#idk any other people struggle with this???

[softness-and-shattering]

Thats a good point, I see all kinds of neurodivergence in my family but only a couple of us in my generation, afaik, have a diagnosis.

However, my gp attended a recent talk about overlap of queer folk with neurodivergence and also a group of comorbid illnesses including, iirc, POTS/MCAS/EDS/CFS theres a couple others Im just blanking. Digestive issues? Things that we've broadly noticed as a community, and it seems like its starting to be studied.

And also, everyone has some kind of trauma, idk how many people if any have no kind of disability whatsoever, humanity is vast and diverse. And we're wired to look for patterns. Interpret this information how you will, I certainly cant say for sure if these patterns are broader than trans people, or are more people trans than we expect, are we seeing correlation or causation or is there a mechanism in common with all these labels thats the deeper cause, is queerness an interchangeable/'sometimes' factor or a central one, we are way too early to know that yet.

I think its probably not nothing. But we're also not uniquely fucked up. Maybe we're just sticking out, so to speak, so thats where the research is starting. Many people werent taking ME/CFS seriously until long covid prompted more research bc, iirc, there was now a lot more people affected who were harder to ignore. And who were seeking help. Like a lot of people have an allergy or a dodgy wrist or "that weird thing with my digestion" and they dont consider it a disability or seek treatment, yknow? And especially mental health and especially what runs in families, it looks normal to you so why would you ever bring it up to a dr? "Everyone struggles with these things. Everyone feels this way" well you do and your parents and aunts and uncles do and your siblings do, and maybe you told a dr forty years ago you were in pain and they brushed you off so you thought everyone was walking around in agony.

And that gets into an adjacent conversation about medicalising and diagnosing and when does that help and when is it like, making a negative thing of normal human experiences and variations, its not a disorder till its negatively impacting your life, if youre surviving but treatment could help you thrive is it worth the side effects etc etc plus the whole discussion of psychiatry in particular which can be an amount of guesswork and diagnostic labels are often just patterns of symptoms that we see oftrn go together and we dont always yet understand the underlying neurology. (One of my all time best therapists kept up with the latest neuroscience and always had very good and effective suggestions. I only stopped seeing her bc I moved away. If you can be seeing professionals who are keeping up with research, definitely prefer them over someone who hasnt learned anything since they completed training 50 years ago. Always.)

Tl;dr I agree with OP and also this stuff is extremely complex and we're always learning new things about us!

something that should be taken with a grain of salt are the statistics talking about the high rates of mental illness + neurodivergence among trans people (ocd, bpd, adhd, autism, etc)

I see both sides of the political spectrum taking these studies at face value - conservatives say we're broken, and trans people try to come up with reasons why for example autism + gender dysphoria makes sense and why one of them feeds into another

at the end of the day you have to remember that we're the one category of people on this planet who are legally required to go see a psychiatrist in order to receive non-psychiatric medication and surgeries.

more trans people are in therapy by law than any other demographic of people, and as a result, this captures more comorbidities.

if I had to look at my own family & rates of mental illness?

mom, dad, 2 maternal aunts, maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother, sister, sibling, and me all have OCD.

7/9 of them are cishet, never been to therapy, never diagnosed. 2/9 are trans, required therapy for hormone treatment, and were diagnosed.

you don't have to do any math to just see that the resulting statistics end up intensely skewed.

and we can think back to how autism was virtually never diagnosed more than 50 years ago - ruling out any grandparents being included in statistics - and even my parents' generation (they're in their 60s now) wouldn't have been included either.

I don't think it's to anyone's benefit to accept these studies uncritically. a lot of these things are hereditary and far more prevalent in the overall population than people realize

[communistkenobi]

idk how I feel about Bourdieu generally, but he makes the argument in On The State that the state legitimizes itself by presenting itself as “the viewpoint that produces all other viewpoints,” that it structures how we think about and understand what gets counted as “just a particular point of view” or “just an opinion,” and through this production it ceases to be seen as a viewpoint itself, which is to say, it ceases to be viewed as biased or partial by the public, and is therefore “outside the social space.” He means this specifically in the context of state reproduction, that the state is doing this to reproduce and perpetuate itself by building a public consensus that agrees that the state is legitimate (and thus unbiased). He's engaging with Weber’s idea of the rational logic of the modern state, that rationality is understood as objective, above mere opinion, and that to be legitimate is to exist outside of the domain of opinion (ie, the social).

and talking with a lot of particularly nihilistic liberals, this framing feels pretty instructive - the state doesn’t actually exist within the social realm, it’s basically just a fact of nature, like a lion or a forest, and the primary problem that arises within the state is when it takes on the characteristics of the social space by suddenly appearing partial and biased. The real crime of Trump and other “populist” right-wing politicians is that they are dragging down the state to the low space of the social realm and doing with it biased and partial things - the lion is now in the circus, and so it must be released back into its proper dignified place in nature. “fake news” and “alternative facts” are rendered oxymorons that endlessly drives liberals insane - how can facts be fake? How can the head of the state lie? Misinformation becomes the whole terrain of battle, of trying to maintain the boundary between fact and mere opinion, and through this battle the state will be cleansed of the social realm.

and ironically this is a disengagement with empiricism entirely, an irrational commitment to the rational, to the state. because at no point is there any actual reckoning with the state as an institution that emerged out of history and struggle, as something that is co-constitutive with the social realm, as an authority that decides what is impartial and unbiased, as an authority that can be challenged, it’s just an animal that does things, existing forever in time, and sometimes evil people make it do things that go against its beautiful, unbiased and impartial nature 

[outrunningthedark]

On Tina that mid season finale pissed you off 😭😭

As soon as the 'handcap' comment came out of that kid's mouth I probably should have changed the channel. 😶 I think I'm more frustrated than pissed, tbh. I'm frustrated that the fandom continues to mischaracterize Chris and misinterpret scenes that involve the grandparents because they remind people of their own parents or something idk. I'm frustrated that Tim had the plan to send Eddie to Texas since the start of the season and the father-son relationship had to suffer for it because if Eddie went to Texas "too early" there's not that ~suspense~ at the beginning of 8B as to whether he's really going and for how long. I'm frustrated that the show tried to be "funny" about a suicide attempt, and did so in front of Bobby, the guy who could have accidentally killed himself while under the influence. I'm frustrated that Madney has felt like they might as well not be there at times, and now the upcoming serial killer arc is probably going to the thing that sends them both (?) away to accommodate Jennifer's filming commitments. I'm frustrated that arcs were fast forwarded to make room for....Brad. I'm frustrated that the Brad arc was even able to be pushed to the mid-season finale because of Tim extending the plane emergency to one more episode, shortening the amount of time for everything else in an EIGHT EPISODE starter. Not 9. Not 10. 8. (As others have said) I'm frustrated that Buck is obviously going to "spiral" over Maddie, have to be without her for a bit - maybe Chimney, too - and also deal with his best friend wanting to relocate to another state, which is why any kind of serious relationship would not "make sense" right now anyway. Buck wouldn't be so quick to decline if he had someone to lean on every day, someone he trusted. (The fact that Tommy is gone while Taylor stayed through the struggle in s5 should show you the difference in how the two relationships impacted Buck's life, lol. Tommy was a positive influence. Taylor...not so much!) So, yeah. I'm frustrated. By a lot of things. But mostly? I'm frustrated that we're watching the show die in real time.

[lyrakanefanatic]

i might be biased bc she’s my fav but i do think that the reason why people hate lyra for being “whiny” is because they genuinely don’t know what to do when they’re reading about a jlb character whose sadness is always a part of them

like with avery she had gone through so much but was always able to cope with how she felt, and she had a very good support system (after book 1 that is 😬😬) like the hawthornes and jameson to help her out whenever she was feeling upset

and with cassie she had gone through so much but could still put her emotions to the side when she noticed that other people were going through “harder” things, and when she needed to solve cases (poor girl was still sad a lot of the time though ☹️☹️)

but with lyra her sadness consumes her. usually we start jlbs books with just the characters living their normal lives, (well tig, tgg, and the naturals at least) before they get this big opportunity and events happen that progressively break them down and ruin their mental health before building them back up again stronger, but for lyra she’s sad at the beginning, she’s sad when she’s getting broken down, (finding more and more about her father in the game and all the flashbacks) and she’s sad at the end. this girl is literally just depressed and y’all are acting like she lit hawthorne house on fire and danced on hannah rooneys grave just cause she doesn’t know how to cope with her emotions yet 😭😭🙏

and in case you guys forgot, the only people who know what happened to her father and are capable of sympathizing with her for it in any way is a literal grandma who was involved with tobias, whose wife had a part in lyras fathers death, and an ACTUAL HAWTHORNE 😭😭

like yeah averys support system wasn’t that good either, and cassies could have been better, BUT AT LEAST THEY HAD SOME KIND OF FOUND FAMILY SHIT THAT THEY COULD SYMPATHIZE WITH?? jlb really said “yessss found family trope for you” to avery and “found family trope for you” to cassie and then looked at lyra like this:

this last part is a joke btw, but because you guys are prob going to say something, (or maybe not idk) she does have a family, but there’s a lot of struggles with her telling them her problems because its not really expected of her. idk how many of y’all are the eldest child but there’s that and also this shame that lyra feels with being upset all the time because its so unlike the old her and she feels she owes it to her family to be like her old self, happy and communicative

[dreamsy990]

rough sketches for designs of all the pt for the wof au! (also more akechi and better joker here)

thoughts + closeups under the cut

i tried to give proper justification for all the pt to have their codenames here which for a handful of them meant their names are just. shortened versions of something else. so crow is short for crow poison. aka false garlic. its a type of flower :3. i mean theororetically crow would be a valid name but hes a rainwing here and it didnt seem like a very fitting name with that in mind? but theres a couple rainwings named after flowers i think. hes a rainwing for obvious reasons i think. id like to think hed have a very light color palette that shifts to this when he gives up trying to hide who he is. youuu can see that lighter palette in the art i linked earlier.

fox! which is short for snowfox. yes i know snowfox is a real canon name but yknow what else is canon? icewings have a big list of names they go down. so his name is snowfox. i dont have anything else to say here. like ofc hes an icewing hes YUSUKE. id like to think he left the ice kingdom to go to jade mountain (bc is it a wof au without jade mountain) to "broaden his horizons as an artist". which would be how he meets the other guys

skull! is it his real name? hes not telling! i am the least happy with his design tbh.

ORACLE!! her real name is beetle but she likes to go by oracle instead. i struggled a bit on what tribe to make her actually. originally i wanted her to be either part or fully rainwing? because i thought her using her camoflauge to hide from people in crowded places could be fun. but eventually i decided i not to do that. i dont think theres any hybrids in this cast actually? might actually change my mind on that to make noir half leafwing but shh. anyways i think a bug is fitting for her. so she gets to be a hivewing. no abilities for her shes just a little guy

JOKER!! i think it would be fun if joker IS his real name but people think its an alias. his design was easy as shit. ofc hes a nightwing ofc hes got big red stars on his wings hes JOKER. not pictured is morgana also! mona is jokers """pet""" scavenger who speaks dragon. congrats mona you finally get to be human! too bad its in the dragon au. anyways might post a morgana drawing whenever i clean up his design

violet! (named after the violet copper butterfly). her sisters name and the name she uses for a while is rose (named after the common rose butterfly). i ALSO kinda considered her being a rainwing (literally changing herself to look more like her sister) but decided silkwing was a better choice,,,,, im really happy with her design ok

PANTHER!! that is her actual name btw. MY FIRST THOUGHT FOR THIS AU WAS SKYWING ANN I WOULD KILL MYSELF IF SHE WAS ANYTHING ELSE,,,, ik skywings cant have blue eyes unless theyre firescales or sky but shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i wanted to,,,,,, canon is what i want it to be.

queen is short for queenfish! she was a bit of an afterthought sorry </3. but shes a seawing! good for her <3

AND NOIIIRRRR!! i wanted her to be a mudwing as soon as i thought about it for more than a second. design wise i dont have much to say but i think storywise it might be cool if she was an only child and her father (in an incrdible rare move for a mudwing) was actually a present figure in her life. leading her to be kinda isolated from her peers and giving her a big reason to be very attached to him. idk its just thoughts rn. i dont have a clear story in mind yet. anyways those are my dragon thieves i hope you liked them

[theghoulboysblog]

put this in my drafts because i expected spring break to be my time to lock into my shane and ryan hyperfixation, but i ended up locked into my stardew valley hyperfixation instead 😔✊

i said “i’ll just play for a few minutes!” and now i am at 98% completion in that game with apsolutely no shane and ryan compilations, edits, or fanart completed 😔✊ so upsetting.

[adhdandcomics]

perhaps the most important question i’ve ever asked:

does anyone have tips for people trying to stop being chronically late to everything in the world that aren’t weirdly judgmental and aggressive or flat out lies

[rasairui]

I think anybody who thinks autism is more "accepted" nowadays is either in denial or can't see outside themselves. What we actually did is just popularize a really weird infantilized perception of autism that focuses on the symptoms that can be repackaged as "cute" or "quirky," and are continuing to treat people with inconvenient or even upsetting symptoms like garbage. And no I'm not talking about bigots who pull the "I'm literally neurodivergent" bs I'm talking about supposed allies telling me I'm acting like a child for getting too emotional when I literally have "Can't Regulate My Emotions" disorder, or that I'm moving weird, or that my voice never has the right tone to it. Sorry my autism doesn't stop and end at hand flapping and dinosaurs lmao I can gaurantee I'm not enjoying my meltdown any more than you are, buddy! In fact, I'd say I'm having a far worse time than you! I do not make a choice to be emotionally volatile nor do I feel good when I get upset. It's not my fault that emoting "properly" is a performance that takes energy and I really can't do it 100% of the time. Like idk it honestly feels like I still have to mask in supposedly progressive spaces just in a different way.

And of course this doesn't even start to get into people with higher support needs than me who are rarely acknowledged unless they themselves are doing it. It's one of the reasons those posts that are like "Do you think neurodivergence is just autism/adhd, and not (heavily stigmatized other disorder)?" rub me the wrong way. They always seem to be addressing the most sanitized version of autism possible which strikes me as counter intuitive to the point being made. And don't get me wrong, as a system I understand why it's being said but it just really frustrates me because the people these posts are about don't actually think severe cases of autism or adhd are neurodivergence either! They treat higher support needs people with the same disorders like shit!

No I do not think anyone who's ever made a post like that is a bad person nor do I expect every post to have a disclaimer containing every possible nuance but I do think a lot of them are not written with the existence of high support needs or "weird" autism symptoms in mind, which inadvertently feeds into this "palatable autism" thing people keep doing

[angelnumber27]

violently forcing myself to have better days

[zerodaryls]

it's so funny (read: sad) that if bigoted fuckheads didn't insist i was a woman simply by virtue of my body at birth, i'd probably be chill with she/her pronouns in addition to he/they. if my mom didn't insist i was her daughter, i'd probably let her call me that, and we could still have a relationship.

i'm nonbinary and 'gendered' words are hypothetically meaningless, but because there are so many people who are more interested in telling me who i am rather than lovingly and curiously letting me express my own sense of self, those words carry trauma.

there's no reason a nonbinary person like myself can't be a son and a child and a daughter. there's no reason a nonbinary person like me can't go by he, they, and she.

'she' is not a slur. 'daughter' is not derogatory. 'beautiful' 'pretty' 'gorgeous' 'feminine' are not insults.

to the contrary, they're parts of language that express certain facets of a multi-faceted human existence, like mine.

and i have this sad, mournful feeling that if it weren't for unloving, condescending people, i'd probably be down to be called any of those things alongside my usual masculine/neutral terminology.

but i'd rather die than let anyone tell me what i have to be called.

[soullessjack]

this isnt rlly a serious post more so than a thought I need to verbalize but like. there’s an INSANE difference between the fandom being like “hey what if jack was actually his age and got to be a little normal” vs y’all treating a grown ass man like he has to cover his ears when someone swears or sleep with a nightlight on because he’s afraid of the dark, and throwing the P word around to anyone who thinks he’s attractive. one of these things is not like the other.

[lovelyrotter]

can ppl in this fandom like... stop... implying that transmasculinity in hcs or (especially) canon is shallow or misogynistic or even transmisogynistic on princible, like literally just by being prescent in someones mind or in the text. like that doesnt fuckin feel good. thats kind of really nasty to imply. if its not okay to say about other trans experiences, maybe dont say it about this one either. why is there a weird little exception here. yall KNOW how much that sucks to hear all day every day. what the fuck

[possamble]

realizing im kind of a weirdo about laios and marcille

[autisticlee]

sometimes people who struggle like to make jokes or find positives about their condition that causes them to struggle so they can escape the constant negative and struggle. sometimes autistic people will say things like "the 'tism" or use the "autism creature" or say their autism helped them have a *positive trait* to feel better about their struggles. because living your life only focusing on the struggles and negatives is depressing and makes it hard to want to live, even if those struggle take up 100% of your life and you can't actually escape them. sometimes any little seemingly positive thing can help a lot.

but there's so many other autistic people that hate when we do that and call it "reducing autism to a cute trendy thing" and say it takes away from *their* struggles and is bad and shouldn't be used. maybe *you* want to only focus on your struggles, but some people can't live in constant negative and need some positive or to find ways to make their condition more positive so they can feel better about living with their struggles. life is hard. I take anything I can get.

I cant get jobs. I can't make and keep friends. I can't get help and support for doing "normal" things so sometimes I go weeks without being able to shower and without eating more than a bowl of cereal a day. most times can't even do things I like. struggle to communicate. have meltdowns. i'll never be able to live independently. I struggle a lot. but instead of sitting here always depressed and having no motivation to live, i'd rather try to joke about "my 'tism is acting up again" when i'm struggling (just an example. don't think I ever actually used the 'tism thing but i saw others use it) or say "i'm just being a creature" when I need to stay in my dark room because everything is too much and I personally find it cute to be a little creature meant in a positive way. i'm not actually downplaying mine or anyone else's struggles. I still acknowledge them and that silly jokes dont make them go away. i'm not trying to be trendy. i'm not doing any of the things people say we do by making silly little jokes. i'm using the silly little jokes to convince myself life can be a little more than pointless, painful garbage all the time.

(continue in tags)

[unproduciblesmackdown]

(genderly) chill as hell if i was only ever glimpsed / detected like this

[inniave]

idk how to put words together to say what i want to say. so if this doesn't make sense that's why. i think sometimes the language about fetuses used by pro choice people is intentionally inflammatory and further drives a wedge between pro choice /pro life. and sometimes the lack of respect is so glaring. what is your gross, dehumanizing, awful descriptors of a fetus supposed to accomplish? you aren't winning anyone over. you're pushing others away. and for the folks who have experienced miscarriage, can you imagine the grief that comes only to be met with "it's just a disgusting alien parasite clump of cells"? you're only posturing to other people who already agree with you. you're taking no care. no compassion. why should anyone ever listen to you when you obviously discredit the significance of pregnancy? why should a pregnant person trust you when you belittle a massive decision and call their growing baby insignificant & a cancer? idk man. i'm not blaming anyone, i just. maybe think about it for a few minutes before you call a fetus a smeared shit stain. okay?

! i am staunchly pro-choice ! this is not a condemnation of abortion ! abortion should be easily accessible to all people !