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Hi, I'm myk and I'm #actuallyAutistic and #adhd. You probably wouldn't know that if you met me. Ask me anything! I have work I need to get done right now, and then I have therapy, but this evening I'll answer as many as I can. Please RT! #AMA #askingAutistics #allAutistics
I was undiagnosed as a kid. I know I had issues when v young but also I was a little professor, correcting my dad’s grammar in multiple languages. Growing up was hard - my dad was an authoritarian at home, and interpreted my struggles as as rebellion. https://t.co/g0UTr8lJaD
If you want to be a good parent to your neurodivergent kid then the best advice I can give you is to listen to and believe them. Make and hold space for them. They probably don’t expect to be patiently listened to, and it matters a lot. Ask how they feel and really listen.
Nope, it’s a cream colored blazer with faint but visible blue strips horizontally across it and I love it. @skribblemethis took this photo in Chicago when I was in a very bad place. https://t.co/woLi2A4u2N
It’s this jacket. I was already wearing the shirt and jeans today, so by coincidence this is the outfit I was wearing on my first date with @ahandvanish. Somehow she still married me! ;) https://t.co/Uzjo8BpE6S
Today I’m mostly exhausted. This week had some emotional challenges I was not prepared for and I had to cut short a trip, and I’m sad about that. But I was able to recognize and act on a personal limit, which is a win! https://t.co/nQuOIsLYiN
Broadly speaking: the two years since my DX have been incredibly painful in ways I didn’t understand how to expect, but it’s largely the pain of growth. 3 years ago I had accepted I would never be happy or feel whole. Now I know that’s not true. ❤️❤️
None diagnosed except a distant uncle, but I sure have some theories... https://t.co/UcybgFXcO0
A diagnosis is a story doctors tell you to make sense of the stories you tell them. Autism and ADHD are not only *commonly* comorbid, some folks aren’t so sure there’s a meaningful difference between them. https://t.co/HueeCTzRXV
But for me: autism is the part of me that needs to spend six hours deeply understanding a complex system. My adhd is the part of me that makes it impossible to ignore passing thoughts. These are often at odds, but can also work together.
I am of the suspicion that “autistic people take everything literally” may be better expressed as “autistic people can be highly attuned to ambiguity or discontinuity.” So. If you tell me something grammatically ambiguous I will make a pun to proces it. :)
I regret to inform you that as a straight white man in tech my competence has always been presumed. I’m not happy about the disparity and do my best to undo this kind of bias when I see it, but there it is. https://t.co/gux9BojNnw
Rumination, in my experience, is a form of OCD. I can’t speak to anyone else, but for me the pattern is usually: 1. Think a thought that scares me 2. Convince myself it’s not true 3. Think that same thought again 4. Go to 2. There’s a hack for this! https://t.co/hZRKVV87ag
If you are struggling with ruminations or intrusive thoughts that are distressing you, STOP ARGUING WITH THEM. treat them like a mean but ultimately powerless bully. Then your brain doesn’t get the dopamine from talking yourself out of it.
I missed this question yesterday, sorry @_j_e_r! So, I didn't know I had ADHD until this past march. I started Vyvanse in March. I was unmedicated for most of my life, and the difference it made was *immediate* and *dramatic*. But! It has side-effects. https://t.co/x3XKELXvrK
ADHD is like a cloud of buzzing mosquitos that kept me from concentrating for too long on any one thing. Once you medicate that, you realize that you may have been relying on that distraction as part of a coping mechanism, for instance.
But let me speak very directly to the core of this question, which is: "how do I do all of the things I want to do while also managing my condition?" because the answer is: it's entirely possible that you can't. Your job is to learn who you are.
"I want to do these thirty things and also be medicated so that I no longer struggle with these thirty things and I want both of those to be true". But there's no reason to assume they are true. My advice: start with very little and add to it.
Believed me. Understood that my struggles were not to challenge authority. Recognized problematic behavior as a sign of unmet needs. Above all, regardless of the kid: prioritize actively ensuring that they *feel safe* most of the time. https://t.co/2ZzzhVqGR3
My dude this is not trivial, people intentionally mispronouncing my name all through school to get a rise out of me (including teachers!) sucked! https://t.co/latGwfyGHG
My name is Mykola Jurij Bilokonsky. This is a traditional Ukrainian name. I am American, but all four grandparents were post-ww2 refugees and I grew up in that tradition. “Mykola” is Ukrainian for “Nicholas” - same name. I used to go by “nick” and was ashamed of “mykola”.
I lived in japan for a year and couldn’t face the idea of explaining to everyone all the time why my name was slightly different than the paperwork - so I just became Mikoora-kun. In English in Japan I started going by “myk” for the first time too.
So I keep “myk”, sounds like “mick”, means “nick”. Jurij is a funky Ukrainian spelling of what Russians often spell Yuri - which is just the Slavic version of “George”. Bilokonsky is neat - “Bilo” means white, “konsky” is the genetive form of “horse”.