#if autism diagnosis and support systems existed back then

[cerealandchoccymilk]

(reads the first page of the first notebook in no longer human/a shameful life) its so autistic in here its scary

[gold-snek-hoe]

Hello and welcome to Opinions from an Internet Nobody. Today's essay:

"Ger therapy" is the new "You need Jesus": One Weirdo's Navigation through Cultural Shame

This is a supposedly well-meaning sentiment that is often weaponized against people who are behaving outside of perceived cultural norms. It's a favorite of homophobes who see queerness/transness as a mental illness, but I've been seeing it used to demonize kink (which historically is often linked to queerness), and more generally any "weird" behavior that makes people uncomfortable.

For example, otherkin, systems (especially those with fictives), and people who take fictional characters as partners. Y'know, "weirdos" who "can't separate reality from fiction." And, sure, sometimes there can be a problem with that distinction, but I know as well as you that most internet strangers saying "get therapy" don't actually give a shit about the mental health of those they target. It's code for "your behavior makes me uncomfortable, stop it."

Same sentiment as "you need Jesus."

This has actually taken me a long time to figure out. I've been in therapy for my entire adult life, working through various traumas, severe depression, anxiety, all that. Those were the biggest problems as they negatively impacted, and often endangered, my life. It was only after my hospitalization in 2020, where I was finally put on much needed medication, that I could start to grow into myself.

I changed my name. I top surgery. I came out as polyamorous. I finally got my official autism diagnosis. Now I'm fuckin' married! But... there are still things I'm working through in therapy. Mainly, shame over my "weirder" behaviors. My current therapist has been a huge blessing in helping me accept the things I was too ashamed to admit.

Now, I feel comfortable enough to share.

I'm otherkin. Always have been. My connection to my humanity is tenuous, and I'm sure that's connected to my autism. When mad, I feel phantom horns sprouting from my forehead. I have a tail that swishes back and forth at the base of my spine. In my soul, I am monstrous, and years of therapy has not erased that.

I feel like I'm only half in the physical world most of the time. This doesn't hinder my real-world success (I graduated college Summa Cum Laude, have an IMDB page, and am on my third book), but informs the way I look at the world. There's a whole other universe in my head that hums along with me in my day-to-day. That's part of why I'm so skilled as a writer. To ask me to divorce from that is to tell me to stop existing. Sorry, it's how I've always operated.

Lastly, and this is the one I'm really anxious about, I have a fictional husband. Now, looking at my blog, you might say "yeah, no shit," but I don't just ship myself with him. I mean I practice pop-culture Witchcraft, and the Goblin King is my patron. I mean I have a Labyrinth-themed tarot deck that I talk to him with. I mean I held a ritual to spiritually marry him. Basically, I Snape-wived myself.

And guess what? My therapist isn't concerned. It's not hurting my ability to live my life. I have other interests, hobbies, and goals outside of him, which he actively encourages in all our tarot sessions! I wouldn't be doing this if he didn't support me. My IRL spouse is usually there for whatever magical shit I'm doing, and supports me! Some of my closest friends know, and the only complaint I've gotten is "this guy seems important to you, I wish you told me sooner." Hell, my MOTHER knows and supports me, which is huge, because our relationship was pretty damaged after I came out as trans.

If you have a problem with the way I live my life, when literally nobody else does, take a good long look at why. You don't give a fuck about my mental health. You just don't like that I'm weird.

Tl;dr: My mental health is better than it's ever been since embracing the weird, so leave me and my imaginary husband Marak Sixfinger alone.

[theautisticdoctor]

Have you ever been screened for adhd? I see that there is a lot of overlap in adhd and autism diagnosis. How was it for you?

Autism and ADHD do have a lot of similarities, as well as ADHD and (c)PTSD. I am officially diagnosed with autism and cPTSD, but I do also score very high on the ADHD spectrum. I got asked once if I wanted to get officially tested, but I refused because at that time my brain just couldn’t handle another label. I absolutely despise labels and getting them put on me gives me massive stress, because I feel so inadequate and as a failure (I’m still working on that). My autism also got kind of buried under all the other labels that got put on me, and I felt like it was going to happen with this again. I don’t do well in adjusting or acknowledging new things and it takes ages for me to accept these labels.

Just like autism, ADHD is also a neurodevelopment disorder, which means it would have been there in my childhood, so for me it is most useful to look how I was as a child. As a child I was not hyperactive at all, only disorganised with a lot of executive dysfunction, impulsivity when high stress levels occurred and easily distracted with bursts of hyperfocus and -fixation. My brother however has always been hyperactive, impulsive, and easily distracted (although he’s also diagnosed with cPTSD). He for example as a 2 year old managed to jump out of the high chair more often than actually sit in it or rock and bounce it back and forth so hard that he would flip over with chair and all. So he is definitely an ADHD’er. Me you could have put in a corner of the room and completely forget I even existed, which therefore also happened, because I wouldn’t make a sound, wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t crawl away from my designated space. You could give me a toy and I would be satisfied with it all day, figuring out all ins and outs, when I was done playing I would start taking it apart and would put it back together, over and over again. Where my brother would throw his toys through the frontwindow of the car (literally) because he was just bored with them and needed more stimuli. My cPTSD diagnosis makes it very complicated to distinguish what symptoms are from traumatic stress and what has been there since before the structural stress (because the structural stress also started in very early childhood) from ADHD or autism.

For me I think it is more helpful to look at it from a holistic perspective instead of adding more quite meaningless labels for a group of symptoms that one might have, I just have a neurodevelopment disorder with a spectrum of symptoms. I have made an inventory of those symptoms and the scope of these symptoms is already a huge disability for which I need to make adjustments to my life. Labels should be used as a tool to help people and their support system understand, figure out and learning to cope with their symptoms. The label is solely there to serve a purpose, but it doesn’t give you any clue about the extent, severity or suffering of the person. In my practice I always tell my patients that I’m treating a person, not just the lab results or diagnoses, and I expect others to do the same with me. I hate it when people only look at results or labels and create their entire treatment plan based on that, you should look at the human that’s sitting in front of you.

The autism spectrum has a major overlap with the ADHD spectrum. This overlap includes things like sensory issues, stimming, emotional regulation difficulties, impulse control difficulties, executive dysfunction, interest-based nervous system, interconnected thought processes and patterns, hyperfixations and -focus or special interests, social differences and difficulties, communicative difficulties, rejection-sensitivity dysphoria, and making eye contact difficulties. In both disorders the amount of stress or overwhelm is what can make the symptoms worse. Some specific symptoms to ADHD are the cravings to new things and experiences, attention and focus regulating difficulties, which could make it harder to read social cues, inhibition difficulties, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. Whereas some of the specific symptoms to autism are the cravings to routine, order and familiarity, with craving for strict adherence, intuitive disability to read social cues, self soothing through repetitive behaviour, thoughts and routines. When my stress levels rise I tend to move towards the ADHD spectrum, but it keeps contributing to my rising stress levels, so I am thinking it is more masking / coping than actually ADHD. I think, I therefore really fit the autism spectrum better than the ADHD spectrum. But I don’t know, maybe I’ll be ready one day to get myself actually tested, because it also wouldn’t really surprise me if I was.

[godneuteredmeforbeingtoopowerful]

CW: fakeclaiming discussion, light discussion of autistic trauma

I love my fellow systems. I do. I really do.

But I’m so tired of seeing so many posts that are simply “you’re valid if this happens, ignore the fakeclaimers!” And then listing tons of aspects of simply existing as plural.

Maybe I’m just talented at avoiding the fake claiming content. But not once in the several years of me interacting with system content as a system, have I seen fakeclaiming content. I’m absolutely aware that it’s out there, this isn’t a “well it hasn’t happened to me so it obviously doesn’t happen” situation. What I have seen? Fakeclaiming bingo sheets made by systems, lists of reasons you might get fakeclaimed, and other content like that. I get that they’re fun, especially as a fuck you to fakeclaimers, but we need content warnings for these posts. Even if they’re positive.

Because I haven’t had baby systems come crying to me because they’re having massive breakdowns over fakeclaimers. But I have had them come because of these posts. Even as one of the few people with the privilege of a diagnosis and having had said diagnosis for 5 years, they leave me shaken and distressed.

A lot of systems are autistic, including me. (This is related, I promise.) an experience at one point or another a lot of us can relate to is watching for social cues for what will get us bullied, what will get us hurt, what will get us punished, and avoiding them. Often, those things were behaviors we couldn’t control; symptoms of our autism. It’s triggering to be thrown right back in that same situation: looking for advice and support, and instead being told that a group of people we may never interact with because they occupy a small corner of the internet will hate us no matter what we do because of our plurality- something we can’t just stop doing to avoid punishment.

It’s not that the posts themselves are bad. It’s not that they need to stop. I just wish our community would get better at having content warnings, *and* including said content warnings in the tags so they can be filtered. I wish that more of the system discourse was about how to function in life, and less about battling hate. Because it’s exhausting, both for the people posting and the people consuming. It’s hard to have community and solidarity when we’re immediately thrown into this battle. Not to mention sysmed vs endos. It. Is. Exhausting. People come to the online community looking for solidarity. For friendship. People leave because fakeclaiming outside and inside of the community permeates everything like a disease.

If there are any system accounts out there who don’t do this, please @ me or smth. People come here to have their spoon reserves bolstered, not stripped away before they can finally find a helpful tip.

TL;DR use content warnings. And put them in the tags. Make whatever content you want, just make it filterable. Please.

Love,

A very, very tired system with like 30 baby systems under their wings.

[corvidae666]

honestly, overall i had a pretty shit year, but i also had an amazing year at the same time.

i missed out on countless experiences because of my health, but thats okay, because i learned a lot along the way. i got diagnosed with ADHD, giftedness, juvenile fibromyalgia and POTS, and as the year comes to a close i am seeking out diagnosis for autism, dpdr, and generalised anxiety disorder. thats a lot. but coming to terms with all of that had helped me accept myself and my limits in a much healthier way, and i am learning to live with these boundaries instead of despite them.

i also got into the select entry arts school that i tried out for. school has been a wild ride for me, from a traumatic experience on my very forst day of kindergarten, to going through the education system as a gifted kid, to having a system i used to trust fall through when i got sick, its really been a lot. but next year i a starting a fresh (start fresh next semester /ref) and i hope that i will have finally found an environment that will support and engage me in school again.

i started posting my art this year as well. and although currently i am fighting to get out of one of the worst art blocks ive ever experienced, i truly believe that starting to post has caused huge improvements in my art. thank you to all the people who have liked or commented or reblogged something i created, it means the world. im so glad for the people who follow me, and for the support that has been shown for my creations. thank you all. (and to those who sent in requests when i asked -- i *will* get those done i swear, its just gonna take me a while)

on the more trivial side of things, i played d&d for the first time this year as well. it really seems like a small thing, but its been something ive wanted to try for years and never got the chance to, but now i have a group of friends who i play with, and its been wonderful!

another thing that may seem trivial to most -- i went to my very first music concert this year! thats something i never thought id be able to do for a myriad of reasons; i thought i would have a panic attack, or faint, or throw up, or have a meltdown from overstimulation. but this year, in november, i made an impulse decision to buy tickets for the twenty one pilots show happening four days later, and that was one of the best decisions of my life. yes, i had to take anti anxiety meds at the show, but i had the time of my life that evening, and i would never go back on it, no matter how much i complained about how i was supposed to save for a new school laptop.

and finally, most importantly, i met my partner valerie this year. i cannot accurately put into words the impact you have had on my life, it is much to big and complex for me to express. so i will simply say this; i love you, and i will continue to love you as long as you allow me to. you are a wonderful, amazing, lovely creature, and i look forward to spending my life with you. thank you for existing, thank you for being here, and thank you for reaching out to me after i drew that silly little sketch for you. im sure you had no idea what you were getting into with that lol. once again, i love you, and i will be with you as long as you will have me. you are everything to me and i hope you know that. <3333333

thank you to everyone who has been by my side this year, and who will continue to be next year. i hope i can offer you the same support.

[redtail-lol]

Proper Blog Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Redtail's ramblings and occasional coinings! Enjoy your stay.

Free Help for Palestine - A communal document created by me and editable by everyone for finding free ways to help Palestine! Mostly composed of petitions at the moment. If you can't donate or just want more ways to help Palestine it's very helpful.

About Me and the Blog:

I mostly will be coining orientations instead of genders because there are so many genders and the orientation market is low, and will mostly be coining labels that apply to me. However, I am willing to coin labels that don't apply to me. Please feel free to ask, and if I'm uncomfortable, I will just deny it.

Some posts aren't centered around me coining so sorry for any clutter

I am a perisex bigendermeld girl + enby and I use she/they pronouns

I have a label collection/hoard of 300+ that I loving named The Boxfort Palace. I may start a third blog just for my hoard. Or I may just keep it on the doc

Some of my important identities are asexual (fully, absolutely no sexual attraction), cupiosexual, demiromantic, lunian/mspec lesbian, bi lesbian, poly lesbian, and omni lesbian, and I specifically use full-moon springtide versions of all these labels. I do not identify as an mspec mono because there is nothing monoromantic about my lesbian attraction. I don't have an issue with the mspec mono label existing but I don't think it applies to me.

This blog supports aspec people, xenogenders, mspec gays/lesbians, gaybians, mspec hets, gayhets/straightbians and lesboys/turigirls. I am an mspec lesbian and ace.

This blog is NOT anti-paraphilia. I believe people with genuinely harmful and nonconsensual paras need access to help and support, and aren't inherently evil. I also believe paraphilias that are strange but not harmful or nonconsensual are fine. Do what makes you happy. Pro-contact harmful paraphilias, this is NOT about you. Please seek help and do not abuse.

I am Crit-Inclus and seek to understand people before I fully accept them. If I ask you questions about your identity, I mean no disrespect

I am predominantly white and am not comfortable with making things specifically for any POC because it does not feel like my place. If my blog grows big and people want to use my blog for visibility, post on your own blog and I will reblog it.

Because I am perisex I will not coin intersex specific terms, though you may ask for flag design help and reblogs for visibility

I am autistic and self diagnosed, I haven't updated this in a while but I've given up on not saying I'm autistic without diagnosis a long time ago, lmao. I got 153 on my most recent RAADS-R taking I def have autism

Still anti ABA and anti autism speaks fuck those guys

This blog is anti Boeing we hate Boeing in this household (if you're confused ask me about the 737 MAX I'll go on for hours)

I am a singlet so I'm not gonna do system specific labels. I will reblog system labels upon request

I do NOT coin radqueer identities. Radqueers can request non-radqueer identities because there's no reason to say you can't request something because of a belief. Even if it's harmful it's none of my business I'm the coiner. But I am anti-rq so you choose if you want me making the term

You may ask me to coin anything you would like if it isn't on here. It is my decision if I do it.

I am an adult, but the blog is safe for older minors

People in my DNI are allowed to use my flags and labels. I don't believe in gatekeeping who's allowed to use a term based on personal beliefs and opinions. I just don't wish to have personal interactions with you guys. It's up to you if you want to use flags made by an mspec lesbian who accepts xenogenders, lesboys/turigirls and the like, gaybians, and other complex contradictory identities.

I would appreciate if everyone who follows me can like, reblog, or comment on a post before or shortly after following. This is to make sure I don't follow back porn accounts that won't read this. I might block people who do not follow this rule because I will assume you are a porn account that just wants to send me spam links, especially if you're a blank blog.

Free Palestine. Fuck Isreal.

DNI:

Pedophiles (I'm not calling you MAPs.) Whether you're non-offending or not, please just don't interact with me. I support you guys getting the help you need but as a minor I think it's best we don't interact beyond maybe some likes and a request or two. I'm still too close to being a kid

Anyone who is going to start discourse. I don't care if you're proship, antiship, exclus, radinclus, radqueer, or anything. Don't start discourse. You can only continue discourse that I start. You can use my terms if they apply to you, like my stuff, reblog it, and comment, as long as you aren't starting an argument.

Solicitors looking to promote any sexual services. I am asexual, leave me alone. I don't want your porn. I will bodyshame you.

Anybody looking to e-date. I'm arospec, specifically demiromantic, so approaching me with romantic intent means you'll have to wait for something that'll never happen.

DO NOT FOLLOW:

Queerphobic people

Racists/ALM/Anti-BLM.

Sexists/anti feminists

Radfems (you aren't real feminists, you're misandrists, AND you're misogynists, all at once)

Zionists/Pro-Israel

People who believe in transmisogyny but not transmisandry/transandrophobia

People who believe trans men hold any significant power over cis women or over trans women

Idiots who think only transfems can use the tr slur

People who think femboy is a slur or is about transfems. There is a 0% difference between calling a transfem a femboy and calling a transfem a boy. Femboy is an identity. It's entitled to think trans women can dictate what men identify as based on the bigotrd actions of others weaponizing gnc men's identities to misgender others.

Exclusionists (including mspec lesbian/gay/enbian exclus, lesboy and turigirl exclus, and gaybian exclus.)

Incels of any type. This doesn't refer to anybody who just hasn't lost their virginity yet, but specifically the kind of people who hold it against the people they're attracted to. This is usually straight men and incels are often a misogynistic hate group.

Radqueer/transx/transid and supporters

Pro-contact or Comp-contact Big 3 Paras

Anti-contact non-harmful, consensual paras

Pro-AI art

Proship/profic

NSFW blogs

Anyone in the DNI

I follow people back blindly so please don't follow me if I'm going to have to see gross things on the feed.

[afuckingsystemsthoughts]

ive been paying alot of attention to syscourse (both sides- anti endo and pro endo) and i came to a dark realization.

ive seen anti endo systems, just to prove they have a diagnosis, pull out proof of diagnosis as a superior card over endogenic systems and self diagnosed systems. and then it can easily be faked using microsoft excel. so whos to say the people who have the audacity to post their proof of diagnosis are really diagnosed? they couldve asked for someone elses valid diagnostic proof, you never know. this is the toxic anti endo community we're talking about.

ive seen pro endos and actual endos peacefully protest to misinformation on disordered systems, which you think the disordered systems would be thankful for. but instead the sysmeds cant accept an act of kindness from someone they see as inherently pathetic and attack them for appropriating or stealing disordered terms.

ive seen fakers who admitted it, and they were so fixated on "DID without the disordered part"- basically alters, switching and no distress associated with it. and anti endos latched onto this, they thought this was what being endogenic was about. when faking DID and endogenic plurality are two different things. endogenics are sometimes born with their headmates so its not a choice like faking would be, and hosts who create their systems consciously (willogenic/thoughtform/tulpa) dont do it to fake DID and its just as common as born plurals. theres many reasons for someone being plural that vary by the plural. one endogenic might be plural because of autism while another is plural because they made an oc and it turned into a headmate from being acted out enough (although unintentionally.) for example.

ive seen toxic people on both sides of syscourse. ive had personal experience with some of these anti endos- back when we were first diagnosed with DID, wed spend time in r/DID and got the wrong idea about what we were supposed to be like, not knowing theres no set way any DID system is supposed to be. they are the support group version of systemscringe. its because of this sub i struggled with validity in our first summer we were aware of our systemhood. it took me months to learn greyout amnesia was more common in DID systems and so was being unaware of switching (probably because switching and blackouts are the sensationalized part of DID.)

the point is being a system in the age of syscourse is tiring, especially a DID system. its confusing, painful and makes you feel things you wish you didnt. DID is already an instance in my daily life, whether it be because of dissociation, the occasional switch with amnesia, memory problems, denial, or therapy. DID is alot to manage especially with over 100 alters, most of them either innernauts or dormant. between journaling who co fronted with who, what dissociation if any we experienced today, and trying to keep up communication just to fight off impostor syndrome even when dissociative barriers are high, having DID is a full time job and we should be paid by now. add the stress of your own community being marginalized against each other in the mix.

and now for the realization?

i wish i didnt have DID because theres a toxic community for it, so much misinformation about it and fakers. its already exhausting to have but add syscourse onto it and suddenly it becomes overwhelming. like i just want to exist in peace with my system and build a drama free support group and its impossible.

[compassionatereminders]

Hey Kat, I just need a vent if that's okay and I'm not really sure where else to go.

I'm not diagnosed with schizophrenia but since 2016 almost every year I've had several months of active psychosis. All the psychologists I've been to see refuse to acknowledge it as psychosis, calling it "unusual experiences" instead and saying it can't be schizophrenia because I already have CPTSD and ADHD so it has to be related to one of those. I don't really know at this point, but what matters is that I've had several episodes of Something that feels like psychosis and I've never received any kind of help or treatment for it bc they just keep brushing me off.

I can feel another episode coming on and I'll survive it bc I always do, I just wish I had a better support system. It's so hard to fight it when it comes back and even harder bc I have to do it all by myself every time. I know I'll get through it like I have every time but I'm so tired. I'm not expecting advice or anything, I just needed a little cry about it to someone before I get up and start my day, so thank you for listening :)

I've actually been through something very similar and it was horrible. When I started experiencing psychosis, it took YEARS for psychiatry to stop trying to somehow fit it in under my existing autism diagnosis. It's like once they've placed you in a box they'll just cut off any sharp edges to keep you in there instead of looking for a better fit and it's terrible and very unhelpful when you in fact need help that's associated with a different "box". So I relate and I'm sorry that this shit is happening to you as well.

[autimind]

Ableism is far more toxic than you think.

How's that for a clickbait title? Anyway, let's talk about ableism. I have been reading a lot of autistic activism the last couple of weeks and have reads many references to ableism. It is mostly pointed out in other people's speech. However, much like with racism, ableism is more than the overt extremely clear mean-spirited remarks.

Just as racism is more than 'We don't want you black folk in this here neighborhood', ableism is more than 'People with autism should be cured'. No.. it is far more pernicious than that. In this post I want to talk about systemic ableism.

According to MedicalNewsToday, ableism is this.

Ableism refers to bias, prejudice, and discrimination against people with disabilities. It hinges on the idea that people with disabilities are less valuable than nondisabled people.

As most readers will agree, recent talk about splitting the diagnosis into (mild) autism and severe autism can easily be ableist. It can be meant well of course since society does tend to think about autism in terms of Sheldon Coopers who can self-advocate, are good programmers and are easily able to speech at conferences. Then again, people shouldn't need yet another label to get reasonable accomodations. It is mostly the autism-industrial complex that continues to stress again and again ad nauseam that 'severely autistic' people don't have a voice of their own and need allistic champions to speak for them. I don't think Anantha Krishnamurthy, Tejas Rao Sankar or Trevor Byrd agree!

In the autistic community we tend to follow the social model: A handicap exists against the social background. One of the reasons that the social model is so powerful as well as empowering is that it basically ignores the last part of the above definition, namely the value of disabled people. Why, we could ask, make that a point? Why not instead accomodate as far as necessary, stand back and see the person in question bloom? Of course, not everyone who finds their voice or receives some tool grows into a world-changing luminary but society doesn't consist of luminaries. Those are by definition rare. You don't have to be autistic for that.

My point is that ableism runs deeper, far deeper, than, for example, the barrage of insults that hit Greta Thunberg when she became noticeable to the international press. Ableism runs deeper than punishing autistic school children for meltdowns 'because otherwise it wouldn't be fair to the others'. It runs deeper than the use of functioning labels and the confusion of comorbid disabilities with autism or even describing autistic people as something to be fixed or cured. The basic ground level of all this toxic mess is the cognitively lazy tendency to see others as gains or losses.

It is that callous. It really is that cold-hearted. Ableist thinkers see others as either a net drain on their resources - or society's in general - or a net gain. They also see life as a zero sum game. These are the people who cite 2 Thes 3 verse 10, “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” without reading the very next verse. These are the people who claim they built their business all on their own without help from anybody (and certainly not from the guvmint), forgetting that their trucks drive on roads built by the state, by society in fact. They only see their own skills or merits and are blind to what chances and supports they were given.

Allistic disabled people suffer from this, as well as children, old people, anyone more brown than an Italian and basically everyone not the ideal. Most of Western society is conceptualized and set up around white, 30-40 year old allistic heterosexual cisgender non-disabled people (men, mostly) with a job that supports them easily. This is systemic ableism. The rest are simply told to 'keep up'.

This skewed society has formed a large group of people who are ableist as well as able but see themselves mostly as burdened and harrassed. These are the people who think that giving one person something is a loss for others. This is by the way not always entirely untrue because a government has a finite amount of resources. We can't fully support everything. The pernicious part, however, to this way of thinking is that the same people usually think that unlimited wealth shouldn't just be possible but be actively supported.

According to medicalhomeportal.org, simple AAC devices can be bought for less than 1000 USD. I am unaware of any of the other relevant numbers but I am fairly sure that all necessary appliances can easily be financed if we had billionaires pay a tenth of a percent more taxes. People talk a lot about the ethics of negotiating a very very high salary but tend to forget that whether or not you get to keep the money once earned is another ethical question entirely. I am however in danger of going off-topic.

Look at any ableist remark and you'll see poorly disguised loathing of a burden, a net loss.

Why is this? I have called this 'cognitively lazy' earlier and I do believe that is a big part of it. Human brains tend to conserve resources by using heuristics and other short-cuts all. the. time. People naturally shy away from using their intelligence and other energy-intensive skills like compassion unless prompted and/or trained. This is the basic nature of the human animal. Then again, here am I thinking that civilisation exists for the express purpose of training us to live well together. What other purpose does a civilisation have but to ensure that we all live and we all live as best we can?

Ableists deserve our pity. Sure we should be activists and fight for our rights but we should also pity our enemies. They have in a very real sense lost a sizeable chunk of their humanity. Because we are more than our basic natures. We are more than the Hunger Games writ large. We can be more than Tennyson's 'nature red in tooth and claw' - another misunderstood reference by the way - and we are more than just competitive fighters. In fact, our very evolutionary success was partly built on empathy, compassion and our unique ability to see others as like ourselves. Saying otherwise is basically claiming that humanity should behave like bacteria, nothing but naked hunger ever striving for more and more at the cost of absolutely anything.

We are, potentionally, so much more than that. We can be a true society, where the falling angel meets the rising ape. This why we should fight ableism but, far more importantly, should build compassion and empathy in and around ourselves.

Only if we do this, will we have a chance. As autistics. As humans.

[n4bp]

FAQ

This gets quite long, you can read more under the keep reading. More to come.

WHY TUMBLR? I am looking for alternatives that don't expose my real life identity, so Google Docs is out of the question. I'll swap over once I find an alternative that allows content for adults.

What names do you prefer being called? Nod is fine. The long version of BP is probably fine. Can't say the B part of it because tumblr's weird. My real name doesn't matter and I don't particularly identify with it. You might hear guildmates call me Aly or Syl, but neither of these are my names. They're actually names of characters I role-play on WoW. (Short for Alysithra and Sylindia) - It's a fairly common practice for WoW players to refer to each other with names or nicknames derived from RP characters. If you don't know me from this, please just call me Nod. Thank you.

How old are you? Late 20s, I'll be 30 in a couple of years. I've been playing WoW since 2010 and DBD for a few years. Took a break for a few years on WoW.

What are your pronouns? Gender? They/them, I'm agender. I have no gender.

I am not open to "debates" on my existence and you will be blocked if you decide to be transphobic.

Where do you come from? England. I was born and raised in the North East, specifically Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I had two moms, one also a Geordie, and one from Ireland.

I am aware my accent floats all around the UK oops. I grew up with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), which back then was known as Specific Language Disorder. Or Specific Language Impairment (SLI). I still often pronounce things like how they are read, and struggle, in general, with learning language.

Are you disabled? Yes. I'm pretty open about talking about this for the most part since I grew up with most of these things. I mostly mention this because people occasionally come into my chat seeking support on some of these topics, or just someone to talk to.

I'm autistic. Diagnosed twice officially because they didn't tell my bio-mam the first time (thanks, NHS...), so I didn't get a lot of the support I needed until late... if at all. This is why I'm technically both 'self diagnosed' and officially diagnosed, despite the fact I had an official diagnosis from 4 and got it again at 16.

I'm also dyspraxic (diagnosed at 6 due to an awesome teacher I had), I don't play DBD with any assistive equipment as most of this would be against the rules. I only play with settings and filters that have been confirmed to be OK by BHVR. I mostly survive by luck, by killer mercy, and pure muscle memory/guessing.

I also have Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), which I've had all my life since it's a genetic thing, but I was only diagnosed with as an adult. (But to be fair, doctors blamed a lot of the symptoms on the Dyspraxia.)

Finally, there's a few I'm not comfy talking about that I haven't listed. All professionally diagnosed.

Do you play with any accessability settings?

I play with the heart setting in DBD due to sensory processing issues that come with the autism/dyspraxia comorbity. Sometimes sound doesn't make sense and it's all just a blur that blends in together.

The heart setting is available through settings and accessability. I think it's the first setting. Having a visual indicator helps.

This is also why I use filters so I can easier see. Some people use nvidia filters for their filters. I use reshade or gshade, I forget which. I think reshade. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I got my pre-set from, I'm sorry.

Might've been ever Kyto or Momoseventh.

Do you always Solo Queue? It's my default as I don't have a dedicated duo any more. I'm happy to play with people who ask politely, though please bear in mind our MMRs may mismatch as I'm not very good, lol. As my audience grows my time might be more split depending on how things go. I'll likely implement a queue system in the event this happens.

What happened to your Kate/Yun-Jin duo? Gone.

She has been blocked and banned from the stream, so you won't run into her again. I'd rather just forget her entirely.

Why am I banned? You broke a rule so severe I don't want you in my stream any more. Or you were just such a jerk I didn't want you around.

Of course, this isn't a first resort. Most rule breaks will just result in the removal of your message or a timeout. Some rule breaks, extreme cases, result in an instant ban.

You can appeal in a week if you're respectful. If this is denied, I would appreciate it if you just gave me my space and leave me alone. If you're doing it for the last word, remember I can respond to get the True Last Word. I tend to treat people how they treat me.

I also have a bot that autobans spammers and certain slurs. (Well, they issue timeouts for the latter, but usually I'll also ban the user.) Depending on context (eg saying a different word that happens to just contain the slur, quoting someones username) I will likely unban when noticed, or simply not ban at all. Usernames containing these slurs will be reported on twitch as well, as they break TOS.

One of these slurs appears in an addon in DBD. If you're in good faith just referring to this addon, I'll unban. If you're just trying to get around the filter, you'll stay banned.

Why am I banned? I've never been to your stream! If you're genuinely curious and not just trying to be a jerk, here are a few different reasons for this.

The first, rulebreaks.

Either you broke a rule in my stream or you were directly witnessed (by me) to be breaking some pretty major rules in streams I often watch. Usually bigotry, sometimes self-promo or general respect stuff. I have a list of streamers I'll crossban people for if directly witnessed.

Occasionally other survivors or killers I've played with will be prebanned if I can link profiles as a result of the above as well, but this is usually in extreme cases. We're talking straight up breaking game or stream rules. I have some known hackers prebanned as I don't want to be easy content for them, and they make me nervous.

Otherwise, if you're prebanned, you either have slurs/chuddy behaviour in your profile I noted before the game, or you did something nasty and failed the vibe check in the game. Vibe check bans of this nature are usually done to prevent future harrassment from you, either to myself, viewers, or even the people I've been playing with/against.

Just being a victim of these things won't result in a pre-ban. It's only if you're the one doing this stuff.

I'm allowed to curate my personal space how I see fit, I hope you understand.

Why did you get banned from Steam Forums? Figured I'd just add this here, since I can't exactly talk for myself on forums.

I got banned for saying I don't like Dull Merchant (well, I just called her skull merchant at the time) the first time on a thread specifically asking for opinions about Skull Merchant (full month ban, btw), and then they turned it into a permanent ban when I said "no its not" twice in a completely different forum thread a while after being unbanned, which is somehow spamming. (It isn't spamming, and the situation was very much over as I'd already stopped talking in the thread after my last comment to go back to gaming. By the time I checked my messages again, I was permanently banned from the Steam Forums.. hours later, after the situation was long over.)

Anyway this cemented my eternal, undying hate for dull merchant.

I genuinely think they were just looking for reasons to get away with bigotry and ableism or one hell of a power trip, rather than fair moderation. People have repeatedly spammed more without any issue. Repeating a couple letters, or in this case 3 short words /once/ isn't spamming. Saying "no its not" twice isn't grounds for a warning, never mind a ban, and isn't spamming. And the skull merchant one doesn't make sense at all considering it was on topic and constructive. (It was for a month, too. Very silly.)

Steam forums will ban quickly and often unfairly, but won't do anything about the ableism and transphobia often witnessed there. BHVR if you're reading this, I'd appreciate the unban and I'll gladly volunteer some time to moderate your forums for free, since I'll do a better job. I guess.

And I don't see this as hypocrisy to the above question as the situations are different + the DBD steam forums are a public place.

Would you consider becoming a Fog Whisperer? No. I don't think I'd be listened to as a result of the Steam Mods on the forums, and I've heard as much that the Fog Whisperers aren't really listened to anyway. (Also, I don't think I'll be eligible for a long time. My community is too small. I love you, fam, just we're not quite there yet.)

Will you ever get a twitch tshirt? I want them, but I don't know if I'm eligible because my schedule is sporadic. BHVR please consider removing the schedule part of the eligibility criteria to become more disability accessible. Thank you.

If you could add any cosmetic to the game, what would you go for? There's so many answers I could give to this and they'll probably change depending on whims.

At the top of my list are more long hairs for Nea that I can combine with multiple outfits. I love her, but they keep giving her awful unmatchable hairstyles which limits me to about 3-4 depending on outfit.

I also would love scooby doo related survivors/killers and cosmetics.

I also would have LOVED them adding the Strawberry Cowgirl Kate, and I'm sad they didn't.

If BHVR added cosmetics from you specifically, what would you choose? Depends on what sort of freedoms I had and stuff. Maybe a legendary skin for Nea (or Sable tbh, Nea's my main but Sable maybe fits more) that looks like Revenant. She could play with her powers on the loading screen but they're disabled ingame, of course. Or maybe the cosmetics show up on a pallet stun/flash stun.

More specific bits that might work more:

Maybe a black and white bloodpoint themed shirt with my name on the back. Or maybe grey and black. Maybe black and grey with bits of dark red.

This probably won't happen but I'd be open to it.

Do you write Fanfiction? Yes. I'll advertise it on this blog if I get around to making DBD stuff. I'm a slacker. :(

[unbrokenjourney]

Cydney Rose Zariah Autism Coming Out Day

Today, July 12,2024, I found out from my daughter’s school psychologist that she had been clinically diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD. I have been silent because as a single parent this is what is something I’ve been battling with for months. Coupled with maintaining employment and being a full time student at CSM. I have had to attend several meetings,phone calls and appointments for testing for my daughter in order to get her clinically diagnosed. All while juggling REAL LIFE occurrences. I’ve spoken about it publicly and I’ve also created a group dedicated to single mothers like myself experiencing the same exact thing. I applaud myself for withstanding the storm and pushing through during a time of adversity. I still place one foot in front of the other and I keep going. Most importantly I thank GOD and my support system being my momma,my best friend Candice, my home girl Dollshana and a few others. 

During this entire process there were times where I felt as though I truly had NO ONE! I opened up about my struggles of parenting a child with autism spectrum disorder a few months back in front of a church congregation. I received an outpour of support and understanding and I am forever grateful for that. This has not been an easy road to travel alone but it’s been worth it to ensure that my baby has all the support she needs in order to be successful. I will do anything and everything for my daughter Cydney as long as there is breath in my body. 

With the preexisting condition of having Autism Spectrum Disorder  a child may or may not interact with peers. They generally struggle to make eye contact, interpret body language and emotions, understand figures of speech “social cues,” and they may simply walk away from conversations that don’t involve their favorite topics or interests. They exhibit repetitive behaviors and social impairments in social interactions and communication. No cure openly exists for ASD. Autism Spectrum Disorder affects about 1 in 36 children in the U.S. While the genetics of Autism are complex scientist have narrowed down studies and shown that genetically men are more common to carry the genetic genome rather than woman. Also in the US about 4 in 100 boys and  1 in 100 girls are likely to have autism. 

Unlike ASD being a neurological and developmental disorder. ADHD (Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder) is a type of neurological called a developmental disorder. It affects the brain and nervous system, like most neurological disorders but also affects brain development. ADHD is also presumed to be present at birth. The CDC states that normally signs of Autism develop between 12-24 months. However babies can show signs as early as 9 months old. People with ADHD struggle with impulsiveness,restlessness and difficulty paying attention. 

With all this being said and gaining more knowledge on my child’s diagnosis. Although I’ve struggled as a mother with understanding “Why?” or often times blaming myself. I am at peace knowing my child has been thoroughly diagnosed. This is only the beginning of the journey ahead. Nonetheless I am ready for whatever is to come. Thanks to those who have been supportive, understanding and patient during this time. It’s greatly appreciated.

God Bless,

Mimi xoxo

[words-and-threads]

So the narrative is supposed to go that you're diagnosed with autism as a child and you get supports to help you through school and like...learning to be an adult. But I mostly did well back then. I cried more than other kids, I was socially awkward, but my mom really tried to put me in environments where I could thrive. She took me as I was and considered accommodating my needs a normal part of parenting which frankly it should be.

Don't get me wrong you couldn't pay me to go through high school again, but a lot of that wasn't really specific to the traits I now suspect are autistic. Anyone a little too weird or vulnerable was a target and there are lots of different ways to be weird. But there were places for me, people who got me. Teachers freaking loved me.

And now I'm an adult and all the quirks that I could work around in high school are actual problems. My struggle with overstimulation and audio processing makes a lot of retail jobs nearly impossible. My lack of shallow friendships with coworkers means I'm easier to criticize, threaten, or fire. If I could play nice and be everyone's buddy I wouldn't be in my current work predicament. If I could lie or hide my feelings easily I wouldn't piss off my bosses so much. The keenness that teachers praised me for was exploited by people who treated it as something I owed them for being kind enough to tolerate me WHILE AT THE SAME TIME being an embarrassing flaw and an excuse to mock and belittle me.

I was always a space alien, but as a child that was kind of normal. I wasn't expected to be a proper human yet. All kids are weird.

But at some point I was supposed to learn the social cues and start lying naturally and not have strong feelings anymore. I was supposed to lose interest in the tasks I was doing and gain interest in the details of my coworkers' personal lives. I don't get to be a space alien anymore. I was supposed to grow out of it. I feel more out of place than I ever did growing up. My quirks became disabilities at best, evidence of my fundamental inhumanity at worst. A formal diagnosis wouldn't have changed much for me as a child but now it might give me some leeway to like...exist.

I wonder how many autistic people dxed as adults actually found the world more manageable as children and that's exactly why people didn't peg them as autistic earlier. Because so much of the the diagnostic criteria (really for anything you get a psyc professional to assess) are based on like...problems: how much you're struggling, how difficult others find you to deal with. If you're actually doing fine because your life is well-optimized for your needs, even if you have the exact same traits, it doesn't count somehow?

And I mean it obviously does. "Loud noises/bad textures/changes to my routine don't bother me at all, for you see I have a system!" is a massive fucking tell and everyone knows it. But I didn't have Problems, at least not to the extent it might involve the DSM, until I was an adult. I bet I'm not the only one.

[avelera]

I will correct and push back on the scene in the snow indicating poverty for Jayce. It doesn’t.

Word of god is that he and his mother were on vacation and got stuck in a snowstorm. There’s been a lot of fandom debate over the exact level of family wealth, but Jayce is middle class to upper middle class at least when we first meet him. His family name is a House and House Talis owns a factory that makes tools, specifically hammers and pocket wrenches, for example. They rose to notoriety independent of Jayce, so he was born into a family of successful tool makers with some level of notoriety enough to be named a House.

A minor House getting the patronage of a major House like Kiramman is actually very standard and not mysterious at all, that’s how patronage systems (like those that existed in Ancient Rome for example) functioned. The major House will invest capital and social support to a lesser House in exchange for their social support and a cut of the fruits of their work that was produced thanks to the investment. Hence why Cassandra Kiramman gets to show Jayce off at Progress Day as if his accomplishments are her own and why the Kiramman keys sigil is prominently displayed beside the House Talis banner when he gives his speech that day.

Ok with that out of the way. I do agree that Jayce’s apartment being chaotic could indicate ADHD I think that is the strongest case I’ve seen. That and of course Hextech as his hyperfixation.

Aaand when I think about it there’s a few other signs that could support the ADHD + anxiety (they’re often comorbid) reading. Like him escaping to flick Caitlyn’s cap in 1.04, his leg jittering when he’s by Viktor’s hospital bed, and yes, the fact he’s able to juggle a bunch of different tasks at once. Even the fact he doesn’t seem to quite hear Viktor when he says “I might know someone,” because Jayce’s mind has already wandered elsewhere to the next thing. There’s also his semi canonical notes talking about how he went excavating in the desert for hexgems and forgot his tools lol.

I think where I didn’t feel the diagnosis is his focus on things like Council matters. If I was a scientist forced to do politics, I’m not sure I’d be able to force myself to pay attention to something I found outside my special interest. That’s where I read anxiety as stronger than ADHD, we ADHDers have a dopamine deficiency and projects that feel like drudgery are near impossible to force. He also doesn’t have as much of the distractibility in temperament that I live with and associate with living with ADHD.

Hmmm but I guess as one last point in favor of the possibility is how hard he’s hit by Viktor’s rejection, he seems to totally shut down and go into a depression coma after for who knows how long. When Viktor says goodbye Jayce looks like he’s been stabbed. So that could in addition to a very understandable reaction in general be what’s popularly called “rejection sensitivity dysphoria”.

*Shrug* I see signs of it but he’s still feels more like an anxiety character than an adhd character to me, I’m also hesitant to pathologize everyone who has a special interest has having autism or adhd, people can just have a life’s goal. But I will certainly consider the arguments of those who see anxiety and adhd. This is of course all for-fun headcanoning anyway.

I do think Jayce and Viktor are a neurodivergent x neurodivergent relationship and Viktor definitely gives some media typical autism vibes but as someone with ADHD I don’t think Jayce has ADHD

I think Jayce has anxiety

And obviously this is all just good fun headcanoning but I kinda see that Jayce doesn’t know he has anxiety because he manages it by working in the forge. But it still manifest in his people-pleasing behavior

So sometimes when they’re under deadline and he can’t get away to go make stuff with his hammers to blow off his working dog levels of need for exercise to manage his anxiety Jayce gets very… jittery like “Haha I have no idea why I can’t stop shaking and I feel like the world is gonna end, better go hit things with hammers until that weird feeling goes away again!!1”

Which is why Viktor sometimes just orders Jayce to go do lapse around the Academy until he calms down on a bad day and Jayce is just grateful his partner is looking out for him before he has an actual “unexplained” meltdown

(With thanks to @linddzz for riffing on this with me)

[the-guy-in-the-chair]

And, the long awaited proclamation has been made(through a pdf with electronic signatures):

Diagnosis—> Autism

(Not that we expected any other result—it’s been noted already by, oh, at least seven or eight MDs, PAs, CNPs, social workers, etc. over the past 20+ years) But now I have the bureaucratic stamp of approval, and it should be a little easier to throw PAs and supply requests past that pesky insurance system. Luckily for me, DD and my roommates are pretty well versed in the tangled jungle of referrals and PAs and insurance approvals and failed treatment statistics… I’m really grateful for the support.

All that doesn’t neutralize my gripes, though. There are ~3 institutions in my state that will perform ADOS testing for individuals over 18 AND accept insurance to cover the costs. There are a few more that treat children for out-of-pocket payment. That’s already super fucked up. It took me over a year to schedule my testing. Those few organizations that do adult testing are extremely overbooked, and they put potential clients on first-come-first-served waitlists. These waitlists are so long that it can take 2 years to be contacted to schedule an appointment (your contact information better not have been changed over this period; the offices will skip those they can’t contact, and they will boot those people back to the bottom of the list.).

Taking the test and receiving the final report takes under a week. The offices who take appointments and administer tests are very organized and on top of things. It’s just the medical industrial complex that’s extremely unreasonable. For someone who doesn’t have time to call the office and take calls promptly, or doesn’t have transportation, or is unavailable for the proposed test date, the system is very skewed against them. That’s not ok. While autism isn’t a disease or a condition that causes life threatening symptoms, this yet another example of the complexities and obstacles that face the general population, driving them away from treatment and resources (the system basically “hides” opportunities from the population by never revealing that those opportunities exist). That’s why the COVID pandemic surged so much in the U.S. I know autism testing is another beast entirely, but definitely acknowledge the trend.

Next steps for me: GP and Neuro appointments to share the happy (?) news. Then we’ll initiate the social security disability paperwork.

None of this is actually news, if you’ve been following me for a while, but it is conformation that our plans for the future are probable/attainable. That’s something else for which I am extremely grateful.

[sunstonez]

I live in such an awkward inbetween when it comes to my autism. I feel like I can't relate to anyone.

I had early therapeutic intervention from childhood, but no concrete diagnosis until adulthood due to the misogyny of the health care system in my province. I wasn't able to be in any specialized program at school (they just didn't exist due to lack of funding, or I couldn't apply due to lack of diagnosis), but I was sat at the back of the class with special headphones and teacher supervision, otherwise I actively wandered the halls at random, caused disruptions, or straight up left the building and walked home/got lost. I could socialize with my peers at a stunted level, but constantly lost friends because I was too much of a "spaz", I was unable to understand them, and/or their parents didn't like dealing with my meltdowns. I loved math and constantly aced all related courses, I read books beyond my education level, but dropped out of highschool with a shit GPA before the end of grade 10 because I couldn't reliably feed myself or keep myself clean, let alone keep track of 6 separate classes. I ran away from home/was kicked out due to violent behaviour on top of being lgbt, and wound up homeless for a period until the local LGBT/disability community stepped up, and housed me through the kindness of their hearts.

Now I'm an adult. I've been out of my parents house for nearly a decade, but I've always lived with full time care from my friends or my spouse; otherwise I revert back to homelessness. I can work, but I need hyperspecific accommodations, and 1:1 help from my spouse throughout the workday. It's a miracle I still have my current job, I've lost so many others because I would meltdown constantly without support. Even with these supports, with the permission to work from home and with the help of my spouse, I have at least one violent meltdown a day when I work, if not several. I can cook dinner on a semi-reliable basis, but I always need some kind of help; and other meals I always need prepared for me. I can go out independently to specific locations, and anywhere else with 1:1 aid, but if anything deviates from the plan I have a full on violent meltdown in public. I can understand complex medical history, philosophy, and political theory; but I still can't understand people's basic feelings or social nuances. I desperately want to make more friends, but I am terrified that they will infantalize me due to my blatantly obvious problems, find me annoying, etc.

I just. I can't relate to other people who have low support needs, and/or diagnosed later in life. I can't relate to the concept of masking. I can't relate to needing some accommodation at work, but largely being independent. At the same time I can't relate to being someone with high support needs, because I don't have those needs myself. The intervention I had was daily, but not nearly as intense as my peers with higher support needs. I can do a lot of things on my own as an adult. I do have a full time job. I live in my own apartment and keep my own finances, with 1:1 daily help.

I feel terribly isolated. No one I meet seems to understand.

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Oh no. I’m back. And I didn’t shut up for 9 pages. I’m sorry. 

Moon Knight. A commentary on mental illness and able-ism? 

I’m not going to dive into the comics because we have…..YEARS of content to unpack there with every single writer. But I am going to brush on it just a little. This is going to be mostly about the show. 

I’m going to preface this by saying that everyone’s experience in anything is going to be different. We are, after all, individuals. You can give the same diagnosis to five different people, and while they will have some overlapping similarities, they will all experience it differently. Honestly, the same goes for any type of handicap, mental illness, religion, autism, or any sort of neurodivergent person. Which is both wonderful and oftentimes frustrating. One person can point at something and scream how wrong it is and toxic, while another will point and say “I feel seen! At last!” We just have to keep in mind that maybe both perspectives are right. Which is hard to do, but all we can do is try. 

Let’s start with the abuse. Wait, let’s go further back. Let’s start with the absolute neglect that was given to Wendy. 

I am not here to apologize for her. She was monstrous and cruel and 100% a destructive force… But what was done to help her in the start? What was done to stop her from taking it out on Marc? 

A mother that just lost her child is in pain and mourning. We see a glimpse of people sitting around, but no one is actually talking to her. Where is her support network? Where are the family and friends? Where is the culture? Where is the Rabbi? If she was not Jewish, or considered a convert, let’s assume the father has his own cultural support. So where is his support? Why is he not grieving with his wife? 

She starts to scream and blame Marc for the loss of her son and the smallest effort is made to stop her. More so, no one follows Marc up the stairs to comfort him. A child that just lost his baby brother. A child that was there and witnessed the drowning of his baby brother. A child that probably just barely escaped death himself. 

There is a lack of a support system. A lack of grief counseling. A lack of spousal support. A lack of spiritual help. A lack of community. 

She sank into alcohol and while we see the father trying to give Marc a normal life of birthday parties and so on, it all feels forced. Nothing is wrong here. Why can’t you just be normal and happy? There is nothing wrong with the family. Your mother doesn’t mean those things she says. She’s just sad sometimes. 

Wendy is spiraling down and at most the husband is a small voice in the background asking her to please get over it. Please don’t do this. Don’t make a scene. 

As a child watching this, you don’t understand why it is happening. This isn’t supposed to happen. Adults are invulnerable. They have all the answers. They are supposed to make things better. The only logical conclusion that can be made is that it is your fault. If you didn’t exist they could be happier. They wouldn’t be so sad. None of this would have happened. 

Next we see a very good example of looking the other way. She starts to beat him. She would have left marks. Using a belt with that much pent up rage, she would not have been careful to only hit so it won’t show. Unless he was dissociating so hard that completely tuned it out, he would have had defensive marks that first time. Hands up, curling up in a little ball to protect himself if she had let him. She might have grabbed his wrists to prevent him from curling up. She would have left bruises there. 

Did the father not notice? Marc would have been too scared to have told him. It was ingrained too much in him that it was his fault and that he deserved this. He wouldn’t have told anyone. But someone would have seen the marks. Over and over again. 

Now we have the failure of a society to talk about or question what was happening at home. A thing that still very very much happens. Why is the kid acting out? Why are they suddenly quiet and submissive? Why are they getting into fights? Clearly they are just a bad child and nothing is going on at home except for a lack of discipline. The school calls up “Hey Marc got into another fight. He’s failing math. He needs more structure at home.” 

This leads to more beatings. 

I wish we had seen more of his interactions with his father. The one scene we got was “Why haven’t you?” as his father begs him not to leave. The one time Marc questions why his father hasn’t done anything to help him or help his mother. 

My personal head canon is that Marc has very little memories from around this time. Especially around his father. Giving his time to Steven, dissociating, and possibly the emergence of Jake all scrambled his memories. I believe that Marc reached a point where he took too much from his mother and that Jake came during a very dark time for the system. Possibly in a psychiatric ward. Possibly during a break down. Possibly in dealing with his father’s failure to properly identify the problem and further putting it on Marc instead of Wendy. I think Jake’s demons lay in facing his father and the lack of proper help and protection Marc was offered. But none of that is solid or supported by the show. Just my own two cents. 

Next we go into the military. Cause they’ve never failed to identify mental illness and give support, right? HA. 

Marc is good at hiding his problems. Scarily good. Going with the show, he’s very very good at masking his autism. Honestly, he takes things at face value, likes structure, and doesn’t understand exaggerations. Of course he thrives in the military. He’s good at it and picks it up. He makes it his drive to understand weapons and fighting. He mostly has Steven figured out at this point. Steven is a switch he can turn on when he feels overwhelmed emotionally. He isn’t going to have that in the military. He has control. He is a picture of perfect cool. 

Except when he isn’t. Marc has anger problems. He is still overwhelmed by other emotions. He has self worth problems. He probably wakes up at night cringing and defending himself from his mother. 

I’m going to go off on a small tangent for a moment, but please hang in there. I met a guy in college who wanted to be a nurse. He was so happy and bouncy and bubbly. A huge buff man that worked out with muscles for days. He was ex army and covered in tattoos. 

He had to give a presentation on something personal and he gave one on PTSD. Now, we all knew he was a former army and had seen action. We all figured “Ah, PTSD from the army guy. He must have seen some fights!” 

His presentation started with how one quiet night he was on guard duty. He got up to check on a weapons shed. He reached up to turn on the light and he was suddenly a small boy again seeing his mother’s hand come flying towards his face. He started having panic attacks, night terrors, and would freeze up in routine situations. He had blocked out the years of abuse his mother had done to him. It all came flying back to him because he got up one night and turned on a light. 

How often do you think Marc would hear someone bang on a door and kick start his fight or flight response? How many times do you think he would start to dissociate because he could hear running water?  

I believe that the only time Marc had full control of himself was in the heat of battle. He could focus on the battle. On getting through. He could feel alive and ignore anything else. He could focus his unchecked rage. He could ignore any pain in the heat of the moment. I think it was when things calmed down and were quiet and he was left to his own thoughts that things got bad for him. 

I think Marc’s own problems started to get in the way. Dissociating, losing time, wandering off because he can’t handle the clam and quiet. Moments where perhaps Steven would come to the surface for just a bit. Moments where Jake might have had to take over because Marc was too lost in his own head. Jake would have had to learn to fight just to get them through. I can imagine the first time Jake was dropped into the middle of some fire fight. The absolute sheer terror and determination to get them out of there. 

So of course Marc gets kicked out. A fugue state. They don’t want to deal with that. Forget sending him to counseling. He came in already broken. It isn’t their fault he can’t handle it like everyone else.  Marc wouldn’t talk to a counselor anyway. He’s been trained not to talk. To put on the mask and make it all fine. 

There is no fall back as a mercenary. No therapy or ‘hey you okay?’. You fight and hope you don’t fall behind and that you get paid. 

I’m not going to get into Khonshu. We all know what he did. His manipulation and using Marc’s problems against him. 

Let’s jump into Steven. Sweet Steven. Here is a man that doesn’t know the definition of Masking. Why would he? He’s never had to. He sees the museum is hiring and they have a special exhibit on his favorite thing ever! 

So he wanders in and applies. This part is actually upsetting. He has the knowledge. He wants to be a tour guide. He wants to smile and tell people everything he knows about Egypt. He knows so much that he can’t help but correct any mistakes he sees. Correct anything someone mispronounces. He’s awkward, he doesn’t have social cues. He’s a grown man with the energy of a child. 

He knows more about Egypt than any of the tour guides that sat through a five minute video course and was forced to memorize a script. THE MAN CAN READ HIEROGLYPHS. So why is he a gift shoppist? 

Is it because he talks too much and too fast when excited? Is it because he can’t stay on script because he has so much more to tell you than what was written out by some tired man that read a book once? Is it because he awkwardly sat in the interview, waved, and said “Hi! I’m Steven with a V. I saw you had a sign up about Egypt and I love Egypt I’ve been reading about it for years and I’ve been through your exhibit about ten times in the past week and let me tell you that the sign on the statue of Horus is absolutely wrong because while they are both birds it is actually Thoth, who is vastly different. I bet whoever made that mistake is going to be so red in the face, am I right?” 

And they keep him there in the gift shop. Any time they see him talking to the patrons they put him back behind the counter. They punish him for being over exuberant and being late with inventory duty late into the night. They can’t be asked to learn his name or listen to him when he tells them he doesn’t like nicknames. He isn’t normal and honestly they treat him like a child. 

When Steven starts to show signs of stress and causing problems, they punish him more. We all know at this point that Donna is a representation of continued abuse from his mother and Ammit and so on… But we all know a boss like her. A bully. One that has decided that you are an idiot and not worth their time. She doesn’t care about his dreams or desire for a better job position. She would put him in the broom closet if she could. To her, he is disgusting and wrong. He doesn’t act like everyone else. She just wants him to shut up and sell whatever crap they have to sell that day. 

So when the bathroom is trashed and they have the video of a man clearly in distress, they don’t know what to do with him. He’s called out as being mentally ill, which to them is a liability. What if he freaks out in front of guests? What if he breaks something important? He’s fired and given a pamphlet. “We aren’t going to help you get help, but read this and go find help.” 

Is this the place he needs to go? Do they know what kind of help he needs? Is he in crisis? If he were a man in crisis, handing him a pamphlet is not a great move. They don’t know what kind of help he needs! Does he need a very specific type of trauma therapist? Does he already have his own therapist or doctor? Who cares, give him a pamphlet to a place they heard about. At least they can be seen as compassionate and offering help, even if he doesn’t take it. 

At this point, the only person who Steven is comfortable talking to is a man that is akin to a mime. He can’t talk back and is a living statue. I think this says a lot about the state of how alone Steven is. So when Harrow calls him Broken, Steven knows he isn’t broken. His life is falling apart and he doesn’t understand why, but admits that maybe he needs a little help. Of course Harrow isn’t there to help him. Harrow is there to make him feel broken. To feel powerless. 

The way Harrow asks Steven if he can talk to Marc is like when a teacher talks down to you and asks what you did wrong, knowing you did wrong. Steven puts his foot down. Steven is not having it. There is nothing wrong with him and this is not the help he needs. Steven can see past it and has had enough being belittled and overlooked. 

It affects Marc, though. Marc hasn’t learned how to handle this sort of thing. Harrow is chipping away at him. For the first time ever, someone is acknowledging that there is something wrong with him, but instead of helping him, they are throwing it back in his face. Of course he’s broken. Of course he is mentally ill. He’s so broken and ill that no one can help him. He is just more of a disgrace. 

Harrow further chips away at Marc in the great pyramid. Calling out all of Marc’s insecurities that he witnessed when he looked at his scales. Of course Marc knows his own name. Marc knows about Steven. He probably helped set up Steven’s work history. But Harrow is taking Marc’s fear of being seen as broken, wrong, and mentally ill and throwing it back in his face. He’s using it against him. He’s telling these other powerful people that hold a place of power not to listen to Marc because he is sick. 

These are things Marc fears. Things that have probably happened to Marc at some point in his life. Perhaps things his own family threw at him. “Don’t talk like that, what will the neighbors think?” “Put on a long sleeve shirt to hide your scars.” “Smile for the picture. You don’t want people to think you aren’t friendly.” 

And we do see how it hurts him. Khonshu has used his body without permission. You can see how it hurts him after each scream. How draining it is. Not to mention this is a sensation Marc knows. To not have control of your body. To not feel yourself. To have to watch and listen as someone else uses you and you can do nothing. 

You can see the point where Marc is broken down after Khonshu is forced to release his hold on Marc. On his knees before people that now only see him as ‘unwell’. Before a man that knows his secrets and just how sick he views himself as. 

He once more asks for help and he is not only denied help, but he is dismissed. They don’t listen to him. If they had a pamphlet for ‘Sick Avatars’ they probably would have given it to him. It’s exactly what Steven went through in the Museum and while it made Steven angry and seek answers, this is where Marc has been before and he is too broken down and tired to fight it anymore. He knows where it has landed him before. 

If it weren’t for Steven, Harrow would have won right there. Marc was done fighting. 

So where does the story change? 

In the comics it still hasn’t changed. For so long Moon Knight was seen as the crazy hero. The one playing hero that no one took seriously. The Avengers called him a mad dog. They don’t trust him to carry out serious missions because he’s crazy and could go off at any moment. 

He’s been called schizophrenic, been tossed older terminology of Multiple Personality (even after the newer terminology was recognized and accepted in more common use), been shown as having made it all up in his head, of erasing his traumatic past and blaming it on being touched by a god and frying his brain, of saying his problems are an outside force that damaged him somehow. 

The hard part is that when we do get a good writer that puts Marc through his struggles and brings him the peace and understanding he has always been looking for, the next writer could undo it all so easily. 

Moon Knight has come to be defined by his mental illness. I think they are afraid that if they make him more at home with himself then they will lose the edge and he won’t be fascinating to read or write. That is why they keep redoing him. They didn’t know what to do with him and now all they do with him is try to define his illness. 

In Marc alone, we have depression, trauma, DID (heavy on the D), guilt, self spite, symptoms of having been gaslighted, PTSD, suicidal tendancies, and a man that is always on the edge of being in crisis. The beautiful part? So many of his readers can relate to some part of this. 

I’ve seen so many people be asked, “Hey, you have DID, what do you think of Moon Knight?” And they just start gushing. While it hasn’t always been a realistic representation, and not always a favorable one, this is a man that chooses to be a hero in all aspects and somehow figures out how to function. A man people love not despite his illnesses, but because of. 

There are some readers out there that go to him because he’s wild and ‘unhinged’ and has violent fights and kicks ass. There will always be that group. Yet there are so many that want to see how he handles being in real therapy. To see how he manages to still be a figure of importance in his neighborhood. To see him make friends and fight his inner demons as much as his enemy of the week. People that see his struggle as their own and want to see him crawl out of the sewer and be surrounded by his friends. 

We want to see him acknowledge that he is who he is. That he isn’t broken. That maybe he’s a little different but that he can still be who and what he chooses to be, and that is a hero. 

So back to the show. Where does that leave us? He isn’t asking for help anymore. No one listens. No one understands and while everyone is telling him how broken he is, no one is willing to help him get himself back together. 

I think this is where a lot of people see themselves. Rock bottom, desperate, giving up, broken, tired of asking before no one is listening or seeing them. So how does Marc get lifted up? 

In this case, Marc has built his own support system. Jake is there to force him to stop hurting himself and Steven is there to lift him back up. Even Layla who eventually realizes that despite Marc pushing her away, he really just needs her there. She literally flies in and saves him, then helps him back up. 

It doesn’t matter where your support system comes from, it’s something we all need. Outside forces or inside. 

I wish I wish I wish we had the Diab cut. We got to see him stand up to Khonshu, Ammit and Harrow… But to see him confront his mother… Something we all wish we could have. To find the person that has abused and tormented them and stand up and say “You were wrong. I am not broken. I am surviving and I am still here.” 

So again, where does that leave everything? We don’t know. These are problems that don’t go away overnight. The show ends on a note. Not an up note or a down note. Just a note. They are still back right where the show started. Tethered to a bed and unsure about the future. 

But on waking, the first thing Marc does is call out for reassurance. “Steven, are you there?” A man always on edge of crisis. This time he is asking for his life line, and his life line, while sleepy and unsure about his own future, will always be there to help him. 

They will still face rejection, people trying to tell them that they are wrong or not normal or broken. People that feel the need to bully them because they are different. They will still face prejudice and people not willing to understand. People who will think that they need help and proceed to offer the worst help one can find. 

Is any of that okay? No. Unfortunately it is realistic. But I think they are going to be more confident in themselves now. When one feels insecure or like maybe they are wrong, the other can help them push through. 

Society is not the best at offering help. Sometimes it’s going to miss big things and then pat itself on the back when it hands you a fucking pamphlet. The important thing is that we are our own heroes. Maybe we can be someone else’s hero. 

We’d rather save the world.