#i dont need autism positivity i need to be taken seriously

[anon-1863727]

dear fake autism assholes:

erasing the parts of ASD that make it difficult to live with so that it's cute and quirky for the internet isn't "acceptance" or "education" it's just calling us retarded in a different typeface. it is a disability. it is a disorder. by saying that those things are "offensive" you're saying "disabled" and "disordered" are insults. you're doing the exact same thing you make all your posts about stopping.

my disability is not your cosplay. my headphones are not your prop. my stims are not your choreo.

i can't find community online because every group, subreddit, etc is so flooded with mushroom hats and unofficial diagnosis.

i understand there are circumstances where people can't reasonably get diagnosis and that i am lucky to have been able to, but it makes no sense to me that i see more undiagnosed people who *think* they're autistic speaking for us than i see actually autistic people. it's just as bad as autism speaks. I'm not taken seriously when i mention my condition and it isn't because of people having misconceptions about autism, it's because of people immediately assuming it's fake because I'm within the age range of the people faking it.

I'd just ignore it and leave it be but its so hard to avoid the effects.

just because you're irritated by sound or like to jump doesn't mean you're autistic. AUTISM IS A DISABILITY. IT IS A DISORDER. YOU DON'T HAVE AUTISM IF ITS NOT DISABLING, IT IS A DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY. YOU WOULDNT FUCKING TELL A GUY IN A WHEELCHAIR THAT HES NOT DISABLED BECAUSE HE CAN LIVE A FAIRLY NORMAL LIFE. YOU WOULDN'T SAY THAT BECAUSE YOU'RE ON CRUTCHES FOR A WHILE WITH A BROKEN LEG THAT YOUR LIFE IS THE SAME AS SOMEONE WHO'S MISSING A LEG. SAME GOES FOR US.

if you only use autism as a conversational point or internet persona chances are you are not fucking autistic. it affects day-to-day life, it doesn't just turn off when you're alone.

i understand there are flaws in the diagnostic process. i understand it's harder for women. i understand that some people do genuinely find out they're autistic because of the internet. low support needs autism is just as valid as low-moderate support like myself or high support or anything in between. i don't think being young or part of the alt scene invalidates asd either, I'm 16 and for a while yeah i did like the goblincore style. it's just a very specific group that I'm fed up with that's made themselves a very loud minority and screams ableist when questioned.

i don't know why people fake things like this but y'all need to take it elsewhere. I'm sorry you feel the need to do something like that but you're damaging the community while you pretend to be our saviors and it has got to go.

that being said i don't support things like r/fakedisordercringe and such bc dude its just making fun of kids 90% of the time and harassing people isn't ok or productive even if it were. if those who want to trash those kinds of people's accounts had any sense they'd just stop commenting or reposting etc bc all it does is boost the post and encourage it. just suffocate it please. and if you're one of the people faking that kinda shit... dude stop. seriously stop you're just hurting people and making a fool of yourself. it doesn't make you a bad person but you're definitely making bad decisions so just please for the love of g-d give us back our space.

[simcardiac-arrested]

BARNHAM THATS THE FUCKER! thank you. i didnt know he had a first name. i hope this was a fun exercise for you or something. as uhh reward or something idk. i dont quite really have something i can just go grab to give you. so heres a free space to ramble about a character from those games you like.

fuck yes free pass to autism. anyway i like both trucy and maya so i think i will talk about their parallels. they are both young girls at the start of their respective games and they go through So Fucking Much it’s incredible. but they still stay strong despite it all. maya loses her older sister at the ripe age of 17 and now has to live up to all these expectations of being a perfect spirit medium and perfect adult and now she has to be the head of the fey clan and master her technique. But she sucks balls at it all. obviously. she only has nick and pearl in her corner but that doesn’t even really help because all the time she feels like she’s failing them, like she’s not enough. she always tries to handle things on her own even if it’s to her own detriment. she defines her worth by her powers and her usefulness, and when she’s in court she feels like a waste when she’s next to nick. because he knows so much. he knows what he’s doing, he clearly doesn’t need her there. but the thing is that half the cases—hell, most of the cases in the whole ace attorney series would not have been able to be solved without maya. and yes, of course her powers are useful in solving cases, but that is not what i mean. i mean without maya. without her determination, because when nick gives up she Doesn’t. without her quick thinking, because when nick falters she Acts. without her strength, because maya is seriously So Fucking Strong. when her sister dies and she gets accused of murdering her, it’s devastating, but she doesn’t lose herself and she tries to help nick solve the case as much as possible. when her aunt betrays her and she is accused of murder again she is strong enough to stay collected despite everything. when she gets kidnapped it is quite possibly the worst few days of her life, and yet she never stops fighting, both for herself and for her family. and she always stays positive, always the light of everyone’s life—when she’s gone nick’s world practically crumbles. she is his anchor, and he couldn’t have gotten anywhere without her. On the other hand we have trucy, who technically becomes an orphan when she’s like, what, 8? 9? and that’s when nick takes her in, but that’s also when nick loses his damn job. and even though i’m sure nick has taken good care of her and loved her like no one else, i can’t imagine how it was like growing up for her. or no—i can, at least a little. because trucy is cagey. self dependent. strong. basically a full fledged adult at the age of only 15/16. she had to stay strong for her dad, obviously. couldn’t make him worry about anything. couldn’t make anyone worry about anything. when we see her in the game she is silly, whimsical, seemingly without a care in the world, seemingly not understanding the gravity of any given situation. but she understands it better than most. she knows how to be serious, how to be strong, she just does it in her own subtle ways. and she is definitely not stupid. she is one of the smartest characters in the games, even if we don’t take into account her ability to detect lies. she’s great at reading people and judging situations. she’s good at navigating life in general, all on her own. of course she still appreciates her dad, she still loves him, but the life of a daughter with a jobless single father who isolated himself from everyone for 7 years has not done her a lot of favors. just like maya, she is also the light of nick’s life, his second anchor, his most important person. and just like maya, trucy never allows herself to be weak, to be open, to be not enough. never allows herself to make others worry about her or, god forbid, pity her. just like maya, she is everyone’s support, everyone’s comic relief, everyone’s reliable adult in all but actual age. So anyway if capcom had let me work on ace attorney 4: apollo justice all these years ago i would’ve actually made trucy and maya interact on screen

[swampgallows]

wait was your tags saying you don’t like acephobia or you’re acephobic it’s hard to tell

i was tagging for people who are sensitive to a/acephobia, and as an asexual person myself i am frustrated by all of the positive content directed toward asexuals being increasingly patronizing, infantilizing, and altogether useless. “radder than peanut butter” the fuck is that supposed to mean? a wealth of ace “discourse” frustrates me immensely, hence why i have rinsed myself of the bulk of it. treating all ace-spec people like they are children (especially when a lot of self-identified asexuals are on the autism spectrum) is incredibly dehumanizing and is a method of invalidating our concerns and experiences as being naive or unimportant, as well as further conflates adulthood with sex.  

i am a csa sex work survivor. i have struggled all my life to figure out when I will “grow up” as the goalposts of adulthood have moved and changed constantly throughout my life. one thing that took me much too long to learn is that the absence of sex is not the absence of adulthood, nor is the presence of sex the presence of adulthood, and such a toxic idea manifests in everything from the scam that is “purity/virginity” to toxic masculinity to “barely legal” and so on. there is nothing inherently wrong with the tender and childlike ace positivity posts except when it’s the only option, painting all aces as fragile babies whose lives are devoid of responsibility or impact. in my opinion it is akin to the “self-care” culture on tumblr that prioritizes bath bombs and ghibli movies over less romantic notions like “not looking at your bills won’t make them go away” and “your sleep shirt is crusty with a week’s worth of food dribbles and spit and i know your bed is the only safe place but it is time to shower and do some laundry”.

ive had to type this up like ten times because this issue is extremely personal for me. i’m asexual and if you don’t like it you can fucking leave, but if youre gonna stick around and tell me what a precious muffin cinnamon roll crayons macaroni sparkly cake dragon i am you can get the fuck out too. i have had enough of the fucking coddling. i dont dislike porn because i prefer cake xD, i have a visceral reaction to it that causes me to beat myself until im bruised and scratch myself until i bleed so i can get the images out of my head and the sensory nightmares out of my skin. but even if i didnt, asexual people dont need to have a backstory like a saw movie to be taken seriously. these memes and shit certainly dont help in that department.

[skywarper]

okay heres that post i promised

heres a real life account of what “violent alters” in DID systems are actually like, their purpose and the psychological aspects behind them so you can perhaps understand them better, whether for your own system needs or so you can better represent DID in your fiction

note: information is taken both from my experience, experiences of others (both people i know and people i dont, from various walks of life) and general psychology. ofc this info isnt true for everyone but is generally helpful in my experience helping them

also this post might be a little roundabout because tfw language disabilities but bear with me

okay so to begin with, “violent alters” as most people know them are more commonly referred to as persecutors in DID terminology so thats the term ill be using for the rest of this post

i should explain the understanding of DID i’ll be writing this post under. dissociative identity disorder, or DID, is a dissociative mental disorder centered around the ‘splitting’ of one individual into two or more (usually more) ‘parts’ or ‘alters’. DID is almost always a response to trauma, generally during childhood, and is a coping method, if rather extreme at times, for a person who’s undergone trauma to be able to continue life normally by offloading responsibilities and traumatic experiences onto other people. alters in a ‘system’ (the collective term for a set of alters in one headspace), while their own identities and people, are psychologically several parts of a whole. for this reason, no alter is truly independent  of one another, and this info is important for the discussion of persecutor alters

a persecutor alter, is an alter who often takes the form of something monstrous or scary to their host (the ‘default’, day-to-day alter in a system). they represent something a host does not want to face, whether it be self insecurity, trauma, anger issues, or any number of things. they come across as rude, dangerous, even violent. many will attempt to kill/hurt their hosts or other alters in a system during their ‘active period’ (we will call it that). 

it’s not actually common for persecutors to harm people outside the system unless those people directly provoke them, they are preoccupied with their duties in system and often could care less about outside people. they are more dangerous to their hosts than they will ever be to you, some persecutors will even be docile to outsiders while still being violent to their hosts

however, persecutor alters are just as important to their hosts as protectors, caretakers, littles, etc. some persecutors are even protectors in their own right. they have something they want or need to tell the host, and for whatever reason, the only way they know how to get their host’s attention is by acting out violently and putting them and others at risk. it is often true that the more you ignore or think badly of a persecutor, the more violent they will get. they NEED to be noticed, they NEED the validation of their host and for their host to listen to the message they have for them

they are people just like any other alter, and they respond to understanding and being listened to and validated, even if they dont know exactly what is the appropriate response

real life account time. one of my ex-persecutors, named Mars, split when i was around 13-14. i was currently suffering institutional abuse on account of my autism diagnosis. i was adjusting to the confirmation while at the same time being belittled and treated like an object by the adults around me for this knowledge. i was also being abused by my mother for this specific thing. i sufferred a lot of meltdowns and fucked up my social interactions a lot, i was confused and angry. Mars started to come around during my meltdowns, and he would parrot what i was thinking about myself but didn’t want to admit. he was belittling me, calling me words i couldn’t stand to face such as the r-slur, and any number of things. this was, in fact , how i thought of myself but on account of being multiple, it was offloaded onto Mars so i could face it. it’s easier to face these things when they don’t present as yourself

as the years went by i started to adjust, i broke free of the abusive situations, i found support groups and friends with autism and came to better understand myself and my symptoms and how to continue with my teenage life. after a few attempts to kill me and then some other alters, i finally faced Mars and told him i wasn’t scared of him. i’m autistic, i’m proud, and nothing he or anyone else ever said to me was going to change it. he ‘mellowed out’ after that, since his mission was complete and i had faced the fears which he represented. 

now at this point, persecutor alters will either integrate (where they ‘reverse’ the splitting process and fuse back with the member they split from, usually the host) OR they will become an ex-persecutor, and move onto a different role. often a protector, or even a host. they tend to keep their rude, sometimes apathetic attitudes but with their concern for their host channeled into something not so violent. Mars is currently a sort of protector/defender hybrid who will take control if things get SERIOUSLY dire, because he has no concern for anything outside the system and it can’t get past him. he has some friends in system and though he doesn’t show his face as much as he used to, he’s welcome whenever he does now that he’s mellow/docile

a lot of persecutors express frustration that they are misunderstood, it’s not their fault that all they know is anger and violence, they are made that way, so to speak. representing persecutors as being violent killing machines in fiction often serves to fuel their anger, causing more damage to their hosts at times. in a sort of “if thats what they think of me, that’s what ill be” kind of way. but behind the violence they are just as valid as any alter, and have something very very important to teach the host, they are not to be ignored and not to be demonized, it never ever helps when dealing with them 

of course, it’s completely valid for a host to hate and be hurt by their persecutors, often is the point. but if you are an outsider, it’s often not helpful and can worsen the situation, and strengthen tension between a host and their persecutor. ESPECIALLY any sort of “i hate you for taking (host) away” sentiment. lowkey its really annoying dont do that

so for those who have persecutors and are trying to deal, keep yourself safe and keep your protectors close by, but try to talk to your persecutors, try to understand where theyre coming from, potentially let them front with supervision to see if they can express their message through art, music, writing, or their actions. they are trying to help you even if they’re doing it in a very unorthodox way

for those who’s friends and loved ones have persecutors and you want to help, honestly follow the same advice above. sometimes persecutors will threaten to harm the host to get a rise out of you, unless you believe the host to be in serious danger, try not to respond in any meaningful way. sometimes persecutors will mellow out if they have someone to talk to, their hosts rarely understand them and you can potentially be a mediator to help the process go faster and benefit them both

if you are a singlet (that’s someone without a system) writing DID into fiction, or writing DID headcanons, great! hopefully this sort of rambling of information can help you better understand persecutors and what they represent and how they behave, so we can see less and less “OO SCARY VIOLENT PERSECUTOR MURDERING EVERYONE OOOO!” shit like split and everything. positive DID representation is very important, even that including persecutors. systems require every single alter to run smoothly, including persecutors, and they are just as important as any other

thank you for reading if you did and if anything needs clarification let me know. obviously this is very emotion based, theres no way it couldnt be, but i have handled several persecutors in my own system, mellowed out persecutors in my close friends’ systems, and read up and studied a lot on real life accounts of them besides my own. i dont believe in “bad” alters, i believe in misguided alters