Calling #ActuallyAutistic folks! Please retweet.

It's time for a thread of absolutely anything uplifting, successful, funny or anything else positive that relates to being autistic. Any good experiences you've ever had? Favourite sensory things? Special interest info? ALL OF IT.

Are there particular gifs, videos, songs, etc that you find soothing or pleasing in a sensory way?
Clips of your favourite autistic comedians?
Posts you've written about positive aspects of being autistic?
Pictures of your support dogs?

Good portrayals of autistic people in fiction, that you related to? Or your personal autistic headcanons?
Infodumping about any topics you like (seriously, write as much as you want)?
Cool things that have happened in the autistic community?
Places to buy stim toys?

Anything.

Anything that lifts your mood even a little, anything that brings you joy, anything good that has happened, anything that is beautifully, wonderfully, authentically autistic. Put it here. This is our good space.

Oh, and if there's a fellow autistic person who you've been wanting to compliment, or if you want to express appreciation for the autistic community in general - hey, this is a good place to do it. :)

I'm gonna be off Twitter for a little while, but while I'm away I'll look through my bookmarks and see what I've got that fits here. Would deeply appreciate other folks adding whatever you have to this thread.

Post your joy without shame. We appreciate it. Makeup, painting, Lego, history, ASMR, Doctor Who, stim-dancing, facts about Red Pandas, your little successes that we know are actually big, anything. Share the good stuff. :)

For me, watching paint-pouring is a very soothing sensory thing. And the end results are kinda hypnotic to me. Some sensory things just are. I especially love @PushinUpRoses' artwork, particularly the rainbow ones like:
https://twitter.com/PushinUpRoses/status/1243405248535789570
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/777201420/rain-bow-abstract-painting-rainbow?ref=shop_review

Doctor Who is my main special interest and has been for more than fifteen years. I interact with it every single day.
The thirteenth Doctor from Doctor Who, played by Jodie Whittaker, brings me such joy and can instantly put a smile on my face!

ASMR feels like it's indirectly destigmatising some forms of stimming, which I'm so glad about. And some ASMR videos are just so frickin' stimmy to me, and can be very calming. Might post some of my favourites here if I can be bothered to go through my MANY bookmarks.

@AgonyAutie and @lilririah sharing their stim-dancing online has been SO good for me. I stim-danced for years without realising what it was, and they've given me a name and newfound joy in it. I maintain that stim-dancing to the Pirates Of The Caribbean theme is AMAZING.

@commaficionado's many threads have been immensely helpful to me. And I think the right word is 'relieving', because realising I'm not alone and being able to put things into words takes off significant stress and means I can be more understanding to myself.

Jumping randomly back toward ASMR, seeing ASMRtists basically stimming with stuff actually helped me to find some new stims! Especially tapping on the bottle I have next to me most of the time, which is actually a really nice stim for my hands and ears.

The autistic community in general - so many of you, who I can't all name individually but I value you all - have Massively helped me with my self-understanding, self-confidence, and self-acceptance. I have progressed so much with my relationship with myself because of you.

I have so many pictures of space saved. This is just a random one I got off Google, but I have a lot like this. I find them so soothing. Kinda like lava lamps and the paintings I mentioned earlier; I can just stare at them for ages.

Books by #autistic authors, such as 'Naming Adult Autism' by James McGrath and some of the stories in Uncanny Magazine's 'Disabled People Destroy [genre]' have helped me put things into words and to feel like I'm allowed to exist, like I'm not alone. This is immense.

@doodlebeth's comics about being autistic were some of the first really accurate representations of autistic people that I ever saw. They also helped me to put things into words, back when I was relatively new to all this and really struggling with some things.

Lava lamps, and anything like them. They're just neat. Such a fantastic sensory thing to just stare at and dance to. I know this gif isn't actually of a lava lamp, but it's very similar and I like the aesthetic of it.

Overall, the autistic community has actually been way more accepting of me as a non-binary person than most of society has. And for the first time, I've found other people who actually share and understand my relationship with gender, which is def influenced by me being autistic.

Club Penguin! Yep, we just took a surprising turn. Almost every day, I play the System Defender game in Club Penguin, over and over. For some reason, I just find the rhythm of it actually occupies my mind in ways many other things don't. I listen to videos while playing it.

Are there any other autistic #conlang creators here? I'm in the process of creating a language just for personal use, that has words that English lacks, words that express my experiences more precisely. I want to be able to write about these things for my own understanding.

I don't have a Tumblr account, but every so often I check this account because I just find the art SO pretty. Here's a series of pictures they did that are clouds / skies in various pride flag colours:
https://star-plasma.tumblr.com/post/166039279132/lgbt-pride-%EF%BE%9F

I think being autistic really influences how I develop interests in things and how I interact with my interests. Things can be so deeply fascinating to me and I interact with them in ways that, to me, are so profound and important. I love my autistic ways of being interested.

Gonna go for a bit 'cause it's good to take a break, but I will hopefully come back to this later. I really, really like this thread and how uplifting it is, and I'm glad to myself for making it. I did a nice thing for myself here :)

I am gonna go for a bit, really, but I wanted to add this:
https://twitter.com/DrJayDP/status/1330244644857372672

I forgot about echolalia earlier, but it can be so delightful! There's something about certain words and phrases that just feels so stimmy and enjoyable to say.

Oh, and something I really like about my way of communicating is how much of it is references. Especially to Doctor Who, but also to other things, often internet culture stuff. It IS a valid way of expressing things, and it feels safe and comforting because they're familiar.

Thank you all so much for everything you've added to this thread so far. It has genuinely helped my mood so much. This community is fantastic.

Would be cool to hang out with some of you, so if anyone wants to play Among Us together, let me know. I'm setting up a neurodivergent-friendly lobby and would appreciate anyone from here joining. :) https://twitter.com/AZelasi/status/1330482360056504323