speaking on what i posted earlier, i’ve been working on allowing myself to verbally shut down/freeze up when something bad happens because when i overreact it hurts my head, makes me cry, brings a lot of stress, and makes me feel anxious. i recently found out what AAC devices are and SGDs are! i use weave chat on my ipad when i verbally shut down and wow it has helped so much!
i had to use my aac yesterday after i got into a very minor car accident. my partner was driving the car. it was really shocking and scary. she screamed and yelled and that scared me. i verbally shut down and i still haven’t spoken since then. i think i will be okay though.
I'm a hearing-able and "usually" verbal person, but since I'm autistic I sometimes go into verbal shutdown.
Both because of that and because I simply find sign languages to be important languages that should be more normalized around the globe, I really wanted to have the opportunity to learn my country's sign language properly.
However, whenever I mention that to certain people, they'll tell me it's useless and pointless because I don't know any deaf, hard-of-hearing or nonverbal individuals.
Like????? Excuse me?????
I don't know about other countries, but we don't have the chance to learn sign in Portuguese schools and I personally think we should be taught to communicate easily with everyone in our own country before being taught how to communicate with foreigns.
Sign languages are languages like any other. When my friends chose to learn French and German no one told them it was useless because they don't know any French or German people, so what's the big deal with sign language?
I apologize to any and every deaf, Deaf, hard-of-hearing, non-verbal or semiverbal person reading this for how rude some jerks out there can be.
(Also, sorry if hearing-abled isn't the correct term, I can’t really find an answer anywhere)
Meltdowns aren't tantrums.
Burnout isn't procrastination.
Stims aren't pointless.
Shutdowns aren't just lack of attention.
Verbal shutdowns aren't a "silence treatment".
Hyperfixations aren't useless.
Special interests are more than obsessions.
Phobias aren't regular fears.
Panic attacks aren't controllable.
Self-harm isn't a trend.
Thanks for answering!!
We haven't fully looked at the video yet but we wanted to respond a bit to the side note thing (also maybe the tags?).
Yeah google is very good for things, lol. We just mainly sent the ask cause we saw that you had said that you wanted some asks sent, lol.
We had some ASL classes (read: was in ASL 1 two times cause we aren't good with school and that includes college, lol). We would love to take more classes for ASL but we have a lot of difficulties with school and stuff so that seems like it might not happen.
While we might not be deaf (although we do have difficulties with hearing, lol), the reason we love ASL and learning it is that we have verbal shutdowns (others tend to refer to this kind of thing as "going nonverbal" but that's not really correct). So while ASL might not be our language or culture, to us it is more than just a "fun fact". [This was just us explaining, we aren't upset with you saying the thing about it being a fun fact].
Once again, thanks for answering our ask!
- Shay 🐾
Hello! We saw your "speak your language day" post.
We know a bit of ASL ourselves but would definitely love to learn more!
Do you know how to sign things like "plural" (as in the plurality community), "alterhuman", "nonhuman", and just stuff like that? We would love to learn if there are signs for some of our communities even though there probably isn't, lol.
If there aren't any signs for those, we would just love to learn different signs for (nonhuman) animals! Especially canines (wolves, dogs, jackals, etc.) and felines (cats, tigers, cheetahs, etc.)
- Shay 🐾
English:
I’m still a student so I’m not an ASL authority, remember that. But, for plural I would maybe sign like [listing things], or… depends on how many you feel, like [list 2] [list 3] [list 4] [list 5] personalities, or self, [multiple self]. Maybe, depends. For- I’ve seen human signed with the H handshape like [body] becomes [human] like [person] becomes [human]. So maybe with other signs added before, like [not human] or [other human]. Or [not human] [other human]. Like that. There’s not a lot of signs for specific identities like that. But for other animal signs, the sign for animal is [animal]. I don’t know a lot… like, I know dog, I know cat, but specific types…. Like, a lot is describing what it looks like. I don’t know if tiger sign exists already, it probably does, I would try signing it by explaining what it looks like. Like, orange cat, large with black stripes down it, like that. Yeah. I hope that helps. Bye!
(Side note: Not signed just adding something. If you’re curious about a sign, google is your friend. Lots of signs can be found online and signs can vary depending on the region. Some signs in the state I’m from are very different from signs elsewhere. Look online and if trying to communicate with deaf people in your area keep in mind that many signs can be localized! Just cause I sign something one way doesn’t mean a deaf person from your state is wrong for signing it another. Far from it! Understand the culture of your area, understand deaf culture, and remember, for you it may be a fun fact, for them it’s their language. Be aware and have fun signing!)