#which is normal for trauma especially for adhd and autistic kids

[lilislegacy]

(This gets a little rant-y sorry!)

I just saw the post that somebody said about Annabeth and Percy dropping out of college and I totally see that.

Something that I see a lot, especially in fanfiction, is people forgetting that these 2 are neurodivergent and severely traumatized.

College is really hard. In general, for a neurotypical person, it would be difficult.

I'm writing this from an autistic, dyslexic, adhd, ptsd point of view. College is really fucking hard.

I've seen fics where people will talk about how they'll be taking 4-5 classes per semester. That's not really possible for them.

I have been taking one class a semester, and it is excruciating.

Granted, I do not go to New rome University, which is mainly demigods. So it might be tailored differently to how most demigods learn, but still, college is really difficult.

I could definitely see them trying college but taking it at a substantially lower pace than normal.

Like the original ask said, they might just drop out because it would be too much of a mental load.

Especially because of how soon the turnaround is from their severe trauma (tartarus) and them going to college. Even if they tried their best, they wouldn't do well. (This is also me speaking from experience. When I was going through stuff in high school, it made my gpa drop like a brick.)

I'm just tired of people acting like the only symptoms of their trauma is bad dreams and that their only symptoms of their adhd and dyslexia are "oh squirrel!" And not being able to read.

(Sorry for ranting. This is just kind of a sore subject for me. Especially recently, I have had to deal with some ableism from my professor, and I'm looking into transferring to a different college because of it)

thanks for the ask @invadericee!

i totally see where you’re coming from. college is really really hard on its own. being dyslexic, adhd, and traumatized does not help.

however, i really do not believe that they would drop out. the biggest reason being they are both so determined to get though it. and when those two are determined, nothing is stopping them.

you also have to remember that new rome university doesn’t just accommodate for kids like them. the university is made specially for people like them. most everyone there has adhd. most everyone there has dyslexia. and many of them have ptsd. and likely, the teachers and staff are demigods. so they are the same way, and therefore know how to teach in a way that actually works for them. also, new rome university is a very very small college, so the students would get a lot of one-on-one time with professors and counselors, etc. so i don’t believe their learning disabilities will hurt them very much there, because the entire system is built around them having those learning disabilties. you know?

but i completely agree with you that i don’t like how people downplay their trauma a lot. and rick riordan himself is the biggest suspect of this. in chalice of the gods, percy and annabeth are mainly just happy to be alive and having a good time, and percy only makes one passing remark about his mental state not being great. and i get why rick didn’t dive into it - he wanted the book to just be happy and silly and enjoyable. but still, i wish he would show how they’re coping a little bit more. in the bits i’ve seen of TSATS, sally mentions how percy and annabeth have horrible nightmares, which probably means percy wakes up screaming in the middle of the night. but like you said, ptsd isnt just nightmares. and adhd and dyslexia aren’t just cute little issues either. now, i will say, i don’t think their adhd is the same kind you and i have. theirs is more hyperactivity than anything. and while most people with adhd struggle with not being able to focus on one thing, i think with them it’s more that they are constantly focused on a million things (becasue that keeps them alive.) i don’t know why it matters, but i just felt like giving my thoughts on that lol.

i don’t even know what my point is anymore. basically i don’t think college will be as hard for them as you think, but i agree with you on everything else 😂

[shakertwelve]

the obvious defense of this point would be that Victoria is simply supposed to be Wrong About It, which I would love, except that the narrative very carefully bends to make sure that Victoria is Always Right, and ESPECIALLY Always Right about Cape Science

[ context: the quote we're talking about: “I guess it doesn’t make sense as a thing powers would do.  Powers tend to steer clear of the suicidal, the helpless, the invalid, or people who are limited.” ]

my best guess as to what wildbow meant, if he put any thought into this at all? this is ward's version of the scene in worm that goes out of its way to make clear that labyrinth is not autistic and had a "normal" mind before her trigger (and the similar clarification about bitch). wildbow didn't want to write about developmental disabilities, probably because he thought he didn't know enough about the subject not to mess up and get in trouble for writing something offensive, so his solution was to just state that no one in parahumans is meant as "representation" of that demographic and avoid the issue altogether. this at least makes some kind of sense, if you are wildbow.

the obvious issue here is that this quote doesn't just single out developmental disabilities, but is phrased broadly enough to apply to almost any kind of illness or disorder. worm presents superpowers as explicitly tied to a traumatic event and as a metaphor for the effects of trauma, and experiencing other forms of illness and distress make someone much more likely to process an event as a trauma, so logically, mentally ill and disabled people should be overrepresented in the parahuman population (feeling "helpless" or distressed enough to be suicidal are common elements to many parahuman triggers), and the ways capes tend to act in the text of both books consistently reflect this. the only other explanation i can think of is that we're using an extremely restrictive definition of mental disorders (i.e. we're being the guy who thinks adhd isn't a real neurotype, so imp and kid win don't count, and low-empathy is just code for being a bad person, so cradle doesn't count, and so on...), and even that doesn't explain why we're claiming physically disabled people also can't get powers, when wildbow has written about it happening plenty of times (thank you @john-cherry-the-6th for bringing up this wog about triggers in suicidal people that includes the trigger event of a coma patient). also, we've seen that powers can cure illnesses as part of the trigger (see: vikare, famously the first hero ever, whose powers manifesting cured his cancer) if they really need to (they don't even do it all the time if the host isn't dying and can still fight with the power, like genesis), so why would they care if a prospective host is disabled? but whatever--let's disregard all evidence to the contrary and assume that all capes were 100% Mentally Normal (a very objective standard) before their triggers, so their erratic behavior after triggering must be purely the influence of their superpowers.

of course, now we have to go back to the first part of the quote. victoria claims that she doesn't think it's likely that finale's powers would affect her mental development after she manifested them, because powers want their hosts to be able and ready for action. so that can't be why capes like labyrinth and bitch exist, either; powers avoid choosing "limited" people as hosts and they also don't want to make their hosts limited, therefore all parahumans must be healthy because shards want healthy hosts. except there's absolutely no way any scientific study of parahumans in this world would come to this conclusion! scores of therapists run themselves ragged dealing with the various complexes of just the heroic capes, and capes on the "villainous" side are understood to be, on average, even more unstable! victoria has been working with jessica yamada, who definitely knows this, for ages! what the fuck is she talking about!

CONCLUSION: ??? wildbow got confused while writing about his own setting's alien brain parasites and started describing yeerks instead

[rayssyscourse]

if you want a syscourse topic, i personally was thinking about the mental age thing.

it kinda gives me whiplash tbh as an autistic person with DID. mental age is considered pretty ableist in the context of autism, but is considered perfectly fine and normal in a DID context. at least, community wise.

Oooh this is really interesting.

I'll preface this by saying I am not autistic, so I won't speak on autistic experiences. I have several neurodivergencies, but just be aware that when I talk about that, I am not speaking for autistic people.

So, I think the entire concept of "mental age" is kinda nonsensical. No matter how you have developed, your brain is only as old as you are. Young kids can be forced to act more maturely than they should, and adults can act more immaturely than they should, but either way, your brain has the experience of however many years you've lived.

Alter age, however, is a little different, and I think people shouldn't use "mental age" in place of it. Again, your brain can only be one age, but due to different circumstances the brain can split into alters that behave more accordingly to a different age.

So, for example, Grey (a co-host in our system) is 18 in headspace, and when fronting he behaves like an 18 year old, but neurologically he is only as old as the body (16). So he only has 16 years of neurological development and experience, but he is able to, at least to an extent, emulate the behavior of somebody older than the body actually is. He formed because the situation we were in was seen by our brain as something that I could not handle, and felt it needed a more mature and capable figure in order to cope. Thus formed Grey, who was able to emulate the behavior of someone a couple years older than me. He acts older, and in most senses is older, but neurologically he still only has the development and experiences of the body's age. (I'm only speaking on trauma-formed alters because we're traumagenic btw, I don't know how it works for non-traumagenics and that's probably a whole other convo anyways, lol.)

The thing is, I totally see what you're saying with the term mental age being ableist thing. This is purely anecdotal, but I saw this from the outside. My younger brother has autism, and for a long time as a kid I was told that that meant he was "mentally younger" than other kids his age. That didn't make any sense scientifically, but even more importantly it just wasn't true. He is still as intelligent and capable as kids his age, he just processes and expresses those things differently. To say an autistic person is "mentally younger" implies that they have on a fundamental level a lesser ability to think and process things, which makes it seem like they shouldn't be listened to or that their experiences are less valid in some way.

Plus, acting in a way traditionally seen as "immature" does not always equate to impaired thought processes. This is also anecdotal, but I have ADHD, and when I was a young undiagnosed kid, I would often get overwhelmed by tasks or sensory experiences that I did not know how to handle. This would manifest in outbursts, even beyond the years that it was age-appropriate. This didn't mean that I was less capable of processing the emotions I was having, or that I was not able to think as critically about them as others my age, because I absolutely was. I just processed them in a different way that my peers. (That's not to say that outbursts are a good coping mechanism, lol. That's just how my child brain decided to express what it was experiencing.)

All that to say, alter age and mental age are two diff things, and I don't think mental age should be used at all, especially when it's being used to mean alter age. Mental age implies that somebody has the development and experiences of a differently aged brain, whereas alter age helps to more specifically speak about the age a specific alter emulates or behaves as. Plus this also kinds goes into system responsibility/accountability, where to an extent alter age can affect their behaviors and responsibility for said behaviors, but that should not excuse unexcusable behaviors based on neurological age.

Sorry for how long this got lol. I ended up having a lot more thoughts than originally planned :) thank you for the ask!! <3

[starvingraccon]

WHY, WHY MUST YOU CALL MY NAME KNOWING THERE WILL BE NO ANSWER.

The fact that I just had a conversation with my mother for about 30 mins and she’s already so pissed at me she wants to send me back to foster care. Here’s what happened. Am I in the wrong here?

So I have been on a fast for 45 ish hours and I want to go to 70-80 hours, I haven’t slept all night because melatonin doesn’t work on me and my normal sleep meds aren’t helping atm. So yesterday me my mother and sister got into an argument about how my mother is. She is a bipolar, crazy woman who doesn’t know how to take care of her kids. She has 4 all from different daddy’s, all of them suck and the one that didn’t got deported. She gave 2 up when they were only months old. That was me and my younger brother. I’m 16, he’s 14. I was in foster care from the ages of 14-16 because the person she gave me to (my bio dad) was a really shitty person, recently got put back in her care after about a year ago she had me but I got taken out bc she gave me drugs.

I got kicked out of my last foster placement and was denied by 99/99 people in my state, the only option was my mother, I did not want to go. I ended up in a mental hospital for a week because I threatened myself and other if I went back. I fought I really did but here I am.

So now that’s caught up, here’s what happened.

So I go into her room this morning wanting to apologize for last night’s argument. However I end up telling her that the reason why it happened was because I’m really not doing well mentally. She continued to press and I ended up telling her that I was absolutely miserable living with her. To the point it genuinely makes me want to kms. She starts telling me about how everything would be better if I was involved more with the family, and helping out more. (I’d like to point out when I first got here I was the ONLY one to do chores, THE ONLY one to make a connection, I played cards with her every night and let her talk absolutely shit about my 12 year old sister and any of her other problems) I told her I in fact absolutely despise every living human in this universe and think they should all die. She simply told me that she also feels like this, I told her that no, I can tell by the way she acts that I am way worse in this case then she is. I tell her the brutal truth that I hate her my step dad my brother, and yes everyone else.

I start telling her about how I just am masking my true feelings for the betterment of the environment, however that will soon run out. Especially when she continues to push and push. She will tell our older brother who is severely autistic and adhd to come wake me up by slamming the door open, flipping the lights on and screaming at me to get up. I have severe trauma. I’d literally get beat awake when I was younger 😭😭 how u think ima react not good.

She basically says that I need to go to therapy more…..IM IN THERAPY 2 TIMES A WEEK. We continue talking and she’s asking me a bunch of questions, I answered them honestly. Which sounds something like this. “Hey you child I gave birth to but didn’t want. I want you know and you have to love me.” “Ah hell nah yo ass tweakin dawg-“ I eventually tell her I am simply a product of what the world raised me to be. She has a problem with this of course telling me it’s not the worlds fault, it’s your dads fault, it’s the justice system’s fault. NO BITCH IT IS THE WORLD! THE WORLD SUCKS I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT

She apparently get mad at this and tells me that she can’t do anything to help me because I’m unhelpable. I tell her that yes I am, that she’s finally seeing what I’ve been saying for years. She sarcastically asks me how I would want to live then. I told her in complete solitude. I started to think about this more and I came up with an idea. I told my mother I hade a compromise. Basically if she would just LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE ☺️, I would start pulling my weight plus everyone else’s just to show her it’s not that hard. She at first said no, but after awhile she agreeed. Seemingly, we were fine, I was simply just a roommate, not her daughter, not her sister, not his brother, and not his step daughter. I was nothing to them. However about 2 hours ago I’m cleaning the dining room it’s right by the master bedroom. My mom, my step dad and my brother all were in the room talking SHIT about me. Like I’m talking absolute rubbish about me. Saying how I’m fucking insane and that I just need to go away and all this shit.

I don’t see what I did wrong, I’m actually very happy that she’s not gunna talk to me anymore. SOOO WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER 🙏🙏🙏

[aronarchy]

lots of talk about how i.e. autism/adhd a lot of ppl measure their effects wrt what society does to us bc ableism & trauma, so often sociogenic effects are attributed to inherent features of the neurotype itself, but actually this is wrong and these particular experiences of suffering are not inherent to autism/adhd & they’re not just things u have to accept bc you can’t do anything about them (without going for parts of the autism/adhd itself); trauma intervention helps, for example, tho it’s been so normalized to see autistic/adhd ppl suffering in preventable ways that are actually the fault of trauma, but blaming it on us/our neurotypes

i was thinking a bit more of other ways-of-being-which-are-not-inherently-distressing-to-u-but-which-they-still-blame-u-for-suffering-from-when-they-oppress-u & i had a flashback to some of the (numerous) times in the past where ageists gaslit me & tried to argue that i was Just Making Things Up / Just Exaggerating / Reading Too Much Into Things when i reported experiencing certain types/levels of distress bc All Teenagers Are Just Like That (and the especially popular cultural refrain “teenage moodiness bc puberty,” “hormones”)

& also thinking abt how so much discourses have naturalized children’s & teenager’s suffering from things in general, dismissing or downright mocking common caricatures like “kid is upset bc homework which is completely normal so just brush that aside” and i was thinking--the above framework would apply rly well for rigorous analysis of all pathologization of childhood/adolescence/youth; this area is almost the no. 1 where sociogenic effects are brushed aside as Obviously Just Inevitable Results Of That [biological state], and I think I might be willing to argue that most or all of what’s popularly reported as ~just teenageness things~ (i.e. “depression,” “moodiness,” “angst”) are actually the effects of trauma and/or ongoing oppression. (and when they are not, if the effects are what u would consider biologically originated mental illness in an adult then that should apply here too.) (also counting things like “neglect → was deprived of chance to learn about things like how to cope with encountering x y z or how to do [important skill] → starts struggling even tho not experiencing abuse” under “wrongs done by society which cause this”)

additionally: it shouldn’t matter anyway whether or not it’s “just puberty” biochemically causing sad feels in all teenagers regardless of social situation across the board, because suffering is bad, and just because it’s your Biology causing your suffering doesn’t mean you’re obligated to sit thru it either. if it was truly biological changes inevitably significantly causing the problem then that should prompt scientists to work on physical accommodations/solutions, treating it like a medical issue.

[inamindfarfaraway]

And instead of Vanellope’s terrible arc where she abandons everyone she knows and loves to go Turbo, endangering two games full of people, she could have an arc about learning how to be a confident, responsible leader and happy, healthy, normal kid after living in isolation and persecution for so long. Ruling a society, being loved and respected by the other racers, having strong bonds of friendship and found family outside her game, regularly getting chosen by players… even with her memories back, it’s a lot to adjust to. A lot of pressure. She’s used to thinking of herself as a problem, a mistake, a danger. But now suddenly everyone sees the best in her. Surely everyone wants the best from her. They expect it, surely. No matter where she goes, she can’t stop being important. I can definitely see her struggling with insecurity, anxiety and imposter syndrome as she tries to turn her entire sense of self on its head after fifteen traumatic years. What if she messes up? What if she turns into a bad ruler like King Candy? What if some new villain or disasters takes everything away again? It’s happened before! You never know! She’s most players’ favourite character; what if she loses control of her glitch in front of them (I’d love to see it portrayed as a both positive and negative in different circumstances, like many autistic and ADHD traits, to continue its disability allegory in the first movie) and destroys her world? What if he was right and she is just the Glitch?

Ralph has his own thematically connected stuff going on about exploring his new identity as a good, happy, loved Bad Guy/Hero, but while Vanellope is already slipping at the start, he’s totally happy with his life before the plot happens. Maybe he has confront to deeper moral ambiguity, figure out what kind of Hero he wants to be and how okay he is with sacrificing things besides himself. Like, what if he has to make a choice that mirrors breaking the kart (ideally regarding Felix or a new character to differentiate it) that’s actually justified by the definite stakes? It feels equally wrong and does tangible harm, but is that excusable when it saves everyone? What is ‘the greater good’ in a universe greater and more complex than the arcade? The “Being a hero means doing the right thing, no matter what” idea is potent - and considering who brought it up, it would be another way to make Turbo haunt the narrative. Ralph having a more philosophically driven arc would pair nicely with Vanellope’s more emotionally driven one.

Anyway, he’s apprehensive about the internet, but she views it as an escape. Especially after they collide with the external internet plot of people researching the King Candy mystery and the Sugar Rush in Litwak’s Arcade, which massively triggers Vanellope’s buried issues. Firstly, she has to look at images of man who ruined her life, abused her and tried to kill her. Secondly, you know what else is abnormal in her specific cabinet? President Vanellope Von Schweetz. Her kart. Her outfit. Her dialogue. Her ‘power’. What if these stupid humans mess with her game trying to find answers? What if Litwak decides to reboot it? Maybe Sugar Rush is better off without her after all. The internet, aka the mortified ordeal of being perceived, does not help her handle this stress well. (Something something strangers on the internet feeling entitled to have an opinion on you, violating your privacy and taking your reputation wildly out of your control something something internet discourse rashly assigning morality to people based on superficial interpretations that deny the nuances of reality something something filter all the first movie’s concepts of heroism, villainy and performance through those themes. Works for Ralph’s ‘Okay, but how do you stay a hero?’ arc too). We get messy trauma response representation! We get people on the internet being realistically unfair and judgemental about that! We teach children that although the internet can be a wonderland of freedom, self-expression and meaningful relationships, it’s also a minefield of toxicity that could harm their mental health incredibly easily if they dive into it without guidance or protection!

So Vanellope is the one who risks going Turbo this time. Her wanting to stay in another game is explicitly self-destructive and bad. Maybe she eventually realizes that Slaughter Race appeals to her because its dark, gritty tone; dirty, messy aesthetic; and abundance of danger and crime subconsciously remind her of being a homeless fugitive relying on herself. And whether pleasant or not, the familiar is comfortable. Tracking the video game investigation could lead her to other glitches and modified characters, giving her a community like Ralph’s Bad Guys Anonymous. That’s the upside of the internet: you’re not alone. Another plot point could be her using wifi to travel to a regular Sugar Rush console and meeting who she would be if not for Turbo… and Ralph. Imagine that conversation. It could help her make peace with her differences and internalize that she deserves to be happy and does belong in her game. Her father figure Ralph anchors her the most, of course. Though Calhoun can talk her through living with trauma and how it’s worth it, despite the discomfort, to allow yourself to heal and move on. In the end Vanellope comes home and embraces her arcade life. But she keeps in touch with her online support system and sometimes visits certain areas of the internet with varying degrees of adult supervision.

Smth I’ve thought about ever since I first saw wreck it ralph is that in universe king candy is basically an irl creepypasta. Like he’s a racer that only exists in this one specific sugar rush cabinet, every other version off the game has princess vanellope. Literally no one knows he exists except for ppl who went to this one small arcade in the United States. And if the code for sugar rush has been dumped there is no trace of king candy bc he only exists in this one cabinet. I bet there’s ppl who traveled cross country just to see if king candy actually exists.

And then after the movie king candy disappears from the roster forever and is replaced by vanellope but she’s different than every other vanellope, different outfit different personality different kart different voice lines etc

It’s literally that one arcade cabinet creepypasta discussions and YouTube videos about it in universe must be crazy.

[dangerous-disposition]

jfc somehow the pandemic has been happening and i HAVEN’T seen any ecofascist posts in the community facebook groups i’m in OR on my neighbourhood’s Nextdoor but then i see this shit

at least the only comment with reactions is one calling them out on how DAMAGING this is lmao

[raevenlywrites]

Okay, so. The point I wanted to make earlier was something like this:

TL;DR: Not knowing that hyperfixations were a thing hurt me, and cost me not only enjoyment of a thing, but more serious social and emotional growth potential. More kids need access to a broader range of what Normal is, and Normal needs to be opened up and expanded to include things that are perfectly harmless because the harm of excluding those things is immeasurable.

(Did I just put a tldr at the START of my post? why yes I did. why? because i’m about to drop this entire damned ESSAY under a read more because it’s dash destroying (think of it as an abstract on a scientific paper) ... (no, it is nothing like an abstract on a scientific paper. wtf did I say that) ... (anyways))

(Can you tell its an ADHD night? are there enough parenthetical asides in this yet?)

...

(no)

.

ANYWAYS

When I was a teen, I read a book called In The Forests Of The Night. I’m sure you’ve heard me mention it before, but believe it or not, it was only TONIGHT that it occurred to me that this book and its fellows is my hyperfixation. Because, for the first TWO THIRDS OF MY LIFE, I didn’t know to think of myself as someone with hyperfixations. Hell, I didn’t even know what a hyperfixation was. I am one of the countless adults who has self diagnosed as ADHD or autistic or SOMETHING, and this is the story of how not having a diagnosis growing up hurt me.

So. I read this book. My now-wife-then-unbeknownst-crush gave it to me as part of our ignorant teen courtship. You’ll like this, she said, trying to share an interest with me in order to bond. Thank you, I said, not knowing I wanted to smooch her face. Unimportant, but I like reminding myself when I look at back my teen years how queer I already was without knowing. And this story is mostly for my benefit of getting it off my chest, so smoochy thoughts included.

So I read this book. It’s short, 200 pages or so, and if I’m honest with myself as an informed adult, nothing spectacular. It’s not bad, but its not ground breaking. None of the books are. But they broke new ground in Me, and what grew out of them has literally shaped the course of my entire personality.

Raev, I hear you say, it’s not great to base your entire personality on a bit of pop culture.

Shut up, I said, I’m telling this story and anyways insert-edgy-media-here dudebros have been doing it forever. Anyways.

So I read this book. I read it again, and again. I read all the books that went with it, but I stayed especially hung up on Forests. Why? Partially because it was the first one I read. Partially because the MC and I share a name, and therefore in my little teen head a connection. It was the first time “Rachel” felt like an identity, instead of just an identifier, and one that way too many of my classmates shared. Rachel was a badass, stifled by her Christian upbringing and the expectations of the day on women. I was a badass, stifled by my Christian upbringing and the expectations of the day on women. Rachel became a vampire, spiteful and spitfire the entire way. She did it on her own terms (so my teen reading of the text went), spurning every attempt of her kind to show her the ways of the vampire. She had a nemesis, a clear, concrete reason for her pain, and took charge of that pain and overcame it to be a complete and utter badass by the end of the book (again, so my teen reading went. Part of the problem here was my teenness. Part of it was my neurodivergence, which I will get to (you didn’t think this would be a SHORT story, did you? I warned you I have ADHD and that this was my hyperfixation; how did you think this was gonna go?))

So I identified heavily with the protag, and with its shocking author. This lifechanging book was written by a teen, like me! Holy cats, I said to myself, why, if she can do it, so can I! I had just started writing my own first novel (a shameless retelling of Star Wars, hyperfixation of my grade school years), and immediately trashed it to write my own vampire thing. Because vampires were clearly IT and I was gonna be a cool badass author hero, just like the MC of the second book.

Then the shapeshifter books came out, and so did I.

It’s really unrelated, but that was a fun transition, and as previously stated, author-type. Anyways.

So I came out to my girlcrush, angsted about that a lot, and continued to gobble up the books. Did you know there’s a website, she said. There’s like a whole fan community and everything.

Now, part of the problem here was being part of the first generation on the internet. It was relatively new, and so stranger danger and not being entirely comfortable on the internet and all that had its part to play. But this is also where the hyperfixation finally comes into play.

I liked Nyeusigrube A LOT. A lot a lot. So much so that I made my own conlang, my own mythos, my own entire story universe patterned after this one but not exactly this one. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me to self-insert, just to shamelessly copy. That one I can’t explain, but this one I can now understand through the lens of an adult.

Nyeusigrube was my especially special interest, and I had no idea that was a normal, healthy thing.

So tangled up in all this was my raised-too-conservative freak out about being Not Straight. I had finally figured out I liked girlfriend, if not that I was incredibly bisexual yet, and that was a Big Deal. Super cool author I hero-worshiped was one of those “Do I want to BE her or just want her?” kind of idolations, but again, didn’t know that at the time either. So these two very normal things that I knew NOTHING about were getting tangled together in a rat king of Issues with a generous slathering of Shame glue to hold them all together. Add to it the paranoia/RSD/general not-great-at-social sides of my neurodivergence, and basically I had decided I was Too Weird and liked this book Too Much and if I so much as LOOKED at the websites/forums/etc, everyone would know and that would be Bad.

Did I have a clear idea of how that would look? Not really? I didn’t need to. Just the thought of checking out the fansites was enough to send me into a panicking guilt/shame spiral about how much I enjoyed the books. Everyone will KNOW, I thought, and it will be BAD. The End. It was Not Normal how much I liked the books and I will freak everyone out.

So.

If I had just KNOWN that hyperfixations were a thing, I might have still felt weird, but I don’t think I would have AGONIZED (and I do mean fucking AGONIZED) over how shockingly Not Normal my level of interest went. I might have still felt bad, because I didn’t have a diagnosis, and therefore probably wouldn’t have given myself permission of admit I had a hyperfixation, but at least I wouldn’t have wallowed in ignorance. Now, if I’d had the knowledge and the diagnosis, I probably would have still been too shy to interact, but I wouldnt’ have wasted hours of my life in panicked/guilt/shame spirals. If I’d have a diagnosis and a support group? If I’d had a diagnosis and been raised with the normalization of being queer? If I’d had medication, role models, a safe place to open up and communicate, so on and so on? Like, you get the idea, right?

I consider myself immeasurably lucky that my love of writing and vampires and high school girlfriend survived all this. (My equally intense boy crush of the time did not (not because I don’t like boys but because I fell down another hyperfixation spiral and no PERSON should ever be subjected to that but I digress)). As I said, this is my especially special hyperfixation. I can’t imagine how many hours of enjoyment I might have gotten out of the forums, the fan arts, the roleplaying groups, the FRIENDSHIPS, my gods, can you imagine the friendships? Anyways, what I’m really saying is that it caused me real emotional Pain and Trauma, thinking something was Wrong with me for my level of interest. A lot of people have regrets about like not trying out for the team or not asking so and so out or whatever, but mine is a stupid fansite. I have deep and palpable regrets about letting my fear and shame keep me from something so harmless and silly, and as I said before I don’t think I have a concise or tidy ending, but this was what I wanted to say on the matter so there it is.

TL;DR: (hey, didn’t you already post this part? Yes, yes I did. I’m doing it again, but this time its the In Conclusion bit instead of the summary bit) ...(abstract. they’re called abstracts)...(this is still FAR from a scientific paper) (ANYWAYS) Not knowing that hyperfixations were a thing hurt me, and cost me not only enjoyment of a thing, but more serious social and emotional growth potential. I was stunted and harmed by this lack of education, and I guess my point is I hope no one else has to go through that. If my stupid little story can fix a thing, I want it to be that. More kids needs access to a broader range of what Normal is, and Normal needs to be opened up and expanded to include things that are perfectly harmless because the harm of excluding those things is immeasurable. Thank you for coming to my TED talk

[system-of-a-feather]

Too tired to elaborate but hot take, as someone in the DID community, ABA - especially in the past (though even present ones that actually identify as "ABA" as their main treatment / focus / "product") - is a 100% valid trauma to have and a 100% valid cause for DID trauma imo. That shit even at its best is highkey emotionally manipulative and highkey organized. I also 100% believe that especially in the worse horror story facilities that it would 100% count as organized abuse.

Prior to starting this new job I had a few more "eh I heavily disagree with it but I can see a niche value to it" and honestly, having done a little under a year of part-time work as a "good ABA facility" and shit and now just working generally with "special ed" kids where ABA is more so a grading tool than an inherent 'behavioral modification' method and where a much more natural person-person approach is done to help these kiddos I am very much on the team of "ABA is 100% outdated and needs to GO and be replaced with something that actually cares about the kids and their wellbeing long term and not their outward wellbeing in a capitalist society and there are 1000 better approaches that can be done, just because your kid doesn't communicate clearly / at all doesn't mean they are a dog nor should they be trained like a dog"

The ONLY case, ONLY case that can be made is that "ABA is cheap and quick to train people in and thus make it easier to get en masse 'early intervention' out to as many people at a low price" but that is 1) quantity over quality which is a HORRIBLE mindset for healthcare and 2) not a long term solution its just a band-aid to a broken capitalistic society that literally only cares if you outwardly look like you cope / work like a "normal person"

Anyways, the teacher running the SDC classroom that I'm in is honestly so fucking amazing with these kids and 100% made me go "okay THIS guy unintentionally radicalized my stance on ABA even more" cause we have some "problem children" and the much more normal human approaches actually fucking work just as well even for the more struggling and problematic kiddos and I'm like bruh

ANYWAYS, I said I wouldnt go on too long cause I'm tired but like

To all the people who went through ABA growing up and feel as if it was traumatic, you are 50000% valid and you deserved a lot better. People shouldn't have tried to "fix" you as a kid, they should have met you where you were and if that was "too hard" because you were "too difficult" of a child, they should have sought help to learn to parent and communicate with you better - not the other way around.

Children - no matter how difficult or "clinically difficult" or whatever - are not the problem. There is literally no such thing and the idea that this talk is valid for autistic / adhd / "emotionally disturbed" children / "developmentally delayed" children is fucking disgusting honestly.

ANYWAYS X3

I just had a lot of thoughts walking out of honestly a good day with a bunch of sweet kiddos who are honestly doing their best.

Working in an "ABA" informed classroom for kids with disabilities has me realizing even more how inherently abusive ABA is, cause here, beyond casual and loose data collection while doing work and just general learning themes rather than Actual ABA (government requires the training to be counted iirc) - its just so fucking unnecessarily dehumanizing

[absynthe--minded]

How differently do you see elves and humans in eqrly tolkien handling trauma and neurodivergent situations that in the third age when the two races have more time to compare like healer notes and stuff?

oh! oh I like this question.

(disclaimer: everything here is based on my own headcanons. Tolkien clearly depicted mental illness in his works, though it’s more present in LotR than in the Silm, but he didn’t ever diagnose his characters and didn’t go into detail examining their mental states from an academic or analytical perspective except to defend Frodo for breaking under Sauron’s influence)

the first thing I want to say is that I pretty strongly headcanon all of the eldar regardless of ethnic group (and all dwarves, and all hobbits, but they’re not really the focus of this ask) as neurodivergent compared to the average human population. neurodivergence exists in humans too! there are autistic and ADHD humans because we’ve always existed in humanity. but the average human is (sadly) neurotypical, and if you use diagnostic standards meant to find out which humans are ND and turn them on elves, the answer you get is “all elves are ND”. some elves (Maitimo comes to mind in my headcanons) are ND-by-elvish-standards, and learning disabilities and cognitive disabilities also exist in elvish neurology? but there are differences in how these traits manifest.

Elves in the First Age really don’t know much about psychology but it’s not for lack of trying. Even in our world, psychology is a very new science, and a lot is being discovered about it pretty regularly that requires constant updates and development of knowledge. They see trauma as something that causes a mental wound, and that mental wound can be as impactful and lasting as a physical wound, but they’re not really sure how to address chronic illness. Míriel’s postpartum depression was the first real example of their “mental wound” model failing - she not only didn’t get better over time, she didn’t seem to want to. That being said, her death was also a catalyst for elven healers to try and learn from their society’s mistakes, and by the time of Maitimo’s recovery in Mithrim (in BH) you have Endanáro and Amdis saying that he needs to devote time and energy to healing his mind and accepting that he’s not okay. It’s well-meaning, but awkward, and very new.

Elves also struggle for the first five generations or so with the concept of emotional maturity. I’ve mentioned before that Finwë fails as a parent because he and others of his generation based childrearing on what they observed in animals, where there’s support and intimacy and duties assumed by the parent until physical maturity - he didn’t think that Fëanáro might have needed emotional support or that his responsibilities included forming a psychologically healthy space, because he was never a child, and had nothing to draw on personally, and the children who were born in Cuiviénen and on the Great Journey are very different psychologically from his son and so can’t provide much of an opinion on his parenting techniques.

Humans, on the other hand - they start in the same place, but they pick up on things a lot faster, if only because they’ve got generational turnover happening fast compared to the elves. There are a lot more children, since humans don’t have the level of control over their lives that elves do and unplanned pregnancy is a pretty normal occurrence, and they mature pretty quickly and then have kids of their own. Trial and error and passing on knowledge the same way elves do (communally, from one person to another) means it’s pretty easy to get information about basically anything once you’ve got a couple centuries under your belt as a people group.

The thing about neurodiversity is that it’s not really something that was a problem historically in the same way it’s a problem now. If you’ve got a kid who doesn’t talk much but who’s really good at making baskets and never gets tired of it, or a kid who loves to talk and tell stories but who loses track of time and can’t keep a good count on weaving, or who absorbs information about the natural world like a sponge but can’t navigate a social function to save their life? you can use that, in a society that’s not ours! you need craftspeople, and storytellers and historians, and healers and hunters - find a thing this kid can do well and thrives on, and let them loose. (Also, ND people with different circadian rhythms can keep watch more easily or keep different schedules to attend to the animals.) I actually think ND elves had a harder time than ND humans, originally, because elvish society was more formalized more quickly - it’s easier to find out you don’t fit into a box if there’s a box in the first place. (by “harder time” I mean that there was uh. one? one case? of “I’m the head of this family you will have the life I say you have you will be good at what I want you to be good at and you will not question me or defy me.” this was not the norm for elvish society but that kind of thing didn’t really have the opportunity to exist for First Age Atani.)

But time passes, the world changes, and with those changes comes shifts in... well, everything. By the Third Age, elvish healers and Mannish healers have gotten very good at figuring out trauma, though their situations have actually reversed in many ways. Elves are now more or less nonexistent as a settled-agriculture civilization, with Mirkwood and Lothlórien being the only real exceptions (and Lórien is on its way out) while Men have formal, structured, settled civilization. As a result I think you see a lot more trouble in the more formal Mannish societies with neurodivergence, but a lot less potential for trouble in elvendom.

As to notes, though - yeah, actually, I think there would be a lot of time to do comparisons! Most of that scholarship is probably in Rivendell - I think there might have been the beginnings of a psychological-study group in the Gwaith in Ost-in-Edhil, especially because of all the races working together and the chances for comparisons? And their writings probably escaped in bits and pieces, as well as some of the scholars; Elrond would have collected everything he could. Unfortunately, Sauron really killed the spirit of cooperation and interspecies friendliness that existed in Eregion, so I’m not sure how much of that would survive into the Third Age proper. Interested scholars would have to travel to Rivendell, perhaps to interview the surviving scientists, and maybe take some of their findings back to Minas Tirith or Dol Amroth or Lothlórien, perhaps with copies of some of the writing. (How seriously this scholarship is taken is a different matter)

If I were to offer a basic overview of what the average academic might find - I think an elvish scholar from the Third Age would be surprised at how much Mannish civilizations have changed, and they’d be impressed by the breadth and depth of trauma writing from places like Minas Tirith where there’s always a war on somewhere. Meanwhile mannish scholars from Arnor or Gondor would be surprised at the fact that elves write about and study trauma at all - they’d probably learn about Míriel and Fëanáro in history classes and assume that elves just don’t have trauma psychology, only to find out that several thousand years’ worth of academic study has lent a few results. I’m not sure if either side has much to offer the other except when it comes to the intersection of trauma and neurodivergence - ND humans are a lot like “normal” elves, after all, and elvish techniques for addressing and treating PTSD and other related trauma disorders might be more helpful than human techniques. But what humans have works for them, more or less? They’re a lot less rigid and structured and ableist as a society than humans in our world are, even at their most formal. (Plenty of individual humans are still super ableist or rigid or unfair! it’s just not a social norm, and it’s not an institutionalized axis of oppression.)

[liliaeth]

Imagine making shit up (such as claiming that Stiles have bad grades and doesn’t do well in school despite canon making it absolutely clear that Stiles has perfect grades and that Scott is the academically not the most accomplished one with mediocre at best/shitty at best grades both before and after getting bitten) and trying to strip a canonical neuroatypical character with ADHD of his neurodiversity to invalidare his trauma while claiming Scott is Mexican, autistic and clinically depressed 😂

You do realize I did not write that post right?

you do have that much reading comprehension? that you can see the difference between the person originally writing a post, and someone reblogging it?

Not even gonna care about the rest of your nonsense, because you clearly missed that Gerard was hardly taking a deep look into either Scott or Stiles academic records. Which we know, since he didn’t even bother to notice that Stiles was already on the lacrosse team. Meaning that Gerard barely bothered to take a quick glimpse at anything beyond the must surface level.

Aka Scott’s most recent grades, which were clearly caused by the assault he’d undergone from Peter. Or the way both Derek, Peter and the situations with the hunters were terrorizing Scott. All of which would naturally lead to a kid getting a drop in grades. Because canon also told us that bad grades were NOT normal for Scott, as a teacher put as a note on his test in s1. Especially considering how quickly Scott got his grades back up in s3, mere months after the events of s1-2. (all of which happened in four, five months at most)

Scott was canonically clinically depressed, to the point that he showed suicidal ideation on numerous occasions on the show. Both in s3 and s5. And that is something I do know something about, as I’ve dealt with it myself for over a decade.

Thing is, I don’t know enough about ADHD to know whether Stiles had ADHD or not. But if he did, he at no point tried to work on his issues in order to behave like a decent person; The way that most people dealing with ADHD do in real life on a regular basis. Instead fandom uses is as an excuse, a reason to ignore his mistreatment of others, and especially of Scott. And that I have an issue with.

[mannatea]

Hi. I used to follow your old blog on a different account. Hope you're doing well. Do you have any tips on thinking up stories that are *not* dark and depressing due to subject material? The last story I was working on I had to quit because the backstory I was developing for my passive male character was super depressing. At times I enjoyed researching it, though what won out was the thought I was wasting my time looking into angsty things for something I wasn't even planning to publish. Now I want to write something a little happier. But I have the most experience in writing angst and cringe comedy 😅 thanks for any help you can give. Stay safe out there!

By the way, good on you for dropping that manga you used to follow. I was happy most of the characters lived, but other than that, it felt "meh" to me (granted, I didn't read all the way from the beginning). The author was probably going for a "people will always be fighting each other" theme, but some of the imagery of what happened after a time skip could definitely be taken as pro-fascist. And I was disappointed the protagonist basically said he wanted to bring about destruction! I'm glad I didn't spend any money to read it.

Wow, hi! I’m doing all right, thanks for asking. I hope you’re doing all right, too. :)

As far as “that manga” goes, I’ve kept tabs on it. I’ve been on the fringes for the last two-ish years; I dedicated something like four real life years to that fandom and mostly had a good time while I was there (made some friends I hope to keep for life), so it was one of those situations where I just had to find out how it ended. I realized at some point that I was in a very negative space in the fandom, and felt it was better to publicly drop the series and the blog associated with all of my meta/discussion than to play in what had become a toxic pool for me. I didn’t really want to drop the account after my time there, but I couldn’t have dealt with the nonstop questions/messages/etc that would have piled in over the years, and eh, when you’re done you’re done. I criticize Hallmark television for fun, now, instead. It’s a lot less stressful! And literally nothing is That Deep so there’s very few delusions, at least on the Tumblr side of things. (Reddit, however, is insane, but I don’t post in the fandom there.)

As far as writing advice goes, I am going to apologize in advance for muddled thoughts. I just got out of work and have been staring at numbers all day, so it’s hard for me to think lmaoo.

In my opinion, any sort of character or personality type/flaw/whatever could have developed via a negative OR positive influence/catalyst, so that’s something to consider. I also think people tend to reach for “sad” or “traumatic” pasts either as a way to cope with their own issues/pasts/whatevers, or because it’s the “easy explanation” for why a character is the way they are.

If you WANT to write things a certain way, it’s sometimes a matter of changing the lens through which you’re viewing life, the story, the characters, or character writing in general. This is never easy, especially when you find a genre you feel comfortable in, but it’s always possible. When I was in college and submitted an autobiographical piece (Rot Tooth) for a creative writing final, I received multiple comments from classmates and even the professor that my talent/skill was in writing comedy. COMEDY!!!! I don’t think anyone who has read my writing from the last decade would say that I was a comedy writer. I stopped labeling ‘fics as humor/romance so long ago I can’t even remember when it was. But boom. I had written a comedy piece.

I don’t think I can ignore that most of the comedic elements in Rot Tooth were brought about because humor is one of the ways in which I cope with things, but it was also a very conscious choice I made. I wanted people to be able to engage with the story without being grossed out, without getting bored, without feeling that it was a poor-pathetic-me story, and humor was the classiest way to do it. Here, read this long story that includes journal entries from Ye Olde Livejournal days, but it will make you laugh often enough that the depressing aspects of the story don’t weigh it down too much! It was probably the only way to make the subject matter widely palatable. 

As often as I joke about characters or scenes or moments that “just write themselves” the author does have control. I mostly write fanfiction, so let’s go with examples from that.

I’m (very slowly) working on a ‘fic called Three Years which features a character who, when last seen, was headed off to serve a prison sentence. They haven’t been on the show for three years and thus I assume they have been serving that sentence for the last three years. The story starts when this character is released from prison. They are a woman. This is a historical piece of fiction. Prisons were vile to women and yet...this is fiction. I have a choice. I get to choose. Does she get to start her life off carrying 25 bags of trauma or just 2? It would be unreasonable to expect that someone, especially a woman, who was imprisoned for 3 years in the early 1900s wouldn’t have some issues (at the very least, the isolation would have been awful), but it doesn’t really have to be much worse than that. It doesn’t.

I have the power to choose.

A character has anger issues. Sure, he could have had a traumatic past with an abusive parent who took his anger out on him or his mom or whatever...or maybe it is an inherited personality trait and the parent figure with the problem was never really That Bad about it, but seeing it normalized makes it harder for the character in question to realize it’s a huge problem and part of their character arc is realizing they need to get help, not because they don’t want to be like their dad, and not because they hate their dad, but because they just want to be a better person/they don’t want to let that struggle consume them.

Someone’s sweetheart goes off to war. Guess what? They don’t have to die there to force a traumatic past. They don’t have to come back a raging alcoholic either. Maybe the time apart, and the time fighting a war just puts a natural sort of crack in the relationship by making it clearer to each character what they want in life/what matters to them in their life.

A character is super passionate about their work/hobby. Maybe they have ADHD and it’s a hyperfixation. Maybe they’re autistic and it’s a Special Interest. It doesn’t have to be “their parents ignored them and forced them to be alone all the time and they used this thing to cope so it means everything to them because it’s always been there.”

Maybe you have a character whose greatest fear is losing the people they love. It doesn’t have to be because a pet died in their arms when they were four and it traumatized them. It doesn’t have to be because they only have one person they love in the whole world. It can just be a thing because that’s a valid fear literally anyone can reasonably have, and maybe it’s a bigger deal because they don’t have siblings or aren’t close to many people! (And the “aren’t close to many people” thing doesn’t have to stem from trauma, either. Most busy adults for example who get to choose their friends, are just like that.)

A perfectionist might just have the personality type; it doesn’t mean their parents criticized everything they ever did. A person with three failed marriages might hesitate to fall in love and try again but it doesn’t have to be because those three failed marriages were abusive. A quiet character may just be shy or introverted by nature. 

I think everyone carries some kind of trauma with them, so it’s never unreasonable to have some in a person’s past (you can’t write an ugly character without having to think about the fact that they carry some trauma from what it’s like to grow up ugly), but it doesn’t have to define them. It doesn’t have to overshadow everything else in their past.

You can always ask yourself, “Why am I reaching for angst every time I create a backstory?” Literally everyone has some kind of angst. Most kids were hurt by things said to them in school, for example, or made fun of for some reason. Most people did something extremely embarrassing as a kid and never got over it. There are a thousand little moments in our adult lives that go back to these little points—you might call them the tiny traumas. But they’re not defining. They’re not so heavy they also live in the present. Not all of them.

Why do you reach for the darkest corner? Why not for the light? Or a middle ground?

I encourage people to write basically whatever floats their boat, but it sounds like you’re at a point where you just feel weighed down by that sort of stuff, and that’s not a great way to feel, especially when it discourages you from working on a project entirely.

My final suggestion: look at some of your favorite characters from various types of media. Are they all traumatized? What are their defining characteristics? Black Beauty has some depressing stuff in it, but is ultimately a story with a happy ending. Pride and Prejudice has drama, but nobody’s past is filled with the darkest stuff imaginable. North and South has awful things to consider in it (cotton mills were sooo awful) but the characters are not wildly traumatized people.

What kind of story are you trying to tell? Do the characters need to be traumatized to tell it? Does the story have to be dark to get across the message you want to send? 

Way back in the day, when I was into “that manga” I made an RP blog for a one-off character that nobody gave a damn about. Like, he was so one-off that even back in those days nobody even remembered him having existed. It was sort of a joke RP blog that wasn’t supposed to be serious. The only canon information we had about this character was that he enjoyed drinking. I decided to make him a lighthearted character because the series was pretty dark and I wanted to send people hilarious starters instead of wading through the muck of depression with everyone else’s sad, abused characters. I decided his family was old money and he had a brother. Nothing super traumatizing in his past. Some family issues but not the sort of thing that would haunt anyone. He was not traumatized in his recent past any more than other characters were. Mostly just “a regular guy.” I really loved RPing him. He was fun! The story could get heavy but he didn’t have to be.

Anyway, dive head-first into the dark angst if you want, but if it’s not necessary to tell the story you want to tell, just remember you don’t have to go there. You have the choice.

[hauntedselves]

i had therapy today and we went over this. scary and LONG but i think it was a good idea and worth it!

essentially we just went through what i’d written above and she said what she thought about it.

StPD: ehh... most of it can be explained by autism & trauma, as well as my episodes of psychosis. not something she’d diagnose me with, but still something that i feel comfortable self diagnosing with

dyscalculia: not in her ballpark, so i’ve gotten a referral to the university clinic where the PhD students practice psychology (since that’s a hell of a lot cheaper than other methods) for a cognitive assessment (for dyscalculia, and my cognitive functioning more broadly). she thinks it’s likely though. also mentioned that time distortions are common in autism (and i know they are common in ADHD and dissociative disorders as well)

SzPD traits: she said “you flat out just don’t have schizoid PD”. i agree, and i think the traits i do line up with is also autism + trauma, as well as depression (for the anhedonia, avolition, etc). good to hear her perspective though

NPD traits: this one was interesting because she thinks that everything in my list can either be accounted for by trauma, autism, or just normal human experiences except my “belief of being special/unique”. but that one symptom alone isn’t enough to be diagnosed with NPD traits, so we’ll just.... note that and move on i guess lol

EDs: she agrees with me that i “definitely have disordered eating”, but she’s hesitant to put a label on it (or specify eating disorder instead of disordered eating) until we discuss it more. again, autism & trauma, as well as internalised fatphobia and diet industry bullshit. she was leaning into ARFID more than AN though.

ADHD: another interesting one... we’re gonna screen for it, not necessarily because it’s something she’d pinpoint as a possible diagnosis but more because she wouldn't want me to miss out on the literally life-changing medication that might help me if i did have ADHD. so it’s still definitely on the table.

OCD: also interesting (i use that word way too much...). again, autism + trauma, but she said i “definitely have intrusive thoughts” and “episodic” OCD which i didn’t know was a thing...

CPTSD: yep. no argument there. she also brought up that DID is under the CPTSD umbrella but with distinct symptoms for a separate diagnosis

psychotic thoughts: she said she wouldn’t say “psychotic features” but she would say “psychotic episodes“ that are tied to stress, trauma, and also function as / were developed as coping skills, especially in childhood. also has more weight because my dad is psychotic (either schizophrenic or depressive schizoaffective depending on who he talked to at the time, though he doesn’t agree with either of those dx’s)

pathological demand avoidance: we didn’t talk about this one much, just that it’s very common (especially in autistic kids) and usually people grow out of it. i have to do more research into how it presents before i can pinpoint how or if it affects me now in adulthood

there was also one other thing that i didn’t include in the above post, and i’m not gonna publicly share what it is, but we did talk about it and it was hard and scary... i’m glad my appointment was on the phone and not in person. the distress it causes is more important than the actual symptoms, (as with any disorder really), but there’s a lot of yuckiness and discomfort that comes with it. the main thing is that i do have insight and awareness, which is important when it comes to this particular thing.

we also talked a lot about how symptoms =/= diagnosis and diagnosis is just a convenient, agreed-upon framework mostly for quickly sharing information with other professionals, though of course it can feel good to have something to point to. all stuff i agree with but good to hear from a Professional (TM) herself.

she said she would be hesitant to diagnose me with any PD... but she diagnosed me with BPD when we first met (or rather, i’d already been diagnosed, and she agreed with the diagnosis)... idk what that means - she probably just forgot, but i’m. insecure lol

she said if she were to write a list of my diagnoses, it would be: CPTSD, DID, ASD, transient (mostly) stress-related psychotic episodes, and disordered eating

i’m still self-dx’ing with StPD, because i think it makes sense for me, even in addition to autism + trauma, and i’m still gonna self-dx with NPD traits, ADHD, OCD traits, and the dyscalculia diagnosis that i’m 100% sure will be confirmed when i get that cognitive assessment.

tl;dr: stpd sorta, szpd traits no, npd traits no but also sorta, ed yes, adhd maybe, ocd sorta, cptsd yes, dyscalculia probably but also pending assessment.

here's the big self dx email i'm going to send to my psychologist. (the diagnostic parts of it at least). i prefaced it with a bunch of "please don't think i'm being attention seeking though attention seeking is part of npd which i'm self dx'ing as having traits of so if that counts towards it then you can totally think i'm being attention seeking but i've put a hell of a lot of time and thought into this i didnt just read the dsm criteria and decide i had it thanks~"

Keep reading

[werevulvi]

Hi, could you tell me more about your autism and diagnosis and how you deal with it, how old you were diagnosed

I don't know a lot about my autism, tbh, as I never bothered to read up on it and I was never properly informed on it. But what I do know is that I learned slowly as a kid, learned to walk at age 3, was very clumsy (like medically abnormally clumsy physically, could barely run at all and couldn't climb, etc) required special treatment to learn how to eat as a toddler because I hated the sensory experience of solid food and chewing, I was incapable of understanding sarcasm, interpreted everything literally, I was stimming a lot, had monotone body language and speech, etc. I was very obviously "different" according to my parents already from around age 1 or 2, and required literally constant attention for the first 4 years of my life. Started daycare at age 4, in small groups.

Then as I started school at age 6, apparently the school nurse had told my parents that I'm probably autistic, so I consider that my "inofficial diagnosis" but they decided to ignore that and didn't tell me (until 10 years later.) I was bullied in school for being "the weird kid" by both classmates and teachers who thought I was a retard and annoying, basically, I guess. I was called a freak and weirdo a lot. But like I was proudly a weirdo, and resented normativity.

As I got up into ages 10-12 my depression and DID symptoms (alter) kinda took over and became more prominent than my autism symptoms, as I wasn't as physically clumsy anymore and started learning social cues. My mental health continued to decline over the next few years, until I sought out therapy on my own at age 16. It led me to doing my first few suicide attempts, which led me to ending up at a closed psychiatric ward.

While staying there for a few weeks, I got evaluated for autism (without knowing that's what I was tested for) as well as a few physical things, such as my hearing impairment and chronic headache. And those tests led to an official Asperger Syndrome diagnosis, when I was 16, by the very end of year 2005. I also got diagnosed with borderline psychosis and mild depression, and got pumped full of anti-depressants and anti-psychotic (neuroleptic) drugs. Then my mom finally told me that she basically always knew about my autism, and I was really pissed at her for not having told me before. I resented my autism diagnosis right from the start, and the older I got, the more I resented it. Never identified with it, only ever saw it as a huge burden.

Then throughout the rest of my teens, I went to a school for neurodivergent people (basically upper high school) but still flunked it. I was a complete and utter mess, and got little to no actual therapy. They just kept shoving me around from one psychiatric department to another, due to my comorbid issues, no one could help me, it seemed. Every once in a while I'd make another half assed suicide attempt to make them take me seriously, which only worked for a few months at a time. In total, I've made 19 suicide attemps over 12 years. Oh lord, psychiatry was so bad!

Adulthood came along and I got benefitted with sickness compensation, and got my first apartment at age 20. It didn't go great. I accidentally flooded it and had to move out, and didn't manage to keep it clean or anything while I lived there. I was barely functional and alcoholic, constantly self-harming, just to try to manage attending school. Despite getting help from caretakers offered by the state (?) weekly, I was really dysfunctional. I switched apartments several times, and kept flunking school while trying to live my miserable life, always hanging by a thread. Until I moved back to my parents at age 23. They had moved to a miserable island far away from all my friends. Got an apartment on that island close to my parents, but my issues continued being the same level of awful, up until about age 27.

What this has to do with my autism is that... uh, I basically understand it as that it impedes on my executive function really dramatically, and like although I can physically do pretty much anything, mentally I just somehow can't. Especially repeatedly, and often enough. Like I can't keep any routine for the life of me, not even simple shit like sleep cycle, eating habits, brushing my teeth, etc. Let alone school or a job, or even hobbies. Everything is infrequent and too seldom, if at all. So everything in my life keeps falling apart as I basically have no foundation to stand on, and I get sensory overload suuuuper easily. So like just going shopping/cleaning/laundry/hobbies/school/anything for half an hour can drain me significantly and make me incapable of managing doing anything else for the rest of that entire day. It's very hard for me to explain, but it's like I only ever have 3 spoons per day, but most things requitre 10+ spoons, so I go backwards on my energy resources a lot and end up having to rest for DAYS after just one hour's activity.

At age 27 I ditched the social service caretakers, as they were seriously depriving me of my privacy while being largely unhelpful, and I began to finally try to pull myself together. I still get a lot of help from my mom, with anything from paying my bills and grocery shopping, to driving me places and dealing with soul-sucking authorities for me. This takes off a lot of the burden and allows me to manage doing at least a few things on my own, like working out, cleaning (yay I manage keeping my apartment clean nowadays!), laundry, occasional shopping, art projects, online socialising, etc. I still go to therapy biweekly but it's still largely unhelpful. At least I managed to make them stop tossing me around between departments like a football though, and I'm still gonna try to get some proper trauma therapy, and maybe also look into that adhd group I was promised last year, if it'll ever resume again post-corona...

I've still never had a job in my life and still have incomplete grades. But I got permanent sickness compensation now, so that's neat. At least I don't have to worry financially. I'm also trying to get started with some "work training" stuff which is basically "pretend work" for people who can't work, just to have something to do. I'll most likely be granted acces to that. However, it seems irony is that most of those are located out in the middle of nowhere where no buses go, and I can't afford a fucking car or driver's licence because I can't work. Mom probably won't drive me several times a week for that. Fucking fantastic. Makes me almost wanna kill someone... argh! Those little things really piss me off.

Life is absolutely not going the way I want and I blame my autism for it, mostly. I am drowning in frustration, and my anger issues making me scream my lungs out in pure despair, shows that. I'm considered offically disabled due to my autism, and it just fucking sucks ass. How lonely, under-stimulated yet easily over-stimulated, bored, meaningless and unfulfilled my life is. There are far more severely autistic people out there who somehow manage to live far more functional lives, and I'm jealous of that. I dunno how to break free from this misery. It feels like the only thing I've ever managed to accomplish in life is transitioning genders, and making art that I don't wanna sell. I wanna have a "normal" job, a car and driver's licence, I wanna have cats and a social life, I want parties at night clubs again, I want hobbies outside of my home; hookups, friends and lovers; I want to be able to have a functional romantic life with someone I can marry and start a family with.

But is any of that ever gonna happen? I hope so, but it feels bleak. Because my autism feels like such a huge burden on my life, and a huge hindrence to my dreams and goals... like I'm over 30 already and still a disabled and having my mom living half my life for me, miserable mess and not given any useful therapy, I'm left to my own vices to figure out how to adult... Because of all that, I hate my autism and I wish there was a cure, I swear to fuck. So for your question, how I deal with it: not fantastically. Not sure if you wanted a relay of my entire life, but I hope that’s okay! Didn’t know how else to answer your questions.

[ziracona]

Thinkin about how the NOES 2010 movie is so good. Listen…listen. It has really unusual structure. Most of the time, a horror film follows either a single unit (one person, one family) through a whole plot (The Witch, The Babadook, Saw, Halloween) or a group of victims with one pretty obvious final girl in the mix (Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I Know What You Did Last Summer), but NOES 2010 doesn’t do that. It takes you through several protagonists, one at a time, moving on from one teen to another when your initial protagonist is killed, starting with Dean, moving on to Kris, then Jesse, and then Nancy and Quentin when they’re the last two standing. It’s a fresh take, which makes everything so much less sure, and gives narrative weight to the characters who die instead of just making them bodycount. Everybody gets treated like the final girl, not canon fodder, which is extremely important to the story the film is telling. Nancy and Quentin don’t even become the film’s focus until almost halfway through the story.

Probably someone who is unfamiliar with the original film would assume Kris is the protagonist until she is killed thirty minutes in a little ala Psycho. It makes everything seem less certain, and makes the characters who you lose as important as the ones who make it, which is a really responsible way to tell something. A lot of the time, the characters in horror are kind of assholes (which is great and another rant for another day, because since the stakes are so low [literally you just have to care enough to not want the character to be brutally murdered], you can get an audience invested in an willing to explore the complexity of even a shitty  person—but like I said, that’s a wholeass other rant), but in NOES2010, they’re not, which I think is important. Never does the film want you to feel like the characters either suck and deserve something happening to them, or are stupid (look, when the publicist in Scream 4 got out of her car in an unlit parking garage in the middle of a Ghostface chase, I saw the wholeass theater stop cheering for her to live because she was so stupid we just couldn’t root for her anymore—it happens) and to care less about their outcome that way. Everyone fights hard and tries hard and it’s just not enough.

Obviously it’s a slasher, but NOES 2010 is really like a thesis work film on CSA and how it affects people, and the commentary is both responsible, and really, really well done. As someone who has had to write a character who has committed that kind of crime, and walk the fucking razor’s edge between making them duly awful, and not crossing the line into anything exploitative or gratuitous, I can say with certainty that is not an easy thing to do. Because you want to give weight to the suffering that has been inflicted and realistic portray of the depravity of your villain, but again, you really don’t want to show anything more than you have to. That’s not what it’s about, and honestly, you can talk about that kind of a serious issue without actually showing things on screen. A film about CSA would be kind of defeating its own purpose if anyone who had ever experienced that shit went to watch the movie and went away more traumatized. The film does a really responsible job of walking that line. Freddy is awful, and there’s a constant threat with him—especially in the film’s climax—but he never actually assaults anyone onscreen (or off, except in the referenced past. The worst thing he does onscreen is lick someone, which is still incredibly disgusting), and the film still manages to keep how awful he is very, very real.

CSA is a really shitty thing to go through, obvious, it feels incredibly of dumb to type that—any assault is. Obviously. One of the big things in dealing with it after is a lot of the time, victims can feel broken, or damaged, and even worse, be talked about like they’re some kind of ‘damaged goods’ by incredibly shitty people in their life, but the film doesn’t even give that enough weight to bring it up. There have always been two big ways in film to combat ideas, one of which is direct confrontation (IE a film specifically about something being wrong—Do The Right Thing talking very openly about racism for instance) and by just straight up not doing the thing (Star Trek dropping a woman of color in as both a major cast member, romantic interest for people of other races, and someone working in a position of power, and just being like Yup. This is just normal). Both of which are very necessary and useful approaches. In NOES 2010, all four of the protagonists are in romantic relationships at some point (and so is Dean, the mini-lead protag). It’s not played out voyeuristically, and you don’t get any hot makeout seshes, but they’re definitely in comfortable, functional, physical relationships. In a silent but fucking hardcore stance, while Kris and Jesse spend the night together early in the film, there is not a single on-screen kiss until Quentin and Nancy have found out the truth about what happened to them as kids, and a few minutes later, right before their final confrontation, they kiss. Not even a second thought about anything, except how much they really need and want to kill this piece of shit coming after them, as it should be. It’s a rockhard solidification that not only do the characters not see each other differently because of what happened, but it has done nothing to change who they are or what they can be.

The movie is only an hour and a half, which isn’t that long, but still manages to pack in not only multiple different realistic reactions, (Quentin goes through some hardcore withdrawl/denial after finding stuff out initially, Nancy gets fucking mad), but to cover some of what this is like for their parents. In one conversation with Alan, Quentin’s dad, he tries to explain the mob enacted justice on Krueger years ago by telling him that he hopes someday when he’s a parent, he never has to experience how it feels having utterly failed to protect your child. Even though they only have like thirty seconds of flashback to work with, the script gets in one of the parents in dismay asking what other choice they have about hunting Krueger down, because the alternative is making their three-four year olds get on a stand and tell a room full of strangers what happened to them. It’s a horrible, awful situation to be in. Although it would be really easy to make some drama between characters and their families, even the characters who die have good relationships with their families, and neither the dead teens or their parents are ever narratively ‘punished’ for anything that happens. Kris’ last words to her mom before she leaves on a flight, about eight hours before Kris is murdered, are, realistically, “Love you.” The last thing Nancy says to her own mother is, “I know you were just trying to protect us. Thank you,” and her mother’s last words to her are, “I’m just glad you’re safe.” Characters still die, but they at least get the peace of deserved last words to each other. The film also not only definitely does not vilify the parents for burning Freddy to death for assaulting their preschool aged kids, but comes down in its finale openly supporting that vigilante justice decision, with Nancy’s last words in the film being thanking her mother for protecting them.

Even the whole nightmare theme fits in well with the story being told, because nightmares are a very common side-effect of past trauma, symbolically, there’s a lot people have to fight through in their lives when that kind of shit happens to them, even years later, and it genuinely isn’t given enough weight by most people. As kind of icing on the cake in the film, not only does Nancy get to kill Freddy, he dies in a very ugly, undignified way, with a slit throat and gross expression on his face, after getting his ass handed to him in a like a thirty second fight in reality with two very motivated teenagers.

Plus, Quentin Smith is canonically ADHD, and Nancy Holbrook is a really underrated protagonist who reads autistic and I love her.

Anyway. This movie does a great job about using horror as a medium to talk about a topic usually only people already interested in that specific topic would check out, plays out its narrative very responsibly, comes down hard with a big two thumbs up to murdering your local pedophile in a bonfire, and says fuck you to assault victim stigma. My only real beef with this film is that they were so dead set sure they would have a sequel that instead of ending with real resolution, it’s got a stinger at the end (on rewatches I always skip the last scene lol).

Not that it’s a flawless film—it’s got budget parents, which I think is both hilarious and fantastic (meaning everyone except I think Dean has only one parent, the same gender as them, and it’s hilarious and I adore it). They had rushed filming for some of the end. Etc. But it’s really solid, and doesn’t get enough credit as a film. It’s very different from the original—less campy, less funny. But it’s supposed to be. It’s telling a different story. And it’s telling a really good one.

[artpoint420]

Melvin and the Silent Diagnosis for a Brilliantly Broken Psyche

Hypothetical Diagnosis Insecurity masked with narcissistic tendencies characterized with compulsive obsessions driven by blatant autism, and no that is not an immature insult I test extremely highly for Asperger's myself Here's the Evidence: (I will state before hand that Melvin-borg is a completely separate character in my mind, and thus will not be included in this particular theory.  Melvin decided not to turn out like him, so they are canonically separate characters) He is obviously and frequently inspired by George and Harold, but his deeply embedded fear of rejection makes him dangerously bitter, and it doesn't help that everytime he breaks out of this protective shell, he is rejected or betrayed once again. It’s important to note that while he may be high-functioning (aka: Aspergers) he is still Autistic. That’s because Asperger’s is not a form of autism- it is autism. Period. And any kind of autism or mental attypicality left untreated can develop in to many, many other severe mental disorders, or, in general, make life a metric heck ton harder and complicated than it already is. I also need to confess that I test highly positively for autism myself as well as being an INTP female (Myers-Briggs Personality Test). Not to brag, but all that combined with my naturally creative nature makes me rare af, but it also means I can't communicate or handle stress #liketheothergirls, so that has lead me to being/feeling bullied and ostracized.  I also have anxiety and depression issue which run in my family, and mild insomnia, and may or may not be relapsing into an eating disorder. Paired with psychical problems like acid reflux and severe neck tension, health, whether psychical or mental is of uttermost importance to me.  It suffices to say, autism is not easy to deal with and if not taken care for properly a person, especially if not made at least aware of what autism truly is, it can truly ruin their life. Combined with the neglectful nature of his parents (at least in the books) I and many others in this fandom truly believe Melvin is at least autistically coded. Not only does this fit the archetype of his character but it also fits the theme of the books to a TEE. At its core, CU, of all things, is a children's book series, about living your best life despite not being “normal.” Even characters like the teachers or Mr Krupp who strive for “normality” are shown to actually have deeply repressed creativity, or, in some cases, deep trauma from their own childhoods. It suffices to say that I resonate deeply with Melvin. Say what you want about him or me, I was able to relate to him the second he spoke his first line in the second book. Sorry to turn this into a long vent, but I feel it is best to use myself to support this theory as well as harder evidence, even if it is mostly a means of self-therapy. To start, we both are obsessed with school even to a detrimental degree. Ever since head-start (Pre-K but a million times better), these "book-smarts" were the first thing I ever truly excelled at. When the other kids bullied (or as I now know as teasing) me, I would lose myself in a stack of homework or a book 2-3 grades past my grade level (this is before I drew or wrote as a main hobby). Similarly, Melvin is rarely seen without a book or gadget, just like me. We both over analyze things and hide our feelings. We both have intense crushes on others but are terrified to dare express them, or do but to nothing but awkwardness. We were both science kids, and fascinated by words and/or numbers alone (I still am just in a more artistic way). We both struggle to communicate and relate to others. We both have a unusual sense of humor and are highly observant of surroundings all the while missing what’s in front of our noses. We both have interests that quickly spiral into obsessions and dropping the obsession only when sick of it. We both practice similar forms of stimming. We both not only thrive but crave control and structure with the world around us, even to the point of being "control freaks" and creating odd habits, routines, and rituals regardless of whether they are necessary or make sense. We both have an intense fear of intimacy and rejection to the point of practicing self-isolation and in some cases self harm or other unhealthy coping methods (seen with Melvin over eating sweets or over working himself. For me it’s disordered eating or self flagellation, something I have all but completely dropped but still) We also both tend to see ourselves as inferior to others and attempt to mask those feelings with a superiority complex (I feel bad for my siblings but I didn’t know what I was doing, and no it was not abusive just sibling rivalry and I’m the oldest anyway, and we are country kids and understand “rough-housing” =/= using each other as a punching bag, but accidents happen I'm sorry) We both seem to become easily overstimulated and have explosive mental and emotional breakdowns when things just . . . become too much However the harsh divide between male and female and fictional and nonfictional means we both present certain traits differently. Whereas he presents a more linear line of thinking my mind is overwhelmingly sporadic. Also, I have over sensitivities to touch and light (and sometimes certain noises, but not anything not normal? Wfk.) But maybe he does have oversensitivity but I can't think of an example off the top of my head. Enough about me however. I know Melvin and autism has been done to death.  Hell, I just did it to death.  My actual theory is more on the inner mechanisms of his mind and predicting how he will develop should the series allow for full character development. Also, similar to my Krupp theory, I will be listing his crimes out and give him a proper sentence for his age and maturity level (which will be light as I am sympathetic to his plight).   This is already getting too long, so Imma try to finally get to the point.  Characters with autism are honestly a mixed bag, sometimes there as standardized as my mystery Daddy Sherlock Holmes and other times they are as subtle as Pearl or Peridot from Steven Universe (has Rebbaca Sugar confirmed this? sorry). Honestly, it does distress me that autism is almost always used to have an evil genius character or some weird side character for brownie/ diversity points. (this makes me a bit hypocritical I guess, considering my own stories. I guess tropes are tropes for a reason) And while Dav Pilky May not be subtle with his scholastic politics or humor his one spectacular tool in his writing books has always been, when it comes to his characters, showing instead of telling. This is something I latched on to even as a kid, and I was already thinking up theories on the characters before I even knew character theories were a thing.  Like what happened to Harold's Dad (hint, hint).  Why was Harold's sister rarely used?  Does Mr Krupp actually like their comics (a now accepted theory, but not just min? And many many others I'm probably never gonna write.  It took until how long in the books to reveal George and Harold have ADHD? Before that they were simply described as being as smart as Melvin but just in different ways. Personally I feel that autism is inverted ADHD. This is an opinion I’ve recently formed so if I’m wrong bloody attack me in the comments. Anyway, Melvin presenting autism makes him the perfect foil to George and Harolds’ more sporadic antics. The only true difference between autistic folks and ADHD folks is that those with autism tend to crave a structured environment full of rules, and set goals to achieve, while such an environment is HELL to children with ADHD (aka:George and Harold). (Even though if with adults they can trust, children with ADHD thrive in structured environments if they are surrounded by adults or authority figures they can trust.)  I know some will tell me ADHD is on the spectrum, but I just learned this like actually the other day and don’t fully understand it.  My prediction is that Melvin will eventually and naturally mellow out if just because staying so high strung all the time is a huge waste of mental energy.  I know good as hell I had to.  Also, he mellowed our in the books and went from a screeching revenge exacting lil narcissistic white boi prick to a person who simply wants to pursue his interests and even helping George and Harold (selfishly, but help nonetheless). He even went from enjoying the fame and attention of hero-ing to realizing it did not fufill him. Indeed quite the opposite.  His true passion lay in solving world problems through science, and I don't think the ending for him in the books could have been any more perfect considering his character.   In the Netflix show, similar to how I think Krupp's personalities are merging, I believe that Melvin will eventually become more like his Broski alter ego (which I calmly demand more of).  Overall, given that this show needs to go back to the status quo more often than not, I don't think his core character will ever change, and it doesn't need to.  Multiple times throughout the series he's been shown to crave friendship from George and Harold, despite audibly hating him . Textbook Tsundere, I know.  He will form a friendly rivalry with George and Harold, I have almost no doubt about that, taking the season 1 finale, season 2 finale, season 3 first episode, and halloween special into consideration. (Yeah, if someone will send me clips I will give them my eternal gratefulness) To conclude, because by god this is long, Melvin is, SHOCKER, just a little kid.  A little kid who likes muffins and dolls and has big hopes and dreams.  A little kid whose love for science and unrecognized creativity is channeled into making inventions that are even more impressive than those of Professor P (sorry P).  But he is a little kid with his own needs and stuggles which at this point remain unmet.  His parents are canonically neglectful, I cannot repeat that enough times.  The effects of neglect are a hell-hole of its own regardless of growing up with undiagnosed autism.  But that's just a theory- Alright, that was a banger, I guess next up is Melvin-borg since writing this has given me some interesting ideas for him.  Let’s see how long this hyperfocus train will go!