#everything started to make more sense when 8 different people said i may be autistic

[miivrs]

autism be DAMNED this hyperfixation is starting to look like a lot like a special interest

[sweetandsavageautistic]

(CW: Autism Martyr Parent, hell mention, self-harm mention)

So I was searching for if people’d go to hell for being autistic because I was going to a church fall festival (I asked the pastor if I’d go to hell for being autistic and he said no, so there’s that) and I came across this:

https://faithmummy.wordpress.com/2017/10/15/i-dont-want-to-be-an-autism-parent-anymore/

*big-ass inhale of frustration.*

Okay.....let’s take this in bits.

“*Preface: have you ever felt overwhelmed with life? I have. Of course I love my son with all my heart, I should never need to even justify that, but living with a child with severe autism is hard. I do not need threats made to my life or my child’s because I find some days hard. Comments like that will not be approved.

And for the record I don’t always feel like this but I am human and some days this is exactly how it is. *”

Okay, that’s understandable. You’re allowed to voice that it’s difficult. You’re allowed to feel overwhelmed. That’s valid. If the post continued like this, I’d be fine with it, but she calls herself an Autism Parent, so.....brace yourselves.

“The day started far too early. There was no sweet cuddles in bed or a little voice asking for a drink; no I was woken as usual by screaming. I have had day after day, month after month, year after year of being woken by screaming and I don’t want that anymore.“

That’s also valid, but at the same time, he’s trying to communicate with you. He’s trying to communicate his needs. He might not have any other method of communication, whether it’s the only way he knows how to communicate or that he lacks the proper tools to communicate. 

“I don’t want to wake up to a smell that would make you want to vomit and bedding that is fit for the bin more than the washing machine, because yet again it is covered in something that ought not to be seen by anyone else. I am so tired of that now.“

That just is how it is sometimes. You gotta deal with that. 

“I don’t want to sit on my couch in the middle of the night looking at my child and wondering what I did to have a child who sees no point in sleeping, who at 8 still can’t say ‘mama’ and who still thinks the world revolves around his needs only.”

This is where I get pissed. You’re basically saying that your son is a punishment for you. You’re calling him a burden. But it’s the last bit that boils my blood. 

“who still thinks the world revolves around his needs only.”

This is where I say “Fuck. You.” You’re making him sound selfish. Us autistic people generally have trouble communicating our needs because neurotypicals don’t seem to fucking listen. You’re making it sound like he’s arrogant and a narcissist. If you’re looking for that, look in a fucking mirror.

“I love him more than words could ever convey but I don’t want to be an autism mum anymore.”

You love him and yet you just said you wonder what you did to have a child like him? That shit doesn’t add up. 

“I want to be a mum who has fun with her child rather than doing therapy with them.

“I want to walk my son to school and talk to his friends instead of sending him in a taxi to a place where I am a stranger to them.

“I want to be able to talk to my child about the fact it is his birthday soon and discuss what he would like to do to mark that day.

“I want to be someone who takes my child to bowling, teaches them to ride a bike or even goes to the movies with them. Instead the only place I ever take him to is hospitals or respite.”

This one’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, yeah, your child having to miss out on those things sucks. On the other hand, the subtext is indicating that this is about YOU, not your child. 

“I am tired of missing out on everything. I am tired of never having party invites, knowing nothing about his day at school, having to still dress him, having to take adult nappies and wipes with me wherever I go.“

No, you’re tired of not being able to live vicariously through him, as shown by you saying YOU are tired of missing out on everything. 

“I don’t want to be an autism parent anymore.

“I am tired of holding my child as he screams in public again.

“I am tired of the never ending judgement, the stares and the horrid comments.

“I am am tired of carrying around my broken heart as a result of the interventions and therapies having achieved nothing.

“I simply can not bear the thought of my child as an adult knowing what society is like.

“I am tired of meetings.

“I am tired of phone calls from his school.

“I am tired of fighting for everything but then being accused as having an attitude or people thinking I act like I am entitled.”

Have you ever considered WHY he’s screaming in public? Have you ever considered that he’s trying to communicate or that he’s overwhelmed?

“I don’t want my child to have autism anymore. This is not a ‘different way of seeing the world’ that he has, or ‘a wonderful gift’. This is a child about to be 9 years old who can not say ‘mum’ or use a bathroom himself. This is a child almost my height who still can’t put his own clothes on, brush his own teeth or dry himself after a bath. This is a child who can never ever be left alone, who has to have everything the same all the time, who self harms and wanders. This is a child still with the mind of a toddler who will require others to look after him his entire life.“

EXCUSE ME? THE MIND OF A TODDLER? I don’t think he does. You said he needs to have everything the same all the time. He doesn’t have control over most of his life, so having that sense of stability and routine is likely comforting to him. I feel like in the back of his mind, he knows that. Also you can’t wish away his autism. 

“Who would want that for their child?

“Who would want that as a parent?

“Today I don’t want to be an autism parent any more.

“The problem is I have no choice.”

MARTYR COMPLEX ALERT! MARTYR COMPLEX ALERT!

“So I strip that bed, bath that child, cook him that breakfast as I always do and let him sit on my knee while he rewinds the same ten seconds of video on you tube he did yesterday and the day before that and the day before that.“

Bath THAT child. “That child” has the same energy as “That thing.”

“Nothing changes much in my house, except my feelings. 

“Today I am tired. I don’t want to be an autism parent today the same way any other parent may feel about not wanting to be the mum of a toddler who tantrums daily or a baby who has reflux or the partner to someone with Alzheimer’s. We all have days when we are just down about the life we have.”

Um, no. You don’t want to be an autism parent because it’s hard on you. You’re not thinking about your son. If you don’t want to be around someone because you only focus on how their disability makes things difficult for you and not taking their struggles into consideration, they deserve better. 

“Yet we carry on. We dust ourselves down, search for some positives or listen to some music.

“Tomorrow is a new day. It will probably start off with screaming again too., but maybe tomorrow I will be stronger, more hopeful, more upbeat.

“Maybe tomorrow I will want to be the autism parent I need to be. 

“Maybe tomorrow.”

So you just spent 90% of the blog post crying about how hard your life is because you see your child as a burden, and then you say “we carry on”? Are you for real?

This blog post is disgusting. It has one and a half valid points: the preface and that double-edged sword I mention. But that only makes up like 10% of the whole post. The other 90% is them creating a sob story to get pity and sympathy. They’re making themself out to be a victim. 

Here’s a hot take: if you’re not willing to love your child because of something out of their control, like a disability or their sexual orientation or their gender identity, you shouldn’t become a parent. You can’t go into parenthood expecting the ideal family life. You can feel frustrated about the obstacles you face. That’s valid. But DO NOT demonize your child and/or make them out to be a burden.

[thistangledbrain]

I’m writing when my schedule allows! Sorry I’m having to lump days together- but here’s 14 & 15. ☺️

Autism Acceptance Month

Day 14!

“Routine”

Good topic!!

We love routine & structure. Breaks from said routine should come with plenty advance warning, usually, because even if it’s an activity we love, if you spring it on us suddenly, we will likely be less than thrilled. (For example, one beautiful summer morning we approached my youngest and said “let’s go to King’s Dominion today!”...he was about 8. KD is one of his favorite places. But he had already started gaming and was *pissed* about the change of plans. I myself only have two scenarios where I take a sudden change in plans in stride: military/high stress situations, and if it’s my idea. Like if I go INTO a situation knowing things might change on a whim, like chaotic times or what to do on any given vacation day, I usually roll with it really well.) Some auties are better with this than others - remember, we’re all different - if you’ve been reading along since the beginning, you’ll remember I said we all sort of have a “mixing board”, and specific traits are at different levels in different people...and it also tends to ebb and flow as we age.

“Routine” also encompasses what we expect in our immediate environment, to me. I remember when I was a kid and my Momaw (grandmother who mostly raised me) changed her frames on her glasses from those black hornrims to more delicate frames, and the lenses were a different shape, too.

Oh. My. God. I hated it. I HATED it. To this day, I scowl when I think about it. It upset me so badly. She was my rock, my steady - and when her appearance changed, I had a very visceral reaction. I don’t remember if I was ever able to articulate what was wrong, but she must have figured it out, because from there on out when she changed her glasses, I was involved in picking new ones. (That made it SO much easier to accept.) On the same topic, my husband has kept his head shaved since well before I met him. He was still in the Marines when I met him (I had just gotten out 3 months prior), and the man I fell in love with had a shaved head and clean face. Since he’s gotten out, I get uncomfortable when he lets his hair get too long...I’ve gradually come to accept and even appreciate his goatee, but when the rest of his facial or head hair gets long between cuts, it makes me squirm. I am usually more distant when he’s all shaggy - it’s not that I think he looks bad, it’s just that it’s not my familiar guy. (Oh and it *is* a sensory issue. I hate the way facial hair feels when it touches my face - mustaches are particularly offensive.)

But back on “daily routine”....this intense love of the structure *again* comes in handy with the behaviorally challenged and traumatized dogs I work with. (Oh yeah - it came in handy raising two autie boys, too, obviously.) I’m hyperobservant of dogs’ behavior & realized early on that disruptions in routine caused upset or even chaos. Dogs who were not destructive became destructive. Dogs who were calm and measured became frantic. So even when *i* get more relaxed about routines, I am cognizant of the fact that it upsets *them*, and we make adjustments for that. Structure and routine are the bedrocks of working with a “broken” dog. Predictability is key until trust and confidence is gained.

Our love of routine and structure also comes in handy in the military. Of course there are times when a lot of unexpected shit happens, but like...you still have a *mission*, if that makes sense, so shit that happens while accomplishing that mission is whatever (again, same with dogs). Adapt and overcome.

But let’s talk just daily (civilian) life, right?

If I don’t set my alarm early enough to drink a good bit of coffee (slowly and undisturbed) and get used to the idea, for about an hour, that I’m awake and now must Person, it’s a bad day, ‘tater. I don’t care if I have to get up at 3 am to have that hour before work or travel, I NEED that hour. Sometimes I wonder how I made it through motherhood...(I guess once again, when it’s important enough, you just suck it up, buttercup). I also have my evening routines that are important, as did my kidlets, growing up.

Screwing with those routines usually means short tempers, hatred of everything around you, sometimes meltdowns, and just an all around bad time for everyone involved.

So if you have auties in your life, understand that they may *need* that nap during that *specific* time of day, meals should be in certain timeframes, and so on. We all have our little rituals, too, and when those are disrupted, we get disgruntled. We tend to resist changes...even introducing a new food dish or, say, not having spaghetti on Tuesdays when you usually have spaghetti on Tuesdays, your favorite mug not being available for use/lost/broken & now you have to use a different one, not getting to shower before work if that’s your usual, things like that can cause MASSIVE anxiety. I don’t know about other people’s Autie kids, but I know MINE handled routine disruption/change *so* much better when *involved* in the change. Like, sorry that it’s bedtime, but you have choices in what jammies you want to wear, what story you want read, and so on. I know I’m making a new thing for dinner tonight - how about you come help me make it? Stuff like that.

So...I’m ending this post rather abruptly awkwardly & I’m aware it’s a little redundant and scattered, but it was written over the course of 2 days because I’m busy with a dog and a stressed out teenager lately. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Sorry about that!

————————————-

Day 15!

“Everyone should know”...

I could probably keep adding to this post daily. Sigh.

Everyone should know even nonverbal autistics have something to say - you should read their blogs & find out. Everyone should know it offends and hurts us when you treat us as lesser somehow - especially if we know we’re smarter than you, to be frankly honest. Everyone should know autism is a *developmental* “disorder”, NOT an intellectual one - the weirdest, hand flapping, rocking, screeching, seeming mess of an Autie might be one of the most brilliant writers you’ve ever read - I’m dead serious. Everyone should know we all have a voice but sometimes do need some help finding it (and “voice” doesn’t mean just speaking.) Everyone should know talking about autism like it’s an “epidemic” that needs to be “eradicated” invalidates our very existence, and I don’t think I need to expound on what that must feel like, yes? Everyone should know that most (maybe all, idk) of us *would not change* the fact that we are autistic - we aren’t “suffering” with it, YOU are, apparently. We’re occasionally *frustrated* with our brains, but a whole lot more comfortable with how we are than a lot of neurotypicals seem to be. Everyone should know that if someone seems “mildly autistic” (which is what is said about me by people who don’t KNOW me 🙄), know that YOU experience my autism mildly - I don’t. We KNOW you don’t approve...we either hide (mask), or we flip you the big middle finger and say “too damn bad” - and both are usually true with autistic women. (Lots of us start off trying to fit in, but really run out of patience with it. I’ve noticed most of the boys don’t seem to give a flying shit about “fitting in” from jump street LOL...) Everyone should know a LARGE percentage of us are NOT heterosexual. Everyone should know neurodivergence has always been within the human species - it’s just we have more names for shit now, and it’s a little more more socially acceptable to be different, so there are more people “living out loud”, as it should be. Everyone should know that lots of delayed autistic kids grow up to be brilliant scientists and engineers and contribute massively to society - look at Einstein. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Everyone should know we’re human beings, and should be treated as such. xx

[lloydsluck]

Crow’s Feet

Prelude

Ever looked at something that’s so fundamentally flawed, so bad in design, form and function, it’s actually intriguing. Like a botched piece of taxidermy or a first attempt at a short novel. A piece of work that was probably not half-assed but whole-heartedly assed with good intention and it would be insulting to the creator to jokingly ask did you write this story as if you’re the old piece of gum stuck underneath a Grade 8 English Lit student desk?  With no light, sense of tense, or spellcheker? The stereotypes and bad similes cause eye rolls so

 far back into one’s head it’s like… well it’s hard to think of a comparison here, so count yourself lucky. Not to mention the ADHD diversions, talking about mounting dead animals in one sentence quickly sidestepping to self-awareness of this piece of literature. I digress. When last did you see a questionable piece of art that you found beautiful? So bad, it’s great. So useless and time-wasting, it’s what you’ll think about ironically one day on your deathbed. Because heck… made you look. 

The Incision 

1

Mondays. The start of a new week. New opportunities for a new you. A fresh squeeze of hope that things will get better served with a side of “I can change” attitude. And no matter how many Mondays we have, (4 187 to be precise, if you, like the average human being will live to 79), you will wake up to the same old boring Monday, every week, the same way. 

Each one with a long dreary stretch and sigh, heavy eyes, telling yourself that you will make the most out of this week. But you won’t. Because laziness is time consuming and you don’t actually have anything else to do, really. 

However, on this particular Monday, which was Fick McOwen’s 2226’s Monday, things were different. 

Fick woke up with the dreadful sensation of drowning. Sinking deep in a casket of darkness. As he gulped in a breath of thick air, it tasted of rotten cabbage coating the back of his throat. Blind and bewildered, sharp metal sounds scratched close above his head. The sound stung his eardrums and made him cock up his forehead banging it hard against a flat surface.

‘Jeeezus fuck’, he hissed. 

With no sense of time and space, his ears were ringing overcharged electric chimes in his head which felt cracked and ready to explode like a reactor in Chernobyl. He took a few minutes to try and calm himself. No good ever came from a panic attack in closed confines with a possible concussion. He finally raised his hands to his chest and did what most drunks do the minute they wake up, pat themselves down and check their underwear.

*

One week earlier.

2

If she was just a bit nicer, Jeffrey thought, she may have already had a proper and dignified burial for her husband. Stomping up and down a room that looked like it was decorated for a five-star hotel in Vienna, the newly-widow’s bony figure moved fast from left to right like a rabid old fox prowling a fence. For Jeffrey, her unwanted but needed bodyguard/help/punching bag, she was Hitler’s sphincter. She sparked fear in him and tightened his nerves with her demanding presence. Like a screwdriver twisting and turning into soft wood. A reaction he despised about himself. It ruined many good days. Sunny days and days like today. 

Watching her from the corner of the large room, she attempted phone call after phone call, shouting at poor bastards who made the simple mistake of answering their phones that day. 

Wanting to disappear he closed his eyes and listened to every passive-aggressive step she took in the room. He liked to tell when she walked on the tiles or the bear rug; it was a fast tac tac tac womp womp womp womp tac tac womp womp…then nothing. He opened his eyes and with a fright found her standing right in front of him, steaming red with anger.

Her greying blonde hair was fastened in a tight pincushion on top of her head. This pulled back her frail white skin that held everything in place. Face to face, he couldn’t help but stare at the permanent makeup she had done on the lower lids of her eyes and on top of her brows. It was starting to fade and as a result, it looked like she put eyeliner on days ago and never washed it off. 

Her stare was cold and deadly like an overworked mortician’s. It complemented her daily outfits of thin grey pencil skirts and matching suit jackets. She had her name embroidered on the inside of the neckline since all of her clothing was specially washed and pressed at a local laundromat. One that she owned of course. 

Margaret. 

That’s what her husband used to call her. Or Margarine, Margie, or Macaroon. She would always remind whoever was listening that she was actually named after Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowden. If you had to look her up, you would see the uncanny similarities between the two women. So much so, that Jeffrey often wondered if they weren’t related. Considering how much of a royal bitch she was.

Nevertheless, he had to call her Mrs. Ergo. And he preferred the kind request from John Ergo, her late husband, since he didn’t think she would have liked the names he had listed for her in his head anyway. 

She snapped back up and walked across the room towards the large oak desk that faced the gigantic windows that looked out onto their garden. Their Ergo-Eden. With a deep sigh, he sat up straight and smoothed back his black hair that was styled according to an old Italian mobster he saw in a film when he was 15. 

“It’s all in the confidence of smoothing the wax over your hands first and then through your hair.” That’s what the old man said to his fellow pasta slurping, red-wine drinking, two hits a week gang that sat around a checkered table talking about the importance of looking respectable, no matter what the job. And this was what he told himself in the bathroom mirror every morning, (impersonating a very bad Italian accent of course) while he prepared for his day. 

Apart from the respectable hairdo, Jeffrey was built like a small bull with a refined jawline. At first glance one would imagine he spends his days lumberjacking in the forest; but instead of plaid shirts, he was forced to wear black on black as per ‘management’s’ request. 

He refocused his attention on her and as foul as she was acting that day, somewhere deep inside him, he felt sorry for her and her loss. His face twitched as he clenched his jaw trying to shape compassion on his face, but feared he looked more like a constipated clown trying to keep his cool. He was given cards once with all the different faces and expressions on it. Ironically, the illustrations looked like they were drawn by an autistic robot with no emotion nor artistic talent (it was), but it helped him deal with different people. Lines that came down the forehead with no teeth, meant anger or disappointment. Teeth showing meant they were happy – or about to bite you. 

Margaret often made faces Jeffrey couldn’t place on his cards and her teeth always had some lipstick stains on it, which quite frankly, just distracted him altogether. 

He watched her go down a list of names and numbers, furiously scratching them out when the call didn’t go as planned. Eyeing the last name and number on the list, she picked up the phone and started dialing. 

3

Fick carefully pulled the skin up the neck and then over the top of the head, trying his very best to keep his hand steady. He wore magnifying goggles that pushed his choppy brown hair up toward the ceiling and enlarged his olive-grey eyes. It looked like the head of a praying mantis was stuck on a lanky man's body who dressed as if he found a discarded box of 80s band shirts and never bothered to wear anything else again. 

'There.' He said as he lifted his hands and inspected the bird-like shape that was coming together in front of him. 

In the back of the garage-turned-workshop, a small radio was trying to hold itself together while Henry Rollins tore away at its speakers. The music filled the room and gave Fick the ability to concentrate. Nothing else was audible. Not a phone or a thought could break his focus. 

And it paid off; the crow started to take a lively shape, fast. All it needed were the eyes and some beak touch-ups and this bad boy was ready for some teenager's window sill.

Fick lived in Long Fountain, a small town where the kids were either into wrestling, the backyard kind, or satanism – also the backyard kind. This meant there were a lot of goth-like metalheads who gave themselves names like Agares and Forneus and hung outside the grocery store to smoke cheap cigarettes they bummed off the shop clerk. They would wear black makeup and dangle fake blood vial necklaces around their necks. Some would even proudly claim that they spray-painted hale satin on the backside of the church announcement board. To top off their rebel-without-a-cause-and-lack-of-basic-grammar-look, these kids would own a taxidermied crow on their windowsills, just for that extra edge. 

“It’s a phase” most parents would say, but Fick couldn’t care less. He got fifty bucks out of it, liked the work, and asked no questions. 

As a self-employed middle-aged Taxidermist, he could work from home and at his own pace. Something he considered to be more valuable than a performance bonus cheque at the end of a year after slaving away in a badly lit office desk from nine to five, five to seven days a week.

He didn’t necessarily consider himself a hermit, but he did prefer his own company with the exception of a few selected people – very selected and very few. This was a choice he made unapologetically clear to others who wanted to befriend him for no real reason. When presented with this frankness, they would awkwardly laugh it off and insist he’s just a fun and sarcastic guy. He despised those people the most. 

Furthermore, Long Fountain was a small enough town for the nosy types to know everyone and their business, while still quiet and sparse enough for others to embrace the privacy of the town’s border. If you had to take a drone shot from high above, the edge of the town looked like it disappeared into the desert like an ocean of drought that spilled into a suburb. Fick could never figure out why they called it Long Fountain though, as there wasn’t even a lake or river anywhere near them. But he liked it there and he appreciated the colourful desert sunsets that could be found if you were at the right place at the right time.

The only other peculiar thing about the town was that there was an abnormally large crow population, which he didn’t mind because it meant more product for him. That, and an abnormal amount of  old age homes. 

He gripped the tweezer handle between his teeth while he carefully glued the last soft tiny black feathers to the rim of the beak; he tended to hold his breath during these final touches. While the song came to a screeching halt, the ringing of his cell phone surfaced through all the noise and concentration. 

‘Fuck!’ He spat out the metal twangs, pulled off the goggles and flipped his phone over to reveal four missed calls from an unknown number in town. He was about to throw the phone over his shoulder onto a once purple–now grey–couch, when the screen lit up again with the same number flashing. 

‘Hello’ he answered casually trying to simmer down. 

‘Hello, is this Fick McOwen?’ A sweet lady’s voice kindly asked on the other side. 

‘Yes, how can I help?’

‘I’m looking for someone who can help me with a,’ she paused for a second,  ‘stuffing job?’ 

‘Well ma’am, I do all kinds of taxidermy. We don’t call it stuffing though, rather mounting,’ he smirked. ‘Anything from crows, bucks, ducks, even your pet poodle.’ He stared at the one-eyed crow that was perched up in front of him. 

‘What is your rate?’ She calmly inquired. 

‘It depends on the job. Small birds and animals start at thirty bucks, and then it can go up to a couple of thousand for a full deer, buck or elk.’ 

She went quiet on the line. He could tell she was busy writing something down, possibly a calculation. He hated long silences, it gave him indigestion.   

‘What would you like to have mounted?’ He nudged, just to check that she was still there. She remained quiet. 

‘Hellooo?’

‘Ten thousand.’

‘Excuse me?’ He quickly asked to confirm that he probably misheard.  

‘Ten. Thousand.’ She repeated sternly. 

‘Ma’am. What do you want to have done?’ His stomach started to tie knots of doubt, anticipating a job he may not be able to do. 

‘I prefer a private meeting to discuss this further.’ Her tone suddenly changed from a sweet old lady to an office crank complaining it’s cold. He hesitated for a second. Feeling his gut whisper all tales of caution to avoid this type of interaction. “If it’s too good to be true…” he would always remind himself. 

But…then again...

The ten thousand dollars started to swim through his mind like a beautiful woman in a red bikini, blowing kisses from a crystal blue pool. Caught in the moment, he impulsively replied, ‘Okay.’ She quickly confirmed that her people will be in contact with his people and disconnected before he could even take a breath to say he doesn’t have “people”. 

Confused about the call and left with nothing to follow up with, he decided to write it off as another crazy old lady from one of the care homes who got hold of the nurse’s office phone. Eyeing the cotton-eye-crow, he proceeded to hit play on his stereo, threw his mobile on the couch and stuck the tweezers back in his mouth to finish the job.

NEXT CHAPTER COMING SOON

[amaluelmwood]

I’m going to put this all under a cut for people who haven’t seen it yet etc, but... some thoughts about Endgame. 

I mean. The first thing y’all should know (if you don’t already) is that I am a long time Tony Stark fan. My first MCU film was Iron Man. My first MCU character love was Tony Stark. Tony is my favourite, has always been my favourite, will always be my favourite. 

(It may also help to know that I am autistic and my love for Tony Stark is definitely also tied up in Special Interest territory, and also in making-me-feel-better-during-depression-and-shit-life-circumstances territory)

So.. I’m admitting a bias for Tony Stark right off the bat. Just, getting it out there etc. 

With that said.

The more I think about Endgame... the more I hate it. 

1. This film. THIS FILM. Did Tony so fucking dirty. I am perfectly capable of understanding why the writers went with this end for him. Hero’s death. Let him rest. End of an era. Maybe RDJ wants a clean cut. etc. But it was shit. It was badly fucking done. Tony Stark had ten years of character growth. Tony Stark made sacrifice after sacrifice after fucking sacrifice, until he made the ultimate sacrifice. That was a not-payoff. That was... I don’t even know what that was. I hate it. I understand that I am biased, but... that was fucking bullshit. It was also bad writing. It was also entirely predictable - I knew going in that this was going to happen. I... legitimately cried in public. 

2.a. Why the hell was Tony’s payoff given to Clint? Clint had barely been in the last few films. He’s been supremely underused and he was an asshole in AOU, CW. Like - really? Why am I suddenly meant to care about a guy who was an asshole and then disappeared?

2.b. Why the hell was Tony’s payoff given to Steve? And in such a really fucking stupid way? Steve’s ending was... seriously, what the fuck was that? You can come at this a hundred different angles and in all of them, it’s stupid and bad writing. A sample: So... after WS and CW, where he spent two whole movies being obsessed with saving Barnes and fucking over... literally everyone over it... he’s now abandoning him to the future alone? By going back and marrying Peggy, he’s just wiped out her entire line of descendants. Or, if he was always her husband in secret, he... spent 70 years in hiding? and Peggy... kept him secret somehow? And he had a brief romance with his own niece? Oh, and he also... left Bucky with HYDRA? He left HYDRA to infiltrate SHIELD? He.. left behind all the innovations and cultural shifts and so on etc to go.. and live in the fucking 40s? Where women and poc are less than secondclass citizens? I could go on. but I’m also just going to say: uhhh.. The serum severely slows down ageing. 

3. They fridged Natasha. Really. Really. Bad writing. The sacrifice that would have made better sense there would actually have been Clint, accepting that he’s gone too far down the path of darkness and using this opportunity to make a sort of amends for it. But no. Instead, we get ‘Natasha has lost purpose, is depressed, dies’. Right. 

4.a. Where the fuck was Carol? She’s the literal heavy hitter of this collection of enhanced people for fucks sake? What the actual fuck was all the build up of her film, and the extra scenes at the end of her film and IW? Setting her up as an important character for Endgame? And then... nothing? I mean, she’s stronger and more resilient than .. Hulk. Anyone else think of that? like, hi? She could have EASILY wielded the damn gauntlet/stones and survived unharmed? Hello? No? No. Apparently having her godmoding self turn up to kill the ship was what they wanted to go with. It looked cool, sure, but... 

4.b. An alternative to Tony literally sacrificing himself AGAIN. 

The gauntlet is thrown his way. Stephen gives him the hint. Tony goes to grab it, perfectly ready and willing to commit the ultimate sacrifice again, kill himself and his future, his hopes and his dreams, to save his family and the rest of the universe.

At the last second, Carol grabs it, ‘It’s ok Doctor Stark! You’ve made enough sacrifices, let me get this one.’ 

Carol fixes everything and her godmoding power means she’s barely scratched. Tony learns he doesn’t always have to make the sacrifice, it’s not always on him to fix other peoples messes, there are people around he can rely on... he can rest. 

5. Fuck the Russo’s. Cowards. Absolute fools. 

6. Also, what the fuck was that 30 second Russo cameo as a gay guy? Are we meant to be patting the Russo’s on the back for that throwaway never to be seen again ‘representation’? When we've got Brunhilde? Loki? Carol? You know, actual canon queer characters? Double fuck you Russo’s. 

7. ALL THE FEMALE ENHANCED/HEROES TO THE RESCUE except... wow... is that really all we had? Through, like, twenty films? I know that was meant to be an awesome look at these baddass ladies scene, but all it did for me was point out quite how few of them there were. Pepper-as-Rescue was awesome, though. 

8. Fatphobia. Fat. Phobia. Again, I know it’s a visual shorthand. But it was the fucking laziest, disrespectful, fatphobic bullshit writing. 

9. What the.. fuck was that Professor Hulk? 

10. Give me Tony back you cowards. 

---

I mean. I generally hate time travel stories anyway? Because they’re so.. stupid. But this film... This film did not do time travel well. Like. At all. I also knew that time travel was the only way they were going to do it. I knew that going in. And I still hated it all. 

But... there were some things I enjoyed. 

Tony and Peter reuniting. That goddamn bearhug. God. Crying. 

Tony telling Steve exactly how he feels, finally. (Except, Steve... still didn’t apologise...) 

The look on Stephen’s face as he gave Tony the hint, clearly knowing it was going to kill him.

Pepper as Rescue. Carol killing Thanos’ ship. Everyone turning up at the battlefield to save the day. Morgan. ‘I love you 3000′ Literally everything about Tony as a father, actually. 

Thanos’ expression of utter defeat as he finally realised that was it. 

‘It is America’s ass’ ‘Hail HYDRA’ 

Loki mimicking Steve in the penthouse. 

... 

None of it made up for what has.. basically killed me. I’m not sure if my relationship with MCU can survive this. Tony Stark IS the MCU for me. It started with him, I’ve been with him through it all. It may.. have died with him. For me. I guess I’ll see. 

[fvaleraye]

I’m gonna just put some of my thoughts out there for a minute, it’ll be under a cut. It’s not a vent or anything! At least that’s not the intention ‘^^ It’s just probably gonna get long(correction: it did get long. Like, REALLY long), and some stuff in it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

So...

I’ve mentioned before that my family is not the most supportive bunch, at least where things like... questioning your gender are concerned. I’ve lived with a pretty transphobic family my whole life. Still do, unfortunately. And I used to be a pretty transphobic person myself. How could I not be in the environment I grew up in? I didn’t know any better.

And that was the thing.

I didn’t know any better. All I knew about trans people was what I learned from my family bitching about them at random intervals for no other reason than they thought the concept was stupid. They’d never met a trans person in their lives, but that didn’t stop them from belittling them and making fun of them whenever they saw something related to them on the internet. I never openly belittled them like my family did, but I didn’t disagree with them either.

I had a forced sense of “normality” for my whole life. I was born male, so I was expected to act as such. Honestly, I’ve questioned my gender since I was... almost seven, I believe. I just didn’t really understand what the feelings and thoughts I was having back then. I was a kid, and, at that point, I hadn’t heard of trans people yet, so where was I supposed to go with thoughts like “but what if I’m a girl?”, “I don’t feel like I should be a boy...”, “I don’t know what I am.” Of course, I didn’t always completely relate to a more feminine image of myself(*demi*girl, and all that), but I related to it more than the expectations I put on myself.

And that was another thing, my family never really pressured me to be masculine, most of the pressure came from me. I got caught playing with my sisters dolls once when I was almost 8 and my parents lost their marbles. Of course I got a lecture about how boys can’t play with dolls... However, the topic was dropped as fast as it came up. It was never brought up again. Later, when I was around 10, was when my parents started bringing up the topic of trans people during their little discussions and started trying to dismantle the idea.

I had always pushed away the thoughts that were “different” or “weren’t right”, and getting a name for the thoughts enforced that. My parents hated the idea, so obviously I couldn’t have those thoughts. I still didn’t even completely realize what I was thinking, just that I had to act like how I was “supposed to”. I put myself into a mindset that I could not be feminine at all, ever. I used to refuse to play female characters in games, it was that ingrained into my head.

Speaking of games... Metroid was a big step for me. I first saw Samus in Smash Bros., and I thought she was a robot. I was very big into robots then, so I loved her. I didn’t find out she was a girl until we got Brawl and I used her final smash. I stopped playing her for a while, but then I just said “fuck it” and started playing her again. I thought she was cool. Eventually I got the Metroid Prime Trilogy on my Wii U. I had still been avoiding playing female characters in games, but I was willing to now. And how could I not play Samus’s games when I loved her so much in Smash? I felt comfortable playing her games, and in Smash, because she was a girl that didn’t... act like a girl. She kicked ass in a badass suit of power armor, which wasn’t a very girly thing to me, so I felt like I was “allowed��� to play as her. Which was dumb, and the only person who said I wasn’t allowed was myself. I was always my biggest enemy. Video games were a big coping mechanism for me, so when I finally let myself play as female characters without an excuse... I started getting better. It wasn’t an overnight thing, and I wasn’t accepting myself solely for that, but it was a start.

Eventually I found... Undertale. Yes, Undertale. Honestly, a lot of good things in my life can be eventually traced back to that game. Undertale didn’t get me thinking about my gender or anything, no, but it got me onto tumblr. At first, I just... lurked. I didn’t have a tumblr account, I just had a few tumblr blogs that I knew of and hung around. Eventually I thought of my Undertale AU, and that’s when I finally made my tumblr account.

Of course, I only absorbed UT content at first... but, through tumblr, I was exposed to other things. I learned about different sexualities, I learned about what being transgender actually is, I learned... a lot. Or was inspired to learn. It was a slow process, but I finally started questioning myself... and accepting myself. It took me about a year of being on tumblr to question my attraction to people and accept that being attracted to everybody was okay. And it took me almost two years to come to terms with my gender identity.

Now... tumblr didn’t give me an epiphany, no. It wasn’t a magical solution to all my troubles, and I’m not gonna pretend that it was or is. No, I always knew. Tumblr just helped me be open-minded enough to accept what I already knew. And tumblr brought people into my life that helped me figure everything out.

I realized why I was never happy with myself.

I am... not a very feminine looking person. There are a lot of things I hate about myself. A lot of things that I want to be, but am not.

I want to be... feminine. I want to be petite. I want to be cute. I want to look good in skirts. I want to wear heels... okay maybe not that last bit, but I won’t know until I try-

I wish I could go back and just be born the way I wanted to be. But I was born the way I am. Do I plan on transitioning someday? Fuck yes, I’d love to! I want nothing more than a body I can be comfortable with. However... it’s a medical procedure, and those are always stupidly expensive. And I am terrified of surgery. I think my biggest fear is surgery... If there's a way I could transition without surgery? Even if it’s only partially? I can live with that. At least I think I can live with that. I hope I can. I’d just like to avoid going broke or getting put on a surgical table. I just want to look like the kind of person someone else can look at and think “oh, she’s cute”. I think the hardest part of getting to transition would be getting out of this house. I’m disabled, I have a hard time functioning, especially when it comes to things that people would consider work, and I’m at risk of losing my disability checks because the people who are in charge of these things seem to think that my IQ is too high for an ‘actual’ autistic person to have(I have other disabilities alongside that, but that’s another discussion altogether.) I’m just. Kind of fucked. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to get out of this house, to support myself... I hope I’m wrong. But the chances of me living away from my family aren’t looking good.

I won’t let it stop me, though. I’m going to try. I keep thinking I’m on a time limit, especially since I’m gonna turn 20 this year, but my uncle lived with my grandmother until well into his forties, and y’know what? He moved out recently, and he’s doing great! If he can do it... I just have to keep in mind that my life’s not gonna get better overnight. It’s a process. My life will get better... it may take years, it may be a long, long time from now...

But it will get better.

[imexperiencinggrowthgetoverit]

I’m sorry about all the extra, I’m not having a good brain day (autism is taking the entirity of the wheel today instead of just assisting my driving)

1. For me pronouns really matter because I feel dysphoric if the wrong ones are used. Lots of people don’t feel defined by the though.

2. Erm, I guess? I was the usual “Tom Boy” but I mean, that doesn’t mean much anymore lol. I suppose I probably did but I don’t have many detailed memories cuz trauma~/OSDD

3. Hmm, as an afab and girl-identifying child I liked quite a bit of femme-bias stuff but mostly cuz i wasnt given any masc-bias things based off my family’s assumptions. I never really thought about much of it from a gendered perspective other than my behavior even as a kid cuz to me I was only excluded from activities because of who I was not what I liked. It’s a very confusing thing to explain.

4. When I first discovered what sexuality (it was romanticality at that point I was 12) was I decided immediately that Bisexual felt correct. Then Demisexual came along (still here woohoo) and then came figuring out I’m nonbinary. Everything after those first three is still happening which is just adjustments to what I know about myself. I’m Demi and Agender/Nonbinary comfirmed at least. Those first time discoveries were like- really weird compared to most because I started out really accepting of myself even as I realized I wasnt a girl. Like, I just accepted it and it was only in middle school that I learned to feel anything negative about being different.

5. Like I said above, for gender at least I found out really quickly and just accepted it. I’m still nonbinary now but Agender felt like I fit my body for once. Demisexual still fits perfect but I’ve been between sexualities for a long while. I know I’m panromantic and always have been but I’m confused about my sexuality. From Bi to Pan to Lesbian to Asexual- It’s very confusing for me. I want to know for myself with a label which is why I dont just stick to Demi. I need labels for my brain to understand it’s own rules.

6. I started feeling dysphoria around the time that middle school came around and showed me that my sex would always matter to society. The fact that my body is more important that who I am as a person to most of the world broke me as a kid and now I’m here with lots of dysphoria and fighting my own learned biases against myself. Ive only ever felt gender euphoria a few times with the label Agender and the times when Im with my best friends. Having friends who use your name and pronouns no matter how many times it changes (whether OSDD or not ofc cuz i have to deal with that extra hurdle) makes a huge difference.

7. Nobody expected me to say anything I dont think? I mean, I never really had expectations on me for anything besides my gender? My sexuality didn’t matter to anyone really and when it did they passed over it pretty quickly. Im very lucky in some ways, but also incredibly oblivious. I may not have noticed stuff purely because Im autistic so its gone over my head. My one grandmother competely shocked me by being extremely unsupportive of my gender and sexuality when I came out officially (not that i knew i was doing that). Everyone else has been pretty neutral or supportive as far as I know.

8. Y e s. My mental illnesses have greatly affected everything to do with who I am and what I know about myself. I wont go into specifics cuz its really too much but absolutely. I’m disabled now, not even just because my senses have been worse the past years but because of my PTSD. My entire life has been fighting my own mind and that kinda gets in the way of discovering it.

Hello I am currently wondering if I’m anything near who I thought I was

So here’s a list of questions I have for trans people, non-binary in particular - but also people who questioned their gender but realised they weren’t in fact trans! Feel free to answer any or all or none, this is purely for my brain and for anyone else who’s going through the same thing.

Are you meant to feel like your pronouns really represent you, or is it just chill?

Did you show ‘signs’ when you were younger or not?

Were you maybe more feminine/masculine (if you’re afab/amab respectively) than your peers growing up?

Did the questioning come in a sudden wave or was it over time?

Did you feel like no identity truly fit you upon research?

Did you have a lack of dysphoria, but not really gender euphoria either?

Did you feel uncomfortable labelling your sexuality the way you were expected to (eg afab preferring ‘gay’ over ‘lesbian’)?

If you struggled with mental health, did it get in the way of you figuring stuff out?

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

[viralhottopics]

Learning, as an adult woman, you have autism

(CNN)Laura James, 47, is a successful journalist and author. She’s a wife to Tim and mother to four adult children. She likes fashion, cats and writing. She’s eloquent and quick-witted.

She also has autism.

She was surprised when the idea was first suggested to her back in 2015 by a friendly nurse during a hospital stay in London.

Laura was undergoing tests for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare connective tissue disorder, and returned to her hospital room exhausted, hoping to find the air conditioning on, a tuna sandwich on the table and some peace and quiet.

Instead, the room was stifling, the food was absent and a child was screaming nearby.

“I just had an overwhelming meltdown … a proper explosive meltdown,” she said. The nurse who was with Laura took her to a quieter, cooler room, Laura recalled. “She said, ‘don’t worry, we see a lot of autistic people here.’

“I just assumed she was muddling me up with another patient,” Laura explained, half-smiling at the recollection.

But then she started reading about autism online. “I got to some traits of girls with autism and it was just like, ‘Oh my God, that’s so me.’

“I had never thought about autism, ever ever ever,” she said emphatically. “I thought that autism was ‘Rain Man,’ I thought it was boys… All of the stereotypes I absolutely believed because there’s nothing else out there to dissuade someone.”

Misdiagnosed from an early age

Autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) are about 4.5 times more common in boys than in girls, according to one study. Other studies of autism around the world consistently show much higher rates of diagnosis for males than females.

But not everyone is convinced that these numbers reflect reality. There are now countless studies that cast doubt on the gender ratios associated with ASD. There is also compelling evidence of generations of lost girls and women, struggling to cope with being different to those around them, who were (or are) undiagnosed, misdiagnosed or diagnosed far later in life than their male counterparts.

A 2012 study by the UK’s National Autistic Society (NAS) found that only 8% of girls with Asperger syndrome (now known as high-functioning autism) were diagnosed before they were age 6, compared to 25% of boys, with earlier studies conducted in the US in 2009 and 2010 finding similar trends.

It’s something that Carol Povey, director of the Centre for Autism at the NAS, is deeply concerned about. “In the old days we always thought that autism was very much a male condition,” she said. “What we are now starting to realize is that it’s not quite as simple as that, and that there are — and always have been — girls and women who are on the autism spectrum, but they present differently.

“Those girls and women often struggle for many years, and there is a higher likelihood of a misdiagnosis,” she said.

Laura was misdiagnosed several times. Her childhood doctor was convinced that she had an eating disorder. She was misdiagnosed with hyperventilation syndrome in her early twenties. And several doctors suggested she may have generalized anxiety disorder.

Laura’s eating problems and anxiety were signs of her autism but were misinterpreted for more than four decades. Hyper-focus, a common trait in people with autism that allows them to focus intensely on one thing for a long period of time, meant she often forgot — and still often forgets — to eat. Her sensory issues and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome also made it unbearable to eat particular foods.

Most of the anxiety Laura experiences is linked with her autism and it began early in life. “I distinctly remember as a child feeling different and behaving differently to other girls. I simply remember thinking that everybody else seemed to kind of get it. Everyone else seemed to know what to do and how to do it, like there was an instruction manual that I’d lost and they all had.”

Why girls aren’t diagnosed

Sensory issues were, and still are, a big problem. “If there was a label that rubbed in my clothes or sock seams, or (if I was made to eat) food I didn’t want to eat, then I would really melt down. And my meltdowns were so extreme that I would hold my breath until I passed out.”

Her family doctor was dismissive. “She’s just being naughty,” he told her parents, “Just give her a slap.”

Problems with social communication and sensory issues are typical signs of autism, so why was the possibility never raised?

“The words ‘masking’ and ‘camouflaging’ are often used to describe (autistic) girls and women,” Povey explained. These girls will often notice who in their class “looks like they are doing the best in the classroom, which girl looks like they are succeeding the most. Then often those autistic girls copy what they see.”

Laura remembers doing just that. She’s also convinced that social conditioning is a big factor in the differences between boys and girls with autism. “Boys are allowed to be louder and more confrontational, more challenging, whereas girls are taught to be nice, quiet and polite.” Girls are more likely to internalize their difficulties, she thinks, which then go unnoticed.

Povey agreed. “Those same difficulties that the boys were experiencing … the girls may internalize far more.”

Crucially, this means unknown numbers of girls and women struggling with autism may be diagnosed late or not at all. “What we’re often seeing is clinicians who don’t recognize the presentation in girls,” Povey said. Clinicians need the “skills to be able to phrase the questions right … You have to be able to get underneath the masking to be able to understand if the girl really does get what goes on around her.”

The stereotype of autism as a male condition lingers. “I still hear of parents who are told by their doctor that girls don’t have autism,” said Povey.

Studies that look at the role of neurology or testosterone, or the possibility of female resistance to mutations, in the development of autism are still being published and give credence to the idea that the condition is more prevalent in males.

But researchers are often aware that this ratio may simply be wrong. Christine Ecker, professor of neuroscience at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and lead author of a study that showed how people with “male characteristic brains” are more likely to develop autism, avoids calling autism a “male condition.”

“I think as soon as we change (diagnostic) tools, maybe adapt them to … the girls’ symptoms, that we will find more (autistic girls),” Ecker said.

A new normal

For Laura, diagnosis was a mixed blessing. “The moment of walking out was brilliant — I’ve got an answer — but then it gets harder before it gets easier,” she said.

Reflecting on how she now sees herself, she said, “I think of myself as autistic, I don’t like ‘with autism.’ The reason I don’t like it is because it’s not something that’s ever going to go away … Being autistic shapes pretty much everything in my life, in the way that, for me, being female does as well, or being a mother does.”

After being diagnosed, she looked online for high-profile autistic women who she could relate to. She only found Temple Grandin, “who is awesome, amazing, but couldn’t be more different from me.”

And although many people were supportive, reactions to the diagnosis from friends and acquaintances were often conditioned by the same stereotypes that Laura herself believed until recently. “People look at very outward things. I care about clothes and fashion … and I think people think that autistic women shouldn’t be like that.”

So she started writing — at first articles and now a book — about her experiences as an autistic woman. “Odd Girl Out” is being published this month.

But she’s keen to emphasize that “my experience is one experience … all autistic people are different.”

Autism affects everything in Laura’s life — from what she wears, when and what she eats and how she travels, to her social life and emotions. But there are positives too. She’s very logical and can spot future trends and patterns. “It makes me good at my job,” she said, “and I think it makes me good at motherhood. If there’s a problem … I don’t react emotionally, I react more logically,” she explained.

“I don’t think inherently it’s either good or bad. It’s like having brown eyes,” she said. “It’s not a tragedy, it’s not a disaster. We are different, we are not less.”

Diagnosis changed her life. “Everything made sense,” she said. “You know that bit at the end of the Bruce Willis movie ‘The Sixth Sense,’ when he realizes he’s dead and he goes and plays all those scenes in his mind and it becomes obvious? I think getting a late diagnosis is like that. Suddenly, you think, that’s why I did that, or that’s why that happened … I felt different and I didn’t know why. Now I know why and it’s very reassuring.”

See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.

She reflects on how her life would have been different if she had never met that nurse or if her tuna sandwich had arrived on time.

“I wouldn’t have had a terrible life — I’d have had a very nice life — but it wouldn’t have been as rich and fulfilling, and I would have died not understanding myself.”

Read more: http://cnn.it/2ouSB0s

from Learning, as an adult woman, you have autism