#is it some kind of deficit

[knightofleo]

[gaeasun]

If you haven't taken the test before here, its not too long.

[selchwife]

just heard about bicameral mind theory. i think it's incredibly, like, patronizing and insulting to ancient people, but it's reminding me of that post someone made about their friend or whatever bc she was worried she was "hearing voices" and after some time with a therapist deduced that she was simply thinking. bicameral mind ass story

[ssaalexblake]

Luke Alvez always drinks his respecting women juice and we love that about him.

[anteomnia]

act 2 is best act of video game. act 2 was cinematic as fuck, and it felt like an integral shift of mood to the plot.

act 3 makes me want to dip a toe into arson. violently.

[novadreii]

after my brother and i moved out and my dad moved in with my stepmom, they got two dogs together. and don't get me wrong, they are adorable.

but i've definitely had a few semi-salty moments observing my dad lavishing more affection on his dogs than he ever did his children lol.

[restricted-access]

in my macro freak era & constantly torn between “i don’t have caffeine after noon!/try not to have after 10am!” and wanting to drown in celsius/gfuel every day for the appetite suppressant

[ms-demeanor]

wait, are the health claims from bone broth bogus? (genuine/good faith question). i’ve always heard that it’s high in collagen, which supposedly is good for you and better if you get it ‘naturally’ like from bone broth. is that another thing that’s not actually true, or wildly exaggerated?

Bone broth has been eaten for centuries in various cultures because it is easy to digest and believed to have healing properties. Chicken broth is highly valued by some as a remedy for the flu. In more recent years it has been promoted to help symptoms from psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity. [7] Claims that it detoxifies the liver, improves digestion, reverses wrinkles, builds bones, and relieves join pain have led some marketing analysts to predict that the bone broth market will approach $3 billion by 2024. [8] In reality, bone broth contains only small amounts of minerals naturally found in bone including calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, phosphorus, sodium, and copper. The amount of protein, obtained from the gelatin, varies from 5-10 grams per cup. There is some concern that bone broth contains toxic metals like lead. One small study found that bone broth made from chicken bones contained three times the lead as chicken broth made with the meat only. [7] However the amount of lead in the bone broth per serving was still less than half the amount permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency in drinking water. A different study found that bone broth, both homemade and commercially produced, contained low levels (<5% RDA) of calcium and magnesium as well as heavy metals like lead and cadmium. [9] The study noted that various factors can affect the amount of protein and minerals extracted in bone broth: the amount of acidity, cooking time, cooking temperature, and type of animal bone used. Therefore it is likely that the nutritional value of bone broths will vary widely.

(Source: https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/collagen/)

Your body makes collagen; eating collagen will put the things that make collagen into your body to make collagen with, but so will eating things that go into making collagen (amino acids, basically).

There's not good evidence that eating a ton of collagen or supplementing collagen improves your body's collagen production, and studies on collagen supplementation tend to be done by companies that make collagen supplements or produce expensive bone broth.

Basically if you're eating the 9 essential amino acids by consuming complete proteins (which can be done on any kind of diet, vegan or vegetarian or including meat - this is NOT one of those things your body relies on animal products to produce) your body is going to make collagen and it's going to have the amino acids handy to make collagen; consuming more collagen may mean that your body has more of those collagen-forming amino acids on hand, but it doesn't mean that your body is going to be any more efficient at producing collagen (and your body is going to become less efficient at producing collagen as you age).

But yeah bone broth health claims are primarily bogus. If you want more collagen in your diet for whatever reason, it's probably about as effective to eat jello as it is to eat bone broth but also more collagen in your diet likely isn't doing anything special.

[thebibliosphere]

I'm making a concerted effort to fix my sleep cycle at the moment because I know it's going to be one of the first things the new neurologist pounces on when I eventually see her in September.

And I don't know what's different this time, but all the sleep hygiene stuff that has never worked for me in the 30 years I've been dealing with chronic insomnia is actually starting to help.

I'm falling asleep earlier and staying asleep for longer, which is huge considering I've been running at a sleep deficit for about 30 years, usually getting less than 4-5 hours of broken sleep a night.

The only thing I can think it might be is that my MCAS being more stable means I'm not experiencing adrenaline surges late at night.

See, the body dumps histamine as part of the circadian rhythm, and if you don't have mast cell instability, you're usually asleep for this and unaffected (though some people may notice allergic symptoms get worse at night). For me, it always felt like going over the drop of a rollercoaster if the rollercoaster consisted of tachycardia and shaking for a couple of hours. So, I usually choose to stay awake so I can mediate it.

And I'll confess, despite my MCAS being more stable, it never occurred to me that it might make practicing good sleep hygiene easier, so I just... kind of haven't bothered???

Anyway, imagine my surprise when the sleep app I've been using to track my sleep for the last few weeks informed me that I'm falling asleep within 20 minutes of putting my phone down and that I'm actually staying asleep for close to 6 hours at a time.

Also, my body is starting to anticipate going to bed???

It's 8:22 p.m. here, and I just caught myself thinking, "Oh boy, I can't wait to go to bed in an hour."

Absolutely wild. Like, who even am I anymore?

[amaditalks]

So @photomatt (aka the guy who runs the company that owns Tumblr) is doing a livestream right now, taking questions from users.

A user with epilepsy asked if something could be done to make sure that ads aren’t vibrant or strobing, because that’s a seizure risk.

Matt made some vague noises about looking into it, kind of mumbling and then full voice immediately said “you should maybe buy the no ads upgrade, or get someone to gift it to you.”

He suggested the user pay for basic accessibility, to make sure the site doesn’t give them seizures.

I shouldn’t need to explain why this is very very bad, especially in conjunction with that last post from @staff.

Tumblr is apparently running a $30,000,000 deficit, and reversing that is the clear priority of the ownership right now. The interests of users aren’t going to be important until or unless they find a way to monetize us.

[togglesbloggle]

You Aren't Supposed to Win

There's a species of post on Tumblr that's not uncommon: explainers about neurotypical social interactions for the benefit of the neurodivergent. Others, in an adjacent genre, are vent-posts or bewildered people expressing exasperation and impatience with neurotypical social rituals. And these are usually fine as far as they go, but there's a sort of deficit or hole in them that I think tends to go un-addressed.

Basically, a lot of these explainers are very reasonably helping readers to navigate a system for some desired outcome (getting a job, finding a date, or other such things), but with the understanding that a failure to get the desired outcome is a failure of the system. And that's... only kind of true.

Neurotypical social interactions can be a very complex mix of collaborative and competitive enterprises. The ratio between those things can shift on a dime, it can be really hard to figure out where on the spectrum you are at any given moment, and this is the system working as intended. Or at least, as the players in the game intend, which isn't always quite the same thing.

I don't want to overstate this too much; standard social interactions aren't a fight to the death or anything. Typical examples are more like a preponderance of cooperation, but with some jockeying for a larger share of the rewards that follow from a shared project. Or, perhaps, attempts to spend the least effort in a group project, while receiving a full share of the reward.

The thing about this is, the presence of an antagonistic element within these interactions means that perfect legibility is opposed to most participants' goals for the interaction. There is a degree of confusion and uncertainty that is quite deliberate and instrumentally useful. If a particular partnership is going to pivot to 'pvp mode', it is absolutely in each participants' interest to be the first one to defect, and to mask that defection for as long as possible; perfect transparency prevents them from being able to do so, and they can and will interpret requests for perfect transparency as being hostile acts.

At the same time, admitting any of this is also a loss of strategic advantage during adversarial interactions, so it's one of the hardest things to get people to admit. It's even hard for people to notice that they're doing it, because evolution favors mentalities that keep as much of this as possible subconscious; it's easier to defect without warning if you never consciously think of yourself as defecting at all. So explicit discussions of this are quite rare. (There is, however, an entire genre of party games designed to bring them to the fore and let people show off their capacity for adversarial play among shifting alliances and uncertainty, so it's more 'open secret' than 'forbidden lore'.)

The upshot of all of this is, the desire for an explicit, legible system of social interactions that can be exploited for reliable outcomes- can often be a desire for power over others, in a way that I don't think the proponents fully realize. The fantasy of people just doing what you want is a powerful one for everybody, neurodivergent and neurotypical alike. And this isn't an unreasonable fantasy! it's really not fun to be surrounded by people pursuing their own interests at the expense of yours!

But it's important to realize that a lot of the hard work of aligning those values and making a system of interactions 'purely collaborative', such that everybody will be doing their best to help you succeed regardless of skill level or quirks of neurotype, is a really hard problem that nobody has yet been able to solve. And until we get there, a system in which you reliably get everything you want, and which you navigate with perfect confidence, is one that subordinates the people around you.

[nataliesscatorccio]

you're natalie scatorccio. you take some acid the night before your team leaves for nationals. next day your plane goes down somewhere in the canadian wilderness. one of your coaches dies the other loses a leg btw the girl you hallucinated at the party last night destroyed the black box and you're stuck here for 18 months now. you start a fling with the guy they send you out hunting with but the homecoming queen wants to lose her virginity before she dies so she throws you under the bus and takes your man in a gay way, but you don't even really have time to deal with that because your other teammates are trying to have a murder orgy and sacrifice him at the alter of the wilderness gods. you save his ass and then spend the next two months hiking in below zero temperatures on a major caloric deficit trying to locate your man's missing brother who is definitely probably dead and you're definitely probably going to die if you keep looking so you fake his death and that goes pretty bad because the resident witch says she can still sense his aura and it turns out against all odds the teenage brother did survive two months in the wilderness alone, but happy endings right? wrong. your boyfriend can't get it up unless he's thinking about backwoods jesus and you're all starving to death. group decides short straw dies for the good of the group and who draws it but you? the wilderness wills the hunter bring food to the table. run. now the boy you killed/saved/killed says you can trust me I know a place and the earth opens up and swallows him and you reach for him because he asks you to and because in another life that's the kind of person you are. but here you're the hunter and you know how to love the thing in your scope but still pull the trigger if it puts meat on the table, especially if it means the meat isn't your own. you have nine months left. there's nowhere to run.

[720am]

M A S T E R L I S T

for losing as much as possible in a short amount of time (cuz we are all desperate), from me - a biotechnologist, who relapsed (the demons never leave)

the tips i am about to share with all my girliepops are all based on science and work; if you have any other tips, feel free to share in the comments, so we can have all the tips in one place!

• eat your meals from smaller sized plates, to trick your brain you are eating more

• cut up your food into small pieces

• chew every bite at least 10-15 times, until it is a purée consistency; this way you will be eating slower and give your brain more time to realise you are full

• sip water with a lemon slice between your bites

• focus on eating vegetables and protein, limit carbs

• drink a lot of water, and I mean a lot

• add lemon slices to your water to make it have some flavour; also the lemon juice in water before your meals will help reduce the glucose spike => less insulin released from liver => less absorbed glucose from carbs/sugars/starches => less fat on your body

• move for 10 mins right after eating - walk, do calf raises, some light movement so all the glucose can be used before getting stored as fat on your body

• drink tea - green tea, detox tea, whatever tea, without a sweetener

• do not drink diet sodas/colas - or any kind of liquid that is not water/tea - these are useless calories, why would you do that to yourselves?! even if it says 0 cals - this s#it is so bad for you, and the carbonation makes you feel bloated like a god damn whale! ditch the diet sodas girliepops

• implement some kind of movement every day - walking, pilates, yoga, dance workouts, resistance bands workouts or stretching

• do not weigh yourself everyday - due to hormones our weigh fluctuates every day and this will just make you feel bad if you lose and gain 1-2 legs everyday depending on your menstrual cycle, water weight and so on.. weigh yourself every 2 weeks.

• do not drink fruit juice - this is such a scam; hear me out: how many oranges does it take to make 1 glass of orange juice? around 3. can you eat three whole oranges in one sitting? i bet no. then why would you drink 3 oranges? when you make fruit juice, all the fibre and the pulp is removed, leaving you with just the juice with all the sugar in it (in the form of glucose and fructose) so you are basically drinking pure sugar, which turns into fat… just eat your damned fruit, instead of drinking a bunch of empty calories

• take red cranberry supplements - they are usually taken for UTIs, but the red cranberry has diuretic effect, and will make you pee your water weight out; please do not take more than 2 pills and remember to drink plenty of water so you don’t damage your kidneys!!!!

• take probiotics - this will ensure your gut health stays good while restricting foods, so you don’t end up constipated and bloated

• i personally do not eat dairy products (i am lactose intolerant) - they are full of hormones from the cows, give you acne and inflammation, and the protein in it is not worth it considering the amount of fat these products have; skip the dairy if you can

• if you drink a lot of coffee, remember to drink plenty of water! coffee has a diuretic effect and if you are not drinking more water, it will make you retain whatever water is in your body, leading to water weight gain

• if you end up binging, do so mindfully - do not give in to all the food, just have a piece of chocolate, not the whole chocolate bar; have a piece of cake, not the whole cake; then get back on track and try to exercise as much as possible to burn the excess calories

• i think this is obvious but let me say it just in case - in order to lose weight, you have to be on a calorie deficit - meaning you burn/use more calories than you consume; but!! here is the trick - you have to maintain low calorie diet, do not ⭐️ve for more than 2 days, as this will f#ck up your metabolism - your body goes into fight or flight response, meaning everything you eat after f4sting will remain on your body as a reserve of food, in case you end up ⭐️ving again; so have your veggies and protein (chicken breasts, white fish)

• keep yourself busy so you don’t think about f0od - study, work, read books, journal, whatever it is, your day has to be full of activities do you can forget to e4t

• reject offered food - say you already ate / yr not hungry / you are allergic to some ingredient / you have a bad migraine and this will make it worse / or take the food and say you will have it later and just give it to someone else (pls don’t throw in trash, do not waste food)

• when eating with family / boyfriend - place food in a smaller plate, cut up food into very small pieces and eat very slowly and chew every bite for a long time, sip water between every few bites, then say you are full and cannot eat anymore / that you ate a bit earlier and yr full

• when eating, eat your veggies first, then your protein and eat the smallest amount of carbs - always leave leftover carbs in your plate

• do not eat any snacks - no cereal bars, no cereal, no chips, no crisps, no crackers, no salty sticks, just do not eat snacks!

• if you feel like eating - drink water first, then have veggies (cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, etc) or fruit (apples, citrus, any kind of berries)

• if you are having breakfast - always eat a savoury breakfast - eggs, avocado, veggies etc; never eat a sweet breakfast - cereal, croissants, pancakes, etc, this will spike up your glucose levels and all that sugar will turn into fat; a sweet breakfast will make you feel tired and exhausted all day, leading you to eat more

• wear a waist trainer - do so for no more than 8hrs a day; this will also help you have smaller portions of food, as it won’t allow your stomach to expand

• do not purge - this is very bad for your teeth and overall health; the stomach acid is very strong and every time you purge, your teeth are getting damaged; just don’t overeat in the first place and have self control!

this is all i have for right now; if i think of anything else, i will add later / make another post; if you have anything to add to this list - go ahead and do so in the comments below

remember, stay safe xx

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

idk if this is a sex ed question, or if you're the right person to ask, sorry, but do you have any reputable sources about what testosterone *actually* does?

i see people saying it limits your emotions, that it gives you breast cancer, that it makes you malnourished, its a second more dangerous puberty, etc, and I'd like to think im good at picking out lies, but there's a lot of stuff that sounds like bullshit coming from blogs i thought were trustworthy.

if not, all good, thank you in advance!

hi anon,

I'm really glad you sent this ask, because this kind of scaremongering misinformation is deeply upsetting and I'm so happy to provide a better information.

there are tons of reputable sources as to what testosterone does; some that I'll be pulling from in this answer include Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Medical School, University of California San Francisco, Mayo Clinic, the Society for Endocrinology, and Planned Parenthood.

so, what's up testosterone?

testosterone is a hormone produced in everyone's bodies, either in the testes or the ovaries depending on which set of equipment you're working with. all bodies produce both estrogen and testosterone, usually in different levels. regardless of the genitalia you were born with, how you understand your gender, or what levels of testosterone you have in your body, testosterone affects things like your sex drive, your hair growth, muscle and bone density, and the production of red blood cells.

in people born with testes, puberty usually comes with an increase in testosterone that kicks off changes such as growth of the penis and testicles, the production of sperm, an increase in hair growth all over the body, deepening of the voice, greater production of oil on the skin, and an increase in height, weight, and muscle mass.

either an overabundance or a deficit of testosterone can have health complications, just as having more or less of any hormone that a body needs can cause complications.

people who choose to transition by taking testosterone will experience many similar effects as cisgender men going through puberty, including the increase in body hair, skin oils, and muscle mass, as well as a deepening voice. while people on testosterone are unlikely to experience significant growth in terms of height unless they start hormone replacement therapy (HRT) at a fairly young age, testosterone does frequently cause a redistribution of fat on their bodies to be more similar to that of cisgender men. bottom growth, the increased size and sensitivity of the clitoris to more closely resemble a penis, is also common; the clitoris and the penis are homologous structures (they're made out of the same goo when embryos start developing genitalia), hence why they react similarly to testosterone.

to address your specific concerns:

testosterone does not limit the range of a person's emotions. while it may impact a person's mood and the severity of their feelings, the same is true of any hormone - for instance, people also report mood changes when they take antidepressants or birth control. the sometimes drastic mood fluctuations experienced during puberty are not tied to a specific hormone; this is a turbulent time regardless of what hormones your body is producing the most. testosterone is stereotyped as making people angry and violent, but all people are people regardless of their biology and are shaped by much more than the hormones in their body.

while cisgender men and trans people on testosterone can both get breast cancer, testosterone does not pose any particular risk. several of the sources linked about don't find any significant link between taking testosterone HRT and an increased risk of breast cancer, reporting that transgender individuals who take testosterone are not at any particularly higher risk of developing breast cancer than cisgender women. for more detailed information about potential health problems affiliated with taking testosterone, I recommend the "Risks" section of the linked UCSF document. yes, there are health risks affiliated with taking testosterone; this is true of literally any medication and, more importantly, is also true of just being a person with any kind of hormones in your body. cis men and women also have health conditions affiliated with being cis men and cis women, this is the price of admission for having a human body. nobody gets out unscathed.

there is no evidence that testosterone causes someone to become malnourished. people undergoing a testosterone-based puberty, whether they're cis or trans, are likely to experience a great deal of growth and bodily changes that will use a great deal of calories, which means they may be hungry and need more food than they did previously. this is a normal effect of puberty on a body, and is only a risk for malnourishment if a person isn't able to eat in sufficient amounts to keep their body properly nourished.

there is nothing about a testosterone-based puberty that is "more dangerous" than an estrogen-based puberty, which is what I assume is the point of comparison. puberty is a completely natural process that does not pose any significant dangers unless you want to be a real dipshit about it and pull some shit like "puberty is dangerous because you grow breast tissue and then you're at risk for breast cancer," in which case sure, great job, Sherlock. you solved it, puberty is cancelled forever. I cannot emphasize enough how stupid this is, conceptually; roughly half the human population goes through this kind of puberty every day and they're fucking fine. puberty by itself is not a risk factor of anything.

I don't know what particular interest the blogs you've been following have in making testosterone-based puberty sound like it's going to turn you into an emotionally stunted skeleton with breast cancer, although I fear it's transphobia hidden unsubtly behind concern trolling and disdain for cisgender men.

if you're interested in taking testosterone and are concerned about the changes you might see in your body please, for the love of god, consult with reputable health resources and a doctor rather than whatever nematode is posting about testosterone ruining your life.

[reasonsforhope]

Life is hard for neurodivergent people in Peru. Now a grassroots uprising of people with bipolar disorder, ADHD and autism – organised through picnics in the park – is pushing for change at the heart of government.

On a bright summer afternoon in Lima, the capital of Peru, Carolina Díaz Pimentel takes some red and green tape out of her backpack. She’s in a park waiting for people to arrive at a picnic she and her friends are hosting. Guests know that they don’t have to be on time, don’t have to make eye contact, and can leave at any time if they feel overwhelmed. No one will question them.

“We want everyone to feel comfortable. At least this afternoon we want to take a break from the rules that are imposed on neurodivergent people every day to fit in,” says Díaz Pimentel, a journalist and a co-founder of the Peruvian Neurodivergent Coalition (CNP), who is herself autistic and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Hence the coloured tapes. Each attendee will choose one to express their “social battery”. If they choose the green tape, it’s because they want to participate in the activities. Red signals they prefer not to be approached. Everyone wants company, that’s why they are here, but in different ways. And that’s OK. People start to arrive. Several choose red.

CNP is a social initiative that first kicked off in March 2023. It is the alliance of five neurodivergent women who were already making waves by posting openly about their conditions on social media, but who longed to make real-world change. “I used to see this kind of gathering in countries like Mexico and Argentina and was sad to be so far away, until I saw the announcement of a picnic in Peru. Before joining the coalition, I didn’t really relate to anyone. I had good friends, people that care about me, but I knew I wasn’t like them,” says Mayra Orellano, another of the directors, an interior designer with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Today [in March 2024] is the coalition’s fifth gathering. A picnic may not sound like fertile ground for a burgeoning social movement, but behind the bags of cookies and crisps, that is what CNP is doing – campaigning for the rights of neurodivergent Peruvians to be understood and accepted, and to live free from stigma and abuse.

The birth of the neurodiversity movement

The concept of neurodiversity has been around for almost 30 years after first being coined in 1997 in an undergraduate thesis by Judy Singer. Singer, an Australian who is now an eminent sociologist, argued that conditions such as autism, dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are all simply part of the myriad ways in which human brains are wired. It proposed a new way to think about human difference and provided a name for a burgeoning movement. In Peru, however, it remains a concept that few have heard of.

“Neurodiversity is not a medical diagnosis, it’s a political movement that brings us together to defend our rights,” says Díaz Pimentel. When she first started posting about her bipolar disorder on social media in 2017, it was taboo: very few talked about their diagnosis in public. Bipolar disorder remains a stigmatised condition in Peru...

Diaz Pimentel’s commitment is stronger than prejudice, she says. Two years ago, when she received her autism diagnosis, she posted a photo of herself holding a rainbow cake with the words ‘Congrats on the autism’ spelled out in white icing. She wanted to celebrate with her community because she considered it a rebirth: at the age of 29, some of the puzzles of her childhood finally made sense...

From picnics to influencing policy

Neurodivergence is a huge umbrella that describes people with very different conditions. In Peru, this causes confusion and a lack of accurate data. Even in the case of autism, the best recognised of the neurodivergent conditions, the National Registry of Citizens with Disabilities lists some 15,000 people on the spectrum. But according to international statistics on the worldwide prevalence of autism, there are likely more than 200,000 people with the condition in the country. 

María Coronel, the psychologist in charge of the ministry of health’s child and adolescent mental health department, says that clarifying this data is one of the institution’s priorities. She acknowledges that initiatives such as CNP’s can help educate people: “These organisations add to our efforts to detect people on the autistic spectrum and give them the help they need. They have a great ability to reach others because they are telling their own experiences.”

Although CNP has only existed for a year, the group is already influencing government policy. Two congressmen have asked for members’ feedback on bills to protect the rights of autistic people. The state agency in charge of integrating people with disabilities into society consulted them on the appropriate terms with which to refer to neurodevelopmental conditions. And the ombudsman’s office made a video with them to warn about gender bias in autism early detection. (In Peru, 81% of people receiving treatment are male.) ...

Creating a more sensitive society

The CNP community says its work has changed their own lives, but Díaz Pimentel recognises that it isn’t enough. Some experts agree – that the problems are as much structural as they are societal. “In Peru we have a gap in specialised human resources. We need more psychiatrists and neuro-paediatricians. We need more young people to choose these careers,” says Coronel...

[Natalie] Espinoza is also a CNP founder and the only founder who is a mother. She has a five-year-old autistic daughter. Finding a pre-school that would accept her was very difficult. Espinoza is familiar with that kind of rejection. At a former job, she was fired when they found out she has bipolar. She had always performed well, she says, but she was told that a person “on that kind of medication” could not work with them.

“When I found out that my daughter was autistic, there was no mourning or denial, just a desire to hug her tightly because I felt very afraid of what society might do to her. I would like her to grow up in a more sensitive place,” says Espinoza. Dedicating time to the coalition’s work is her way of contributing to that change. Currently its communications reach more than 12,000 people and it has 15 WhatsApp groups. Messages whizzing back and forth help their community in everything from getting diagnoses to finding places to sleep in the event of being evicted from their homes.

So what does the coalition want next? “We want it all,” says Lú Herrera, a lawyer with BPD and the fifth co-founder. They would love to create, for example, a “neurodivergent house”, a place where they can offer shelter to victims of violence, run educational workshops, organise neurodiverse entrepreneurship fairs and provide legal advice on inclusion rights.  “Everything we already do but in a place of our own. 

“You know what else we want to do in that house?” asks Herrera as if reminding herself. “We want to have mindfulness sessions, dance lessons, pottery classes. Activities that will ground us. We neurodivergents struggle so much every day that it would be nice to have a place to rest.”

For now, the picnics are opportunities to recharge, ready for the next conversation-shifting step.

-via Positive.News, March 13, 2024

[drdemonprince]

Does this unmasking business ever get easier?

Before learning I'm autistic I was extremely confident. Probably too confident, looking back. I took for granted that people liked me and just kind of assumed I'd be accepted most places I went and didn't think twice about it. I've since come to realize that I actually have some major social skills deficits, and I've been remembering past social interactions as well as some relationships that blew up for reasons I couldn't understand and it's mortifying to realize how much information I was misinterpreting. Times I thought people liked me when they were just tolerating me, times I thought I was being admired when I was actually being made fun of, stuff like that. Now that I'm conscious of those gaps in my awareness, I'm thinking about them constantly and second guessing myself all the time. I feel like it's made my social skills even shittier, and I've actually become more awkward. Is there a way out of this? I wish I could rewind knowing this about myself sometimes.

Anon you have inspired me to write an essay on the stages of accepting an Autistic identity. Because what you are describing is a very typical part of a process that normally takes years.

This piece will likely be my Sept 15th Substack drop.

If anyone wants to share their experiences with how the Autistic self-acceptance and unmasking processes moved in stages over time, comment, reblog, or send an ask!