that I enjoy as an autistic person 🌈

📜 journalling + having a daily planner 📜

I feel emotions quite extremely and struggle to process a lot of what happens in my life. Journalling regularly has been a huge help to me in terms of helping in regulating my emotions, and to actually process how I feel about the things happening in my life.

I also struggle with perfectionism and setting very high expectations from myself that I’m not always able to achieve. Planning out the activities I want to do in my day helps me have predictability and at the end of the day, if I feel like I was unproductive, didn’t get anything done or just negative thoughts in general, I am able to rationalise them by consulting my planner and looking at what I did throughout the day. My planner is a huge help for me in managing my black-or-white and all-or-nothing thinking.

The key with both these things for me is to be inconsistently consistent; it is not realistic to do both these things every single day but doing them regularly enough helps me feel better in my day-to-day.

 🖌️ (a LOT of) arts & crafts 🖌️

I am a huge fan of beading; the sensation of beads on my hands, the creative process of figuring out a design & colour combination and the repetitive motion of stringing the beads on the thread are all things that relax me and make this the perfect hobby for me. I have a huge collection of bracelets I’ve made over the years although I don’t wear most of them as I’m scared of them accidentally breaking.

Besides beading, I know how to crochet but don’t do it nearly as much as I should. I LOVE to doodle, just aimlessly drawing and ending up with a symphony of varied pen strokes, which somehow always ends up looking more cohesive than you would expect; doodling is a favourite past-time of mine since middle school. I also love to paint; the process of mindlessly playing with and mixing different colours has to be my favourite part of the process.

Lastly, I love personalising and DIY-ing any and every thing I can set my eyes on. I have painted my own phone case, made a phone charm, painted tote bags, dyed my own jeans, collaged on and repurposed boxes, painted on everything within sight and the list goes on. I love being able to repurpose old objects for new uses and to add a touch of my personality to everything I own!

🫶🏼 collecting things :) 🫶🏼

I have been collecting keychains since I was 8 years old; I currently have 37 keychains (and counting). I love travelling, and it has been a tradition for me to buy a keychain as a souvenir from every new place I visit!

I have also accumulated a huge collection of jewellery in recent years; I’m one hundred percent a silver jewellery girl and just cannot resist when I see a pretty piece of jewellery :P

People around me have pointed out how I always wear the same jewellery despite this, and honestly, I am just a creature of habit (and too lazy to change it every day when my daily stack of silver jewellery just goes well with everything)!

🎵 guitar, dancing & karaoke 🎵

Music makes me feel deeply and is one of those things that make me feel truly alive. I have recently started taking guitar lessons and although I am not very good at singing, just playing a few chords of a song and singing it makes me feel so calm and relaxed; it really goes to show how sensitivity to sensory stimuli can be so pleasurable when you are surrounded by sounds, lights and textures you actually enjoy.

Going to the club might not feel like a quintessentially autistic thing to do, but being in such a non-judgemental environment, with neon and disco lighting, no pressure to mask or talk to people and the ability to dance around freely without feeling perceived is honestly such a liberating experience. Another big plus if the music is good (and if you carry earplugs)!

Similar to clubbing, karaoke is another very light-hearted activity that is most enjoyable if you’re surrounded by a group of non-judgemental people (or if everyone is a few drinks in :P). Being whimsical and silly, singing along to your favourite songs surrounded by people you love; what could be better.

--💖💖These activities are just some of my favourite ways to add more joy, peace, colour and comfort to my life; what are yours?