent day as Homestar, though! I take every opportunity to talk like him I can get.
Autism and Auditory Input: Part 1, Music
One of my favourite auditory stims of the last few years has been "goth" music. Anything dark and synth-y makes my head feel very tingly!
I'm particularly fond of Depeche Mode. There's something about Dave Gahan's voice that makes the experience more enjoyable than most other bands I listen to.
Take Skinny Puppy, for example - the music is A++ head-tingly, but the vocals leave a bit of a gap in full enjoyment. It doesn't help that I can't understand anything he says, all I understand is that it's English.
On the other (or, not "goth") side, Placebo produces a very similar affect to Depeche Mode. There's something about Molko's nasally whine that is exceptionally pleasurable to my brain.
Placebo's album, "Without You, I'm Nothing", is an auditory playground for my ears to explore and enjoy - except it's all perfect swing sets, and each song is like going to a different set and getting on my favourite swing of that set.
In other words, it's the best thing I could ever hope to experience.
Good-old synth pop also produces a very, very nice feeling, though it tends to be very... heterosexual (surprise! I'm gay).
All of this is because of my sensory processing disorder, which is one of my autistic traits and is one of the most common traits out there.
When I say music makes my head feel tingly, I'm not using any figures of speech, I am being literal. For instance, I am currently listening to Sleater-Kinney's album "All Hands on the Bad One". Every time Carrie or Corin does The Thing with their voice (if you've ever listened to a Sleater-Kinney album, you know what I'm talking about), my head literally feels as though the inside of it is tingling, or sparkling. It's a pleasant sensation to me.
On top of the sparkling feeling, it's also a little warm, like the sun is on the back of my head through a window.
I have no way of knowing if anyone else experiences this, or if this is something most people experience when they listen to music, though general consensus says it's something that mostly autistic people feel.
Since it's officially Oct. 31st, 2016 where I am, Happy Halloween!
-Mark
Oct 30, 2016
Introduction
I doubt anyone, besides who I send this to, will remember the shitstorm that WitMS was, but it's where my blogging problem started. Of course, since then, I've switched to microblogging on Tumblr (like everyone else).
But, to everyone, Hello! I'm Mark, I'm 16, I'm autistic. No, I will not be cured. No, vaccines did not "give me autism". I've been this way since I was in the womb, and will continue to be this way 'til the tomb.
And I love it!
Mostly.
Allistics (non-autistics) will never grasp the sheer joy I get from Homestar Runner, or the pain of showering (even in "low pressure" showers! "Low pressure" is a lie!), or the safety and comfort of my Winnie the Pooh tsum tsum.
So, as a bit of an introduction:
Special interests (as of Oct. 30, 2016): Homestar Runner. Thats all I can think of tonight. (EDIT: Nov. 2, 2016) Jeffrey Dahmer, politics.
Most Frequent Stims (fidgets): Rocking, raptor hands, toe walking, tangles, finger spelling, tapping, and just sorta. wiggling.
A description: Chubby, buzzed hair that's grown for two months (is brown), septum piercing, two piercings in each ear, wears baggy jeans and shirts with jackets or flannels and converse with little Strong Bad faces on them. Slight unibrow.
This page will be a link at the top of this blog for anyone who wants to see it! If I edit anything, I'll list the date it was added in parentheses after it.
(tumblrs: cuomosboy, marktheaspieshark)
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