@audhd @actuallyautistic
Open question: What is your personal practice when you and the person you are with have competing sensory needs? #audhd #autism #autistic #actuallyautistic #actuallyaudhd
@BZBrainz @audhd @actuallyautistic
Negotiation.
I have fidgety stims, my wife has visual sensory sensitivities meaning that movement is *very* distracting so it's easy for me to accidentally push buttons.
Once we both got diagnosed with ASC, we had a good constructive conversation about the friction, and both were honest and clear about things, and came to an agreed solution. I fidget stim outside of her line of sight (e.g. when apart), and she will tell me if it's visible and let me know if I've started doing it unconciously and I will stop. For me, the extra effort to avoid doing it in certain circumstances (e.g. while sitting together) is a reasonable compromise. Or, if we sit together I will rub her feet, so I get stims and she gets a foot massage : win/win.
Negotiate, explain, rate the issue for you (be honest) and work together : give and take is essential! Be creative, think around the problem.
@RenoirDana @BZBrainz @audhd @actuallyautistic Yeah, you have to negotiate. I started stimming before my cancer. However, most of it was not visible to my ex-wife. I've always been stimmer seeking audio-visual stimulation. On the other hand, my ex-wife's ADHD evolved to make her avoid strobe light effects.
After my cancer I spend a lot of time in the living room listening to YT. She did not like the music, and she did not like the strobes that some music videos had. (According to her.) So I eventually got headphones and would listen to YT on my laptop. That meant that sometimes I wouldn't see the music video. But even when they are on the TV I don't always scrutinize all of them.
I'd put the music videos back on the TV when she was out of the house.
Alas, our marriage was already on the rocks (a good 2 years before my cancer) so that did not save it, but it did lessen the friction.
@yourautisticlife @RenoirDana @BZBrainz @audhd @actuallyautistic
You ever have someone post a thing, and your brain connects it to something not-the-same in your own life?
I've mentioned going on cleaning jags - all day spent scrubbing and cleaning *everything*. I haven't done that for quite a while, years, and I just realized it's because it only happens in specific circumstances, and I don't have those now.
1/
@yourautisticlife @RenoirDana @BZBrainz @audhd @actuallyautistic
I must be in the house alone, I must have loud music playing, and I must have nothing else specific to do. I don't have days like that now. My only "alone" day is Sundays, and that's when I do laundry and fix next work-week lunches. So no cleaning. I've been wondering why forever, and here it is, all laid out.