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an-ace-on-the-case · 3 months

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Sorry in advance for the angry rant

CWs: mentions of adhd meds (idk if that's a cw but I put it just to be safe)

Let me tell you about "gifted kids". Many people think that saying you are/were a "gifted kid" is a brag. They want to be a "gifted kid" because clearly it's so easy. But it isn't.

I am a "gifted kid".

Throughout all of primary school I coasted. I always passed all my assessments, usually with straight As. It wasn't challenging. I found it easy.

Then I started high school.

I'm in the extension class, often called the 'Smart Kids Class'. I've been in it since I started high school. We do extra work for all of the core subjects, on top of all of the normal assessments.

Year seven was awful. Way too many late nights were spent, finishing assessments the night before they were due. Many many mental breakdowns. My mental health declined. I had no confidence in myself, in my ability to do anything. I didn't think I was good enough, because it had been drilled into me since prep that failing academically was failing as a person. Sure the teachers had never outright said it but it was heavily implied.

It turns out that I had adhd. How could've guessed?

Year 8 was better, my adhd was medicated and I could keep on top of my work better. It was probably the best year I've had, despite all of the friendship issues. I could keep on top of work easily, I wasn't struggling anymore.

But then. Time skip to the start of this year.

The adhd meds stopped working.

I had built up a tolerence and I needed to up the dose. But the only appointment available was halfway through May this year. I just had to push through on my current dose.

It started again. The mental breakdowns about twice a month. Struggling to stay on top of work. Forgetting homework. Forgetting assessments. Procrastination. Everything I thought I left behind was back, and it was worse. I had some experience so I managed to get through it, but not unscathed. My mental health is shit. I have massive self-esteem issues. I have no confidence in any of the things I used to be confident in. I can't enjoy anything that is associated with school, which means I no longer enjoy drama. I don't feel like I can write anymore.

In the end, I went to the appointment. We're trying to decide which dose works for me best. But it's still so hard. The worst part is no one else seems to get it. Only about four other people in my class are (proabably) neurodivergent, and I'm not even great friends with them.

My life right now is a combination marathon, sprint, hop, and plate balancing. The marathon is to the end of the year, when I can have a rest, reset, relax. I also have to sprint, to try and keep up with all of schoolwork. But I have to hop, because it's so much harder for me to do the same goddamn thing my peers can do with ease. And on top of all that. I have to balance all my schoolwork, homework, extra-curricular activities, social life, self-care, mental health, and basic needs.

It's only term two and I'm already fucking exhausted.

But on the outside.

To everyone else watching.

I seem

fine.

So maybe

Just maybe

People who weren't/aren't "gifted kids" should stop wishing that they were.

#sorry for the long rant #i just needed to vent #im so angry #but so tired #i just want to relax #but i cant #im drowning #but no one seems to get it #because im just good at masking it #because ive had so much practice #because i dont want to empose on other people #because i dont want to make them feel bad #my mental health is so shitty #i want to get help #i want to do something about it #but im just so fucking tired

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lucy--studies · 2 years

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hi im lucy :) ⎻ Intro Post

Hello and welcome to my new studyblr!

☽ my name is Lucy, I'm almost 20 years old, and this is my studyblr! ☾

About me:

I am almost 20 years old

From Midwest America

I am going into my third year of college, majoring in graphic design

INFP, Gryffindor, Type 4

Leo sun, Aquarius moon, Gemini rising

Neurodivergent

I have been on tumblr since I was 12 and have really been lurking ever since

Constantly stuck between wanting to homestead and wanting to be a big time city gal lol

Why am I starting this blog?

I have always admired the study community, but never felt that I quite fit in with it. My life is definitely not very aesthetically pleasing and each day is a battle with keeping up with a routine because of my ADHD. Therefore, there are a few reasons as to why I am starting this blog:

Keep myself disciplined and motivated: I want to build a stronger routine in my life.

To be a relatable presence: I want to be a blog you can relate to, to show people that life isn't always perfect, social media is fake, and you don't always have to have everything together because I sure as hell don't

To be honest with myself: This will also serve as a place where I can journal and put out all of the thoughts in my head, because I feel like i'm going crazy if I don't get them out. I am creating a safe space for myself to be honest.

Hobbies:

I LOVE anything art related, whether it be art history, or anything else. My favorite period of art is impressionism/post impressionism

I'm picking up on film photography and I LOVE it sm. My university actually has a darkroom and it is my favorite thing ever.

I play the trumpet in my school's marching band

I love alternative/indie music

Im trying to get back intro reading but finding time is hard lol

I used to do a lot of theater in HS and I still love it :)

Makeup

Baking

Academics:

The past 2 years I have already taken some introductory art courses, art history courses and basic classes on adobe software and typography as well as the general education courses for my school.

This upcoming fall semester I will be taking:

Typography II

History of Graphic Design

Design Processes II

Physics

Physics Lab

Marketing

On top of this I will also be memorizing music for the marching band and I will be picking up the Korean Language again. I tried learning it a couple years back and have always admired the culture and language, but then my mental health got in the way and covid happened and so I kinda fell behind and eventually didn't have time. I got to about the intermediate stage I'd say?

Goals:

My idea is to keep each of these attainable because I have a habit of overwhelming myself lol. I have ADHD so routine is very hard for me but I am starting this blog to keep myself motivated so hopefully it helps :)

Keep a journal

Work out at least 5 times a week

finish the korean duolingo tree

(This is a bit more long-term lol) graduate Summa Cum Laude

I will also be writing down a more solid routine once I get the hang of it.

If you've made it this far here are some study buddies I admire :)

@studyquill @studylou @aquariusstudying @featheredstudies

#study tips #studyinspo #studyblr #new studyblr #new studyspo #new study blog #full potential challenge #productive #studying #study notes #stay productive #lucy studies #student #study

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ganymedesclock · 3 years

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These are questions I've had for some while and it's hard to find someone who'll answer with grace. This mostly relates to disabilities (mental or physical) in fiction.

1) What makes a portrayal of a disability that's harming the character in question ableist?

2) Is there a way to write a disabled villain in a way that isn't ableist?

In the circles I've been in, the common conceptions are you can't use a character's disability as a plot point or showcase it being a hindrance in some manner. heaven forbid you make your villain disabled in some capacity, that's a freaking death sentence to a creative's image. I understand historically villains were the only characters given disabilities, but (and this is my personal experience) I've not seen as many disabled villains nowadays, heck, I see more disabled heroes in media nowadays.

Sorry if this comes off as abrasive, I'd really like to be informed for future media consumption and my own creative endeavors.

Okay so the first thing I'm going to say is that while it IS a good idea to talk to disabled people and get their feedback, disabled people are not a monolith and they aren't going to all have the same take on how this goes.

My personal take is biased in favor that I'm a neurodivergent person (ADHD and autism) who has no real experience with physical disabilities, so I won't speak for physically disabled people- heck, I won't even speak for every neurotype. Like I say, people aren't a monolith.

For myself and my own writing of disabled characters, here's a couple of concepts I stick by:

Research is your friend

Think about broad conventions of ableism

Be mindful of cast composition

1. Research is your friend

Yeah this is the thing everybody says, so here's the main bases I try to cover:

What's the story on this character's disability?

Less in terms of 'tragic angst' and more, what kind of condition this is- because a congenital amputee (that is to say, someone who was born without a limb) will have a different relationship to said limb absence than someone who lost their limb years ago to someone who lost their limb yesterday. How did people in their life respond to it, and how did they respond to it? These responses are not "natural" and will not be the same to every person with every worldview. This can also be a great environment to do worldbuilding in! Think about the movie (and the tv series) How To Train Your Dragon. The vikings in that setting don't have access to modern medicine, and they're, well, literally fighting dragons and other vikings. The instance of disability is high, and the medical terminology to talk about said disabilities is fairly lackluster- but in a context where you need every man you possibly can to avoid the winter, the mindset is going to be not necessarily very correct, but egalitarian. You live in a village of twenty people and know a guy who took a nasty blow to the head and hasn't quite been the same ever since? "Traumatic Brain Injury" is probably not going to be on your lips, but you're also probably going to just make whatever peace you need to and figure out how to accommodate Old Byron for his occasional inability to find the right word, stammers and trembles. In this example, there are several relevant pieces of information- what the character's disability is (aphasia), how they got it (brain injury), and the culture and climate around it (every man has to work, and we can't make more men or throw them away very easily, so, how can we make sure this person can work even if we don't know what's wrong with them)

And that dovetails into:

What's the real history, and modern understandings, of this?

This is where "knowing the story" helps a lot. To keep positing our hypothetical viking with a brain injury, I can look into brain injuries, what affects their extent and prognosis, and maybe even beliefs about this from the time period and setting I'm thinking of (because people have had brains, and brain injuries, the entire time!) Sure, if the setting is fantastical, I have wiggle room, but looking at inspirations might give me a guide post.

Having a name for your disorder also lets you look for posts made by specific people who live with the condition talking about their lives. This is super, super important for conditions stereotyped as really scary, like schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. Even if you already know "schizophrenic people are real and normal" it's still a good thing to wake yourself up and connect with others.

2. Think about broad conventions of ableism

It CAN seem very daunting or intimidating to stay ahead of every single possible condition that could affect someone's body and mind and the specific stereotypes to avoid- there's a lot under the vast umbrella of human experience and we're learning more all the time! A good hallmark is, ableism has a few broad tendencies, and when you see those tendencies rear their head, in your own thinking or in accounts you read by others, it's good to put your skeptical glasses on and look closer. Here's a few that I tend to watch out for:

Failing the “heartwarming dog” test

This was a piece of sage wisdom that passed my eyeballs, became accepted as sage wisdom, and my brain magnificently failed to recall where I saw it. Basically, if you could replace your disabled character with a lovable pet who might need a procedure to save them, and it wouldn’t change the plot, that’s something to look into.

Disability activists speak often about infantilization, and this is a big thing of what they mean- a lot of casual ableism considers disabled people as basically belonging to, or being a burden onto, the able-bodied and neurotypical. This doesn’t necessarily even need to have an able neurotypical in the picture- a personal experience I had that was extremely hurtful was at a point in high school, I decided to do some research on autism for a school project. As an autistic teenager looking up resources online, I was very upset to realize that every single resource I accessed at the time presumed it was talking to a neurotypical parent about their helpless autistic child. I was looking for resources to myself, yet made to feel like I was the subject in a conversation.

Likewise, many wheelchair users have relayed the experience of, when they, in their chair, are in an environment accompanied by someone else who isn’t using a chair, strangers would speak to the standing person exclusively, avoiding addressing the chair user.

It’s important to always remind yourself that at no point do disabled people stop being people. Yes, even people who have facial deformities; yes, even people who need help using the bathroom; yes, even people who drool; yes, even people whose conditions impact their ability to communicate, yes, even people with cognitive disabilities. They are people, they deserve dignity, and they are not “a child trapped in a 27-year-old body”- a disabled adult is still an adult. All of the “trying to learn the right rules” in the world won’t save you if you keep an underlying fear of non-normative bodies and minds.

This also has a modest overlap between disability and sexuality in particular. I am an autistic grayromantic ace. Absolutely none of my choices or inclinations about sex are because I’m too naive or innocent or childlike to comprehend the notion- disabled people have as diverse a relationship with sexuality as any other. That underlying fear- as mentioned before- can prevent many people from imagining that, say, a wheelchair user might enjoy sex and have experience with it. Make sure all of your disabled characters have full internal worlds.

Poor sickly little Tiffany and the Red Right Hand

A big part of fictional ableism is that it separates the disabled into two categories. Anybody who’s used TVTropes would recognize the latter term I used here. But to keep it brief:

Poor, sickly little Tiffany is cute. Vulnerable. How her disability affects her life is that it constantly creates a pall of suffering that she lives beneath. After all, having a non-normative mind or body must be an endless cavalcade of suffering and tragedy, right? People who are disabled clearly spend their every waking moment affected by, and upset, that they aren’t normal!

The answer is... No, actually. Cut the sad violin; even people who have chronic pain who are literally experiencing pain a lot more than the rest of us are still fully capable of living complex lives and being happy. If nothing else, it would be literally boring to feel nothing but awful, and people with major depression or other problems still, also, have complicated experiences. And yes, some of it’s not great. You don’t have to present every disability as disingenuously a joy to have. But make a point that they own these things. It is a very different feeling to have a concerned father looking through the window at his angel-faced daughter rocking sadly in her wheelchair while she stares longingly out the window, compared to a character waking up at midnight because they have to go do something and frustratedly hauling their body out of their bed into their chair to get going.

Poor Sickly Little Tiffany (PSLT, if you will) virtually always are young, and they virtually always are bound to the problems listed under ‘failing the heartwarming dog’ test. Yes, disabled kids exist, but the point I’m making here is that in the duality of the most widely accepted disabled characters, PSLT embodies the nadir of the Victim, who is so pure, so saintly, so gracious, that it can only be a cruel quirk of fate that she’s suffering. After all, it’s not as if disabled people have the same dignity that any neurotypical and able-bodied person has, where they can be an asshole and still expect other people to not seriously attack their quality of life- it’s a “service” for the neurotypical and able-bodied to “humor” them.

(this is a bad way to think. Either human lives matter or they don’t. There is no “wretched half-experience” here- if you wouldn’t bodily grab and yank around a person standing on their own feet, you have no business grabbing another person’s wheelchair)

On the opposite end- and relevant to your question- is the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand does not have PSLT’s innocence or “purity”- is the opposite extreme. The Red Right Hand is virtually always visually deformed, and framed as threatening for their visual deformity. To pick on a movie I like a fair amount, think about how in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the title character is described- “Strong. Fast. Had a metal arm.” That’s a subtle example, but, think about how that metal arm is menacing. Sure, it’s a high tech weapon in a superhero genre- but who has the metal arm? The Winter Soldier, who is, while a tormented figure that ultimately becomes more heroic- scary. Aggressive. Out for blood.

The man who walks at midnight with a Red Right Hand is a signal to us that his character is foul because of the twisting of his body. A good person, we are led to believe, would not be so- or a good person would be ashamed of their deformity and work to hide it. The Red Right Hand is not merely “an evil disabled person”- they are a disabled person whose disability is depicted as symptomatic of their evil, twisted nature, and when you pair this trope with PSLT, it sends a message: “stay in your place, disabled people. Be sad, be consumable, and let us push you around and decide what to do with you. If you get uppity, if you have ideas, if you stand up to us, then the thing that made you a helpless little victim will suddenly make you a horrible monster, and justify us handling you with inhumanity.”

As someone who is a BIG fan of eldritch horror and many forms of unsettling “wrongness” it is extremely important to watch out for the Red Right Hand. Be careful how you talk about Villainous Disability- there is no connection between disability and morality. People will be good, bad, or simply just people entirely separate from their status of ability or disability. It’s just as ableist to depict every disabled person as an innocent good soul as it is to exclusively deal in grim and ghastly monsters.

Don’t justify disabilities and don’t destroy them.

Superpowers are cool. Characters can and IMO should have superpowers, as long as you’re writing a genre when they’re there.

BUT.

It’s important to remember that there is no justification for disabilities, because they don’t need one. Disability is simply a feature characters have. You do not need to go “they’re blind, BUT they can see the future”

This is admittedly shaky, and people can argue either way; the Blind Seer is a very pronounced mythological figure and an interesting philosophical point about what truly matters in the world. There’s a reason it exists as a conceit. But if every blind character is blind in a way that completely negates that disability or makes it meaningless- this sucks. People have been blind since the dawn of time. And people will always accommodate their disabilities in different ways. Even if the technology exists to fix some forms of blindness, there are people who will have “fixable” blindness and refuse to treat it. There will be individuals born blind who have no meaningful desire to modify this. And there are some people whose condition will be inoperable even if it “shouldn’t” be.

You don’t need to make your disabled characters excessively cool, or give them a means by which the audience can totally forget they’re disabled. Again, this is a place where strong worldbuilding is your buddy- a handwave of “x technology fixed all disabilities”, in my opinion, will never come off good. If, instead, however, you throw out a careless detail that the cool girl the main character is chatting up in a cyberpunk bar has an obvious spinal modification, and feature other characters with prosthetics and without- I will like your work a lot, actually. Even if you’re handing out a fictional “cure”- show the seams. Make it have drawbacks and pros and cons. A great example of this is in the series Full Metal Alchemist- the main character has two prosthetic limbs, and not only do these limbs come with problems, some mundane (he has phantom limb pains, and has to deal with outgrowing his prostheses or damaging them in combat) some more fantastical (these artificial limbs are connected to his nerves to function fluidly- which means that they get surgically installed with no anesthesia and hurt like fuck plugging in- and they require master engineering to stay in shape). We explicitly see a scene of the experts responsible for said limbs talking to a man who uses an ordinary prosthetic leg, despite the advantages of an automail limb, because these drawbacks are daunting to him and he is happier with a simple prosthetic leg.

Even in mundane accommodations you didn’t make up- no two wheelchair users use their chair the exact same way, and there’s a huge diversity of chairs. Someone might be legally blind but still navigate confidently on their own; they might use a guide dog, or they might use a cane. They might even change their needs from situation to situation!

Disability accommodations are part of life

This ties in heavily to the previous point, but seriously! Don’t just look up one model of cane and superimpose it with no modifications onto your character- think about what their lifestyle is, and what kind of person they are!

Also medication is not the devil. Yes, medical abuse is real and tragic and the medication is not magic fairy dust that solves all problems either. But also, it’s straight ableism to act like anybody needing pills for any reason is a scary edgy plot twist.

(and addiction is a disease. Please be careful, and moreover be compassionate, if you’re writing a character who’s an addict)

3. Be mindful of cast composition

This, to me, is a big tip about disability writing and it’s also super easy to implement!

Just make sure your cast has a lot of meaningful disabled characters in it!

Have you done all the work you can to try and dodge the Red Right Hand but you’re still worried your disabled villain is a bad look? They sure won’t look like a commentary on disability if three other people in the cast are disabled and don’t have the same outlook or role! Worried that you’re PSLT-ing your main character’s disabled child? Maybe the disability is hereditary and they got it from the main character!

The more disabled characters you have, the more it will challenge you to think about what their individual relationship is with the world and the less you��ll rely on hackneyed tropes. At least, ideally.

Ultimately, there’s no perfect silver bullet of diversity writing that will prevent a work from EVER being ableist, but I hope this helped, at least!

#disability #writing ruminations #readmore

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champagnehoneybee · 2 years

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Fuck, it’s really been 5 years since I’ve been on here. Reading old posts makes me feel really grateful for my therapist I had in college. Ma’am, I hope you’re thriving and living your best life because we both know I put your ass to WORK back in the day. That was some hard work beginning the untangling of all the tentacles of self doubt, people pleasing, and self sabotage that had made their way into my brain. God bless.

My mental health was a nightmare back then and tbh it still is but at least at the ripe age of 26 in grad school I finally got my ADHD diagnosis, which explains a fucking lot about why I could somehow never seem to get it together. A lot of these old posts cause some grief for me to read because at the time I knew there was something else going on underneath all that anxiety and depression, I thought maybe it was ADHD but I had shitty insurance at the time and doctors constantly hit me with the “you’re probably just anxious” 🥴 Well jokes on y’all bc I had a hella strong fam hx of neurodivergence and had become an expert at masking as a survival instinct.

Now I miss my grad school therapist. I swear to god that woman held my mental health in her hands like a tiny bird all throughout grad school, the hellscape that is modern dating, a long term relationship, through the shitty therapy farm jobs I had after grad school, my cousin’s death, my own self being nearly chewed up and spit out by the profession that eats its young and is steeped in white supremacy and ableism. She gave me a book before I moved to New York, The Gift of Therapy… I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I already had my own copy that I bought after she told me about it but I was too burnt out to read it over Christmas vacation. Bc you know a bitch was trying to get caught up on my notes on Christmas vacation, what else would I be doing? 😵‍💫 fueled by coffee and Jesus’ mom’s arepas and hallacas. God bless her too. I’m keeping the copy she gave me to give to the next baby therapist that I encounter. Sisterhood of the traveling Yalom book I guess.

Now I get to hold the space for others to untangle their stuff and it’s a privilege. We’re all just walking each other home

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what-even-is-thiss · 4 years

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Something truly fascinating about reading Jake Paul’s book is getting a glimpse into the mind of a person that grew up drenched in privilege.

I mean I thought I was privileged because I’m white and my parents went to college but Jake? Nothing bad has ever happened to this man. He got bullied his junior year of high school because people were jealous of his follower count and one time he was peer pressured into helping someone steal a phone and that was it. He makes me look like an orphan in a Dickens novel in comparison.

I don’t doubt that despite his asshole-ish attitude that he’s a hard worker but jeez. His big defining moment that stuck with him for years was losing a wrestling match. No deaths, he was too young to be affected by his parents’ divorce, his mom married a doctor and his dad was a highly successful realtor.

Jake and Logan Paul grew up wanting for nothing. And I should’ve known that already but reading a life story with that little amount of struggle was jarring to me. I kept thinking where’s the tragedy? Where’s the bullying? Where’s anything besides working hard and scheming to talk to girls and make money?

There was nothing that ever really really forced him to face hardship. There was no worry about money. Almost no bullying. His biggest struggle was that his teachers were rightfully concerned about the long-term viability of a social media career. I thought that childhoods like that were made up. Surely everyone has something. Money troubles, abuse, bullying, neurodivergence, addiction, something. But no. He doesn’t even have anxiety. There’s even zero mention of the 2008 financial crisis. And don’t tell me he was too young to be thinking about that. I’m a year and a half younger than him and I noticed my family constantly being low on money I wasn’t dumb. The only explanation is that his family wasn’t affected by that. Which... how?

And the worst part of all this is: I don’t think he’s stupid. He’s clearly not. But all of this luck has inflated his ego to the size of West Texas and I don’t think that there’s a way to bring it down. The Pauls didn’t exactly have life fed to them on a silver spoon but someone sure as hell put one in their hands and left a pot of soup unguarded on the stove meanwhile the rest of us can’t even find a plastic fork or a recipe book.

I’m just so baffled that these people exist out there completely unburdened by childhood angst. Their egos just floating in midair with nobody tall enough to catch them. How do they not just implode on themselves? I’m at a loss.

#roman said a thing #rambling

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dino-nugget7 · 4 years

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A Manifesto Against The School System

As of writing this I am a second year Public High School Teacher. I won’t be able to live with myself if I spend another year at it. Literally, I feel like a bit of a monster for deciding to finish out this school year rather than quitting right now. But we do what we must to survive, my students won’t be less oppressed because I left, and if nothing else, it gives me an opportunity to strategize about what I can do to aid in revolutionizing school because authentic alternatives to public school exist but none I have found have been intersectional enough to replace public education without excluding the kids who would most benefit from escaping the main school system here in America.

Some of the reasons I did not understand how oppressive school actually is, are that my interests and hobbies happened to align very neatly with the “core” classes, and that even though I grew up very poor and moved around a lot as a kid, we eventually settled and I went to a well funded high school that had just about any elective and/or after school club that I might be interested in trying and then some. During that time, I came to see school as a place where I could explore my passions and escape my home situation. So I figured I would love to pay it forward and go be a teacher.

I recognized at least, the privileged position I came from and decided I wanted to go learn how to teach in settings as different from my high school as possible. Which is why I went and got special permission for most of my classroom placements throughout the teaching program to be at alternative schools. In Colorado at least, alternative schools are small public schools which primarily serve students identified as “at risk”, which is shorthand for “Statistically more likely to drop out than the general population for one reason or another.”

I did not know when I asked to be placed in one, but learned within days of being there that most people that even know alternative schools exist, think of them as the places where “the bad kids” go. I realized very quickly that they are actually places filled with kids who have experienced a lot of trauma in and out of school and don’t respond to that trauma the way adults want them to respond. I came to adore kids at alternative schools because they remind me of my younger siblings.

Like my oldest brother, many of them find school mind numbingly easy and boring and have much more pressing matters to devote their mental energy to.

Like my middle brother, many of them have spent so much time around teachers who do not understand neurodivergence that have been convinced of the lie that they are weird, dumb and/or lazy and because of that, trying to participate in school is like hitting their head on a brick wall.

Like all of my brothers and my sisters, they have a ton of skills that they are brilliant at, but that are not prioritized by the school system, so they never pursue them, such as construction, music, makeup and programming.

Many, if not most of them come from living situations full of abuse and neglect and/or poverty so they don’t have the mental or emotional space to worry about much beyond survival, and not only haven’t learned how to make and achieve long term goals, but have never had the luxury of a stable enough environment for that kind of planning to be worthwhile.

All that being said, something that you only realize if you actually work in a few public alternative schools, as I have done through college and my current job, is that the name is actually an oxymoron.

What started me down the path of considering and researching all the ways school is an oppressive system, was a conversation I had with a student in my first year teaching. He was learning about chemical reactions and safety and asked me the infamous question, “Why do I have to learn about this?” to which I said “Because everything is chemicals and understanding how they can interact with one another and ways they can harm you can keep you safe when you do things like clean or cook.” To which he replied, “Well no offense but I have no idea how this shit relates to cooking and please don’t tell me because its not like I’m actually going to remember it when I am cooking, and I already know how to clean safely because of work. But you’re still going to make me learn this boring shit anyways so seriously, why do we have to learn about this?”

I paused to consider what he was asking. I had interpreted, as the system trained me to, that the question he was asking was, “what value does this knowledge hold?” But what he actually meant was “Why are you making me waste my time learning about this thing that I never asked to learn about?” So I replied, as a sort of test of my new understanding, “It’s part of the physical science curriculum the Education Department thinks is important for high schoolers to learn.” He was taken aback, “Wait, you don’t decide what stuff we learn about? What’s even the point of teachers then? Why don’t they just give us a list of all their stupid stuff they think we should know so we can get on with our lives?” He had a point and I have spent a lot of time reflecting on and growing from that conversation.

Sure, there are some key differences that make alternative schools slightly more tolerable than your standard 800-4,000 kid high school. Class sizes are smaller so students get more individualized help. We get funding to help students access things such as food, clothes, hygiene products, and healthcare and know students well enough that we actually know which kids are lacking these resources. We have slightly more leeway than traditional schools to create innovative lessons. We don’t give out homework.

But public alternative schools are still oppressive in most of the ways that the big schools are. I’m sure none of this will be a surprise to most readers, but I want you to really consider how restricted kids in public school are, how restricted you probably were in school as you read through this.

School starts early in the morning and students have to constantly shift mental gears throughout the day due to a tight schedule of constantly rotating classes and a very short lunch break. Throughout the day, bells tell students when they can’t or must move around or eat. Students have to ask when they need to go to the bathroom or get water and teachers cannot go at all outside of their plan period because students are not trusted to be in the classroom without an adult even for a few minutes. They have no control over who they share space with and very little control over their ability to leave that space if it conflicts with their needs. There is a strict dress code which disproportionately targets marginalized students. Students are expected to be sociable but not given nearly enough opportunities to actually socialize. The school keeps records of everything the student has ever gotten in trouble for, every class the student has taken, every grade they have received, their “class rank,” and every intervention program the student is part of. And like every public school, alternative schools must follow state curriculum standards and by extension, grading, data collection, and required testing. On the surface it might not seem like it, but that last point is actually the most insidious one and its the one that has followed students into remote learning during the pandemic.

According to the people who decide how schools work, there are four factors of student choice: These factors are Time, Place, Pace, and Path. For example, if I am running a unit on plate tectonics, rather than giving students a worksheet and telling them to work on it as we go through a slideshow and turn it in at the end of class, I could put them in groups, give them an online choice board of three different but roughly equivalent projects relating to plate tectonics to choose from, each with different rubrics for completion and tell them they can turn it in at any time in the next two weeks. And then instead of devoting class time to direct instruction, I would give them a variety of resources to peruse and teach them how to research more and let them choose what aspects of plate tectonics to focus on and how to present their information. Now, this is certainly a few steps in the right direction away from making kids sit in rows and listen to the teacher drone on about plate tectonics while they take notes. But it misses the most important factors of choice in my eyes, the things that I would be fired for if I actually gave them the choice about: How students spend their time and what they are allowed to prioritze.

None of this is to say that expecting kids to learn is inherently fucked up or that teaching inherently makes one an oppressive person. On the contrary, authentic teaching and learning are vital to our ability to solve our problems and grow as people. If all students were given the opportunities to spend their childhoods learning things that they were actually interested in, to explore the full breadth of knowledge that humans have compiled at their leisure without timelines or milestones except the ones they set for themselves, to socialize with people of all ages, to authentically participate in society both as learners and as educators, as leaders and as team members, the world wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be a lot less soul crushing.

Now, I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that authentic alternatives do exist. To get you started on researching what’s out there, I recommend starting with Sudbury schools and the unschooling movement.

But unless these models somehow miraculously become a large and accepted enough presence to get government funding, or money ceases its hold on us all, the public school system will be the only one that most students, especially impoverished students, transient students, english language learners, and disabled students (especially those with profound disabilities) will have access to. Which is a damn shame and a problem I am committed to trying to figure out how to contribute to solving because those are the students whose lives would be most radically transformed for the better if they got the opportunities that these models provide.

#school #anti school #oppression #manifesto #youth liberation #I am aware that this severely pushes how long people are willing to read for on Tumblr #but I needed to get it out there into the void

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steponmepinkjun · 3 years

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Sara I hope you dont mind me dropping this kind of ask, I just dont have anyone to talk abt this topic in particular and i have seen you open up about being neurodivergent multiple times.

All this time I believe that im neurotypical and always have to progress through life the way neurotypical people do, but from like 2 years ago i'm starting to question if i really am one bcs when I read about neurodivergency I slowly began to see myself in the description. How does one get um.. Diagnosed? I feel like theres sth abt myself that i havent figured out yet and I just want to know and love myself better.

Also forgive me for not being articulate enough, this is something im working out on.

Okay so I am obviously not a doctor or expert on neurodivergency, but I've gleaned a bit of knowledge from the nearly three decades I've spent being ND. So heres my advise.

First, I would begin with identifying why you'd like to seek an official diagnosis. Depending on what it is you're trying to diagnose, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Officially being diagnosed with ADHD gave me a sense of understanding I never had, gave a name to the symptoms that had been, quite honestly, ruining my life, and most importantly gave me access to the medication that completely turned my life around and made me a functioning human being. Even though I was diagnosed late in life (ie after school/developing years), I was still very lucky—my psychiatrist saw what the six previous ones I'd seen didn't. Before that, I was in treatment for depression and anxiety since age 11, had seen 13 therapists, and been on over 15 medications, to no avail. I'm lucky because a lot of obtaining a diagnosis for ADHD relies on self-reporting and reports from your parents—which is fucking stupid considering adhd is genetic, so my adhd parent probably isn't going to see my behavior as abnormal, IF they can even remember my behavior or payed attention to it. Despite those things, I was able to finally get diagnosed at age 22, and it changed my life. However, despite the fact that I suspected since I was a teenager that I might be on the autism spectrum (my brother, father, and several members of his family are), I made the conscious decision not to seek an official diagnosis. The medical community at large is incredibly ignorant and biased in regards to diagnosing autism in women, getting a diagnosis is ridiculously expensive, and unfortunately where I live an autism diagnosis can put you at significant disadvantage in the court system (it's often used as proof that an individual isn't mentally competent enough to do things like stand trial or be given sole custody of their own children, among other things). Plus, autism itself isn't treatable, so in my eyes I saw no benefit to getting a piece of paper telling me what I already knew. That's a personal choice that no one can judge another for—your reasons for seeking diagnosis are entirely valid whatever they are, and you owe an explanation to no one. I only wish to point out that not all diagnosis carry the same cost/benefit.

Getting a diagnosis can be a huge uphill battle, and it usually takes stamina and mental fortitude to get there. But everyone needs and deserves to have a community, a sense of understanding, and a support network, and wanting that alone is a more than valid reason to pursue a diagnosis.

So here's what I'd do. Get yourself in to see a psychiatrist (a therapist will do IF they have the training to diagnose, not all do), and do some research beforehand. Things as simple as googling "I think I might have/be (insert neurodivergent term here, for me this would be ADHD or autistic)" can give you some good starting points for what traits/symptoms are common. And as you're doing your research, take notes! If you see something jump out at you that you super relate to or that puts a feeling you've always had into words, write it down, copy the phrase, include things like how often you feel that way and what age you were when you began experiencing that. If there are ND behaviors that your immediate family share, that is very relevant, and actually gives a lot of context as to if something is a ND trait, trauma response, or shared personality quirk. Bring those notes with you to your appointment, reference them, and take notes of your own with the Dr's feedback. If you feel like you're being dismissed, tell them that, if you feel dissatisfied with their assessment, say so, and ask what your options are going forward. You probably won't walk away with a solid answer in just one day, but it's a good place to start.

It usually doesn't hurt to seek out community online, either, provided you take it all with a grain of salt—I've found that doctors tend to minimize symptoms, while peers online tend to maximize them. Ie, the way ND tiktok has become a slew of "do you breathe oxygen? Here's why that might be a sign you have adhd" type vids. Get second and third and fourth opinions before you take something to heart, you know?

And (even though this may go without saying), while I am no doctor, I have amassed more knowledge of my own disorders (as well as cptsd, ho lawdy its a fuckin doozy) than perhaps any one person should, so if you're at all in my vein or neurodivergency then please feel free to reach out to me directly, I'm always open to offering advise or a friendly ear or a sounding board for thoughts and ideas.

#Neurodivergent #ND advise

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regrettablewritings · 4 years

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May I ask for 11, 14, 22 and 28 for Benoit Blanc if you don’t mind?

Certainly! Stuff below the cut!

Disclaimer: I personally headcanon Benoit’s s/o as being somewhere on the spectrum. I know not everyone identifies with this so I’ll also be including snippets of otherwise when I deem it necessary for accessibility. Happy reading!

11. What do they hide from one another?: Benoit isn’t really secretive about himself. He may avoid being upfront about his intentions (most often with regards to a case), but even then he tends to come out with the truth eventually, and with such a sense of calm that it’s more like he simply went along with peoples’ assumptions of him. But when you two start seeing each other more seriously, he does feel a tiny bit embarrassed of the fact that he may not be as up to date on all manners of slang, pop culture, etc as he would like to be. It’s not a hidden thing, really; it was a given there would be a bit of a gap there, what with the slight age difference going on. But he’s supposed to be one of the greatest detectives out there, isn’t he? He may not take the title seriously but he surely has some vagueness of an image to uphold, right? He has to have tabs on everything. Besides, deep down, he wants to seem impressive to you. Like I said, it’s not so much hidden . . . but the tab to Urban Dictionary sort of is. You hadn’t even meant to find it, you just needed to use his laptop for a quick moment when -- “. . . Ben? What, uh . . . what’s up with --. . . Why do you need to know what ‘guap’ is?” “It’s for a case, darlin’!” He has since become a little less afraid of asking you what certain terms mean. You, on the other hand, aren’t exactly as candid as your other half . . . (Spectrum Option) You weren’t exactly sure what possessed you enough to think you could skirt by without him noticing. The man was a detective after all; surely he would’ve noticed at some point that there were some things . . . amiss about you. Sure, he could chalk up your difficulty holding eye contact to shyness; everyone used fidgeting devices now, so that you had quite a few on your desk as well as on your person wasn’t anything spectacular. But surely he noticed that whenever things got too loud or rowdy at the station you disappeared; that you seemed to get particularly upset when your system was thrown off; how certain textures were enough to completely rattle you; that you had a speech pattern that could, in a word, be described as . . . “unique.” Besides that, you knew it was silly to hide the fact that you were autistic: It was nothing to be ashamed of! It was simply how your mind worked and you were doing the best you could with it. And you wanted to say you were doing pretty well in most regards, but past social experiences had a way of convincing you otherwise. Particularly in the romance department. Potential date mates would get thrown off by your seemingly stony expression or occasionally flattened tones; they didn’t always find themselves impressed by your preference of going slow; sometimes your methods of stimming threw them off; and that was if they could even get you to stop being so anxious about certain social interactions. You knew deep down that Benoit wouldn’t be like that; he was far too kind to. But also, what if?! Eventually, before the courting got too, too serious, you felt it would just be better to be honest and open with him about it. You owed yourself that much. Thankfully, you never really needed to know what the “what-if” could be, as it turned out that you were right: Benoit already kind of knew you were somewhere on the spectrum after his first few interactions with you. Having more intimate encounters during your courtship honestly all but confirmed it. This isn’t his first, fifth, or even tenth rodeo wherein he’s encountered and befriended someone who’s neurodivergent, after all. He understands to a point why you wouldn’t necessarily jump to telling him, however, though he’s glad you felt comfortable enough with him to confide that. (Non-Spectrum Option) Honestly, it’s hard to hide anything from the last of the Gentleman Sleuths. He’s so perceptive that even if it meant hiding snacks from him, you’d eventually come back to your desk to find him eating your stash of Craisins. The one thing you have managed to keep a secret, though? Your old fanfiction identity. In your teens, you were scribbling down fics anywhere you could get them: Fanfiction.net, Quizilla, Blogspot . . . On one hand, you thank the experience for giving you practice with proper writing skills, which is part of what earned you the job you have. But on the other . . . they just weren’t the greatest showcase of who you were, young or not. And Benoit does not need to know about the shipping wars you started on accident. Thankfully, Quizilla is gone and nobody really uses Blogspot anymore . . . But sometimes he asks you if you’d ever read or watched books and movies you just so happened to specialize in, or what your thoughts were, and you can’t help but wonder if that blond bastard is on to you.

14. When one has a cold, what does the other do?: The moment you appear to be under the weather, Benoit’s already activating Mother Hen Mode. He summons the Mama Blanc in him and already has you laying down in bed or propped up on the couch with some quiet music playing or a court procedural drama playing while he’s in the kitchen making homemade chicken soup. If you put up a struggle eating or are too tired to feed yourself, he’s not above feeding you. He’s going to make sure that you eat at least enough to be able to take half a zinc tablet without getting sick, and make sure you drink plenty of water and vitamin C. And God help you if you think you can just do work from home because even if you’re not experiencing the worst cold, he’s not convinced you should be up and about instead of resting. At most, he’ll let you sit on the couch instead of staying cooped up in your room all day. He’ll even join you, often times sitting next to you and reading through files he brought home from his own casework. He doesn’t really mind the close contact in spite of your protests. Which is annoying because when he inevitably catches your cold, he’s more fussy than you are. Not in the man flu fashion, but he’s a lot more stubborn about resting. He knows it’s what’s best, but he’s so used to handling himself over the years that he’s gotten into the habit of doing as much work as he can before dropping, with self-care just happening to take place between his illness naps. You have to actually scold him and hide his files for a bit until he eventually falls asleep thanks to his exhaustion and the medicine you make sure he takes. Because of this, you’re more task-oriented when Benoit is sick. Certainly, you make sure that he’s eating the proper things and taking the right vitamins and medication and getting enough rest, but between all that you’re also making sure that he has less to worry about. You quietly clean around the house, you do the laundry, you run as many errands for him as you can (groceries, dry cleaning, etc), you even meal prep. That way when he gets better, he’s better in a cleaner house with next to nothing to worry about besides the paperwork he’d had taken away from him earlier. As much of a fight as he puts up at first, he truly does appreciate your generosity and kindness. He’d kiss you if it weren’t for the fact that he’s still a bit sniffily.

22. Where does their first kiss happen?: In the filing room. Sexy, right? You were technically still courting at this point but it was undoubtedly clear that things were getting serious. Nobody said anything about it, though. After all, was now, in the middle of a potential scandal, really the best time to talk about going steady? Probably not. Though you’d be lying if you said the thought didn’t buzz around in your head all day and all night. You had to be professional about this. Just as Benoit is, you reminded yourself as you watch him reading through the files you’d given him moments earlier. His brow furrowed before slapping the manila folder shut. “Well, that’s a crock of shit,” he muttered. “Hm?” you questioned, perking up. Maybe he needed input? He certainly seemed to be seeking yours more often as of late. You tried not to shiver when he focused those icy blue eyes of his on you. “This doesn’t make any sense,” Benoit explained, giving the file in his hand a gentle flap. “Carters doesn’t even have a history of violence; I sincerely doubt he suddenly became overwhelmed with the temptation to attempt fratricide all over some rather tacky jewelry. Which therefore begs the question. . .” He paused dramatically. “What do you suppose would cause a man to jump from petty theft in high school to murder in his mid-thirties?” You shrugged. “Bad friends,” you half-joked. It gave Benoit further pause. “. . . What ever happened to that accomplice of his? From the petty theft?” he questioned. Obviously, you didn’t have the answers; but the department filing room most likely did. Somewhere amongst the many boxes and cabinets, lined up in crammed and musty-smelling aisles, lay the answer. And, to your dismay, it appeared to be on a shelf a little higher than you were tall, serving as a load-bearing wall against other boxes of files. You grimaced as you arched your feet once more, attempting yet another lurch forward to reach. You weren’t sure who let this section of the filing room get this bad but whoever it was (you were sure it was Debbie; it was probably freaking Debbie), you were going to wring their neck. “(Y/N), really, I insist --” Benoit began, but you were quick to cut him off. “No, no, Mr. Blanc,” you insisted. “I got this.” You couldn’t see him press his lips into a thin line. “You know, it’s perfectly fine to call me by my name,” he said. “Mhm,” you grunted. “’M just . . .keeping it professional.” Dammit! Your fingers had just brushed the edge! Just a bit more -- “This isn’t a situation for HR, I technically don’t really work here,” you heard him chuckle. “And anyway, stop being so stubborn, and let me help.” “It’s fine!” Really, it was: You managed to nudge the box closer. “(Y/N), be reasonable.” You suddenly felt warmth against your back. Oh. Oh, God. He was pressing up against you as he leaned forward. You felt your cheeks burn at the stimuli. With far more ease, he nudged the box close enough to the edge to where it could easily fall into your waiting hands. Unfortunately, any relief was short-lived: Truly, the box was load-bearing. You yelped as the threat of musty cardboard and decades worth of paperwork threatened to fall on you . . . only for it not to actually be carried out. You glanced upward to find Benoit, once again, leaning forward. Just enough to shove the materials further on the shelf. You hear him huff and chuckle. “See? I bet you’re real happy now that I came along, aren’t you?” You turned just enough to glare at him. It didn’t last: Nobody can really find themselves glaring at Benoit Blanc for long whenever he had a smile on his face. At the very least, you couldn’t. He had that effect on you and you wanted to despise it so dearly, at the very least now you did. But you just couldn’t. Nor could you bring yourself to turn your face away as you noticed him leaning in closer. You had to be honest: You never took Benoit for the sort of man capable of performing such a strong liplock. Strong, warm, yet sweet and enticing -- “BLANC!” The sudden cry was more than enough to make you part. There, in the threshold, stood your less than amused superior, arms crossed and glowering. “Do you really think that this is the place to be making out?” Lt. Elliot demanded. You whimpered, hiding your blushing face behind the box still in your arms. He didn’t wait for a response. Instead, he scoffed and stormed off, feeling his point had been made. As you began your walk of shame out of the room, you hissed at your newly acquired boyfriend, “This is why I wanted to keep things professional!” To your dismay (and deeply hidden amusement), however, Benoit appeared to be unfazed. If anything, he seemed quite pleased with himself. He chuckled as he placed an arm about your lower back. “Oh, admit it: You didn’t mind being a little unprofessional.” He didn’t need to use his smarts to deduce that, and you hated that.

28. Why do they get jealous?: Benoit rarely gets jealous. He trusts you enough, and he trusts the bond you two share a great deal. But on the rare occasion he exhibits what would be called jealousy, it’s usually because of one of two things: Either A) someone manages to best him at wits or glamor and it appears to impress you, or B) someone younger (and hungrier) than he approaches you. The reasons why these are rare occasions, though, are simple. For the first bit, Benoit is mighty smart. He won’t go as far as to consider himself a downright genius, but he’s aware enough to know that his mind thinks a bit more broadly and rapidly than the average person’s. Sometimes, though, the lifestyle he runs brings him to circles where he must interact with great minds. And sometimes, as you are often his companion for certain circumstances, you may meet, say, an Ivy League alumnus who isn’t afraid to kiss you on the hand as a greeting or give you a grand tour of their vast estate while Benoit has to hold interviews. And as for the second bit, Benoit knows and accepts he’s no spring chicken. He also knows he may not be fast and furious in terms of romance, and some younger folk may find that tedious. The worst case is if that Yale graduate with the big fancy mansion is also around your age. But he also knows you. In the end, any insecurities he might have about his lifestyle or age are squashed because he knows you’re not the sort to just grab onto anyone just because they’re rich, shiny, and new. You’re honest and know what you do and don’t want, and he also knows that even if you’re having internal battles with your thoughts and feelings, you eventually come out with them. That’s how he knows you thought that one heir to the Havington Spa empire was a bit of a pompous douchebag, or why you were bored listening to that one poet who many saw as a prospective Nobel Prize winnter. You try not to get jealous yourself. Maybe you put him on a pedestal, but you certainly see a lot of value and endearment in the likes of Benoit: He’s smart, handsome, understanding, kind . . . Maybe a bit ambitious and odd, but nothing too terrible. He was, without a doubt, one of your favorite people to be around. But sometimes, you worried if he could potentially be another’s favorite as well. There had been the occasional case where his gentleman charm appealed to a woman involved, usually suspects but occasionally they were just vaguely related the the situation and decided to throw their two cents in, if only to have more of a chance to be around Benoit. You couldn’t tell if maybe you were reading too into it, or if Benoit was ignoring them or even flat out oblivious to their efforts, but come on: There’s only so much ignoring a man can do when a lady has her bust pressed up against his arm! But what really drove you nuts was whenever she’d initiate banter with him. One of the best ways to the detective’s heart was wit. And sometimes, to your dismay, these cases would include women who could make hogwash sound like Shakespeare. And that they made it look so easy drove you insane! But luckily, that was about as far as the women would get: The best way to Benoit’s heart was embracing the unusual, which was startling against the backdrop of a prim and proper gentleman they assumed him to be. They’d quirk a brow when he found himself making odd little rhymes, stand by awkwardly as he monologued to himself, and assume he was joking whenever they came upon him singing showtunes or making references to musicals. You, however, responded accordingly: You’d echo his limericks to feel them for yourself, listen and take notes of his allegories so you could contribute your own thoughts, and joined in on whatever song he brought up. In the end, you needn’t really be jealous because he’s already made up his mind: You’re his favorite person. And there isn’t a pair of doe eyes and a thesaurus mouth that’s going to change it. But still: You’d rather not take that risk!

I got carried away in some areas I think . . . But hopefully it turned out okay!

Character Ship Headcanons

#benoit blanc x reader #benoit blanc #benoit blanc imagine #benoit blanc imagines #regrettablewritings #character ship headcanons #character ship meme #it has occurred to me i have a tendency of switching tenses...#hm...don't like that much #but i also don't like having to go back and fix everything...

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punchholesinthesky · 5 years

Text

I didn't know you could just be a boy

I was listening to a podcast today, about a girl who stood up to her parents at the tender age of four and told them that she was a girl and that she'd chosen a name. I'm in awe of this little girl being so damn sure of herself. I got super emotional listening to it and it got me thinking about my own childhood. It was NPR’s radio ambulante, the episode called “yo nena”.

I knew I was different from a young age but I didnt know how.

I just felt it. And probably cause I visited a lot of doctors and i guess most kids don't do that?

I learned that my brain was different but not the details. I had some vague notion of being adhd. I would not learn it until much later by googling different developmental disorders and learning about being neurodivergent and autistic.

I would later on go on to learn I was queer too, and though I had read the word genderqueer once and thought it fit, I hadn't given it much thought.

I was assigned female at birth, and though I have never liked it, I thought I was stuck with it, that I just had to make the best of it.

I remember wishing to be a boy so many times. Identifiying with male characters, creating ocs and alter-egos, acting the male parts (it was an all-girls school, someone had to), and begging mum to let me cut my hair short, and being so happy when people thought I was a boy.

I never liked traditionally female things, never had a barbie, hated dresses (there's still a photo of a tiny grumpy me being forced into a dress one of my grandmas gave me) and my school uniform was trousers 99% of the time. The other 1% was like official acts, maybe the first and last day of school, stuff like that. I hated it, but at an all-girls catholic school I had much biggers issues that complaining about wearing a skirt a few days out of the year. I remember the gym uniform being a problem. Not sure what the problem was. Something about tights maybe?

I never felt like a girl. But it wasn't something I could properly explain so when I tried to talk about it, with my parents or friends what they usually got out of it was the usual self-steem issues of any girl. Mum tried to help by helping me choose new clothes, telling me how good I looked. And trying to get me to be more feminine, teaching me about 'girly stuff',

But that wasn't it. I understand it better now .

See, it's not that I have self-steem issues about my appearance. I know I'm conventionally good

looking. And if I gave 1/10 of a fuck I can be a very hot girl. I have photos of pasts attempts to prove it. But it never felt right. It never felt like me.

I can put on a bikini and I'm young, thin, fit, I'll look good. But that doesn't mean I'll like what I see in the mirror. I don't feel uncomfortable because I think the person in the mirror looks bad but because I don't know who that is.

I feel exposed. Vulnerable. Bikinis are uncomfortable by design, meant to exploit feminine bodies and for someone who's already uncomfortable having one? A bloody nightmare.

And there's a lot of understand. Why the hell am I being punished for the crime of having a female body by being constantly uncomfortable ? Why are clothes so terrible? Why is so hard to find something basic and decent? Why are bras the worst?? On and on and on. questions I never got the answer to. So much confusion about girl stuff that every other girl i knew seemed capable of navigating.

For a long time I blamed it on me being weird (ie, neurodivergent)

Like, all my friends started caring about boys, parties, romance, alcohol and drugs.

I'd always struggle in school and one year I got literally left behind.

I struggled with depression. I tried hard to fit in and be like them. I tried to be normal, followed their strange rituals. I let my hair grow out, i went on dates with boys, I drank too much and made out with strangers. I got into trouble. I wore a dress to my graduation and invited a boy I'd been talking to.

It was one of the few times I wore a dress voluntarily. Another one was a christmas dinner. And a new year's party. I also wore a skirt to dress up as kate bishop. That's about all I recall. I did buy a dress to cosplay clara oswald but never did it.

I wonder, what if I had told my parents I was a boy and I wanted to be treated like one before? How would they have reacted ?

Laughed it off probably. As they did when I pretended to be a boy for a game as I often did.

I can't imagine them taking it seriously, even now.

I don't know when I found out trans people existed, or who was the first one I heard about.

But I do know I thought it meant you like hated your body or yourself and wanted to be totally different.

And that didnt fit me. I had never hated myself. I hated how the world treated me. I hated arbitrary rules based on gender.

My scout group was mixed-gender, but we were divided in troops and these were single-gender and divided by age.

But we all learned the same things. Whether it was building a fire, tracking, or cooking, we got the same lessons. Sometimes we competed and we slept/bathed separately.

In TECHO it was all mixed-gender. Well, except bathing, but often we'd shared the same bathroom. We slept, cooked, and worked together.

And nobody ever looked down on girls as 'the weaker sex'

That was cool.

My actual education was the opposite. Academically, it is better for a school to be all-girls, at least for girls. But socially, not so much.

As a teenager, I hadn't quite forgotten how much I wanted to be a boy as a kid, but idk I thought I had left it behind me. That what I craved was freedom, independence, the benefits of being a boy, not actually being one.

Later I would discover terms like 'internalized misogyny' and think that was the problem. Cause I liked Lucy and Arya, not Susan and Sansa.

Yet here I stand, years later. Having done a lot of work. Recognising the value of Susan and Sansa. Appreciating Peggy Carter, in a gay and feminist way, and still not wanting to be a girl.

It just doesn't fit me. It's not a rejection.

I'm a feminist. I think women are great.

I understand there are many ways to be one.

That I don't have to be feminine to be one.

And yet, it just doesn't feel right.

After I learned of what 'gender dysphoria' was I though, 'oh I can't be trans I don't have that'

And then, I learned about 'gender euphoria'

And that finally opened my eyes

Trying to be a girl always felt like an ill-fitting costume, no matter how hard I tried. Like I was playing a part and didn't know my lines.

I remember cutting my hair short, like kstew, and going WOW upon seeing my reflection.. I looked more like myself than I had in ages.

I bought different clothes. Boy's clothes. I'm too small for men's clothes but I can fit just fine in clothes meant for 12 years old boys.

I cut my hair, put on new clothes, bought tight sport bras, and when I looked in the mirror, I wasn't sure who the person staring back was but I really liked how he looked.

My parents, for ages, tried to get me to 'dress nicer' to 'act like a lady' and so on. I cared enough to shower and put on clean clothes. I bought a lot of nerdy shirts which I at least liked. Did some experiments. Occasionally I'd make an effort but otherwise I was pretty basic. Loose-fitting jeans and hoodies.

Family kept gifting me nicer girly things I'd wear once and often ignored later.

It wasn't till I gave myself permission to truly dress how I wanted, and yes to shop in the boy's/men's section that I started to actually care about how I looked and putting more effort in.

I never thought I could be a boy, because I didn't know that was a thing you could do.

if I had been like that little girl and said 'i'm a boy' I think they'd havebeen at a total loss.

would they have asked my shrink? What would he have said?? It felt as though they were always on my case to be more lady-like but I know that's unfair. They were generally pretty okay with me being a tomboy, at least until puberty. And even then it was never that huge a thing. More of a constant annoying issue. There were many more pressing ones.

It's 2019, and I bet most parents would still be at a loss. There's not exactly a lot of rep or info.

I'm a lot happier with how I look now, but I still haven't found the right words to explain myself to my parents. I know I have to eventually, I want to stop hiding, to be visible, to change my name.

#Gender euphoria #trans guy #Text ramblings #Trans rights #Representation matters #Coming out #My face #Trans masc

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wormssss · 4 years

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so. basically. tl;dr i ffuucking hate school it sucks and it doesnt. do ANYTHING but make things worse . anyway.

the schooling system like. it sucks for me specifically in a few ways idk abt anyone else. for starters; neurodivergency literally at all makes it so hard to function in a classroom environment. its so loud? idk if anyone else gets that in their classrooms but you can hear my class of 23~ from the bottom floor of the 3 story building and that’s considered quiet. as well as like, i cannot function in a classroom without my friends? im out at school and like.... everyones.. transphobic obv why wouldnt they be, and its not in like a..any avoidable way. if i sit with the guys they’ll refuse to talk to me and deadname me all period adn if i sit with the girls theyll laugh at me every time i fucking breathe idk, but the school still thinks putting me in a classroom with kids that visibly hate me and see me as a CRINGE ENTERTAINMENT IRONY MACHINE is like a good idea? and a good way for me to make friends? i dont know if its my luck or if they’re deliberately doing it, but, next term for example i have drama and cooking as classes. two of my friends also have cooking ....but they dont have me in their class. they’re together. but im not in their class. im on my own because other than them and the girl who already did cooking these past two terms (so she cant do it next term) i have.... no other friends. so im definitely in a class of complete strangers! and the way they have this school, you have no choice but to work with someone else in a cooking class...... you are paired with someone in the same mini kitchen and its a disaster but i digress.

also, like. school goes for 6 hours. by the time you get home and get changed and get settled, its sunset so you can’t go out and do anything. you can’t go to the park or climb a tree. youre stuck inside. your family is like groggy from work or whatever and doesnt want to talk to you. you have no energy to get online and talk to your friends online. or theyre asleep. so basically at least for me i get... no time to actually talk to my friends, for example i havent had an actual conversation with piper in like... two months i swear. we’ve forgotten how to talk to eachother and that actually goes with all of my friends. by the weekend we’re still awkward because we havent spoken in months so we can’t really even talk. and because of this rigid like, routine you have to have to actually be able to go to school at all (wake up 7. eat. get dressed. go to school. come home. get changed. eat. shower. go to bed. repeat), i actually like.... find myself. forgetting Everything. i dont know what it is about strict routine where i cannot be myself (my school has a strict and ugly uniform), but it makes me ... completely forget everything slowly and my memory decays. my time blindness gets worse to the point where i dont know what month it is on a regular basis and like... i ditch a lot? because of this? maybe if the schedule didnt make me dissociate and forget everything i wouldnt ditch constantly and like. actually go to school. but like my attendance is... im not at school 25% of the time because i physically cannot go every single day and attend to that rigid and exact cycle that doesnt even teach me anything

doesnt even teach me anything? i dont ... learn anything from school. they like. reteach the same meaningless part of a subject every single year. every year in religious studies in october i learn about the rosary and we spend a lot of the period praying the rosary and i like. ok. cool. its a religious school yeah but what am i actually learning from this. and every year in social studies we learn abt the waitangi treaty but the way they teach it is so whitewashed and utopian and its fucked and they teach it the same way every year around the same time. and anzac day. and in math im not going to use any of those skills you teach me, i dont care about algebra or anything because thats not really going to actually help me in my life im an artist for fucks sake teach me about managing my own finances! teach me how to do taxes! teach me how to function in the society i live in! teach me the important things that ill sink under or die without knowing i want to actually know important things but by cramming so many unimportant things in my brain all the time i forget the actual important things, i fucking failed basic addition and subtraction last year, i’ve forgotten division and multiplication past the 10 times table, but i can vaguely read an algebra equasion BUT FUCKING ALGEBRA EQUASIONS WILL NEVER UFCKING GET ME ANYWJERE!!!!! and it makes me so fucking angry i want to learn and function and KNOW

and the way they tightly bundle everyone to being one conforming individual who dresses like everyone else, is at the same intelligence level as everyone else, is a catholic like everyone else, does not question authority as everyone else or does not question themselves like everyone else or think like anyone else OR BE DIFFERENT THAN ANYONE ELSE makes me want to FUCKING THROW UP. there are so many hopes and dreams that i remember watching from primary school to now sink into a hopeless pit of stereotypes and basic conformity, people who used to be nice are suffocated into being horrible people so that theyre liked by their peers or get anny attention from the school at all, guys who used to respect women (god forbid) suddenly becoming horrible to anyone of any slightly different gender identity but you can actually see on their face how weird it is to them, waves of 11-14 year olds getting nose studs that get infected and they’re forced to have them taken out by the school, kids trying to do their makeup to look like SOMEONE to BE AT ALL DIFFERENT FROM ANYONE ELSE are put right back in their place and told to take it all off and their parents are called and if youre caught with the wrong jacket your parents are called and youre told youre too poor to wear what the school provides yet THEY DONT EVEN LET YOU WEAR WHAT THE SCHOOL PROVIDES WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS 70 DOLLAR HOODIE FOR WHEN YOU WONT LET ME WEAR IT WHILE IM SHIVERING I DONT SEE THE POINT OF ENFORCING SUCH TIGHT POINTLESS SMALL BOUNDARIES OF WHAT A PERSON CAN BE WHY IS IT SO LIMITED? are we not allowed to do anything? you cant even have one strip of hair dye yet a teacher can have a full head of bright purple hair what’s that about? you can have antisemetic pins on your senior year blazer jacket but the second you put a pride pin on there youre called to the principals office and asked why youre promoting this to kids

you try a speech on trans rights and they dont even pass you and pretend its because you got over the time limit but you didnt, you timed it yourself for your friends you didnt get over the time limit and you know it but you didnt even place in fourth you placed last out of 6 or 8 and you wonder why that is because every year in the past you soared into first so whats that about???? in my speech i said be yourself and dont be afraid to experiment with your gender lightly and they told me to take it out because its seen as too much and i said what the fuck? that’s the most important part of my speech, i want to promote acceptance in others and the self and they said take it out or you cant present your speech. they actively suffocate any sort of self expression or nonconformity of any sort you have to be a plain cookiecutter boy or girl and thats it you cannot be anything else, for nearly 6 months theyve fought me and my mom about my hair but if anyones being hurt by it its me because it draws more attention to the kid you can call slurs, are you hurt because im actually expressing myself? are you hurt by my little sharp stud earrings and my industrial piercing and the embroidered cuff on my shirt? are you offended by the heart on my belt or the platforms on my school shoes because the last time i checked none of these were illegal things to have at school

this kind of got a lot angrier than i meant to make it but ive been . really angry abt this for the past year idk. i really just wanted to write this because i ahvent spoken to piper properly in months and the way we talk now seems like when we just met but i cannot carry a conversation anymore because school knocked the wind out of me all over again and the sudden inability to talk to any of my friends online makes me want to scream until my lungs give out im so tired

#wormy yelling #long post /#negative /#serious /#emeto /#ask to tag #delete later

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jewpacabruhs · 5 years

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hi guys! so this post is gonna be a rambly mess but fuck it, here ya go. if u dont wanna read all of it, u dont have to; skip down to underneath the tl;dr in bold text for the important bits :)

(there’s a brief & non-graphic mention of a triggering topic in the next paragraph. please be sure to skip this next paragraph if the thought of suicide is going to upset you.)

alright. so i didn't share this originally, but i spent some time in a psychiatric unit this month. suicidality related. 1000% unrelated from anything online, i've just struggled with depression for a very long time & shit happens. i didn't intend to share that at all & i certainly don't want pity; i'm telling u guys bc my time in the unit was extremely eye-opening, and i have some insight to share. since i've gotten out, with the help of my newest anti-depressant (fourth time’s a charm lol), i'm seeing the world in a better light & i finally have the energy to and the interest in exploring what it has to offer, which frankly i've never had before.

with that has come the realization that i’ve come to do something very unhealthy, and i want to break out of it. and that’s how much i’ve come to rely on my fandom life. i don’t want to get too candid publicly, but mental illness took a lot from me, and i lost most of my life, my future, and my options in the last few years. next year will involve a lot of working on rebuilding things. but in the time that i let things fall to pieces around me & i absolutely couldn’t get out of bed, i had a phone and i had a laptop. so when i couldn’t get up and physically face the world, i built up a new world online.

and i don’t think that’s a completely uncommon experience. most people are able to better manage things, and evenly juggle real life with an internet life (like i did back in middle school), because most people can’t abandon their real lives entirely like i managed to; but i do think a lot of people nowadays rely on their fandom life and their fandom friends when their irl situation isn’t ideal. and that’s an excellent coping mechanism in theory, but i think it’s debilitating in the long run.

forgive me for sounding like an old person, but i’m a heavy nostalgist and a bit of an anarcho-primitivist in that i resent modern technology's influence on society - but that hasn't stopped me from letting it be a big part of my life out of accessibility. the internet kept me occupied during my low points, and i became dependent, but i've realized i don't wanna live like that anymore. i’m vaguely grateful that it usually kept me busy enough that i wasn’t thinking the bad thoughts as frequently, but more than anything, i’m resentful that my grasp on reality got lost somewhere along the way, and i let time get away from me, too. because, again, an internet life should be a fun hobby, but when it’s a lifestyle and it becomes an excuse to avoid dealing with our real lives, bc our real lives aren’t as rewarding or as exciting, then it’s unhealthy.

everything’s at our fingertips these days, but i deeply believe human interaction, fun, and fulfillment shouldn't be spoon-fed to us through a screen. it's easy access, sure, but at the end of the day, is it any way to live? compared with how much world there is to see, i’m no longer satisfied with the thought of sitting behind a screen for another five years. i used to be, when i had no hope and no drive, but not anymore. i’m not gonna let myself settle for staying busy with the thing that takes the least amount of work & movement. not only because i’m a whole ass adult who needs to start sorting my shit out for the long run, but also because i deserve better.

and it’s fucking hard! especially for those of us who are neurodivergent. i dropped out of school three fucking times due to crippling social anxiety and utter lack of ambition and energy. i lost all my friends through that (making friends post-school is hard af); the thought of having to go out and remake friends makes me wanna fucking cry. i have a hard enough time making friends online, i’ve even come to struggle with correspondence thru text & email. phone calls? outta the question. but that’s therapy shit, and i know i’ll get there. i just have to stop putting life off by staying in a comfort zone.

and it’s interesting; depression and anxiety really took everything from me, and while i was dwelling in my own misery, my adhd worsened and decided to make my entire brain revolve around my fixations, so i didn’t have to deal with my own life. can’t think about how much you wanna die and how much you can’t function in society if you’re busy thinking about a ship you like or a character you find interesting. so i latched onto the safety of that. aggressively. problem with that is that once you let your “happiness” (as much of it as you can feel in the midst of your depressive episode, anyway) revolve around an interest, that’s all you have. so you become dependent and reliant, and that’s never good, especially if you’re someone like me who feels pathetic & ridiculous when you realize it’s all you can bring yourself to care about.

and i think that’s what i realized in the psych ward (where there’s legitimately nothing to do; i did soooo much more thinking than usual, and i already think too much haha); mental illness will try to fuck up your lifestyle, so you have to eradicate the things that’ll let that happen in the first place. for example, like i said, my adhd tries to counteract my depression by making me hyperfixate and/or hyperfocus on something else to protect me from bad personal thoughts, and that’s good in theory (doing something you enjoy when you feel bad, to distract urself, is the number one most basic coping skill you learn), but i can’t do it in moderation, i let it run my life, and that’s made me worse in the long run. so i have to force myself out of that completely and not let myself fixate on things that make me happy in the short term, but don’t ultimately further me as a person. having fixations helped me through some awful times, but now i need to force myself to grow up, you know?

and while tumblr and other social media is an excellent way to indulge those fixations, it’s an aggressive enabler, in more ways than one. what i mean by that... okay, so while i’m the type of person who self-destructs while unhealthy, i do occasionally lash out. and i know some people completely explode rather than implode when they’re not doing well. and that’s how you get discourse, i think. because when mental illness makes us care much more about our interests than we ought to, and someone has a differing opinion about that interest, the instinct is of course to attack, if you’re that kind of person. i don’t think i am, but depression and boredom go hand in hand, and i might be inclined to care more about discourse than i would if i were healthy, purely because it’s entertaining and something to do.

that’s a long winded way of saying, while i stand wholeheartedly by my past positions, i do regret starting shit in the first place. i’m not the kind of person who genuinely cares about much and i have little to no sense of morality (im a chaotic neutral bastard), so the fact i was bored enough to start shit really goes against my character and says a lot about how bad i’ve been. so i apologize for all that. but, again, i think that's just what happens when something is truly your everything. and i think the chronic negativity of modern fandom is a result of how damn seriously we all take it, because we care so much and we’re so dependent. fandom’s supposed to be fun, but it’s just too damn stressful this way.

idk my point in sharing all this, but i do think it'd be cool if this kinda got yall thinking. even if you don't engage in discourse, if fandom is just one of your only consistent sources of happiness, that's not healthy either. we all gotta break out & exist more & louder & more positively. and unfortunately i think tumblr fandom (and maybe all modern fandom) is no longer a place that encourages positivity and health.

but for all my criticism, i do just wanna say how eternally grateful i am that i was fortunate enough to meet the people i call my best friends through tumblr. they're my family, truly, and all the bullshit in this fandom has been worth it simply because it brought them to me. i love them to death and i always will, even if interests change, even if we grow apart, even if we quit speaking entirely in the next few years, i love them with my whole heart in a way that transcends a simple fandom friendship and i'm so glad we bonded over sp in the first place. that’ll never change.

i will also always love south park itself. now that the cat's outta the bag about my hospital visit, i can brag about my most pathetic and obsessive accomplishment; the fact that i've never let circumstance stop me from watching a new south park as it airs, and i've now watched sp on 1) an airplane, and 2) in a psych ward. i win for most dedicated fan tbfh. dsjkf & i'll keep that tradition, and i'll still watch this stupid show til it ends! it'll always hold a special place in my heart, & kyman's still my most meaningful & long-term ship. i'll never stop loving it.

tl;dr

so, to recap; for 2020 i'm making myself step back from fandom (not just sp fandom, but fandom in general) and quit letting my world revolve around my fixations so i can enjoy the outside world a little more, mental illness be damned, and the first step is gonna be quitting tumblr. this blog won't be deleted and i may occasionally post (maybe when next season airs) but you're absolutely free to unfollow bc this'll be a mostly inactive blog. i’m also unfollowing everyone, so mutuals, please don’t take that personally.

i will, however, try to write more prolifically, bc fic writing is something i'm able to do in moderation & enjoy, and i hope to get back into it. so if you'd like, you can keep an eye out for any upcoming fanfic i may post - my ao3 is leere. i also have snapchat, instagram, & twitter my mutuals can ask for asap (bc ill be logging out for good by the afternoon of the 31st, which is tomorrow) - though i'm not very active on any of them. still, if you wanna have access to me, i’ll be there.

i want some connection to the fandom still, albeit without letting my life revolve around it, so i'll be starting a new open-to-the-public kyman discord server! the post with the invite for that will go up soon. nvm im too anxious

thank you for reading, thank you for the good times (thnks fr th mmrs), and i hope everyone has a good 2020!

#txt #mine

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yeehawfolk · 5 years

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hi! i dont mean to restart shit but i feel like the reason neurodivergent ppl butt heads over gifted kids so much is that to kids like me who had undiagnosed adhd that had me hide my report cards and tests in elementary school, its kind of a slap in the face to hear so many people who you were compared to and put down against talk about issues that have plagued you since you were super young, but framed in a way that only they could relate to! the education system fucks over both “gifted” AND-

-kids who were barely scrapping by! it just affects us at different stages of our lives, and for different reasons. tying my intelligence to my self worth, an inability to ask for help, always feeling like im underperforming, etc, these are all things that affect me because i dont want to be the ‘dumb kid’ again. i still have to do extra work my high achieving brother doesnt because my mom doesnt trust my intelligence!! + i also think that ppl are bitter yall cld do so well during school-

- in the end, i think our experiences are more like a mirror; “ure dumb and forever will be vs if u get less than the top of the class ure a failure and ur achievements dont matter” (also, personally, even after hearing all the shit the gifted program put yall thru, id love to have been a gifted kid. id rather know i have the capacity to be smart than be the kid who regularly scores in the bottom of the class)

Listen, I am neurodivergent. That's what my entire post is about, how because I was gifted, I was seen as ""too smart to be disabled"" and given no accomodations whatsoever, even though I greatly needed them. I was autistic, but nobody in the education system even THOUGHT to look at why I suddenly started failing classes when I got into 10th grade, nobody even thought to ask me why I was having such a hard time. Because if I was ""smart"" then I should be able to do good in advanced classes. So ergo, my struggling was laziness. Except for one teacher, who when I told her, told me I needed to suck it up and get my homework done or she was going to fail me.

Like, I'm not trying to demean your experiences in the school system or say "I had it worse than you", but the entire reason I made the post in the first place was because I was absolutely fucked by the gifted label in school because I was neurodivergent. The gifted label leaves no wiggle room. You're either smart and pass your classes, or you're lazy and get shit grades, according to teachers.

I had a burn out at 15 years old. Think about that. I was 15, a time where I should be hanging out with friends and doing fun things. But instead I fell to the floor of my bedroom and cried for over an hour because I just couldn't face the fact I didn't do my homework again and my teachers were going to fail me. I was so mentally unstable because of the expectations put on me by the gifted label, I was so scared of seeing that big fat F painted across my report card, that I just broke.

On top of that, I was placed in advanced classes or classes I didn't need because I was ""smart"" and it would look better for getting a ""smart"" job. They kicked me out of the one place I felt safe in the school, Art, and replaced it with electives I didn't need or want simply because it would look good on my college applications. They replaced my Language Arts classes with a ""Gifted Class"" in Middle School and specifically because of that, I have no idea how to structure an essay more than 6 paragraphs long. Every time I asked a teacher for help, they'd tell me to stay after school (which I couldn't at the time, I didn't have a ride) and wouldn't even explain in the simplest terms what they wanted because "You're smart [gifted] you should already know this."

You do NOT want to be a gifted kid. Trust me. Especially if you're neurodivergent, because gifted kids are basically pressured to be mini-adults as kids and when they don't respond as being a perfect pinnacle of maturity or smart-ness, they're said to have problems with laziness. Or ""behavioral issues"". I needed SO much in school, but because I was labelled as gifted, I never got any of it. If we need help with anything we're ""supposed"" to know, you're shit out of luck, because nobody will give it to you. "You're smart, you're supposed to know this!" Is our mantra, and eventually, we stop asking.

The reason I made the original post is because the ""gifted"" label is thrown at anyone who has even a moderate IQ score who ""think differently"" than others. See how that ties heavily into the neurodivergent community? Some people with the gifted label might be neurotypical, but a lot of them end up being neurodivergent later in life for the sole fact "they were too smart to be disabled" and nobody ever said "Hey, you Might be neurodivergent" because they were seen as smart.

Gifted kids don't have it easier. Our praise from adults is always tainted by "You could do better". We don't get accommodations we need. Our education is lax because we're already supposed to know it, despite never being taught whatever it is they expect us to know. Adults want to make all of our academic decisions on how smart they think we are. We're given double the work because "we can handle it". And worst of all, we're constantly beaten down with "You're so smart! Why aren't you understanding this?" As if not understanding something is somehow our fault.

The post wasn't being like "GOD GIFTED KIDS HAVE IT THE HARDEST IN SCHOOL BECAUSE OF X". It was "The neurodivergent community greatly intersects with the gifted community and their struggles in the school system need to be acknowledged and not talked over because of the notion 'gifted kids have it easier because they're smart'."

I'm not going to lie, most of the reason why I dropped out from 10th grade was because I just couldn't handle the expectations from my teachers to be the perfect student and hand in perfect papers. They beat down that 15 year old teenager who liked anime and Sonic and reading to the point where I had a complete mental breakdown and I begged my mom to let me quit. Begged her, on the floor, sobbing. I burnt out so bad I couldn't read a book for over 4 years. I'm just now starting to read again.

School is fucked. But the Gifted label adds another layer of Hell to it that neurodivergent kids just aren't equipped to handle, and I feel very strongly about letting these kids talk about what they went through, bitter people or not.

#cas talks #listen i understand that school is fucked in general #but the gifted experience is a special kind of hell especially for neurodivergent kids #also this isnt meant to be mean or in your face i hope it doesnt come off that way #education #k 12 education #education system #gifted #gifted kid

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cyanpeacock · 5 years

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considering My Functionality again?

i can’t, uh, explain how i actually work any other way than... well, i’m... there is... we’re (pronouns???!) a system, but a reasonably well hidden one, one that can function and broadly pass as One Person?

as in, i don’t require a diagnosis of DID to navigate the world, so i’m not talking about DID itself here. but yeah, it’s not infrequent that my body is walking somewhere having a whole conversation, that i’m not consciously creating every part of.

used to feel like the whole, Voices In My Head, Uncontrollable Speech And Actions thing made me, you know... Dangerous, Insane, the whole stereotypical shebang. and, yeah, ngl, i was more than unpleasant to be around for a while, before i done went and learned Emotional Regulation Skills, and stuff like that. appreciative that those are increasingly accessible to whatever the hell the rest of my brain is doing. still work to do, but that’s okay, there always is.

so now i’m like... damn, who is it hurting? this way of understanding the functioning of my brain has been very helpful to me, actually. it’s interesting, now i’m increasingly comfortable with the undeniable (in terms of Human Averages) weirdness of it.

there are just, entities in here that i don’t consciously control? some are even friends! they just... Speak And Act Through This Body. i didn’t consciously make them. they just sort of, show up, and grow and change with time, go dormant, wake up again, sometimes respond to being prodded.

the characters i consciously make? turn out weird, and flat. they’re just Designs, pretty pictures, shells really. the people that just Show Up? i’m like, oh, man, if i think hard enough i see sort of how you got unconsciously made, but... i didn’t choose to do that. it just fucking, Happened. ok. alright.

it’s... perhaps frightening, to some people, who happen to see my body apparently Crazy(tm) in the street, or gesticulating wildly to thin air through my apartment window? but then, that’s societal prejudice against obvious neurodivergence and/or mental illness talking, and i know i’m not going to physically harm them, my body is just... Doing That Thing Again. they might be frightened, but they’re gonna walk past physically unharmed, and emotionally uninjured except for a bit of a scare, which, many things can scare you.

i don’t mean to frighten anyone! but i’m aware it’s gonna happen regardless, even if the only cause was my appearance and not my Odd Behaviour - e.g., some people are going to experience fear of my body alone, even Acting Normally(tm), because i’m a white man in a tracksuit, who is inevitably going to cross paths with women and folks of colour when i take walks at night.

i don’t know, part of me wonders, should i even be using the word system if i’m not, like, Professionally Diagnosed With DID? i’m aware lots of systems hide, i’m aware of iatrogenic systems with no evident history of trauma, i’m aware that some people contest the existence of DID at all and place it as a phenomenon created by psychiatry, i’m aware that some people with DID contest the existence of iatrogenic systems... it’s all very complicated.

if you ask this (iteration of?) me, self-determination is just as important as any external determination. people only self-determine, self-identify, self-label, self-categorize, because it helps them in some way. maybe not always a “healthy” kind of helping! but there are many stages of unhealth on the way to health, and health is extremely variable in presentation, so, who am i to speak against anyone’s identity and feelings of health, including my own?

oh, boy, yeah, it’s confusing.

my hypothesis (a bad one, because it’s untestable) is that this brain/body was already predisposed to strong emotions, “vivid imagination,” and a propensity for gathering information and making connections. it then went through a duration of traumatic experiences, and had to Really Use those functions in order to make sense of the experiences in order to survive (and ideally, Live). these factors in combination result in a brain that unconsciously went about creating compartments and structures that would eventually help the entire bodily unit understand some things about itself and Other People(tm)?

for the purposes of this post, one of those things being, of course there can be multiple, long-standing, truly discrete Selves within one body. and, of course there can be One Self in a body. and of course, there are many states in between.

uh, back to the concept of an engine, that’s useful for this thought exercise again, very imperfect, but useful to me.

so, lots of people are going to understand an engine as An Engine. it’s one functional unit. they don’t even know the names of the parts inside it, it’s just, An Engine.

me? baffled by engines. there are so many parts, and i’m always like, well, how does that bit work? isn’t that a separate machine? aren’t these loads of separate machines, with separate functions, that exist and perform independently, but also together? not exactly missing the point of the engine, but tending to look on a smaller scale...? so, yes, like, i understand, you put them together and it’s An Engine, it drives the car. but... that’s (also) a system. every engine can be regarded as a system.

so, by my logic, what really matters is... well, whose engine is it, and how/on what level do they best understand it, how can you get it to drive the car as smoothly as possible? meaning, every brain is an engine (one Unit), or a system (many Parts). it depends how hard you look at it, and what helps you or the other person understand how best to make it function in harmony with the body it’s sat in.

i mean... well. shy and tentative as ever, but i can talk about some of the other people in here. but it’s my blog. it has to stay that way. but i’m coming to realize i kind of need these guys for Happy Independent Functioning, even if i can’t talk about them everywhere.

mark has been around for YEARS. it has not always been a good relationship. he is a troublesome bastard. he says shit that absolutely embarrasses the hell out of me. he is RUDE. freaky bastard. he’s kind of a capitalist. Fake Posh (he is insecure about his scumminess). i hate him but i live with him and he’s not awful, even he thinks jeff bezos is a hoarding twat. and yeah, he doesn’t yell abuse at me any more, and i don’t yell back, because i Did That and Went Out There and Got Emotional Skills Up In The Brain. he was slower to pick them up than me, but it’s pretty good now.

amy has also been around for years! less years than mark, but yeah, years now. amy is very bright, she doesn’t really give a shit about School the way i do, she just likes fun things like sunshine and flower crowns and (the idea of) being a Party Girl. she’s never even been a douche to me like That Other Bastard, Mark Fuckdick Mcgee. i hate him, lovingly, hatefully, etc etc. oh bastard fuck, fine, i’m in love with him now, gayly, and it’s embarrassing. disgusting man.

BUT YEAH back to amy. i’m aware i’ve found that in practice, parties like That are bodily sensory overload. so, yes, the nightclub Exists In The Mind. but yh... when amy showed up, she was Miles better than me at like, emotional support, comforting stuff? took me to an ATM i was like, beyond terrified of going to, lmao. i... suppose she trusted and integrated some experiences of positive, healthy interaction that i was still Super Suspicious of at that point?

like... yeah. in practice, shit, i run this operation, i’m realizing i’m kind of a control freak about understanding my brain/body, communicating things about it (and in general) effectively, and Getting It To Work BETTER (i.e. happier, more independently). it requires lots of thinking and lots of feeling and lots of practice, particularly in the art of When To Just Let Shit Go, which... well. these two help me with that, when i’m not able to help myself, usually because i got myself stuck in a thought loop.

there are others! dormant, or predominantly living in the world(s) within. also... well, it’s like, Younger Mes, that still exist, that can be triggered out in dire circumstances, but it’s best to let them rest.

yes. well. i think very hard. maybe too hard, in some opinions, but exactly as hard as i need to think to reach a place of improved understanding and contentment.

neurodivergence Wack.

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