#which might be the autism but it might also be a large combination of things as i am living in a society that was not built for ppl like me

[heartsburst]

there is definitely a disconnect somewhere between my brain and my communication of language

[worflesbian]

okay one last thing before i go to bed -- a large part of worf's plotlines with klingon politics involve him questioning injustice and doing the controversial thing because he believes it is right, and typically this is interpreted (or at least by typically by me) as his outsider perspective and reverence for klingon ideals combining to produce someone who's so committed to the empire as a homesick child might imagine it that he's willing to fight the entirety of the corrupted imitation its become. he questions verdicts that are unjust, rejects traditions that are detrimental, opposes the majority, suffers the consequences and occasionally manages to bring about positive change. his ideas of honour and of what is right dont come from the dominant culture or from personal pride but from deeply held convictions of how the world should be -- which is like, a major autistic trait.

obviously overall the writing suggests that it's worf's upbringing outside of the empire that gives him the insight to question things, which is definitely the case, but then you also have scenes where he doesnt understand how enemies who tried to kill eachother on the battlefield at noon can be drinking and laughing together by midnight. to everyone else, its natural, but to him it doesnt seem right, like there's some Unspoken Social Rules that he's not getting. a similar thing happens when alexander joins martok's crew and what worf takes for bullying and wants to put a stop to actually leads to the other klingons accepting and befriending alexander, once again showing that he doesnt understand the contradicting intricacies of klingon social behaviour. and again part of this is due to him being raised among humans, but its not as if hes great at human social behaviour either. which combined with the everything else about him starts to add up a certain way.

anyway its like 2am but in conclusion if you leave worf out of your pantheon of star trek autism characters i will get you

[marshallpupfan]

A New Character for PAW Patrol Movie 3?

Recently, a user on the PAW Patrol Wiki found a link to a website about casting new actors for the upcoming third PAW Patrol movie. In it, they gave some details about a new character; "Dexter".

As you can see here, Dexter is described as a golden retriever, wheelchair bound, expert on large jungle animals, good at inventing things with the resources around him, and is prone to make mistakes and treats each one as a new learning experience. He also has a rhino as a "best friend", and the Audition Package included mentions two other characters; "Martin" and... "Watermelon"?

It's important to note that PAW Patrol: The Movie 3 is still very early in its development. All or most of this can, and likely will, change at some point. Then again, some or even all of this might get scrapped at some point, so take all of this with a grain of salt. There's no guarantee any of this will make it to the final product, but if anything, at least it gives us a very brief glimpse of one aspect of the upcoming sequel.

However, there's still no info on which of the main six PAW Patrol pups it'll focus on... or if it'll be one of them? The website's trying to find a voice actor for this Dexter, but it's also trying to find one for Ryder, too. Maybe that's a clue to who they picked after all? Or maybe it means nothing. Who knows, and those that do aren't talking.

Fan reaction to this has been, from what I've noticed, mixed. Chances are, you noticed right away that Dexter sounds like a combination of many characters in PAW Patrol already, such as Rex and Tracker. There's also some aspects of Marshall and Rocky in there, which makes me wonder if that'll affect either of their chances to be the focus of film #3. Plus, while fans have praised the inclusion of more disability representation, some of us (myself, included) are disappointed that they went with one we've already seen. Given the large range of disabilities out there, such as autism, aspergers, deaf, etc., it's a shame they picked one that's already been represented. Given Brunker's penchant for plucking things from the TV series to repurpose them for his movie, I suppose I can't say I'm surprised.

With all this said, the film's still in its early development cycle, so things may change from now until its planned release date. The only other thing to mention is that the page sometimes refers to the movie as "PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie 3", which some have taken to mean it might be about superpowers again. Chances are, this is just a placeholder, thus it'll absolutely change down the line. At least, I hope so... I'm not too keen on them focusing on superpowers once more, though maybe others might feel differently.

That's all for now. And if anyone wants to check the site out for themselves, here's a link.

[irbcallmefynn]

So, I thought about it like. two days ago in the shower,

This is Images. My headmate. I hate it, it's quite rude to me.

I don't know all the terminology super well (I had spent an hour or so poking around pluralpedia) so if there's a better way for me to define the way I feel please feel free to point me in the right direction. I'm going to ramble about my feelings now.

The tl;dr is Images is a Bluffgenic insider brainmate who serves as a persecutor and possibly eraser, and there is a partial communication barrier between us.

Images can speak to me somewhat directly, though it doesn't have a voice of its own, instead taking the voice of other people in my life, or my own voice. I can "hear" Images and Images can "hear" me, but will never directly respond to me, simply shutting up when I tell it to. It feels like sometimes whatever I say to Images gets stretched out to fill the void its lack of response makes. (Example: "I don't need to be thinking about that Imageeeesssssssss")

Images has "conversations" with me, where it takes on the identity of someone I know/knew (though sometimes it's meant to represent nobody in particular) and makes up a fake situation to talk about. Sometimes it's someone reaching out to make up with me, or imagined outcomes of me trying to defend myself. It can also be people turning on me and deciding I've wronged them, emergencies or disasters, or fights. Sometimes they're repetitions of past events, other times they're imagined scenarios that may or may not be possible to happen. They are never helpful, and only serve to make me stressed. In the past these conversations have encouraged me to make impulsive decisions to attempt to make the "positive outcomes" a reality or prevent the "negative outcomes" from occurring.

Images is the personification of the disconnect I feel between me and my brain and/or my tendency to overthink things and/or my depression. Sometimes it cooperates and we can act mostly as normal, with me learning skills and being able to better myself. Other times I'm not able to properly recall information, take steps to improve myself, learn new things, or even do the things I already know how to do. Images does take in information from the outside world, though showing is more effective than telling.

Images isn't capable of fronting, so nobody but me will ever hear it. Though it may urge me to ask about the status of relationships or my own behavior, and I may become difficult to work with at times because of Images blocking proper access to my brain.

I've had conversations with Images for as long as I can recall. Its always acted like this. That lack of communication meant I had to give Images a name and a face myself, so I could properly address it, which is why I believe Bluffgenic is the best way to describe its origin.

Some time after particularly stressful situations, such as arguments, Images may cause me to forget most or all of what happened. If someone has decided to leave my life, I will likely forget many details of them besides their name and how they left me feeling in the end. This can lead to problems down the line, especially if the other is hurt by my actions, since anything they do in response to that feels like it came out of nowhere to me. This coupled with my unrelated memory issues leads me to forgetting large swaths of time in as little as a few hours.

Images does not Block me, and I do not Block Images. We can hear each other just fine, it's just that Images will never "verbaly" respond to me unless I'm acting in the conversation (which I am getting better at avoiding, since they just make me feel bad)

Images might be a result of my ADHD or Autism or Anxiety, or some combination of them, though since Images didn't really exist in this way until I gave it a name, I think it's Bluffgenic as opposed to ADHDgenic, Autigenic, or "Anxiegenic" (not a real term afaik)

[neurodivergent-duck]

OKAY IT’S FINALLY TIME I LET MY PERSONALIZED COPY OF AUTISM FLAIR UP ON HERE (lmao).

Whenever I think about portrayals of universal language or a “language of earth” it always seems to be a spoken language which… seems really really stupid to me??

Language evolves SO fast, thus creating a spoken language out of combinations of existing languages would be nearly impossible, as all languages with a large group of primary speakers has become inundated with slang relevant to only the generation or even specific group within a generation that uses it.

Creating a language from scratch is also incredibly hard as even though it’s already been done none have been adopted because (in my opinion) they skew one way or another when it comes to linguistic familiarity to existing languages and their concepts.

So what about a language that isn’t spoken? A pictographic (picture) language consisting of universally recognized depictions of any human concept?

This is a VERY rough showing off how this might work, but an idea I had was to simply use symbols and sub symbols in different places in relation to each other to depict things around us!

The structure would be simple to understand, with 4 main parts for this short example!

Your “main object” would be the symbol at the top, this is simply a part of the sentence you are conveying to the other person! This could be anything from “person” to “bookshelf”!

Your “Descriptors” would be smaller symbols underneath the main symbol in up to 4 columns and as many rows as needed, anything from the color of the object, its height etc! Some of these symbols may need to be complex within themselves, as in a symbol of a shirt may need to be colored the color that it is instead of needing another descriptor to describe it for simplicity.

Your “Action” would be the third symbol, the same size as the “main object” symbol as it can also be described! While not present in my above image above in that way, this would make the most sense in my mind!

After that there could be any number of symbols for additional information, but specific pieces of additional information may be written in specific ways, in this example our “time” aspect is written across 2 columns and one row like the common digital alarm clock.

As for the example I depicted in the image above in pencil, I drew a stick figure depiction of a human as my main object, with a depiction of two stick figures, one short and one tall, with an arrow pointing towards the taller depiction alongside the commonly recognized symbol for a personal born male in the first row, with a shirt symbol colored in black and an uncolored pair of pants in the second row. The third row is an image of a circle with an arrow pointing towards another circle with three small arrows beneath it, with “~10:00” written below it!

All and all if my example makes sense this should roughly be understood as “A person who is male, tall in stature, wearing a black shirt and wearing white pants moving from somewhere unspecified to another unspecified location very quickly at approximately 10:00”!

Okay idea dump (info dump?) over lolz :P

[qzwrites]

Do you ever think about suicide?

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

I was four or five the first time I heard my father recite Dorothy Parker's Resume. You might say that's too young to be joking about suicide around a child, and I don't think I can disagree. It upset me a lot as a kid, to hear my dad talk so glibly about suicide and his personal suicidal ideation.

On the other hand, I was four or five when I decided how I would kill myself, if I ever felt like I needed to.

These might seem like contradictory ideas. Maybe they are. I don't really know if this is an autism thing or a family thing or a mentally ill-since-childhood thing. Some combination of the three, perhaps, since certainly my autism and mental illness come from my family.

It wasn't something I thought about a lot, as a child. Mostly I thought about suicide when my dad talked about it, which was more often than I wanted or was comfortable thinking about, but I understood pretty quickly that it wasn't about me and he didn't seem to understand how upsetting it was.

It wasn't until after he died (not suicide, thanks for asking) that I really understood why my dad talked about it so freely and, it seemed to me, glibly.

I was not depressed as a child. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn't. I was extremely anxious and heavily bullied, but my family was loving and accepting, and the ways in which I was different did not particularly trouble me. It was mostly the callous ways other people acted that troubled me, but my family made sure I always knew there was nothing I could--or should!--do about other people being assholes.

The first serious depressive episode I had was in middle school. Despite the fact that I had friends for the first time in a long time, despite the fact that I got to stay in one school for nearly two entire years (a record!), I was depressed. I was sad and had trouble sleeping; I ate too many sweets and ruined my teeth. I thought about self-harming, which in my eleven-year-old brain was limited to cutting, and decided it wouldn't help. Honestly, the fact that so many people made fun of cutters for being pathetic probably made more of the decision for me than I would like to admit.

At the time I thought I was depressed because I had moved away from my best friend and first love, and missed the friends and family I had left behind. Probably that was part of it, but part of it was also definitely puberty and the dysphoria it hit me with; I'm sure part of it was also the fact that both bipolar and unipolar depression run in my family, and those often start presenting during puberty.

And maybe part of it was, now that I had friends who treated me like someone who mattered, it occurred to me that the way I had been treated in the past (and to be fair, was still treated by a large chunk of my classmates) was unfair and unjust.

I don't know.

I remember resisting suicidal thoughts, that first episode. I was young, I had reasons to be sad, but I didn't think I would be better off dead. The only times I even skirted around the thoughts were those interminable nights when I couldn't sleep, no matter how much I tried, and I knew I would feel awful in the morning. Lying in bed for hours, until I was bored of my own insomnia, did sometimes make me think, Surely even dying would be better than this. But I knew it wouldn't, and I never even had to work that hard at shunting those thoughts aside.

I had occasional smaller bouts of depression. I was a teenager, I was mentally ill, of course I had upswings and downswings, but high school was mostly a relief. My anxiety was at an all-time low. I had friends. We managed to stay in one place for the entirety of high school, so I got four glorious years to actually get to know people and be known in return. I had small manic episodes that I was more concerned with, because even if they weren't harmful, I knew only sleeping five or six hours a night and compulsively writing entire novellas in the space of a month was not especially healthy. It didn't occur to me that I could be depressed again some day, that it might be worse than it had been when I was a middle schooler pining for some theoretical better life.

My dad only sometimes talked about suicide when I was in high school, and it still made me uncomfortable, but in a different way. It feels more selfish to me, even though my discomfort as a small child was very literally selfish--I didn't want to think about a world in which my dad was dead. In high school, I thought more along the lines of, jeez, why can't he get over it the way I did? But it was also easier as a teenager to know my dad as a person, and he was the kind of person who had to talk about the things that were on his mind, and had to joke about the things that worried him, or else he'd let them eat away at him on the inside and fester. Another thing we have in common.

But as I said, it didn't get really bad again until my dad died. I was twenty-three. It was unexpected. I was a thousand miles away, and it had been more than a year since I had seen him in person.

Moving across the country is hard. I didn't really understand how hard it would be, mentally, until after I had done it. After all, I'd done it so many times as a child! I didn't think about the fact that one of those times had been the trigger of my first major depressive episode. I didn't think about the fact that moving to a more northern latitude in January might be a bad idea.

My father died the day after I signed my first long job contract.

I did not stay at that job for the entire term of the contract.

Much of the next several years is a blur to me. I was freelancing, which would not have been good for my mental health regardless. We had to move several times. My grandmother also died, within months of my father. I slipped on some ice and broke my ribs. I can piece together timelines through jobs I worked, through memories of which apartment we lived in, what my family's hairstyles were, but it's not especially clear. I'd say the first year was the hardest, but I'm not sure it was only a year. It was hardest immediately after he died, but it stayed hard for a long time.

You know, I never actually had my antidepressant dose adjusted. Bipolar sometimes responds badly to traditional antidepressants, and I was put on the antidepressant initially for anxiety. I don't know if it would have helped or not. I don't know how much adjustments to brain chemistry can actually help with grief and feeling useless. I mean, I know that's what they're for, but....

It didn't really feel that bad at the time. Or, it felt bad, but it always felt like a reasonable response to the comically-worsening series of events that was my life. Of course I would feel like shit after losing three family members in the space of a year; of course I would feel like shit after blowing my first real job by poorly-managing my depression. Of course I would feel like shit with cracked ribs, the only treatment for which is "time" and "not doing things that hurt".

It didn't stop me from thinking, more and more frequently, how nice it would be to stop for a while. To just cease existing.

And unfortunately, when you think something for long enough, it becomes an easy thought to have. I've read some neuroscience about it, not really understanding enough to say whether or not it's true, but it feels true, and after all, so much of human skill is made up of repetition. In the wake of my father's death, I got very good at thinking about how I would like to die.

I got the blues so bad Kinda wish I was dead Maybe I'll blow my brains out, mama Or maybe I'll, yeah maybe I'll just go bowlin' instead

I think it would have been a lot harder for me if I hadn't had my dad's example. I didn't understand, when I was a little kid, or even a teenager, how he could joke about his suicidal thoughts. But at some point in the years after he died, I listened to Weird Al's "Generic Blues", a song Dad quoted constantly when we went bowling, and I realized I got it. Because after a while, it just becomes the background noise of your brain. Something bad happens, and your brain says, "Oh God, I want to die," and whether or not that's true, you're kind of...tired of it. Yeah, yeah, I've heard it before. But I got through it then, and I guess I have to get through it now. The other option isn't actually appealing most of the time. The only option is to acknowledge it and move on. Sometimes that means making jokes about it, quoting poems and songs that are kind of glib about the subject, because there's no other way to deal with it.

Maybe I'll kill myself, or maybe I'll go bowling instead.

Here's the thing I don't know that I can adequately explain to anyone who hasn't been through something similar: I don't want to kill myself. I never really did. Maybe on the worst days it would have been nice to sink into oblivion for a while, but that's not really the same thing. And I certainly don't want to now. Although to be frank, that has less to do with my mental fortitude, or even my appreciation for how much worse that would make things for my family, than it has to do with this:

My father was chronically depressed and at least passively suicidal since he was twelve, and he made it to 59. He made it to 59, and died of something else.

Yeah, maybe things are worse for me than they were for him. He never lived through a global pandemic. He never, as far as I know, spent a month sick with a brain-eating virus making it impossible to breathe. On the other hand, he did live through most of the Cold War, the AIDS crisis, and the growing awareness that climate change was happening and getting worse. He lived through three divorces. He lived through the death of his father. He lived through one of his children going to prison.

Obviously I can't directly compare our lives. Even if he was alive, life is so subjective it would be pointless. Shit was hard for him, and it's hard for me.

He made it to 59, and died of something else.

So it doesn't really matter how bad it gets for me. It doesn't really matter how shitty I feel. It is simply not an option for me to do a worse job than my dad. I'm not even allowed to think about killing myself until I'm 60. That's all there is to it.

I mean, I'll think about it. I have thought about it. I will continue to think about it. It's hard, some days, to tell myself, "No you don't," when something goes wrong and my first thought in response is, "I want to die." But there's thinking about it, and there's thinking about it. Considering it. Planning.

Considering the chunk of my life I have spent depressed, I doubt I am ever going to be far from idle thoughts of suicide. Especially with the world looking like it's not in any mood to get better any time soon. I feel like I'm lying any time any mental health professional asks if I've thought about suicide or harming myself and I say no, but I'm pretty sure the question isn't meant for the idle thoughts about something that exists in the world and affects me.

Dad made it to 59. If he could do it, I can do it.

Dad made it to 59; I might as well live.

[sharpth1ng]

Love debaser, love that you’re a psych major. I am also so that’s awesome. I feel like tbh that’s probably why you’re good at characterization as well. I was wondering how you can tell in general if someone is autistic vs bpd? You’ve talked about Billy’s psych before, and I am just wondering if you can talk about it generally too.

Thanks so much! Essay incoming:

So I would say take all of this with a grain of salt, I'm not a clinician- I work with clinicians but this isn't my specialty and personality disorders should really be diagnosed by specialists.

But generally the best evidence we have about the development of BPD is genetic vulnerability (Things like emotional sensitivity and impulsivity can have a strong genetic component) in combination with an invalidating or unsupportive social environment. What counts as a trauma for someone depends heavily on what their level of sensitivity is, and also what resources they have to deal with it, so the idea is that bpd is essentially something that develops when someones emotions and needs are invalidated consistently from a young age.

It becomes hard to trust other people and also your own feelings, and you may learn that you have to do things like lying to get the help an support that you need, or that your emotions are so large and you have so little support for them that the only way to cope is to harm yourself. All this is to say that bpd, trauma, and invalidation are closely tied together.

Now moving on to the connection with autism, because theres a not insignificant number of autistic people who are also diagnosed with bpd. This may be a slightly sweeping statement, but at least for myself, being an autistic child was inherently traumatizing. I was constantly subjected to sensory hell in school, around other kids, and particularly at meal times, and my meltdowns were perceived as intentional tantrums. On top of this I would lose the ability to speak sometimes and this was also taken as an intentional behaviour.

Because there are so many things neurotypical people don't even notice that are traumatic to autistic folk (like fluorescent lights or an unexpected change of plans) we are constantly invalidated, especially when we are young. Basically here I'm just trying to explain why the overlap exists.

No on to differentiating the two, this is a useful diagram:

The real answer here is that we're still really trying to figure out exactly how these two disorders interact and how to differentiate them and in my opinion theres a lot of terrible research in personality disorders, and a lot of unqualified people giving out diagnosis (don't trust your family doctor to diagnose you with a mental disorder, they at most got like a month training and psychologists, psychiatrists and counsellors study this stuff for for 6-8 years).

There is also some evidence that autistic people who were assigned female at birth are more likely to be diagnosed with bpd than people who were assigned male at birth who have the same symptoms, so there might be a gender bias in the way that diagnosticians perceive people too.

There are some bigger differences to look at though, so things like sensory symptoms (sensitivities but also stimming), special interests, neurodivergent body language, literal interpretation and introversion are more common for autistics. In contrast, people with only bpd are more likely to have a history of childhood abuse or neglect, heightened sensitivity to perceived social threat (which some autistic folk may be oblivious to), drastic emotional up and down, and personality instability, where they frequently change values, hobbies, opinions, friendships, ect. (while in contrast most autistic people are pretty consistent on those things.)

One of the most important things is to figure out why behaviours are happening- for example, self harm and substance abuse are common for both groups, but for autistics these behaviours are often a way to compensate for sensory overload and anxiety, while for people with bpd they are a way to deal with feelings of emptiness or overwhelming emotion.

Another example would be difficulty in relationships- for autistic people this often comes from an inability to spontaneously produce neurotypical social behaviours, so a lot of us miss cues or copy and paste behaviours to try and blend. In contrast many people with BPD have an unstable sense of self, so their social behaviours can seem "disorganized" from the outside, and they may miss read situations because they constantly looking for threats so they can try and protect themselves.

Personal history is also important- if someone has a deep distrust of people because they were neglected as a child, this may point to bpd, but if they have a distrust of people because the weren't able to read their peers and got severely bullied for special interests in elementary school, then this may point to autism.

And again, some people do have both! But it's honestly really difficult to differentiate them without seeing a diagnostician over a long period of time. Its super important though, effective treatment for an autistic person is different than effective treatment for people with bpd, and for people with both its different as well.

I hope this is somewhat clear! I don't want to simplify any of this because it actually is really complex and I just want to be honest about that.

[xxxjarchiexxx]

reading more on anti-civ anarchism that isn't anprim and how anti-civ/post-civ thought can combine with other ideologies because i genuinely find the base thesis of "life and civilization as we know it is inherently an ecological drain on the biome, including the humans within it, and as such we need to find another way" but i disagree fundamentally with the idea that there is any Perfect Past to return to or that nomadic of hunter-gatherer life is anything to romanticize. this is like blatant retvrn fash-adjacency that comes from a lack of research into the reality of pre-'civ' life and often invokes the noble savage caricature etc.

i also just think drawing a firm line on What Civilization Is does a lot of heavy lifting for anti-indigenous racist ideology by defining the pre-settler existences of indigenous people as Not Civilization, but i do see the use of defining civilization on it's own terms/how it is defined culturally even if that's a definition i disagree with

i think this is why i lean towards the vague ideology of degrowth, as it promotes the idea of using what is already existent solely rather than continual progress and expansion and creation (a thoroughly colonialist mindset and one that harms the earth + people). i think i might look more into post-civ as it seems to have developed as an ideology partially out of a desire to separate from anprim adjacent ideology.

truly, the question of environmental impact, decolonization, and free association are the primary rubbing points i have with marxism-leninism/communism et al. and are why i'm looking more into various green anarchy ideology.

green energy is good and better and humans will always have a "carbon footprint" as it were as long as we exist because all living things do, but the impact of mining and consumption on the environment and the people is glaring and while somewhat addressed by existing DOTP, it still feels firmly Not Enough.

similarly, at least in the us, all currently existent communist party projects don't center indigenity or present any sort of plan to dismantle the colonial project aside from "well we'll do land acknowledgements and maybe rename some stuff", which is barely ANYTHING and doesn't engage with the reality of colonization as an ongoing project and current problem in the us.

and finally, free association is something that i can't NOT believe in-- to answer the question YES I THINK LETTING SOMEONE DIE ON PURPOSE IS BAD. but i also think being forced into spending large chunks of your life doing something you do not want to do because if you don't you'll be punished in some nebulous way (prison or physical threats or removal from society) is not okay in any situation. maybe for small temporary situations if ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY but not as a fact of life-- though even then there shouldn't be pressure that is not social, because i can never be ideologically on board with incarceration.

now, necessary disclaimers: i would never rat out communists plotting revolution even to save my own back, i do think DOTP is better than DOTB by a lot, and i do not support fear-mongering about communism or the idea that being a communist of any stripe (even if u support punitive measures i wouldnt) makes u Basically A Fascist.

i'm open to discussion or reading suggestions but if any of this pisses u off enough that u won't be able to kid-gloves talk to me, u should probs just unfollow bcuz i have the sensitive little flower autism and will not understand what is said to me if i'm not walked through it somewhat, and i will Shut Down at hostility

[thrivingmindsacademy]

What To Expect From ABA Therapy

You've probably heard of ABA therapy. Maybe you know that it's the most effective treatment for autism and related disorders, or maybe a friend has talked about using it on their kid. Either way, you're probably wondering if it's right for your family. The short answer: Absolutely! The long answer is more complex -- but we're going to break it down for you here so that by the time you finish reading this post, you'll feel like an expert in autism-specific treatment methods.

Outline

ABA therapy is a type of treatment that uses behavioral principles to help children with autism spectrum disorders learn new skills. It's also sometimes used to treat other conditions, such as ADHD or oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).

ABA stands for applied behavior analysis, which means that it uses scientific methods to analyze behaviors and teach new ones. The goal is to improve quality of life by helping your child develop self-care skills, social interaction skills and communication skills so they can interact more easily with others in their environment. ABA therapists work with one child at a time; this is different from group classes where many children attend together but aren't directly interacting with each other. They may have separate sessions where they work on specific goals together though!

Expect To Use A Lot Of Time And Effort

The amount of time and effort required will depend on your child's needs, but it's a good idea to expect that ABA therapy will take up more of your life than you might be used to.

Your therapist will be able to give you an idea of how much time they think is necessary for your child's treatment, but in general:

The more consistent and committed you are with the plan and with following through on what has been agreed upon between yourself and the therapist, the better results will be.

Do not underestimate how much work goes into providing effective ABA therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

You're Going To Be Asked To Do Things That Seem Kind Of Funky At First

You can expect to do things that seem kind of funky at first. For example, you might be asked to clap your hands or make animal noises. This may sound strange, but there's a reason behind it: these exercises help kids identify and express emotions in ways they wouldn't normally be able to communicate.

Other therapies focus on activities like drawing or talking about feelings; ABA focuses on using language as a tool for social interaction by encouraging children to talk about what they're doing in order to express themselves effectively. This helps them learn how their behavior affects others and gives them more control over how they behave in different situations (for example, when someone is angry).

The Goal Is For Your Kid To Function Better In Real Life

The goal of ABA therapy is to improve your child's ability to function in everyday life. This is a long-term process that takes time and commitment, but it can be very effective when combined with other treatment methods.

ABA therapy does not promise that your child will automatically become "normal," but instead helps them develop skills and abilities necessary for them to function successfully in society at large. It also teaches you how to teach these skills yourself so you can continue helping your child after the therapist has left (or even if they're still around).

It's Not A Magic Bullet -- But It Can Be Very Effective.

ABA therapy is not a magic bullet. It's not going to cure your child in one session, and it definitely won't fix the problems that come with having ADHD or autism spectrum disorder. However, ABA can be an effective tool for helping children learn new skills and improve their behavior.

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[sunkern-plus]

Confession: I hated the Jamie Lee Curtis Activia commercials, mainly because I, uh, felt like they were talking about my pooping issues way too much but talking down to me about it like I was a baby like no, my constipation makes me worried that I'm going to need an enema simply to go to the bathroom for a couple days at best, it's not simply something I can treat with yogurt

My unknown stomach issues (which lately I think is a neurological effect of my autism, namely something interfering with how the colon works with the nerves all the way from my intestines to my rectum) are...okay, they're not better, but they changed in a different way. In addition to gaining new allergies, I no longer have problems with chronic constipation but rather loose, but large stools that are bulky and hard to get out so they might as well be constipation

It's...very weird because my current problem isn't really talked about as a thing, bc it's either constipation or diarrhea but mine is like a combination of the two, but I'm not necessarily sure if I have IBS even if some of my allergy triggers (where I get nauseous and rashes) involve common IBS triggers

Tagging this as actuallyibs to see if anything can help but it might also be something mcas or related to it

[black-king-white-knight]

Vent.

Now, I understand that therapists provide an invaluable service and they’re a very important thing that I’ve known I’ve needed for many years and have tried to acquire. And will try again.

BUT.

The fucking feeling of being sent to a ‘therapist’ so utterly unqualified to deal with someone like me that I get sent into a two day (I saw him at 9AM yesterday, it’s now 11:30 the next night) depressive spiral. (Although a clue should have been that he’s a Mr not a Dr on his card.)

Like I get he was trying. But my autism, double severe general and social anxiety, BPD, severe depression, suicidal ideation, eating disorder, self-harm, ptsd, ADHD and whatever the fuck else is in my mind, plus complications from chronic pain was a little above his paygrade as an accredited social worker.

And being sent home with his refusal to engage with the reasons about the explosion of a friendship, to the extent where I’m trying to point out how my social circle has suffered due to said explosion, and how I’m trying to finish glossing over my BPD before moving on to how autism and ADHD have impacted my ability to make friends all my life because, once I make a friend I generally can combat the anxiety and depression with some help, but you know, other factors.

And I start out by... basically explaining what BPD is. (Since the explosion of my friendship largely over this was really the most recent big thing and I figured work backwards, you know? At least it’s somewhere to start.) Which really should have been a flag on it’s own but I thought, ‘Oh, okay, he’s testing my knowledge, trying to see if this might be an actual thing or just a buzzword I saw online,‘ and when I start trying to explain a Favourite Person, he’s, seemingly seriously, just like, “Well everyone has that.“

MY GUY IF YOU’RE LIKE 60 AND HAVE UNDIAGNOSED BPD THEN MAYBE YOU NEED TO SEE SOMEONE ON YOUR OWN DUDE. AND SHOULD ALSO TAKE THAT UP WITH WHOEVER TRAINED YOU AS A THEORETICAL MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL.

BECAUSE NO NOT EVERYONE HAS THEIR FUCKING PERSONALITY WARPED AGAINST THEIR MOTHERFUCKING WILL BY INTERNAL MENTAL HEALTH SHIT.

Anyway, back on topic, that, combined with boiling down all the shit I think I have through research and reading up other people’s personal experiences with their shit as either anxiety or ‘Doctor Google‘, (i.e. self diagnosis/hypochondria. Without me even getting through the entire list of shit that’s wrong with me before he leapt in with THAT particularly charming comment.) To say nothing of past trauma outside of my own head.

And to be sent home with an appointment I didn’t technically agree too, the fact that he started the appt by saying that it was for him to get to know me and me to decide “if I’m worth the time talking to professionally,“ but then didn’t ask and just wrote me in for another appt.

Oh also he kept my referral letter which seems really odd given my partner’s therapists have never done that. Previously they’ve just photocopied them and given them back. Which he didn’t seem to have one, but he can email my doctor and ask...?

And I’m kind of trying not to cry or tell him off as I walk out, especially because my dad offered to drive me and he doesn’t need additional stress, and when I mentioned how I considered myself broken, the social worker turned around and snapped out, “I don’t ever want to hear that word out of your mouth again, okay?“

Which, I get, negative self talk all that shit. But I was trying to talk about how my brain perceives me and therefore what I’m exposed to being inside my skull day-to-day.

And when I tried to list off what was wrong with me he also said like, “if I went through the DSM 5, (which he at least explained what it was) I’d find like 20 diagnoses for you, and probably 30 for me.“

Which. My guy. It’s the DS-fucking-M 5. It’s hardly a reliable source free of justified criticism.

I don’t want to say him being old was a factor, but the combo of old and sharing a building with a baptist church recruitment centre did not give me confidence I could touch on queer subjects. Like my own fucking identity.

Or that of my partner. Or my boyfriend. Or trying to explain being polyam to him.

“What’s something you enjoy doing? Do you have hobbies?“

No. I have fucking *depression* my guy.

On the subject of whether or not I exercise, “No, because my shifts at work are so physically intensive and-“ I have chronic back pain, I’m going to say so that messes with my ability to exercise.

“Work doesn’t count.“

Okay, so clearly the fact that i cry sometimes because of how much pain I’m in that walking, standing, sitting etc, all hurt, CLEARLY ALSO DOESN’T MATTER.

Like how this morning I woke up at about a 5-6. Clearly irrelevant to my exercise.

So he sent me home with instructions to do a basic bitch breathing exercise, which was inhale until my lungs are full, hold for a second then slowly exhale. And I’m to do that every 10 minutes. Because, be-fucking-cause, this making me slightly light headed is good because that means my frontal lobe is oxygenated. Which is good at combating anxiety, which he describes as just, “fear of the future“, and depression is “a sadness of the past.“

SO NICE TO KNOW THAT MY DEPRESSION IS JUST A BIG SAD NOT A NEUROTRANSMITTER IMBALANCE MR. THEORETICALLY ACCREDITED FOR MENTAL HEALTH WORK SOCIAL WORKER MAN.

So yeah. Breathing exercise that runs counter to pretty much everything I have read in my own research/heard from other people, get up at 7AM every day, (with chronic insomnia? Yay.) And go for a one hour “brisk“ walk. Then come home, shower, eat breakfast, (with an eating disorder that frequently doesn’t let me get hungry until I’ve been up for a few hours?) Then write for about two hours each day.

So basically. After my very first, (and only, even I’m not that into self-harm... not anymore at least) session with this guy, we seem to have cut straight to what my life should be like as a 30-second montage in a movie when I’m in a good place, and that’s my treatment.

Oh and we didn’t even touch on my severe financial stress.

TL:DR; I seem to have acquired a fucking homeopath of a therapist.

Honestly there’s probably more shit in that hour that I’m forgetting. Credit where credit’s due, he got shit done in that hour.

It may have been because it was 9AM, but maybe there was a reason his office was fucking empty.

Oh, and the walls were thin enough that I could hear my dad on the phone outside. Not enough to hear what was said, but charming aspect to a therapist’s office. He could hear our voices too.

To be fair to him, he was quite patient with explaining shit to me. To be fair to me tho, I didn’t need anxiety explained to me like I was 6. I will survive if you call it an amygdala and not “a very old part of the brain“ my guy.

But to be fair to me, I seem to have been sent to someone with enough mental health training to help do family therapy for stressed bc of work parents and a kid caught in the middle. Not for shit of my calibre.

Although he did have a drawing made by a child presumably, thanking him for helping them. So I’m glad that kid got seemingly good help.

BUT ALSO FOR FUCK’S SAKE MY GUY.

Also he didn’t really react to the news I’m on SSRIs. And I feel like a patient saying, “Oh yeah I’m on anti-depressants-“ should be, maybe. Potentially. Possibly. A clue that’s it’s not just anxiety and implied hypochondria.

Because I get I may not have done an ideal job explaining BPD to him. But. No everyone does not have intrusive nightmares about taking the veggie knife in the second drawer, going in through either my temple, eye, or the soft spot behind my ear and carving bits of my brain out until i hit what I wanted (or at least I hope y’all fucking don’t) so I can stop fucking fixating on someone I wouldn’t even want to date/fuck if I was given a choice my own fucking brain was trying to manipulate me into, and thankfully I wasn’t. I mean even the offer to write them into my story was one made in haste courtesy of the high BPD was giving me for being able to talk to them, not something I actually wanted to do in hindsight for all sorts of reasons.

Also our knives were part of the furnishing given by the landlords and they couldn’t keep an edge for shit.

So yeah. I need help for that especially given my poor self-control, for when my FP flares up again.

Because being able to trust the objectively of your own thoughts is. Probably still something I don’t really understand ‘cause I don’t have a psychosis or something, so, you know, I’m probably just being dramatic, but that was a fucking ride of a couple of weeks.

Idk, feel like I should report him to someone for something but fuck if I know who or for what.

Now I’mma go cry, hope my hands stop shaking and probably not sleep for 24 hours.

Oh, at least he accepted the existence of my epilepsy.

Yeeeah.

[autisticcassandracain]

Alright finished Tom King's Mister Miracle yesterday and unpopular opinion but I fucking hate it lmao.

I'm not terribly comfortable doing an objective (or at least as objective as literary analysis can ever be) analysis of the book, so this'll be my subjective opinion. The reason I'm not comfortable doing an onjective analysis is because. Well. I honestly can barely tell wtf is going on in the book.

I am HORRIBLE at visual metaphor; written metaphor I'm able to catch just fine (at least 95% of the time) but visual metaphor has approximately a 100% chance of tripping me up. I can never tell it's a metaphor; I'll always take it as literally happening. (It's probably the autism.) This means that then they kept showing me glitch effects, I. Assumed something was actually glitching. Which, combined with the blacked out panels with just the text 'Darkseid is.' and the fact that the content in this book is so much darker than anything that's ever been done with Scott, lead me to the conclusion that nothing was real. As in, the events took place in a simulation of some kind, with the intent of either breaking Scott's will or convincing him to join Darkseid. Which. Obviously. Was WILDLY off base lmao. You can see why I don't feel qualified to actually analyse this book.

Even with my obvious inability to analyse this run objectively, I can see that a very large part of my distate for it stems from personal preference. This simply isn't the kind of story I want to read for Scott. To me, the point of Scott has always been to escape the concept of the Darkseid/New Genesis conflict. Despite verious writers' attempts to integrate him, he's always been kind of separate from the lore of the New Gods, and while I think he could be a little more connected to it, for the most part, this is simply because Scott doesn't WANT to be involved with the New Gods. Scott's stories are always about him trying to create a life on Earth away from Apokolips and New Genesis, and clinging to it as much as he can. This is a large part of what I LIKE about him! I enjoy stories of people escaping horrible situations and/or a pre-determined role to create their own life, especially if it's mundane compared to their supposed 'destined role'. It's why I dislike the endings of Mister Miracle volumes 1 & 2 as well; I think moving Scott to New Genesis because he just can't seem to live on Earth is a mistake, and essentially reads to me as Scott giving up.

So what I REALLY don't want to read is a story about Scott getting dragged into the New Genesis/Apokolips war and eventually becoming the leader of New Genesis. I have a very hard time believing Scott would ever even... do that. He's repeatedly given up his position as New Genesis' heir/ruler, and has also repeatedly avoided godhood in general. Darkseid having the complete anti-life equation is a scenario desperate enough that Scott MIGHT agree to fight for New Genesis, but that raises another problem to me.

We've seen the complete anti-life equation in action before. If Darkseid had it. There'd be no war. There would be no way to fight against him. There just wouldn't. I get that they made the anti-life equation a metaphor for trauma/hate/etc (or at least I THINK they did, again, I'm not good at analysing this book), but it's still an actual existing thing? I really don't feel like King read Orion before writing this, because this book doesn't really seem to understand how the equation works.

Anyway, you could argue the entire comic is about Scott fighting to maintain his life on Earth, which, fair enough, but even so, I simply do not want to see him be this heavily involved with the war against Apokolips, at least not in this way. It defeats the point of Scott's character to me. I do really like the idea of exploring Scott's trauma from Apokolips, which in my opinion has never been done satisfactorily, but I want him to have space to heal from it. Not be repeatedly re-traumatized. If you want a story about someone's mental health deteriorating as a result from being stuck in a perpetual war, Orion and Lightray are right there.

(Also, gonna be frank here, I do not want a story about a perpetual war written by an ex-CIA agent. It has Connotations that are hard to ignore.)

Speaking of Orion and Lightray. The one bit of objective criticism I AM comfortable laying against this book is the horrible portrayal of Orion and Lightray, but especially Orion.

Once again, CONVINCED King didn't read Orion's solo, because if he had, I doubt he would've had the nerve to call that character of his Orion. King's Orion is a bloodthirsty, underhanded, selfish egomaniac, which is a WILD misunderstanding of who Orion is. I haven't read as much of Orion as I've read of Scott, but I feel like I have a decent understanding of his character. Orion is the noble monster, NOBLE being the keyword here. He enjoys fighting, yes, and he struggles against anger and bloodthirsty impulses, but he's honorable to the bone. Honor in battle is an EXTREMELY important concept to Orion; yes, if necessary, he CAN play dirty, but he never does so unprovoked. The idea that he'd betray Scott and Barda and deliberately lead them into a trap with the intent to kill them is simply ludicrous. WHY is Granny Goodness portrayed more sympathetically than Orion??

In addition, Orion fights for peace. He genuinely just wants people to live in peace and harmony. He wouldn't needlessly slaughter 6 million of New Genesis' Bugs, then send Lightray to kill Forager for telling Scott. Even during Orion's solo, when he had a corruption arc, gained control of the complete anti-life equation, and used it to effectively become a tyrant, his goals never changed: he wanted everyone to live in peace and harmony. He wanted to protect others, and have them be happy. He doesn't fight for power; power is a tool he uses to protect others. He became the leader of Apokolips not because he craved the power, but because he wanted to make Apokolips a better place to live; he used the anti-life equation not to crown himself king of everything, but to force others to do good. He would never exhibit the tyrannical, egocentric control over New Genesis the way he does in this series. He just wouldn't.

And Lightray is portrayed as Orion's lackey, following him without question, doing his bidding without much opinions of his own, which is, again, ludicrous. Lightray has never had a problem calling Orion out when he's going too far or making the wrong choices. Lightray is an extremely moral, dutiful person, and would never allow Orion to misuse his power over New Genesis the way he does in this series. Lightray is forgiving of Orion, yes, because he loves him, but that doesn't translate to mindlessly following his orders or making excuses for inexcusable actions.

In addition. Does King know that Orion is supposed to be the frontline fighter, and Lightray the schemer? It's not that Orion can't plan or that Lightray can't do things without thinking, but their methods of fighting are very important to their characters. In this series, Orion is shown scheming much more than Lightray is, which, all things considered, is a minor problem, but it still points to a misunderstanding of the characters.

Other, shorter/more minor problems I have with the series:

Tom King's dialogue has a particular cadence to it that's impossible to ignore once you noticed it, and it drives me nuts. He writes like this. All the time. Every single piece of dialogue... is written like this. It ends up sounding. Very stilted. Especially in the... longer monologues. I hate it.

Barda feels kinda sexualized. You can tell thet were trying to disguise it behind 'realism', but she's shown naked, in her underwear, or undressing much more often than Scott.

The fact that they removed the scene where Orion drops the knife from his backstory is SO telling.

Love the part where a cashier spouts the textbook definition of utalitarianism. Like seriously?

Why would Darkseid's Omega Beams affect the anti-life equation. What.

STOP PUTTING CHRISTIAN ALLEGORIES IN SCOTT'S STORIES IF I HAVE TO SEE JESUS!SCOTT ONE MORE TIME I'LL LOOSE IT!!

But hey at least the art's good?

[arizona-trash-bag]

I can totally explain a bit of my thinking behind seeing lwj as autistic and wwx as autistic/adhd!! Before I get into specifics though, let me preface with where I’m coming from. I first saw CQL and then read the EXR translation of the novel. I prefer MDZS to CQL, but also want to acknowledge that because I do not read/speak Mandarin I am inherently experiencing this story second-hand and therefore am probably missing out on a lot of nuances. I am trying to learn Mandarin, but it will be a long time before I am even a little close to fluent lol.

Another preface- obviously not all autistic people present in the same way, and many of the things that I will mention are not solely specific to autistic people either. It’s one of those things where all of it added up together points towards asd, but each one individually would not on its own indicate asd, you know? Also, I will say that many of the things I picked up on for both characters are autistic traits that many autistic people have vs the clinical characteristics (much like most of the case I could make for wwx’s adhd would be adhd traits he has rather than symptoms that would lead to a real-world diagnosis.) Edit: OH! I almost forgot to say, that also all of these traits I’m listing are from a western perspective, and I would LOVE to read more about how autism presents in different cultures and to see conversations between autistc Chinese people specifically, so as to see if these traits are specific to western autistic people or not, but again, I do not speak Mandarin or Cantonese or any other Chinese dialect, so that’s a little inaccessible for me atm.

Ok, SO, for both characters I would list: strong sense of justice, lack of care for society’s opinion (I feel like it could be argued that lwj does to a certain point, but imo he operates more from what he morally considers to be correct and from a place of familial duty vs catering to the opinion of society at large), and then more vaguely, they both seem to be “nerdy” (this doesnt feel like the most accurate term, especially because it's not like being scholarly is specific to their characters, especially in ancient fantasy China- it’s more that their particular hmmm, flavor?? of love of knowledge feels very neurodivergent to me, vs like, being scholarly because it’s the thing that is expected of a Young Master, if that makes any sense at all- like the difference btwn someone getting an engineering degree because it is expected of them vs because they genuinely love engineering), and lastly for both- I would say that they are canonically kinky, and while I can’t cite any statistics, there’s a pretty high correlation between being autistic and being into kink. Obviously, not every person who is not vanilla is autistic, and not every autistic person is into kink…….but there is a high correlation.

For lwj specifically, the things that made me think he might be autistic are his lack of outward emoting combined with his depth and breadth of emotions, how he seems to thrive in and quite enjoy the very structured environment he grew up in, and then the last one off the top of my head (side note, I feel like a week from now I’m going to randomly think of other examples lol) I’m not actually sure IS an example, because I know (thanks to the awesome post from hunxi that you linked to that I had read previously) that his succintness does not equal autism, but I do kind of feel like it is very autistic to Always be so formal and to Always talk in textbook perfect language.

For wwx, I also think he likely has CPTSD! I’m not going to list anything for adhd or cptsd since we both agree on those :) As far as being autistic goes, there is, of course, the high prevalence of adhd/asd comorbidity. For specifc traits- while autism can show up as lack of facial expressions/tone, it can also show up as being overly exuberant and overexpressive. Especially for younger autistic children this can show up as being overly friendly/no boundaries w/ strangers (just?? going home with a random man who says he knew wwx’s parents???), making unusual connections that others do not can be both asd and adhd, his disregard for social status (disregard might be a strong word, and also I feel like this might be one of those things that got lost in translation and if I had read the original text I might have a different opinon, but what I mean here is the way that often autistic people learn certain social rules and try their best to follow them, but often do not pick up on specifics related to social hierarchy that are not spelled out for them- I think jyl’s take down of jin zixun is a great example of the /oppossite/ of what I’m talking about, and is a very neurotypical interaction. An example also of what I mean by disregard for social hierarchy, but from my own life, is how I’ve reflected on past convos w/ my boss only to realize that what I thought was just an interesting conversation about our opinons on a particular subject was actually them trying to tell-me-as-my-boss something they wanted me to do. We ended up doing things the way I wanted to do them because I didn’t realize that they were telling me to do something because they didnt explicitly say so, and because I just don’t pick up on when people are saying something from a social hierarchy pov. Idk if this makes sense or not, so I’m happy to try to expand if you would like me to. I feel like wwx could be described as having alexithymia, which is very common in autistic people, but could also be due to his cptsd. And then, I don’t feel like this is a true point because it is kind of based on headcanon? but wwx feels very demisexual to me, which is much more common for autistic people than it is for allistic people. But him being demi is not canon, just my perception of him (I see him as demisexual gay w/ massive comphet, but I know lots of people see him as bi, which also totally makes sense!!)

Tbh, I’m having a harder time than I thought I would listing wwx specifics. I might go through the book sometime this weekend and see if there are specific moments that pop out at me, but tbh w/ him its more that he Feels very adhd/asd to me?? Idk, I was diagnosed w/ adhd when I was 8, and all 4 of my siblings plus my father have offical adhd diagnoses. I’m 29 now and was only diagnosed as autistic earlier this year.  All of my close friends have always been either adhd, asd, or adhd/asd. There have been multiple people I have met that I’ve suspected were neurodivergent who have later told me they started looking into it and are now seeking formal diagnoses. I mention these things, only to give full context when I say that I have spent a lot of time observing the differences between interacting with neurotypicals and neurodivergents. I mean, obviously, it’s possible that I could just be projecting, but to me, Wwx gives off late-diagnosed/heavy masker autism/adhd combo vibes. Again, maybe I am projecting, but I did try to analyze whether I was or not previously, and determined that since in the past with other favorite characters (who I probably share more similarities in personality with) I did not feel like they were neurodivergent, so I figured that probably I wasn’t? That feels like a very convoluted sentence, but what I mean is that I have not thought that about other characters who have been my fav, so I figured that while I do project in certain areas that this particular area probably wasn’t one of them. Or, to say it in yet another way, since i did not project any of my neurodivergencies on past favorite characters, I figured I probably didn’t start doing so now.

I would love to hear more of your perspective on this, particularly because I worry that I do not have the cultural touchstones to realize when something wwx or lwj is doing is not actually a sign of being neurodivergent. I try my best to research things I don’t know about and to listen to fans who actually do have that cultural understanding, but there’s only so much I can look into on my own when I only speak/read english. And also, I love mdzs and I love talking about both adhd and autism, so I’m glad to talk about these subjects with someone else who also likes all of those topics :) Sorry for sending a book of a response and also I hope you are having a great day!!

wow wow wow anon THANK YOU for doing your research and acknowledging your blind spots you seriously made my day. I wanted to get to this as soon as I made that rant while sharing cyan’s post bc this is specifically an example of a well researched proposition based on actual lived experience and critical thinking.

I almost want to ask you to come forward so we can take this convo elsewhere for a more nuanced discussion bc you’ve already hit upon an issue that’s been holding me back from making a big blathering masterpost on the matter - that the ND experience is so unique and individual, and no one person can dictate someone else’s experience. at the end of the day, if you personally relate to these characters and gain more understanding of yourself and your experiences from them, who am I to take that away from you?

in a public space though I have to make the discussion very broad in order to accurately contextualize these issues, bc in typical autistic fashion I feel morally compelled to Do My Best and Get It Right even as the masses show no inclination of returning the favor, so apologies for the boring backstories I have to get out of the way before we can approach anything resembling new ground.

first from a diagnostic standpoint, while I recognize the traits you listed (and appreciate your clearly nuanced understanding of ND expressions) and would find value in exploring them in a personal context, they are not unique to adhd and/or autism and wouldn’t constitute a basis for diagnosis in a clinical setting. I know that's probably beside the point for this anon, but there's enough edgy teens hoarding labels out there without tacit encouragement from scientists (yes I am technically a scientist, even though my ideologies these days range from conventional to... wildly esoteric, shall we say)

from a cultural standpoint, it’s important for me to emphasize that the concept of neurodivergence is a uniquely western notion. for those unfamiliar, the term 'neurodiversity' was only coined in 1998. I was born in 1991. I existed for a whole 7 years as an autistic person before the idea of being neurodivergent was even a thing. this ND acceptance thing is very, very new - people were not making tiktok confessionals about their adhd diagnosis journeys when I was growing up.

china, like most asian countries, is about 20 years or more behind on just about every social issue compared with western countries. to better illustrate, the experience of being ND in china falls much closer to the conventional experience of disability (i.e. being eugenicized out of existence) than the tentative ND acceptance movement that’s been kickstarted in the past 20 years in the anglosphere.

safe to say, there is no ND coding going on in chinese media. characters are either explicitly ND or they're not. there's no basis for a creator subtly inducing ND-like traits in a character, because there's no such thing as ND awareness in the cultural context of where mdzs was written and consumed. any resemblance is purely accidental, as they say.

as to how this resemblance could exist - I could go into the layers and layers of historical, cultural, social and religious context that make up these characters and the xianxia genre as a whole. for this anon in particular i'm happy to, because they've done the work. please please get in touch in some way where we can have a fully fleshed out chat if you're interested in taking this further, I realize i’ve basically addressed none of the finer points you’ve raised but honestly it’s another level of discussion to be had that cannot be summarized in one blog post haha.

as for those who would scream 'but special interests!!' at a character whose sect was founded by a literal monk - what would be the point?

PS. to comprise a starting point for why it's possible to see ND4ND everywhere in media if you looked hard enough - I refer you to the seminal red oni blue oni trope 💁‍♀️

[autistic-beshelar]

Neurodivergent Link Headcanons (BOTW)

Here are... my headcanons for ND Link! I’ve tried to put them in fairly concise bullet points so hopefully they make sense. A lot of the autistic/adhd traits overlap, but I’ve put them in separate sections just to try and make this easier to read 

Headcanons under the cut!

Autism:

 - sensory seeking! Link needs constant stimulation and his preferred sensory input is touch, whether it’s rubbing his palms over tree bark or smushing his face in soft pillows. Auditory and visual stimulation are good too, but he’s very, very tactile. Of course taste is another big thing for him, he loves cooking and trying out new food and exploring different tastes, whether it’s sweet or spicy or sour, the stronger the better.

- he stims. SO MUCH. he has so many stims that I’m going to make a separate post to include all of them, but the main ones are rocking and flapping his hands.

- very good with gross motor skills, generally good with fine motor skills but there are a select few he struggles with - he has very poor handwriting, has to focus tying shoelaces, struggles washing his hair, overestimates how hard he’s brushing his teeth and makes his gums bleed

- poor interoception. Has a hard time telling when he’s hungry, or tired, or in pain. Sometimes he will walk around with an injury and not realise until he sees blood. Finds it hard to recognise negative sensations and his body tends to just interpret them as discomfort.

- very good at recognising and deciphering expressions and body language, but not particularly good at (or interested in) emulating it. He’s very astute and can pick up on microexpressions and hidden glances and the like, and can work out people’s true feelings or motivations, but in a social context he’s not necessarily good at responding to it.

- easily picks up on small details and notices things others don’t - this can be related to the former point, but also just in general. Also very good at pattern recognition which lends itself well to solving shrines.

- nonverbal. Mostly uses sign to communicate, or noises (usually with animals or people he’s comfortable with). Can occasionally manage to speak in short bursts when he has to, but it’s few words and usually stuttered, and if he gets at all stressed (which he often does if he’s forced to talk) he won’t be able to say much of anything. He can talk a little around Sidon and Zelda, they’re pretty much the only he feels comfortable enough to be verbal with, and they understand the way he talks and are patient when he’s slow or gets words mixed up.

- difficulty with eye contact. Either too little or too much, though usually it’s the former. He only tends to stare at people if he likes them, or if he’s angry with them or trying to make them uncomfortable

- echo echo lalia. Loves to repeat fun noises, especially animal noises, but sometimes words (sees a dog and just goes doggy doggy doggy doggy doggy for the next hour). He does this with sign as well, but tends to prefer making fun mouth sounds

- special interests in food and horses! Those twins at the stable were right. That’s all that’s on his mind. Food and horses. He really loves trying out new ingredient combinations and exploring different tastes. And he knows a great many horse facts. 

- forms connections with animals more easily than with people. This is partly because when he first left the Shrine of Resurrection he was alone in the wilderness, and partly because he doesn’t really talk, but it’s also just an autism thing. People are friendly to him, but he doesn’t tend to form deep connections with them like he does with animals.

- can tell the time by the position of the sun in the sky but can’t read a clock. What are those numbers on the slate. It’s a mystery!

- has mild visual processing issues, mostly struggles to focus on things like screens or pages, things look blurry or strangely coloured, or have a weird overlay.

ADHD:

- inattentive AND hyperactive AND impulsive, a triple threat

- gets the Zoomies. Often ends up conking out afterwards. Will run around chasing frogs all day and then just fall asleep in the middle of a field

- Can’t Stay Still. Has To Bounce Leg.

- nonexistent sleep schedule. Granted, he doesn’t sleep well or regularly what with travelling all over Hyrule, but even without that his sleep would be terrible

- sometimes zones out in the middle of a conversation. Good luck guessing whether he’s having a seizure or if he’s just thinking really hard about jellyfish

- alternatively, he will hyperfocus. Very good at hyperfocusing on shrines, or anything that involves challenges. Also good at hyperfocusing on physical activities.

- executive functioning… what’s that. Link doesn’t know. Link can’t organise to save his life and honestly thank god for the sheikah slate because without it he’d be screwed. Cannot schedule, cannot plan, cannot organise. 

- thrillseeking!!! He gets easily understimulated and needs adrenaline to survive. Will do anything remotely dangerous for fun and profit. 

- often thinks very quickly, usually jumping quickly from one thing to the next, but only about certain subjects (usually related to animals, nature, food, chaotic activities) and usually when he’s full of adrenaline. Although other times, especially when he’s tired, it’s just. Dial up noises. Head empty

- focus juice… for mentally taxing activites? Nonexistent.

Expressive language disorder:

(It used to be separated into receptive language disorder, expressive language disorder, or mixed, but these days it’s lumped together into developmental language disorder. However I use expressive language disorder for link because he specifically only has problems with expressive language (forming his own words) and not receptive language (understanding other people’s words)).

- gets words in the wrong order

- sometimes replaces a word with something else, especially if the signs are similar

- has difficulty with tenses (more so in verbal speech)

- often misses out words completely

- has quite a large vocabulary, but struggles with word recall. Will sometimes remember the word he meant to use hours later

- often flaps his hands in an attempt to remember a word, if he can’t think of it he will try to find an alternative

- c a n n o t  s p e l l. Sometimes when he doesn’t know the sign for something, he’ll try to fingerspell it, but if the word is hard to spell he’ll try and find an alternative

- finds sign much easier than spoken language, because its grammatical structure (particularly how it uses tenses and combines language with muscle memory) is simpler to use for him, and because it’s so expressive he finds it easier to get his point across

- his language disorder is a part of why he’s nonverbal (as well as that he has a bit of a stutter), so signing in general is just much easier, though not everyone knows sign, and he isn’t fluent himself.

Epilepsy: 

- has temporal lobe epilepsy

- mostly gets absence seizures and focal seizures

- absence seizures (essentially his brain ‘switching off’) are his more common ones. They usually only last a couple of seconds, and tend to look like he’s just distracted or zoning out (which he also does because of ADHD), though sometimes his eyelids will flicker, or if he’s walking or doing something he’ll suddenly stop, and go back to it like nothing happened. He isn’t aware of them at all. If they happen during something like a conversation with someone, he’ll just dismiss it as being distracted, though he does start to notice when he has longer absences and misses whole sentences, or has clusters of absences.

- focal aware seizures (auras) usually present as deja-vu, intense fear, or out of body feelings. He doesn’t realise they’re seizures for a while, since he experiences these anyway, and attributes the deja-vu to the memory loss, but eventually learns to tell them apart because his auras tend to come on very suddenly, though they can last a while

- he also gets focal impaired awareness ones, which tend to happen more when he’s very tired, especially when waking up/going to sleep. When he gets auras he’s still completely aware of his surroundings (and usually doesn’t have trouble moving, unless it’s a particularly bad one), but with impaired awareness he gets drowsy and confused, and won’t understand what people are saying

- usually his focal seizures stay just that, but sometimes they will become tonic-clonic seizures. This is usually only when he’s exhausted/injured/extremely stressed/otherwise worn down. Most of the time his auras come on soon enough to warn him he might have a worse seizure, so he can go somewhere safe (at least, once he realises he’s epileptic

- they’re arguably the mildest, but his absence seizures at the most dangerous, even though they’re usually short, because he gets no warning for them. He usually gets them a couple of times a day (especially waking up/going to sleep), but he gets them more frequently if he’s very tired, and if he gets absence clusters it makes it really hard to do anything.

- his main triggers are sleep deprivation, missing meals, extreme stress, and extreme heat. Which is unfortunate considering he spends his time running around Hyrule on no sleep and forgets to eat all the time.

in conclusion link is neurodivergent and i love him. thank u for ur time pls feel free to comment ur opinions and headcanons etc 

[feliciamontagues]

adhd father brown hcs??? sign me tf up!

Okay, so I’ve had most of these thoughts/interpretations for awhile but I was not expecting to morph into such a ginormous post

A few caveats before we begin.

1) Obviously due to the period drama setting, Father Brown would likely never be officially diagnosed as having ADHD, as the disorder as we know it today only started to be seriously studied in the 1970s.  Furthermore as I mentioned before, I head canon him as having either the “primarily inattentive” (what used to be called/separately diagnosed as ADD) or the “combined”  subtype of ADHD , which  statistically  fly under the radar more  than those with more “hyperactive” symptoms. 

2) I don’t think he is intentionally written and/or performed as ADHD-coded and I don’t expect canon will ever  “confirm this.” A LOT of character types/ tropes in fiction have developed around characters that display neurodiverse  symptoms that may not be immediately obvious to neurotypical content producers or consumers. In particular the “brilliant-but-lazy” and/or “charmingly eccentric” character shows up frequently in detective fiction.  (Other examples: Hercule Poirot is pretty regularly interpreted as having OCD and Sherlock Holmes as having ADHD and/or autism spectrum disorder). 

3) There’s a bit of discourse about the word “neurodiverse” and who should be “allowed” to claim it. Some people consider it a term that should be exclusively used to describe  people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, most experts believe that “neurodiversity” encompasses a much wider umbrella that also includes ADHD, OCD, Tourettes/tics, dyslexia, PTSD, various sensory and processing disorders, and more in addition to ASD. 

For the purpose of this, we will be using the word in the broader, more inclusive sense that includes ADHD and other similar disorders.  We will also be using terms such as “special interest,” “hyperfixation,” “comfort object,”  “stim/stimming” , etc that are more commonly associated with ASD--but that are also present in many individuals with ADHD. 

Now to the main event. (below the cut because it’s really long.) Also feel free to comment or add to this post.

Father Brown & ADHD (head canons, symptoms, and interpretations)

He is absent-minded and easily distracted, especially when it comes to mundane day-to-day tasks.  I can’t even begin to count the number of times Mrs. M has to remind him to eat, sleep, clean, have something repaired,  and/or do paperwork And it’s pretty strongly implied that the squad’s interventions (and especially Mrs. M) are just about the only thing keeping him on task.

Special mention has to go to the time where he just straight-up LEFT MASS in the middle of his homily, because he’d suddenly thought of a potential lead for the case and needed to investigate it immediately.  (”The Jackdaw’s Revenge”)

Another special mention has to go to the sizable pile of overdue library books that he’s supposedly “been meaning to take back for ages” but kept forgetting. In this same scene, Mrs. M specifically refers to him as a “hoarder.”  (“The Lepidopterist's Companion”)

He is fairly observant when hyperfocusing and tends to notice details and inconsistencies that others might not. He’s also very good at making surprising and unexpected “bigger picture” connections. He’s also more likely to consider multiple possible theories at once rather than focusing on the most likely, obvious one (as the inspectors do). 

His permanent special interests are mysteries and theology. Interestingly, his theology interest extends beyond Christianity/Catholicism--as he is also very knowledgeable and curious about several other religions/denominations/ways of practicing faith, as well as atheism and more generalized spirituality. He was even willing to give Kalon’s “so -obviously-a-cult-and-not-even-a-cool-one” organization a fair shake at first. 

In addition to his permanent special interests, he is also very curious in general about a lot of  different things and will often develop brief-but-strong interests in something pertaining to the case of the week. 

He stims primarily by riding his bike everywhere. The fact he loves his bike enough to name it (”Bucephalus” after Alexander the Great’s horse) suggests that it may also be a comfort object for him.

His other major stims are eating (more about that later) and touching his umbrella.

Speaking of his umbrella, a decent case could be made for it as a comfort object.” Father Brown takes it with him whenever he needs to leave St. Mary’s/the presbytery, even on occasions where he’s unlikely to encounter rain. The few times he is separated from his umbrella we are meant to see this a really big deal.  His lending Flambeau his umbrella in “The Judgement of Man” is presented as a gesture of true kindness and friendship. When Father B. is forced to leave his umbrella behind in “The Whistle in the Dark,” Bunty immediately buys him a new one. 

His two biggest vices are his tendency to overeat (especially his love for sweet things) and his interest in listening to the horse races. Fortunately, neither of these things has become a big problem as of yet (especially as he’s content to listen to the races without betting on them and has Mrs. M to stop him from eating too much sugary treats). However, it is worth noting that people with ADHD are especially susceptible to overeating,  gambling, and other addiction problems, as they are constantly seeking stimulation.

His relationship with Rejection Sensitivity is  somewhat unique. Because he has such a strong support system, he seems to handle personal rejection fairly well. However, his RSD  still manifests in terms of redeeming others. He seems to hold himself personally accountable for every soul he is unable to save.  This may explain why he is so tenacious when trying to getting people to confess and repent their wrongdoing. We see this particularly strongly with Katharine Corven (which was always a lost cause) and with Flambeau (who he’s had much more success). 

Father Brown  quickly forms strong bonds with other characters who are canonically identified as being neurodivergent.  Examples of this include: Lucia Galloway (dyslexia) from “The Face of Death,”  Jeremy (brain alterations  due to a childhood automobile accident)  and Sarah Mulgrew (ambiguous disorder but shows possible signs of PTSD and autism )  from “The Maddest of All,” and Arthur Malmont (ambiguous disorder but possibly autism and/or another developmental disorder) from “The Labyrinth of the Minotaur.” 

In “The Maddest of All,” Father Brown is admitted to a mental institution as he is showing signs of “impulse-control disorder.” While he is largely exaggerating his symptoms so that he can be admitted and investigate, it makes sense for him to simply exaggerate symptoms and tendencies that already exist rather than completely “fake” a different type of disorder entirely. During his evaluation with the doctor, he even admits to overeating and kleptomanic tendencies--both habits  that Fr. Brown partakes on a fairly regular basis even when he isn’t “faking.” (Granted the kleptomania is usually just clues for a case or deserts left unattended, but it’s still worth commenting on). 

[scatterpatter]

hey um you know the differences between ADD and ADHD? what are the similarities? How do I know systems (didn't use the right word here sorry) of ADD when I have it or research of it?

The word you're looking for is symptoms!

Let me start off by saying I am NOT a psychologist whatsoever, NOT an expert on ADHD, and I could be misinformed on some of these, so please add onto this post with corrections if I made a mistake!

From what I previously understood, ADD was the same as ADHD, just those with ADD don't experience hyperactivity like those with ADHD do. However! Doing a bit of research to answer this, it appears that ADD isn't a term used anymore? It seems you fall under three main "types" of ADHD

Inattentive type: You have trouble concentrating, processing, etc (I believe this is what used to be considered ADD)

Hyperactive-Impulsive type: You get spells of sudden hyperness/energy and impulsive thoughts/actions

Combination type: when you have both inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive types

(Source)

So it's quite possible you have the innatentive type but not the hyper-impulsive type or vice versa. You could also have both!

It's also worth noting that ADHD and Autism heavily overlap with symptoms, so you may want to look into symptoms of Autism as well!(though it's possible to have both!)

Here are some symptoms to look out for in figuring out if you might have ADHD:

The stereotype of "Dialogue dialogue dia- OOO PRETTY BUTTERFLY- anyways what was I saying?". It's usually on a way less dramatic scale, but finding your mind often wandering and getting distracted from tasks/conversations/etc(inattentive type)

The stereotype of "HAHAHA SUGAR RUSH" again, usually on a way less dramatic scale. Feelings of sudden hyperness or bursts of energy that make you feel extremely giddy for seeming no reason(hyperactive type)

Experiencing "hyperfixations", which is when your brain "fixates" on a topic(you'll usually see me talking about my fixations on certain video games or other medias). When you're fixated on something, you're often thinking about it most of the time and find it difficult to focus on things other than your fixation(I believe both types experience this but correct me if wrong)

"Stimming", when someone stimulates themself, usually through physical means. Fidget spinners were a meme for a while, but many folks with ADHD actually use them! There are many other ways of stimming too: hand flapping(though sadly many people with ADHD and/or Autism get bullied for this), tapping on things, clicking pens, bouncing the leg, dancing/jumping in place, chewing on things, repeating words/sounds, so on and so forth. Many people have many different ways that they stim(inatenntive types often use fidget toys to help focus, hyperactive types often use toys or stims to get out their sudden bursts of energy)

Executive Dysfunction- where completing even simple tasks feels like an ordeal, even if it's a task you WANT to do(so NOT the same as procrastination). It often feels like some invisible barrier between you and the task, and I once saw it described as "you sit there and think about doing the task instead of doing it and the task never gets done"(I believe both types experience this)

General forgetfullness- doing assignments, remembering plans with friends, paying bills, remembering where you left things around the house. For some reason you often forget these.(inattentive type)

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria- when you take a small rejection or neutral response and your brain blows it out of proportion and makes you think the person hates you(I believe both types experience this)

Trouble understanding social cues- often not being able to tell if someone is annoyed, sarcastic, etc until it's "too late". In my case I called myself "dense", usually if people flirted with me because I didn't pick up the cues they were putting down. Also avoiding eye contact can be a neurodivegent thing(both types experience this I believe)

"Time blindness". Having a hard time figuring out how much time has passed or how much time you have until a deadline. Usually we experience time as "in the past", "now", and "in the future" and have a hard time quantifying that time. Something that happened yesterday could feel like 3 weeks ago. Projects sneak up because they're shoved into "in the future" until suddenly they're due. I combat this by wearing a watch at all times and compulsively checking the time (Inattentive type)

Overstimulation. When very loud sounds or very bright lights feel painful to you while it doesn't seem to bother others. Being unable to wear certain clothes because the texture feels "wrong", etc(both types)

Feeling like your brain is "wired differently". Because people with neurodivergent minds- our brains ARE wired differently! Usually people figure this out by how they count or do math, by how they interact with others, by how they tackle large tasks, etc(both types of course)

Now, of COURSE you don't need to have every symptom to be ADHD, especially if you're not the combined type. I just named a few of the major ones, feel free to correct me on any or add some if I missed some major symptoms!

Taking online tests such as this one can help guide you along whether or not you're showing many symptoms and if you're likely to have ADHD or not(DOES NOT COUNT AS AN OFFICIAL DIAGNOSIS THOUGH)

Of course, the best thing you can do is talk to a doctor! That's the only way you can be officially diagnosed. Also, with a diagnosis, you may be able to be treated to help with your everyday life(meds, school accommodations, etc) Plus a doctor knows more about this than I do, so they'd help you the most!

Hope this helps!