#because without a degree you just seem like an autistic asshole

[mokeonn]

"But if college was free, then people would abuse that and get useless degrees" hell yeah I would! If I could go to college without debt I would make it my job to get a degree in every little thing that interested me. I'd get a doctorate in film studies. I'd have a bachelor's degree for every science I like. I'd try to learn at least 5 languages with varying results. I would learn something "useful" like coding and then follow it up with a ""useless"" degree like art history. I'd be the world record speed run holder for getting every degree possible.

But I can't afford college without going into massive debt, so instead I spent the last 5 years trying to figure out what I am passionate enough about to consider going into debt over, because unfortunately being passionate about everything is extremely expensive to pursue.

[screambirdscreaming]

Something that peeves me whenever I see another post going around with some variation on "autistic people take things literally which means we are the only people who communicate Clearly and Directly" is that - for any given statement, there is not one singular, agreed on, universal Literal Interpretation. If there was, none of this would be a problem!

The nature of language is that there's always some degree of interpretability. Words have several different meanings, often overlapping, and there's nuance of context, cultural references, and so on.

Faced with a statement, most people will quickly come up with an interpretation that to them makes the most sense. But if you asked a roomful of people to explain in detail their interpretations, everyone's would probably be a little different, even for a pretty simple statement. Regardless of whether those people are autistic! Everyone conceptualizes the world a little differently, and everyone has a unique personal history of all the language they've encountered, and these things effect our interpretations.

In order for communication to be workable, given this slosh in interpretability, there's another couple of processes that go on. As conversation goes on, people reassess if their initial interpretation matches up with additional context. If it doesn't, they revise it, or ask clarifying questions. And on the flipside of this process, the other person in conversation is tracking if your reactions make sense with *their* understanding of what they're trying to convey to you, and offering context or rephrasing things if it seems you're out of alignment.

These processes are social skillsets that are, like most social skillsets, not ever directly articulated or explained. Many people are bad at one or both. Sometimes you encounter someone who is really, notably good at it - the vaunted "good listener", who puts in the effort to really understand what you're trying to say, or that really excellent teacher who engages with you back and forth until you really get it. But a lot of the time, it's a sort of passive social friction - people just not getting each other.

Sometimes, you encounter someone whose brain works so much like yours that talking to them feels almost effortless - you just get each other. But that's a pretty rare occurrence for anyone. More often, as you get to know someone, you start to understand the shape of the way they interpret things and learn to account for it, so over time it's easier to make sense to each other.

It's honestly not uncommon in society for people to aggregate in groups of people who interpret things similarly, and who are thus easier to talk to, rather than actually building the skills of communicating across interpretation gaps. Particularly egregious are those groups of men who talk about Women as an incomprehensible monolith, but it turns up to a greater or lesser degree on a lot of levels.

I suspect this is the root of a lot of parenting problems - people who have never built this communication skillset, and relied on choosing friends who make sense to them without a lot of effort, and who are then totally unprepared to interact with a child who interprets things in ways they don't expect.

Obviously I can't speak to The Universal Typical Experience, not least because it doesn't exist. But in general I would posit that:

Most people, give or take a few assholes, are not trying to say things that are confusing. Most people think they are communicating clearly, because the first interpretation *they* would come up with on hearing one of their own sentences is the correct interpretation.

Many people are not very good at accounting for different ways people could interpret things they're saying. However, it is normal and polite social behavior to be somewhat flexible about this and forgiving of misunderstandings. If people are being shitty to you about not understanding them, they are assholes. And I wouldn't assume that the rest of the communication they have with everyone else they know goes totally smoothly for them.

I suspect there is a bit of an unfortunate feedback loop, where people have bad experiences when someone gets mad at them for not getting something, and learn to hide when they're confused. Which then leads to larger, more complicated misunderstandings, which other different people get upset at them about, because those people think they should have asked for clarification in the first place.

Truly you can't win with everyone. No one can win with everyone. There is no monolith of "neurotypical communication" which resolves all these contradictions - all those people you're lumping in together under "neurotypical" have just as much trouble with each other.

[aita-reply-sister-table]

Hello, figured I'd add some things.

So, some replies to some questions I saw:

"Can't you find her more appropriate places to display things?" We do have those, it's just that... They are also covered. I don't really care about those, since it is her spot, but since they're covered she's started moving to anywhere else.

"Shouldn't you discuss this with a doctor/psychologist/etc?" Maybe?? Quite honestly, I hadn't considered that because... I usually think that's something to discuss if it's something causing physical harm or something like that, which putting items in inconvenient places isn't. So it didn't occur to me that could be an option. The only issue here with asking someone who knows things about disabilities would be getting my mother on board with it because she hates getting any sort of outside help or being told what to do on anything, doubly so if I'm the one suggesting it, and especially if it involves parenting. I can at least try to suggest talking to someone, and hope that she listens.

Related, but to the people asking if there's some sort of specialized person we could go to....... No, there is not. There used to be when she was a kid, but then my sister aged out since they were for kids, and my mom never really looked for any new people. Said she would, then never did, and now just insists that it's fine.

To the person who said she sounds autistic..... Yeah, that is part of it. We both are, actually. While I'm not arguing anything else, I do quite honestly think this in some capacity might be part of an issue, because our needs related to being autistic are extremely different, and it often results in whatever helps her stresses me out to an extreme, and things that help me seem to stress her out (just an example, she really loves really bright lights. I can't stand them and get overwhelmed). ...If I knew what to do about the conflicting needs, honestly I would do something. I'm just not sure what would actually work for both of us...

Also, separate from these, to the people who called me out for being passive aggressive and mean..... Thanks, actually.

I'm aware that's a very strange thing to say in response to that, but... My mom handles a lot of problems solely through being passive aggressive and mean to others, has my entire life to pretty much everyone, and since I really haven't been around anyone but my mom and sister since the pandemic started... Honestly it doesn't surprise me I internalized some of that without really realizing it.

I'm not really sure what else there is to say about this, I'm not very good with words, but... Honestly I think it's good I heard that and I'm gonna try to work on it. Because I do love my sister and all, but I don't wanna be awful. Told myself once I'd never do that, and... Clearly I failed.

I am unsure if it does, but I hope this addition helps to some degree.

@am-i-the-asshole-official

AITA for trying to clear off surfaces in my house?

So I (20X) live with my mom (60F) and my sister (20F). My sister is disabled mentally and has a lot of comorbidities (so there's a lot of things going on there), which I would not mention if not relevant. Important to note is that she doesn't really do reasoning - like it just doesn't really click with her - if that makes sense, I guess. Never has, either.

I've lived with her my entire life, so for the most part I literally could not care less what she does even if it might bug other people or seem "weird" to them. Like that's just normal to me and I don't care and just kinda deal with it.

However, recently she has decided she needs to line up all of her stuff on basically every surface imaginable. Normally, I wouldn't really care. Sure it's inconvenient, but whatever.

Except... She has now decided this needs to include every single table in the house. All the tables are covered in her toys, and you can't even use them. Obviously, we need to use the tables for things like... Dinner, just to name a big example.

My mom has tried to explain to my sister that she can't just cover all the tables up, but my sister just screams at her and then ignores everything. My mom tries to reason with her, which has never actually worked, and my sisters usual reaction is screaming or just going "I'm mad!" or claiming "It's mine!", and then my mom just kinda gives up.

Now, here's where I might be TA... I've decided to take a more direct approach, and recently have been intentionally knocking over all things she has covering the tables when I pass or when I need to use the table. This, of course, pisses my sister off, but my logic is that if trying to talk her out of it doesn't work, then maybe if I inconvenience her over and over again, maybe she'll realize that these aren't good places to put her things and move it somewhere else.

My mom's mad at me for this, saying I shouldn't be making my sister mad, which normally I'd agree with, but... Well the only option that wouldn't make her mad would be to just let her cover up the entire table, which my mom and I both agree is a problem. She also claims that I'm "not helping", despite the fact that she doesn't do anything to handle this either.

My mom also says it's wrong of me to do this when my sister is disabled and "doesn't understand". Again, normally with most things I'd agree, especially when most of what she does isn't things that cause problems for anyone, however this is effecting all of us, and I don't think that just because she "doesn't understand" means she can just do whatever she wants all the time when it negatively impacts the rest of us, even if she may not understand why she can't.

But... I don't know. Am I the asshole here??

What are these acronyms?

[oliveroctavius]

Do you have any neurodivergent headcannons for some spiderman characters in mind? In my headcannon I feel like Peter and flash give off some adhd vibes and MJ kinda comes off as autistic towards me which is nice.

ADHD Peter is practically canon as far as I can see. His greatest weakness is literally time management. He talks through his plans for the day out loud, he thinks best when he's physically active, and is chronically incapable of running errands without getting sidetracked.

I wouldn't be surprised if Peter's friends don't bother him about his double identity because they think he's autistic. He's an extreme loner (out of paranoia). He gets sensory overload (from his Spider-Sense). He's impatient, terse, and lost in his head (because he's under a massive amount of stress they don't know about). He's always making excuses to leave social or chaotic situations at random (and we know why that is.) Plus he's a science whiz—he has the perfect cover in just kind of being an asshole savant.

Speaking of asshole savants I don't think there's a single version of Doc Ock that's not autistic to some degree. "Octavius is a tortured soul oh he doesn't mean it" writing is bo-ring to me because I love him as a power fantasy/cautionary tale for a specific flavor of Autism Hubris. You know, the little voice in your head that says "human society is for fools, I'm too Secretly Genius for school, I should build a nuclear warhead in my basement"? SO relatable.

Peter seems to enjoy the responsiveness of Ock's absurdly loquacious counter-shit-talking. Maybe he is a little autistic.

You know what, screw it, Liz Allan autistic headcanon. She's so blunt and earnest and insistent and doesn't seem to care what others think of her. And I like her.

Deb Whitman definitely has something going on but I can't pin it down. Maybe it's just the trauma.

Dear Harry Osborn is an anxiety-ridden DSM alphabet soup but I usually stick with describing him as schizophrenic. Which, did you know that a common symptom is dyslexia-like reading/writing problems? That would explain why he was a struggling student even though he's pretty smart.

(snaps fingers) you know what. I just realized Peter has scrupulosity OCD. He's constantly dropping everything to perform a series of actions that will allow him to temporarily feel better about himself, to the point of constant self-injury. Pete for the love of god. THERAPY.

[butchhamlet]

hal and hotspur for the character asks

hal:

Sexuality Headcanon: i think hal said bisexy rights HOWEVER. as you know damn well. i am also partial to a lesbian hal SKDHFKHFDS Gender Headcanon: see again it depends on how everything is played because like... i see CANON hal as a guy (i haven't thought about transing him. but trans hal with his father's expectations to be the Right Kind Of Man would kind of slap) but also i think all the time about when you, pan, and i talked about femme hal vs. butch hotspur and the unique experiences of gender and misogyny both of them would have and i start levitating A ship I have with said character: .........i am a halspur person i'll admit it i have terrible taste and tunnel vision for any set of foil characters. i'm not saying it's healthy for either of them i'm just saying i want to study them. alternatively he definitely had a thing w ned poins A BROTP I have with said character: i don't LIKE falstaff but the hal/falstaff dynamic is so interesting A NOTP I have with said character: this one depends on staging but his relationship with catherine of valois as henry v... like i'm sure you CAN do it in a way that doesn't feel skeevy, but the inherent political power dynamic makes it seem to me like an uphill battle A random headcanon: is it a headcanon to say i always picture shakespeare!hal with the historical shrewsbury scar? otherwise my headcanon is that killing hotspur weighed very heavily on his mind for pretty much the rest of his life (+ that hotspur's sense of justice and courage was to some degree something he drew from as king) General Opinion over said character: garbage but he's MY fucking garbage. no but genuinely hal's character arc over the henriad is honest to god one of my favorite parts of the shakespearean canon that i've experienced so far he is SUCH a good character and also immediately made it on my list of dream roles because of course he did

hotspur:

Sexuality Headcanon: once again hotspur is a bi legend BUT i am partial to lesbian/wlw hotspur because... oh my god hotspur my beloved Gender Headcanon: re: canon hotspur is definitely a guy (and again i haven't thought about transing him but now i'm itching to think about it) but i think butch lesbian hotspur is something that can be so personal. it's about the complex relationship with masculinity and the desire to protect your loved ones A ship I have with said character: re: i'm a halspur person BUT at the same time hotspur's relationship with kate is just so. it's so. it's SO. like. what can i even say they're both hurt and hurting and traumatized but they love each other SO much i'm so. hghghgbgbbg A BROTP I have with said character: ...oh my god does hotspur have ANY friends. does he have any friends or does he just have kate and relatives who control him. i need to sit down anyway kate is his bestie A NOTP I have with said character: i think this means romantically (in which case of fucking course i'm not shipping him with his father and uncle) but in general can we get him OUT of there and away from northumberland. like. please A random headcanon: autistic hotspur my fucking beloved. i don't think he stims in public because he's focused on being the image of a proper knight so he mostly restricts himself to pacing but when he gets very worked up some of the handflapping slips out. he DOES stim in front of kate who is also the only person allowed to casually touch him without getting an uppercut to the jaw General Opinion over said character: HOTSPUR I LOVE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT YOU AND LOSE THE ABILITY TO FUNCTION AS A NORMAL PERSON / 100/10 / my favorite asshole / the only histories character i love more than and would rather play than hal / characters who would go in my beloved heart locket gifs

[nightlight-stardust-and-rain]

Au where Dio, after nearly dying in the fire, goes "you know what fuck it" and instead of trying to kill Jonathan again he goes to live his own happy life because F U C K I T. He goes to Italy at first, just because it seems nice and it's far away from England. He travels a lot and after, say... 20 years of peaceful life he's, well... At peace. He's still an asshole! But not the psychopath kind. He still doesn't hesitate to kill his ennemies but he tries to not do that because dealing with the police is just... So much trouble... (tbh this is main reason why I don't kill people). He basically ignores all Joestar drama because 1) goddamn he just wants to live peacefully and those guys are TROUBLE and 2) if Jonathan told them about him there's a big chance they hate him and he also kinda hates them so why would he want to see them??? The point is that somehow, he manages to completely avoid the pillar men disaster without even being aware of it (to be fair, he was in Russia at the time). He just. Wants. To live. And see the world! His dad was such an abusive shit who never became anything and stayed his whole life in the same sad place and look where that got him!! No thank you :) all of this MIGHT come from the fact that when he almost died, he got a "I'm becoming like my dad" revelation and wasn't that awful. So yeah he just... Travels everywhere and learn things about the countries and the history and everything? He manages, by accident, to get a stand (got pierced by the arrow and didn't realize what it did until days later. Also killed Enya, the one who attacked him, even if he likes his new power) since he doesn't have Jonathan's body, the Joestar family is unnafected. Someone else in the family get pierced by the arrow? Maybe Joseph?

Honestly the whole point of this AU was "a kind of nice Dio adopts Kakyoin". When he's in Japan, decades later, he meets a five years-old Kakyoin. He's surprised to see Hierophant Green! Kakyoin is overjoyed to meet someone who can see green (cause honestly I refuse to believe that he called him Hierophant until years later). Dio doesn't really like children but this one is quiet and it's nice... Until he sees the bruises on his wrist (Kakyoin's parents are abusive in this AU :/). Which... Explains the quietness actually. And then, impulsively, he goes "you know what I'm adopting him" because is he gonna let a kid be abused like he was? No :) he doesn't kill Kakyoin's parents cause it would attract too much attention on Kakyoin but he can be very convincing when he wants to be ;D which is useful. He basically kidnaps Kakyoin while convincing his parents that they never had a kid or something like that? Kakyoin goes with him because, well. He seems better than his parents. And he can see Green!

Dio keeps travelling everywhere, except now he does that with his son. Kakyoin keeps his last name because 1) Dio doesn't wants his son to be recognized should he meet a Joestar (or a member of the Speedwagon fondation) and 2) Dio doesn't really have a legal existence. He can't legally change Kakyoin's name.

So, Kakyoin grows up travelling with his immortal dad. When he's 10 he knows a whole bunch of languages and a lot of stuff about basically everything. He didn't really have a formal education cause... His dad is an immortal vampire? He did go to school but like.. Six months in this one, six months in that one... You see. It's kind of lonely but he has Green and his dad and The World (who is... Not as sentient as Hierophant Green... But still) so he's not alone! Dio teaches him how to fight (and how to fight dirty) and a whole lot of useful things he picked up during his travels. As a result of 1) being a centuries-old vampire and 2) being raised by said centuries-old vampire, they both have terrible social skills. That plus my autistic Kakyoin headcanon... Yeah. Dio may be better but he's still an asshole with a ego bigger than him, so him and Kakyoin get into a lot of trouble (⅓ of the time, Hierophant has to get them out of trouble. Such a useful stand) and a lot of adventures. They have a very colorful life. Kakyoin, being raised by Dio and autistic, doesn't really gets that it's not normal until he talks about it in his newest school and everyone looks at him like he has two heads (which, if you count Hierophant, he does!). Later Dio realizes that he never explained he was a vampire... Never explained a whole lot of things actually (he feels quite stupid... And it's not something that happens often). After a long talk, Kakyoin realizes that his family is even weirder than he thought (like... He was aware of a certain level of weirdness. Like with the constant travelling and Green and The World. But he wasn't aware they were THAT weird).

Whne he's 17, Dio decides that it's time he gets a legal education, because it's gonna be hard to become a functional human being (which Dio ISN'T and wouldn't be even if he was human) without, like... A degree. Or something (Dio isn't very aware of modern education... Mainly because it didn't concern him before. He's gonna have to learn fast).

That's how Noriaki Kakyoin, 18, finds himself in the same school as Jotaro Kujo and his Star Platinum. (did Dio freak out when he learned that his son was friend with a Joestar? No, because not him nor Kakyoin (and possibly even Jotaro) was aware that Jotaro was a Joestar).

After that... Well let's just say I ship Jotakak ;)c

[willowashmaple]

A bit of mental health update and random thoughts, July 7, 2021 edition

After a few months of wait-and-see, and having anxiety attacks over the thought of it, I finally got myself vaccinated on June 4. I deliberately chose a location that was known to be low-stress and not staffed by assholes. Since I got a Janssen, I did not need to make two trips into the Big City (I never feel safe to get any kind of healthcare in the small, right-leaning town nearby). Fortunately I had zero side effects (though, should I be worried about this?) and a month later there is no signs of whatever the doomsday scenario I have heard of. (I know: 1 out of 500,000 possible such incidents is less than the chance of 5 out of 100 possibility of me being hospitalized for COVID because I weren't vaccinated - and with the rise of the Delta variant, to me it boiled down to statistical probability).

A couple of weeks ago I planned on going to the Pride festival about 30 miles away from here, but I had to call it off because of the heat wave ("once in a thousand year" event with the peak temperature of 119 degrees Fahrenheit). It was too dangerous for me, although the event did take place with a modified schedule, moving it to earlier hours to avoid the heat. It has been over three years now since I have been to any Pride event, so this sucked.

This past Sunday I managed to return to my church, after two years of being away. The church had just resumed regular services without capacity restrictions a few weeks ago, and also there was the annual church picnic (which did not happen last year for an obvious reason), so I got to see many people that I hadn't seen in a long time.

In retrospect, living out here in the woods had taken a big toll on my mental health (though, don't take me wrong; there are many positives too -- I feel like being here kept me safe from COVID, the Trump regime, and riots during the past four years). Isolation, monotony, and boredom have been a big problem.

There are some common misconceptions that autistic folks are "anti-social", that they are always "self-absorbed", and that they do not "function" in social settings. For some time I ended up internalizing this sort of hate, while my chronic depression pushed me into giving up on myself.

But in reality, some social interactions are necessary part of a healthy living even for me. And to a large extent I enjoyed attending events, being part of groups that are dedicated to specific causes or tasks (such as activist organizations), and even taking leadership positions in such groups. This is in spite of such scenarios often wearing me out and often causing severe anxieties from time to time.

What really bothers me, and burns me out, though, are people who are not consistent and steadfast: people who are flakes or liars, those who say one thing one day and another thing entirely different the next day, people who do not follow through, those who keep changing their stories and do not wholeheartedly commit themselves to things that they say they will do, those people who let their emotions, whims, and moods (even if they call those "gut feelings" or "the spirit" or "following my heart/passion/intuition/etc.") make decisions for them (please use your brain and reason to think -- God gave you the capacity for intelligence and reason!).

And the others who burn me out are people who think emotional and interpersonal dramas and conflicts are somehow "good" (ostensibly because they "challenge each other and help us grow"). "Process"-oriented people seem to like this for the sake of it, or maybe because it makes them feel "connections" or whatever. I don't get it. Please keep your personal issues and dramas out, we're trying to get stuff done.

I do not have patience or spoons for these. Regrettably these phenomena seem to primarily afflict the females far more often than the menfolks, and that really hurts. For many years I considered myself a feminist and elevated women, but I've grown so profoundly disillusioned with women and feminism over the past three or so years because of this.

I'm feeling really distrustful of people lately, though. I really don't know who or what to believe anymore.

On a different topic, I am thinking about teaching art and/or writing online. It seems like something I can do on a part-time basis to make more money. I know I've sort of put the art on the back burner some time ago, so you might be wondering why now? First, it is mostly for practical reasons: I can use extra money coming in, and if I accept crypto (mainly thinking of DOGE, NANO, LTC, and BCH) for payment that would be such a niche that I can gain a good competitive advantage. Second, I think I need more variety in life right now and having a less "brainy" and more creative outlet would be positive.

This article was published on July 7, 2021, at forest.willowashmaple.xyz. Copyright 2021.

[casual-eumetazoa]

Hi, hope you’re having a good/not horrible day, this is specific, but has Dirk Gently/Doctor Who/any comfort show made you want to go and, broadly speaking, enjoy life? In my case I never had any interests besides ones to do with my degree, was/kinda am generally a recluse and been only watching shows in my free time and never really applied the lessons in them. But with Dirk or Anne with an E, they kinda played a role in appreciating little things in life and now I’m... not a raving extrovert but have a hobby now and more actively trying at life which was unthinkable before

oh absolutely! Doctor Who was (and still is) everything to me like, Doctor Who has been my special interest for over 8 years now and it has 100% saved my life and shaped my identity in so many ways and it absolutely made me enjoy life more as well.

i think for me the biggest thing was that the Doctor was the first example of a person who was like me in many ways (read: autistic) but also not a complete asshole. cause before that my fictional heroes were Sherlock from the BBC show and Greg House and other people like that so i thought this is what someone with my traits is supposed to be like. and then i discovered Doctor Who and was suddenly introduced to the concept of being neurodivergent but also like, a good person who is actively trying to be good? as opposed to someone who has redeeming qualities but is pretty happy being a total asshole and even does it on purpose to some extent

another huge part of that was seeing that people like me can care about people and be cared about in return. cause the Doctor has all these companions and they deeply, genuinely care about them. and yes the Doctor can come off as an asshole sometimes and they also have plenty of dark in them, but their ideal, what they strive for, is above all someone who cares and tries to be kind and help people, even if that seems pointless sometimes. and that’s how i changed as well over the years, from someone who felt like i was justified in hating everyone cause no one understood me or cared about me, to someone who realized that i can find people who care, and care about them too

(btw this is basically the core character development arc of Amber, the protagonist of one of my novels which is open for beta-reads right now while i am editing it.........)

and honestly idk if i would have survived without that mindset like, would i really be able to enjoy anything if i was still stuck at my 13 years old idea of what an autistic person with academic interests is supposed to be like? hell knows. and this is why great autistic representation is so damn important

Dirk Gently i literally only discovered in May of this year (i know, it sounds fake to me as well) but that was a blessing cause it is keeping me sane through the pandemic and it has a whole bunch of absolutely amazing lessons as well. for me the crucial one was believing that, just as bad things happen unexpectedly and accidentally, good things can happen out of the blue as well. and that really keeps me going cause you never know what is going to happen tomorrow like. does the world suck right now? 150%. so did Todd’s life, until a certain someone climbed into his window and, to be honest, temporarily made it even worse, but eventually gave him the meaning he did not know he was missing

so i just keep surviving through shitty times because just like DGHDA happened to me exactly when i needed it, so can something else in the future. i don’t even know what kind of amazing people i can meet at any moment in life or what amazing things might happen and that is worth surviving through this hell 100%

[leviticus101st]

Review: Atypical (Antarctica)

Due to the nature of this show, I do not feel comfortable doing a parody critique on it. So your getting this kind of review instead.

Netflix released a show called Atypical and it has gotten a lot of hate.

This show is about an Autistic teenager, so it was something that interested me.

I was doubtful that this show would be good because a lot of people said it was offensive and bad. Yeah, it is. It’s very bad. How bad? This is a review on episode one only, because it was so terrible, that I don’t want to watch anymore of this show. That is how bad this show is.

I should explain why this intrigue me. I have Autism. Asperger to be exact.

Most media usually doesn’t depict Autism. Usually when it does it’s more just basic mannerisms that align with Autistic behavior with characters like Peridot from Steven Universe or Marcy from Amphibia.

So I was interested in this show because it was about Autism. I heard it was bad at it, but I had to see for myself. 

Then I did and now I want to slam my face against a wall.

This show is bad. Worse than that. It’s just kinda cringey. 

The writing of this show is super awkward. It feels like it was written with the mindset of ‘We’re giving you rep. Now give us our woke points.’

It feels like it was written by someone who only just heard about it and made it based off stereotypes.

Autism is a mental disability that affects a person’s ability to communicate. It makes you hyper fixate on things your interested in.

It, and I’m gonna all caps this, DOES NOT MAKE YOU LIKE THE MAIN CHARACTER OF THIS SHOW!

The main character of this show is AWFUL! He is the biggest loser in history and it astounds me when I saw it.

Being Autistic affects your ability to understand when someone is being sarcastic. IT DOES NOT MAKE UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND AN EXPRESSION!

There’s a scene where he tries to smile at a girl and he does it in a stupid and creepy way. Autism doesn’t do that and by this guy’s age, he should be able to smile normally.

The main character acts like a young child, not an adult with Autism.

Yes Autism does affect your mental growth, but it doesn’t outright make you a manchild.

It stereotypes the affects of Autism to a ludicrous degree.

Now that I’ve talked about that bullshit, let’s talk about how this show sucks without it.

The acting is terrible. They all look constipated. They seem to be straining to perform their roles.

The writing is basic adult show fare. There’s tons of sex jokes and that kinda stuff.

It’s really lame.

The mom character is a Karen. She literally pulls the ‘I can’t be against this kind of people because I’m a friend with a person like that’ crap.

She’s obnoxious.

The father seems descent and much better for his kids, but he’s the asshole.

The sister is pretty likable. She stands up to people who treat others like garbage and I like that.

This show suck. Avoid it like the plague. I wanted to give this show the benefit of the doubt, but it really does not deserve that

The most shocking thing about this show is that it got three seasons and Glitch Techs won’t. Life is not fair.

[guardiandae]

it’s really weird when.... you super relate to like.... autistic symptoms... and it’s literally... a constant every day struggle... to remember the correct social cues (retail job, so multiple customer interactions a day) .... and kicking yourself when you fucked up even a tiny thing... bc you know you fucked up... but you can’t do the social cue in that moment... and you constantly worry that one day someone who is a bitch will Notice one of your little fuckups... and instead of realizing that you might just... Not Actually Be Neurotypical, assume you are a Bitch... and try to get you in trouble for it... or just... the possibility of ruining a social connection because it is a constant struggle.... but you can’t even explain yourself to anyone... because there is literally no word you can claim to explain it... because you aren’t diagnosed as autistic... and you see autistic kids on the daily.. who need social workers to guide them... and they stim in loud and visible ways... but you almost “pass” as just... neurotypical. because you’ve worked really really really hard at it. reminding yourself to do eye contact (constantly. and sometimes succeeding!). and to say the right things that you’ve learned because you’ve had the same interactions for years, over and over and over again, and you’ve studied other people doing it better than you and keep trying to copy them even though it’s never 100% correct, one way or another. and scripting out every single interaction in advance (and when you miss a part of your script, you don’t know how to fix it.) ... but you know that one day one of your daily fuckups is going to be just bad enough to be noticeable, and maybe even a Problem, and nobody is going to believe you even if you try to explain yourself. :/ because most of the time you seem “normal” until you don’t anymore .-.

i dont know. i’m feeling really  .-.

I’ve always struggled with mental illness - anxiety, depression, apd - and trying to cope with it, and the fact that.... I can cope really well with the level of stress i’m used to... and the moment it becomes a little bit more than what i’m used to, sometimes I completely lose it and have a meltdown. and its really hard when people don’t appreciate how much effort I have to put into looking “normal” on a daily basis. it’s a constanttttttt system of social cues and scripts that I’ve learned over the years that I have to go through like a checklist with every single customer and person I interact with, and I fuck up something in almost every interaction. and I’m just afraid one day the wrong person will notice and because I can’t... just... tell people.... ? what is going on? nobody will believe me by the time it becomes an Issue .-. they’ll just think i suck.

maybe everyone does this kind of mental list, and they are just better at it? when do you learn the social cues? I feel like I missed that day of school. when do you reach the point where you can just do them without having to consciously remind yourself of each thing? and i still feel like I’m missing things, because so many people, even when I do my Best, just end up... not liking me. ;;;;;

idk if it’s autism i just know that i really really really really really relate and it punches me in the gut every time i look it up but then I see Actually Autistic kids and adults come into my work (because we are across the street from a disability nonprofit org) and I’m like,,, if I try to tell ppl I am autistic, I will look like a fucking asshole  .-. and also i’m never gonna have a diagnosis anyway, sooo! 

I don’t even care I just want a way to explain so ppl will understand I am constantly trying to do my best here, with varying degrees of failure. lol.

[tumblunni]

Rambling about my new watchholder oc Mallory

* absolute gremlin child. Eats dirt. Probably more of a monster than most of the yokai.

* at the same time tho, she is like super sunshine friend! She looks kinda gloomy ominous but her personality is actually super bubbly and her biggest priority in life is making new yokai friends and loving them forever. Like, creepy in a wholesome way? She does indeed love horror movies and creepy crawlies and could probably fistfight god, but that doesnt mean she's evil!

* kinda always bored but also easily exciteable? One of her biggest recurring jokes is just ignoring the normal or sane solution to a thing and doing something more fun even if its more difficult or dangerous. Actually i guess its more "fearless" than bored? Or bored of fear, lol. Fearless and doesnt really give a shit about any rules. But again not in a mean way, she doesnt break rules because she wants to piss people off, just like "im not gonna believe this if nobody bothers explaining why its supposed to be so important". But not exactly phrased like that cos that would be rude, lol. So uhh more like just relateable autism feel of not grasping social cues but mixed with a personality thats quite outgoing and uncaring of being judged poorly for not being normal, as opposed to me who's always worried about what people think.

* oh wait thats the word for it!! Free-spirited! Trickster! Like a peter pan type of trickster tho, more than loki. Like just "i am naturally outside the obligations of normalcy" rather than "i am intentionally trying to prank/illusion/manipulate people cos its funny". Or uhh i guess "manic pixie dream girl" but without all the stupid shit that trope has got associated with.

* pretty much just wish fullfillment of "what if i was confident enough to not care what people think and just act like myself no matter what"

* anyway in summary she likes to climb trees n stuff and her reaction to yokai being real is "yay" and her reaction to seeing an undefeatable giant kaiju is to run at it and try and suplex it with her bare hands. She's kind of a badass! Tho lol also her biggest character flaw is her badassness, cos she can be reckless due to the lack of fear. But then also sometimes when everyone is hopeless she really does manage to save the day no matter what, and help inspire everyone else to be brave too!

* though i'm thinking of maybe a character arc where she starts off seeing this as just a fun adventure with no stakes, and it doesnt matter if you take risks cos nobody's gonna get hurt anyway. Like a "this isnt really real, its just my hero's story" sort of thing? When things start getting more dark and she faces things she cant just defeat with simple optimism, it kinda stops being fun anymore. And she has to realize that even if she doesnt care about her own self preservation there's consequences that could happen to her friends and family. And maybe she's already made mistakes that she can't take back, and now she's neck deep in a conflict thats a lot bigger and more insurmountable than she thought. You can't just fistfight something like the abstract concept of hatred for humanity which will continue to be perpetuated as long as the idea keeps taking root. And maybe even yokai you befriended could start to believe it too, after all you've kinda been treating them as just fun toys and sidekicks on a story that's all about you, and dragging them into danger with your recklessness. Even though you're fighting the villains, are you really doing it because you actually care about saving the day? Do you even know what you're saving it from...?

* and similar to her unflappable victoryness being shaken, i think her fearlessness and confidence could also be deeper than they look on the surface. I feel like maybe as the story goes on it could be revealed that its less being fearless and more just not caring about her own safety. You start to see her get more actual consequences from her fights, and it starts to become sort of concerning that she keeps brushing it off as no big deal. Laughing it off. Wondering why her friends are even sad that she got hurt. And maybe she isnt really happy all the time and 100% secure in who she is, she just tries to hide any signs of doubt because she feels like nobody would care. And that she has to always be the funny class clown or else nobody would want to be her friend. And like.. She doesnt even really believe that she's great, believe that she's fine as she is. She's more aware of her weirdness than she lets on. She's constantly, paralyzingly aware that everyone thinks she's a freak. She did use to try and change herself to fit in, but she kept failing at it and it never helped her get any friends. Or when she did think she made a friend they'd turn on her whenever she slipped up and showed a crack in her mask of the perfect normal person. The perfect normal person they wanted her to be.. Constantly changing into WHATEVER anyone wanted her to be. The only reason she doesnt do that anymore is that she lost all hope in it working, not that she actually gained confidence in her true self. And even when she's npt conciously doing it she's still subconciously trying to be what people want her to be. She has to always be funny, always be fearless, she has to cling to the few parts of her weirdness that people dont seem to hate. And now she has to be the hero. She has to carry all the dreams of everyone she's met along the way, while never letting them know when she's scared she wont be able to help make them come true. She's always just laughing it off and never being fully open with any of her friends, because she's scared they'll hate her. ..

* so uhh.. Yeah. Personal experience of that. Personal experience of trying to fit into negative stereotypes of autism because thats what everyone saw me as no matter how hard i tried, and also it was the only form of autism theyd treat positively, somehow. Like just be the "funny one" and dont challenge any of their assumptions ans they'll leave you in relative peace. Put up with some degree of degredation to avoid the even worse version. And i was doing all of this at a very youbg age before i even knew i was autistic or what autism was, but i could still feel how people treated me differently and how i had to friggin agree with it or else they'd never let it go. Gahhh.. It was all way too complicated and dark for a kid to understand!

* so yeah anyway her story arc is going from being a badass funny to being a funny badass? Like she just becomes more genuinely tough and cool when she's not always winning and the stakes dont seem so low and comical AND most importantly you know her real feelings and see that she will indeed continue fighting even when she's scared. And she doesnt try so hard to be cool all the time so it just lets her be more genuine. And form actual relationships with everyone with genuine feelings. So its less "she is badass because its funny" and more "she is a badass because she's a badass". But she's still funny, just in more varied ways than simply "the only reason she won this fight so fast is because jokes". Fighting legit threatening enemies in fights that arent over in five seconds. So they can contain... SEVERAL joke..!!! And also some actual fighting for once!!

* hhh i dunno i am very tired im probably not explaining this well

* oh and i think possibly she has a bit of a complex of feeling she's nothing without her yokai watch? Like the yokai are her first friends who never abandoned her. And she always felt like she was useless and it was her own fault that she didnt have any friends. She first started off being all irreverent and goofy when she got the yokai watch cos she was well into her "i dont care anymore" phase of depression and felt certain these new friends would all realise she was awful eventually and leave, so like.. Why get attatched? Just have fun while it lasts. So maybe actually she shows early signs of her depression by trying harder to be normal whenever anyone shows her friendship. Maybe something where she starts straigjtening her hair or dressing more feminine and then you just see this look on her face like her heart has shattered when someone agrees that she does look better now. (Maybe a new yokai she recently caught who was like super cool and she wanted to impress them?) And she gets compulsively obsessed with it, exaggerating it to a ridiculous degree and starting to change other parts of her appearance and everyone goes from giggling about this weird circumstance to getting REALLY DAMN CONCERNED! And in the end something something the yokai who was an asshole abput her needing to be more feminine slips up and shows his true assy colours to the other yokai and theyre like IT WAS YOU and he's like "what? You should be thanking me for fixing your shitty trainer!" And Then Everyone Beats Him Up Forever. Etc etc moral that real friends accept you for who you are and anyone who tells you you have to change to impress them is not worth impressing. Also maybe some aspect where the yokai dude thinks that mallory is trying to impress him cos she has a crush on him, and thats the moment that manages to snap her out of her depressive funk. Self hate overrided by sheer EWW NO IM A LESBIAN, DUDE i just liked ur cool hat, geez. (Wait was that entire plot idea just an excuse to find a way to foreshadow her getting a crush on hailey in yw3...?)

* and maybe i dunno some sort of dramatic episode where she loses the ability to use the yokai watch and is faced with her self worth issues all at once and its super fuckin sad and we all know eventually she will get to see all her yokai friends again cos the plots not gonna end before finishing all the games but still MEGA SUPER SAD MOMENT ANYWAY (also tearful reunions!)

* also i just heard theres a yokai called furgus thats a big adorable hairball that gives people big hair. So maybe that could be one of the comically easy victory episodes? He uses his power on mallory but her hair is already too fluffy to be floofed! Maybe it backfires and turns his own hair into a boring bowl cut, lol? And then maybe a sequel where he returns for revenge a million episodes later but it just so happens to be during the maddiman boss fight and he accidentally cures his balding. "Noooo dont thank me nooooo" *is forced against his will to become a popular advertosing mascot for hair cream* *like straight up just gets sucked into the nearest bottle and sealed like a genie* *cursed forever to fame and fortune and a million dollar salary*

* lol i dont think im as funny as the actual yokai watch writers but i have a few ideas at least. This will be fun to draw!

[dasklaus]

"Unskilled labor" is a lie.

There is not a single job that doesn't require skills. Sure, there are jobs that require years of specific training. Jobs that require extensive studies and additional long periods of job training. Jobs that require rare talents, or in-depth understanding of a topic. But that just means they require more skills, not that they are the only ones whose workers could be considered skilled. Not all requirements for a position are as targeted as a degree in the field, or specific schooling or certifications. Sometimes any degree will do, demonstrating general abilities that translate to what you'll use at work. Most employers will expect you to have finished school no matter your position. The demand of prior experience is so ubiquitous that "entry level position, five years experience required" has become a running gag. It doesn't stop there. No company will just let you loose after hiring you; they will rather show you around and explain how they run things and what they expect from you. Sometimes that is done in minutes, most of the time it takes weeks or months until you'll start adding value to your employer. It doesn't stop there, either. Showing up on time is a skill, as is friendliness towards customers, basic mobility and capability of speech. Time management, professional behaviour, stamina and focus are skills, too. No job can do without executive function. Some can do without one or two of the things in this list, but not without all of them. Unskilled labor would be labor that could be done by a nametag alone. There is no such thing. Labor requires, well, labor, and the skill to do it.

To flip burgers you need to be able to stand long periods of time, to keep track of orders, to function in a stressful and loud environment, to keep your workplace clean. You need to get up at the right time, find your way to your place of work, do said work for hours, manage your schedule or adapt to it, and be able to commit to all that for a reasonable period of time. It doesn't look that different for other types of "easy" work. Even when telecommuting, or setting one's own schedule, you need to function well enough to do things.

You might say I'm pedantic over the definition of "skills", which I absolutely am. To study decades for a career is not the same as showing up and following simple orders. But often, the physical or psychiological demands of less skilled work are higher, and not everyone can meet them. It's easiest to see when thinking of disabilities - if you can't walk, you can't stock supermarkets, and if you can't talk, you can't do customer support over the phone. But I'm wary of any model that draws a thick line between the abled and disabled - for any ability, there is a sliding scale from not having it, to barely, to being average, talented or a prodigy. If you're autistic and don't handle noises well, you can't work in a factory with constant noise, that much is obvious, but you don't need to be autistic for that. Some people get distracted and can't concentrate in environments like that without it reaching disabling levels, which would still disqualify them for that kind of work. Is that different from someone not becoming a lawyer because they failed law school? This is not just about some skills being valued higher than others, it is about the blatant disregard for the skills so-called unskilled labor requires, and how easy it is to not have them. Some people thrive in skilled professions that wouldn't last a week in unskilled ones. Not to forget that work conditions seem to be worst when the pay is low. Asshole bosses, high stress, no breaks, constant overtime and literally back-breaking physical demands are more common in low-paying professions, while browsing tumblr at work is possible and even generously overlooked at higher salaries.

Much about work doesn't make much sense to me.

[carriesthewind]

I had to stop reading AITA because I realized how much of the sub was devoted to demonizing disabled people. Like, that place has it down to a formula:

if the storyteller is disabled, the story is about how their disability never negatively affects the lives of others and people just get mad at them b/c they are bigots (this sets up the readers/commentators up to feel good, feel confident that they aren't abelist b/c they think disabled people existing is just fine actually, and they are totally willing to call someone an asshole for randomly freaking out that someone with a prosthetic exists in their proximity)

otherwise: First, they attack the degree or (or even existence) of the disability. If the person is autistic, state or imply that their symptoms aren't that bad, they are just being needlessly coddled. If they have a physical disability and are fat, state or imply that they are just fat and lazy. If they can't do something, refuse to acknowledge the effect of that on their lives and imply that there are workarounds they just haven't tried. If they are depressed, ignore the symptoms that show that the depression is affecting them and instead only focus on the ways the symptoms that are affecting the storyteller. Second, they attack the idea of providing accommodations by focusing on how hard and unfair it is for the storyteller to change anything. Why should I have to walk all the way across the street when this is my driveway I paid for, and my neighbor get the whole thing to himself (b/c he's in a wheelchair and can't enter the car if the driveway is doubleparked, and it's much more dangerous for him to cross the street)?! Why do my parents always let my sibling choose the restaurant and never let me choose, even on my own birthday (b/c the restaurant you want is a sensory nightmare/has questionable accommodations/seems unlikely to have food sibling can eat, and sibling deserves to eat a mean without pain, even on your own birthday)?! Third, paint the disabled person as unpleasant and as unreasonable as possible for reacting negatively for your refusal to accommodate/allow others to accommodate them. He rang on my doorbell and wouldn't stop until I came down and he screamed in my face! (He needed to talk to me b/c your refusal to move your car had made him unable to leave his house without extreme danger and pain in days, and he was reasonably mad about it.) She threw a screaming, crying fit when my parents finally caved and let me choose the restaurant and my birthday became all about her! (She had a meltdown because the restaurant you picked was too much of a sensory overload for her.)

This formula isn't unique to AITA - it's a really common way that people talk about disabled people and spread bigotry against them and inoculate the idea that providing accommodations is inherently unfair if doing so inconveniences a non-disabled person in a

It's funny that subreddits like am I the asshole have this association with opening the eyes of beleaguered mom-wives and helping brainwashed victims see the light when it's mostly just made up stories asking if it's okay to hate the acceptable targets of society, eg trans women, fat people, autistics, mental illness beyond functional depression/anxiety, personality disorders in particular, abuse victims who aren't lovably fragile, the infertile, the physically disabled, the poor, and so on. The answer will be yes.

[palpablenotion]

@space-aspi there are a lot of reasons to not have a professional diagnosis

i’m in the states where there are no free exams for adults, at least there aren’t in my state, just seeing a psychiatrist for an entry visit would cost $200 out of pocket because most don’t take medicaid and the ones that do in my area are very much recommended to not go to, evaluations are even more expensive

i’m self dx, not because i decided autism seemed like a cool thing or i fit a few trait presentations, but because i literally studied it for years, reading every new article on how traits present different in afabs than amabs, how different minority statuses effected it, how it can effect mental health for it to never be acknowledged, etc etc etc

i also actually read the diagnostic criteria (which is something every self dxxer i’ve ever met has done)

you know why i wouldn’t trust a self dx in the hands of some counsel of family and friends? because the world is an ableist shitshow

my sister is in a peripheral psychology related field (social work) and has decided, as such, she knows more about mental health than anyone in her family not in such a field - this includes her telling me i’m not autistic because it “doesn’t really seem to fit” especially after meeting “real autistic people”

i’ve literally been studying and learning everything i could about autism for approx. 11-12 years and also? i’m autistic, so yes, i’m pretty sure i know more about it than her

and i personally have gone in for an eval, back when my mother’s insurance still covered me, and got back bad results

i’ve spoken extensively on this before, but i knew upon the completion of the eval they wouldn’t diagnose me, and you know why? because i actually knew what the diagnosis would require and they didn’t even ask for that information

there was no interview, no history, no asking to discuss my childhood with a parent, no questioning about sensory issues - i essentially had a standard eval and not one that could determine autism, because you know what’s required in america to diagnose autism? a diagnostic interview

i left that eval and called my therapist, telling her they weren’t going to diagnose me because they didn’t even try to get the info they needed

and part of that was institutional ableism as when i got the results back, i was told “you’re not autistic, you’re just so intelligent you can’t connect with people socially”

this is an oft used sentiment to deny people an autism diagnosis and it’s ableist af; being “too smart” doesn’t preclude autism

they also obviously didn’t know the diagnostic criteria either because they told me the auditory processing disorder they diagnosed didn’t contribute to an autism diagnosis, instead i should come back for more testing to see if i’m adhd - part B.4 of the criteria states hypo or hyper sensory issues directly contribute to diagnosis

i never even met the man that did the evaluation, i had a registration worker (not a nurse) that proctored half the test and then left me alone for the other half (against regulations, you’re never to leave a patient alone doing eval for a number of reasons and one of them is the results can be skewed by them doing something wrong which is highly preventable by being their during the eval) and a colleague of the elevator is who gave me the results

so yea sometimes professionals know better and sometimes? they don’t do their fucking job

and there are plenty of reasons to not seek prof diagnosis

did you know in a lot of places, professional diagnosis can prevent you from adopting? or that it can be used to label you an unfit parent in court? there are real instances of autistic parents losing custody, not just to their ex partner, but single autistic parents and autistic couples that have their kids taken by the state because they’re deemed unfit on the basis of being autistic

did you know that a diagnosis (in the states) can lead to your parent/guardian being able to retain power of attorney over you? regardless of whether or not their child is actually unable to care for themselves or make their own decisions about their life

did you know that a diagnosis can be used in institutional discrimination? it’s technically legal to pay mentally disabled people pennies on the dollar because they’re “less productive workers.” and that many employers, if informed of an autism diagnosis, simply won’t hire someone or may figure out how to fire them without hitting the ada (americans with disabilities act)?

did you know that a huge reason people self dx isn’t to label themselves with something trendy but so they can better know themselves, connect with a community that can better understand them, feel less like a “freak” or “broken,” and make their own accommodations as necessary? i personally remember sitting at my table in kindergarten, five years old, having what i now understand to be a panic attack because i was so focused on not being noticed, not standing out, not doing anything wrong because i already realized i was different and different was bad and nobody could know

that was the entirety of my childhood. within a month of routinely interacting with a random group of 20 or so other 5 year olds, i had learned that weirdness, difference, wasn’t tolerated by the populace, and came to believe that if i were to prosper, i’d need to not be different

i’ve rarely come across a self dxxer that hasn’t put a considerable portion of their lifetime towards looking for answers, towards suspecting but not year declaring, towards tentative steps in the direction of autism. i knew i was autistic when i was 15 and my sister came home from her senior psych class and said “sarah, i figured out what’s wrong with you” and showed me the definition for autism in the back of the book

excusing the ableism and that she has since decided i’m not autistic, i learned enough that day to self dx, but didn’t for over a decade. and a lot of us court self dxing for a long time, speak to other autistic individuals about their experiences, and become slowly more and more sure

if you’re going to insist on counsel diagnosis, don’t insist it needs to be by friends and family, who you have no guarantee would even accept a prof dx - i’ve seen enough asks come into @autism-asks to know that a lot of family members and friends will just as easily brush aside a prof dx, claim the doctors got that wrong, etc

rather let self dxxers do what they typically do anyway and speak to the autistic community - i’m pretty sure we, the community, understand it better than anyone else

EDIT: professionals don’t study a disorder for 7 years unless they are very specifically specializing in it, most autistic self dxxers know way more about autism both from actually being autistic and studying it exclusively for years, hence why i keep being told by people in the medical field “you don’t seem autistic/i never would have guessed” who obviously don’t understand autism doesn’t have one singular image, my therapist studied for years and has a doctorate in psychology but readily admits i know way more about certain topics than her because she’s not some arrogant asshole that thinks a degree equals actual knowledge

[autistic-science-cryptid]

Introduction

I am an autistic person, as I’m sure you know. And, as the title suggests, while I am not literally a cryptid, I might as well be a cryptid, at least according to autism researchers, for a number of reasons. You see, for starters,I was diagnosed with autism in the late 80s as a baby, and I mean a literal baby, just over a year old, because my mom (who later realized she was autistic and self-diagnosed as a result of watching me grow) talked to the doctors and was like “Oh by the way, I noticed that other babies look at me but my kid does not. Hmmm. I wonder why that is”. That’s the first cryptid point right there - researchers are still looking for ways to diagnose autistic kids at age 2 (so they can push that hellish ABA therapy on them - boooo) even though like two seconds of observation would enable them to see who is autistic much earlier. Which is probably a good thing if that kid has the type of parents who would push them into ABA. Good thing my parents didn’t buy into that crap, no matter how much later experience with abusive assholes convinced me they did or it was only a matter of time before they did.

Secondly, since I didn’t know how to please IQ testers when I was really little and had not been pushed through official ABA by my parents, the “experts” claimed I was (and this is their word, not mine) “retarded”. Which, as we know, is a slur, but was a medical term in use back then, before they said “intellectually disabled”. Fine thing to put on a baby. And here’s the thing: No intellectually disabled person can write the way I’m doing right now. So one more cryptid point - apparently the real me didn’t exist to them then, either.

Thirdly, when I was really little, a dog (whose owner foolishly claimed he “loves kids”) got its mouth around my throat, and my autistic nervous response of freezing up in the face of that type of danger is the only reason I’m not six feet under right now, as pretty much any neurotypical kid would have been when confronted with a situation like that. So one more cryptid point for me. Especially since I always have and still love dogs, and if anything, that incident had me firmly convinced that dogs are not mindless killing machines, because if they were, I’d be dead. Whereas a response I had to a teacher ducking me underwater and giving me fake praise was more normal - it made me afraid of the water, and only a teacher from the YMCA cured me of that fear, whereas the special ed middle school I went to, which had a pool, only punished me for that fear. I’ll get back to special ed later. 

Yay “errorless learning! (/sarcasm)

I also used to stack a little table on top of a chair when I was a kid to reach stuff because for some reason, my dad always put Cheerios on top of a really high wardrobe (Gee, thanks) And I never fell because I was careful climbing that precarious structure. One more cryptid point for me - kids normally aren’t able to do that.

I am also a person who was in private Special Ed schools from the time I was like ten months old throughout high school, and my middle and high school in particular was emotionally abusive to me. While they never officially claimed to use ABA, they did - if it walks like ABA, talks like ABA, and quacks like ABA, it is ABA no matter what you call it. And really, it’s quite weaselly presenting your core discipline method as like a fun extra for your students to earn (which I found out on their website years later). It’s especially weaselly given that this method was the exact method used to punish me for not swimming a length of the school’s pool due to the fear of the water (and especially the deep end) that I mentioned earlier, a fear that wasn’t even as difficult to solve as many other hydrophobia cases, so of course a Y teacher was able to fix it. Throughout that time, but particularly during middle school years, I tried multiple different little schemes (not adult-level schemes, kid-sized ones) to try to be a more successful kid (so yes, I do sympathize with Pa Ingalls, even as I recognize that it is far more problematic for him to do that than for kid me to because he had several people to look out for and I had zero). That’s another cryptid point - usually you see that kind of behavior pattern from grown men, not tween girls.

As an extra bonus, the special ed high school I went to let me into their college program the first year, one where you take college courses for credit, and I got an A in that course. Nevertheless, my school had set me up to fail that - they had a lady teacher sit next to me, one who was entitled as fuck. This teacher whined about her job to us, and also bragged at one point about how Tom Cruise called her and was polite to her. I mean, hello? Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, and assuming that teacher wasn’t lying, the only reason Tom Cruise would call some random teacher is to recruit her into Scientology. But of course, that teacher was so full of herself that she could not see that. This teacher also, when confronted, said “I have other kids to worry about”. Nevermind that I was the only student from that special ed program that she was sitting next to. She also allowed me to work on a project alone instead of in a group because of course I was going to take that option when they offered it (even though I am perfectly capable of working on group projects). But them allowing me that option was a setup. 

That, combined with talking to myself and maybe poor grooming was what they used as an excuse to kick me out of that program. Though they never told me about poor grooming as a reason, and it was usually my parents they hid things from, so I’m not sure poor grooming was what they were primarily concerned with. Anyhoo, it seems as though talking to myself was enough to get me kicked out of that program in spite of getting an A, with the teachers literally laughing like bullies at my parents as they told my parents the news, and furthermore, they recommended me for VESID, which was really just recommending that I live in a sheltered workshop (which I would have shot myself in the foot in - I am a fast worker at certain tasks, and had my parents agreed to the sheltered workshop placement, I would have given the people my best performance, and ended up getting paid less than minimum wage, and worse, they would never let me go because they would be using me to pick up the slack for other workers and would find all sorts of excuses not to let me move on). 

So the A alone may as well be a cryptid point. As is my using NYC public transportation all by myself - those fuckheads claimed I couldn’t travel independently, even though I had been using the subway all by my lonesome to get to the work experience programs I did the last year (in former years, I had gone to work experience stints on the bus). So, pathetic as it may seem, my ability to use the subway/bus all by my lonesome is another cryptid point.

I also get a few more cryptid points for currently studying animal behavior and cognition in grad school and working on a Master’s thesis (which I won’t talk about so, again, as not to dox myself). Let me explain.

First of all, in spite of being kicked out of that program, the high school let me graduate, and the way they described me was literally how intellectually disabled people are described. And, while intellectually disabled people are themselves severely underestimated, they certainly are not going to be in graduate school working on a Master’s thesis in animal behavior and cognition, because the scientific papers alone would be cognitively inaccessible to them - even the lay version of scientific papers might not be cognitively accessible to an intellectually disabled person. So, according to that logic, I should not even be where I am right now.

Furthermore, some of the top people at that school are ableist as fuck, and totally champion clicker training, both for animals (which is iffy in and of itself, especially as a general behavior training for highly social and compliant species like dogs) and for, you guessed it, autistic people. They totally support ABA “therapy” as well (and yes, they support electrically shocking kids as punishment and claim it is less cruel than either medicating or restraining kids who self-injure, which is bullshit and completely dances around the fact that kids at the Judge Rotenberg Center get shocked for minor things) and they totally gloss over some pretty alarming signs. They, of course, claim I am totally high-functioning with no issues whatsoever, so to them, the side of me that has meltdowns and occasionally self-injures is also a cryptid, since apparently autistic people who can get a Master’s degree can’t have meltdowns. Even though I do get those from time to time. So one more cryptid point for meltdowns.

This is a random list of talents and abilities I have (just those, if you don’t feel like reading a list of talents, you can always skip that part)

I can do a perfect kitty meow (seriously, you would think there is a cat in there if you were in the room when I did it). And I can also stim (god, I wish autocorrect would use that as an actual word) by rhythmically tossing a ball back and forth without looking, and I can also produce songs simply by clicking my tongue. Yes, that’s a thing, although I’ve never seen anyone else do it. Believe me or not if you wish, but I’m not about to dox myself by putting up a video, especially since I don’t want to be blacklisted as a result of smear campaigns by ableist researchers. Three cryptid points right there. Four if you count me teaching myself some sort of impromptu gymnastics move at one point (well below Olympic level - it wouldn’t even qualify for a low-level gymnastics competition)- I have no idea what the hell that move looks like or what to call it. I only know how it feels, so don’t ask. 

Five cryptid points if you count the fact that on occasion the neuronal electricity from my hand jumps out and “pushes” a computer button before I even touch it - it’s not really a reliably controllable act, but it is a weird quirk I have, and that I share with my mom. The only reason that isn’t a problem is because it only seems to “push” a few types of buttons and coincides only with my hand approaching the button, never before that, which is how I know it’s nerve electricity and not a glitch. If you think that’s woo, don’t follow me - I never claimed to be able to teach anyone how to do that or to identify whether someone has that ability (unless they tell me and don't falsely claim to be able to control it only to show no such ability), and it’s not like I can sell that quirk for money, either. And I can’t control it anywhere near reliably enough to prove it scientifically, either, which is probably a big reason why abilities like that (along with telepathy, which I have only ever heard of in real life, mostly not from me but from others I know, as being a random, uncontrollable occurrence or else, as in one case, so laughably pathetic that pretty much any scientific test for telepathy will never detect said ability) were never officially found, so don’t hold your breath waiting for that kind of thing.

One more talent I have is this: after seeing Orlando Bloom as Legolas (I’m aroace, so I don’t have a crush on him and don’t get any ideas) do a catlike leap onto a rock, I tried that same move and got it right on the first try, even though I had read he found it difficult to do. But then again, he’s a foot taller than me, and he has an acquired disability from foolishly walking, sober, onto a thin piece of metal that could not support his weight, and falling three stories, so maybe it’s a cryptid point, maybe not, because being a foot shorter than the guy you see doing a catlike balance move would make it pretty easy to out-cat him any day. Especially since I would never make the kind of mistake he did, because from what I can gather, Orlando Bloom is a pretty cocksure guy (kind of like Legolas, really, personality wise - too bad they made him play what seemed to be an entirely different character than the one in the book who is probably more like Orlando Bloom than the Legolas Orlando Bloom played), and I am not cocksure. Obviously not literally, because I am cis female, and not metaphorically, either.

[neurospicy]

You seem to be under the assumption that we all just have access to a mental health professional. That isn’t the case. Due to the fact that I have been undiagnosed and therefore unaccommodated, I have never been able to hold a job long enough to qualify for health insurance. I come from a long line of generational poverty. There isn’t anybody to help me pull thousands of dollars out of my asshole to pay for a diagnosis, and this is the story for thousands and thousands of people out there. To deny us community or language to put to our experience is to deny us something that is potentially life saving. The fact that this seemingly didn’t even cross your mind is a clear demonstration of the privilege you’ve been afforded in your life.

You also seem to have this delusional faith in doctors, meanwhile there are doctors out there who believe things like if you can speak, you can’t be autistic, or that girls can’t have adhd. Getting a degree does not mean you’re competent, or that you’re continuing to update your knowledge with more current studies and research. I had a professor in college in 2013 get up in front of the whole class and say that autism is a type of psychosis with her whole chest. She was a SPECIALIST as a second job. College is also more focused on things like task completion and executive functioning ability than it is on actually understanding and expanding on the things taught. They’re taught to regurgitate information without putting any critical thought into it. Degree =/= competence.

Another thing: just because something hasn’t been identified by a doctor does not mean that it doesn’t exist. My ADHD didn’t appear the day a doctor said that I had it. I’ve always had it. When you break your arm, it doesn’t just snap the second a doctor says your arm is broken. It was broken before that. Self-diagnosis hurts you in literally no way, shape or form. You come off as someone who, after being diagnosed, was pampered and babied by your parents over it, and now you think that self-diagnosis is taking away from your imagined specialness. You’re just another entitled person who came from privilege.

Have the day you deserve.

I see alot of people on this app as well as several other social media talking about self diagnoses so I thought I would just say something that people need to here. YOU CAN NOT KNOW WITH ANY SIGNIFICANT CERTAINTY THAT YOU HAVE A MENTAL ILLNESS WITHOUT A DIAGNOSES FROM A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL. Ask any therapist, counselor or psychologist. Or any other mental health professionals and they will tell you that doing any self diagnoses can lead to making an ass of your self. They will probably be alot nicer about it though. also WHEN YOU SAY YOU HAVE A PROBLEM YOU DON'T HAVE YOU INDIRECTLY HURT THE PEOPLE WITH THE ACTUAL FUCKING PROBLEM.