#maybe autism IS more common these days. that should drive us to learn more about how it presents and its impacts on the population.

[fatal-blow]

when the old argument for autism about how "why are so many more people diagnosed with autism" comes up the usual rebukes are that no, we just have different words for it, or no, the modern day is more stressful to autistics which makes them more obvious

but no one wants to wonder if autism, which we know has a genetic component, HAS actually spread through the population. no one seems to want to consider that maybe in the mess of things that makes an autistic person autistic, that somewhere in there is a trait that has been beneficial to humans and as a result proliferated the gene pool

because like that's usually how genes work. generally there are no "good" or "bad" genes (which is why i kinda think eugenics will be impossible). there are so many things that affect how genes are expressed and their impact on the individual, and it's so much more convoluted than we ever imagined when we first started learning about them

plus, the nature of evolution is that genes that benefit the population may not benefit the individual, and vice versa. evolution only cares about genes that make it to the next generation. it doesn't care about how comfy the vessel is as long as it doesn't interfere with that single goal. evolution doesn't care about the disabling effects of autism, it only cares if the genetics involved with autism make it to the next generation. and they have, over and over, so it wouldn't be outlandish to think that it's become more common in the human gene pool, that in fact it's been beneficial to it

[bluestarscribbler]

Writing Characters With Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)

Hi everyone! :) How are you doing? 🥰💕 Today I'll be outlining the main do's and don't's of writing characters with SAD, as well the definition and the main symptoms of SAD.

DISCLAIMER: I am not diagnosed with SAD myself; however, all of the following information had been obtained from different posts and sites of people that have first-hand experience with SAD. I will be linking those at the end of today's post, please feel free to check them out.

What I learned from the intense research I did is that nobody has social anxiety the same. Some people feel like they can't breath. Others tend to laugh in awkward moments. Nobody is the same. No character is exactly alike. You can't get it "right," because it's not an exact science. So don't feel too pressured while writing a character with SAD, there's no "one" way to write them. A helpful approach is to think what about how the SAD fits into the story you want to tell because the topic is really as complicated as any other and you can view it from many different angles and go as deep as you want - depending on what this story you're trying to tell calls for. So rather than trying to get an objective view of this complicated topic, focus on the aspects that are relevant to the story.

What is Social Anxiety Disorder?

AKA Social Phobia, SAD describes an intense fear and avoidance of negative public scrutiny, public embarrassment, humiliation or social interaction. This fear can be specified to particular social situations; such as public speaking, or more typically, is experienced in most/all social interactions. Those suffering from SAD will often attempt to avoid the source of their anxiety; this is particularly problematic and in severe cases can lead to complete social isolation.

Symptoms of SAD:

person paces a lot

very fidgety

stops talking mid sentence...a lot

wrings hands

angered by slightest infractions of others

finds fault in others a lot

hard to breathe when focus/attention is shifted to them

sweating profusely

mumbling

shrinking to hide

lack of eye contact/wandering eyes

painfully shy and withdrawn

picking the nails, picking the skin

always the person in the back of the room or in a corner

gravitating toward the first person they recognise and following them everywhere

headaches

finding ways to avoid certain situations

crying before or after social events

feel dizzy and the entire world becomes very far away

feeling like chest was caving in

assuming that everyone is focusing on them

assuming that people are laughing about them

grind their teeth a lot

bite their knuckles

tap out drum patterns with their feet or fingers

nausea and vomiting

muscle weakness

migraines

heart arrhythmia

increasing nervous tics

Keep in mind that social anxiety exists on a spectrum. Not everyone is paralysed at the smallest conversation, but some are. Others feel mild discomfort at certain types of socialising. It’s all relative.

DO'S:

DO write in a lot of internal dialogue. People with SAD say that most of their anxiety is created by their own internal rumination. So, add a lot of overly self-critical internal dialogue and have them think about trivial things that they may or may not have gotten wrong for hours after the fact. People with SAD also tend to avoid initiating with anyone, instead preferring for them (the other person) to initiate — because then they know they're not inconveniencing them (the other person). If a person with SAD does have to interact with people then they tend to plan and rehearse what they're going to say to them. However, once the social interaction has begun, there will be very little internal monologue. In those situations, the character is very much relying on instinct. After the interaction, if the character feels that they messed up (which is likely; be sure to pick up on even the slightest fumbles or awkward pauses), they should keep thinking about how they're an idiot and they want to never have to talk to another person again, because they know it'll end the same way. If they feel like they did a good job, they should express surprise at how well it went, congratulate themselves, and say that they should maybe do this more often — although they probably won't.

DO let them have observational skills. Part of the anxiety stems from not always knowing how to/being good at socialising. Thus an anxious person will watch others closely for clues to their performance and acceptance. While it doesn’t always tell the person how they are doing, it does teach them a lot about the people around them and how they feel about each other. The person in a group with SAD may actually have a better idea of who in the group are friends, enemies, annoyed with the others, think they are better, have crushes, and so on. Having SAD doesn’t mean that a person doesn’t know social cues, it means that they underestimate their ability to use them. Don’t confuse SAD with autism.

DO make it influence all decisions. This is one you can do as the writer and not include every bit of internal dialogue. Just keep in mind that Every decision an anxious person makes is put through the anxiety filter first. Even if they are doing things by themselves, they have to evaluate the chances of meeting people, meeting people they know, having to talk to people when they are done. Keep that in mind when writing these characters in order to keep their personality consistent. That said, in general you can think of someone with SAD feeling physically, mentally and emotionally uncomfortable and "out of place" in ordinary social situations - they want out of it, looking for the door, excuse to leave, cut the interaction short. There could be a sense of shame, guilt and self-loathing about not being "good enough", or that there is something broken and wrong with them (or society).

DO give them other traits. Make sure you give them other traits that influence their decisions and drive their motivations. Someone can have anxiety and also love adventure, want to save all the stray dogs, want to help orphans, want to be a basketball hero, etc. One of the big problems with SAD is that it interferes with a person’s desires to do and be other things. It doesn’t always win though. And sometimes a person may decide that an awkward encounter or two is worth taking part in some other activity they love. Just remember to keep your characters balanced.

DO let them find each other. SAD is probably more common than you’d think. Not everyone has a crippling case. You can have characters share their anxiety with each other and comfort each other and help each other through tough times. SAD can make a person feel isolated but they don’t have to be, and often aren’t as isolated as they think. That observational skill can also help them find the right people to share their feelings with. Not all socialising is terrifying, it can often be cathartic.

DON'T'S:

DON'T make them hate people. Social anxiety does not mean that the person afflicted doesn’t like people or always craves solitude. One of the harshest aspects of SAD is that a person may want companionship and friends but still have uncontrollable discomfort when faced with making friends or spending time with the friends they already have. This constant tug-of-war between wanting friends and feeling the anxiety around people can cause a lot of internal pain and lead to other emotions and conditions such as depression. Someone with SAD can have friends. Even a lot of friends. But certain factors may influence how a person with SAD chooses friends more than they influence others. The level of contact is different for everyone and there will be some friends who can take up more time while not taking up more energy on the part of the anxious person. However, SAD can get so bad that the person with it is unable to leave the house for days at a time, ghosting on all social engagements, not answering their phone and ignoring all texts; but that still doesn't mean they hate people.

DON'T always make them succeed. If you are writing about a person with SAD and they are forced again and again to go outside their comfort zone, make them fail. Have them go to a meeting and then duck down a side corridor at the last minute and disappear. Have them talk to a person and then freeze up in the middle of a conversation, at a loss for words. The longer they go without knowing what to say the stronger the anxiety gets and the harder it is to think. Or have them execute the socialising brilliantly but then go into the bathroom and cry from the overwhelming sense of effort it took to look normal. And just because they have had a few successes doesn’t mean that they will start succeeding every time. Sometimes, the energy it takes, even when the interaction was a success, means that next time they are reluctant or too exhausted to do it again.

DON'T always give them "tells". Anxious people can be very good at hiding it. In the example above of the person who socialises brilliantly and then cries in the bathroom, no one knows how hard it was. They only saw the brilliant “performance.” Keep that in mind. Not all people uncomfortable with socialising are bumbling awkward goofballs. Sometimes they actually appear very cool and collected.

DON'T suddenly make their anxiety disappear when they're at the end of their character arc. This pisses me off, anxiety is a life-long condition. It cannot be "overcome" easily. However, the person with it can learn to live with it. They can visit a psychiatrist, get pills prescribed or change their lifestyle completely to fit around their SAD. A person with anxiety always thinks about their anxiety. Even when they are happily at home reading a book, sometimes they will think about an upcoming engagement, or wish they made friends like the characters in their book. Every time a person with SAD makes plans they have to run through a list of criteria before nailing anything down. Will they have time before and after to prep for and cool down from the experience? Is it something they have done before and feel comfortable doing? Can they back out at the last minute if they feel too overwhelmed that day? These are just a fraction of the things that go through an anxious person’s mind before committing to plans. Again, this isn’t an absolute, but for many people with SAD it is a defining characteristic of who they are. They don’t talk to a single person, even a spouse sometimes, or make a doctor’s appointment without the anxiety affecting how they feel, think, and behave. It is always there. Always.

That's it for today folks! I hope everyone has an absolutely fantastic day! 😊❤

[lovely-necromancy]

A Cure for Insomnia CH.5

A scream shocks you out of your fuzzy thoughts. You look around and notice Connor sitting alert and looking like he wants to run down the hallway this very instant.

“Connor?” the head snaps to you immediately and before you can even question his presence in your home he jumps up and barks then walks in circles near the door.

Great a dog who has no sense of horror movie tropes. Since the scream did come from inside your house you should go find the person who made it and see what's wrong. Also maybe get clarification on why they're in your home. You aren't dead and are still in the same clothes so you figure you're alright around them. You follow Connor to where Toby is, in your kitchen staring out the window standing at a very odd angle. Like he caught himself before he fell backwards but hadn't bothered to get up.

“What's up....oh.” is all you can say as you see Chonk's head whip towards you and Connor before he books it for the tree line. Damn that fat raccoon can run fast, good to know if he ever wants to chase you down in the future. Which he might if you don't leave his slice of pizza out today.

“'oh' 'oh', that's all yo-you've got to say about a giant fuck-ing ra-mrrow- raccoon!?!” maybe thinking this guy was composed and unphased was a misconception, if seeing Chonk has put his world views in question.

“I mean he probably just eats a lot of pizza.” to put it simply you never gave much thought to the fat little trash thief, he was just fat and he existed. Visiting your home for the slice he deemed his every other week. Probably had other homes in Kepler he terrorized for the same reasons. God knows Leo would never put up with a raccoon trashing his store for his pizza. Or even his home for that matter.

“He's nearly half the size of Connor!” looking down towards Connor you tilt your head.

“Are we talking about with his legs or just his torso?” you could maybe see the size comparison with the dog's body but with his height it was a different matter all together.

Toby rolls his eyes before going and sitting down at the small breakfast table where he seemed to have found your fidget cube and had been well fidgeting with it. You take the seat opposite of him, it's weird having a guest over especially when you didn't invite them in. Well now that removes the chances of him being a vampire you suppose.

Perfect not a kidnapper, nor a vampire, and he's helped you out twice now. The two of you might well be on your way to becoming best friends. That is if he could get past this episode of yours.

“I still don't know what happened last night, but I'm done with the freak out.” you say as you idly pet Connor.

“...What?” he's squinting at you trying to get a read on how anyone bounces back from something like that so calmly in a matter of hours. Especially when he'd been checking up on you and Connor only to see you still staring off into space.

“Oh, uh... I have Autism. Isn't good for much but helps me rationalize events quicker and move past emotional and mental breakdowns pretty quick too.”

“Is that an Autism thing?” you shrug at his question as he jerks his shoulders forwards a few times.

“Probably more of a me thing, but I've read the trait tends to be more common in those of us who are neurodivergent.”

You hear a murmur of telling someone later later. Filing that away to take note of another day you stare at Toby who in turn stares back. This goes on for a bit, you couldn't even classify it as a staring contest since you are both still blinking occasionally. You aren't really sure if you should say 'thank you' first and then ask the man what he's doing in your home or wait for him to break the silence. But as you stare at Toby, into his eyes, you get the feeling this man is more of a zombie than anything else. The type to drag along and go at a snails pace rather than get into the messy bits in one go...ironic choice for comparison.

“Thank you for driving me home...but why are you still here?” you hear a huff of laughter?

“You weren't really in a position...” knuckles pop “to be left alone. What if you got back into your car again?” his eyes cut and there's a bit of bite to his words...it wasn't directed towards you, you can feel that much.

“Fair enough.” you glance at the stove and see the clock shine a little before six. “Would you like some breakfast” his neck snaps to the left triggering your own to snap as well, “or a ride home?” you finish asking.

“Can you make something for Connor too? Don't trust you behind the wheel yet.”

“Oh sure! What does he normally eat?” Perking up at the thought of the dog being off duty, that means actual pets!

“He-mrrow- normally gets oatmeal with some fruit or veg and anything raw I can find.” He finishes with a whistle for Connor's attention, and then a pointed finger flipping down in front of him. The dog trots over and sits down, while Toby takes off the vest you look through your cupboards to find the rolled oats you'd gotten as incentive to eat in the mornings before realizing you only liked them on certain days.

“So what does Tobias normally eat?” you call out as you look for some honey you know you threw in the cupboards.

“Anything really. I don't do slimy textures or anything watery.”

“Watery? Like soups?” Found a can of pumpkin, it's still in date too, perfect.

“Watery like...when you put too much water in oatmeal.” He nods when you silently show him the can of pumpkin asking if that'd be fine for his boy, who is sitting down drooling from his smiling face as Toby tussles his ears.

“Ahhh, thin watery got it.” You hear movement and a few grunts from Toby as you assume he tics, trying to ignore them so they won't trigger your own you look through the fridge. You suddenly take a deep breath, while looking for a meat in your fridge, and let out a shrill trill. Kinda sounds like a Togepi's cry from the cartoon. Shaking your head your eyes catch the eggs and turkey sausages you have.

“Will turkey sausage and eggs work for you two?”

“Never had turkey sausage but it should be fine.” he's leaning forward resting his head in his arms on the table as Connor lays by his bouncing feet.

You set the eye to medium heat and put the sausages on first, leaving three out for Connor. He is a big dog after all. You turned your focus on preparing Connor's oatmeal while the sausages cooked. It was kinda nice having company over even though the circumstances weren't the best. Your neck jerks to the side three times before pulling back. There's more on the way your neck didn't crack and your body doesn't let up until it does.

“So what disorder do you have?” You turn to give Toby a confused look you hope he can read through your mask.

“...I have a few..you want the list?”

“No, the tics. Lower level Tourettes or what?”

“Oh, they stem from my” head jerking twice to the side before cracking “there we go.” “Sorry, they stem from my Autism, at least that's the best I can gather without seeing a specialist. Virginia doctors suck big time.”

“Tell me about it.” that perks you right up, you knew you caught a transatlantic accent, it's pretty much the lack of an accent that gives Virginians away so easily. You already have two guesses on where Toby came from.

“I knew it, you're from Halifax aren't you?!” Since you've turned around to face him you see the exact moment his face drops. Eyes shocked wide open.

“How...did”

“Oh it's easy once you know what to listen for, in fact it was the total lack of any distinguishing accent or use of slang that gave you a way. A lot of people don't notice what they take from their communities linguistically speaking. And for us Virginians it's what we don't take. It's such a bland neutral midpoint it's why it had been so coveted during the radio era and while we might've lost the in-fluctuations as time went by, no longer needing them for our voices to be heard over various frequencies....am I talking too much you can tell me to shut up, really you won't hurt my feelings.” you give Toby a minute to process everything you've just said.

“Special interest?”

“mmm, more a...an interesting factoid.” you hope he registers your smile, hell you hope he doesn't think you're weird. You know how much you can be sometimes, especially when you info dump or overshare information. He manages to nod along with you before finding his voice again.

“Lemme guess NOVA?”

“Pfft, seriously.” you really need him to at least register the disgust on your face if he hasn't been able to read you before, “Listen the Beach isn't much better but I'd probably off myself if I was from NOVA.”

“A public service really.”

You both stare at each other before breaking into a fit of laughter. It's nothing huge but it does seem to put Toby more at ease you noticed. In the time it took you to make breakfast for all three of you you've found out a little bit more about Toby.

He's uncomfortable talking about his hometown, at least you assume, so instead he mentions that he recently came to town with his friends, Brian and Tim. Talks mostly about Connor and you learn he's to help alert Toby of his Tourettes when driving and he can even detect seizures with Brian. That's amazing, service dogs have sure come a long way! And you love hearing what a silly puppy Connor is off duty, it makes you smile. Toby in turn asks about you, and you are such a well of stories. You tell him about your family back on the coast, about your recent move to Kepler, give him a little info on Kepler to help him adjust to his stay, and even get on the topic of your extensive work with animals.

“Sounds like you were working towards being a trainer, why didn't you?”

Making a sound that sort of sounds like a jumbled 'I dunno', “Sort of don't like people that much. Dogs are fine, less complex and less likely to complain when you do something in a different way. But a trainer doesn't train the dog, they train the people.” You're placing Connor's food in front of him as he sits patiently.

It's quiet for a moment as you place a plate in front of Toby and set yours down as well. Not tense just quiet, it's very calming really. Until Toby ruins it.

“Thanks Connor.”

Like he's a voice actor who is over exaggerating the sound effects of a dog munching away at their bowl. Connor inhales harshly before diving head first into the bowl. The dog is ferociously tearing into his breakfast and you can't help the laughter that spills from you at his enthusiasm. Hands coming up near your face and shaking as you shift from foot to foot. It's a happy stim, cute dogs are of course a trigger, someone can complain later you're happy to see a happy excited pup any day.

Taking your seat and turning your attention to your food, you see Toby hasn't touched his own. He's staring at the plate with a furrowed brow, he glances up to you as you remove your mask. You feel a bit vulnerable to be honest.

“Oh is something wrong? Do you want something else?”  He's a guest who's helped you twice now the least you can do is make sure he leaves your home full.

It takes a moment but he gathers his thoughts to explain, “I have a scar...it's pretty bad.” he looks away from you.

You tilt your head not quiet understanding what he means, “Cool story, do you want me to look away?”

He stalls at this, you just keep throwing him for a loop since you met the other day. While he thinks on it you scoop some of your eggs on your spoon and into your mouth. Perfect texture and prefect flavor, today will be good.

Toby seems to have made his decision and without any show he takes his mask off to begin eating. You can see the scar he was talking about, and while the currently red and bleeding'?!' scar on the left corner of his mouth was bad it wasn't much compared to the gaping hole further up that side on his cheek. You can clearly see the even whiter, how this boy is so pale is beyond you, skin around the edges suggesting the wound was older and had started to heal at some point. But you could see most of the teeth on the left side of his mouth. You've never seen these teeth while they were still in the head. A skull or 3D model yea. But never a living breathing person's head. It's fascinating really, you hadn't even noticed that you finished your breakfast as you watched him eat, you were so enthralled.

“You know your lip's bleeding right?” eyes never leaving the boy's teeth as you see them grind down the eggs into the tiniest particles. Neat!

“Rwhatf?” the way he can talk with his mouth full without spilling it from the hole is fucking magic and you won't hear another word on it.

He takes a drink of water, again it doesn't spill. Then you notice the slight tilt of his head...oh he's had practice doing this. Impressive honestly.

“That's what you choose to comment on?” his eyes narrow at you're still gawking form.

“I'm sorry I've just never seen those type of teeth still in head, normally muscle and...and skin cover them. So this is really cool to see them in action!” gosh you're so damn weird. By his stupefied expression Toby seems to think so too.

“Plus the wound looks healed but the lips look fresh,” you get up and grab a few paper towels bringing them over to offer to Toby, “Not to mention it's bleeding and you haven't once wiped it.”

He doesn't reply as he takes the napkins from you and dabs at his scarred lip, looking back and seeing blood just as you said. He was right when he thought he'd been biting himself a few hours ago. He'd totally forgotten to check after getting you home.

“Well I don't feel it so I didn't know actually.” he just resumes eating as if this conversation didn't happen.

“Didn't, didn't, didn't” you get stuck in a loop for a bit before breaking out “you didn't feel it? What do you have congenital insensitivity to pain?” you ask incredulously.

“I haven't heard it called that since I got diagnosed.” still eating he looks at you through his long eyelashes.

This dude could not be a real person. You had to have been imagining your dream friend. Everything you learned about Toby was more interesting than the last...at least for you it was.

“Medical history podcasts are interesting.” you shrug, “should I get the first aid kit?” at his shrug you get up and go to your bathroom to retrieve the kit.

Coming back into the kitchen you catch Toby lowering your plates for Connor to lick clean. You don't see a problem with it but you will wash everything twice since the pup has slobbered on nearly everything anyway. When you don't say anything he lets Connor continue before placing the dishes in your sink.

“Such a big help” you say patting Connor's head as you pass him, “Yea I really am” Toby says as he sits back down. Propping his arm up on the table to rest his head on his knuckles, it was such a fluid and casual motion. As if he's sat at this table everyday of his life, like this was his home and you were his guest. Tied in with how comfy he is man spreading at your kitchen table you'd say he made himself at home just fine.

You smile and scoot your chair next to him first aid kit in between you on the table. Toby looks between you and the kit before leaning in closer for you to work. Grabbing the antiseptic cleaning towels you go to wipe Toby's lip when he flinches away. Probably faking to see your reaction.

“Oh, fuck off you have CIPA.” you laugh grabbing his chin to keep him in place. He rolls his eyes “And you're weird.” The vibrations feel weird against your fingers.

“I know.” you continue cleaning the small bite mark? Well he does have CIPA he wouldn't be able to feel the pain if he was gnawing at his lips. Would he be able to taste the metallic tang of his blood or were taste buds effected by the disorder too? You might need to do another deep dive on this, it just became relevant. Maybe an anxious tic, judging from the larger wound it could be possible. Wearing a mask must help to hide it but not not to stop it getting worse if no one can call you out on it.

“That wasn't an insult...” he says making you look up into his eyes as you dry the wound, “I know.” You smile down at him, knowing this time he can see it on your maskless face.

When you finished cleaning his wounded lips, you drove Toby and Connor back to their home. Which turned out to be the RV at the forgotten entrance of the forest. Toby had been a little wary you knew where he was talking about but seemed to shake it off just as quick when you mentioned hiking a lot and using that entrance because it was the closest to you.

He had put Connor's vest back on and hopped in the back with him. You noticed from the review that Connor's full attention was on you.

“This set up let's him focus on the driver, so he'll tell us if something will impede your driving.” Well that explains Brian's position the first time you four met.

Nodding you sync you phone with the car's bluetooth and pass it to Toby with spotify open.

“Rules of the road, passenger picks music.” you say simply when he questioned it.

He quickly clicked your last playlist. Probably either too lazy to find something or trying to get a better read on you. Music says a lot about a person even if not everyone thinks that way. And unfortunately for you this playlist screams mental illness and a need for therapy. But you have folk punk. So who needs therapy when you can just scream cry these lyrics.

Toby doesn't comment on it, either just totally apathetic or maybe he likes it. He's a bit of an enigma, he's open and honest for the most part but saves his opinions unless directly asked.

Even after making it to the RV without incident Toby tries to distract you for a bit and tempt you out of the car with the possibility of playing with Connor. As fun as the idea sounds and as much as you don't want to be rude, you're very tired and drained. Probably more from “hanging out” with Toby this morning than your actual episode last night. Plus you understand Toby's just trying to be nice and maybe ensure your safety.

“Could I maybe rain-check? I'm actually really tired.” you say with your most polite smile, though he can't see it through the mask  you know he sees the crinkle of your eyes.

“Sure, just get home safe.” you feel that's less about you, but you aren't sure what the hanging subject is. So cryptic.

“Yup,” you chirp, “See you later Tobias!” as you start to back out back onto the road you hear Toby say “ Later YN.”

Driving off you can't keep the smile off of your face. Toby's a nice guy, you hope you get to spend more time with him. And this time the thought isn't centered around also hanging out with Connor. Just about enjoying Toby's company.

Getting home and locking your door you strip your jeans and flannel, leaving you only in your muscle tee, and curl up in your unkempt sheets. You'll do laundry later, right now was time for a little nap.

[neven-ebrez]

Meta Writing: "Finding balance as a television viewer and academic, a look at viewing under the narrative lens versus the psychological lens"

I’ve spoken on Supernatural’s utilization of a mirrored narrative to tell the repressed story of its main characters many times. My blog is full of these essays and discussions.  As a meta writer for Supernatural, this is what I've focused on writing over the years because I found this to be where the complete “full picture” of the story of the show was to be seen.  If Sam and Dean weren't openly talking about their issues then one could simply look at the monster/victim character foils within the MOTW episodes and listen to them talk where Sam and Dean either wouldn't or couldn't.  If one wanted to understand the main characters and their situation better, the show practically forces one to do this.  Or rather, I should say, I felt it forced me to do this.  And for a long time I got used to looking at the show through this type of narrative lens, where practically everything told the story of something else.  I wasn't looking at Charlie Bradbury anymore, I was looking at a narrative mirror for the issues of Sam and Dean in 9x04, where the witch symbolized codependency and Dorothy wasn’t a woman trapped by her own mechanics, but rather a sounding board for Sam and Dean trapped by their own.  

I must say, it's not a terribly fun way of looking at the show, but I thought, back then, a practically necessary one. Supernatural is post modern, after all, and frequently has episodes pointing out its own function as a story.  Robbie Thompson did this a lot (9x18 is forever one of my favorite episodes) and I remember someone asking Robbie about the mirrors of 8x11 on Twitter back in the day, where 8x11-8x16 represented one of the most blatant romantic coded arcs Dean and Cas has ever been given in the structure (as viewed through the "narrative lens", but I'm getting there!).  The person asking Robbie what his intent with the mirror was was clearly viewing the show the way I was (with the narrative lens) so I was curious as to Robbie's answer.  And when Robbie did answer, I remember being disappointed.  He told the person, "That's just how I saw the story of Charlie and Glinda."  This was a recognizing of the what I’m going to call the psychological lens (the surface, real life), but not the narrative one.  No acknowledging of how they functioned in that arc as a narrative mirror for Dean and Cas, nothing.  I felt that as a writer using such a structure it was almost his duty to at least acknowledge it.  But it was like... none of them ever did. Supernatural clearly used it, hell, still uses it, but it's only ever mentioned in passing, in showrunner interviews and the like.  

Probably every documented case of anyone with creative content creation control referencing it (the mirror narrative) is on this blog.  Back then, I was very obsessed with validating what I was seeing in any way I could.  It was like figuring out a secret, a mystery, a truth I absolutely knew to be real and then gathering as much evidence as I could to prove it because people were telling me that I was wrong and I knew I wasn't.  Stuff like 9x15 even bent characterization to cater to it, to sometimes the complete confusion of the actors.  And so that's what meta became to me.  Using the narrative lens I viewed and wrote on the narrative structure at length, writing standalone essays on the matter, discussing it in threads and speculating using the structure to extrapolate how likely certain plotlines were.  Sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong, but usually not about the big stuff, the stuff a season was building towards.  The longer I studied the show the better the better I got at recognizing its patterns of repeat.  And for minds like mine, with autism, which are best suited for pattern, these patterns just come so naturally.  For me Supernatural is honestly so predictable, for many reasons, the most of damning of which is right in the structure and its inability to go past a certain point.

I say this word a lot, "structure".  My family hates it.  What I really mean is its overall design.  When I talk about the structure of a car I'm talking about how it looks: the color, the features, the durability, the points of safety, whether it drives smoothly or not.  Things like that.  When I talk about the structure of a story I'm talking about how it looks as well: how it is paced, the significance of the characters involved and whether they and the themes involved within the story itself "teach" the main characters anything, what relationships are formed and how they transform each individual character, (and for visual mediums) the overall visual presentation of light/color, how the setting visually informs what the characters are doing or saying, what the characters are designed to learn through the show pointing out such steps in various ways and then cleanly implementing traditional arcs that change them in some way (usually to betterment, but not always).  All this is structure, a story's design.  Visual mediums like theatre and television have an obvious visual element meant to be incorporated, designed to support (and not work in place of) the story being told. Analyzing a book is not the same thing as analyzing a television show.  Analyzing a television show is much, much more complicated.  Books contain one author and one editor (usually).  Intent and meaningful storycraft is usually easy to decipher. If design in detail matters, the author provides that information. Television, on the other hand, involves hundreds of people refining and creating on a tight deadline. This makes deciphering meaningful story intent particularly tricky.

Discussing the structure, the story telling elements, using that knowledge to speculate or write essays giving a reading of the text (what the term “meta” generally refers to) is what we'd call viewing the show through a "narrative lens", or rather, in the case of television, a "television lens".  It's when you watch the story and realize that you are not looking at real life.  This is easier for something like cartoons (moreso when humans are completely absent), but a little harder for the brain to actively distinguish when looking at something that could *almost be real* (as in, live action people in a familiar setting).  Understanding how fictional rules are different from real life is only half the story though because real life must be accounted for in visual storytelling. I’ll explain what I mean because I’m not talking about behind the scenes stuff. Since being sent an ask about the current state of the meta community (which I still occasionally write for but don’t personally follow anymore aside from following my friends @mittensmorgul and @elizabethrobertajones) I’ve been thinking about this a lot. The fact that we’ve lost a lot of voices over the years as a community of narrative academics is, I think, the root of the challenge currently facing the meta community.  With so many lost voices and angles there's a significant sort of echo chamber that begins when you get people together that all view the show through the same lens against a lack of diverse readings.  In this case, the narrative lens and the Destiel reading.  You see, the problem is the show, as it exists now, isn't always so rigidly written through the narrative lens like it was in Carver era, it's now written primarily through the real life lens.  I find this to be especially true in Dabb era showrunning.  

Regarding the meta writing community and the fandom's two main shipping sides, there’s also a huge disconnect, fostered over YEARS of discord in acknowledging subtext designed by writers for both factions, both readings, and, of course, the arguments over intent (which is usually unknowable unless a public record is made and even then a lot of academics ascribe to “Death of the Author”, particularly given the collaborative nature of television production, so...). Wincest subtext gets scoffed at or ignored, derided for not standing a chance at being canon by the Destiel side and the Wincest side often mocks the Destiel side in such a profound way (pun intended) as to suggest (or outright say) the subtext isn’t even there at all to mean anything in the first place (which is ridiculous).  Again and again I also see (and it's never really worded this way) a disconnect over the lens the show is viewed with: narrative (televison) vs psychological (real life).  The most major arguments I see are between fans watching for the Wincest reading and using the psychological lens versus fans watching for the Destiel reading and using the narrative lens.  

There’s rarely any common ground between these two distinct groups, with the Wincest psychological viewers acting more as critics than providing anything resembling essays of their own.  Maybe they are out there.  I haven’t seen them.  Most “good” Wincest meta died out relatively early. We, as a viewing and academic community, are a house divided in so, so many ways, even on each side of the chasm.  Maybe I have no right to make this post. I don’t know. I don't like things that treat fandom like it's something to be picked apart and examined. This kind of examination makes me... uncomfortable. I keep thinking about that ask the other day asking me what is going on in the meta community though. So I'm going to try and tackle it.  The fact is... we are not a whole and we are not supposed to be. That’s the point. Getting a single exact read off any text, let alone getting a group of people on the same page to watch with the same lens, is practically impossible.  But lately the divide and inbalance has gotten to be so bad that we aren’t even talking to one another anymore, not really. We are all just yelling a lot of misunderstandings back and forth. So... what is happening to the meta community? I'm going to try and talk about it.

Okay.  So I've explained what structure is and what a lens is.  So now I'm going to talk about balance because the current issue plaguing the meta community is a lack of voices discussing and viewing things in balanced way. And I'm going to focus on ship related meta writing because let's face it, that's where a lot of the most passionate arguing is.  Since meta is usually written with a bias for a certain reading we most often get four distinct readings:

A --The Narrative lens: Wincest

B --The Narrative lens: Destiel

C --The Psychological lens: Wincest

D --The Psychological lens: Destiel

Post S12 when Dabb era started I personally made the decision to switch from writing/watching through B to D instead.  A narrative lens focuses on things like mirroring, set design, character arc reading.  A psychological lens focuses on things like characterization (usually with a focus on where a character is and not how they are designed to change), seeing the characters as real people, rather than narrative constructs.  Lynn from Fangasm is a good example here and I don’t think she’d mind me mentioning her here.  Lynn, as a psychologist by trade and J2 fan by choice, views the show through a Wincest psychological reading, in total opposite from me in Carver era Supernatural, viewing with a narrative Destiel lens.  We disagreed on a lot on stuff as you can imagine.  I read her from time to time but she didn’t read me. Now, sometimes viewing one lens too much can make you blind to other things (not limited to readings).  Frequently she’d hate and not understand things that I felt were explained perfectly as viewed through my lens.  It's the difference in seeing Charlie Bradbury personally go through some stuff vs seeing Sam and Dean's issues elaborated on in the complex abstract.  However, for me, post S11 I found myself way too stuck in the narrative lens.  I felt I wasn't even seeing or experiencing the show the way it was designed anymore.  And I wasn't.  And being that Supernatural is part of my job I knew I had to reorient myself.

In Dabb era in particular, there's text and communication between the characters, which means that a narrative lens isn't strictly needed for viewing anymore.  When S12 was airing I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Robert Berens and talking to him at length about meta.  My friends @ibelieveinthelittletreetopper�� and @nicky36​ were with me and the post is on my blog somewhere.  Berens is my absolute favorite writer for the show.  I talked to him about the narrative lens and how stuff like what he wrote about Mary leaving in 12x03 lost its emotional resonance with me because I knew she was leaving for contractual reasons, rather than general characterization ones.  It was a problem with me, rather than a problem with the writing itself.  It's watching a puppet show and instead of paying attention to the story, staring at the strings the whole time.  I knew I had to learn to stop that even before talking about it to anyone.  We also talked about 9x06, which was my favorite S9 episode as a Cas fan!  I remember I talked about the season's theme of consent issues and I mentioned something from the divine reviews I wrote about a consent reference 9x06 made through a pop culture reference about the sex practices this random island had.  He wrote the episode and chose this island to reference.  I thought surely he knew what I was talking about.  I was complimenting his cleverness, after all.  And I'll never forget what he said to me: "You know, meta writers are often far more clever than the writers are themselves."  It means we, as pattern seekers to themes (in the case of S9, consent themes), can pick out any kind of pattern if we are simply looking hard enough for it.  And some things that we think are intentional, are simply coincidental, even within the written screenplay. After talking to Robert Berens that day I never looked at meta writing the same way again and began to work towards switching my viewing lens.

That's not to say viewing the show through the narrative lens is bad, or wrong. It's valid and a fucking important way to view the show, but equally important is realizing that sometimes you need to take a step back and consider other readings and lenses, too.  So I stopped focusing on pop culture references and their thematic associations.  I stopped looking at the set design as a primary storytelling point and regaled it to a secondary support point.  I stopped looking at who Dean and Cas were mirroring and started looking at what they themselves were actually saying to each other, doing together.  I realized that all the mirrors in the world didn’t matter if Dean and Cas weren’t actually talking to one another and physically in the same scenes together.  All the romantic coding in the world through the visual presentation and mirror structure would not take the place of real life escalation.  And I found looking at it and talking of the show in this manner, was getting beyond exhausting, especially when I ended up saying the same thing over and over.  Carver era made the narrative lens necessary to view Destiel, while Dabb era has made it practically irrelevant. Even now I can still see these storytelling elements and comment on them in passing but mostly for me they started working like an overlay in tandem.  And it provided something I hadn't had in a lot time watching: clarity.

Concerning mirroring, I've seen that often the Cas!fan Destiel side focuses too much on this (like I used to) through the narrative lens because Misha isn’t a lead therefore Cas isn’t in every episode so he often exists in this narrative space within the mirrored structure of the show (also called us seeing Destiel parallels).  Through the continued use of the mirrored narrative, the show makes it so Cas fans (who watch primarily for Cas) must look for him there when he’s not physically present in the episode, desperately so in some cases. A Wincest reading, however, has the benefit of J2 being leads and present in every episode, with the reading enjoying touchstone psychology updates/deepening usually in every episode (though yes, Sam/Dean scenes have been cut drastically this year because of contractual reasons). Mirrors for the brothers (good and bad) are easily ignored completely (unless extremely heavy handed) because they are physically there for each other in every episode. Because of this priority watching divide (and handicap on the Cas fan’s side) I believe this has lead some meta writers to focusing too heavily on this element of Supernatural’s storytelling (or otherwise the symbolic narrative), to the point they sometimes even focus on it over Cas’ physical presence without really realizing it.  And other fans do the opposite and/or ridicule them.  And both types of fans and focuses are what I'd call being "out of balance".

On the flip side of discussing the impracticality of viewing primarily through a narrative lens, I'm going to also discuss how it's impossible to view solely through a psychological one, like so many “antis” in Supernatural fandom do.  How many times have we heard, "You are disrespecting the character's sexuality by doing your analysis!  Dean says he's straight so you must accept he is!"?  I know I've seen it a lot.  It's heavy on the fans that favor a Wincest reading through a psychological lens. This type of argument treats the character, Dean in this case, as REAL, instead of a fictional construct subject to other mechanics within storytelling.  This is because the fan is viewing the show primary through a psychological lens and thinks the same ethnics of real life people apply to fictional constructs such as Dean Winchester. This is simply not true.  You don’t judge a real life person’s sexuality based on the colors of their shirt!  What’s wrong with you?  It is quite impossible to disrespect a fictional character. As a viewer/academic, you can only really feel your understanding of them is being disrespected.  In the end, Dean is still very much a fictional construct and thus, is not subjected to being viewed strictly under a psychological lens especially since a medium of storytelling like television and screenplay use visual elements and other narrative devices to also tell the story of the character.

Mel sent me several old posts with some examples. In real life the mailman damaging my mail and delivering it late one day isn’t symbolic of my messed up internal issues as a person. It’s just a crap thing that merely happened one day (even if I muse it feels like my own personal symbolism). I, unlike Dean, also don’t put on the same shirt every time I’m about to make a bad decision.  When May rolls around I don't worry about the world maybe coming to an end each year, but Sam and Dean probably dread it.  When I decorate and paint my walls I'm looking to create a certain pleasing aesthetic for the sake of it being pleasing, not for the sake of displaying the current problems plaguing my inner psyche. Or maybe some people do this to some degree, idk.  Mostly, no.

Supernatural does indeed put storytelling clues in the wallpaper, but usually the intention is not as far reaching as some people conclude.  And it’s in it’s own created language. Regardless, you can’t write a story with wallpaper alone.  At most, you can simply look at it and guess something small ahead of time (like hourglasses signifying time travel). I'll use 11x06 as an example. In this scene we have a demonic liar getting interrogated in a room with Gabriel’s wallpaper from Changing Channels because the demon is trying to trick Sam and Dean into releasing him and saving his meatsuit instead of kill him (since Carver realized he needed to refocus the Winchesters onto saving people after S10, which, idk, maybe he realized how heartless they were seemingly becoming by choosing each other over the world so much, anyway...). Anyway. In 5x08 Gabriel used that entire episode to trick and trap Sam and Dean in a fabrication. Trick and lies.  There’s your thematic tie in. I remember some people just immediately saw that wallpaper and thought it meant Gabriel was coming back when instead it was a simple "beware of trickery" thematic callback. Under the show’s silent storytelling language when this wallpaper is used, it means we are being lied to and tricked.  This is all the wallpaper is meant to invoke.  Sam immediately realizes this in the same scene.  The silent storytelling here is just a fraction ahead of the textual storytelling.  And that’s what silent storytelling is designed to do.  Looking at wallpaper for clues on character development is a whole different analysis problem because Supernatural, by very much all appearances, want Sam and Dean to develop as slowly and as little as possible because the bulk of fans watch for their issues, not to the resolution thereof.  The show doesn’t know what Sam, Dean, and Cas look like past a certain point of development and they are wholly uninterested in exploring that.

But back to wallpaper, interpretation, and 11x06.

A request for this wallpaper was probably not in the script.  Screenplay usually puts as little detail into the script as possible because they simply trust Jerry Wanek and his design team to do their jobs (and Jerry, in fact, usually disregards certain script directions in favor of his own ideas as better symbolically worked into the show).  AU!Michael’s church was originally a concrete bunker and Billie’s minimalistic fate library in 13x05 was originally a country cottage.  Jerry is given extreme leeway on SPN (with I think only like 6 of his decisions have ever been vetoed he told us), but only because he’s so in sync with the show’s thematic presentation.  I’m going off topic again because I’m supposed to be talking about fandom.  Sorry.  Back to 11x06 (again). Gabriel is such a fan favorite, however, that this (look out for tricks) was not the basic thematic message a lot of fans took away.  No, the message they took away was Gabriel was probably coming back soon. I remember speculation continued about that for weeks.  When at the time there were absolutely no plans for that during production. This reading, I can say with confidence, was absolutely unaccounted for.  Jerry Wanek’s whole department is quite literally kept in the dark about future storylines. He’s told me this himself. By the time production for an episode rolls around they have a few scripts ahead maybe, nothing more. This is why Jerry was confused as hell about Asmodeus being a shape shifter in S13, because he didn’t know Gabriel was definitely coming back and that Asmodeus was siphoning Gabe’s powers. Poor Jerry just thought Buckleming was just butchering the canon for fun (I mean... this does happen so...). If there’s an intentional visual motif present, it either draws on some simple visual theme from earlier (tricks and 5x08 vs 11x06) or it’s part of the language of the show as written in the screenplay.  It is very much something Supernatural does.  Just not in such a complicated way, and one that definitely doesn’t conform to real life.

Real life ≠ Fiction and Fiction ≠ Real life

Do we see yet the limitations of relying too heavily on one lens over the other when viewing and analyzing media?  How staring at the wallpaper can blind you to your psychological understanding of the characters, and how likewise, thinking of the characters as real people can just as well blind you to what the story is trying to tell you using a complete framework as a thoughtful examination of human expression and experience? You have to see it all and all at the same time to get a good picture.  If you are going to write about the show then somewhere you must find balance or risk going blind. Television, most of the time is about creating stories that feel real, fourth wall breaks aside.  The average television viewer is honestly not sitting there seeing Charlie Bradbury as Dean and Cas', Sam and Dean’s issues or whatever.  They see her simply as Sam and Dean's nerdy little red headed friend who is coming to help them out with something.  Writers often write through the narrative lens, but realize that most people watch through the "real life" one.  

This psychological lens is not only accounted for, but it is generally catered to all of the time.  Significant storytelling is therefore always in the psychological lens because the truth is television rarely wants you sitting there figuring out futrue storylines.  It operates on you wanting to WATCH to see what’s next.  They hate fans like me who can guess major plot points ahead of time. The truth is they want you to suspect certain things, but not expect them.  The difference is a bit complicated and I extracted my discussion of speculation based on structure out of this post for cohesion.  I hopefully make a separate post on it because I think I pretty much got the S14 finale figured out at this point.  As much as I love, LOVE and have written on the narrative lens, it is not how the show delivers its primary narrative, especially here in Dabb era.

Go through and rewatch S8-S10 of Castiel (or better yet, Dean/Cas) only scenes and really look at what the show is giving itself. Then look at the difference in S11-S14, paying close attention to the difference in S9 over S14.  For those immersed in the subtextual and mirror narratives with Destiel, this is an extremely good exercise, especially if you are someone who really believes or hopes the show will (eventually) convert the subtext into undeniable romantic text at any point (hint: Cas and Dean have to be physically together in scenes in a way that allows for escalation). Note that I don’t say canon here for a reason. Based on compounded narrative character mirrors (meaning mirrors repeated at least three times by various writers and can be deemed "significant" because they are witnessed by either Dean or Cas, though lbr usually Dean because we most often get these in the physical absence of Cas in an episode) and subtext (used to compare and explain Dean and Cas’ feelings towards one another), Destiel is already subtextually canon. Hell, without the mirrors, it’s this almost through romantic tropes alone.  Supernatural is way past something like Korrasami, that got declared canon through subtext, mirroring, and Word of Gay.  Destiel has honestly been way past this point for a long ass time, just like Dean being a canon drug user.

Both things are subtextually canon through different visual/dialogue/mirroring storytelling elements, but I'd consider each canon nonetheless, yet still easily ignored/misunderstood due to various degrees of disbelief or ignorance, usually based in a gap of the viewer’s understanding as informed by their own experiences and/or a lack of understanding concerning how television writing works differently from real life experiences of the same nature. The term "psuedocanon" is something I adopted back in S10 (I believe it was) to talk about the exact undeniable/deniable nature of Destiel within the split academic writing/viewing community.  There’s no right or wrong about something being subtextually canon and television writing accounts for this viewing disparity in every significant narrative. Read that, then read it again because it’s so often the core of so many fandom arguments to the point I wanna rip my hair out. Right now, Destiel is not a significant narrative in the show.  It’s not an obvious plotline.  It’s what we’d call a secondary plotline, yet one that often drives action (usually in the form of Dean and/or Cas moping around in various ways). You don’t really need text of either (not the nature of Dean and Cas’ relationship nor the true nature of Dean’s relationship to drugs) to watch and understand the show on the primary surface level, well... except lately when the show points out how Sam doesn’t understand certain things between Dean and Cas (13x03, 14x12) but even then the show seems content to let us be just as oblivious as Sam there.  

If I’m going to make a comparison here, the show is content with you selling you a car, but it is also content with you not completely understanding whether or not it has cruise control even as an option. The important thing is that you understand they are selling you a car.  Personally I really want and need cruise control, but it’s not a deal breaker for me like it could be for some.

Now, we don't have Word of Gay like Korrasami, but I think... I think a lot of people need to stop trying to prove themselves right about Destiel being subtextually canon through continuously, in a way that denotes hyperfocus, pointing out the new ways in which it is by discussing the show mostly (or even solely) through the narrative lens.  I honestly believe we, as a community, have written enough on it over the years.  It feels... exhaustive at this point. Meanwhile, the psychological lens is right there and, as I can attest, helps keep your analysis' merits grounded in a way that is more easily explained and personally examined.  The future of Destiel lies there. I don't think there are many of us out here writing on the nature of the Destiel narrative that are doing it because it's popular anymore.  If we are still writing on it and have been for a while, it's because we genuinely care and we find it fun.  That or we are frustrated.  For me, it’s a little of both.  When meta used to be written, back when queer reading and codings stayed in the subtext, there wasn't all this pressure being put on meta writers about possibly leading people on.  This post by @bakasara​ from back in the day perfectly sums up the situation we, as a community, keep finding ourselves in, only now the situation seems worse. Since these storylines never got text, the fact that they wouldn't was a given.  Now that the television landscape has changed, and Supernatural still remains, with one reading (Destiel) having a chance of going canon over the other (Wincest), the meta writing community of the show is in a particularly interesting place in fandom history where apparently meta writers can be blamed for somehow leading fans on in place of the narrative itself doing this.  

I used to think this was wholly rubbish, but when you have meta writers ascribing writer intent to a product that deals with hundreds of individual intents, some of which have nothing to do with the writing's main intent, in a way that denotes the meta writer somehow knows best, then we do have a genuine problem.  I feel like I’ve been here long enough and studied this fandom and this text to such a degree that I can say that. I don't personally know of any meta writer who does this, whether they are hyperfocused on viewing the show through the narrative lens or not.  Doesn’t matter. I've already said I don't read other meta writers anymore since meta writing as an art form of expression made for enjoyment has shifted beyond my tastes from writing academic essays on a reading into this kind of weird meta writing subset that either simply tags discussions (anyone’s opinion post) as "meta" or otherwise uses this weird analysis/speculation blend in a way that is not clearly separated and/or defined.  Just because I don't follow it, doesn't mean those voices aren't out there.  I think they probably are.  

And it's no secret that I personally lament what the meta writing community has become, even though it still imo has its essay gems.  There are simply a lot of people inexperienced in many things concerning the analysis of media and they are out there telling people that certain things matter that don't and that certain things are right that aren't.  These I have seen.  I remember back in S10 having to correct someone that thought the title of "Story Editor" meant that another writer could edit a script they didn't write.  Television writing isn't like a school yearbook staff.  I don't remember who they were.  But I do remember thinking, "Dear LORD, this person is talking like they know something when they have NO CLUE!  And what's worse, people are believing it!"  The “story editor” title is literally a pay grade distinction on Supernatural. I think most people would be shocked to know Supernatural doesn't even have a traditional writers room.  The writers get together a few times a year and that's IT.  There’s some collaborate efforts made among themselves but it's not like episode meetings among the whole staff are made.  They aren't. They have a certain piece to write and they write it. The writer's room is a dictatorship overall.

So to sum up... While yes, language and knowledge among certain meta writers is a problem, there's also a growing problem with how different readings are coming to depend too much on a single viewing lens. None of that invalidates any of the meta being written if it is what can actually be classified as meta. We need to stop associating discussion/speculation with meta across the board.  If we want people to stop speculating intent over possible future relationships using meta, then say that.  People won’t do it, but say it like this, I beg you. To this hope, I feel like I might as well be talking to a wall on this point. And like I said earlier, many voices have been lost.  And for that, there's really nothing we as a community can do at this point.  Those people are pissed, bitter, or have been driven away at this point. When I first joined the meta writing community in S8 we were very diverse, and now we simply are not.  And I wrote this not to sound like a policing or patronizing wake up call to anyone.  I fucking love meta writing.  It’s important.  I was asked what was happening in the meta community. Here I attempted to answer that in a general way. I tried very hard to talk about my own experiences writing meta, how I viewed it, how I saw the community on tumblr as it started and how I feel it has since irrevocably changed.  Meta is supposed to be fun, providing a certain point of view, nothing more.  By merit, it can't promise anything and shouldn't be confused with speculation.  In my next segment I'm going to discuss speculation, how writing is designed to create suspicion and not expectation.

Thanks for reading and a special shout out to @justanotheridijiton who had to view this meta in its raw unreadable form and who encouraged me to rewrite it and publish it despite my initial desire to write all this out for myself, then just delete it.

[streetsbound]

30 Days of Autism Acceptance- Day 2

I’m heartened to see the general well response that my first post had received. My topic for today is: What do I wish people knew about Autism? More than any other want, and at the heart of a lot of my own self-advocacy is this: Autism is a neurotype, not a disease or disorder. Sure, it is called autism spectrum disorder, I do think there is a lot of merit still in keeping that clinical definition just in terms of being realistic about it all- but I think fundamentally autism is just being different, not being afflicted with something. I am -essentially- autistic. It is not that I have this mental illness and there are struggles with that, it is that I am, at my very core, shaped my autism because it is how I perceive the world. It does not need to impair me, but it certainly does in many ways. I would say it is like that old joke: A man goes to the doctor, the doctor asks “what is the problem?” The man responds: “It hurts to move like this”. The doctor answers: “So don’t move like that. That will be $500 dollars.”

To be sure, no matter the acceptance of autism as a neurotype or the ways I am treated, it will alleviate the difficulties I have. I’ll always panic and grow anxious with making eye-contact. . . but. . . Why is that even a thing I need to do? If it causes me uneasiness, maybe I should just, not do it? That’s the core of it all. I’ve not been taught how to overcome my disability, I’ve been taught to be housebroken and convenient. I will have always been autistic, and so much of my problems have been from having to adjust myself to fit the world around me. I am autistic, but that doesn’t hold me back, it just means I work differently, I don’t need to be cured of being different- I just need to be able to be different.

I recall the two most important realizations in my progress to adulthood. The first was realizing how hurtful it was to myself and to others to be constantly wearing a mask of myself. It was too much of a strain, and I do regret the damage it caused me to do that. The second was much more recently, realizing that I was not broken- but that I was just different. I want to repeat that. I was not broken, I just did not fit in. That alone has kept me from so much harmful behavior to myself, and has let me work to stop holding myself back.  So- why is it important to stress autism as a neurotype? Because most people who are not autistic would struggle immensely in a society built around autistics. Let me flip the typical script on you.

“I absolutely do not envy the neurotypical! How horrible it has to be to not be autistic? What is it that drives you to want to learn if you don’t get that fantastic joy? Don’t you know how awful it is that you’re all so still? You poor people never fidget, never are able to soothe or self-stimulate through repetitive motions. It has to be so limiting to not know how amazing those good stims are. I’m so sorry that you have to go through life only being able to express your emotions with frowns and smiles and eyes- that you don’t get to feel your emotions just pouring out of you in tremendous extremes that make you -need- to be physical. And your communication problems! The non-autistic are so clumsy with communication, they’re so tied to words and yet they don’t even use them correctly because they are constantly reading more into them, or putting double meaning into words. They rely so much on nuance and subtlety that I don’t know how they manage expressing themselves so inauthentically. I do appreciate the puzzle it presents to play this game of communication, but don’t neurotypicals just wind up using others? How do you handle the blandness of not retreating into worlds inside yourself?”

I know already the common response: Sure it is great for -you- to say this, you’re not that autistic. You’re not entirely Nonverbal. You’re not high support. There’s a lot to unpack within this statement, but I think it would be best to ask how many have not just provided care or worked with those folks, but have actually connected with them? Have you taken time to see what they’re expressing? The internet is right here, they are currently writing and communicating and expressing. Heck, some have even written wonderful books (I would recommend the very cliché Ido Kedar for this). I certainly have interacted with those folk, and it’s strange to me. It’s as though, despite the prevalence of nonverbal body language and expressions and cues, allistic people don’t really grasp nonverbal modes of communication. But it’s something I’ve been able to interact with. Don’t touch them, don’t touch their things, don’t press them to speak or force eye contact. Just be with them on their own terms, be receptive to what they demonstrate or express. Let them be dependent, but in their own way. There’s a whole world of wonderful autistic “voices” in the world of the nonverbal or “severely autistic”, and there’s so much beauty to find- you just need to allow it to express itself!

The beauty of acceptance is recognizing difference, and being okay with that. Let us advocate for ourselves and the world will be so much better for what we bring to it.

[sweet-xoxo-thatcares]

Fuckin Shit Show

That fucking happy ass unicorn that I thought looked like Jay, fucking tricked me. Fucking Clown.

I thought that since she just asked and was still being nice, pleasant, and communicative with me about spending time together then it meant that there's no way she was just tryna use me and be manipulative....noooo

The fucking happy ass unicorn told me that she wouldn't get angry if I was to end things with her just because of distance.

The true culprit mark was when I said "Lies, we both would" assuming she cared about me and was attached like she said she was and I was too. I thought it was safe to attach to her because she was happy and was saying she already could see us moving in together.

Red Flag: this was day 4 of us just talking and I knew it had been a whole fucking year since I had any type of romantic attraction to somebody and I was put my cards in too deep, thinking she was really here for me. I got caught up. And that was my bad.

I assumed since she said she was autistic, had all this trauma she told me about, and was waiting on disability to approve her or not...I thought why not? But I tried to break it off by saying we could be just friends, because overall...I couldn't see myself marrying someone who didn't want kids, was really pushy about speeding up the courting phase so we could start dating ASAP Rocky (also red flag) and then another thing...I was dead sure I wasn't ready to come out to my parents and tell them that the person I was thinking about living with and dating within less than a year, was actually a transfemme who's suicidal, a former drug and alcohol rehab patient, has depression and anxiety, scoliosis, and had been assaulted multiple times, so they have ptsd and paranoia, and sometimes can not go to sleep at all because of what happened to them.

Its like I felt so bad for this girl, plus she had things that I haven't found in common with other people. Our love languages were similar, we both had anxiety, hyper sexuality, and separation anxiety from dealing with childhood trauma. She was also kicked out and had got into with her mom, which she has cut off connection with because she did allootttt of awful shit to her....wayyyy worse than my mom. There was sexual, mental, emotional, and physical abuse, she was an alcohol bully towards her to make her get drunk early, ran her over, she was absolute fucked up mother to have. Crazy psychopath.

She said she wouldn't tell anyone her trauma unless we were actually dating which was fine. But I guess me telling her what happened to me with my mom and me getting kicked out, reminded her of her mother. We both are bipolar and have bipolar moms. So it felt great but also sad that we had to go through those hardships just for us to bond.

And she was into buds, video games, and some of my sexual interests. Yea if she wasn't a manipulative, angst who wanted to basically get back to living in an apartment with any black girl they found on the internet who would agree to doing that....living with each other and dating each other within less than a week....

She probably would have fell in love all over again. Cause lets be real if I found out the woman I dated for a year, lived with and fell in love with passed and I'm 4 months later single, horny, and missing her...of course I would be desperate if I couldn't talk to my family like that and had to live with my grandparents.....Athena wanted out of her living situation and wanted to get back to what she had with somebody else she loved.

I told her my rule for myself is to not move in with somebody unless I'm serious about being with them long term and its been a year or more of dating. Like only if I could see myself marrying you, then yea we living together. Athena didn't like that.

But you gotta be smart with dating and I'm glad I put my foot down and didn't just do whatever she said just because she had been through so much shit and now couldn't even afford to live her own life.

Bad example of what I would want to live with though...she doesn't plan on learning how to drive like I am, she doesn't want to pursue a serious career at home, and she thinks that just paying for the food with her eat card would help handle the utilities and cable and internet and cellphone bills that I would probably have to pay for....since she's still waiting on Disability to approve her after they told her she gotta wait "six months" to start getting in money.

I think us both sexting each other cause we were really starting to feel each other on THE 2ND DAY must have really teased her about us waiting to have sex. Because she did say, I should be on birth control in case we do start having sex. I wanted to, too, but looking back it would have been more hot if we could have done it raw...so maybe thats why I agreed and actually scheduled a gynecologist appointment

AND WTFFF IVE BEEN SCARED TO GO THE OBGYN FOR YEARS AND SHE MADE ME FEEL LIKE I WAS DOING THIS TO SAVE OUR RELATIONSHIP, AND WE WEREN'T EVEN TOGETHER YET!!!

WTF. So my dumbass is still going, its scheduled in October, and no I don't want to go cause I don't like strangers fisting and discovery channeling my pussy like that unless I'm getting a gold medal or a lollipop after. Les just be honest...IM AFRAID I MIGHT CUM FROM EXCITEMENT AND NERVOUSNESS IF SHE HITS THE RIGHT SPOT AND THEN MY PUSSY IS GONNA GRIP THE DOC'S HAND,

I WONT BE ABLE TO LET GO BECAUSE MY PUSSY IS ALREADY TIGHT AND IM LEAKING EVERYWHERE

SORRRY but this is exactly why I don't want a guy doctor inside of me for a visit, but then again I gotta find a female I wouldn't be sexually attracted to, but nice looking enough to where she's friendly and gentle with me. Cause Im sensitive and I clench up down there when I get scared.

But yea, I called Athena a fake ass for that reason, cause after the rose colored glasses...and having me think she would really wait a year for me in order for us to move in, she definitely lied about that too. Cause she said yes and that she be willing to do anything to make it work long distance until we got to that point.

And as soon as I mentioned living together would be a step towards marriage, me possibly being bipolar just like her because I sometimes have anger issues, and then me saying I wish you lived closer...

Must have triggered her autism and her ptsd flags about her mom...

Idk, but yea I fell for it, but at the same time it was because she was too good to be true in comparison from the Jay I just ran away from...and its been a year....but it still feels like I just left 2-3 months ago. And that's so weird to me.

Athena. Scam. Mentally Psychotic. But aye, crazy attracts crazy...

[its8simplejulesblog]

It’s Crazy to Think That I’m Technically a Senior in College

I feel so ridiculously old and jaded, well, maybe not the jaded part, but my friends (that mind you, are only one or two years younger than me) frequently remind me of the old part. 

Today was a pretty hot day in quarantine. It was beautiful and I spent a lot of time outside and I took two showers for absolutely no reason. It may seem like being a senior in college and taking two showers have absolutely nothing in common, but they do, and I’ll get to that. 

Right before I started my freshman year of college I had the opportunity to go on a service trip to the Dominican Republic. This particular trip was technically a mission trip because we did bible related crafts with kids in multiple churches throughout Santo Domingo, but even if you just go on a general service trip there’s nothing quite like it. The reason why this trip meant so much to me was because it really represented a huge change in my life. It takes so much independence to transition from highschool to college and in a lot of ways you feel like you’re inherently on your own. Even thought I went with a group of amazing girls, I had never met them before previously, and I was also one of the few that spoke Spanish so yes, it was a little bit intimidating. But what a beautiful experience it was. 

So, where does the double shower thing come in? Let me start at the beginning. Me and a nun and 6 other girls take a 4 hour car ride to JFK and a 4 hour flight to the Dominican Republic. It’s 2 am by the time we get there, probably about 85 degrees, and we all hop on a bus that takes us on a 3 hour ride to this monastery type place that we’re staying in and let me tell you it is not nice at all haha. It’s also 5 am at this point and the sun is rising. Granted, we all got used to it, but we also got used to losing power ever day, taking showers by means of pouring well water on our heads, opening the bathroom door and seeing golf ball sized cockroaches, sleeping under mosquito nets, and waking up god awfully early in the morning (I swear God himself wasn’t even up yet). It was rough, but it was also the nicest place in town. The building was a place for missionaries to come because the town that we were in really was tiny, everyone knew each other. For that reason, when a foreign nun comes in with 7 teenage girls, the building was often surrounded by the kids that lived in the village. They were there so often that the building had to be gated so that they wouldn’t sneak in during the night. The nun was friends with a lot of the village elders and they would literally have to whistle from the front gate so that someone could go open it because there was no electricity and therefore no doorbell. It really sucked for me too, because I couldn’t, and still can’t, whistle (so I just had to scream). 

The purpose of the trip was to go to different churches, fix them up, practice our Spanish, do crafts with the kids, and teach them little bible stories and songs. But, it ended up being such an eye opening experience for us too. We were only there 11 days, but the people we met and the things we saw really stuck with me. Everyone was poor, everyone, but they still spent money they didn’t have on iphones and designer clothes. However, they were still the most generous people I think I’ve ever met. Everyone invited us over and gave us food and we would just wander the streets and we felt safe and welcome. We would attend church on sundays, give everyone hugs, and then the seven of us would hop in the bed of a truck and sister would drive us back to the monastery while everyone waved and said hello from the streets (the roads were never paved though so it really felt like off-roading and we would fly out of the truck sometimes, definitely wasn’t safe by definition, but definitely a sight to see). 

In the mornings, we went to the churches to see the kids. They would hugs us and laugh with us and we tried out best to communicate but really their smiles did that alone. By the end of the trip we had gone to at least 4 or 5 different churches, anywhere from 20 to 100 kids at each, and they were thankful every time. 

When we went “home” to the monastery, it was always an adventure. The Dominican is ridiculously hot all the time and without power, a lot of our fans broke. One night, the power and the water went off at the same time. We cooked and ate by candlelight, washed our other clothes in buckets and then went on the roof of the monastery and hung our clothes out there where we could see the whole city, then we went to a well to fill a barrel to get water to shower with, killing about 6 cockroaches in the process. That’s the kind of thing that sounds fake in the US, but that was what we experienced every night in the Dominican. 

When we weren’t at the churches, we were either with individual families, at the beach (which wasn’t often), or in the town community center. On family day, we were separated from sister, and put into groups of two to go spend time with one of the village families. It was terrifying. Not because the families weren’t nice, but because communication was an issue. Sister, besides the natives, was the only one of us fluent in spanish. I was a a distant second, but I had never been sent off alone before. The girl I was with was a gem too, but she clearly wanted me to do all of the talking. 

The family we were paired with was extraordinary. It was a mom and dad and their *I think* two daughters and a son. It’s hard for me to remember because it was three years ago and we ended up spending the day with all of the kids in their town anyway, so I kind of forget who was who. The whole day we played soccer with the kids in the village, met all of the family’s extended family, helped the mom make dinner in the kitchen and sang despacito with the kids (they were surprised we knew it but honestly I still don’t even know all of the spanish words, I’m a fraud I know) I was shocked that we were able to connect so well with the family based off of my spanish alone. It’s crazy how fast you can come to fall in love with and appreciate people you just met. 

The next day, we finally had a free day to go to the beach. It was STUNNING. I don’t even know what to say other than look at this. 

Sister had people cook us whole ass fish to eat that day. I remember just sitting there watching her eat fish eyes and thinking, “how did I get here” haha. 

Lastly, besides taking showers for granted at home, the biggest lesson I learned on this trip was compassion. On one of the days we went to the town community center. They were having a special event for the townspeople with mental illnesses. They played music and we played games and danced with them. Generally, the individuals were on the autism spectrum. It’s not to say that I had never encountered someone with autism before, but I can say that there had been situations where a person with autism reacted in a way that I never knew how to respond to, until that day. I was never uncomfortable around these people, and I recognized that I never should have been. There was a moment when one of the guys, who must have been around 24, was dancing with me and it was the most wholesome thing. You just have to be kind to everyone. It was so much fun. 

So why did I think of this trip today, given that it happened 3 years ago? Well, besides the fact that I never want to shower with bucket water again, it makes me think about how beautiful the world is. I know that earth day already passed (instagram wouldn’t let me forget it) but there is so much good around all of the time. Before, during, and after this pandemic. The girls I met on this trip are now some of my best friends and we talk about going back all the time. We felt like we were instantaneous friends of the people in the Dominican. They told us about their dreams and tried to teach us curse words in spanish it was the ultimate friendship. 

And, as I soon begin my last year of college, I think about how so many people here at home have made me feel the same sense of belonging. Everyone has the ability to brighten someone else’s life. In college, and when I’m eventually out of college, I don’t want to take any opportunity for granted. 

When we left the house of the family that we spent the day with, they gave us a wooden plaque. Carved on the plaque were the words “Dios te Bendiga” which means “God Bless You,” and let me tell you, I am blessed. 

Here are some more pictures. I added some videos as separate posts as well. 

A whole ass fish 

Love you guys 

-Julia 

[crisco-pig]

Thoughts at the close of business

I think I'm clever sometimes. I let my imagination convince me that I have an insight to share. But it is so rare that someone asks for advice that sometimes you find other options, or craft them. I did just this thing at a question and answer session with the 4 contestants for this weekend's Minnesota Leather Pride.

But first some history.  In 4th grade we wrote letters to our heros. Most kids were normal and choose Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky.  But I never liked sports and even then thought myself clever. I picked President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, it was the early days of the 1988 campaign and I watched the news.  I had sympathies for the enemy in the cold war, a prepubescent edge lord in a time before online. I internalized some counter revolutionary ideas and spent my high school years caught in the thrawl of Newt Gingrich and his insurgent Republicans before going to college, coming out and returning to my radical roots.  I was, am and will probably always be a Communist.

The intricacies of my ever evolving and unorthodox approach to Marxism aren't important, per se.  It is just to give context to this story. One day, when I was Minnesota Leather boy, in 2017, I set my Facebook profile picture to a picture of myself wearing my sash and, in what was the fashion of the day, an added frame that showed the world my feelings on some topic or issue.  But instead of a ribbon for AIDS awareness or breast cancer awareness or autism awareness it was a firetruck red hammer and sickle. It didn't take long for someone in the leather community to let me know they didn't appreciate me being visibly Communist and visibly a titleholder in our community. 

I did it to be a bit provocative, I won't deny that. I thought it could bring attention to two things I cared about, a few people might be upset but I was entitled.  But when someone did call me on it I wasn't defiant, I apologized and took the picture down. Inside I felt aggrieved, but when it went from a theoretical offended "someone" to an actually offended someone, I recognized that it was a wrong move and I changed course.  I recognized that it was a cheap shot to leverage this platform I had won to, in my own small way, represent and advocate for this community to then promote a message that most everyone saw as unrelated. I wasn't being asked to change my message or censor any opinion I held, I was simply asked by one person to not grab the microphone out of Taylor Swift's hand and yell "Communism!" And I realized I was simply being asked to be polite and recognize people might find it irksome. Furthermore, the picture wasn't advancing an argument or pleading my case, it was being a disruption.

In my perception, I expressed an unpopular opinion and it turned the community against me.  I was henceforth a suspect character who was tolerated by never truly embrace. Honestly that whole drama was probably in my mind. For all I know one person just happened to offhandedly mention it to fill a lull in conversation and no one else noticed and even this person didn't care with any gusto.  But it affected me and it changed my mind about what is beneficial, what is sharing my deepest beliefs and what is just putting rational discourse aside and making a statement; I realized I didn't want to provoke because then people stop listening.

But it stuck with me because it made me think a lot about how much of myself I'm willing to compromise to be part of a community.  I considered explicitly how much of my involvement with kink I was willing to hide from vanilla friends and family and how much was crucial that they know if they were to know and accept the genuine and full me.  A whole reevaluation of my relationship to any group whose label I, through choice or circumstance, was a constituent of. And I figured out my own boundaries of what I'm willing to compromise for social acceptance.

With all of that in my mind, I asked the four contestants, as of writing this titleholders, what they would do if they found themselves facing criticism for expressing an unpopular or controversial belief with the community.  I thought I was so clever and giving them a heads up to consider beforehand a situation that had led me to a lot of energy intensive soul searching and contemplation.

Almost as soon as I had asked it I overcame my delusion and admitted to myself that I, like so many question askers before me, asked a question because I wanted to be heard and not truly to spark new thoughts in those answering or the audience.  But what's done is done. And the answers I heard got me thinking all over again.

As I listened to their answers I was struck by a nearly universal assumption on their part; they all seemed to take for granted that if they expressed an unpopular opinion it was likely they were wrong.  That idea made sense. Both chronically and acutely the leather community has faced divisions around the place and position of transgender people. In our local community a consensus emerged early and strongly that trans men are men, trans women are women, non-binary people exist and all were welcome to compete for titles that match their self identity.  This put us at odds with a vocal and entrenched faction of the larger community that disagreed. Their policies and escalating rhetoric tried to discourage the change we were advancing. In that context it made sense that our community knew better than those other people in other places. And if I disagree with this community I must be the one who is wrong, who should listen and learn and be open to change.  If I disagree it means I might agree with the people I generally disagree with and that doesn't seem right.

This wasn't the answer the clever me wanted to hear.  I wanted to hear a full throated defense of freedom of conscience and speech.  I harbored hope that someone would say they would stick to their guns and challenge the community to accept them as they were, disagreements and all.  I wanted them to say that they had core convictions that they couldn't silence or hide come hell and high water! If anyone ever did begrudge me talking politics then my insightful question would make them reconsider.  Now, as far as I know, none of that happened. No one took particular notice of my question. If they did, they probably wouldn't relate it to the incident that was only significant to me and nearly two years out of date.  But since then I've been thinking again.

Throughout the rest of the day and night, through the contest I was judging and my drive home afterwards I have been turning all this around in my mind.  Arguing with myself, looking for new connections or insights. 

Here's where I've ended up. This isn't an answer or even something I'm ready to say I believe. From the start of the next paragraph to the end of this sort of essay, please remember this is a maybe, a perhaps.  It's an answer that seeks to spark more questions, in me and maybe in whatever audience it finds. But, again, I recognize the vanity of thinking I have the power to influence anyone.

Maybe both answers are crucial. Maybe being truly part of a community can be defined by this question, this construction.

You are part of a community when you share something precious in common, be it kinship or love, philosophy or real estate.  Communities coalesce around these shared ideas. If you find yourself in disagreement with your community, the responsible path begins with questioning yourself.  Why do you disagree? Have you made mistakes in logic or let your mind be clouded by biases or blind spots that could have inadvertently brought you to hold an idea that is truly incongruent with the concepts you hold dear and have bound you to this community?  Only you can answer this question, but if your honest self inquiry reassures you that you are right in the face of disagreement from those you see as your own, it is the best course to hold true to your ideals and trust that your bond to your community will allow them to accept you disagreements and all.  Or, if the rupture is insurmountable, you must trust that there is a place for your in another community where you will be accepted for your genuine and honest self.

There is a comfort in conformity and acceptance. There is a power and strength in defiance.  We each live life charting our own evolving course between these two shores, sometimes sacrificing one to secure the other, always balancing what we desire with what we're willing to risk losing to secure it.

And if, through timidity or complacency, we ever default to blindly following popular opinion or stubbornly insisting knee jerk on our own correctness, we not only fail to grow into the person we are always desirous of becoming, we do harm to our community by not trusting others to see beyond our differences.  Further, we deprive those we claim solidarity with the opportunity to know the true self we are as well as the chance to examine their own ideas and either join our dissent or find their existing agreement reinvigorated and stronger for the reminder of the shared beliefs.

Our communities construct us as much as we construct our communities and it is on each of us to continue that inner dialogue and remain vigilant.  Sometimes we'll fit in and sometimes we'll stand out, if we are where we are loved and we love then we are in community worthy of us and us of them.  

Disagreement and agreement, fluidity and solidity, deference and defiance all have a place in living communities and living communities survive into the future.

[shapesnnsizes]

RHR: Practical Steps for Healing the Gut—with Michael Ruscio

In this episode, we discuss:

Michael Ruscio’s new book: Healthy Gut, Healthy You

The importance of gut health

Improving the gut without relying on medical testing

The role of the gut as the second brain and technology addiction

Linking gut health to a good night’s sleep

The biggest mistakes people make when addressing gut health

Listening to your gut and consolidating all probiotics into a few categories

Show notes:

Michael Ruscio’s new book: Healthy Gut, Healthy You

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Hey, everybody, it's Chris Kresser. Welcome to another episode of Revolution Health Radio. This week, I'm very happy to welcome Dr. Michael Ruscio as my guest. He is a Functional Medicine practitioner, clinical researcher, and international lecturer. He's a leader in the movement to make integrative medicine and natural health solutions more accepted and accessible, and his practice is located up here in Northern California, right by me. Dr. Ruscio is a friend and a colleague. I've known him for several years and I've always appreciated his very balanced and sensible approach, which is a little unusual, I find sometimes, in this field. He has a really smart way of looking at the research and separating the wheat from the chaff, and, as I just mentioned, he's very passionate about making Functional Medicine and integrative medicine accessible and avoiding unnecessary and expensive lab testing, and just focusing on the basics. And I think it's very easy to overlook the importance of the basics despite how much we talk about them, especially when you dive into the Functional Medicine rabbit hole. So, I'm really looking forward to talking with Dr. Ruscio today. Let's dive in. 

Chris: Mike, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks for coming and joining us on the show.

Michael Ruscio: Absolutely. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Chris: So, we're gonna talk about the gut, one of my favorite topics, and I know yours.

Michael Ruscio: Yup. [chuckle]

Chris: We're both big fans of the quote from Hippocrates, "All disease begins in the gut." He knew that 2,500 years ago. We forgot, but it seems like we're starting to relearn that, even in mainstream conventional medicine, huh?

Michael Ruscio: Yeah. Absolutely. I'd agree. There's definitely a gut renaissance occurring, thankfully.

Michael Ruscio’s new book: Healthy Gut, Healthy You

Chris: So you have a new book about this topic, of course, Healthy Gut, Healthy You. And tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book. There's obviously a lot of info out there on the gut and gut health. What inspired you and motivated you to put this out there?

Michael Ruscio: Sure. Well, there's a number of things, but I think the few that are the most salient were, I wanted to write a book that would help people with the things that I saw all my patients grappling with. And this is kinda the A to Z companion, everything from your relationship with food, where I'm sure you see some people that are really making themselves sick out of becoming overly neurotic about their diet, and they're very confused about their diet. And some of that kinda pseudo-orthorexia, if you will, stems from the fact that there's so many conflicting opinions out there on diets that people flounder. All the way through, "Okay, I think I have SIBO, do I use probiotics? Do I not use probiotics? Do I use antimicrobial herbs? What if I used herbs, felt good for a while, then I relapsed, what do I do? Should I use a prokinetic? Should I not use a prokinetic? When can I reintroduce food?"

Michael Ruscio: So you have this litany of questions that people are really encumbered with, and I wanted to write a guide that would really hold someone's hand through a self-help protocol, a step-by-step to really help them improve their health. And part of that was because I was frustrated with some of the books that I saw out there that I think are all written with a good intent, but from my estimation, you got one book that was all about gluten free and another book all about probiotics, or another book all about how important it is to feed your gut bacteria. Which can all have a very positive impact on people, but they don't work for everyone because they're not giving you kind of the whole picture. So I really wanted to write a book that would walk someone through the process of healing our gut health that is all encompassing, that's intellectually honest, that's evidence-based, but not evidence-limited, and could really help someone walk away from the read feeling empowered and educated, and not feeling confused and kinda fear-mongered into avoidance. Those are a few of the things that come to mind. [chuckle]

All disease begins in the gut.” Hippocrates knew that 2,500 years ago, but we forgot. Dr. Michael Ruscio wants to get you back on track by helping you transform your health from the inside out with his new book: Healthy Gut, Healthy You

Chris: That's all super important and it's something that you and I have always connected on. And a reason I loved your approach is your evidence-based emphasis, but not being, as you said, evidence-limited. I love that term. And also your focus on practical application, which really makes a difference when it comes ... When the rubber meets the road, and you're working on the stuff either in your own life or with a practitioner. But let's step back a little bit. Most of the people who listen to my podcast are well aware of the connection between gut health and overall health and why gut health is so important. But let's assume maybe that we're talking, there's some newer listeners and they're not as familiar, why is the gut so important? Why should everybody be thinking about their gut health, and what have we learned about that over the past 20 years?

The importance of gut health

Michael Ruscio: It's a great question. And that's exactly part one of the book, which is entitled "The Importance of Your Gut," to kind of establish this premise. And I think one of the most important overarching concepts to connect is that you can have non-digestive symptoms that are driven by a digestive problem. And I actually learned that when I had my health challenges, now about 15 years ago, when my predominant symptoms were brain fog, very, very bad insomnia, fatigue, feeling cold, and also having mood dips. And I went from feeling really well to experiencing all these problems, and all the dietary and lifestyles boxes were ticked, meaning I was getting enough sleep, I loved what I was doing, I was exercising, I was eating a healthy diet.

Michael Ruscio: And so I learned a lot from that process in terms of I didn't have gas, bloating, diarrhea, some of the typical gastrointestinal symptoms, but I did have a diagnosed amoebic infection in my intestines that was driving all of these symptoms, and I was chasing down, I thought it was metal toxicity, I thought it was hypothyroid, I thought it was low testosterone, I thought it was adrenal fatigue. And I chased down all those different symptoms and conditions and corresponding treatments. And I saw flickers of improvement, but nothing really long-standing. And so kinda fast forward, we're now really coming to understand from a modern scientific evidence perspective, that yes, there is a gut–brain connection, there's a gut–skin connection, there's a gut–immune and autoimmune connection. There's a gut–metabolism connection.

Chris: And here's my newest one, the gut–eye connection. We're working on an article on the connection between the microbiome and ocular health. [chuckle]

Michael Ruscio: That makes ... Yeah.

Chris: It's getting kind of ridiculous. There's a gut–everything connection at this point.

Michael Ruscio: Right. Exactly. And so that's why my general posit has always been, once you've somewhat adequately, or taken the best step you can with your diet and lifestyle and tried to get those in halfway decent order, if you're still not feeling well, the next evaluation should be into your gut health. It's not to say it's a panacea, it's not to say it's a cure-all, but before you go looking into other things, I would recommend starting with the gut, optimizing your gut health, and then reevaluating, because as you're alluding to, there's a wide array of symptoms that may rectify after you've improved one's gut health.

Chris: I wanna pause here and kinda reiterate this because I think it's such an important point and it's very often missed. Maybe we can both share a couple of examples from our practice. So, imagine parents that are struggling with maybe a four- or five-year-old child who has a lot of behavioral issues. They've been diagnosed on the autism spectrum or with Asperger's or perhaps they have ADHD, it's a lot of the problems which unfortunately have become so common these days in our society. I mean, we all ... All of us who have kids or are around kids we know, maybe ourselves, we have kids who are dealing with these kinds of problems. I get so many of these kids in my practice, and very often the parents are not necessarily thinking about the gut. These kids may have gut symptoms, or they may not. But just in conversations with friends and family members who don't follow this stuff and who are more kinda part of the general population, if they start ... If the kid starts experiencing these symptoms, what's very often gonna happen is they'll get taken to a primary care provider, they might get referred to a psychiatrist or a specialist in these areas, and they'll be a prescribed medication, and nobody is thinking about or talking about the gut as a contributor.

Chris: And yet, if you look in the scientific literature, there is tons of evidence linking changes in gut health, everything from intestinal permeability, to dysbiosis, to microbial shifts and overgrowth, to SIBO, to these mental and behavioral and mood disorders, and yet that information really has not percolated down into standard primary care or in the general public.

Michael Ruscio: Yeah. I agree with you 100 percent. And it's something that I tried to be very diligent in referencing. Every point that I make that's not common sense in the book, I reference. And that's why there's just under a thousand references. And, you know, if I'm being fully candid here, sometimes people get into a muscle-flexing contest with references to see who can put the most references in the book. But the real key is, how relevant are those references? And so I pride myself in that fact that in the book, the vast majority of the references are clinical trials, or even better than clinical trials, systematic reviews, or even better yet still, meta-analyses. So this means all the data is either a study in humans to see what happens, or a study that's summarized all the available studies in humans to summarize what the available evidence in interventional trials in humans shows. It's much different than saying, "This happened to a group of rats," or, "We noticed this happened in the cell culture, or we noticed this observation." That type of evidence can oftentimes mislead. And that's where I think a lot of confusion comes from. And that's actually something else I talk about in the book, which is why levels of evidence are important, because you can be really misled.

Michael Ruscio: But back to your point about examples. And absolutely, with children, one of the things that I've seen is just simple interventions foundationally, like improving one's diet, getting them off of inflammatory foods and using something like a probiotic, can be vastly beneficial. Sometimes in children you'll see things like histamine intolerance, which unfortunately happens with some parents who go through the regulars of going on like a GAPS diet, which has a lot of fermented foods in it. But sometimes children especially are sensitive to these fermented foods. And we've seen some miraculous changes by reducing dietary histamine in combination with treating dysbiosis. And to your point about literature, there was one study recently, I believe the findings, I'm paraphrasing here, were essentially that there was a higher incidence of fungal overgrowths in children with autism.

Michael Ruscio: And so, we certainly see, yes, there is evidence here. There was another study that showed that patients with urticaria, or hives, had a high incidence of infections, mainly a protozoa known as Blastocystis hominis, and more importantly, after treating these infections or imbalances, there was an improvement in their urticaria, or their hives. In the book, I detail a patient case study where he came in with rheumatoid arthritis and was on pretty powerful anti-inflammatory drugs, and we found SIBO, even though he had no digestive symptoms, treated the SIBO, and he was able to come off of his ... I believe he was on Humira, a very strong medication. So, yes. You're absolutely right. I think we're in full agreement on this. The literature is littered with examples of this. And then clinicians are littered with their case studies that support this. So it's definitely an idea that I think the time has come.

Chris: Let's give some other examples, just because I think that helps people to bring this to life. It's easy to say, "Oh, the gut's connected to everything." But when it really affects people personally, I think that's when they really ... when they start to get it in a different way. Skin conditions are another very common example. We often, we'll see patients with psoriasis or eczema, and they might not have any gut symptoms. So they go to the dermatologist, the dermatologist gives them a steroid cream or something like that to put on their skin, it might help a little bit, but it doesn't go away or get better. We know that in people with celiac disease, especially silent celiac with no gut symptoms, about 50 percent of them have extra-intestinal skin manifestations like eczema, dermatitis. That's something that again, most people in general public and dermatologists, even, are not even thinking about. Now, what are some other examples from your practice of people who have had gut issues, that didn't ... maybe they didn't even have gut symptoms, but it was the gut that was driving that?

Michael Ruscio: Right. And again, that's such a key connection to make, which is you can have a gut problem that's not manifesting as gut symptoms but that is causing whatever external symptom, whether it be brain fog or skin issues or what have you. Two just come to mind. And a lot of these ... We've published patient conversations on our website where I sit down with someone and we talk through their cases. It's not like cramming a camera in someone's face, and saying, "Tell me how good you feel," [chuckle] testimonial. It's more so, "Let's talk through what you came in with and what we did, how you felt going through this." Because I do try to pull the curtain back into my clinic and let people see what some of these results look like in practical terms. There was one patient that came in, and I wasn't even really sure if I could help her because the presentation was so unique. She had this chronic condition of swelling and chapping of her lips. And that was the only symptom that she had, everything else looked fairly unremarkable. And I told her, "Well, we certainly know that the gut–skin connection does exist. I can't say I've just seen this before, but we could certainly do a work-up, see if we find anything out of whack, and perform some interventions to improve your gut health."

Michael Ruscio: And it turned out that she had some dysbiosis in her gut. I wanna say she also had a protozoa. I'm not sure what the exact pathogen or dysbiosis was. But she had an imbalance in the gut that's not very hard to treat. And a lot of this, again, is covered in the protocol in my book, so I don't want people to think they have to go through this elaborate testing to figure out exactly what they have. Foundationally, you can go through a number of steps to rectify imbalances, absent of lab testing. But since she was in my clinic, we had the ability to fairly easily run some lab testing, we found, again, I believe it was a protozoa. And I was shocked that a month later, her lip swelling completely went away. So something I wouldn't even have thought was connected was absolutely connected. And another patient, and we also published a case study on our website for this gal. She was doing really everything right. And actually, there's a friend of mine in town here who does similar work, and he said, "I'm gonna refer you this patient because she's too smart for me." [laughter] He said, "She knows more than I do, because she's very, very well educated." And she came in, she was doing everything right. She was in your Paleo, low-carb diet, exercising, getting adequate sleep, doing some supplementation, yet she was about 50 pounds overweight.

Michael Ruscio: And in her case, we found a fungal overgrowth that was resistant to treatment because it was likely protected by a biofilm, so we had to treat again with agents that break down this protective fence that certain bacteria and fungus can build around themselves to make them somewhat impenetrable to treatment. And the only thing we did was treat that problem in her gut. She lost, over the course of about six months, a little over that 50 pounds that she was wanting to lose. And she also was sleeping better. And so, this stuff is legitimate, and it's not a, "Here is the next weight loss panacea," because I think unfortunately, the gut–weight loss connection has been way overexploited for marketing purposes. But you can see some people definitely lose a notable amount of weight if they're overweight. And at the other end of the spectrum, some patients come in and they're losing weight and they don't know why. And that's because their gut is malabsorbing nutrients. And so ... Those are a few examples that come to mind.

Improving the gut without relying on medical testing

Chris: Yeah. And there's so many, we could go on and just talk all about that. But I wanna come back to something that you just hinted at because I think it's an important topic. There's no doubt that Functional Medicine testing for the gut can be extremely helpful, and even necessary, in some cases, but there's also no doubt that a lot can be done to improve and heal the gut. Without that, in some cases, we're relying too much on that testing. I know that this is something you are pretty passionate about. So let's talk a little bit about that.

Michael Ruscio: Yeah. [chuckle] Something I'm very passionate about. And it's for multifold reasons. One, I think that it doesn't help healthcare practitioners. I think too much testing and an overreliance on testing actually makes it harder for a practitioner to get results. And the short story behind that is, there are a fair number of tests that haven't been clinically validated, meaning the results have no real utility. And so when you're trying to treat a lab that doesn't have any clinical utility, you're adding a variable into the clinical process that's meaningless. And so you're adding another non-meaningful variable into an already variable-rich process, thus making it much harder to produce results. And microbiota assays, I think, are one of the best examples of this, where a patient may have, let's say they have bloating, abdominal pain, and loose stools.

Michael Ruscio: And they do a stool test and it shows that you're deficient in some of these good bacteria. And so the doctor ... And I see a case study like this at least once or twice a month. The doctor gives them fiber and prebiotics supplementation, and the person ends up getting more bloated, having looser stools. And what's happening underneath the surface there, is the lab company is trying to replicate something that's being done at a research center using a microbiota assay, where they essentially map all the bacteria in the gut. But what the lab is using and what the research center are using are two different methods of technology, although similar, and they're using them outside of the context that was used in that research paper. And so if you look at the clinical literature, and this is where the levels of evidence I was mentioning before come in and are very important, you see that oftentimes where people with digestive maladies, they need to undergo some type of bacterial and/or fungal reduction strategy, at least in the short term. And so rather than treating their “labs,” we may wanna look at the condition that the person has and the symptoms they present with, and treat those instead.

Michael Ruscio: So instead of giving them the fiber and the prebiotics, we may put them on a low-FODMAP diet that actually starves bacteria, and potentially, if that doesn't get all the result, you may perform a round of herbal medicines that can clean out bacterial and fungal overgrowths. And I had to say that, the better I get, the more experience I obtain in the clinic, the less testing that I do. And this is what I've also tried to incorporate into the book, which is, there is a whole lot you can do without needing lab tests. Especially if you perform an intervention and then reevaluate at the end of that intervention how you're feeling, and then you can kinda go one way or the other. And so what I've written is kind of a “choose your own adventure” guide, if you will, where there's not necessarily one path, but there's ... There's one main path, but there's divergent paths in there, depending on how someone responds.

Michael Ruscio: And at the risk of being long winded here, [chuckle] I think the most ... One of the fundamentals that's important here is the more symptomatic someone is, the more cautious they'll probably wanna be with strong bacterial feeding interventions right out of the gate. And the healthier someone is, the more likely they can undergo a bacterial feeding intervention like prebiotics and fiber right out of the gate and respond favorably. So I built this into the algorithm of the steps, so that a healthy person can do maybe three steps. An unhealthy person will do more steps because they're gonna have to first go through that bacterial reduction phase before going to the bacterial feeding phase.

The role of the gut as the second brain and technology addiction

Chris: Yeah, that's really important to understand. We hear the recommendations to eat four tablespoons of resistant starch a day. And I've had patients who unfortunately took that at face value, who had very compromised gut and ended up going to the hospital because they thought they were having appendicitis or something like that. [chuckle] It was essentially gas pain from the fermentation. This stuff really does need to be personalized, so I love that you do that in the book. Let's talk about ... something I've been really, over the last couple of years, has really come front and center for me and my awareness in working with gut issues is the role of the gut as the second brain or as essentially a big bundle of nerves. And there's much more serotonin in the gut than there is in the brain, there's a lot more melatonin, and it really is, either you could see it as an extension of our nervous system or even a second nervous system. And I found in a lot of cases, especially with patients who have done a lot of the right things in terms of addressing the microbiology, taking antimicrobials or taking probiotics and prebiotics and cleaning up their diet, and they're still experiencing gut issues. My experience and my belief in many of those situations is that it's actually a nervous system dysregulation that's driving the gut issues. So I know you covered this a little bit in your book. Just curious to hear your take.

Michael Ruscio: Yeah, it's another really fascinating area, and there's a lot to be said there. [chuckle] Where to begin? [chuckle] I think from looking at an overall kind of global autonomic tone, meaning are you sympathetic or parasympathetic? That's one very important aspect of trying to make sure that the enteric nervous system, the nervous system in your gut, is having the appropriate feed-ins for someone to be healthy. And so there are a number of things that we can do to improve that dysautonomia, if you would, that imbalance in your nervous system that trickles down into the inputs in your gut nervous system, specifically. And a couple of these are actually very simple, but they may be subtle changes for someone to make, but they may have profound implications. And one is understanding that modern data does show the more time you spend on the internet, the worse you will feel. And unfortunately, what's tending to happen, if you look at some of the observational data here, is people are spending more time on the internet and on social media, and that is causing them to spend less time in nature, and less time with friends and family.

Michael Ruscio: And so what can end up happening ... I'm sorry. So time with friends and family, social interaction, has been shown to have a direct correlation to overall subjective well-being. And time in nature has also been shown to reduce your overall chance of death and increase the sense of subjective well-being. There are certain Asian researchers, or in Asia, certain research groups that are looking at what's known as “forest bathing,” that essentially shows that if you can take a leisurely walk in the woods, there's something about that that is very health promoting. And there's another stroke here that's been published by a researcher named Shelley Taylor, who ... She has put forth the theory that men more so have a fight-or-flight response, but women more so have a tend-and-befriend response. Meaning that in times of stress, it's more important for women to have connection. And this may have to do with some of our evolutionary background, where in times of stress it was more ... men would more so have to go out and fight, hunt, what have you, and that was to some degree a little bit more isolating, and women would have more of a predilection toward coming together and tending and befriending, and part of this may be mediated by a hormone called oxytocin, which is potentiated by estrogen, so that may be a reason why we see a sex discrimination with this.

Michael Ruscio: So, it really boils down to a simple concept, which is if people are excessively researching on the internet how to improve their health at the expense of things like time and nature and connectedness, they could really be doing themselves a big disservice in terms of their healing. And there are other deeper things we could get into mechanistically, but I think that's one that's often overlooked, that is free and fairly easy to implement, but holds pretty sizable potential for people to improve from.

Linking gut health to a good night’s sleep

Chris: Absolutely. I think technology addiction is ... or not even addiction, just overuse, which in some cases is driven by work and other cases it is more of an addictive thing, is a huge part of this constellation of factors that contributes to nervous system dysregulation and can definitely affect the gut. And along those same lines, we have more than a third of Americans not getting enough sleep, and that of course torpedoes the nervous system. I think in terms of my own history with gut issues now that I have ... As many people know who are listening to this, I had multiple parasitic illnesses in my early 20s that evolved into a much more chronic problem. And at this point, I'm through the worst part of that, but my gut is still sensitive because of everything that I went through, not only the parasites, but the treatments that I had to do to get rid of them. And I think sleep at this point is the most noticeable trigger for me. If I don't sleep well, my gut is gonna be the way that I know that ... I mean, obviously you know in other ways, by just my gut the next day is not gonna function very well, so tell us a little about that. I know you've explored the connection between sleep and gut as well in the book.

Michael Ruscio: Yeah, so there's a really fascinating connection there, and I believe we both had an Entamoeba histolytica infection, so maybe somehow that changes you and makes you wanna go deeper into healthcare, but I wouldn't recommend self-inoculating if it's not an area you wanna get into. [chuckle]

Chris: There are easier ways.

Michael Ruscio: Yeah. [chuckle] What's fascinating about sleep is there's definitely this bidirectional relationship between sleep and the gut, and gut and sleep. And one of the most common things that I see that people, I think, don't expect to see when improving their gut health is their sleep improves. And so if people have a hard time falling asleep, or they're very wakeful, or they're always waking up an hour before their alarm goes off, or they need excessive amounts of sleep, which seems to be defined as chronically getting over or needing over nine hours of sleep, then it's very possible there's a problem in the gut that's causing that. And part of this may be due to melatonin, as you noted earlier, there are, many of these chemicals are made in the gut. Melatonin is one, and that is needed for sleep. So there's definitely this gut-to-sleep connection, and improving your gut health can improve your sleep. But then there's also this massive amount of research showing that if one is not getting adequate sleep or if they're chronically getting too much sleep, and again, the research suggests that at a minimum, six to seven hours, and a maximum nine hours.

Michael Ruscio: Consistently falling within that window is important, but if someone is constantly not getting enough sleep, then that is gonna be a huge deterrent to their health and to their healing also. The amount of data ... I think this is the one area that we have probably the most compelling data showing that, again, if you're chronically undersleeping or chronically oversleeping or having your sleep interfered with, that almost every measure that has been evaluated will worsen, meaning your chance of cardiovascular disease, your chance of dementia, your chance of all-cause mortality, meaning death from any cause, your chances of depression, literally every measure that has been studied, and usually we're looking at a systematic review with meta-analysis, so these studies are looking at a number of studies and summarizing the results—all conclude that if you're chronically getting or needing more than nine hours of sleep or unable to get a consistent six or seven hours of sleep, you are, in fact, increasing your chances of a number of diseases or morbidities.

Chris: So true. And of course, gut issues are one of the most ... one of the main ones because of how inexorably intertwined the gut is with the systems that are affected by sleep.

Michael Ruscio: Absolutely. And there's one other thing I just wanna sneak in there really quick before we leave this, which is ... and I take a small tangent in the book on this because for some people, it is very important, which is sometimes subtle female hormone imbalances will interfere with sleep. Now, most notably, if a woman is having hot flashes that wake her up, of course, that's one. But I have found that some women, they're waking up and maybe only feeling a little bit warm. And it's almost a subclinical hot flash, if you will. And many of the factors that we outlined in the book of simply improving one's gut health will improve these female hormone-mediated symptoms, but we also make a few recommendations for simple and safe herbal interventions that require no testing, that can help to balance out female hormones and can help with sleep. And not only sleep—there's some evidence to show that women with constipation, maybe because of progesterone receptors in the gut, can also improve their bowel regularity by using some gentle herbal medicines that help to coax the female hormones back into balance.

The biggest mistakes people make when addressing gut health

Chris: So what do you think the biggest mistakes are that people make when they're trying to address their gut health?

Michael Ruscio: Well, I think the most foundational is people don't listen to their own response, and they may go on a low-carb blog and hear all these success stories, and think they have to go low carb. Or they may go to a fiber enthusiast blog and become somewhat indoctrinated into thinking they have to eat a high-fiber, high-prebiotic diet. But they're not really listening to the fact that, "Geez! When I don't eat enough carbs, I feel tired." Or, "When I eat too much prebiotic-rich foods, I feel bloated. But I heard this PBS special with credentialed doctor so-and-so telling me how important feeding our gut bugs is." Which is true, but it's just not true for everyone. And so that, as you mentioned earlier, that personalization is left out and/or people are misled into not listening to their own bodies because they're rather listening to the expert opinion. So that's definitely one.

Michael Ruscio: And I think it dovetails in with another point that I really try to develop in the book, which is oftentimes, some of the standard party line, I guess, if you will, recommendations for gut health, are very centered around what happens in the colon, but they miss the small intestine. And the small intestine represents over 56 percent of your gastrointestinal tract, so it's the largest anatomical contributor to the intestinal tract. And that's where 90 percent of calories are absorbed, and it's the largest density of the immune cells in the entire body. And so I think some of the confusion stems from exciting research looking at what's happening in the colon with some of the stool testing. They’re doing research looking at the microbiota, the world of bacteria in the gut, and those stool tests predominantly assess the colon, or the large intestine. But if you're making all your decisions based upon maybe 20 to 30 percent of the gastrointestinal tract, the colon, and you're not looking at the recommendations for the small intestine, which comprises the majority of your gut, and the majority of your calorie absorption, and the majority of your gut immune system, then it's easy to be misled.

Chris: Yeah, and also, confusing in that the interventions in some cases that you would do to support the small intestine might be opposite to what you would do to support the large intestine.

Michael Ruscio: Exactly, exactly.

Chris: So there's a sequencing thing that needs to happen sometimes, in terms of when to address which part of the gut and in what order.

Michael Ruscio: Exactly, yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's one of the concepts I try to develop in the book to help throw people a lifeline, which is, "Are you confused about [chuckle] all these different recommendations that seem to be at odds with each other?" Well, it's because we have to contextualize these into a sequence of steps so that you're doing the right thing at the right time. And it brings up maybe another common mistake that I see people make, which is looking for the magic protocol, and people protocol-jumping. They go from one protocol to the next to the next, and they oftentimes, they don't get the result they're looking for because the magic, so to speak, is not in the protocol, it's really in the process. The right protocols used in the wrong process will lead to failure. But the right protocols used in the right process will lead to success. And that's what's often left out, is you get a snippet of this or a snippet of that, a protocol here, protocol there, but not how to sequence these and personalize these in the correct order. And that's another thing I try to really build into the action plan in the book.

Chris: Yeah, that's ... I would add impatience [chuckle] is also a common pitfall. And it's understandable. I've been there. Mike, you've been there.

Michael Ruscio: Oh, yeah.

Chris: We know what it's like to suffer from these conditions, and it's natural to wanna get better as quickly as possible, but the strategies that we're talking about are not overnight cures. And unfortunately, in conventional medicine, in many cases, it's conditioned us to expect immediate results from a sledgehammer-type approach of using medication. But in these cases, if you're talking about rebalancing an ecosystem that consists of trillions of microbes, that's not gonna happen overnight, right?

Michael Ruscio: Absolutely agree with you. And by the other side of the token, the other thing that I've seen that sometimes happens in more natural medicine-minded communities is people are told you have to be ... Oftentimes it happens with diet, you have to be on a given diet for months before you're gonna experience improvement. And we walk people through diets in the book, there's a few different times to evaluate, the average time someone has to be on a diet, according to the protocols I lay out, is two to three weeks. And it's not to say you're gonna experience all of your improvement in that two to three weeks, but after two to three weeks you should know, "Hey, I'm feeling better," or, "No, I feel exactly the same or even worse." And when you navigate the dietary protocols that way, you can get through the handful of diets that would be recommended fairly quickly, rather than saying, "Oh, the autoimmune protocol ... " Nothing against it, it's one of the protocols that I recommend people considering in the book, but you have to be on it for six months, because there's layers of healing and what have you, and I'm open to there being a time and a place for that, but usually what I find is, again, a few weeks to know if you're in the right ballpark, and if not, let's keep you moving forward so we can find what will actually work for you.

Chris: Yeah. I definitely agree with that diet. There are always exceptions, we're just laying out general guidelines, but it's certainly true, and I've seen people on ... kind of bludgeoning themselves to stay on a certain diet that's not working, for a long period of time, just getting worse and worse. And often if they go on to the sort of online communities that are centered around those diets, the feedback that they'll get is just do it more, harder, faster. [chuckle]

Michael Ruscio: Exactly. Yeah.

Chris: You're at 99 percent, but if you just got to 100 percent ... That's the other thing, is people assume that they need to follow something 100 percent in order to get any benefit at all, and I don't think that makes sense, physiologically. It's certainly true that being more rigorous will ... you need to reach a certain threshold to get a benefit, but I don't think that's 100 percent.

Michael Ruscio: Again, we're [chuckle] on the same page as we are for many things. And I think what happens is people actually ... I tell people, be ... shoot for about 80 percent because I expect there's gonna be a time or two when you have to deviate slightly, and that's okay. And I think to go from that 80-ish percent to 100 percent, the amount of negatives far outweighs the amount of positives you would get from going through the extra rigors to become 100 percent compliant compared to 80 percent compliant. That's a key, key point.

Chris: And it's not just in terms of quality of life, it's actual, physical symptoms, I mean we just talked about how stress can tank the gut. [chuckle]

Michael Ruscio: Right, exactly.

Chris: So it actually can backfire going from 80 to 100 percent, not only not improve you, it can make you worse.

Michael Ruscio: I completely agree.

Listening to your gut and consolidating all probiotics into a few categories

Chris: Yeah. Now of course, there are people out there who are listening to this who have experienced that benefit going stricter, but that's where listening to your body comes in, as you've mentioned, Mike, that's one of the first, probably the biggest mistake that most people make is not listening to their bodies. And again, it's easy to understand how that can happen, there's so much conflicting information out there, when your body is sending you a lots of different messages, it can be hard to tune in and know what's going on, but ultimately trusting your intuition and trusting your gut, so to speak, is a really important thing to learn how to do as part of the healing process.

Michael Ruscio: There's another area that people don't listen to their gut, and this is kind of exacerbated by confusion in the field, which is regarding probiotics. Gosh, there's probably hundreds or more probiotic products out there, but when you really look at the research literature, you can consolidate all probiotics into three to four categories. Some research papers suggest five categories, I think more practically three to four. And when you understand this, you don't have to try the hundreds of products, but rather say, "Let me try a probiotic from category one and see how I do, let me try a probiotic from category two and see how I do." And then when you do that, you cut through all this confusion of, "Oh, I heard about this one and someone told me about that one," and you'll keep trying the same product, just with a mild derivation of the same product ... I'm sorry, of a similar product in the same category forever, and it can be maddening, but again, if you understand that here are the categories ... And just briefly, the main categories in my opinion, but I think this is fairly well reflected in the research literature, is a Lactobacillus–Bifidobacterium species predominated blend, meaning you'll have multiple strains, but the majority of those will be different strains of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, category one.

Michael Ruscio: Category two would be a Saccharomyces boulardii probiotic, technically a healthy fungus. Category three would be predominantly E. coli Nissle 1917, and this is a healthy form of E. coli, which is actually one of the most common residents in the gut, so not all E. coli is bad. It's not something that there's a lot of applicability for in the US because it's not available in the US, and actually I should probably classify E. coli as category four, and then category three would be soil-based or spore-forming probiotics. And there's a few different formulas here, and there's some derivation and some detail there, but essentially this is predominantly Bacillus strains probiotics, and those are your three or four classes. And I would try each one of those, and sometimes people do not do well on any probiotics and that's okay. And so they shouldn't keep beating themselves over the head with a probiotic because they keep reading about how good they are. Try each category. If you respond, great. If you have a negative reaction, then move on to something else.

Chris: Fantastic. Mike, it's been such a pleasure. The book is Healthy Gut, Healthy You: The Personalized Plan to Transform Your Health from the Inside Out. Where can they go to get it, and where can they find out more about your work?

Michael Ruscio: They can get the book on Amazon. They can also learn more at HealthyGutHealthyYouBook.com, and if they wanted to learn more about me, my website is DrRuscio.com, which is D-R-R-U-S-C-I-O dot com.

Chris: Been a pleasure as always. Look forward to seeing you at Paleo f(x) for our annual meet-up.

Michael Ruscio: Yeah. We'll have another talk over some barbecue. Thanks, Chris. It was great being here.

Chris: All right, take care.

Michael Ruscio: You too.

The post RHR: Practical Steps for Healing the Gut—with Michael Ruscio appeared first on Chris Kresser.

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Kennedy Ryan shares a special post on the inspiration behind "Bruise," the original piece written for her latest release Grip. (Scroll to the end for the full poem & a signed paperback giveaway.) “Am I all of your fears, wrapped in black skin?” The cursor flashed a warning at the end of the line I’d just typed. Read on its own, the words seared the page, an incendiary challenge. A jagged line in the sand that could shove half my readers to one side, and half to the other. I needed to be careful. I wanted to be fearless. I had to be honest. The hero of Grip, my latest release, Marlon James (Grip to his fans), is a rising hip-hop star, but he’s more than that. He’s a lyricist and a poet. He’s a black man, concerned about black men vulnerable to cops who should be protecting them. He admires officers who run toward danger when most of us run away. He wonders what he can do to bridge the gap between the two. I took several risks writing Grip, confronting, in the context of a love story, prejudices that are often blatant, but sometimes remain hidden even from ourselves. No issue weighed heavier on my mind than that of black v. blue. In the story, Grip gets stopped DWB. Driving While Black, for those unfamiliar. Probably somewhere else in mainstream romance, readers have sat behind the wheel in a black hero’s perspective, glanced in the rearview mirror, seen those blue lights flashing, and wrestled with the fear, frustration and anger born from years of being stopped for no reason...but I haven’t read it. And as I wrote it, I remembered my own husband’s accounts of being stopped most of his life; of him and his friends lying on their stomachs on the ground while their cars were searched. I recalled the first-hand accounts I’d read of black and Hispanic men, even in the last few months in LA, Grip’s hometown, stopped and searched so much more than their counterparts. But I also thought of my friend’s husband, a good cop, a good man who faced down fear every day to protect people like me. Of her anxiety when tragedy strikes, when travesties happen. Incidents that I watch on television from the safety of my couch while her husband wades knee-deep into danger. I wanted to tell both sides of this story. I didn’t want to debate or persuade. I wanted readers to listen; to hear the other perspective. To consider. To understand. To empathize. These are the building blocks of resolution. Our country is more divided than we’ve been in a long time, and many of those divisions still, sadly still, fall along the lines of race. I don’t know how we resolve anything in this current climate. I don’t think we do unless we exchange perspectives; manage to communicate with one another in lower decibels, in reasonable thoughts, in something besides shouty caps on Facebook and Twitter. In Flow, the prequel to Grip, Bristol, the heroine says, “...before we say our words, they’re ammunition. After we’ve said them, they’re smoking bullets. There seems to be no middle ground and too little common ground for dialogue to be productive. We just tiptoe around things, afraid we’ll offend or look ignorant, be misunderstood. Honesty is a risk few are willing to take.” And yet it requires honesty, and giving each other grace to speak with candor and respect, even if sometimes ineloquently. It requires that we step into the other’s shoes. Usually, we are not all right or all wrong. We are more nuanced than that; the issues more complex than black and white. Or in this case, black and blue. This story models that, I hope. In my small corner of the world, with the only tools at my disposal, my pen and my voice, I hope I demonstrated that. I hope someone on one side of that jagged line in the sand understood the person across from them a little better after reading GRIP. This wasn’t about my personal outrage; my indignation as I watched black men gunned down this summer during traffic stops. It wasn’t about my horrified grief as I watched cops in Dallas ambushed, killed. It wasn’t just about either, and it was completely about both. One of my favorite communicators says sometimes we choose between making a point and making a difference. I really hope, in some small way, the words to “Bruise,” the original piece I co-wrote with a spoken word artist for this book, volley right past just making a point, and manage to make a small difference, even if the only difference is that one person chooses to listen and tries to understand. There are so many other things I could say; so many statistics I could cite to sway you to one side or the other. But instead, I’ll let “Bruise” speak for itself. And for those on both sides of that jagged line in the sand. For more on the role of race in Grip, check out Mara White's piece in The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/58b96fd5e4b0fa65b844b200 Signed paperbacks of GRIP & FLOW, the prequel, are up for grabs on Kennedy's Facebook page! ENTER HERE: https://www.facebook.com/KennedyRyanAuthor/photos/a.502447269864442.1073741828.438681796240990/1186068878168941/?type=3&theater “BRUISE” Copyright (c) Kennedy Ryan, 2017 Am I all of your fears, wrapped in black skin, Driving something foreign, windows with black tint Handcuffed on the side of the road, second home for black men Like we don’t have a home that we trying to get back to when PoPo pulls me over with no infractions, Under the speed limit, seat belt even fastened, Turned on Rosecrans when two cruisers collapsed in Barking orders, yeah, this that Cali harassment Guns drawn, neighbors looking from front lawns and windows I know cops got it hard, don’t wanna make a wife a widow But they act like I ain’t paying taxes, like your boy ain’t a citizen They think I’m riding filthy, like I’m guilty pleading innocence. They say it's ‘Protect & Serve’, but check my word Sunny skies, ghetto birds overhead stress your nerves, They say if you ain’t doin’ wrong, you got nothin’ to fear, But the people sayin’ that, they can’t be livin’ here . . . We all BRUISE, It’s that black and blue A dream deferred, Nightmare come true In another man’s shoes, Walk a mile or two Might learn a couple things I’m no different than you! You call for the good guys when you meet the bad men, I’m wearing a blue shield and I still feel the reactions When I patrol the block, I can sense dissatisfaction There’s distrust, resentment in every interaction, Whether the beat cop, lieutenant, sergeant or the captain We roll our sleeves up and we dig our hands in I joined the force in order to make a difference, Swore to uphold the law, protect men, women and children, These life and death situations, we make split-second decisions All for low pay, budget cutbacks and restrictions We’re ambushed in Dallas, now where’s all the chatter Gunned down in Baton Rouge, don’t blue lives need to matter? Not just a job—it's a calling, a vocation, My wife’s up late pacin’, for my safety—she’s praying, And yet you call me racist? You wanna trap me with your phone? I’m just a man with a badge trying my best to make it home. We all BRUISE, It’s that black and blue A dream deferred, Nightmare come true In another man’s shoes, Walk a mile or two Might learn a couple things I’m no different than you! Buy GRIP Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2lKfZVt Amazon Universal: myBook.to/GetAGrip Free in KU! Join the Discussion Group once you’re done: http://bit.ly/2m8xEqf Check out the TEESPRING Campaign: https://teespring.com/GetGripped Listen to the playlist on iTunes: http://apple.co/2lWI9ur Listen to the playlist on Spotify: http://bit.ly/2lWrHdS "The story reads like a movie . . powerful and intoxicating ... and sinfully sexy. GRIP has everything—dynamic characters, soulful plot, and a lesson at the end that will change the way you look at life. One of my favorite reads this year. Maybe ever. 5 massive, gripping stars from me!" -- Adriana Lock, USA Today Bestselling Author About GRIP: Resisting an irresistible force wears you down and turns you out. I know. I’ve been doing it for years. I may not have a musical gift of my own, but I’ve got a nose for talent and an eye for the extraordinary. And Marlon James – Grip to his fans – is nothing short of extraordinary. Years ago, we strung together a few magical nights, but I keep those memories in a locked drawer and I’ve thrown away the key. All that’s left is friendship and work. He’s on the verge of unimaginable fame, all his dreams poised to come true. I manage his career, but I can’t seem to manage my heart. It’s wild, reckless, disobedient. And it remembers all the things I want to forget. Download Flow, the prequel to GRIP, TOTALLY FREE! Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lAhSSC Read on WATTPAD: http://w.tt/2kUo8Yk About FLOW: In 8 years, Marlon James will be one of the brightest rising stars in the music industry. Bristol Gray will be his tough, no-nonsense manager. But when they first meet, she’s a college student finding her way in the world, and he’s an artist determined to make his way in it. From completely different worlds, all the things that should separate them only draw them closer. It’s a beautiful beginning, but where will the story end? FLOW is the prequel chronicling the week of magical days and nights that will haunt Grip & Bristol for years to come. Add STILL (Grip #2) to your TBR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34642932-still About the Author: Kennedy loves to write about herself in third person. She loves Diet Coke…though she’s always trying to quit. She adores her husband…who she’ll never quit. She loves her son, who is the most special boy on the planet. And she’s devoted to supporting and serving families living with Autism. And she writes love stories! Facebook: http://facebook.com/KennedyRyanAuthor Book Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/681604768593989/ Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kennedy-ryan Amazon: http://amzn.to/2jTjDuU Twitter: @Kennedyrwrites Instagram: @kennedyryan1 Goodreads: http://goodreads.com/author/show/7429243.Kennedy_Ryan Google +: http://plus.google.com/u/0/+KennedyRyanAuthor/posts Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kennedyryan/