#he also said that the only inconvenient thing about autism was that it was difficult to treat with people with it

[doublesunsets]

I just gave a speech to my doctor because he didn't want to put autism on my records, in case it will "mark me for life"

sir, my pal, my buddy

I'm already marked, I've been marked my whole life, I've spent years behaving like I wasn't, you all are going to know HELL about how marked I am

[let-the-dream-begin]

In My Daughter’s Eyes Chapter 2: Know No Fear

Chapter 1

Read on AO3

Before I get to the chapter here, I just wanted to say that I am so beyond touched by the response this story has received. It’s difficult to respond to various comments on Tumblr due to the nature of side-blogs, but just know that I read every single lovely thing you all had to say, and it touched my heart. This is personal to me, and to know that you are all touched by it means the world. So thank you, and onward we go!

By the time Claire found all the bedding and made the beds, she was practically faint with hunger. The fact that they’d left England at eleven in the morning and arrived here at two in the afternoon had made her forget that it had, in reality, been almost five hours since they’d been served food on the plane; and that had been no real meal. Claire had also managed to unpack some of Faith’s toys and arrange them lovingly on her bed before she decided to look up somewhere to get food. She’d heard quite a fuss over the pizza on Long Island; it was apparently the only place in the entire world that had “real” pizza. She would like to be the judge of that, eventually. There were so many different Italian places it was making her head swim. She decided to let Faith decide what they would eat since Claire couldn’t seem to make up her mind.

Claire knelt on the floor in front of the couch, which was haphazardly placed in the middle of the room at a very inconvenient diagonal. Bloody movers. Faith was humming in contentment, rocking back and forth.

“Faith?” Claire tapped her knee, but she did not look up from the tablet. “Faith.” Claire gently removed the headphones, causing her to groan in protest. “Faith! Listen to Mummy before you get upset.” Faith grabbed the headphones again, but Claire firmly kept her hands on her wrists. “Are you hungry, baby? Do you want food?”

Faith’s tune immediately changed, relenting her grip on the headphones and nodding enthusiastically, humming increasing in pitch and volume.

Claire smiled, chuckling. “I thought so. Here.” She held up the screenshots of menu samplings that she’d collected. “Do you want pizza? Or…” She swiped to the next image. “Spaghetti? Or Chinese food? Or a hamburger?”

Claire allowed Faith to take her phone into her little hands, watching in amusement as Faith scrolled between the four images, eventually handing the phone back to her mother.

“Spaghetti?”

Her humming heightened again, her hands and fingers twitching and twisting with excitement; stimming, the doctors called it. To Claire, it was just Faith being Faith.

“Ask and ye shall receive, little girl.”

Claire sat back on her heels and searched for the restaurant she’d gotten the spaghetti screenshot from. Christ, there were about forty restaurants called “Uncle Joe’s” in a four mile radius. She eventually settled on the closest one that was on DoorDash and ordered spaghetti and meatballs for Faith, her standard when it came to Italian food, and decided on penne alla vodka for herself. Gillian had insisted the Italian food here was better than in England, so she was quite excited to see for herself.

When the order was placed, she looked up at Faith, expecting her to be engrossed in the tablet again, but she was instead staring at her mother quite intently. She slapped a little hand over Claire’s screen and gave a little grunt.

Claire smiled knowingly. “Spaghetti won’t be here for another thirty minutes, darling. You have to be patient.”

She grunted in defiance, slapping the screen again.

“Hey. Be gentle.” Claire grabbed Faith’s wrist and looked her firmly in the eye. “Do not hit.” Claire unconsciously ran her tongue over the cut on her lip she’d been gifted with this morning.

Claire suddenly had a perfect idea to pass the time; that dance party she’d thought about a few hours ago. Claire smiled to herself and clicked onto Spotify, hitting shuffle on the Disney playlist. Faith’s stubborn demeanor immediately changed when the opening notes of “Under the Sea” began to play. Her face melted into that absent half-smile that Claire had grown accustomed to, and she began swaying back and forth on the couch.

Claire giggled and took Faith’s hands, pushing them back and forth, side-to-side in time with the music. Her grin widened, and she began humming with excitement again. It wasn’t long before the tablet and the headphones were forgotten on the couch, and the two of them were jumping and dancing around the living room, haphazardly avoiding the piles of boxes. Claire couldn’t explain it: Faith’s Disney obsession. She became a different kid when she watched a Disney movie, or listened to the music. Her entire countenance changed. If Claire could throw away every responsibility and every pound she owned to take up permanent residence in Disney World, just so that her daughter would always be this happy and carefree, she would do it in a heartbeat.

In the middle of Claire’s intense performance of “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” Faith giggling madly and jumping up and down to encourage her mother, the doorbell rang. Claire almost jumped out of her skin and then she laughed, pausing the music.

“Spaghetti is here, lovie!”

Faith clapped her hands and hummed again as Claire shuffled around boxes to the door. She gratefully accepted the hot bag of food, mouth watering at the smell of it. She hadn’t realized how damned hungry she’d been. She inwardly panicked for a moment, realizing she hadn't at all bothered to unpack any silverware, but was relieved to find there was plastic cutlery in the bag. She made a mental note to put them in the sink when they were done instead of throwing them out in case they needed them before she found the motivation to unpack the kitchen boxes.

“Alright, Faithie! First meal in our new home! How’s that?” She, of course, didn’t answer, just kept on with her humming and hand twitching while Claire unpacked their meals. “This is so exciting, darling. Mummy is so happy to be here with you.” She kissed Faith’s forehead as she tucked a napkin into her shirt.

Claire had often caught Frank rolling her eyes at her when she spoke to Faith like this.

“She can’t bloody understand you. Why do you bother?”

Claire’s face turned beet-red with rage. “Just because she can’t talk doesn’t mean she can’t understand.”

To Frank, their daughter was dumb, as well as mute. He could not comprehend that she was a little person, despite her quirks.

No. Not our daughter. Not his.

So, Claire talked to her, despite knowing she’d never talk back, despite not knowing if she ever fully understood what she was saying. Claire knew well enough that the sound of her voice was soothing to her daughter, and that was enough of a reason to talk. And as far as she could tell, she understood quite a bit. Not as much as Claire wished, but enough.

The steaming tins of pasta were opened and Faith dug right in, moaning in pain and dropping her fork into the tin.

“Be careful! It’s hot, darling. You have to blow, remember?” Claire took a forkful of penne and blew on it lightly before putting it in her mouth. “See?”

Faith took a new forkful and heaved an enormous breath before blowing with all her strength, sending a veritable spray of tomato sauce all over the table. Perhaps Claire should have admonished her, told her to be more gentle, but she could not think over how loud she’d burst out laughing. Quite pleased with herself, Faith stuffed the entire forkful of spaghetti into her mouth, humming and bouncing as she did. If Claire was seeing correctly, it looked like she was smirking.

Doesn’t understand, indeed!

Christ…how could anyone not see how special she was?

Eventually, Claire had to inform her daughter that she was, in fact, blowing too hard, and so the rest of the meal proceeded in a slightly less messy manner. When Faith had apparently had enough, she unceremoniously ripped her napkin off and slid out of the chair, disappearing from the kitchen.

“Faith! Come back, please.”

She, of course, did not.

Claire sighed, setting down her fork despite not being quite full yet. She got up to see what she was up to, but paused upon hearing the music start up again. Faith quickly scampered back into the kitchen, Donny Osmond’s voice getting more clear with every step. Claire laughed again.

“Ah, missing the music were we?”

Faith began swaying back and forth again.

“Would you mind if I finished eating, then?” Claire sat back down, and Faith continued bobbing. “Why don’t you dance for me while I eat, hm?”

She didn’t need to tell her twice.

Faith had the choreography from the film memorized, of course, and it was the same for every song thereafter. Claire paused her eating to give hearty applause and many a “Brava!” after each song. If Claire listened closely enough, she could hear Faith’s buzzing hum morph into something that almost resembled the melody of the song that was playing, and it made her heart soar. She’d read online dozens of stories of children with autism that were completely nonverbal, but then all of a sudden they would sing entire songs word for word flawlessly. She prayed the same would hold true for her little princess someday.

Perhaps music therapy would get that out of her.

Jesus H. Christ, one thing at a time, Beauchamp.

After dinner was ended and the leftovers were sufficiently tucked away in the fridge (and the plastic cutlery was put in the sink), Claire followed Faith into the living room and was overwhelmed by the pile of boxes. She exhaled through puffed cheeks, anxiety crawling its way into the pit of her stomach.

“Faith,” Claire said, suddenly having an idea. “Would you like to sleep with Mummy tonight?”

She hummed, bounced and clapped.

“Lovely.” Claire smiled. “Let’s go look at your room first, hm? Because sleeping with Mummy will not be a permanent arrangement.”

She took Faith’s hand and led her into the room, where Faith promptly flung herself onto the bed and scooped all of the stuffed animals into her little arms. Claire broke into an enormous grin.

“I’ll bet you missed them very much,” she said. “And they missed you, too.”

Her very favorite, a very worn out Sorcerer Mickey, had, of course, remained with them and gone in her carry on. But the others--the Minnie’s, the other Mickey’s, the teddy bears, the plush baby dolls--had been packed away and shipped here a few weeks ago.

“This is your room now, lovie. You’ll sleep here tomorrow, and every night after that. But tonight is a special night. Yes?”

Claire outstretched her hand, gesturing for them to head across the hall into her own room, and Faith responded by scooping every stuffed animal into her arms and waddling out past Claire. Claire chuckled breathily through her nose and followed her into her own bedroom. She breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, this room, sparse as it was for now, was at least empty of all boxes. Faith plopped her little friends onto the bed and scrambled up.

“Ah-ah, PJ’s first, little girl.” Claire scooped her off the bed. “We’ll not be spending our first night in this bed in dirty airport clothes.” Claire dug through one of the suitcases for a fresh pair of pajamas for herself and Faith. If Claire really wanted them to be clean, she would have insisted on a shower for both of them (ever since Frank had left, Claire had always taken Faith into the shower with her; she didn’t want to leave her alone for that long). But she was far too exhausted, even if it was only six o’clock on the Eastern Seaboard. She was in no mood to fight with Faith to get clean after the day they’d had.

When they were both properly accoutered for bed, Claire scooped her up again and deposited her in bed. She retrieved the tablet from the couch, trying her best to narrow her vision to avoid seeing the Box Everest in her living room. She wondered when the hell she’d feel like tackling all that…

For now, she settled next to Faith in bed, laying on about four stuffed animals in the process, much to her daughters dismay given the loud moan Faith uttered.

“Well, I’m sorry! They’re quite the bed hogs, darling.” Claire pulled the toys out from underneath her and pushed them closer to Faith. “Now, what shall we watch tonight?”

Their collection of DVDs was far grander than the few movies that they had on digital download on the tablet, but the thought of finding them, then the DVD player, and then sitting in that room with the rest of the boxes made Claire nauseous. So their pickings would be slim tonight. Not that Faith minded in the least.

Claire half expected her to put Frozen on for the third time today, but she instead settled on The Little Mermaid. Claire smiled warmly.

“This was my favorite when I was your age, baby. I remember seeing it in theaters. Ariel was my Elsa back then.”

She allowed Faith to hold the tablet, of course, and she snuggled into her, gathering her tiny body into her arms as the movie’s opening chords began. Despite how rowdy their dinner had been, Claire had a feeling that she would not at all be fighting sleep tonight. They’d been awake a hell of a lot longer than it seemed they were, and the meltdowns of the day were enough to wear even Faith out.

Not shockingly, she was out like a light before they even got to “Part of Your World,” which disappointed Claire just a bit; she’d been looking forward to hearing Faith hum along.

Gently and oh-so-carefully, Claire pried the tablet from her sleeping hands and shut it off, setting it on the nightstand to her left. She adjusted Faith’s little body so she was properly lying down before getting up to turn the light off. Claire smoothed her unruly curls before bending down to press a kiss to her temple as she settled under the covers beside her. Again, she laid atop of several stuffed animals. Chuckling to herself, she picked them up and gingerly put them on the nightstand with the tablet.

As Claire’s head hit the pillow, she began running down the mental list of things she had to do tomorrow. Breakfast, then call an Uber to get to the dealership — shit, what the hell were they going to have for breakfast? Leftover pasta?

Scratch that. Call the Uber right away, get to a diner or somewhere else for breakfast. Faith will be quite excited to have chocolate chip pancakes. That thought made Claire smile. Then get a second Uber to take them from the diner to the dealership. Put that new Instacart to use and order some groceries so that they didn’t have to go to the diner every morning for the rest of their lives. Claire had shopped online for a car to lease when they arrived, and if everything went smoothly at the dealership, she’d be driving home in it tomorrow.

She also made a note to stop somewhere for a new SIM card and to cancel her international phone plan and start up a local plan. The thought of having an American phone number seemed strange, but also comforting. Not only did it seem to be the last step in finalizing her new permanent residence in the States, but it was also a comfort to know that Frank would never be able to contact her again.

Shit. 

She didn’t plug in her phone.

Groaning in annoyance, Claire peeled herself from her daughter’s side and out of bed to rifle through her purse for her charger. When did I get so damned scatterbrained…?

Well, that was a dumb question.

The world had come crashing down on her the day Frank told her he was through. Everything seemed to spiral out of control in that moment, and every single thing she had done since then had been an attempt to regain that control. It worked, for the most part, but she still felt like she was losing brain cells by the second since he’d dropped the bomb on her.

Faith was having a meltdown. It wasn’t necessarily one of her worst ones, but it wasn’t a walk in the park, either. Needless to say, things could have been better. Nothing in particular had set her off as far as Claire could tell, and Claire was beside herself trying to get it out of her.

“What’s wrong, baby? I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong…are you hurt? Hungry?” She felt her head for a fever, but came up negative. “Faith, darling, what’s wrong?”

“For fuck’s sake, Claire! She isn’t going to answer!” Frank slammed a hand on the kitchen table.

Faith shrieked and clamped her hands over her ears, her eyes wide with terror.

“Frank! Don’t do that!” Claire’s voice hitched. “Shh…it’s alright baby, Mummy is here…” She cupped Faith’s face in her hands as her daughter carried on, hands still firmly pressed into her ears.

“You know she can’t handle loud noises, Frank.” Claire tried to keep her voice level and quiet, not wanting to upset her further.

“She can’t handle anything Claire! That’s precisely the issue!”

“Do not raise your voice.” Claire was losing patience. “You’re making it worse.”

“Everything makes it worse! And what is it? What did it this time?”

“It is autism, Frank. You bloody well know that.”

“Christ, I know! I hear the word hundreds of times a day!”

“Oh, for God’s sake…” Claire’s face became hot with anger. “You have been nothing but difficult since her diagnosis, Frank. I feel like I’m doing this all alone! Why can’t you set aside your personal feelings for her? She’s your flesh and blood! How can you talk about her like this?”

Frank shook his head. “No flesh and blood of mine would turn out like that.”

Claire felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. “What are you saying…?”

“I don’t…want this, Claire. I can’t do it anymore.”

“You can’t…You can’t do it? You haven’t done a bloody thing!” Her voice was near to shouting now, and Faith looked like her head was about to explode from the sheer force with which she was squeezing her ears.

“If you want to be burdened with someone like her for the rest of your life, be my guest. I’m through.”

“So that’s it then? You’re walking out on five years of marriage?” Claire stood up, leaving Faith in the kitchen and following him to the front door. “On your four-year-old daughter?”

He turned and gave her a grave, disgusting look as he opened the door. “That is not my daughter.”

Claire found her eyes welling up with tears again, as they had nearly every night since. And for perhaps the thousandth time she asked herself: How could she have been so wrong about somebody? How could she have married someone that would be so despicable towards his own child?

And for perhaps the millionth time, she silently vowed that she would do anything and everything for her daughter. God, she would walk through fire for her. She practically did. She vowed to be everything Faith needed, to fill the empty position of father, to devote every breath and every beat of her heart to raising her with love and patience. Every time she was harsh with her, and simultaneously every time she relented to her to avoid a meltdown, she felt like she was doing it all wrong. She could’ve been more patient, she could have reasoned with her instead of giving in…

But the truth was, every day was unpredictable, and no two situations were the same.

I’m doing the best I bloody can. And I always will, baby.

Luckily, her residence didn't start for another two weeks, so she and Faith could get settled, and Faith could get to know Mrs. Lickett before she had to watch her full time. The thought left knots in her stomach and a hard lump in her throat. Finding a sitter in Oxfordshire with the right qualifications had been a nightmare, and Claire had almost up and quit medical school because of it. Thank God she didn’t. Mrs. Lickett seemed more than qualified, however; it was just a matter of whether or not Faith would allow her to…well…exist in this apartment at all.

Claire absently rolled over to check the time on her phone, and she groaned audibly. 9:02. She’d been lying awake, mind racing, for nearly three hours. That was another thing she hadn’t managed to recover: a quiet enough mind to allow her to sleep. Sighing deeply, she gathered Faith’s sleeping little body into her arms, burying her face in her curls, breathing her in.

We’ve got another long day ahead of us, lovie. If you wouldn’t mind sharing some of that strength of yours, I’d quite appreciate it.

The truth is plain to see, Faith. You were sent to rescue me.

[kyndaris]

A Changing World

In a world that is slowly trying to correct the wrongs of the past, there has been a considerable number of missteps. Progressive individuals from the past might also be bigots with conflicting ideals when viewed from the perspective of the present. Celebrities, held up on pedestals, reveal that they are just as fallible as us other humans and vulnerable to the same vices. Yet, in a society where one can express their opinion through the limits of 140 characters, everything that we do is scrutinised by our peers. And, should someone take umbrage with what we’ve said, all the good work we have done is made invalid.

I can’t say much regarding certain controversies floating around the internet. After all, I don’t actually have a Twitter account. So, my voice, when it comes to social media is limited to overlong blog posts that are almost ignored.

But after reading numerous articles on the subject, I’ve come to the conclusion that often times our need for political correctness has only served to divide humans rather than bring us together in solidarity. How do we include people from all walks of life without dismissing their individual lived experiences? What if we substitute the ‘e’ in women with an ‘x’ to include transgender individuals? No, wait. That could also be considered excluding them by drawing attention to the very fact that we are trying to include them.

Nothing is ever as cut and dry as one would hope. And honestly, over the years, it’s been a tiring prospect to try and remind myself of all the new words and phrases to replace ones that would be considered offensive. Is it aboriginal, indigenous or First Nations? Should I refer to someone as being physically disabled? Does that person have Asperger’s or has it all been lumped under the singular spectrum of autism?

As someone that has quite a few privileges, it can be hard to take into account all the many ways people now identify themselves as. Are you joking or do you really think of yourself as an apache attack helicopter? 

It seems that no matter where I go, I’m liable to step into a veritable minefield, offending someone even when I’m trying to appease everyone. 

And once you have offended a particular set of individuals, the fun really starts. You are then attacked for a poor choice set of words. It does not matter why you might have a particular set of views - if your own experiences in life have informed the way you think in a certain way - the lack of open discourse essentially shuts down your voice and casts you as an intolerant bigot. You are labelled and cancelled. It is essentially a form of shaming.

But the problem with this is that it fails to allow others to amend their ways. By ostracising these people, instead of trying to see things from their perspective and reaching out to them, we are essentially pushing them away. After all, with how much the world has changed, it is difficult to adapt to the myriad ways language and what is acceptable versus what isn’t has changed. 

A short film I watched from Wongfu Productions handles this issue quite well.Titled ‘A Long Time Coming’ it is about how our prejudices are shaped by the time period we grew up in and what we endured during that time. The father character is not a monster because he cannot rationalise why black lives should matter. By using her compassion and trying to relate his experiences with the current political climate, the daughter is able to open her father’s mind to possible change rather than forcing it upon him. The son’s acknowledgement of the father’s belief as born from the truth of his experiences also sheds a lot of light on the matter as who we are is shaped from what we lived through before.

I know that I have often struggled with trying to change people’s views. In particular, some of my work colleagues. Living in Australia, some of them were sceptical why Black Lives Matter protests were going to be held in several of our major cities. And I, trying to be champion the cause explained that these protests were especially relevant once the experiences of Indigenous Australians are considered. It is an inconvenient truth that the number of Indigenous Australians in prison populations is disproportionate to other ethnic groups. And that many live in a cycle that exaggerates and perpetuates a life of crime.

Of course, none of my arguments gained much ground. Why should only black lives matter when all lives matter?

When they pulled out that card, I remembered my own thoughts on the whole BLM movement several years ago. It was only by opening myself up to other views and discourse was I able to realise that in order for all lives to matter, we need to uplift those that are still suffering from inequality.

But if I had been harangued for my opposing views back then, I might have clamped down and become defensive, refusing to hear other voices because they only seemed to dismiss and ridicule my own ideologies. Articles I’ve read show that that the best way to change someone’s mind is to listen without prejudice and be open to why they think they way they do. That means being sympathetic and understanding. It means being patient as you try to educate them.

And what is most important in challenging misconceptions is open dialogue. Labelling someone a monster and saying that none of their opinions matter and demanding an immediate apology (for when that person doesn’t quite understand what exactly is wrong) does not help. Ignoring them only serves to keep them trapped in their own echo chamber that amplifies the views they already have. By sitting down and having a discussion rather than an argument, it allows people to perhaps consider the other side. And that can only be done by listening, showing patience and expressing empathy.

One of my colleagues told me that the protests of the past were not just demonstrations and people shouting out their views to an impassive public. Instead, individuals would openly discuss the merits of a change, with several others playing devil’s advocate. It meant that all sides could be weighed and considered and judged. And, perhaps, it was the best tools in ensuring change.

Besides, if my degree in criminology has taught me anything, labelling only leads to either people embracing the poor opinion public has of them or simply shunning society altogether. Something to consider when people attack others for not sharing their views or might have built-in misconceptions from the truth of their lives.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

MBTI, Mental Health, and Uncertainty

This is a long post but I think it might be one of my most important ones, and I hope you can take the time to read it.

In light of a couple recent questions I want to address mental health in a different way than in the PSA post. I do still stand by that post! But it was intended to be more along the lines of providing succinct encouragement with clear steps, rather than a means of providing deeper context.

MBTI is an unreliable way (at best) to deal with mental health. It was not designed for it. It has a few aspects that are useful in a limited way, which is honestly how I feel about MBTI at large - it is one tool in a very large toolbox, and it’s not necessarily the best one at that, and plenty of people get along fine without using it at all. (in fact if you’re not up to reading the rest of this post consider this paragraph my main point and the rest all elaboration on that theme).

On a larger scale, a lot of Tumblr advice is a terrible way to deal with mental health. I recognize I’m offering advice here on Tumblr but in general my statement re: all things mental health is that stigma, accessibility, and poor clinicians are all serious barriers to good mental health information and treatment, but that doesn’t mean that the more accessible options of “randoms on the internet” or “psychological theories with a strong internet presence” are a viable substitute.

I think a personal example may be helpful here, so: I have some very severe food allergies. I’ve had them my whole life. And I do fully believe that they’ve shaped aspects of my personality. In some ways, they’ve made me more cautious and desiring of control over my environment. They’ve pushed me to explore things like cooking. They’ve required me to become someone who plans ahead, who advocates for herself, and who’s comfortable saying a firm “no” to intended hospitality. They’ve given me some areas of anxiety. They’ve made me a faster reader. They’ve arguably contributed to my sense of humor.

If I could push a button and get rid of my allergies, I would, without question, because they are often a source of stress and inconvenience. But they did contribute to me as a person, and had I grown up and developed without them, I would probably be different in some ways - and I have no idea how exactly I’d be different. Would I be as fast a reader or as detail-oriented if I didn’t have to read ingredients lists at a glance? Maybe - I was a bookish kid. Would I be as responsible and assertive? Possibly - I’m an oldest child, I was always on the stubborn and independent side. But really, who knows?

I went to a doctor when I was in grad school for a check-up and a top-up of my epi-pen prescription. I said I hadn’t had to use the epi-pen in years. He mentioned that he had a friend with the same allergy who had a reaction once every year or so because he was a little scattered and a huge socializer and people-pleaser, and so he often had reactions to baked goods around the holidays - baked goods that I would unequivocally politely turn down. Same condition. Wildly different responses.

Mental illnesses or conditions are highly analogous to this experience - if they’re debilitating and unpleasant, even if they’ve caused you to develop in positive ways, you’ll be glad for those benefits but you may wish you could flip a switch and get rid of them.

But other conditions might be so central to your identity that you genuinely would not be you without them, and the issues that arise are because your identity is not well-accommodated in your environment

And while I can speculate on which sorts of conditions fall into which bucket (most people with depression would put it in the first; autism, for many autistic people, is in the second; this is a huge topic I can’t do justice here but you can even see this categorization in my language). But in the end, it’s a case-by-case choice dependent on the person with that condition. For more on the nature of ‘abnormal’ conditions and self-conception I highly recommend the Oliver Sacks essay “Witty Ticcy Ray” specifically, and his essay collections The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars. But if you can’t get to those my point is that people’s relationships with things that affect their cognition are complex and deeply personal.

So coming back to MBTI. Is MBTI the reason why I am vigilant and others with allergies are less so? Well, we don’t entirely know where type comes from, but maybe. Maybe it’s my upbringing, maybe it’s my inherent self, maybe it’s something else. We don’t know. I don’t know.

With mental illnesses, there’s a second factor. Allergic reactions are physiological and predictable- doesn’t matter what kind of person you are, if you eat the thing you can’t eat, your body will initiate the immune response. But when your illness or condition also affects your cognition, MBTI isn’t just a reason for how you respond to the condition. Your type, or at least your personality that you attempt to categorize into a type, is both influenced by and feeds into the outward signs of said condition. The outward signs of mental illnesses are themselves diverse! The PHQ-9 survey, a very common depression screening tool, doesn’t require that you display every single possible symptom - just a certain amount of them together (and even then it’s just a starting point for an individual follow-up. So we don’t know what’s ‘you’ and what’s the condition and what’s the combination thereof and even if you and the effects of said condition can really be seen as separate entities.

What this means practically is that figuring out how personality type, in any system, impacts mental health is an astronomically hard task, because both type and mental illness are best described as collections of a sufficient number of coexisting patterns of thought and behavior, not an absolute yes/no. If you’re trying to figure out yourself, again, MBTI is one of many tools and should not be your only point of reference - it’s a good starting point but at some point you’re going to have to leave it and jump into the vast unknown of what the self truly is (I feel very cheesy typing this but funnily enough I think Jung would back me up here). But only you can really do that. I certainly can’t do it for you.

Something that I think a lot of people forget is the origin of MBTI. MBTI was developed using Jung’s idea of cognitive functions as a starting point, and the catalyst was Myers and Briggs (her mother) noticing that Myers’s husband (an ISTJ) was really different from them (both high Ne users) in terms of personality. They took a theory because it matched what they observed in real life. I am unsurprisingly in favor of this. You want to know how people act? Interact with them! You can sum up larger trends in a theory, but it will always be a simplification of the infinitely complex truth. You can’t know how MBTI will make any one person act with any certainty - you can only guess.

Similarly, things like loops and grips are a bit of a one-way street. MBTI theorists observed that certain patterns of stress behavior tended to crop up more frequently in individuals of the same type and came up with names for them and a theory to describe why they may occur. This does not mean that the same behaviors cannot exist in people of other types. This does not guarantee that a person of a certain type and under stress will fall into a loop, a grip, or really do any specific action at all. As I have said many times and will say again, mental illness and stress have real, measurable neurochemical effects and people will ‘self-medicate’ (eg: seeking endorphin-releasing activities when unhappy), and type doesn’t enter into it (which is also why I think the advice to look at your stress behavior is not particularly good).

Finally, even if you are in a loop or grip, if you’re having a difficult time, a decent therapist will probably give you advice that isn’t out of line with MBTI recommendations, because there’s more than one way to come to the same conclusion! A lot of advice is broadly applicable - start with small steps and be gentle with yourself, for example. Play to your strengths - and you don’t need to know MBTI to know what you’re good at. You need to have a general sense of who you are and MBTI is a way to categorize who you are, not a way to do that initial self-discovery.

In conclusion: I know I sound like a broken record, but if you’re interested in human behavior at large please, please treat MBTI as one of many aspects of it. If you have the opportunity to take a class or do some serious reading about neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, sociology, or basic statistics I recommend it, and whether or not you can do those things, interact with people! Sitting behind a computer screen theorizing how an archetype that must necessarily describe literally hundreds of millions of people is not really a helpful exercise! “Go outside” isn’t a threat to be read in the tone of ‘get off my lawn’; it might be said in a mildly exasperated way but it is meant as an invitation to a vast resource that you are not using to its fullest.

[cupcakegumbo]

Panic!

Our best friend is diabetic and autistic. We all met around the same time, and my husband and I have been his closest friends since we met, so we have known him going on 30 years. Every other week, my husband and I run him around and help him do his errands, as he doesn't have a car of his own, and he really doesn't like to drive. This is a twice monthly thing that we do for him when he gets his paychecks. In return for our company and driving him around, he likes to end our trip into town by stopping somewhere to eat, and he picks up the tab. This is one of his favorite parts of the day. We have learned over the years, that there are things that our friend just doesn't think about due to his autism, and if we don't take them into account there will be issues with our anxiety as we try to readjust our plans. Due to being diabetic, our friend needs to eat rather regularly. Not wanting to inconvenience us, he often forgets to eat something before meeting up. We have tried to explain to him that it's better if he eats something before we leave, so that he doesn't start having issues with low blood sugar, as it really affects his ability to think and function. He does try, and we know that he isn't trying to make things difficult for us when he doesn't eat. He just doesn't notice when his blood sugar is dropping and assumes that he will be fine; this happens nearly every time. So my husband has simply started taking it into account that he will not have eaten anything in his rush to meet up with us, so the first stop we make is to get him something small to eat to bring his blood sugar up to level. For my husband, keeping everything outlined on a list, helps him to keep his anxiety in check. So now the first thing that we do when we all get in the car, is ask him if he's eaten anything. When the answer is no, my hubby immediately knows to add a quick food stop to the top of his list. Any deviation from his list tends to throw my hubby into chaos. Yesterday was such a day. It was a hot day, the temperature got up into the mid 90s'. (About 32 degrees Celsius, for the non Americans.) We started out asking our friend if he had eaten and the answer was no. So my husband nodded, and mentally adjusted his list. I started to comment and he gave me a panicked look and a wave of his hand. I nodded and told him no problem, I understood. He laughed and said that he had a momentary wave of euphoria because I had agreed with him and basically confirmed that he had this. So the day started out okay, things were under control. We stopped and got our friend a bite to eat, and were back on track. One of my hubbies conditions due to his anxiety and PTSD, is hyper vigilance. That means that his brain is constantly on alert for trouble or danger. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing, because he is very aware of other drivers and is constantly on the lookout for dangerous situations. This is also a bad thing, because his brain never stops doing that. It is constantly looking for trouble and trying to adjust when it thinks it spots some. Which means that he's hyper aware of me as well, and is constantly trying to keep me safe. So if I negatively react to something, (even subconsciously) he notes it and begins to try and adjust to keep me safe. This of course makes him more anxious. My anxiety is triggered a lot of times due to my empathy. I tend to feel (in some folks opinion) too strongly for total strangers. As we were driving along the main street of town, there was a parked car ahead of us that had what looked roughly like a two year old little boy leaning out the open window on the traffic side, watching it go by. The mother in me immediately began to panic seeing him leaning dangerously far out of the window. My hubby picking up on my panic, became even more cautious as we approached the car. The child was laughing and smiling, and he leaned back in as we drove by. I looked over to see if his parents or whoever was watching him had a good hold on him, and realized that there was no one else in the car. I closed my eyes in absolute terror as my mind began giving me very graphic images of what could possibly happen to the child. My husband noted my increased panic, but did not know what caused it so assumed that it was just the child leaning out of the window in proximity to our car that had me panicked and got us past it a little quicker. I couldn't explain until we were a long way past the car, and then my hubby got really angry at the missing parents. Sadly our anxiety prevented us from going back to make sure the child was safe. Mine due to not wanting to turn back and see any of the horrible things that my imagination was conjuring actually happen, and my hubby due to not being able to handle trying to adjust his mental list to suddenly include trying to find somewhere to turn around, park, and go back to check on the child only to have someone think he was trying to kidnap him. So, both of us were already trying to deal with panic at this point. Our friend in the back seat, was blissfully unaware of what was going on and was happily enjoying the ride. Now I was not only rattled by this incident, but was also feeling guilty for not going back to make sure that someone elses child was okay. My brain was screaming at me to not get involved, and also screaming at me, that if anything happened to the child it would be all my fault for not going back and making sure he was safe. My husband had also noted at this point that due to the bright sunny day, more people seemed to be driving like idiots than normal. People switching lanes without turn signals, cutting dangerously close to other cars while cutting them off. That sort of thing. Someone (who was not in a turn lane) even took an illegal left turn against the light cutting someone off who was actually turning left from the turn lane. So my hubby was being extra careful with his defensive driving. We managed to make it through nearly all of the errands that our friend needed to run, so it was now approaching his favorite part of the trip. Sharing a good meal with us. We only had one more stop to make and then it was off to a restaurant we had already picked out ahead of time. We made our last stop, without incident, but I was so hot and tired at this point from sitting in the car while they ran into the different shops, that I had lost any appetite that I'd had. I'd had a minor panic attack in one of the stores early on due to asking to spend some money on a video game and then finding out that it would be $5 more expensive than I originally thought. We don't have a lot of money, so if I feel like we are spending too much on something frivolous that I asked for, it makes me panic. I actually wound up running out of the game store to hide in the car when I realized that the game I thought was only going to be $15, was actually going to cost $20. That may not seem like a lot of money to most folks, but since I don't have a job, every little bit that I ask to be spent feels like I'm taking food out of our mouths. My hubby on the other hand feels that if it helps to keep us sane, it's a worthwhile expenditure. So I couldn't go into any of the other stores, and there was never any shade to park in. Even with the windows open, it was hot as heck. Finally it got to the meal segment of our day. We had picked a place that we had enjoyed eating at the last time we were in town, so we knew where we were going and we all knew basically what we wanted. Since I had no appetite I told my husband that I would just be ordering my meal to go. My thought was that once I was home, cooled off, and felt safe again, I would get my appetite back and be able to enjoy the meal. Sadly for my hubby, that meant a disruption of his plans because he knew that our friend would feel bad if I couldn't eat while they were eating. I tried to explain that I would just sketch while they were eating and there wouldn't be a problem, but he was already trying to figure out how to deal with this disruption, his brain had already kicked into overdrive trying to figure out how to keep our friend happy, while decreasing his stress as much as possible. We were also getting into the area where the restaurant was, and it's always crowded in that area due to it being the main avenue where college students stopped for lunch. Traffic always got really bad due to all of the pedestrians, the college students that drove like idiots, and the meter cops who drive slowly along checking for expired parking meters, etc. We actually noticed a meter cop pull up behind a parked car, get out and begin walking along checking the meters as we were looking for a place to park. My hubby actually managed to find a free two hour parking spot mildly in the shade. As we were getting out, we saw the meter cop move up to an expired meter and begin writing up a ticket. My hubby laughed and said, "I bet that someone didn't bother feeding the meter because they figured they would just be in and out quick with a 'to-go' order." Sure enough, as we were walking to our designated eating establishment, someone ran out of one of the other restaurants with a to-go box in hand and began trying to wave down the meter cop and get her to take back the ticket. We all just shook our heads, you don't argue with a meter cop, once the ticket is printed it's done. So if you screw up like that you should just accept that you screwed up and deal with it. Sadly this guy was being a douche and continued to argue with her as we made it to our restaurant and discovered that it was not open, and wouldn't be open again for nearly a month. So here we were with our hearts and minds set on this, and it wasn't available. My hubby had to once again try to resort his mental list. Once again, I tried to help by giving a suggestion but he was already in a state of panic due to my earlier disruption, and now this. When he is panicking, too many options only serve to overwhelm him. So here we are, all hot, tired, disappointed, mildly panicky and him trying to figure out what to do while his brain is starting to hit overload while trying to keep track of everything else going on. So we head back to the car and start to head out of the area. The guy with the ticket has once again flagged down the meter cop and is standing in the middle of the road arguing with her. My hubby gets to the intersection in preparation for turning, while trying to figure out what to do next. As he starts to pull out to make his turn a guy on a bicycle goes shooting through the intersection in front of him like a bat out of hell, causing my mate to slam on his breaks. This rattles him enough that he decides to back up, not realizing that the meter cop has finished with the angry guy and is now right behind us. His brain in complete fight or flight mode had her still arguing with the guy a ways back. So he's unaware that she's right there in her little golf cart type meter car until she hits her horn, but it's already too late, his back fender already hit her front bumper. His foot once again hits the brakes, and he jumps out to check on the meter cop to make sure that she's alright as our hearts sink. He glances at me guiltily and whispers that he doesn't have any insurance on the car. "I know." I said as my head was sinking down to my chest, my eyes were already closed trying to fight tears of frustration, panic, and guilt of my own. Our friend in the back seat didn't even realize that it was the meter cop that we'd hit until my husband was standing in the street between the two cars looking for the damage. As he'd gotten out of the car, some stoned a-hole sitting outside of another restaurant yells out, "You're our hero!" at my hubby who is checking to make sure the meter cop is okay and that the damage isn't too bad.   I'm already crying and shaking due to heat, stress, and guilt, knowing that this is going to be expensive. Our friend is trying to reassure me, so I tell him about our lack of insurance. He once again tries to reassure me stating that he will try and help us cover the expense, which just kicks my guilt in the teeth even more. The meter cop tells my hubby to pull off to the side, as she has to call in to find out what to do about the situation. So he moves the car off and parks to the side with her pulled off to the side behind us as we have to wait for a sheriff to arrive. All the while, my mate and I are trying to fight to hide the panic due to having to deal with authority figures, fear of him losing his license, and fear of having another huge bill on top of everything else. But like the guy with the ticket, we know that we have to swallow our pride and our terror and just deal with it as best we can. I wound up getting out of the car and asking the meter cop if we could move someplace else due to the heat and fear of heat stroke on my part. I guess I looked pretty bad as she went into helper mode, even though she couldn't let us move the car. She suggested that I maybe go into one of the restaurants and get some water. I explained about my anxiety disorder and being unable to handle going inside so she just had me sit down in the shade at an outdoor eating area and gave me the unopened jug of water that she kept in her cart and told me I could keep it. My mate was being very protective of me at this point and doing his best to help me to stay calm, but I can't control my tears or shaking. Another officer showed up to look over the vehicles as a witness because the meter cop couldn't get a hold of a sheriff. They both decided that there was no actual damage to either vehicle and the other officer called it in trying to get a hold of someone higher up to see what should be done. It was determined that no ticket was necessary due to the lack of damage, the state that I was in, and how helpful and honest my husband was being. After taking down his drivers license number, and giving him their cards, we were allowed to go on our way. Still shaking rather badly, we all loaded back into the car to get out of there. As we were leaving, the stoned guy got up and started yelling at the officers about police harassment. One of his friends got up and covered his mouth with his hand and told him to shut up and they started getting into a fight. We decided that food was right off the table for all of us and we just wanted to go home. The rest of the trip was spent in mostly silence as I did my best to calm my shattered nerves. My mate did his best to come down from the overload, and our friend did his best to be supportive. I won't lie, we got lucky. We were in the wrong, and if there had been any actual damage, that could have gone all kinds of bad for us. My mind kept whispering about all of the things that we would be dealing with if they had asked to see his proof of insurance, my husband could have lost his license, or we could have been saddled with a huge ticket that we couldn't pay. We would have had to either ask our friend, who only earns minimum wage, for financial help, or we would have had to turn to my husband's parents to bail us out... again. His mom already gives us money to pay our rent and bills, which we feel horrible about. We are in our late 40's near 50's and we have to rely on others to pay our way because we are too broken to be able to take care of ourselves financially. The rest of the evening was spent with me in the bedroom, playing a video game that I felt guilty even asking for, while my husband sat in the living room playing a game on his tablet until his sleep medication kicked in enough for him to be able to go to bed. I was about to turn in myself around 2:30 in the morning when I suddenly realized that I had only had one meal that day, and that my mate, (who's also diabetic) most likely didn't eat anything. So I got up, forced myself to have a quick microwavable meal and turned in. This morning, I sent my husband back into a massive panic attack by asking him to get insurance on the car. So yeah... dealing with that.

[thelonelyrainbowguy]

My ASD Testing Experience

I promised that I would write up a post about my autism testing, so here goes. (And yes, I am SO counting this toward NaNoWriMo!)

When I arrived at the practice, the psychiatrist who I’d seen for my initial intake appointment took me back to her office and told me to pull a chair up to the desk.

The first task she had me do, after attempting to make small talk with me (which I am TERRIBLE at and crashed and burned, lol), was to arrange foam puzzle pieces to fit a pre-drawn puzzle. She gave me three pieces (it clearly called for like 9) and I placed them, then expected her to hand me more, but she didn’t until I asked her for them. I guess that kind of confused me. I saw notes in her file for me that mentioned a “confused expression”, and I think it was in reference to that.

Afterward, she took out a book and informed me that it had no words, that we were going to make up the story. I’m a good writer, but making up stories on the spot and telling them aloud is incredibly difficult for me.

The book was about these frogs whose lilypads suddenly started floating, and pretty soon these freaking frogs were zooming all over creation. Instead of telling a story like a story, I just pointed out things that I saw. “Those fish are like WHAT THE HECK and that turtle looks pretty pissed, and the frogs are still flying.” Yeah, it was a weird story.

Then she brought out a bag of very random objects, and informed me that we were each going to pick five of them and use them to tell a story, which was even more foreboding than the idea of turning the story of the wordless picture book into English.

She went first, with a sponge, a cocktail umbrella, a feather, a shoelace, and... I forget what else. Her story was about Mama Umbrella, her kid Spongebob, and Baby Feather. They went to the beach, and the mama told SpongeBob to watch Baby Feather. But he was annoyed with watching her and went off and did his own thing. Then Baby Feather crawled into the ocean and SpongeBob threw a rope (shoelace) in to save her. Mama Umbrella was really mad but she was glad her baby was okay.

I had no idea what to do so I stared at the items in the bag for a good while, until a morbid story came into my head and it was the only thing that I could think of. I used the car, a paper circle, the feather, a wooden block, and a toy dollhouse candle.

“Okay,” I said, “so there's people driving down the road in this car, and then the wife goes “I think I’m gonna light your birthday candles on the cake now, because that sounds like a great idea,” so she did, and then a bird (represented by the feather) distracted the driver and made him run over a pothole (the paper circle) and slam into a wall (the wooden block).” Cue lots of spitty explosion noises (jk I just said they exploded). So yeah, I’m sure that heightened her image of me a good bit. XD

We talked then about the trouble I’m having at work, how I keep getting told off for not being empathetic when truly, I am (usually- I mean there are LOTS of people I deal with who are just plain annoying/dumb). My tone does not sound kind enough, even though I’ve been trying.

She asked me about my dating life and I updated her on the nonexistence of any type of relationship prospects and how the last girl I dated ghosted me (she hasn’t texted me since November 1, if anyone's wondering).

She asked me what a friend was, and then she asked me what the difference was between a friend, and a co-worker. Well, that was tough. I told her I guessed co-workers I thought were my friends were just my favorite coworkers, because I never saw them outside of work?

She then asked me how emotions felt, and how I knew I was happy, or angry, or anxious, or sad, and made me explain examples of times when I had felt these things, and asked whether I thought other people felt the same things. She asked me if I had ever been picked on or bullied, and sadly, I had to tell her that my family were my worst bullies growing up. I told her how there were certain noises my siblings would make that really bothered and hurt me, and how they’d deliberately make those noises over and over just to watch me and laugh as I’d get tenser and tenser and finally run from the room, usually crying, to have a meltdown in my bedroom.

After all this, she was done with me, and I went back to the waiting room to wait for the IQ test guy. I’d never met him before, so it was hard to look at his face, but I don’t think he ever smiled. And when I’d try to make a joke he’d just stare at me in this analyzing way. I didn’t like him.

His office was tiny and plain and felt dingy, and he had some sort of white noise sound machine going, which bothered me but I couldn’t figure out how to say so. He said he hoped it didn’t bother me, but in a way that made me feel like it would be a huge inconvenience if I told him that it did.

The first thing he had me do was to take these blocks that had two red sides and two white sides, and the remaining two sides were divided into half red and half white, split into triangles. First he gave me four and showed me a pattern, and I had to recreate that pattern. I guess he thought I was capable after that because he gave me the rest of the nine total blocks and show me more and more complicated patterns that I had to recreate. I’m ashamed to say that there was one I almost didn’t get, because I legitimately forgot that I could turn the cubes. I was looking at them and thinking that they were all half red and half white, but I needed solid red and solid white. I told him I couldn’t do it, that it was actually impossible. I thought it was a trick. He asked if I wanted to skip it, but at the last second I remembered, oh, these things have different sides. :P so obviously I recreated it pretty quickly from there.

After that exercise, he asked me some math word problem questions, which I had to figure out in my head, without paper and pencil. At first they were easy, but then the questions got into asking basically what 15 percent of 60 is, and I almost said it was 15, but caught myself and guessed 10 (probably still wrong; I don’t even know how to do that with a calculator).

Then he had me repeat sequences of numbers. It started out simple: 2, 4. He gradually added one number art a time until he reached... I think the highest any of these went was 8 numbers. 5, 9, 2, 4, 3, 2, 6, 1. I’d repeat the numbers in order. After that, he had me repeat his sequences backward- so 3, 7, 8, 5 would be 5, 8, 7, 3. This was more difficult, especially when he got up to the 8- digit ones. And finally, he made me put the number sequences in order, but there were often multiples of the same number, which was Super Confusing. It wasn’t too hard up until the 7 or 8 digit ones, but then it started getting really impossible to remember all of the numbers: 4, 7, 9, 2, 6, 2, 7, 8 for example. I’m pretty sure I only said 7 digits for at least one 8 digit one, and I had to start over on several of them.

Finally, we were done with that awful task, and we moved on to the fresh hell of a book of shapes. The top half of the paper showed a shape, and the bottom half had 6 different shapes that I had to put together to make the top shape. The catch was, it always had to be 3 of the shapes- i couldn’t pick 2 that also made the same shape. It had to be 3, and they could never overlap. At first it was pretty easy- a square, a house shape, etc. Then they got more complicated - like one had a blue octagon inside a yellow triangle inside a red square. And they got more complicated from there on out, in the ways the shapes were divided. For example, there was an oval and the pieces were cut in such a way that the middle piece resembled a butt with crooked arms. And in many of the advanced ones, all or many of the options were similar, so you really had to be able to pay attention and visualize it, which was difficult, especially after my brain was wasted from all the other stuff.

At last, we finished that, and he gave me a self- assessment test for autism. The possible answers were 1 (Never True), 2 (Sometimes True), 3 (Often True), and 4 (Almost Always True). It was one of those fill- in- the- dot things. The questions were things such as I feel most comfortable when I am alone, I behave in ways that seem strange or bizarre to others, I get upset when there are a lot of things going on, When stressed I show rigid and inflexible patterns of behavior, I have good personal hygiene, I think of other people the same way that I think of objects, I am extremely sensitive to certain sounds, textures, or smells, I have a narrow range of interests, I talk or think about the same thing over and over.

When I finished that, we were done and I got to go home. I have a feedback session scheduled for the 11th, where I’ll actually get my diagnosis.

Overall, the experience was weird and tiring. I felt analyzed, which was obviously what was happening, and it made me kind of squirmy. And I felt patronized, which was just plain annoying. I went along with everything though, and I think I proved my autism, so now I’m just waiting on my official diagnosis so I can tell the world and actually have it as a reason why I can’t do or handle certain things (not an excuse; that is a different thing altogether, just saying).

Anyway, I’m sorry this was so long. If you made it to the end, here, have a virtual... I don’t know, brownie, cookie, hug, pickle, whatever you’d like to have a virtual version of. XD

If you have any questions about any part of the process, please feel free to ask me! ❤️

[nebris]

The Rage of the Incels

Incels aren’t really looking for sex. They’re looking for absolute male supremacy.

Lately I have been thinking about one of the first things that I ever wrote for the Internet: a series of interviews with adult virgins, published by the Hairpin. I knew my first subject personally, and, after I interviewed her, I put out an open call. To my surprise, messages came rolling in. Some of the people I talked to were virgins by choice. Some were not, sometimes for complicated, overlapping reasons: disability, trauma, issues related to appearance, temperament, chance. “Embarrassed doesn’t even cover it,” a thirty-two-year-old woman who chose the pseudonym Bette told me. “Not having erotic capital, not being part of the sexual marketplace . . . that’s a serious thing in our world! I mean, practically everyone has sex, so what’s wrong with me?” A twenty-six-year-old man who was on the autism spectrum and had been molested as a child wondered, “If I get naked with someone, am I going to take to it like a duck to water, or am I going to start crying and lock myself in the bathroom?” He hoped to meet someone who saw life clearly, who was gentle and independent. “Sometimes I think, why would a woman like that ever want me?” he said. But he had worked hard, he told me, to start thinking of himself as a person who was capable of a relationship—a person who was worthy of, and could accept, love.

It is a horrible thing to feel unwanted—invisible, inadequate, ineligible for the things that any person might hope for. It is also entirely possible to process a difficult social position with generosity and grace. None of the people I interviewed believed that they were owed the sex that they wished to have. In America, to be poor, or black, or fat, or trans, or Native, or old, or disabled, or undocumented, among other things, is usually to have become acquainted with unwantedness. Structural power is the best protection against it: a rich straight white man, no matter how unpleasant, will always receive enthusiastic handshakes and good treatment at banking institutions; he will find ways to get laid.

These days, in this country, sex has become a hyper-efficient and deregulated marketplace, and, like any hyper-efficient and deregulated marketplace, it often makes people feel very bad. Our newest sex technologies, such as Tinder and Grindr, are built to carefully match people by looks above all else. Sexual value continues to accrue to abled over disabled, cis over trans, thin over fat, tall over short, white over nonwhite, rich over poor. There is an absurd mismatch in the way that straight men and women are taught to respond to these circumstances. Women are socialized from childhood to blame themselves if they feel undesirable, to believe that they will be unacceptable unless they spend time and money and mental effort being pretty and amenable and appealing to men. Conventional femininity teaches women to be good partners to men as a basic moral requirement: a woman should provide her man a support system, and be an ideal accessory for him, and it is her job to convince him, and the world, that she is good.

Men, like women, blame women if they feel undesirable. And, as women gain the economic and cultural power that allows them to be choosy about their partners, men have generated ideas about self-improvement that are sometimes inextricable from violent rage.

Several distinct cultural changes have created a situation in which many men who hate women do not have the access to women’s bodies that they would have had in an earlier era. The sexual revolution urged women to seek liberation. The self-esteem movement taught women that they were valuable beyond what convention might dictate. The rise of mainstream feminism gave women certainty and company in these convictions. And the Internet-enabled efficiency of today’s sexual marketplace allowed people to find potential sexual partners with a minimum of barriers and restraints. Most American women now grow up understanding that they can and should choose who they want to have sex with.

In the past few years, a subset of straight men calling themselves “incels” have constructed a violent political ideology around the injustice of young, beautiful women refusing to have sex with them. These men often subscribe to notions of white supremacy. They are, by their own judgment, mostly unattractive and socially inept. (They frequently call themselves “subhuman.”) They’re also diabolically misogynistic. “Society has become a place for worship of females and it’s so fucking wrong, they’re not Gods they are just a fucking cum-dumpster,” a typical rant on an incel message board reads. The idea that this misogyny is the real root of their failures with women does not appear to have occurred to them.

The incel ideology has already inspired the murders of at least sixteen people. Elliot Rodger, in 2014, in Isla Vista, California, killed six and injured fourteen in an attempt to instigate a “War on Women” for “depriving me of sex.” (He then killed himself.) Alek Minassian killed ten people and injured sixteen, in Toronto, last month; prior to doing so, he wrote, on Facebook, “The Incel Rebellion has already begun!” You might also include Christopher Harper-Mercer, who killed nine people, in 2015, and left behind a manifesto that praised Rodger and  lamented his own virginity.

The label that Minassian and others have adopted has entered the mainstream, and it is now being widely misinterpreted. Incel stands for “involuntarily celibate,” but there are many people who would like to have sex and do not. (The term was coined by a queer Canadian woman, in the nineties.) Incels aren’t really looking for sex; they’re looking for absolute male supremacy. Sex, defined to them as dominion over female bodies, is just their preferred sort of proof.

If what incels wanted was sex, they might, for instance, value sex workers and wish to legalize sex work. But incels, being violent misogynists, often express extreme disgust at the idea of “whores.” Incels tend to direct hatred at things they think they desire; they are obsessed with female beauty but despise makeup as a form of fraud. Incel culture advises men to “looksmaxx” or “statusmaxx”—to improve their appearance, to make more money—in a way that presumes that women are not potential partners or worthy objects of possible affection but inconveniently sentient bodies that must be claimed through cold strategy. (They assume that men who treat women more respectfully are “white-knighting,” putting on a mockable façade of chivalry.) When these tactics fail, as they are bound to do, the rage intensifies. Incels dream of beheading the sluts who wear short shorts but don’t want to be groped by strangers; they draw up elaborate scenarios in which women are auctioned off at age eighteen to the highest bidder; they call Elliot Rodger their Lord and Savior and feminists the female K.K.K. “Women are the ultimate cause of our suffering,” one poster on incels.me wrote recently. “They are the ones who have UNJUSTLY made our lives a living hell… We need to focus more on our hatred of women. Hatred is power.”

On a recent ninety-degree day in New York City, I went for a walk and thought about how my life would look through incel eyes. I’m twenty-nine, so I’m a little old and used up: incels fetishize teen-agers and virgins (they use the abbreviation “JBs,” for jailbait), and they describe women who have sought pleasure in their sex lives as “whores” riding a “cock carousel.” I’m a feminist, which is disgusting to them. (“It is obvious that women are inferior, that is why men have always been in control of women.”) I was wearing a crop top and shorts, the sort of outfit that they believe causes men to rape women. (“Now watch as the level of rapes mysteriously rise up.”) In the elaborate incel taxonomy of participants in the sexual marketplace, I am a Becky, devoting my attentions to a Chad. I’m probably a “roastie,” too—another term they use for women with sexual experience, denoting labia that have turned into roast beef  from overuse.

Earlier this month, Ross Douthat, in a column for the Times, wrote that society would soon enough “address the unhappiness of incels, be they angry and dangerous or simply depressed or despairing.” The column was ostensibly about the idea of sexual redistribution: if power is distributed unequally in society, and sex tends to follow those lines of power, how and what could we change to create a more equal world? Douthat noted a recent blog post by the economist Robin Hanson, who suggested, after Minassian’s mass murder, that the incel plight was legitimate, and that redistributing sex could be as worthy a cause as redistributing wealth. (The quality of Hanson’s thought here may be suggested by his need to clarify, in an addendum, “Rape and slavery are far from the only possible levers!”) Douthat drew a straight line between Hanson’s piece and one by Amia Srinivasan, in the London Review of Books. Srinivasan began with Elliot Rodger, then explored the tension between a sexual ideology built on free choice and personal preference and the forms of oppression that manifest in these preferences. The question, she wrote, “is how to dwell in the ambivalent place where we acknowledge that no one is obligated to desire anyone else, that no one has a right to be desired, but also that who is desired and who isn’t is a political question.”

Srinivasan’s rigorous essay and Hanson’s flippantly dehumanizing thought experiment had little in common. And incels, in any case, are not actually interested in sexual redistribution; they don’t want sex to be distributed to anyone other than themselves. They don’t care about the sexual marginalization of trans people, or women who fall outside the boundaries of conventional attractiveness. (“Nothing with a pussy can be incel, ever. Someone will be desperate enough to fuck it . . . Men are lining up to fuck pigs, hippos, and ogres.”) What incels want is extremely limited and specific: they want unattractive, uncouth, and unpleasant misogynists to be able to have sex on demand with young, beautiful women. They believe that this is a natural right.

It is men, not women, who have shaped the contours of the incel predicament. It is male power, not female power, that has chained all of human society to the idea that women are decorative sexual objects, and that male worth is measured by how good-looking a woman they acquire. Women—and, specifically, feminists—are the architects of the body-positivity movement, the ones who have pushed for an expansive redefinition of what we consider attractive. “Feminism, far from being Rodger’s enemy,” Srinivasan wrote, “may well be the primary force resisting the very system that made him feel—as a short, clumsy, effeminate, interracial boy—inadequate.” Women, and L.G.B.T.Q. people, are the activists trying to make sex work legal and safe, to establish alternative arrangements of power and exchange in the sexual market.

We can’t redistribute women’s bodies as if they are a natural resource; they are the bodies we live in. We can redistribute the value we apportion to one another—something that the incels demand from others but refuse to do themselves. I still think about Bette telling me, in 2013, how being lonely can make your brain feel like it’s under attack. Over the past week, I have read the incel boards looking for, and occasionally finding, proof of humanity, amid detailed fantasies of rape and murder and musings about what it would be like to assault one’s sister out of desperation. In spite of everything, women are still more willing to look for humanity in the incels than they are in us.

Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-rage-of-the-incels

[teachanarchy]

While I live a pretty normal life I have a lot of issues with sensory sensitivity. Like loud noises, bright lights, certain food tastes, smells and standing in crowds of people. These things make me feel a bit stressed out resulting in various issues like headaches and digestive problems.

While we're on the subject. Certain non-autistic people have the misconception that those of us on the spectrum would "lack empathy." That is simply not true. We often have a hard time to "read" people, but we certainly do not lack human empathy. That needed to be said.

2.

I am lonely. I want to be around people so much. I love talking, they taught me to talk and forgot to give me others to talk to. I want to work, but I need supervision.

I hit my head on things when I am upset. I hate that. My arms flap when I am excited and people stare. People stare for other reasons too...

And I love children and children love me, they love to talk to me and ask questions, or talk to me about cartoons. I would never harm anyone, but their parents act like their child is in danger it makes me feel like I am a terrible person.

Luckily now I am friends with an eight-year-old and she is awesome, loves LEGO, and we have a lot of talks about who is the best Disney princess, explorers (I told her about an explorer in LEGO, Johnny Thunder who explored tombs and she has suddenly decided to love the idea), and also about Doctor Who and time travel (the back seat of her car is a time machine when we go anywhere!)

So I guess, in short, autism is lonely, it can cause a lot of pain, it's like being trapped in a body that is only half loaded. Just cause people are aware of autism or accept autism, doesn't mean they will make time for those with autism.

Friends make it easier.

3.

I am an autistic person with hyperempathy, and my husband (also in the spectrum) has very low levels of empathy. He certainly still cares a great deal about others, but he finds it difficult-bordering-on-impossible to understand people's feelings or connect with them. He still has plenty of sympathy, though.

I, on the other hand, am kind of like an emotional chameleon. I can't help mirroring the emotions of those around me, and it's very tough. I want to be helpful and supportive when I see someone having a hard time, but when I start to adopt their negative feelings, it becomes very difficult to help because now I've got all this stress of my own to deal with.

4.

I have huge trouble telling someone they've made a mistake. I've let people go calling me by the wrong name, or I change the subject in conversation because the idea of making someone feel bad for making an error is intolerable. That one's a bugger to get around. It was worse as a teenager, I was once frozen to the spot for 3 minutes outside a teacher's door because knocking would interrupt them. Never mind that I had to see them and that they were expecting it, it might slightly inconvenience them and it would be my fault. I'm glad that stage is mostly over with.

5.

Emotions can be more extreme, especially the negative ones, unfortunately. There is a sudden trigger and a switch just flips. I usually take a step back and take a breather to get myself to baseline then.

This also ties in with control for me. I have a hard time with unfamiliar situations/places or if I have no way out. What's normal there, how should I behave, what if I do something wrong? What if I need a moment to myself where do I go? I would love to travel but everything about it can get me into a panic. But once I'm there and have assigned a spot as my place to collect myself I'm fine. Getting there is the hard part.

I also want to be really, really sure someone likes a present. I am horrible at giving a gift without them knowing what it is. I only not check if they would like it if there is no doubt in my mind that they would love it.

6.

My go-to analogy is to imagine being in a country where nobody speaks English and you don't speak their language. You don't have a phrasebook but you do have a translation dictionary. So you are speaking the words but the syntax is way off, not to mention accent and pronunciation. You might think you're making sense and communicating well but really people will be confused by you.

7.

For me, it's being different enough to be noticed and alienated from other people, but being similar enough to know it and hate yourself for it. I'm high functioning, but I was always a little bit less developed than others my age and was always ostracized for it. Got bullied out of high school by former friends when I finally told them I was high functioning and haven't ever finished.

Now after isolating myself for seven years, I have no idea how to make friends because social interaction is something that does not come naturally or easily to many of us. You can try and try to make friends but there is always the little voice reminding you that you are different and you are always paranoid that others notice. So you begin to hate yourself for it which then is noticed by others who then don't want to be around you, further convincing you of your differentness. It is the most lonely feeling in the world to know how you are supposed to act and not be able to do so, as hard as you try. I would not wish it on anyone.

8.

I have thoughts that no one else has, and when I articulate those thoughts, be it a joke, reference, even just a sentence, I will more often than not get a vacant stare in response. It's actually getting a little irritating if I'm honest, having to try and explain in terms they'll understand before dismissing the conversation entirely because I'm fighting an uphill battle.

9.

Imagine you just started a new job, but you didn't get any on-the-job training, the company has a very different work ethic to what you're used to, the environment is different, the people are unapproachable, everyone seems to know what they're doing but you, nobody seems to accept that you don't know what you're doing, they just get irritated with you, and it's assumed that you can just ask people for help if you're struggling... but everyone is scary to approach and makes you feel inadequate. That's what it's like for me anyway

An extension to this metaphor, also imagine that everyone else loves their job but you're only doing it because there are no other jobs going and you need the money. Ideally, you'd be doing something else but it's not an option, this is the job you have, like it or not

10.

I've grown to fear and hate contact with people because of the stares/bullying. But I'm not afraid of children or small animals. My dog is my only friend.

11.

I'm in high school and it seems that most people are on one page and I'm in a different book.

Advertisement

12.

I have a good friend who is autistic. He rocks his body and bounces a little and can't help it, he can't filter his words very well. He wishes he could be the guy who lives with the flow but pretty much needs structured plans and has a hard time if anything changes. He describes it as lonely too, but also frustrating. He says social situations are just too alien to him. He can't understand others well. He says he knows what he wants his mind and body to do, but they just don't.

I had this piece of garbage car once, like it was REALLY bad, and sometimes it would die, and the radio buttons didn't always work, and it had steering and breaking problems, and the clutch had problems too. Before I got rid of it, I'd always get [mad] driving it because I knew what it should be capable of doing and I knew what I was capable of doing in a normal working car, but I just couldn't get it right in that car. My friend told me the way I acted driving that car is how he was in his head. He knew what his body and mind should be able to do, and he knew what he should be able to do with a working mind. But he couldn't. He was trapped in his body and mind like I was in that crappy car. Really broke my heart... I don't know how he does it, I certainly couldn't.

13.

I was diagnosed with Aspergers at the age of 11.

I feel like I'm part of a play where everyone has the script except me.

14.

"So if I'm speaking to someone with autism, what can I do to make you feel more comfortable while taking to you?"

For me, I just want to be treated with dignity, patience, and respect. Be aware that I'm probably agonizing over your social cues that I may or may not be interpreting correctly or even noticing.

15.

I think I'm reasonably socially competent but it just takes so much effort. I have to think through every social move and feel overwhelmed after. I have to prepare for interactions. I hate small talk. I feel incredibly uncomfortable if people touch me, or stand too close to me or behind me. I have a mole on my cheek that has changed recently so I went to get it checked out, the doctor I'd never met before touching my face and peering intently at me and the bright lights in the office pretty much wrote my morning off by killing my threshold for anything else. I'm terrified of people's reactions to me and actively dislike meeting new people because I can't predict them/haven't worked out the formula for what they like to talk about/their humor, etc.

True relaxation for me is sitting in my room, by myself indulging in whatever I've become obsessed with. It's currently hockey, and I just love getting immersed in it, reading statistics, team histories and player profiles etc.

16.

It's really, really lonely. To be desperate to go out and be with people but at the same time have no idea how to interact with them. Left out of every conversation. Completely ignored.

The benefits are basically being able to concentrate on anything and really excel at it. Also not falling apart in an emergency, because the emotions of the situation don't really come into play.

17.

Social interactions that come to others naturally require a lot of thought and planning in my situation. For lack of a better analogy, I have mental checklists for every social event under the sun.

Obsessions are amped up from non-autistic people, as are following rituals - every night when I get home, I have dinner and watch The Simpsons, no ifs, ands, or buts.

I work as a chef, and my supervisor and I have a certain codeword (traffic) that if I mention it out of the blue, it means "I need to cool off for a few, I'm getting overloaded here."

18.

The therapist who diagnosed me once told me this story about how one of her patients basically thought "Why is everyone so [...] weird?" for about 17 years before he got diagnosed because he genuinely didn't realize that he might be the odd one. That's me, as well.

19.

I'm coming up on 40 years old in a few months. I feel like I have learned enough of those things, that I can now pass for completely normal. I've got a wife, I got a place, I keep my bills paid, I haven't had to move in over 4 years which is a new record for me. At worst, people think of me as an under achiever. Nobody has any ideas. It can be done, but it does take time. A lot of time.

20.

Socially I've managed to cope with my autism, I was quiet in middle school and a little bit of high school. I figured out I'm best at making myself look ridiculous in front of people. I now just laugh at myself and I seem to fit in, however, most of the time I don't really catch on to my friend's jokes or opinions.

21.

I love people, but people have to make exceptions. Being my friend means having to look after me. Being my friend means understanding I can't meet you at the mall, you have to come to my house and take me. Being my friend means accepting I won't know when I have caused emotional harm through being too blunt or saying something honest when you wanted a lie.

Advertisement

22.

Oh man, change could be so hard. When I was younger I hated it when my parents would redecorate the living room. Took me weeks to get used to and accept it as the new normal.

23.

Filtering useless info is exhausting, and I feel lucky I can even do that even though it costs me extra energy. A club is a nightmare, way too loud and too many people and lights. On the flip side when it's super quiet my mind focuses on the background hum, equally distracting.

24.

I never experienced an invitation to anything till I was older. Even if I don't want to go the feeling of being included is the best feeling ever. Like my friend, she had a party just for me. She invited 3 people to play board games and they chose board games that I was able to understand. It was the first party I had ever been to. I was 25.

My friend invited me to the board game night with an actual invitation it said "Time: Place: What to bring:" It made it structured and it was the best adventure I ever had because it was my first real social adventure.

25.

For me, its loud noises, especially bangs, screeches, high pitch noises from electronics no one else seems to hear. Constant repetitive sounds like beeping, there are other sounds too! I don't like a lot of music because of it. Sometimes, it's sounds others cannot really hear, or that their brains have tuned out. It can be strange explaining to someone you do not like their favorite song because there is a scratching noise from a guitar pick on a guitar that they have tuned out or is so minor they don't notice.

26.

I have high functioning autism as well as anxiety so some of this may be the anxiety but I find it really hard maintaining friendships at all. For example, I left 1.5 years ago and haven't spoken to one of them in over a year because I quite honestly didn't know how.

I also find communicating really hard. It takes a lot of effort and I would find meeting someone new really hard with me having no Idea where to go past hello and me getting a stutter is also quite likely.

I don't cope well with changes from a routine. For example, I will eat the same meals each day.

27.

It's hard, not only socially but also in school. I can't understand what the questions are asking me because I always interpret it in another way. Especially the questions like "Why did the author write this, how does the author feel?.. etc." I would always question if I was reading this answer correctly, and my teachers would get frustrated with me due to the excessive amount of questions I asked.

28.

If I said to you, I am done talking for now and wanted to stop talking, it doesn't mean I did not like you and it does not mean I did not enjoy the talking. Just sometimes it's a bit overwhelming and I need to stop for a while before going back to it. Some people take it as that I did not like them, or that I am rude. Then I get sad cause I can't go back to talking.

29.

My current girlfriend didn't realise that I have high functioning autism - partly because it's not severe, but also because basically all of the interactions with her have been ones that I've been through many, many times and I roughly know how I'm meant to react, even if sometimes I don't know why I need to react that way. it's a huge help but also a hindrance because some people just refuse to believe me until they spend more than a few minutes at a time with me

30.

The Internet has been one of the best things ever for autistic people. It is so much easier to communicate through text devoid of all the body language and vocal tones...

Remember to SHARE this with your family and friends.