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hatysa

@[email protected]

#ActuallyAutistic (among other things). Likes things such as #Astronomy, #Travel, #Cats, #Books, and a bunch of others. I post mostly about #Neurodiversity here now, but this account will always have cat pictures.

Header picture is one of the most pleasant scenes I've seen in the last few years: looking up the Elwha River valley into the Olympic Mountains of Washington, as seen from a ferry to Victoria, Canada.

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@kimlockhartga@beige.party avatar kimlockhartga , to random

This will seem out of nowhere, but I just watched a lovely Irish couple do a vlog about their visit to Yellowstone National Park in (mostly) Wyoming, U.S.A. Yellowstone is an amazing supervolcano caldera which supports a huge nature preserve (about 9,000 sq km/3500 sq mi). The area is populated by all kinds of animals, some of whom are dangerous. Many of the water features are deadly.

The reason I bring this up is because the sweet and enthusiastic couple didn't do much research before going, and I think that was unwise. I could tell, because they actually wanted to see a Grizzly bear, and they thought bear spray would protect them. They also didn't anticipate the effects of high altitude. Parts of Yellowstone rise to over 8,000 feet/2440 meters above sea level. If you aren't acclimated, you can easily become short of breath or even get sick. And, you need extra protection from the intense UV sunlight at that altitude, not just for exposed skin (including your scalp) but especially for your eyes.

Yellowstone is an incredible experience, but stay on the paths, carry extra water, and stay at a distance of at least 1000 feet/300 meters away from any wildlife. Prepare for your visit. Talk to the rangers. Know what to expect and all the dos and don'ts. It's a fantastic place to visit, and I don't know any place like it, but it is not a place to just wing it. Be safe.

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@EllenInEdmonton @kimlockhartga I went to Crater Lake with my family in 2017, during a blazing hot summer with wildfires so bad we had trouble seeing all the way across the lake to the other side.

It was so warm at the Crater Lake lodge that we were sometimes uncomfortable at night.

There were still patches of snow on the ground from the previous winter.

It was August.

@web3isgreat@indieweb.social avatar web3isgreat Bot , to random

Paxos accidentally mints more than twice the global GDP in PayPal stablecoins

October 15, 2025
https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=paxos-accidental-mint

Paxos accidentally mints more than twice the global GDP in PayPal stablecoins Paxos, the issuer of PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin, accidentally minted 300 trillion of the supposedly dollar-pegged token. For context, this is approximately 2.5x the global GDP, and around 125x the total number of US dollars actually in circulation. Paxos later announced that the mint was an "internal technical error", and that they had burned the excess tokens. While PayPal promises its customers that "Reserves are held 100% in US dollar deposits, US treasuries and cash equivalents – meaning that customer funds are available for 1:1 redemption with Paxos," there clearly isn't much in the way of safeguards to ensure that is always the case. As with most stablecoin issuers, Paxos merely issues self-reported and unreviewed portfolio reports, and monthly third-party attestations (not audits) of reserves.
ALT
hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@web3isgreat Really doesn’t seem like an advantage over national “fiat” currencies when they can fiat 2.5x global GDP worth of electronic Beanie Babies in a flash, decide that just might be a problem, and then unfiat it immediately.

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

What's the oldest piece of machinery that you own that still works, for its original purpose, in (mostly!) its original state?

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@NanoRaptor Geologist's hand lens (kind of like a jeweler's loupe, but more compact and higher magnification), on an old leather strap (that I suspect was chewed on by a much younger me) from the early 1970s.

@AnAutieAtUni@beige.party avatar AnAutieAtUni , to random

A personal share about some realisations I’ve had: I am taking stock of something that I’ve been told many times, but never actually believed…

I am apparently great at researching topics, I go very deep and even digest a lot of up-to-date scientific and technical information rather well.

I do this much more than the average person, and it is likely because I’m autistic, with a healthy dose of ADHD hyperfixation thrown into the mix!

What does being neurodivergent have to do with this? Well, I hate unexpected things because I cannot cope well with them so I research heavily in advance of something new to empower me. I also don’t fully understand superficial explanations of things like NT folk seem to. If anything, superficial explanations leave me much more confused than no explanations at all, so I go deep to learn about them instead. Oh, and I also find enjoyment in learning, generally, about science and technology, and it plays to my strengths.

However… there is a specific aspect to being like this that I hadn’t considered until now.

I think I intimidate some medical professionals. 😶 I do not mean to AT ALL. I actually assume they have at least the same knowledge if not much better because they’re the experts, not me. This assumption is part of the problem. I seem to get disappointed in conversations with them because I can’t understand why they would talk about out-of-date ideas or they wouldn’t know about and understand a major recent break through in something relevant. I think this is causing tension in my conversations with them.

What to do? I think I need to broach conversations like these with an open mind about the level of knowledge of the experts I speak with. I am holding them to a standard that they may not be able to achieve - e.g. why would a generalist like a GP spend their time researching one, single complex medical condition and know the latest published science about it? Some may know about it, sure, most would not. Also, when speaking with a non-medical member of staff who specialises in my medical condition, I need to remember they might not be able to read and digest the medical research like I seem to be able to.

I am not an expert like either of these people - but I seem to come with my own knowledge or skills that they do not, and that is REALLY surprising to me.

But I must remember this - for better conversations AND to give myself credit for all I do to seek a better quality of life for myself. I always assume that what I know will be out-of-date or incorrect in some way because these medical-related skills are only very recent skills for me, a forty-something-year-old person!

I hope I can keep sharing the benefits of these skills so that others with similar health challenges can benefit too. Without a doubt a lot of this came from doing my recent undergraduate degree that included many human biology topics. But I am still not an expert and not medically trained. So it is rather like all this is a special interest, except it’s driven more by necessity than joy… even if I do find enjoyment along the way, especially in the form of hope for my future. I’d much rather be doing other things with my time, but hope keeps me going while I have a chronic illness that holds me back.

Also: I HIGHLY suspect I’m not the only chronically ill person who has developed some great knowledge / skills in this way and experienced these challenges, neurodivergent or not. I’d be really interested to hear of others’ experiences and tips about how to navigate the disappointments and keep conversations tension-free! 😅

@autistics @mecfs

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@arisummerland @hosford42 @zakalwe @britt @autistics @adelinej @AnAutieAtUni > in that if they had the diagnosis when they were children, perhaps their lives could've been much different.

I'm too old for that.

My childhood was in the '70s and '80s. The concept people had then of "autism" was so massively fscked up that having an official diagnosis would have been much worse than having none at all.

As it turns out, I had one medical evaluation that suggested "autism" as a possibility. Not even a definite conclusion. My family of origin responded poorly. People I thought I knew well in other ways responded poorly. One person who was a long-term romantic partner in the 1990s responded poorly when my family somewhat offhandedly mentioned their suspicions.

In fact, I can't think of a single person I knew, even ones I cared about and knew fairly well, who would have been ok with being around an "autistic" person until sometime in the 2000s.

I'm very glad there are lots of people now who are not too old for that, at least if they are able to get a diagnosis early in life.

@lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social avatar lowqualityfacts , to random

I'm surprised that so many people don't know this.

Not only does lasagna have a silent G, but the word also contains three invisible Fs.
ALT
hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@lowqualityfacts The bit about the 3 invisible Fs only applies to the medieval spelling. The modern spelling simplifies things quite a bit and gets rid of 2 of them.

@triddles@mastodon.social avatar triddles , to random

Can someone tell me what exactly has evolved to mean in the modern political world?
People were sneering at it as if it meant a specific political ideology, and I find that sadly plausible.
As an autistic man, I'm an involuntary "free thinker" and get in enough trouble without attaching myself to a mistaken label.

Whatever the ideology, I will disagree with it somewhere. Friends who can tolerate dissent are an absolute necessity for me.

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@shiri @triddles

USAnian here.

Outside of the Fediverse, I usually call myself “liberal” or “progressive” because people outside the Fediverse think “leftist” means “wants to blow shit up, including all institutions, consequences be damned” …

.. and in the Fediverse, I usually call myself “leftist”, because people there think “liberal” means “loves cops and order and is only 1 step from fascism” and “progressive” means “loves cops and order and fascism only slightly less than those shitty libs”.

(I exaggerate in both these scenarios, but only a bit.)

As for “freethinker”, I first encountered it in the old sense of “not religiously dogmatic”, which is an accurate self-description, but more often lately I’ve seen it more often to mean “I don’t put up with that ‘woke’ crap; I think however I want”, and it’s definitely not an accurate self-description anymore.

@filmfreak75@mastodon.social avatar filmfreak75 , to ActuallyAutistic group

actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group @autistics harsh, yes, but nonetheless pretty accurate…

Meme with two panels illustrating societal neglect of autistic individuals over time. Top panel: A child is being held happily above water by a smiling woman labeled “society,” while the child is labeled “autism moms.” Nearby, a struggling child labeled “autistic children” is barely keeping their head above water. Bottom panel: A skeleton sits alone in a chair underwater, labeled “autistic adults,” symbolizing long-term neglect and invisibility.
ALT
hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@filmfreak75 @pathfinder @actuallyautistic @autistics I had an Autism Mom™️ long before "autism moms" were a cultural stereotype (time of her biggest Autism Mommery: late 70s through the 80s, but she was doing Autism Mom shit as recently as 2015). It was lots of not fun.

@pathfinder@beige.party avatar pathfinder , to ActuallyAutistic group

actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group

"I thought it was just me."

Perhaps one of the most repeated phrases by those of us realising that we are autistic, especially later in life. Even in this over-connected age, it is amazing how isolated many of us were from what autism was, or indeed could look like. It's only once you start looking for yourself in the words and stories of others, that you can begin to see how varied and complex it is and yet how much is shared and similar, even if it takes on a slightly different hue each and every time. It is in this knowledge that we can truly begin to see ourselves. When we stop trying to fit any sort of outside pattern, but can begin to see the actual pattern we make and learn the ways we can help ourselves.

This is why I tag my posts with not only the autism hashtag, but also the actuallyautistic hashtag and group. It's not to keep it amongst ourselves, but to try and share it with all those who are trying to learn to see themselves. Because this is the often misunderstood truth of the actuallyautistic tag. It's not to separate us from those yet to be diagnosed. It was always meant for those who are wondering, even those who don't believe they can be and yet still find value in what we have to say, as much as for those who are beginning to believe and those diagnosed either officially, or because they have realised it about themselves. A safe place, to share, to grow and most importantly to learn from each other.

Because there was never anyone else to teach us about how to be ourselves and certainly not in the ways that we could make our lives so much better. In fact, in the past, we were more often than not simply left to being our own worst enemies, kicking ourselves when we were down and holding ourselves to standards and goals that were more than a little obsessive. For example, I have just gone through a couple of intense weeks and all because a number of things came unfortunately together. My employer had some time off, which left me doing extra hours and having greater responsibilities. What remains of my family decided that it was time to make one of their rare visits and after a marathon period of procrastination I finally had to have a plumber come round and do so work. I also had to get new glasses. All of these things are draining in their own ways, but together they have left me wiped out. But, the difference now, is that I knew that this would happen. I set my expectations accordingly and made plans to help myself recover.

This is the difference a place like this can make. I'm not sat here now beating myself up because my tiredness obviously isn't deserved, or trying to flog the dead horse that I most closely resemble, into push, push, pushing on regardless. I can be kind, I can allow myself to recover and know the ways to best do that. I can finally be realistic and all because I have learnt how to be and what it actually means for me and all from being able to "hear" the words of others.


hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@BernieDoesIt @pathfinder actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group I am half-early identified. In 1980 (when I was 9) I went through some psychological evals and had a medical report after all of it that used the word "autism", but didn't say anything terribly definitive, just that it was one of a few possibilities.

Not that it did any good. Back then even a suspicion of being "autistic" meant constantly fighting not just to hate yourself, but to defend yourself from almost everyone else in the world, including (in my case) my own family of origin.

@hosford42@techhub.social avatar hosford42 , to ActuallyAutistic group

At work, I routinely participate in meetings because I have trouble communicating verbally in the morning. It's nice to be included and allowed to communicate in the ways I find necessary.

But today, the chat was turned off without explanation. I'll be honest. This is like a slap in the face. I'm not being allowed to participate.


actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group

hatysa ,
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@elight@tenforward.social avatar elight , to ActuallyAutistic group

actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group Curious how others refer to this condition and themselves. Do you "have" autism, are you "autisti, both, or something else?

I find the second most relatable, particularly as we are a "we"—a subculture based on identifying as neurologically similar.

I tend to bristle at little at the first as this indicates it's a condition. "Having" implies the possibility of ephemerality. We are autistic for life.

I didn't feel this way about ADHD, perhaps oddly.

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@felyashono @elight actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group Usually, "I'm autistic", but this is a recent preference (and a very weakly held one). "I have autism" does not bug me in the slightest -- I "have" all sorts of other things, like brown hair, green eyes, and migraines, that don't connote either separability or ephemeral status to me.

Being suspected of being "autistic"as a very young kid 40+ years ago meant that "identity-first" language ("I am...") connoted very different things than it does now. Now it means something like "I am someone who has a brain that is different in such-and-such ways, which are not a problem". 40+ years ago, it meant "I am someone who is broken and defective by definition."

Or, what I actually heard more often: "YOU are someone who is broken and defective by definition."

The "I am ..." phrasing was severely disempowering in the 1980s/1990s to an extent that can be difficult to appreciate today. It would be 3 or 4 years after an official diagnosis in 2019 before I could even consider the identity-first version, and, as I mentioned above, it's still not really a big preference.

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@CatsWhoCode @elight actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group Possibly paralleling the autistic community's broad preference for "I am autistic", I have actually heard "I am ADHD" reasonably often. I don't know how widespread it is in the wider ADHD community, though.

@hosford42@techhub.social avatar hosford42 , to ActuallyAutistic group

"Studies have shown that children begin to identify and punish autistic traits from a young age. Human beings reinforce social norms by hurting people who break them."

If you want to understand why autism is a disability and not just a quirk or a difference, reread this quote until the words find a permanent home in your brain.

"Human beings reinforce social norms by hurting people who break them."

"Human beings reinforce social norms by hurting people who break them."

"Human beings reinforce social norms by hurting people who break them."

This happens every. Single. Day.

https://observer.co.uk/news/first-person/article/laurie-penny-autism




actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@hosford42 actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group This article hits hard, and I’m in the “least likely to get hit hard” category — same as Aaron, white and male and (while growing up) in a financially stable family.

A while back I meme-ified a mid-2010s study (so, at a time when autism diagnoses were even more heavily male-dominated) and it highlighted just how general and pervasive disliking autistic people at very first sight was.

It was even worse in the 1970s/1980s when I was a kid/teen, and I can only imagine how bad it must have been for Black/female/less financially comfortable autistic kids at a similar time.

hatysa ,
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@hosford42 actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group

One more thing:

"The stereotypical autistic person is still a white man who solves crimes with science. Even today, autistic men are more likely to grow up understanding they have a problem, whereas autistic women and non-binary people learn we are a problem."

I mentioned before I’m in the group (male, with a white + financially stable bonus) that is more likely to understand themselves as “having a problem vs being a problem”.

I did not get that particular piece of luck. To be clear, I did get others, and I never forget it. But not that one, the one that does not tell you over and over again there is something fundamentally wrong with who you are.

The idea that being autistic was intrinsically a problem and a defect was pervasive in my family and it manifested in some extremely unpleasant ways. For example, I had a prototype of the turn-of-the-millennium “autism mom” 20+ years before that was even a pop-culture stereotype, who, among other things I don’t want to get into here, went to her grave believing I wasn’t capable of truly loving her.

Some of that was the time frame all this happened in, but, in any event: all of you who have had a rough time of it, regardless of when, or how, or by whom, neither have nor are “a problem”.

hatysa ,
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@hosford42 actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group > …IQ…

Oh god yes, the fscking digital calipers. I also did well on those and since my flavor of ND also included some dyspraxia (thus taking most athletic and artsy hobbies out of the realm of possibility), that sort of thing kept getting held up as the one thing I was clearly “good enough at” to be worth mentioning.

I managed to avoid turning into someone who thought that IQ tests were genuinely meaningful, but I came uncomfortably close to believing that for a few years.

I also managed to get to do well enough, in enough subjects in school and personal interests at least, to eventually get away from the worst of all that negative judgment. But even today fighting off the feelings of “never being good enough (at things that ‘really matter’)” still gets pretty intense at times.

18+ @elight@tenforward.social avatar elight , to ActuallyAutistic group

actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group

If you're late-diagnosed, please keep reading and I ask you to respond. If you are not late-diagnosed, no offense, but this is not for you.

I've been called "too (emotionally) sensitive" periodically throughout my life. It occurred to me that this could have been signs of my autism or trauma resulting from same.

And so, a poll for late-diagnosed people. Have you been called/labeled as "too emotionally sensitive" throughout your life?

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@Zumbador @celeste_42bit @elight actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group The past really is a foreign country.

My current "official" diagnosis came a few years ago, when I was 48, but there was at least one medical report with "suspicions" when I was 9 (a little more precisely: the report said something like "Shows some symptoms of autism and/or [other things I don't remember]"), though I am fairly certain my own family's suspicions go back farther than that.

So ... late (half-)diagnosed and really late diagnosed?

Of course, those first suspicions happened at a time when even the suspicions were enough to badly screw you over, as far as social perceptions went.

@winter@translunar.academy avatar winter , to ActuallyAutistic group

hey! journos and other 'typicals who want to talk about Autistics!!

call us Autistic not "people with ASD." every single survey of autistic people finds we overwhelmingly prefer identity-first language, NOT person-first language, and a great many of us do not consider autism a "disorder"

also these are our symbols :neurodiversity: :autismgold:

this is NOT :fuckautismspeaks:

let's review there will be a test:

Autustic ✔
Autistic person ✔
person with autism ❌
individual with autism ❌
person suffering from autism ❌
person with ASD ❌
"on the spectrum" ❌

you say "Autistic" when talking about us. we've settled this. understand? good.

actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@winter @ActuallyAutistic Generally agree, but with a caveat.

If you are talking to a specific person, find out what they prefer.

Currently (2025) it will most often be "autistic person". But not always.

I am old enough to have been at least suspected of being autistic at a time when that term was far less comfortable as an identity label than it is now, and that led to an awful lot of unpleasant experiences associated with the specific term "autistic". Even after an official diagnosis in 2019, there were a couple of years at least where I felt more comfortable with "has"/"with" language than "is" language.

@Uair@autistics.life avatar Uair , to Education group

actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group Education group

This is a great article. Unfortunately, I know from experience that the problem predates phones. I went back to County College at age 25, in the year 2000, and saw the forerunners of this garbage. I saw a class break the physics teacher. Nobody did the homework, so homework "review" took the whole class, so no new concepts were ever introduced. She gave up after the mid term and just made the lion's share of the final grade a busywork project. I took American history and was literally the only student who read the book. For the second half of the class, when the prof asked a question to the class, only I ever raised my hand. It was basically a private class between he and me, and the teenagers were spectators.

https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-average-college-student-is-illiterate

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@Uair actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group Education group I'm not sure which is a better proof of the author's thesis -- the author's arguments themselves, or some of the comments. A couple of choice ones:

  1. You can't give millions of illegal immigrants "due process" of law. Yes, you can. You can't even tell if they're subject to deportation without "due process"! This isn't a political argument; it's a "basic meanings of words" argument.
  2. Smartphones can train people to be "ADD" [sic]. Putting aside the fact that that acronym is badly dated, that's like me advertising courses in how to be and expecting it to do anything interesting except drain people's wallets.

And that's just in the first 5-10 comments. Last I checked, there were at least 30.I didn't want to subject myself to more of this.

@Ferrous@autistics.life avatar Ferrous , to ActuallyAutistic group

I've been thinking about how autism is considered a medical condition... but how many of us have ever seen a medical professional about our autism, except in the process of being diagnosed?

Have you? If so, who?
(Would appreciate sharing for wider reach)
actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group

hatysa ,
@hatysa@autistics.life avatar

@Ferrous actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group Yes, but it was all when I was not yet adult, and the end result of all the medical involvement didn’t do any good. (Let’s just say at best it was ABA-adjacent at a time when that acronym had yet to be applied to autism “treatment”.)

hatysa ,
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@bardmoss @Susan60 @autoperipatetikos @Ferrous actuallyautistic@a.gup.pe icon ActuallyAutistic group There are some executive function issues I have that seem at least a little ADHD-adjacent, but they haven’t caused me the same level of conflict with “typical” situations in my culture that the more clearly ones have.