Of course I also stim for the typical reasons, but I feel like I’ll sometimes sort of “play up” certain autism-associated traits as a form of body language… I’ve also experienced people not understanding what stims are and misinterpreting mine, so maybe it’s a bit naïve of me to do this.
Perhaps normally I would do those things for those reasons, but there will always be times when I can neither talk nor leave, and don’t have a communication bracelet or smartphone on my person nor a good ‘helper’ nearby. In those types of last-resort situations, something like trying to call attention to my stimming ends up being really the only form of communication permitted by the all-powerful Zakon*.
It might actually be precisely because this “communicative stimming” is vague/indirect that draws me to it: indirect communication is for me not subject to temporary loss in the same way as the otherwise far more preferable direct communication; and because I so often need to interpret the weird body language of the neurotypical hegemon, I might end up deriving some sort of satisfaction from “turning the tables” in a situation where it’s pretty much hopeless that I’d be able to communicate at all otherwise.
*“The Zakon” (← RU зако́н ‘law’) is my all-encompassing term for rigid routines, as well as hypersensitivities and related behaviors, and the outwardly irrational behaviors related to masking-induced social anxieties/over-analysis. In summary, the Zakon is the compelling force behind every behavior that prompts people to ask why I don’t do the obviously much easier and better thing.
What if you made some nice business cards that said something like "Yo diggidy dog, I got AUTISM (bolded in all caps with sparkles) and I’m feeling a little over stimulated (more sparkle), and I don’t mean to be rude but could you flip the card over? (Now the rest of this is on the back) give me some space (space is underlined and in light blue) (with more sparkles.
I will make a moc up tomorrow
That sounds like a fun idea. I’d love to see it.
Its a work in progress right now, I swear I haven’t forgotten about it
Take your time. :-)
I swear I haven’t forgot but I can’t decide on a background and I can’t really get the sparkles right, and last but definetly not least I still am not sure if I really have autism, I dont really know if I should be interacting with the autism community because I dont know if I’m even apart and that seems to be stifling progress.
You shouldn’t doubt yourself.
I took my time, I really couldn’t decide on a background, then I really couldn’t get it to look the way I wanted, then I couldn’t get the sparkles to look good. But I basically just gave up but didn’t want to leave you hanging so here is the best I could come up with, sorry that it’s not really what I originally promised. You could probably print these out and tape/glue them together, or print them with a printer that supports printing on both sides, or you could print them on card stock if you’re really feeling creative.