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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 2h

The Uncomfortable Combination Of People Pleasing And Demand Avoidance

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#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #AutisticTwitter #Neurospicy #ND

The Uncomfortable Combination Of People Pleasing And Demand Avoidance

In my last video, I shared the story of being unfairly accused of cheating someone, but forgot to finish with what happened with the sheriff. Here's the rest...

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 5h

When people around us who love us and care about us genuinely, and are trying to be supportive, can’t always meet every need that we have, and we feel unloved or rejected, that’s because of a history of our own trauma.

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurodiversity #healthyrelationships

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 1d

Chrysalis vs. cocoon

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#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #AutisticTwitter #Neurospicy #ND

Chrysalis vs. cocoon

I named my coaching practice after a chrysalis, and here I describe the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon. **Here's the full video: https://youtu.b...

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 1d

The thing with ableism is that most people don't see it. It looks completely normal, realistic, and appropriate. And when it's so normalized we start doing it to ourselves, that's internalized ableism.

Learn more: buff.ly/dWIc36d

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurospicy #Neurodiversity

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 1d

If you’re focusing on, “My nervous system needs to feel safe. My nervous system needs to feel calm. My nervous system needs to feel soothed.” There are multiple ways to achieve that, it doesn’t just have to be that everyone is silent all the time.

Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 1d

What I’ve been learning is that there are always multiple ways to achieve a particular need when you’re looking at the underlying needs. 1/2

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #BurnoutRecovery #Sensory #Interoception

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 2d

AuDHD Without Shame

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#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurospicy #Neurodiversity

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 2d

Self-care means responding appropriately to the situation

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnMw...

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #AutisticTwitter #Neurospicy #ND

Self-care means responding appropriately to the situation

I got up early to avoid a potential issue with where I was staying overnight, and share how that misunderstanding nearly derailed years of personal growth an...

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 2d

A reasonable boundary is always something that you can do. It’s about what I will and will not do.

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurospicy #Neurodiversity

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 2d

Yep, berating yourself and making it worse is internalized ableism.
I'll be talking about this in the workshop.

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 2d

Do you get mad at your brain? Like, "Why won't my brain do what I want to do?"

What do you do after that? Do you get on your own case? Heap on the negative self talk? The blame? Punish yourself?

This is internalized ableism. Learn more:

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#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Neurospicy

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 3d

Self-Care Backfired - And Nearly Derailed All My Autistic Unmasking Progress

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#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #AutisticTwitter #Neurospicy #ND

Self-Care Backfired - And Nearly Derailed All My Autistic Unmasking Progress

I got up early to avoid a potential issue with where I was staying overnight, which reminded me of another time I had a similar issue, over a misunderstandin...

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 3d

I’d like to talk to that part of you that says you can’t. Why can’t you? Is there fear? A practical barrier?

Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 3d

What’s one thing you’re excited, intrigued, or have been dreaming about, that’s physically possible for you to do, and that you’ve been stopping yourself from doing? 1/2

#AskingAutistics #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Neurodiversity

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 4d

Two story dinosaur in the parking lot

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v17...

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #AutisticTwitter #Neurospicy #ND

Two story dinosaur in the parking lot

At the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, I found an 80 ft. life size camarasaurus supremus dinosaur in the parking lot.**Here's the full video: https://yo...

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 4d

If you want some neurodivergent and neuro-positive book recommendations, here are my favorites, ranging from fiction, to sensory advice, to autobiographies, to ways to dissolve internalized ableism.

You can find all of them at: buff.ly/Uy9kTKE

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurodiversity

Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 4d

When we start to get in touch with our physical reactions towards things, we start to gain information about what we really feel about things, because our nervous systems have had years and years and decades of experiences reacting to things.

#ActuallyAutistic #Autistic #AuDHD #Interoception

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 5d

My money mindset is stuck 25 years ago

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#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #AutisticTwitter #Neurospicy #ND

My money mindset is stuck 25 years ago

Part of why it has been hard for me to spend money is that everything seems expensive compared to when I developed my conception of prices, in the late 90s a...

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 5d

Notice those absolutes, and question why, like “Why should they?” “Why should I?” “What would happen if you don’t? And who benefits from you thinking that?”

Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 5d

If you’re interested in dissolving some of this internalized ableism, where I suggest a good place to start would be to notice those times when you think “I should”, or “I have to”. 1/2

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurodiversity #PersonalGrowth

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 5d

Is It Perfectionism?

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#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurospicy #Neurodiversity

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 6d

Not an entertainment expense, this is a personal growth purchase

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#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #AutisticTwitter #Neurospicy #ND

Not an entertainment expense, this is a personal growth purchase

As an entertainment expense, admission to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science feels expensive to me. But as a personal growth expense, it is very cheap.*...

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 6d

I want to use my privilege to prepare the way for other Autistics, and to show Autistics and NDs who are struggling in the way that I was just a few years ago, that a better life is possible.

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #Autistic #Neurodiversity

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 7d

I panicked when I saw the price

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNJ-...

#ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD #AutisticTwitter #Neurospicy #ND

I panicked when I saw the price

In my last video, I shared the personal growth moment that I had at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science the last time, and how I wanted to go back to rei...

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Heather Cook 🦓🖖Autistic Life Coach @autismchrysalis.bsky.social · 7d

As you start to get in touch with your nervous system, you can start to tap into information that it gives you and your body will give you more and more of that information.

#ActuallyAutistic #Autistic #AuDHD #Interoception #Sensory #BurnoutRecovery