#just a symptom

[swordsonnet]

i'm sorry but i don't think we should call this the "autism website" when there's still posts with tons of notes mocking people who:

struggle with social skills / have anxiety around social settings

are unemployed / unable to work certain jobs

have intense or "age-inappropriate" interests

haven't had certain life experiences that are deemed universal/essential

struggle with personal hygiene

don't have any friends or dating experience

don't go outside much or at all

take things literally / don't get sarcasm/jokes

have unusual ways of speaking

generally aren't "normal"

[spyroz]

if anyone needs help identifying things that can become moral scrupulosity OCD obsessions/compulsions, heres a list of some i've experienced:

rereading your posts/texts over and over

checking your notes and/or followers list frequently to "make sure" bad actors aren't interacting with you

checking OP's blog before interacting with posts

compulsively opening a social media tab to look at your notifs and then closing it, over and over

fearing ways that things you say/do (or don't do) could be taken in bad faith. being anxious that your words/actions will be misconstrued as morally wrong, bigoted, rude, or aggressive

feeling guilty or obsessing over whether you should or shouldn't have reblogged a post

feeling like you aren't "allowed" to disengage from online discourse or unfollow people who post it

fearing you're being stalked, talked about, or called out behind your back. fearing you'll never be forgiven and that people might even celebrate your disappearance or death, even though you havent done anything wrong

searching your own name/username to see if anyone is actually talking about you

imagining defenses you would make against nonexistent heinous accusations or arguments against you, to prove that you didnt do it

feeling like you have to roll over and become a doormat when others are cruel to you, because it could cause strife if you do anything other than grovel or apologize

having trouble enforcing your own boundaries out of fear that they are somehow "wrong" or unethical

ending up surrounded by people who have all the "right opinions" but are super mean and unpleasant, and make you feel like you have to walk on eggshells

fearing that just HAVING moral ocd makes you a bad person somehow (for example, i often fear that having moral ocd is somehow pushing a 'stranger danger' or misanthropist agenda, even though i actually have a lot of faith in my fellow humans)

some of these bullet points are not inherently bad on their own, but if you find yourself having this kind of anxiety very often, that's not normal, and it's time to get offline or even seek professional help if it's impacting your life

this list is catered to how online culture influences moral scrupulosity, it is not indicative of how everybody's moral scrupulosity functions, and it is not exhaustive

[t00thpasteface]

"it's very problematic to make your space aliens autistic-coded" SPEAK FOR YOURSELF 👽👽👽👽👽🛸🛸🛸 ALIEN LASER BLAST ATTACK ✨✨✨🌠🌠🌠🌠🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

[knox-knocks]

nicky and aaron: when andrew’s on his meds he’s unhinged, but you haven’t seen him when he’s sober! he’s so much worse

andrew off his meds: *has clinical depression*

nicky and aaron: he’s craaazy

[aitadjcrazytimes]

[chaos-in-one]

Friendly (or unfriendly if you're against this) reminder that this blog is supportive of ALL disorders. This blog does not think ANY disorder inherently makes someone a bad person, and is against any disorder being demonized. This blog wholeheartedly believes that a bad person having a disorder, yes, even if things that are also symptoms of their disorder are part of what caused harm, does not make the disorder a "bad" or "evil" disorder or excuse ableism and demonization directed towards the disorder.

Yes this includes personality disorders

Including npd and aspd

Yes this includes all psychotic disorders & disorders that cause psychotic symptoms

Yes this includes paraphilic disorders. All of them.

Yes this includes disorders that cause, or are even characterized by, attention seeking

Yes this includes disorders that directly have lying as a common symptom

Yes this includes dissociative disorders

Yes this includes any disorder with "gross" symptoms

Yes this includes physical disorders too

Yes this includes disorders that can cause loss of control of any kind- control of speech, control of body movement, etc.

Yes tis includes disorders that make someone "look scary"

This goes for literally any fucking disorder. There are not exceptions.

[shithowdy]

doctors are so fucking funny; if you go in like "based on my extensive research and corroborations i think i have this Disease" they will immediately go on the defensive and ask you demeaning shit like "how do you even know this Disease exists?" but if you go in and play stupid and say "gee whiz i'm just a silly little bimbo who doesn't know a thing but i have symptom, symptom, symptom, and symptom" they will very eagerly be like "oh wow, that sounds like Disease!"

[uncanny-tranny]

Basically, my philosophy around disability fakers is: I would rather a thousand people fake a disability than have one disabled person suffer without care, aids, compassion, or any help.

[likeprongstostars]

guys i promise i have other ideas i just go back to drawing domestic jegulus at every minor inconvenience

[inkskinned]

crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.

i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.

in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.

i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.

i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.

plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.

the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.

we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.

i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.

a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.

today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.

loved beyond thinking.

[nohomie]

Seems like no matter how hard I try, I keep coming back to liking the snazzy puppet boy

[lazylittledragon]

oK so after like?? 3+ years of trying to treat my IBS i just found out i almost DEFINITELY actually have RCPD??? no wonder nothing was working it's not the food it's my FUCKING BODY that's the problem!!!

[obsob]

one small step for. kitties

[timothylawrence]

I just find it really frustrating and exhausting how openly racist fandoms can be with little to no repercussions. Nonwhite characters are straight up ignored and have their stories/character arcs replanted onto white characters and no one bats an eye. Nonwhite characters (especially black ones) are held to incredibly high standards that white characters don't have to meet, and if they fail they're villified, if they pass they're labeled as boring.

white fans will reblog one post calling out fandom racism and then do 0 inward reflection about their own behavior and how they perpetuate racism in fandom.

[theygender]

So apparently the symptoms for chronic fatigue include loss of memory, reduced concentration, and fainting/lightheadedness when sitting/standing up?? Why didn't anyone tell me about this 😭

[will-pilled]