Kevin Davy

Formally pathfinder@Universeodon.com
58 years old (still and possibly now forever) autistic and into animism, spiritualism, philosophy and everything that can help explain the meaning of life, the universe and everything, including the prospect that it might really be 42.
Male he/him
#autism
#actuallyautistic
#neurodiversity

Public Key

npub147jr88hh2naptalxheaysm5wxptmkm6tx28jruy6rscfcsrnh47sk5dme3

NIP-05 Address

pathfinder_at_cutie.city@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2lfpnnmm4f7s47lntu7jgd68rq4amda9n9rep7zdpcvyugpem6lgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43q56qvl5

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

Author Public Key

npub147jr88hh2naptalxheaysm5wxptmkm6tx28jruy6rscfcsrnh47sk5dme3

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Last Notes

2024-04-05 01:17:00

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
Very much so and always, every time. :bear_hugs:

2024-03-23 12:20:30

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
Laughing at you.

2024-03-23 03:33:20

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
Yes! We seem to always be learning, if not even craving to learn. So many people just seem to stop. And that to us seems impossible to understand.
To us there is no, well that's how it was. Because for us, that's just what we learnt from.
And this from a bloke who grew up in the seventies and that time was just wow! In terms of openly being racist and homophobic and it being taken for granted.

2024-03-23 03:09:39

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
It is acting our age. Not theirs. Autism is described as a developmental disorder, because from their point of view we develop differently and therefore in an obviously wrong way. Like so much about us and not incorporating us, it fails dismally to take into account the natural way we are. And that is, to be mature in our own way and to grow in our own time. This, as a process, is so vastly different from theirs as to be almost comical and unlike theirs continues through the length of our days. We do not cling to the ways we were, or fail to grow out of them. We grow with them and because of them.

2024-03-23 02:46:49

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
😂

2024-03-23 02:42:10

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
The perfect companion. 😄

2024-03-23 02:38:36

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
Exactly! To us, it's like the stupidest question ever. The answer is so obvious and right.

2024-03-23 02:34:25

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
Damn right! They were and always will be, your friends. There are obvious attachments that we can see, that have no "reality" outside our beauty and certainly none in the "normal" world's.

2024-03-23 02:29:25

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
Because, like so many of us, you were made to feel wrong and "ugly", before you realised the truth of who you were and that you had been right and beautiful all along

2024-03-22 00:57:07

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@npub1rax…8p4w
😄❤️

2024-03-10 22:58:42

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@npub1rax…8p4w
Yep, you definitely need to get back into independence as soon as you can. Mother sounds charming (not) and in some respects at least it isn't fair on your sister, although by the sounds of it, she could be being nicer about it.

2024-03-10 22:25:22

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@npub1rax…8p4w
It is not an easy choice to make. But, from what little you've said, it does sound like the right one. In many respects, I would assume that the plan would depend on how complete you want it to be. If it's a done and dusted forever, then best be done quickly. An email, perhaps, to explain why and that no further communication will be acknowledged or returned. Good luck, however you choose to go :bear_hugs:

2024-03-04 20:36:52

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@npub1gnx…d5kh
I'm just itching to unleash. "I feel sorry for you, that your neurotype makes you feel this way."

2024-02-16 21:28:55

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@npub1rax…8p4w @npub1mew…tau6
It seems a necessary life expense. 😊

2024-02-09 00:47:44

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@npub18c7…er9d
This is a really hard road that many of us older autistics have either had to walk already, or will have to, and that is, caring for our ageing parents. Especially if they, for whatever reason, are reluctant to accept our autism and out of deference we try not to be as overt about it as we would like to be or need to be.
The stress and struggle is already bad enough, without the necessary downtime and me-time that we need. I'm afraid, the only way is to be somewhat ruthless and "selfish" about what you can give yourself. Because as any carer will tell you, if you can't look after yourself, you can't look after anyone else.

2024-02-08 00:31:32

@npub1mew…tau6
This has been said before, by many people, and far better than I will. But it bears repeating, probably as often as it can be.
Autism is a neurological difference. We think and process differently. We just don't work in the same ways as others. Most of us, growing up, are more than aware of this. But not necessarily why, or to what degree. We just recognise that we are different. But, this isn't exactly something that can be discussed. Often the feeling is nebulous at best, other times it can feel embarrassing and far too personal. But in any case, trying to talk about things like this, especially as children, is never going to be a particularly safe or wise choice.
So instead, we bury the feelings deeply and try to get on with life as best we can. This is normally done through learning to mask and in avoiding as much as possible those situations where our difference is made most noticeable. In fact, many of us get so good at this that we can wander for years, or even decades, through life without ever reaching the understanding that we are autistic.
But when we do reach this stage, it involves a process of coming to terms with it and understanding what it means. It requires months, often years, of research to come to terms with and to overcome the false stereotypes and ableism that many of us carry. This is what is called self-diagnosis and sometimes it is as far as we go. For many of us it is enough, or we have reached a point in our lives where getting an official diagnosis is not worth it. Or even possible. Many systems, whether on purpose or not, make it all but impossible for people over a certain age, or people of colour, or female presenting, to be able to get officially diagnosed. Or it is simply too prohibitively expensive to even try.
It is for this reason that the vast majority of autistic spaces welcome all those who think they are actually autistic, even those that are only just beginning to explore the notion, the self-diagnosed and the officially diagnosed. Because this is all the actually means, that we think we are autistic, as opposed to those who aren't, but who still want to speak on behalf of or about autism. It is also why the actuallyautistic hashtag and @actuallyautistic group are open to us all too, not to divide autistics into those diagnosed and those not. Because that is simply a distinction over the route to the knowledge, not the knowledge itself.
#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic

2024-02-06 19:40:19

@npub1mew…tau6
For those of us who realise late that we are autistic, one of the commonest reactions is probably relief and joy, at least at first. We finally have the answer to why we've felt so different all our lives. Why we've always been the odd one out, never quite able to feel that we belong and can be a part of what is going on around us. But instead, are always looking in, onto the warmth of other's lives, forever separate and alone and outside in the cold.
But, for many of us, despite this joy, there can also be a sadness. That things now will never change, that despite knowing that our difficulties are real and not because we were ever broken, that it also means that there is no end to them. That the name we have learnt is an unbridgeable divide between us and the world. And that the outside is where we will always be. Yes, we can find others, like ourselves, stood out here in the dark. We can begin to create our own warmth and light. We can learn and grow and begin to understand what we need to make our lives better. The delicate balance between what needs to be done and what can be avoided, what can be mitigated and what just needs to be endured.
But realistically, was this what we had sought for? The answers we had dreamt of, for how to belong, how to be a part of the world and all that we had been separated from?
And there is a kind of grief to realising that perhaps it isn't. A grief that has to be processed. A realisation and acceptance that dreams and realities don't always align. That truth isn't always easy, or nice. That so much of our life, the mistakes we've made, the pain that we have received and inflicted, has come about because of this divide. A divide that we never could do anything about. The fact of our lives that we couldn't even know about until now and that perhaps forgiveness for that is not uncalled-for and for the lives we had to live because of it and not despite it.
#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic

2023-07-04 19:25:41

Currently enjoying playing "spot the american" by those justly complaining about the , devil spawned instruments of chaos, hell being let loose and demonic nightmarish tortures to inflict upon the world, otherwise know as fireworks.
Meanwhile you can tell it's summer in the UK by the fact that my duvet has had to go back on my bed. 😂

2023-07-04 19:00:46

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@npub10jh…syw4 @npub1mew…tau6
Very much that, indeed I agree. But the game of pandering to the popular, was one I never could bring myself to play, even when I noticed it at all. But I also felt that there were times when other factors were at work that I couldn't detect. The secret code, I was talking about.

2023-07-03 22:07:43

@npub1mew…tau6
I once described my life as "it's not that I didn't know I was different, I did, it's that I thought I shouldn't be."
And in trying to be, I learnt to mask, to pretend, to hide my differences deep and more or less function in the allistic world in a way that, in a dim light and with possibly fading eyesight, passed as normal. But what I could never grasp or understand was the way allistics would often be prompted into expressing empathy/sympathy. I knew many times it was about group support, with making sure someone didn't feel alone. Yet the application of this principle never seemed consistent. There were times when someone clearly emotionally struggling was left alone and other times when someone barely, or not even really, struggling was surrounded by love and attention and it never seemed to be based on any pattern I could perceive, of status or even aspiration. It was as if there was some code in their manner or speech that prompted this flocking around and of course it was a code that I could never break and so I was constantly guilty of getting it wrong, not to mention doing it in the wrong way. And so in the end I just gave up and that led me to being seen in a certain light, as cold and harsh and eventually even to me doubting my own emotional health.
But now I know my ability to feel empathy and to be sympathetic is as real as anyone's, just expressed differently. This is classic "double empathy". But what it means in practice is that it is always a one-way street. Whilst we can sometimes struggle to understand theirs, we can still see it. But because we don't do it their way, they will never see ours at all.
#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic