#does this mean that neurotypical people don't experience this very often

[turtlesandfrogs]

Ok, it's 3 am* and I'm only awake because I got real thirsty, but-

Look at the characteristics of 'Flow', this mental state that is this cool thing people talk about as being a desired state, and one of the things you want in your life and in your job:

The activity is intrinsically rewarding.

There are clear goals that, while challenging, are still attainable.

There is a complete focus on the activity itself.

People experience feelings of personal control over the situation and the outcome.

People have feelings of serenity and a loss of self-consciousness.

There is immediate feedback.

People know that the task is doable and there is a balance between skill level and the challenge presented.

People experience a lack of awareness of their physical needs.

There is strong concentration and focused attention.

People experience timelessness, or a distorted sense of time, that involves feeling so focused on the present that you lose track of time passing.

Now, consider a definition of hyperfocus, something I regularly experience as an ADHDer:

Hyperfocus is characterized by an intense state of concentration/focus.

When engaged in hyperfocus, unrelated external stimuli do not appear to be consciously perceived; sometimes reported as a diminished perception of the environment. {including for me and a lot of other people, the stimuli of needing to pee, needing to drink, needing, to eat, needing to move....}

To engage in hyperfocus, the task has to be fun or interesting.

During a hyperfocus state, task performance improves.

Do these not resemble each other? A lot??? Like, a lot, a lot? Now granted, I find it a lot easier to hyperfocus than that first list above would suggest, since I do it accidentally.

Like, neurotypical advice for neurotypical people is to find a job that allows you to experience flow, and to actively seek out this experience. And then they turn around and are grumpy at us???? For not hearing them when we're engrossed in a task?

Rude.

*it was 3 am when I stated, but then the internet went out

[bonefall]

do you have any tips for writing a low empathy character who isn't evil? Or how to make an interesting apathetic character who's a thoughtless sort of evil? These are two different chatacters btw-

I tried looking up examples and stuff but uh. It's been a bit fruitless.

Honestly it's not too hard! Having low empathy just means we're bad at automatically "connecting" to the feelings of other people. You can come to understand it's not even a character flaw once you uncouple the idea that Empathy = Kindness. And apathy, well, that one's a bit more complicated imo.

Low Empathy

In English, it's just unfortunately super common to conflate Empathy and Compassion. To have compassion is to be aware of the suffering of another person, and ergo, want to help stop it. To be empathetic is to identify with and understand the feelings of another person. These are different things.

For an example in action; imagine a medic with a patient whose shoulder is dislocated, and xey'll need to pop that arm back in place in order for the patient to feel better.

A medic feeling EMPATHY for that patient is having an emotional response to what xey're seeing. Xey might have a tingly "ghost pain" thinking about the injury, and xey might feel guilty xey're going to put them in more agony, but also joy because this patient is going to feel much better in just a moment.

A medic feeling COMPASSION for that patient is thinking about how the shoulder must be causing a lot of pain, and knows xey have the skill to fix it. Xey know from xeir own experience that pain sucks and so it is a bad thing that needs to go away. It will hurt a little more for a moment, but then there will be immediate relief.

This is imo, why a lot of low empathy people are "bad at" comforting people without going to Autism College where they give you the scripts of Shit Neurotypicals Say. We're not trying to be selfish when we end up making "comfort sessions" about ourselves-- that's what we think empathy is, because we don't have a lot of it to really know what you want.

Like, doesn't it make sense to you? "I don't know what you're feeling. Here's a similar situation I've been though. I must know what you're feeling-- does that make you feel better? That you aren't alone? I think that's what empathy is, am I right?"

A LOT of low empathy people go into medical fields, the funeral industry, and disaster relief. We often really do want to help people so seek these fields out, or when we get there, just end up not getting burnt out like our high-empathy peers!

Apathy

As for the apathetic character, honestly, I'd suggest thinking about your story's themes. Villains are very special to me and I always try to handle them with care. What are you trying to say is bad to not care about in your work? How does their apathy play into the story you're trying to tell?

A Captain Planet villain is completely selfish, and exists only to benefit itself by exploiting nature in some way. Then the Planeteers show up and punch it in the face. Boiled down to its barest, most simple essentials; "We have conflicting goals and so I will stop you."

Personally I find total apathy to be something not especially compelling in villains, for that reason. Like, if you really don't care about anything, why bother with the trouble of going against the protag? Motivation is meant to be MOTIVATING.

(also ngl I'm on the Shadow As A Hero sort of bandwagon where I find it much funnier for the simple apathetic cool edgy guy to be the funniest person on your tennis team)

Dungeon Meshi has TWO characters who struggle with apathy, and are both antagonists at some points in the story, but never villains. Shuro and Mithrun. The theme of Dungeon Meshi is the beauty and complexity of life, the value of living, and how our connections to others changes the people we are. Food is a metaphor for bonding, self-care, and understanding.

For Shuro, he begins the story as someone who's both been encouraged to bottle up his emotions for the sake of other people, as well as to not actually consider the emotions of those lower-born than him. He's from a very different place than the other members of his party, and this causes friction as class, culture, and sophisticated, refined, weapons-grade autism clashes.

When the woman he loves is eaten by a dragon, he doesn't stop to tell her brother and """childhood friend""" what he's planning, as if they both wouldn't run in and get hurt. He owns demi-humans. He doesn't consider his own needs or the needs of his rescue team of loyal vassals. As a result, he's too weak to continue, losing a fistfight with one of the main characters, Laios.

After this, he connects with him for the very first time, and reaches out to him by giving him an important magic item. There's even a MASSIVE moment where he outright tells Laios that his ability to be so open (read: not have to mask his autism) is something he envies, breaking through that veil of apathy he wears.

The story Dungeon Meshi is telling here is that it is important to value the needs of yourself and of others. Shuro's apathy towards his own needs in a bid to prove his love weakened him. In acting like he was above his old teammates, he never spoke to them like people to smooth out his issues. He's never even noticed how much his vassals love and care for him.

(and the incredible irony is not lost on me, that Shuro's name is because Laios mispronounced it and was never corrected... while Shuro never noticed that Izutsumi had the unwanted name "Asebi" forced onto her when she was "taken in" and made his slave.)

See how that comes back to the theme? Shuro doesn't exist to just "be some asshole" or act like a villain. He has a full character arc that contributes to the narrative.

For Mithrun? I won't even spoil it. Go read Dungeon Meshi. Watch elf depression. We love a king with strabismus.

Anyway,

If you ever need good personal resources on any stigmatized mental condition, I've found it's usually productive to go into the #Actually (Thing) tag here on Tumblr. You can find people posting about basically anything. I found a lot of really good resources on NPD that way.

[youcouldmakealife]

Masking, YCMAL edition

So, after the general info on masking, here's how it specifically looks like and impacts some of the 'verse's characters.

I think I kind of need to preface this with the fact that a lot of my characters have neurodivergent traits because, well. I do. I don't know how a neurotypical person thinks, the same way a neurotypical person doesn't know how a neurodivergent person thinks. You can read about the experience, and, despite shitty stereotypes to the contrary, you can empathize with it, but the wiring of the brain is literally different.

So when I'm listing characters here as neurodivergent, I either a) set out to write them that way or b) in hindsight can't deny that their experiences are written through a very specifically neurodivergent lens. Someone not being explicitly labelled as ND doesn't necessarily mean they aren't, I just..really don't want to go back through my entire 'verse applying diagnoses the same way I happily slap an MBTI or enneagram or kindergarten teacher/assassin label on them, because that feels wrong.

But if you're neurodivergent and see something in a particular character that makes you feel seen, I'm not going to tell you 'nah man, they're actually neurotypical'. Especially because literally every single one of them was written by someone neurodivergent.

Anyway! Canonically ND characters and their masks:

David: masks extensively. Generally does his best for 'unobtrusive, pay no attention', unsure why it doesn't seem to work (mostly because he's talented and beautiful, so it seems less 'unobtrusive' and more 'I think I'm better than you', which isn't helped by the fact that often when the mask does slip, it's to show frustration, contempt, or disdain -- think at the All-Star Game his rookie year, or several points early on with Jake. Also does not help that he often does think he's better than people.)

Bryce: Still laughing at 'straightsona' used to describe Bryce out with his teammates, because it's perfect. His 'I don't care, I'm hot as shit, bitches love me' dickhead behaviour was him picking up those behaviours from popular peers and teammates over the years, partly mistaking that for the reason they were popular (rather than being seen as boy kings making them callous or arrogant), and partly viewing them as the exemplar of someone no one would predict was gay. Jared's worst enemy.

Speaking of, honourable mention to Raf Sanchez AND Julius Halla here, Jared's going around collecting neurodivergent loved ones all through IJ(aoe).

James: 'unobtrusive, pay no attention', much more successfully than David, partly because he has a mouthpiece in the form of Finn. His crashing after road trips is partly extended overstimulation and change, but it's also having to wear the mask more extensively, because he has much less time to himself, especially when he shared a room. (He's mostly unmasked with Finn, that's why Finn is his exception to a lot of No People things, but he wasn't at the beginning).

Holden: Also kind of 'I don't care, I'm hot as shit, bitches love me', but...ironically? He doesn't mask as much as the others, and because of that, he frequently drives away people who originally seem to like him and wonders why. Has been described as 'a lot'.

Fiona: Literally will not leave the house without a full face of makeup and a pair of heels or she'll feel exposed and vulnerable, and putting her make up on is how she prepares to be Outside Fiona. She's very perky and friendly at work. The second she gets home it's an 'uggggh' moment and straight into the shower to decompress/literally unmask. She's more aware than any of the guys that she's putting on a performance, partly because she grew up with all those 'girls are expected to be...' followed by a list of things she definitively wasn't. Has also been described as 'a lot'.

Finn: And How May I Be of Service To You Today?

Now this is where it gets kind of interesting because like -- people often have facades. That's not a neurodivergent only thing. People can be fake, or posture, or pretend to be something they're not. Mike, for example, will lean into the big macho asshole when he's put on the defensive, Willy is Always Performing, Thomas is sunshine even when he doesn't really feel like being that, Robbie will play the buffoon to make people laugh if he thinks they need it, half of Joey's rants are playing to the cheap seats.

Like, there's a difference between pretending you're somebody else sometimes, or behaving inauthentically, and full on 'yeah, they're masking'.

But Georgie is masking. Georgie is, at all times, evaluating his surroundings, monitoring people's emotions and reactions (especially to him), and behaving in the manner he thinks is most likely to lead to his being liked. And he was already doing that when Robbie met him, but it's intensified significantly since.

I think that's where the biggest difference lies between some of the above ND characters and Georgie? David, for example, doesn't care if he's liked (like, yes he does, but also...no). The mask is for safety/to minimize vulnerability. David's in particular was tweaked to get praise and avoid criticism from his parents (didn't work), teachers, and coaches (worked much better), not so much for his peers.

But Georgie's isn't for safety. Georgie doesn't manage his behaviour to avoid harm, Georgie wants people to like him. And he's discovered that people don't seem to like him when he does certain things, or acts certain ways, or needs things from them, so he just...doesn't do those things.

Finn's interesting because he has both forms. Please like him it'll break his heart if you don't.

[xiexiecaptain]

The biggest thing I've learned to help manage my ADHD in regards to getting things done is to Follow Those Impulses

(I'm not saying this will work for or is even a good strategy for everyone, but in my own situation it's helped me.)

I'm like allergic to consistency in schedule and cannot enforce one on myself so all it leads to is self-loathing and failure. Trust me, I've been attempting to will-power, shame-fuel my way through it since I was a preteen (I'm currently almost 30.) It does not work for me.

Obviously medication can give me a huge leg up on stuff. But beyond a certain point my brain is simply not wired for long-term sustained consistency.

As in many of my issues, I've found that working with myself gets better results than fighting myself.

When I follow those sudden impulses of interest and motivation, I get things done.

To the outside, I look absolutely haphazard. I'll pause a show I'm watching mid-sentence, stand up, and go empty the dishwasher because my mood/brain/chemicals *ping*ed that it was suddenly do-able and not a huge overwhelming task. Or I'll be putting away laundry and that *ping* will go off and I'll spend three hours re-organizing my closet.

To a neurotypical, this looks like distracted and disorganized behavior.

To me, it's following the way my brain naturally works in order to accomplish tasks.

My ADHD manifests in that I experience very small and unsustainable windows of motivation and interest. So when I feel that window crack open, doing the Thing right then (when the situation enables me to) can mean the Thing actually happens. Even if it's not the thing I'm "supposed" to be doing.

With a neurotypical in that situation, they might be putting away clothes and think: "Oh, I should organize my closet. I have time this weekend, I'll do it then," finish putting away their clothes, and then organize the closet when they had free time that weekend.

I used to try to do things that way too. Because it was how I was taught that "responsible, real people" did it, and had "finish one thing before you start another" drilled into my head. But I'm literally not wired to work that way. And I've been working on undoing that internalized ableism of believing one way of doing things is better and I need to change to adhere to it. I don't and shouldn't be expected to to my own detriment.

For me with the closet example, the weekend would come and I would spend 5 hours screaming at myself to stop working on whatever did have my interest in order to go organize the closet. Sometimes I might ended up doing it. More often, I would not be able get myself to do it even after all that. I would just sit there, yelling at myself, hating myself despite my brain literally not having the chemicals to initiate the activity (let alone follow through) and nothing would get done. Not even the thing I wanted to focus on instead.

The only thing I did accomplish was hating myself for not being able to do "simple" things like other people (read: neurotypicals.)

This is basically how I spent the majority of my schooling; doing simple tasks felt like running in sand. And I internalized all the messages that told me it was my own fault I couldn't run as fast and in as straight a line as those running on pavement.

The past few years, I've been trying to follow impulses more. And its honestly been really helpful.

I get more done even if it isn't a "consistent" amount or I can't always count on having a specific thing done by a certain date.

But the big thing is that I spend less time hating myself for not doing what I "should" be and more time actually doing things when I have the motivation for them. More shit happens, I'm undoing some of that self-loathing.

tl;dr: My advice for fellow adult ADHD-ers is:

Try to learn what your natural rhythms are and, where possible, try leaning into them. Without judgement, try working with your natural tendencies rather than battling them at every moment. See how it feels, see what you accomplish (and not just in the capitalistic "productivity" way--spending 3 hours hyperfocusing on researching the history of wheat germ counts!) See how your brain and body feel.

Your brain is wired different, let yourself operate different.

[binaural-histolog]

Alexithymia and Hypnosis

Last post on cognitive construction was interesting, so I've been exploring it more.

One of the interesting things about the emotional construction theory is that it's instinctive and automatic. Typically, people don't analyze and think through emotions. Instead, they are immediately seen and recognized in the same way as words are immediately seen and recognized. Likewise, we like to think that we can immediately see and recognize the emotions of others.

But this doesn't apply to everyone. Roughly 10% of the general population has alexithymia, an inability to recognize (or construct) emotions in themselves or others. These people do experience feelings, but cannot provide a label for these feelings. If they do bring up feelings, it may be in the form of physical sensations "good but a little queasy" or "very bad about to throw up" or a very long description of all the events and actions leading up to that point.

The attention-appraisal model of alexithymia provides some understanding of what is happening. In many models of alexithymia, there are the same three components present.

Difficulty identifying feelings in the self (DIF)

Difficulty describing feelings (DDF)

Externally oriented thinking (EOT)

This attention-appraisal model builds on work in emotional regulation through valuation systems, by processing feelings through a four stage situation-attention-appraisal-response sequence. In other words, a snake in the room (situation) leads to looking at the snake (attention) leads to the idea of "snake in the room is bad" (appraisal) and finally fear (emotional response). The emotional response can then be the focus of valuation, leading to questions like "do I like being afraid?" and "what's the best thing to do to reduce fear?" leading to action (running away from the snake). This action is emotional regulation, the activation of a goal to modify an unfolding emotional response.

The attention-appraisal model conceptualizes DIF, DDF, and EOT as problems in the second stage of valuation system. EOT is a difficulty in paying attention to an emotional response. Likewise, DIF and DDF are problems of appraisal, where the individual is aware of an emotional response, but doesn't know what it is or what it means. Without an understanding of what they are feeling, the individual cannot appropriately decide on action and cannot self-regulate their emotions.

The underlying cause of DIF and DDF is theorized to be a lack of development in emotion schemas, the cognitive structures that guide the processing of emotions. However, this does not explain why alexithymia often increases during periods of distress. The model theorizes that some difficulties may be caused by avoidance alexithymia, a regulation strategy that effectively deals with unwanted emotions by not dealing with it at all, using EOT to disassociate.

Alexithymia is very common in people with autism, with a comorbidity somewhere between 50% to 85%. Many of the problems involved in autism are directly related to the inability to self-regulate and may not be directly related to autism at all. This makes more sense when looking at how people develop emotion schemas. Children do not self-regulate, but have their parents provide feedback and regulation. This interaction breaks down between neurotypical parents and autistic children because autistic children do not display affect, and do not react to stimuli in the same way. With limited or weak verbal representations of emotions, they cannot verbally elaborate their feelings or communicate them to others, and cannot develop appropriate emotion schemas and lexicon.

So how does this relate to hypnosis?

Well, it turns out that hypnosis can be an effective intervention for reducing alexithymia. Effectiveness of an hypnotic imagery intervention on reducing alexithymia took participants through an 8-session training program and found that hypnosis was an effective intervention.

We chose an indirect procedure using neither direct nor posthypnotic suggestions able to elicit the production of emotions for two reasons: as alexithymic people tend to avoid confronting their emotions, direct suggestions could have led to anxiety and to a defensive reaction. The second reason is that we wanted them to mobilize personal resources (Erickson and Rossi, 1981). Thus, the activation of personal knowledge and procedural memory in the participants should lead to a better response to the therapy. We then suggested that they feel different emotions while telling them ‘fairy tales’. These are of particular interest as our population is likely to be more involved in the training and to experience an age regression when given the opportunity to listen to old stories from their childhood, as these evoke difficult situations and/or traumas, as well as violent and negative emotions that the participants could have experienced in their life without having to directly confront them. Each participant listened to eight fairy tales, presented in the same order. Each script presents a well-known fairy tale involving a traumatic situation (e.g. abandonment in Hansel and Gretel, death wishes from a parent in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Sleeping Beauty, incest in Donkey Skin), and a large range of negative feelings connected with the traumatic situations. However, we introduced a change in the mental state of the main character of the fairy tale, and proposed a reframing of the situation and/or original solutions. For example, the necessity of leaving the parents’ house in order to become an adult in Hansel and Gretel; direct expression of negative feelings and refusal in Donkey Skin instead of taking flight; and the possibility to survive the assault of a parent in Sleeping Beauty and to pursue his/her own development in a positive way. Because we do not have any preconception on the cause(s) of alexithymia, nor of how to ameliorate it, we decided to activate different targets: traumatic events and negative feelings connected with the situations, and we proposed different solutions based on the expression of emotions and self-assertiveness.

This technique can be used generally in recreational hypnosis: if you want to elicit emotions in people with alexithymia, describe a situation that they can recognize already and build up the link to the emotion.

[crow-caller]

Hey! I want to preface this message by saying that I mean absolutely no hate by it, and I genuinely respect your content hugely and think you're an amazing person. However, in your most recent video you made a comment about autism that I, as an autistic person, have a different perspective on, and thought it might be interesting to you.

You said that being autistic doesn't automatically make someone disabled and I disagree. A disability is anything that makes it difficult for an individual to function in normal society. This means that, whilst autism is indeed a neurotype and is not inherently bad in any way, it is still a disability as our society is entirely based on social structures and social norms that are completely antithetical to how autism as a neurotype functions. Essentially, whilst autism is a neurotype, the way that autistic people are expected to conform to neurotypical standards makes it a disability, as it makes it significantly more difficult to function.

I and many other autistic people who are extremely high masking and have low support needs still consider ourselves to be disabled not because of our neurotype, but because of how society is structured to our disadvantage.

I know that it was just a passing comment and I genuinely don't want to be rude at all, but this is something that I'm extremely passionate about because of my own neurology. I love your videos, and I hope you have a good day :))

So, this is something I've got a lot of comments on!

Let's start here: I am ALSO autistic and disabled. I probably should have made it clearer.

This is a very interesting subject really and comes down to how we define disability in terms of medically, socially, and more. I'm not an expert, but I happen to live with someone who does study autism academically (and is also autistic and disabled). (My flatmate is helping me correct this wall of text too.) (also, this is VERY long and not like, trying to prove you wrong, it's just more I feel like giving a lot of context, especially for people who aren't very aware of autism related issues)

Firstly also, it's 100% valid to view autism as a disability or identify as disabled via your autism. I don't consider my autism to be a disability, but it is something which can be disabling.

Autism as a disability though is complicated, and to call it not a disability again relies on how you actually define disability. Your points here are very true, but also rely on a social system of understanding disability. The world isn't built for autistic people and that can cause disabling effects. If the world was built ideally for an autistic experience, would autism still be able to be counted as a disability? This is called the social model of disability and is a newer thing.

Traditionally disability has been considered in terms of the medical model, not the social. This views disability in terms of there being a disorder or deficit in capability for an individual which requires treatment or intervention. With autism, it isn't really ideal to use the medical model because it inherently implies autistic people are in some way lacking.

But then there's also the legal definition of disability. Autism is legally often classed as a disability because disability is a protected category that affords certain protections such as against discrimination. This is also how autism is able to be used to gain access to special accommodations such as in uni. While labelling autism a disability in this more legal system sense is important, this is primarily because there is no other protected characteristic it could fall under at this time.

Ideally, I'd say 'neurodivergence' is a better category, though it's a term which has a lot of debate on what that means. Usually, it'll include autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, and dyslexia. All of these are things which can be disabling in certain circumstances per the social model but are harder to place in the medical model as disabilities.

I call autism a neurotype to reflect the idea it is fundamentally another way for the brain to be wired. A good example of this is what is called the 'Double Empathy Problem': Autistic people are often thought of as being impaired in terms of social communication and empathy because they are often viewed from a neurotypical perspective. However, the same is equally true in reverse: non autistic people often struggle to socially communicate and empathize with autistic people. Meanwhile, autistic people are able to communicate with other autistic people equally in much the same way neurotypicals find it easy to communicate with other neurotypicals. The trick to it is that autism is a neurotype, and what appears to be deficits and flaws is merely a difference in communication style between two neurotypes.

Is the theory, at least. This is pulling into flatmate help, who again studies this sort of thing at PHD level.

It's complicated, really. It has nuance. I hope it's been interesting!

Basically, I'm really aware I should have had more context in what I said. Especially since I pulled out the term 'neurotype' which isn't exactly common lingo. It's ultimately up to every individual autistic person to decide how to label themself and doesn't require any intervention from academia to find an answer. It's just this is actually a very hot topic of study and a rather interesting one. I definitely will be adding a new pinned comment meanwhile on youtube to at least clear up I wasn't an ablebodied neurotypical handing out judgements on the autistic. this is just my life.

[sunspira]

Im laying my bets now. the entire idea that autism (and adhd) is more common in men and boys is pure myth created by poor science, backwards statistics and faulty parameters of the condition itself. in another 50 years we will understand it was never a gendered condition. just a highly gendered and biased measurement system. i'm absurdly confident on that

the rates of autism in girls is "rising" exponentially. it is rising even more exponentially in girls than in boys. not because girls are becoming more autistic. but because the "science" is just getting better at measuring and accurately acknowledging autism in girls.

autism often does present differently in girls, due to how girls are raised or personality differences. the literature and criteria was based on boy sample groups. the entire research data was done on white men as if that is a standard default person and control group.

not only that, doctors and teachers and parents literally were not looking for it in girls under the false widely propagated belief it was rare in women in girls. it is a self fulfilling prophecy. that's not science.

we will soon have to reckon with the lost generations of autistic girls and women and children assigned female at birth* who never got diagnosis and early intervention. we should be forcing the world to reckon with it right now. a great deal of autistic millennial women are brilliant minds who dropped out of STEM and the workforce due to their untreated and misidentified disability overtaking their life. the impact of never Knowing you or your child is autistic or adhd is difficult to comprehend for autistic and adhd people who did get diagnosed as children. even when the awareness and interventions were unhelpful or harmful. the harm of not knowing means the child trying even harder to become neurotypical and a level of autistic burnout few others on the spectrum can comprehend, often taking place after the woman is a legal adult, and there are no legal protections in place for this disabled person.

the unmitigated stress of being developmentally delayed and never knowing it, simply hating and blaming yourself and fighting day in and out past your limits to become neurotypical, limits your don't know you should have because you have never been so much as briefed on what adhd or autism can feel like. you don't know the distres and tiredness you're feeling is "dysregulation". this is why we see women in nervous breakdowns. psychiatric wards. treatment resistant depression. electric shock therapy. hard drug addiction. cutting. homelessness. personality disorders. dissociation. psychosis. early death by accident or suicide. (obviously people who are not autistic or adhd have these illnesses but my point is untold and disproportionate numbers of them are undiagnosed neurodivergent with unprocessed trauma. i'm telling you. more than you think).

it's why we see young people on tiktok not faking DID per say, but describing a dissociated experiences and fractured sense of self and escapist alternate personalities, a mental illness that has much less in common with traditional DID, but has much in common with struggling and under-treated autistic people. DID is a very rare condition. autism is very common. autism can create out of body experiences and self protective blurring of reality and fantasy so extreme, no person can be expected to understand it is autism if they never been advised about their own disability and the knowledge that should he available to them. it's no wonder we have people with mislabeled rare disorders like DID who are clearly very sick but instead of showing real DID signs, are sick with all the signs of severe unassisted autism they have been completely barred from understanding or coping with in any other way. for those lucky enough, we see unemployed young women with severe chronic pain in their 20s and 30s who look and feel like they're elderly and gave up their dreams when they hit 21 or 25 and their brains stopped working and their bodies shut down. now they mostly scroll tumblr and tiktok and try to remember to open the blinds. they have a roof but people scorn them for entitled laziness and worst of all derided for "self diagnosing".

again i'm asking why CFS chronic fatigue syndrome is so responsive to adderall. i'm asking why professionals are reluctant to test women for adhd if she does well in school because she is very bookish and why experts in the field are openly amused and doubtful to test a woman for autism if she has a long term boyfriend. why is ability to mask or function a disqualification. why is inability to function in women, who later turn out to be autistic or adhd, so aggressively mischaracterized as BPD, bipolar, depression, OCD, schizophrenia. why is autism and adhd clinically diagnosed and defined by distress and dysfunction and not by intrinsic traits and qualities that present while still functional for preventative care. why are all people, men and women forced to wait until their lives and minds are deteriorating and they have experienced some irreversible disasters and pain before they can be diagnosed. why must girls and boys wait until their daily life as children have become unbearable hell for them before their disability can be treated and acknowledged. and if these policies are changing now, why are doctors and psychiatrists not eagerly and urgently reaching out to find the vulnerable adults they missed during more archaic screening methods. we aren't rising in adhd diagnosis because of tiktok you assholes. adult onset adhd and autism don't exist. those people were always adhd. adult onset skill regression and increase in severity due to stress DOES happen in adulthood. modern day stresses like loss of structure during the pandemic and social media is advancing to become more attention span draining. everyone is feeling the effects but these are causing adhd and autistic people to cope less and mask less effectively so they are running into significant problems, their loved ones are noticing, they are getting referrals and suddenly forced to google their rapidly worsening mental issues for the first time and seeing they line up with a known neurological condition . this is obvious. doctors blaming it on some sort of trend are being willfully clueless

*because autism especially is screened identified diagnosed and first intervened ages 2-5, before a child has an internal concept of self or gender and above all before they can express their gender, diagnostic practices and criteria are based on how adults perceive a child via birth assignments. and the studies are overwhelmingly beholden to data only on children assigned male at birth, rarely accounting for their actual future gender either. as part of the warped science insisting that autism is as if somehow linked to the y chromosome and not a universally likely human quality, you see amab kids laser focused on as candidates and afab kids fucked over most of all. all children assigned female have the worst chances of their developmental disability being identified and acknowledged in a timely manner and disproportionately experience late diagnosis in later adolescence or adulthood. tho i wouldn't be surprised if trans womens rates of accurate diagnosis is lower than cis men. as trans girls may present autism differently and characteristic of girls autism, even while still in the closet or before she knows she is trans. regardless adults are very vigilant for signs of autism, even atypical ones, in any child they perceive as a boy. so any millennial or gen z child identified female at birth had significantly worse chance at receiving autistic support compared to peers

in particular women assigned male at birth might have a better chance at being identified for types of autism that are often labeled "high functioning", involves high masking, and often receives few services. these more invisible types of autism often need to be diagnosed before age 5 in order to qualify under the criteria at all. and so in the days where autism was believed to be 20x more common in the genetics of xy children, any chance of being considered and diagnosed would come down to almost purely birth assignment dependent. with the less outwardly visible types of autism, a person who misses this window will remain autistic all their life but once they learn a certain level of skills and masking, no matter how late they learn these, the person will no longer qualify for diagnosis, either not until they have a nervous breakdown or possibly not ever qualify. it's this type of more hidden autism we see struggling across the board as undiagnosed adults including both trans and cis women especially, tho we are seeing it disproportionately even more so in undiagnosed afabs of any gender. who are dropping out of schooling and work and succumbing to severe mental illnesses during what should be the prime of their lives. overall tho birth assignment is not everything this is an issue that disproportionately impacts cis women. trans women. trans men. non-binary people. likely doubling for those that are afab. and then tripling and quadrupling for children who are not white.

bit of an understatement in that last part there. gender likely isn't even the biggest barrier to proper diagnosis and treatment. probably race is even more so. but since gender is such a big disparity in itself across race and one i relate to and can speak on from experience ive focused on it here. a more in-depth look is needed on the neglect of adhd and autistic children of color especially black native and latino kids. but for now do keep in mind the points i'm making increase exponentially for kids who aren't white across all genders including cis boys

[hiiragi7]

A lot of you have such a black-and-white worldview that you take anyone else's experiences as a direct attack on your own.

No, a DID diagnosis is not inherently a death sentence - But to say that a DID diagnosis cannot ever affect your ability to adopt, get accepted for a job, or anything else is false.

Yes, even if it's illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of a disability. It happens anyway.

I have been seeing a lot of people saying "I just don't tell them I have DID and it's fine" - Have you ever considered not all of us are functional enough to have the choice to hide it like that?

I do not have direct personal experience with DID specifically affecting my ability to get work or adopt or get into a good school, because I was diagnosed as an adult and have never been employed or interested in adoption - I am too sick to even leave my bed most days.

I do, however, have direct experience with systemic discrimination on the basis of having an autism diagnosis since the age of 6.

Certain schools would not accept us or would make us move schools because they saw autism and did not want to deal with "a kid like that". Our very first school kept suspending us and sending us home and punishing us and refusing to follow our learning plan and eventually just told our parents to move us elsewhere. This was first grade.

Growing up, our autism diagnosis was what justified abuse, which they called "treatment".

It was also used as a tool to question our ability to do things, communicate, and know what we want.

Our autism diagnosis generally either meant we could not possibly make our own decisions or it was played up for the entertainment and feel-good of neurotypicals.

We ended up in news articles and events occasionally as a little kid. They all focused on our autism. Do you know what a big deal it is to neurotypicals when a kid "like that" can deliver a speech to hundreds of people? You end up being the talk of everyone, you're an inspiring story for "overcoming" this "disease" they called autism.

And yet they still will be cautious accepting you into whatever school you wanted to go to because they doubt your abilities and believe your parents must have faked your writing to sound as cohesive and well-written as it did when you applied. We were gifted in english. But we were autistic.

And then they turn around again and use you as good PR.

Your first introduction anywhere you go is "This is X, they have autism!"

"Look at what good people we are for accepting such a child into our program!"

And then they turn around again and mistreat you for that very thing they will publicly brag about.

They will also see your diagnosis and want to use you for free or reduced labor cost. I do not remember anything about this relating to us, but kmow for a fact this did happen to many of our fellow SPED kids in highschool - They'd have programs to employ autistic youth where they paid you solely in "work experience" and "social skills".

You do not get paid - You get "to learn life skills".

I also know of many programs where, while they technically pay you, they make use of disability laws that allow them to pay disabled people less than minimum wage. "They're all living with their parents anyway because they can't live on their own, so it's basically just like an allowance."

Even moving away from us for a moment, we have known people personally who had their ability to parent their child questioned in court because they had one or more mental health diagnoses on their papers.

Do you see what I'm getting at yet?

No, a DID diagnosis does not automatically mean you will be discriminated against on a systemic level and outcast from society - But to say it is not possible at all is to ignore a very massive and glaring ableism issue that is a very real lived reality for many, many people with DID and other disabilities.

It is not "misinformation", it is often not even "fear-mongering" to point this out.

We live in a shitty world - To tell someone with worries of getting a DID diagnosis that "That won't happen, don't worry!" in regards to discrimination is incredibly misleading.

No, do not say that an official DID diagnosis is some kind of monster that forever seals your fate as to how you'll be treated within society and that nobody should ever get diagnosed unless they plan to stay in an institution for the rest of their life or whatever. That's stupid.

But for the love of god please stop telling people that they will not be discriminated against just because you haven't been. You are brushing the experiences of the rest of us under the rug in doing this.

[newhologram]

Some say that everyone is "mentally 3 years younger" because of all the time we "lost" during the pandemic (which is still not actually over). I don't disagree; that can be a lot of arrested development for people who were teens in 2020 and adults now. I think of my nephew, who started kindergarten online. But also: millions of spoonies "lost" years way before covid, all around you. In isolation. While families, friends, and society abandoned them. While I do feel stunted in many ways because of "losing" 10 years to the intense onset of a higher level of disability (while already badly traumatized and mentally ill), I think maybe a redefinition of all of this is needed. Just because a spoonie's experience isn't the norm and they had a very different way of "growing up" doesn't mean there was only a loss. I feel disconnected to most (non-disabled, neurotypical) people I meet who are my age. We've had very different life paths and live so differently as adults. I often form close bonds with people who turn out to be near the age I was when my hourglass froze. I don't know, it's hard to be concise and precise when describing how I feel about it. I think I'll feel like I'm in my 20's forever, because I mostly spent it surviving some really bad stuff. Chronic illness, disability, grief, abuse, isolation almost killed me so many times. I feel like a living ghost, like I'm in the wrong timeline. Do I feel like I "lost" a decade? Do I still grieve, because I never got to have a "normal" life? Yes. Do I also feel grateful for what I gained and how I learned to survive? Do I also wonder fearfully who I would be today if I hadn't gone through this? Yes. It's the anger at having my youth taken from me competing with the gratitude that I was able to survive to become this version of me, who I actually like. Not perfect or pure, but also okay with not being so. Even though I still have a lot of health issues wearing me down, I feel a weird sense of like "okay, NOW I get to experience my 20's" but what does that even mean? If I break the hourglass, it's meaningless anyway. The sand just falls all over the place, there's no "gap" in time that was "lost" by being sick. It's all filled up with the same sand. I want to stick my hands in it even if the glass cuts me. I don't think it'll make me feel like an adult or even a person. But the sand is there. It wasn't wasted. My youth wasn't wasted just because I had to spend it surviving. My life isn't a waste just because I spend it mostly at home, taking care of my body. It's not wasted if I never get to see my dreams come to life. It's not wasted if I'm only able to carve out a simple kind of fulfillment. Sometimes it feels impossible to find the richness in that sand, when I can't access medical care, when I'm really sick, when I'm frustrated by trying to coordinate hang outs with able-bodied people who need constant reminders of my limitations. Other times the sand is warm and comforting. I feel like as long as I stay wrapped up, I'll be okay.

[arosnowflake]

I'm not a fan of this narrative in many autistic writing spaces that writing autistic characters is easy for autistic people, that we do it naturally, that we do it by accident and it requires no thought whatsoever. I think it's a gross oversimplification of what it means to write autistic characters well and promotes stagnation in your portrayal of autistic characters.

It's true that many autistic writers will accidentally make characters autistic/struggle to write non-autistic characters because our own autistic thought patterns are so ingrained to us. For many of us, writing autistic characters feels like second nature. What I resent is the assumption that a) this is true for all autistic writers, and b) this means you're automatically great at writing autistic characters.

First: this is not true for all autistic writers. I actively practiced writing autistic characters for years by creating isolated scenarios specifically about autism to explore what you'd have to do to write autistic characters, before I felt like I had the skill to write autistic characters in scenarios not specifically about autism. I am still practicing. I don't think I'll ever stop practicing. Incorporating autism into the narrative did not come naturally to me. I'm sure that I regularly incorporate autistic traits and patterns into characters intended to be neurotypical on accident, but to me, that is not the same as writing an autistic character and does not translate to writing autistic characters naturally. Stating 'autistic writers don't struggle to write autistic characters' as a universal truth is just wrong.

Second, even if you do feel like it comes naturally to you to write autistic characters, you should note that what you are writing is a reflection of yourself. You do not represent all or even the majority of autistic people. If you want to diversify your portrayal of autism by incorporating autistic traits that you do not have, you will likely have to practice. If you only rely on your personal experiences with autism to inform all of your autistic characters, you will create a one-dimensional portrayal of autism.

Third, something you will quickly notice if you seriously try to write different autistic characters is that the traditional narrative tools utilized in writing are often unsuited for autistic characters. An easy example: eye contact is often used in dialogue to signify importance. If a piece of dialogue is especially important, the author will often have the character 'turn to look at [protagonist]'/'look [protagonist] straight in the eye' to signal to the reader that they need to pay attention. If you have created a character who hates eye contact, do you still do this? Would your character be able to look someone in the eye, even if what they are saying is important? If not, how else do you signal to the reader that this piece of dialogue is important and they need to pay attention? What do you imply when eye contact is utilized as an important, foundational aspect of conversation?

That's an easy example that's pretty easy to solve if you give it a few seconds of thought. There are ones that are a lot harder. How do you write from the perspective of a non-verbal autistic person who does not think in words, in a medium relying entirely on words to convey thought? (That's something I still struggle with greatly and do not feel confident in writing, but hope to figure out through practice.) A lot of basic narrative structures and cheats that authors take for granted fall apart the moment you try to apply them to a character who is sufficiently removed from them. This can very much apply to autistic characters.

For me, the trick in writing autistic characters is less in making them stim or be socially awkward or whatever, and more in thinking about how them being autistic affects basic narrative structures. Autistic people often stim; in what ways can you use stims to your advantage in characterization? How do you show intimacy in characters who are touch-averse? How do you make it clear what your other characters are feeling when you're writing from the limited perspective of a character who cannot tell? Do you even want to, or would it be more effective if you didn't? Again, basic examples, but you get my point.

I believe that relying on a kind of 'natural instinct' when writing autistic characters often leads to rather boring portrayals of autism. I don't mean to discount it entirely; it can obviously be helpful, and there are many people for whom overcoming a reliance on writing clichés is much more natural than it is for me. But by taking your ability to write autistic characters for granted, you may be passing up the opportunity for much more diverse, creative portrayals of autism. It is worth thinking about the ways you write your characters, what kind of personality traits you often give them, and how you can make your character's voice more unique while writing. This advice is by no means limited to autistic characters or even minority characters; it's general writing advice.

And of course: utilizing neurotypical writing tools to write autistic characters will create flattened portrayals. Figuring out how and to what degree you wish to discard writing conventions is, in my opinion, integral for writing good autistic characters.

[edge-oftheworld]

'have you considered that luke likes to lie' 'all men do is lie' okay maybe he's been a bit optimistic about the scheduling of 5sos6 and has since corrected himself but

before i go on i want to make sure i say it clearly: i'm not saying you did anything wrong by theorising this!! or saying it in (parital) jest! but there is something i really wanted to touch on with my neurodivergent activist hat bc i think we make some assumptions as a society that we really shouldn't.

as someone who gets time blindness especially around creative projects and can be on a roll where I work quickly then crash at an unexpected point and don't do anything for months, timelines for things getting done are often really loose and difficult to picture, and saying 'this year' in january is a very loose and flexible thing referring to a long amount of time, in which a number of things will get done but i can't specifically tell you what. just a list of things that I will attempt to do if i feel like them.

and I basically did want to say, if golden globes!luke was communicating from somewhere anywhere along those lines--it is demoralising to have everyone expect that you know exactly what will get done and when and be held to standards that are fuzzy at best and more optimitic guidelines than a commitment. it is discouraging to be accused of lying (and obv he's not on tumblr, but idk about twitter spaces i imagine people were saying the same and we know he is on there) when you're genuinely doing your best with these socially constructed milestones that don't make sense.

and i don't know for sure what goes on in his head!! none of us do. it'd be weird if we did. so maybe he is lying?? or maybe he's not. all i'm saying is when the whole world assumes one thing and it isn't true it's isolating and invalidating. so think. one tumblr post probably isn't going to do much. but if it's part of a larger culture where experiences that aren't your everyday neurotypical assumption are treated like they don't exist (until proven otherwise then it's 'omg i'm so sorry i didn't realise i didn't mean to!') then that is a problem. and we don't know for sure, but we do know luke has 1) written several songs about time passing by and feeling like he's not keeping up with it; 2) talked about the process of writing shakes in interviews recently, and given a different timeline every single time while also being super genuine and vulnerable in the interview; and 3) forgotten how old he is mid sentence in an interview one time. it's not a stretch for me to think 'maybe he's not lying and if everyone assumes he is it could be harmful'.

also adding on this I feel like we can kinda extrapolate this to the band as a whole?? being curious and nonjudgemental even though we are frustrated, because to most of us time is a constant thing we make plans to and we like to know when things are happening and get frustrated when we don't. but think about it. the whole 'soon' saga. ashton initially planning to release a single in march. they're creative, they work hard and fast when they're in the zone, and sometimes that comes with the cost of Simply Not Knowing When Something Will Happen. for me it's validating of my own experience. for many it's frustrating and that's understandable!! i do want to say again i really don't want to antagonise or criticise anyone for expressing that. but i also want us to start questioning, does time really get experienced the same for everyone? and the answer is no. and so we can't always just assume people can automatically translate to a language of scheduling that might feel foreign. and in the meantime we can enjoy listening to more songs about this very experience!

[stereax]

over explain hockey rpf pairings and why people like them - sincerely a girlie who wants to get into rpf but only knows her home team

hahahaha, alright :)

hockey rpf: a thing

So firstly, I'll say that, honestly, I'm not the top person to answer this. I am a bit of a fanfic writer, but I'm nowhere near established enough to have a very concrete understanding of it all.

That being said - generally, the reason any RPF (real-person fiction) exists is as an extension of a parasocial relationship. RPF allows people to project feelings onto a fictionalized version of a real person (here a hockey player) who we know much more about than they do us.

RPF can be divided into two subcategories - Player x Player and Player x Reader.

"x readers" (generally found on Tumblr) are often contested in the world of RPF, as many people consider it a bit too far in breaking the fourth wall. There are also issues with diversity in "x readers". The reader in question is almost always assumed white, Anglo-American, cisgender, female, heterosexual, heteroromantic, neurotypical, not fat, not disabled and not disordered in any way. Not only does this reinforce a "beauty standard" (by insinuating that only this kind of person is "attractive enough" to be a partner of a hockey player), it alienates those who do not fall into these categories - this is especially pertinent, at least in my limited experience, for transmasculine people, for whom being perceived as female can cause discomfort and dysphoria. If you're an "x reader" writer reading this and thinking that you're the problem for writing to uphold this standard, please don't feel bad - this is the standard "x reader" fiction has upheld for years. I ask only that you consider writing for more diverse audiences. Maybe one of your next "x readers" could be for a character explicitly written to be of color, or a transgender character, or the character could be hard of hearing or require a wheelchair... The possibilities are endless.

Enough about "x readers" and my gripes on them, though, as your question leads me to believe you're not all that interested in them. Player x player fics (generally posted on Ao3), while not as divisive as "x readers", also carry their own issues, often around misportrayal. For instance, some hockey players, such as Carey Price and Zach Whitecloud, have Indigenous backgrounds, which are an important part of their identities, but are rarely discussed in any detail.

In both areas, it's generally emphasized not to have the fics interact with the public figures - this means archive-locking on Ao3 and other measures to reduce the probability of players actually finding and reading these fics. Don't send a hockey player fic about him boning his teammate. That's weird.

As perhaps the "homoerotic homophobic" sport, hockey RPF situates itself in an environment that allows writers, who are often queer, to tackle issues of sexuality (sometimes gender as well) in a sport that is not always tolerant, mimicking some writers' experiences with homophobia and transphobia. This is especially pertinent in an era when Pride jerseys are being disavowed by players and the NHL itself.

The main idea of RPF, though, isn't a group of queer scholars writing treatises on queer topics - it's simply being a witness to the joy of others, watching people you like being happy (with each other) in situations just left of reality. Hockey, and hockey players, are just the medium for finding that joy. I think that's the long and short of it, honestly. I've spent a solid half hour trying to figure out a better way to put it and I really can't. People care about hockey pairs because they care about the players and want to see them happy. Whether it's a realistic hockey fic or a high fantasy AU where the players are royalty and knights, the idea is to create something that makes oneself (and others) happy. There are fics that, for some of us, hit home in a way that fundamentally changes our point of view on life. Not every fic is earth-shattering, but they are all labors of love, generally in the name of love, and perhaps that's something to cherish in and of itself.

Let's get into some of the pairings, then.

Generally, the more popular pairings have some sort of impetus or drive behind them - an interaction (or usually series thereof) that makes the pair enticing. Popular pairings almost always deal with popular players, too - it is incredibly rare that bottom-six players and journeymen are featured in fics.

Often, the impetus for a pair is them being teammates and growing close, giving interviews about each other, having good chemistry (and cuddles!) on the ice, and so on and so forth. Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin, Mitch Marner/Auston Matthews, Jamie Drysdale/Trevor Zegras are some of the most common teammate pairs on Ao3 - going into the specifics on each pair I mention from here on out would require my making entire primers at this point, which others have done far better than I could. Teammate pairings are often denoted by jersey numbers. (8771, 3416, 611, respectively.)

The other main impetus for a pair is a rivalry. Who doesn't love a good rivals to lovers? Leon Draisaitl/Matthew Tkachuk, Sidney Crosby/Claude Giroux, Jack Eichel/Connor McDavid are some of the top rival pairings, with each having strong motives. The first stems from the Battle of Alberta and Draisaitl's "get off the ice" comment about Tkachuk before combining for a sweet goal during one of the All-Star Games; the second is the Pennsylvania teams' rivalry that led to Crosby basically breaking Giroux's wrists before they made up on one of the Worlds Team Canada rosters with Crosby centering Giroux; the 2015 draft class where Eichel and McDavid were pit against each other and the media-stoked rivalry, only stronger now that the "worse" player Eichel has a Stanley Cup whereas the Oilers' "savior" and "generational talent" McDavid is still Cupless, fuel that pairing.) These pairings generally are denoted by portmanteaus of last names. (MattDrai, Cheesby [Giroux's love of grilled cheese makes a better pairing name], McEichel.)

Obviously for pairing names, there are exceptions - Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid is often referred to as McDrai and not 2997, as one example. Oftentimes, numbers or last names aren't used, and it's just written as "first name/first name" or "firstfirst" - sidgeno and nicojack are two examples of that. That works better when your pair has at least one distinguishable name.

As always, I know this is far from complete, and I invite others in the HRPF community to share their thoughts and experiences as well! :)

Your hometown team (don't know what it is) probably has a few pairs that are written about. If you're up to it, maybe start from there. If that feels a bit much for you, maybe start from a pair whose players you aren't yet emotionally attached to, from a different team. That's, of course, if you want to dive into the world of hockey RPF at all - if not, that's totally cool too!

If you want to know more about a specific pair, let me know and I'll do some Tumblr trawling for ya.

[discyours]

If we assume a great number of trans people are on the autistic spectrum it still makes me wonder -since they didnt ”internalize” the role that they were being socialized into since the day 1 (well-the attempts to done by society and family) why did they internalize the opposite instead? I would assume if they don’t see the difference, say screw the differences - then why jump from one box to the other saying no i dont belong to this box and never did but my true self belongs to this particular box instead of idk saying both boxes are rather…dumb. That would make more sense to me if i think of autistic people and yet i see so much clutching and rigidity but maybe i’m wrong and the demographic i’m describing could be different and come with other reasoning, experiences and feelings. I know it’s a gross generalization from the start as i am aware every single individual has unique experience of it all- still i think we can agree there are some similarities that can be drawn here and there, in big lines. I would totally love to hear what you think. You are very insightful when it comes to it all, thank you for taking your time to be on this blog

The Autistic Experience varies a ton, but something that's pretty consistent in my observation is a combination of 1, a need for rules and structure in order to make sense of the world, and 2, an inability to follow rules that don't make sense (because respecting authority for authority's sake is just a social convention).

What counts as a rule is gonna be different for any given autistic person than it is for neurotypicals (and often, other autistic people), and what does and doesn't make sense to us is also likely to vary a lot.

A lot of autistic people DO throw out the idea of a gender binary because "there are only men and women, despite the fact that intersex conditions exist and despite the fact that you don't identify with either social role" is not a rule that makes sense to them, and is therefore worthless. A lot of autistic people identify as nonbinary or agender. I'd say that might actually be more common than identifying as binary trans, but I don't have any statistics to back that up. But they aren't just throwing out the rules, they're replacing them with new ones that do make sense to them. Rules about what's transphobic for example (which can, within their framework, often be anything that reinforces a gender or sex binary). Or rules about what does and doesn't constitute being "cis". For other autistic people, the sex/gender binary DOES make sense to them, and the concept of nonbinary/agender does not fit within that, therefore does not make sense, therefore becomes worthless. When I was a transmed I never would've even considered if I felt more "nonbinary" than male. It just wasn't something that existed within the framework that made sense to me (which at the time was that your "brain sex" determines your gender and that my brain was "the wrong sex" for my body, but that there was no evidence for "nonbinary brains"). And I subscribed to other rules about gender dysphoria. What it meant, what caused it and what treated it.

In either case it can be incredibly painful for people to disagree or to cast doubt on your understanding of things, because it feels like they're literally trying to tear down your entire framework for understanding the world and yourself. Letting go of that rigidity can be really difficult and that makes autistic people vulnerable to getting caught up in extremist worldviews, but that doesn't mean our opinions are worth less than neurotypical people's.

[pizzapasta23045]

Could it be that part of the reason you dislike aroace Albedo headcanon might be related to the autism headcanon? Because like. I can see two things related to it that would prickle. One- infantilization. It’s unfortunate but it happens a lot- especially with questioning gender, sexuality and such. I’ve had my own gosh darn friends do it to me, calling me an innocent bean and the thing of oh neurodivergent people don’t want/like/understand romantic or sexual things is. Frustrating.

Similarly- I can see a secondary angle but more in the Alhaitham one- where it’s mischaracterizing a character because obviously he just doesn’t like people/is a jerk because he couldn’t possibly pick up on cues! Much less to realize someone likes him! Which is. Also frustrating. Albedo reads to me as a soft spoken introvert. While I’m all for aroace head canons- and it can be very interesting to explore- sometimes there’s some unfortunate overlap between tropes. Like, neurodivergence/asexuality being represented by robots. Like they whole not human thing because you’re missing something intrinsic to what makes someone human.

Sorry for rambling. Sometimes stuff just bugs us, and sometimes there’s an underlying thing that makes it feel uncomfy, at least in my experience.

A part of it yeah.

It's both the autism and the introversion. Unfortunately a lot of sexuality hc are less based on the character but just the stereotype (like introvert=ace fun and chipper=pan ect) and like.... I'm not gonna go to specific people and point it out before it's probably just their actual HC and shit.

But yeah... Yeah... We don't gotta make the flirty onw bi every time while the copper one gets pan. Kaeya is a little bit bi imo but like, not just because of his flirtyness, you know? And also I'm firm in my demi Kaeya agenda because it's a thing.

I'm not sure if it's infantilization with Albedo specifically since it's a very hit and cold situation with neurotypicals HCing him. Either really sex repulsed or really into freaky ass sex. It is a problem, infantilization in fandom, but I think it may affect other neurodiverse coded characters like Sucrose more.

I do think it's just... The fundamental way in which they misunderstand his ability to socialize. Like he isn't shy, exactly, he will be able to talk back to people and won't turn into a putty in social situations. But he doesn't seek them out unless he finds the person interesting.

He has friends, he can make friends easily, heck! He had Tighnari and Cyno both wrapped around his finger in less than a day. But for some reason the fact that he can't KEEP a relationship or doesn't have a large friend group to them means he does not like people?

Which does not seem to be the case at all.

Also yeah, the mixing of tropes is often really weird. Between neurodivergence (but autism specifically and most of the time) and aceness.

[multiplicity-positivity]

OK OK, I have a question but it's kind of complicated and I totally understand if you can't answer it because I think you really need a singlets perspective too, but I'll leave it here anyway!

So, sometimes I have some "thoughts", which can come in the form of sentences or other things, which are totally random and meaningless. I thought this was normal (aka common) and called it "intrusive thoughts" because technically it wasn't coming from me.

But, I've been seeing in the last few days some people explaining that intrusive thoughts are actually thoughts that don't agree with your moral values but still appear out of nowhere, which usually causes some level of discomfort. I realized that my ""intrusive thoughts"" didn't fit into this, because I didn't feel uncomfortable and it wasn't anything that contradicted any moral values of mine.

Then I saw some people explaining that what most call "intrusive thoughts" are actually impulsive thoughts, which are basically thoughts that make you want to do something. Again, it doesn't fit my experience because these thoughts are never driving me to do something, it's more like "what is this [specific media I like]?" appearing out of nowhere while I'm thinking and I'm almost immediately starting to explain to an imaginary listener about this media.

I was questioning myself being a system before, and this has made me more prone to questioning, but I wonder if it's something with ADHD hyperactivity or just a common thing, as it doesn't happen to me very often (or at least I don't repair) and I don't remember hearing a response that came from the same place these thoughts come from, so I don't know if it could actually mean I'm plural or it's just... Some quirk.

Well, my question is basically this: Is this a common experience, are there other more plausible explanations, or is it really an important sign that I can be plural and I shouldn't ignore it?

— Angelly

Hiya, Angelly! So having random, unhinged, or unexpected thoughts that seemingly come out of nowhere isn’t actually a sign of plurality in and of itself. I think it’s a common experience for people to be confronted with a thought they weren’t expecting! :3

Have you ever conjured an image in your mind that’s seemingly random? Like a chicken juggling oranges, or a line of tap dancing frogs, or a sentient, pie-throwing, microwave robot (okay that last one is an Adventure Time reference hehe)? Having unexplained, random thoughts is actually completely normal, and is something that even individual alters within our system experience occasionally!

Especially if you have ADHD or are prone to losing focus, it makes sense for you to experience random thoughts fairly regularly. Even in neurotypical singlets, the mind can wander, and thoughts can pop up spontaneously!!

I’m including a link to an article from Cognition Today about random thoughts, daydreams, and how they occur:

Does this sound more like something you’re going through?

We’d say that only you can ultimately determine whether or not you’re plural, or whether having random thoughts makes you plural. But we will say that having random thoughts that aren’t necessarily intrusive, just unexpected, is totally normal for singlets and individual alters alike!! If it is a quirk, it’s a quirk that comes from being human, or at least a sentient, thinking being!!>w<

💚 Ralsei and 🐢 Kip

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

This whole "neurotypical writers make people who like fantasy novels feel weird and fake" thing just confuses the shit out of me.

Maybe it's because I've read too much Douglas Adams or something (though I've also read a lot of fantasy literature that had little to do with anything resembling the above experience)

I think one of the big differences, maybe the main difference, is that in a lot of fantasy, what's going on is a story about how people relate to their world and its physical laws. (This is sort of an "emergentist" distinction, but it's related to it anyway.) The laws don't just work, they make some kind of sense: the world can be described, even if this description is not particularly illuminating, so that you can say "oh, so-and-so mechanically means [thing the writer thinks is going on]."

In other words, it's an analogy, not a metafictional "diseño" (I'm sorry, I just can't think of a Spanish word that captures this specific, technical-to-the-point-of-not-even-having-a-name thing). Science fiction often does this.

But people are not abstract objects whose actions are then described mechanistically. You aren't supposed to imagine a person reading this story as some kind of weird, inscrutable "mechanical object" that thinks like you do.

I mean, you can, but the whole point of the thing is that this is not what you're doing. You're not treating people as mere metaphors for your thoughts; the things you're relating to in the story are actual, external things that people do.

And people do things, and they are the kinds of things that "the world" is supposed to be like. Metaphors are not reality, but are not that far away from it, as the writer's world in a lot of fantasy is. Which sounds paradoxical, and in fact there's a certain point to be made there, one I've made in a different place before -- it's that to a certain extent everything is metaphor, and when it comes to a story the writer is creating, that isn't bad because the story is about metaphor but is in spite of it.

If there were no such thing as metaphor, writers would be like artists making drawings of chairs. But actually the people who come to a story like that want to see a story about metaphor, even when it's not directly a metaphor for anything in particular. People like the idea of a chair that acts on its own just like a person does. So it's not as if the story itself is making you feel "weird," it's that other people are making you feel weird because they think you are made that way by the story.

Now I guess it does sort of feel that way. In some sense, a story in which people are "metaphors" for their "inner nature" or whatever feels kind of unnatural. Like something that might exist if you were some kind of weird alien -- there's a certain element of anthropomorphization there. This isn't necessarily bad, because there are ways in which stories that aren't about people are kind of boring -- but it's not wrong in the same way as the kind of thing I described in the last paragraph. (See, e.g. the very popular Cherryh's "Terra Ignota" series, for this effect without the metaphor angle)