The “sensitive” child to “difficult and dramatic teenager” to autistic adult pipeline.
Callum Stephen (He/Him)
9,794 posts
Autistic ADHD’er 🧠 | LGBTQ+ 🏳️🌈 | Writer ✍️ | Dreamer ✨ | IG and TikTok: @ autistic_callum_
- Stuff I did “wrong” as an Autistic kid: - Playing by myself. I didn’t realise that invitations to play required me to play with others. - Gravitating towards adults instead of kids. Adults were (generally) calmer, more welcoming, more mature and more on my wavelength.
- When you’re Autistic and/or ADHD, it can be hard to determine whether you’re in love with someone or hyperfixating on them, or both. Here’s how I differentiate between love and hyperfixation - 🧵
- A perfect example of an autistic person (Julia Fox) taking something literally and being painted as a villain for doing so. It was big of Ms Fox to apologise when it was the other person’s language usage that led to the confusion. But, us autists are always expected to apologise.Julia Fox apologizes to TikTok user after being accused of “condoning sexual assault” for a comment she made about his “mascara” story: “Hey babe I’m so sorry I really thought u were talking about mascara like as in make up.”
- PSA for autists: When people invite you to dinner, a movie or some other activity, the activity may just be a fun excuse to meet up, and the real objective of the gathering may be to socialise. I find this endearing, but I want to share it because for years I didn’t know this…
- The autistic urge to use 100 words to say something that that could be said in less than 10 words because you figure the extra 90 words of explanation will reduce the risk of misinterpretation and conflict.
- The autistic gamer’s way of playing a video game several hours per day for a week or two then abandoning it for six months.
- Many autistic people have Misophonia, a condition that causes a person to have an extremely negative emotional response (usually anger) to everyday sounds, such as: chewing, joint cracking, snoring, breathing, nail tapping and nail clipping.
- PSA for autists: When people invite you to dinner, a movie or some other activity, the chances are the activity is just an excuse to meet up and the real objective of the gathering is to socialise. I find this endearing, but want to share it because for years I didn’t know this…
- People will say, ‘we didn’t have Autism in my day’ and ignore the fact that in their day, there were people who: didn’t allow guests in their home, ate the same food everyday, wore different variations of the same outfit every day, were experts on a few niche subjects, …
- Being autistic means that I’m either two steps ahead of everyone or three steps behind. I’m either psychic or clueless; there is no in-between for me.
- Given that autism is highly heritable, it’s a huge flaw in the autism diagnosis process that parents are expected to know and confirm if there is anything “different” about their child. If there is, they probably won’t have noticed, as it’s likely their entire family is autistic.
- “That actor looks familiar. I wonder what else they’ve been in”. Most people: I’m not sure. Autistic ADHD me: * immediately grabs my phone, googles the character’s name, finds the actor’s name, looks at their Wiki page or IMDb page, and starts listing every role they’ve played*
- Many autistic people are told that they have social anxiety, but what they really have is a rational and legitimate fear of being treated badly by others, who may neglect their needs or judge them for their differences - both of which have happened to them a million times before.





