Post #3986859

2026-07-21 10:42 UTC

Is autistic distress around change necessarily a problem of personal rigidity or inflexibility? The truth is, everyone's more comfortable with change when they choose it, understand it -- and have some power over how it happens. And this is especially true for those who've been traumatised, or had deeply negative (or even just very intense!) experiences, even when others were insisting that everything was fine. So perhaps the deeper issue isn’t sameness, but safety and being listened to. 💟 #Autism #Autistic #ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent

Replies (1)

@guyjantic@infosec.exchange 2026-07-21 13:29

@KatyElphinstone@mas.to everyone is somewhere on the "openness to experience" personality dimension. I think you are right that one direction is largely about safety, comfort, etc. The other is perhaps about a need for occasional (defined very differently for different people) new experiences. I feel the latter acts as a "push" to move us out of the former on some individualized, situationally-influenced schedule, but it could be seen the other way around, too. Those two drives are more or less opposites; they don't live comfortably together, though everyone has some of each and we all fluctuate in which one is dominant at a.given time or in a particular situation. Sometimes two people get married even though one of them has a need for predictability and familiarity 16 out of every 24 hours and the other has a craving for novelty every twelve seconds.

Open ##3986858