#you might think this is just some abled/neurotypical people shit

[lost-and-cursed]

Idk. You can't never know quite for sure. The older are you, the longer you are in specific friendship it's easier to figure out. It's easier with other neurodivergent people, but ultimately:

— you shouldn't be the one chasing friendship for the long period of time. You can initiate contact, invite someone somewhere. But if they're constantly postponing ('because of the work'), canceling, not inviting you back — they're, at best, your pal and, at worst, tolerating you.

— Look for genuine enthusiasm in people. Someone who enjoys your rants, asks additional questions. Someone who seems to be happy that you asked to join, not just okay with it. (Though sometimes it can evolve gradually overtime from acquaintance to friend)

Watch out for 'yeah, okay I guess', 'you joining wouldn't hurt' and similar noncommittal answers that not so much express enthusiastic consent agreement, but just not neccesarily minding you being there. (Again it's fine to acquire some social contacts, but that's not friendship starter)

Watch out for generalised invites — 'everyone's welcome' and even seemingly enthusiastic 'you should totally go, there's gonna be everybody'. It won't hurt to have some buddies that can be established in such events, but again that's not sign that they like you

— As someone else advised, shared interests is a good basis for friendship, just like regular meetings for shared purpose. Most people, who would seek you out one on one after club or whatever, would be actually interested in you and what have to say. (At the very least on topic of shared interests and you can build it up from there)

— People shouldn't be laughing at you. It's fine-ish if it happens like once in 10 meetings, though, I imagine it still wouldn't be comfortable for you due to previous trauma. People will say 'Oh you should be able to laugh at yourself'. No, you shouldn't.

If you find yourself with group of acquaintances and they start laughing and you don't understand why. Ask them to explain. If they wave you off, ask afterwards whoever you consider to be the most trustworthy in the group. If they refuse to elaborate or are shifty about that, that's red flag. And so is regular exclusion from the group jokes.

If you know they're laughing at you, ask them to stop. Say 'hey, i hate people laughing at me. can you please stop?' (or it upsets me instead of hate).

Outright refusal is red flag. Dodgy answers and platitudes aka 'Well it's just joke", "We laugh at everyone", "Sorry it's just was too funny" is unfortunately beige flag. Neurotypics just be doing this shit. (Though the smaller the group, the more responsive they should be. If there's like three of you second step is more applicable) If they apologize and say something along the lines of 'Sorry we really shouldn't have laughed' or 'we'll try to be better in the future ' that's green-ish flag.

It's important to try to communicate it as early as possible once you're included in the group. But what's indicative is patterns. Do they continue? (If they do try second step or run) Do they laugh the same way at majority of group members? (That's good actually, because that means this is group dynamic. You might still not feel comfortable in such group, but they aren't out to get you).

If they continue, but you do actually like some of the members. Pick someone you trust the most and say something along the lines of 'Hey, I was afraid to speak up with the group, but I was kinda bullied a lot in high school, so laughter really hurts. Do you think (you could help speak with *group leader*/there's someone in the group who could make *initiators* stop). It makes you somewhat vulnerable to them, but if they aren't outright dick at worst they dismiss your concerns (then you ask them to not speak about that to others) and do nothing. If you have trouble differentiate whether someone is a dick, it's risky and I would try to convey the 'trusted person' the sake message, but in more veiled way. 'Remember the *situation*. I still don't quite get why they laughed, but it really hurted. And it hurted even more that noone seemed to care. Do you think it would make sense to speak to them about it or it's just me problem?'

— The most of the previous point is damage control and attempt to navigate gray dynamics, which brings as to this point.

Pick small-group or singular-friend over large group dynamics. If you're unsure about big group (over 4 friends) you might be better off leaving.

Unfortunately, if you lack social awareness it's almost impossible to affect in meaningful ways large group dynamic. The behaviour of people in big groups tends to lean on more unruly (or even cruel) and less conscious (or even sympathetic). They are not evil, but they sorta guess what's acceptable amount of sympathy, tact, and any other traits is. Usually they base it around leader traits or perceived average, but occasionally you find yourself in situation where every member of the group is more sane separately than together.

So if you want to stay in the bigger friend group you need as much allies as you can get inside it. People who you're talking to outside of group on the personal level that can shield you from some neurotypical backlash, protect you interests and help you affect group dynamics in more favourable way.

But that's kinda tall order, so I personally prefer (and recommend people who are insecure) to rely on one to one contact for meaningful friend connections.

— I kinda spoke terribly a lot on the topic of friends already, but, in short, you should be comfortable with them. You should be able to ask them questions and have them actually answered. Yeah, even if you ask why were you angry with me yesterday. You shouldn't be judged or mocked for your interests. They should support your ideas and interests. You should just vibe.

It's not 100% guarantee that you'll get it on first try or that you'll be best friends, but most people who meet the criteria will value you, if maybe not always to the degree you would like them to.

— About earning respect. Being competent in valued topic. Valued topic can vary from group to group. For book club it's books, for nerds it can be dnd, for dudes in general sports or computer games, for gals it might be fashion or specific series. Figure out what's the dominant interests in the group that you wish to join are. Learn at least basics and some people won't even mind teaching you, but if you know a lot you will be respected more

— Addition that noone asked for, but important to remember about neurotypicals.

They operate on fae rules. They have a lot of very rigid rules about social interactions that they will not tell you about, but will bend them to their wishes in the ways you won't be able to comprehend.

They're not malicious about it. They don't even know that rules exist, they just affect them like gravity, like the only thing that makes sense.

So they can be polite and cruel, because they know that polite is good, but they never learnt why.

Some people were given more comprehensive list of guidelines that they follow more consciously and they are a lot more pleasant to be around.

Most people mocking you for existing are frankly just too stupid to recognise that being weird isn't a choice. It doesn't excuse them, but it helps conceptualise cruelty that comes from stupidity and their own lacking.

— About not being weird... Advising people on masking is always unpleasant business. Because masking is a burden. It's a piece of heavy armour that will never quite fit, will chafe, is heavy on maintenance and won't ever protect you completely. And yet a lot of neurodivergents find it necessary sooner or later.

Frankly my first advice would be to seek other neurodivergents, queers and outcasts who will be more likely to accept you as you're. You still might need to figure out how best apply yourself to social skills, but it won't be quite as big burden.

There's no general advice on masking. You'll need to find out 'what's wrong with you' (nothing, but society certainly has opinions on that). You can just go for diagnostical criteria for your neurodivergence and remember specific times and examples when it applied and ruined the experience for you. And then you'll need to figure out counter for it. Most often the counter is A System.

A System is the set of rules and if thens that make sure that you're in the clear with neurotypicals in certain situations at least 90% of time. (It might be something like 'if everyone laughs laugh, even if you don't understand' or 'If they say 'it's up to you' if they were angry I apologise, if they weren't I say 'its fine either way')

General principles of the system is sorta like dnd. Some of your stats are low, and others are high. You need to figure out how to resolve problems linked with your low stats by your high stats or avoid them all together.

And since one of the low stats is intuitive speaking, you compensate it by preparation, by walking yourself through scenarios and trying to come up with universal cheatsheet of answers

I also included some common types of complaints neurotypicals make about neurodivergent behaviour to maybe help you figure out the general direction of how to approach it.

It's under cut, because while I wanted to include at least some direct examples, I felt honestly gross elaborating. Because complaints are 'I kinda hate you for existing' and advice is remarkably vague and unhelpful. It's figure out how to bend yourself over and backwards to fit the mold.

Because masking is always grounded in cruelty, in fundamental idea that you're not enough and dominating ideas of behaviour are correct. You are and they're not.

I am proud of y'all for living and trying and being yourself. I know that sooner or later your found the friends that appreciate you for you. Sending love and hugs💛

About those ridiculous types of complaints

Annoying. It can be talking too much, having vocal stims, having trouble to perceive social boundaries, being active to the point of overshadowing others, speaking out of turn or without regard of how much you speak, asking questions (And ironically being intense or unfitting)

Unfortunately main masking strategy is usually to shut up as much as you can and watch people a lot. Depending on specific problem you can read up on it, but generally you need A system and creating alphabet of signs that things go wrong and the person reacts weirdly. In my experience a lot of figuring that out is connected with finding how much od your personality people find acceptable and how to backpedal really fast and apologise at drop of hat.

Intense. It's usually Why do you care so much? and Why are you so focused on the thing. The common complaint is lack of moderation, both in speech and behaviour. Unwillingness to backdown, lack of social awareness when you cross from maybe acceptable to Definitely Not, using strong language or lack of cushioning down your speech, can be just speaking too much on the topic. Might be linked to purely behavioural stuff like staring, fast or loud speech, crying etc

Main masking strategy is to figure out how to look chill when you aren't and pace out your response. Figure out acceptable amounts of talking and reacting. Having designated friends to vent about blatant unfairness of that all.

Uncooperative/Unfitting. When people have problems with you being not in the line with social norms at all. Refusing to show respect to people who don't deserve it, not laughing when everyone laughs, not following unspoken rules or spoken that are stupid, not being interested in common interests, not responding to the social interactions in expected manner. Essentially being perceived either as entirely incapable of being part of the group, or actively sabotaging social norms and group dynamics.

Main masking strategy... is studying and learning as much social rules and expectations as you can, fulfilling at least third of them.

Uncanny valley. Usually behaviour 'problems'. Your behaviour might not even be disruptive, people just don't fucking like it. Sometimes neurotypicals look at neurodivergent people and see something alien. The cadence of voice, of trying to hard or not enough, too stilted movement, inappropriate resting pose and bunch of other bullshit.

Main masking strategy is studying people's habits irl or in the non-parody movies to figure out how 'normal' behaviour looks and try to replicate it. Practicing smiling or what not, maybe even watching footage of yourself

The single person tells me to delete the addendum and I will. I hope it's helpful or illustrative or something. But I am not expert on everything and while my personal coping mechanism is studying every single social context imaginable. There just isn't much to advise in general terms.

every piece of ""autistic representation"" in hollywood sucks not just because of the infantalization and inspiration porn but because movie executives always fail to realize the real universal autistic experience: spending your childhood slowly and unfalteringly realizing all of your friends not so secretly hated and/or merely tolerated you at best and you've missed every social signal about it ever

[growling]

Hey. I'm saying this very gently in my friendliest tone. Some people (namely mentally, developmentally and intellectually disabled people) are just straight up not able to understand politics, and that's perfectly okay and not a moral issue on their part, so don't treat it like it is.

Some people may need you to explain it to them in a very simplified, easy to understand way so they can maybe get it, some people just won't be able to understand no matter how you word it and I need you to not blow up at them for it and think they're being "willingly obtuse and ignorant of the world they're living in" or whatever. Politics is a very complex and nuanced thing that nearly everybody is gonna explain differently and have wildly different opinions on what some words or stances actually mean or should mean. And some of us just simply can't deal with that and cannot be made to do so with just the right arguments and definitions.

I'm autistic (+ my schizophrenia makes my thinking very disorganized and sometimes incomprehensible which adds to that too) and I have a LOT of difficulty with understanding and learning these kinds of very complex and nuanced discussions, and a lot of the time I'm just not able to. And that's fine and doesn't make me stupid or not putting in enough effort or imply I'm "looking away" from all the problems in society. Can some of yall stop trying to make us feel guilty or even evil for not engaging in things we are not able to grasp well or at all

[homiro]

Directly messaging people demanding money that they don't have and calling them names is really not the way to get money. I stand with your people, but I don't have money for starters, and besides having Americans on this website saying my life is worthless which yes I agree, I don't need campaigners coming at me calling "friend" and then "shameful" and acting like I'm awful just because I don't have money like. Maybe consider that people can't donate and have already donated what they could. There are many campaigns, I'm sorry yours isn't getting traction, but calling people names really won't help your case, I don't think. And don't even start with the whole they don't speak the language thing, the sentiment was very clear even if it was a translation. Guess it's back to fucking chat closed as well because between being called a fag for no reason and being called a shameful asshole for being broke, I think being called a fag is pretty chill actually.

[genericpuff]

Hello! I'm someone with autism (and I'm suspecting ADHD too) who's planning multiple projects. Do you have any advice when it comes to overthinking a lot about decisions on a project? Be it the first step, planning, questioning if you're moving too fast, etc?

ouuuu I think the biggest thing I struggle with personally is just like... the overbearing weight of expectation that isn't necessarily even there. Like, expectation to do everything right all the time, to never make mistakes, to never fall through on promises, to never break any 'rules' (real or imaginary) and most of all, for everything I do to matter in some big, recognizable, memorable way - but the steps to that goal aren't defined, I just know what the goal looks like, with no clear path as to how to get there, and so it often results in me aiming at my own "best guess" and then beating myself up for not hitting the target LOL which is completely unfair to myself and my own work!

What I try to regularly remind myself of is that I am one person, who is only capable of what one person should reasonably be able to accomplish on their own, no matter how much my auDHD tries to convince me otherwise that I "should" be able to handle more than what's reasonable. And in that same sense, there isn't any more pressure on me to put out something perfect than there would be on any other person. I am not Atlas carrying the fate of the greatest work known to mankind on my shoulders - I'm a chronically online dweeb making stuff that's interesting to themselves and sharing it in the hopes that even just one other person will like it too. That isn't a diss on myself, that's me embracing what I am so that I can keep doing it better and more confidently each time.

Though I don't know if this exactly applies to you, I'm gonna say it just in case: I know when it comes to balancing multiple projects, it can be hard not to go "oh well I SHOULD be working on xyz!" but at the end of the day, you're not a failure for preferring to work on something else or needing space from projects that used to thrill you and have now become monotonous. In fact, it turns out that's how it is for most neurotypical people too! I know they make a lot of shit look easy, but even they have shit they loathe doing - they just don't have to deal with the unique hurdles of being neurodivergent.

Always remember to set boundaries with yourself and your work. Remember, just because you're really excited to work on something, doesn't mean you have to work on it all the time. I've learned to appreciate those moments when I'm stuck doing my day job and I'm excited to get home and work on my passion project, because it means I can actually look forward to it and it'll feel all the more rewarding when I finally get to do it! Pushing yourself too hard to fulfill that excitement all at once right off the bat often just means you're gonna spend it all way too quick, and that won't feel good because then you'll be left wondering where all the love went.

Set little goals for yourself. Stuff that's manageable and achievable within a reasonable amount of time. I know we tend to dive into thinking huge right off the bat, because that's what's exciting to us, but when it comes time to actually do the work, those smaller goals can keep us moving forward far better than the big, far off, ambiguous goal hiding somewhere off in the horizon. While it's good to plan ahead, not setting smaller milestones for yourself can burn you out faster because it's really hard to work towards an "end goal" that might be too far away for us to even conceptualize. The small goals allow us to reward ourselves along the way, and they do ultimately still build up to the bigger picture in the end, even if it feels like we're "not doing much". It can be anything like "get to this chapter that I can finish in the next few weeks" or "fully write out this scene that's been living in my head rent-free".

As for the overthinking... yeah, I wish I had some magic solution to that, but it's really just about learning what you enjoy doing vs. what you don't, so that you can have confidence in knowing when your creative decisions suit the project you're working on. This is something that gets better with practice and experience, but I feel like it's better tackled by reminding yourself that any project, no matter the outcome of how popular it gets or whether or not it "takes off", is an opportunity to learn and grow. Treat every project as a learning experience and you'll hopefully find the process itself more enjoyable, which will subsequently buff up your confidence. It's all a process of honing in on what works for you, what you excel at, and what you enjoy doing; while learning what doesn't work for you, what you could improve at, and what you don't enjoy doing.

Finding a writing buddy or someone who's willing to read your work and give you feedback is super helpful for this, too, because sometimes it takes another perspective to help us navigate the fog of indecision and find a solution.

And again, remember - you are one person, and you are under no obligation for any of your projects to be some perfect, infallible holy grail. You will write stuff that you will inevitably look back on with disgust and cringe. You will create projects that you will eventually outgrow or move on from. That does not invalidate the time and effort you put into those projects - it's proof of experience and growth. Embrace the growing pains, find peace in the process in whatever way you can.

It's not a question of right or wrong - it's asking yourself what feels true to you and your voice, and finding out along the way.

[npd-confessions]

(Heavily suspected) NPD confession is that I inherently view NTs and physically abled people as below me unless they prove themselves.

Almost every neurodivergent or disabled person I know is consciously aware that people function differently than them and won’t assume that you can do something because they can. Able bodied people assume that just because I look able bodied I can walk or stand for long periods of time when I in fact have chronic pain and a fifteen minute walk will be debilitating and will be unhelpful like ‘just walk faster’ ‘just keep going’ ‘you can do it’ and bullshit like that instead of helpful things like ‘we can pause if you need’ ‘would it be easier for you to be picked up instead of walk’ ‘we can sit down until you’re ready’. Same things go for neurodivergencies, I get shit like ‘just focus’ ‘just be normal’ ‘you’re weird’ ‘you should be thinking like this’ instead of the kind of stuff that would help everyone like ‘here are some ways that might be easier for you’ ‘here are some ideas’ ‘do you need a fidget or anything to help you concentrate’.

NTs and able bodied people are inherently more close minded and less able to understand that people work different because they’re surrounded by people who work like they do, where neurodivergent people and physically disabled people have been ostracized or looked down on their whole lives for being disabled or neurodivergent and have been trying to function around people who don’t work like they do and understand that there’s more than one way to function, so yeah, neurotypical people and able bodied people are below me, fuck you. (I would like to clarify that I’m using ‘you’ generally, not /you/ you, you’re great.)

Y’know? Valid.

[gunkbaby]

Thinking about Shuu BPD headcanon again. He’s 21 in TG, and given his loneliness I think it’s fair to assume Kaneki was his first favourite person. Like I acted very similar to Shuu when I had my first favourite person - including when the ‘relationship’ (i wouldn’t call what i went through a relationship personally. It was an internet mutual lol) ended, it went on to affect me for several years, to today, mentally and physically.

I get sad when I think about it, because I don’t like thinking about Shuu going through or feeling what I have - that horrible moment where you look back on your experience with someone, and you can only feel guilt, because you can see now that all you acted so inappropriately. Being overly clingy - dependent - on someone you barely know - because Shuu doesn’t know Kaneki in TG. Not deeply. He’s still in the moment of only wanting to eat him, everything he learns is compartmentalised as knowledge to use as manipulation and such. So his breakdown when Kaneki is taken away from him is a shock to his system - because this is the point where maybe one realises that this is not just about wanting him to eat anymore. It’s indicative of Shuu feeling something more for someone, which he’s probably never had before, and one can imagine how it might feel to realise - oh. I really fucked this person I adore up, because I didn’t understand myself well enough. And that shit hurts man.

Whilst a neurotypical person might be able to look at this realisation and handle it better, for someone with BPD/neurodivergence, this can affect one’s mental and physical health for years afterwards. A known symptom of BPD is not being able to recover ‘typically’ from breakups (meeeeeeeeeeeeee), often leading to self-harm, depression, and such, as well as taking a much longer time to actually recover from the breakup (generally. Ofc not everyone has it like this).

This also explains why in :RE, Shuu is seemingly just as obsessed with Kaneki - because he can’t fucking let go of it. He goes out of his way to ‘get Kaneki back’ for his own benefit, and I wonder if maybe, Shuu wants that Kaneki back so he can right his past wrongs. His newer awareness of his past actions weighs on him, and he wants to show that version of Kaneki that he has changed, that he’s not like That anymore - but he is, in a way. He’s still ill, and this is never brought up. Shuu gets better throughout :re, but we never see how, and either man’s on Elvanse or something, or he’s actively making an effort to restrain the ‘BPD side’ of him. I compare having BPD to having a dog on a muzzle - controlling it is horrible and it’s difficult, but if you don’t, the muzzle comes off and your dog is going to maul someone. Having BPD can be really terrifying sometimes - note: people with BPD are not monsters and if I see one more person say Shuu’s feelings are ‘creepy’ istg—

In early :re, Shuu’s actions can be viewed an overcompensating - trying to fix the damage he feels he might’ve done to Kaneki. He wants Kaneki back for himself, but not to eat him, to show Kaneki that he’s not the person he was. That he’s changed - but he hasn’t. He’s become self-aware, but this isn’t enough to change someone. Shuu still doesn’t understand that. He’s like a beautiful butterfly in that stage where the chrysalis is clear and starting to shake, but the butterfly isn’t out yet, and when it is out, it still has to wait for its wings to dry. Shuu is impulsive, and fails to properly think things out especially in a social situation (another symptom of bpd is impulsivity, particularly in regards to self-destruction). So he’s bombastic in rushing in and trying to get that Kaneki back, even if he doesn’t exist, and we can argue that this brazenness, this impulsivity, goes on to foster more destruction.

Therefore, it becomes even more weird that Shuu seems to recover after Kanae’s death in particular, because I feel like Shuu was already grappling with some guilt in regards to his past self. Kaneki throwing Shuu from the rooftop is met with Shuu’s acceptance of it - it’s a passive kind of suicidality. What better repentance is there - what is the best way to say sorry - than letting the person you hurt kill you? I know I’ve attempted or hurt myself in attempt to repent and say sorry for the people I’ve hurt, (I even became Christian, briefly!) But Shuu isn’t killed. Kanae is, and directly because they save him. Shuu’s love for Kanae is evident by this point, so one has to question how someone who already seemed to be passively suicidal, who presumably held a quite a hefty amount of self-loathing - would be able to recover from someone they love dying specifically to save them. Shuu tells Kanae to save themself (in my translation), he seemed passive in the prospect of Kaneki killing him, so this turn of events should be absolutely fucking devastating to him.

His entire family, bar one person, were killed to protect him. People gave up their lives, for him - a person who was extremely mentally unwell. Shuu is egotistical, arrogant, and selfish, but too often I see people conflate this with narcissism or self-love - narcissists don’t even tend to love themselves, it seems the opposite (I am not well-versed in npd pls correct me). I don’t think Shuu likes himself, particularly in :re. I’m honestly surprised he survived through :re sometimes, because I feel like the events of the Tsukiyama extermination would eventually kill someone who was already mentally unstable.

But after the Tsukiyama arc, there is very little acknowledgement of Shuu’s mental state. It’s like, oh, he’s fine now. Kanae isn’t even mentioned again, (I think), and it’s really weird. One can argue Shuu is just pretending to be fine, maybe Kaneki being back is enough to shift his focus from those events back to his favourite person - but that’s not mentally healthy. That’s not recovery. You can argue that maybe he learnt to cope, did DBT or whatever, but I doubt he would’ve had time for that in :re? Iirc it was kind of busy, I mean…Man got fired from like 4 jobs after losing his family - self-worth must’ve been in the shitter fr

Shuu is supposedly better by :re and the end of :re, but I can’t fucking buy that. Maybe I’m projecting too much, but I still haven’t recovered from my favourite person and it’ been three fucking years, and I have a parent who is willing to literally die for me, and it feels like shit. These things don’t just go away. They condense, and they stay. It’s like the dog won’t die unless you do, and even then, the pain stays.

I’m off track - the point is. I don’t like it. I get narrative time and that - Shuu isn’t the main character, but still. TG has so much depth and nuance in its characters and I wish more work had been put into Shuu post-Tsukiyama arc. (I also wish Kanae hadn’t died but fuck my stupid Baka life i guess)

I can’t help but feel like Shuu was ill at the start of Tokyo Ghoul, got even iller. And by the end of :re, he’s still very much ill.

sorry if this doesn’t make sense I cried halfway through and im tired

[justanotherboringwriter]

Uhhh since u guys liked my jimcurly stuff n I'm getting back into Mouthwashing (+am probably forming a Curly fictive) here’s sum random stuff!!!! Also ig stars will be an omnipresent figure in my jimcurly works and Daisuke’s here cuz my Daisuke fictive wants 2 b included so everybody say hi to Daisuke!!!!! :3 also might add onto this later idk

╰┈➤ Gender, sexuality, ethnicity, & style hc’s

˙⋆✮ Grant Curly

જ⁀➴ cisboy, he/him.

જ⁀➴ Had a crush on a girl named Jill but really only when she wore her tomboy clothing and thought he was bicurious and would get over it and just be heterosexual. Anyways, Jill is now Jimmy. Achillean, gay, poly.

જ⁀➴ Scottish. People think he’s from Utah or smth cuz he looks white asf lmfaoooo

જ⁀➴ have u seen his in-game fit? White asf. Cowboy. Other than that, he has kilts.

˙⋆✮ Jimmy Zare

જ⁀➴ transboy, he/him with a secret side of it/zi/xe and horror themed neopronouns.

જ⁀➴ not really any changes in sexuality??? Just gender made him go from heterosexual to gay. Yeah, not much here. Achillean, gay, poly.

જ⁀➴ american, mistaken for Slavic

જ⁀➴ unintentional Y2K grunge with a side of cigarette Lana del Ray iykyk

˙⋆✮ Daisuke Juarez

જ⁀➴ transboy, he/it/zi/xe.

જ⁀➴ gay poly all da way >:3

જ⁀➴ Mexican-Japanese.

જ⁀➴ Y2K grunge but has to try unlike Jimmy. Family calls him a cholo which ig yeah cuz cholo is Mexican slang for both gangster and person who is partially Mexican.

╰┈➤ Neurodivergent/disability hc’s

˙⋆✮ Grant Curly

જ⁀➴ neurotypical. Probably a stress disorder.

જ⁀➴ low spoon, got worse with age.

˙⋆✮ Jimmy Zare

જ⁀➴ paranoid schizophrenic, depressed, probably NPD, low empathy, self harming tendencies + history of suicide attempts, alcoholism, and drug use. Probably plural from trauma :(

જ⁀➴ low spoon + chronic pain.

˙⋆✮ Daisuke Juarez

જ⁀➴ adhd, autism, depression, low empathy. Also possibly plural??? Definitely 1-3 Protogenic/ endogenic headmates then he decided to make more. History of SH (cutting + hitting).

જ⁀➴ low spoon, random body pains + gets random bruises, scrapes, etc., due to sensitive skin.

╰┈➤ Alterhuman hc’s

˙⋆✮ Grant Curly

જ⁀➴ huh

જ⁀➴ thought everybody just identified as some kind of creature as a child bc kids are just like that yk. doing his best to support his partners 🙂👍🏻

જ⁀➴ won’t admit it but likes it when they go full animal, especially during freaky time!!!!!

˙⋆✮ Jimmy Zare

જ⁀➴ wild wolf therian 100% probably also dragonkin. Both came from trauma, a desire to be able to protect himself, a desire to be free, and wanting to not feel like a vulnerable animal anymore.

જ⁀➴ will make a den and hoard stuff + scent his clothes then make Curly or Daisuke wear it/just scent their clothes.

જ⁀➴ yk damn well this mf goes feral during freaky times. Biting, drooling, growling, rutting. He bites the back of their necks type shit.

˙⋆✮ Daisuke Juarez

જ⁀➴ ouppy!!!!!!! :3

જ⁀➴ loves being spoiled + treated like a puppy. Sitting on laps, wearing clothes too big for him, wearing a collar + ears n tail. “How’s my puppy?”, “Have you been good for daddy?”, etc, he LOVES that shit.

જ⁀➴ bottom!!!!!! Doesn’t help that he’s muscular but Jimmy n Curly are much MORE muscular + stronger

[nullmale]

I really think any attempt to explain some manner of Social Problem even within a cultural niche by just saying "Oh this is because of a loud and/or dominant demographic of Stupid Shallow Idiots" is doomed from the jump well I'm sorry but you can't "Only cishet straight white able bodied neurotypical men do this" your way out of actually identifying the structure of the problem. It's also often like, whatever truth that holds is not a matter of only those people being empowered to do xyz thing that might be harmful or undesirable so much as it's a fact that the more social privilege you have the less scrutiny you will face, but that also extends to marginalized people in positions of relative privilege over other people within that particular demographic. And notably you see this often from people at the intersection of certain privileges and disprivileges who are not so much analyzing social circumstances as they are identifying, like, a fictional Oppressors Georg (sorry for saying this corny shit but it's kinda true) in an attempt to shuffle the most immediate heat of blame off of themselves for what privileges they do possess. I think when much of your identity is rooted in the ways you are disprivileged (not unreasonable, very often this has to be a point of pride or at least willingness to self-assert on its behalf to make that like. Survivable.), a lot of people who have not shaken the belief that the things they are not disprivileged for are "default" which alldisprivilege meaningfully devaites from do not register when they are the beneficiaries of certain systems because in their minds they have a Negative Privilege Quotient (compared to their idea of "default"). And acknowledging that that's not how it works is not itself a denial of what struggles a person of a disprivileged demographic faces, but you know who it IS a denial of experience for? Literally everyone categorically worse off than them.

[blackmageeljin]

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 800 YEAR I HAVE GOOD HEALTH NEWS????

MY BODY IS FINALLY WORKING AGAIN?????????? SORT OF??????

Unfortunately this isn't because a doctor found anything wrong with me so much as dumb luck 'we don't know why this heart medication is what works but great!' and also came with a lot of 'were sorry we didn't realize this other medication was actually causing several of these symptoms opps' but hey wanting to eviscerate the American health care system isn't new my ability to spend a full 5 hours doing physical labor is.

But if you want to read about all the ~unrepentant bullshit~ it's below the cut.

Also I'm not saying they never worked for no one but like be sure you are on high alert if you are taking or ever prescribed Cymbalta or Trintellex, generic or otherwise.

So, I don't want this to sound like some crazy 'all modern medicine is bad' thing or anything but also American health care is a joke and Big Pharma has done comically evil shit so like, you know, try and take medication it can be life saving but also you know your body better than anyone and something that works for you might not work for anyone else and vice versa. So uh... Disclaimer noises? Or something?

But the SHEER amount of fucked up shit I have seen regarding Cymbalta is absolutely absurd, including that it was once taken off the market due to inducing withdraw symptoms so severe it was considered addictive and from a legal standpoint like, maliciously causing dependence in users even with withdraw/dependant was not legally 'permanent'. Which is to say, I stopped cold turkey (at the instruction of a doctor) after about a year and some change of use and have what are considered extremely mild symptoms compared to many, and some of my symptoms include visual hallucination (literally never experienced these before), sweating so much my skin is perpetually more damp than a water genasi, sleep is?????? An illusion?????, experiencing the KHDDD drop animation as a physical sensation whenever I stand and sometimes just because my brain felt cute, paranoia but like without the anxiety part which is fucking weird but also I think how neurotypical people experience sleep deprivation?

It also caused the severity of a dermal allergic reaction i had to go from 'unpleasantly itchy/rashy until I wash irritant off' to 'this is the shit they describe in 10 grade health class happens when you take mushrooms'. By which I mean it turned the itching into intense paranoia about bugs being present, I was literally rolling around on the floor kicking and screaming, and compulsively scratched myself until I was bleeding which I was unaware of until after the fact (as I I legit had no idea I was bleeding or injured).

All of the physical symptoms stopped as soon as I got in the shower and all the mental ones once I finally was able to sleep.

And like- my ammonia allergy isn't exactly mild but usually the 'really bad' reactions involve strep like symptoms if I breathe it and just... Rash if it gets on me? (Which, if you're wondering what I am doing with ammonia so often- cat pee. I am effectively allergic to cat pee- we use special litter and that prevents it from being a problem like 99% of the time but hey sometimes a cat pees on its leg or something then rolls around in all of your blankets?)

So, haha, Cymbalta is ✨kinda fucked✨

The sad thing is that it was only even clocked as a potential problem by an 'endocrinologist' who is really just 'the one LGBTQ/transition doctor in a 50 mile radius and has Seen Things'. Her actual like, title/job whatever isn't even endocrinology it's in shit far more complicated than my pay grade, but she just, you know, attends all of the queer children of the area. And the reason she clocked it wasn't for any of the things we found out it was doing when I stopped it, but because I expressed concerns about recent unexplained weight gain which was met with 'oh yeah by the way- we have to get you tested for diabetes now that you're that heavy 👍'

When she has the bedside manner of a Johnny Depp character but is the only doctor who has successfully identified problems with you in over a decade 😔

So anyway before I could even finish saying the word weight she was telling me how that was a symptom of Cymbalta, rattling off other symptoms I had that were... Things that were amorphous enough I didn't think they could qualify as symptoms (or wouldn't to most doctors' and asking if I had those because they were also cymbalta- a big one being GI shit like ~in general~ which is so hard to talk about because 'well, if you have fibro, IBS is a symptom of that' so literally anything GI related just gets filed under IBS if you try to talk to a person 90% of the time.

Unless you are talking to a doctor specializing in AIDS treatment who's entire job is helping people who have not been taken seriously their entire life, I GUESS

I was honestly skeptical (mostly from the sort of lack of bedside manner where she wasn't just pulling bandaids off too fast so much as like, yanking teeth without anesthesia levels of emotional whiplash) but stopped taking it anyway with honestly an entirely bitter mindset of 'well well see how good this goes!! But I can't get in trouble if I do what the doctor says!'.

Mind, this was because I had come to honestly believe the cymbalta was the first medication making a positive impact in years. But. AHA. No.

My waist shrunk 2 full inches after being off the shit for TWO DAYS

Which, I'm not sure if I posted about this leg of medical bullshit, but I developed severe bloating issues where I almost got sent to the hospital because it would happen in my throat and affect my breathing. I would wake up with swollen hands and feet, sometimes face and neck, and seemed to be having like, persistent, severe abdominal bloating that was just getting worse with time.

We tried taking me off propranolol- a heart medication I was given by a psychiatrist to help with my anxiety being absolutely insane that had proven amazingly effective (and I am still taking, for the actual heart reasons since it lowered my resting heart rate from 120 to 84 like a normal person.). Given the symptoms started around when I started taking it I was asked to stop and given something else in the meantime. Well, I immediately had Very Bad No Good Anxiety again (in really fucked up aways that made me question my perception of reality and more susceptible to being manipulated by people or relenting on boundaries out of misplaced guilt) and the bloating didn't stop after like... 3 weeks of this change? So they put me back on it so I had the capacity to use the word No again.

And then it just... 'had gotten less bad, and we'll run some tests that will take 3+ months for you to be scheduled for but like, it's Probably Fine'. As doctors do. Cymbalta wasn't considered.

But APPARENTLY the bloating thing IS a common thing caused by Cymbalta.

So, Cymbalta was, 'allegedly' (tho having experienced it myself I mean...) designed with malicious intent to make people dependent on it and generate revenue. Which like, I know, sounds like some conspiracy theory shit but listen we already live in an Orwell novel so. It has an entire DIFFERENT set of side effects in the first few months vs continuous use vs discontinuation. Which is to say when you first start taking it you will feel better, have some obvious side effects, but be assured they will go away and, hey, that's not a lie, my insomnia did only last during the first few weeks. But that because it is a part of some fucking elaborate side effects bait and switch????

See, because you start with Really Obvious side effects that are pushed as 'annoying but go away, so you just have to stick it out', you don't notice the onset of really slow, but ultimately more problematic side effects. After the initial hell side effects period (which, with how long it takes really skies you perception, because it becomes really hard to tell how better/worse you were before starting. Like you're better than when you had the onboarding side effects but??? IS this better than before I started it???) I thought I was doing great! I felt more clearheaded than I had in a while. I was still tired and struggled with physical pain and fatigue, but hey, I hadn't been able to even focus consistently on fiddling on a computer in my bed so that was an improvement right?

The thing is, the cymbalta made a lot of the physical and mental symptoms I was TAKING IT FOR worse not better. It's like... It shakes your system like a snow globe so you go??? Well I'm NOT SURE WHATS HAPPENING BUT HEY ITS DIFFERENT! But after that it just... Makes everything fucking worse very very gradually and slowly. It wasn't until I took a step back and looked at like... Broad symptoms from a month to month basis that I saw the pattern, and it took enough time there wasn't enough data until at least 6 months.

There was ONE month where I was SUPER Productive even though I was bedridden, getting a lot of 3D modeling and administrative work done. I programmed an entire game mod. It seemed like I was Obvious Better now.

I made the mistake of dismissing the decline as 'well December is a shit show and stressful'. A reasonable mistake at the time but honestly one I should have figured out when things persisted well into the new year. But now? Looking at what I decided I could and couldn't do, what I did manage to get done, and what I wound up having to give up on each month? It became painfully apparent that my fatigue and overall health had been getting substantially worse. I was closer to the state I was in when I broke my fucking back than any point of dealing with any of this bullshit.

Of course, I didn't see the pattern until AFTER I stopped the cymbalta, and if I had I might not have thought to attribute it to that. See, as soon as I stopped taking it? I had enough energy to do things. I could get out of bed. I cleaned the entire bathroom. I could go up and down the stairs with minimal issues, cook, do all the bills etc etc. I was so used to my body being so limited in what it could do and being very loud about any issues in the form of crippling pain, that in a bout of neurodivergent excitement I started pacing- something I wasn't able to do much if at all for over a year- and after I finally stopped from getting winded was shocked to see that it had been HOURS and that, after doing math using song BPM and average walking speeds, that I had been pacing for effectively 9 miles. Mind, a few weeks prior I wound up just. Sitting in the bathroom for a while because I didn't have the energy to walk 30 feet back to my bed.

Another kind of horrifying realization was that I had actually gotten dumber and was smarter again. The... Unfortunate and weird measure of this being my um, history with fandom theory crafting. See, right before I stopped the cymbalta I picked FFXIV back up and was making my way through new game+, with a 'well I can do this while I sit in bed at least' logic. And Square is, aha, more than we'll know for its love of being as convoluted as they can manage. There was a noticeable difference in my ability to process, recognize, and critically think in reaction to story elements before and after stopping the medication. I had spent years skirting one of my main fandoms because I just didn't have the energy to engage in the parts I liked- being KH and it's equally convoluted (but perfectly sensible if you have basic critical thinking skills thank you very much). I have gone from WANTING to write video essays on inane fan theories but being unable to because I wouldn't be able to focus, remember what I was saying a few sentences in, handle switching between checking sources and the actual writing, etc, to like, legitimately accidently writing 10k words on a subject that spanned resources from at least 5 different games because of a one sentence summary of something that happened in a late game XIV event. Having 'i was literally too tired to THINK' become grossly apparent is not fun.

Also, my depression and anxiety are extremely less. I am no longer Constantly paranoid people are judging me or perceiving me or what have. I am actually able to dress the way I want for the first time in ages because stopping the medication also DECREASED THE SEVERITY OF MY GENDER DYSPHORIA??? Which, I guess, everything that goes into 'wearing a pretty skirt makes me feel bad' is a lot more than gender dysphoria itself, especially as someone who identifies as a third gender. My fear of Being Perceived had been chipping away at my ability to wear clothes I actually liked and felt comfortable in because they were attention grabbing or weird (I wear a lot of renfair type stuff for everyday, and half my wardrobe looks like it was pulled from JJBA.) I really don't like being called 'she', but honestly the idea that a shirt was colorful or unique enough to so much as make someone notice me was inherently causing panic. The past year I had been struggling with having panic attacks almost every time I had to dress myself to leave the house, between realizations clothes didn't fit and like, 'i don't want to be percieved' and 'i want to dress fancy!' conflicting with an added layer of like... 'feeling like I'm not dressing like myself is causing me to dissociate.' oh and that's not even considering the physical struggle of 'i wanted layers but putting on one shirt made me winded' or 'this garment now costs so much stamina to wear I literally cannot move more than 5 feet while wearing it.'

So yeah. That's. Cymbalta was bad. It was making the things it was supposed to treat significantly worse. My everything is better. My sleep. My GI shit (ha). My anxiety. My fatigue. My pain levels. My brain fog. Fucking everything.

I did at the top of the cut also mention Trintellex. I don't know it's nitty legal history since while I believe it didn't work for me and made some shit worse it was decidedly less over all fucked. (You know, compared to a drug that is a controlled substance in some regions >>) but I do think it made my symptoms worse over time and it went under the radar.

See, I was out on it after getting Medicaid and my 'depression' having gotten more severe. Before that I hadn't been on an even remotely appropriate medication, and had been on a whopping nothing for a year or so.

(I had been misdiagnosed as bipolar and eventually put on straight up lithium and prosaic when nothing worked (because... You know, I'm just not bipolar so why would medication for that work?) My cousin I was living with saw that I was declining the longer I was on them and encouraged me to stop taking it, which I really only agreed to because my therapist at the time tentatively agreed while pointing out that, you know, that was a treatment for a diagnosis that had since been changed.)

I use quotes because... Technically? I don't have like... Big boy clinical depression™ mental health is super weird and everything sort of seeps into everything else. But in my experience and with a lot of people I have known, there's a really big difference between 'depression' that is a symptom and Depression that is source of other shit. The most important being, the former can go away if you treat the actual problem and other shit, but the latter has to be the target of treatment.

Which is all to say literally no antidepressant has ever worked for me 👍 because my actual diagnosis is General Anxiety and PTSD.

It's also worth noting that besides my country's general health care system being a fucking joke, its everything else is pretty garbage too at the moment. And as a result, let me tell you, very few doctors over here know what to do in the fact of 'The World Is Actually So Dangerous that your symptoms are flaring for understandable reasons but like that's also making life unlivable and we need to do something probably?'

So when I started with Trintellex it was because I was... Not Okay. But you know what? It literally wasn't in my head- it was a result of horrible, terrible things happening. I was disowned. I was suddenly physically crippled. I was assaulted. I lived in an area where I was at legitimate risk of being lynched for being any one of several minorities but most likely Trans- and possibly at the hands of my own family. I had worked and quit several jobs with unsafe conditions in which I was harassed at best and still have severe PTSD symptoms from the experience, which also led me to have to completely remove myself from the game industry which I had gone to school for. Inflation was rising and we were making less and less money. We faced homelessness at least twice.

That's not fucking depression, that's living in a hostile and terrible world. That's enduring suffering, and the emotional strain is a natural, CORRECT response. Being given a drug to suppress stress and feelings of upset and unrest at living in fucking poverty is some absolutely insane dystopian shit. Like, in hindsight I'm super upset at how treatment was handled? Really what was the point of the antidepressants- the fucking Klonopin for panic attacks- one of the only other things that has worked- is the level of shit you need if the goal is to just medically fabricate a new perception of reality. But when I went to a doctor going HEY IM REALLY SUICIDAL THATS NOT NORMAL RIGHT??? Instead of consulting with my therapist or addressing any of the 'i mean, you're just not in a safe situation' part of things they just, gave me Really Strong Drugs.

I hate America.

The Trintellex did seemingly help for a while? But I did have to about a year in ask for a dose increase because the effect seemed to be wearing off. Which they gave me. And then... After another year it was ineffective but I was at max dose and they didn't want to change it. But it clearly wasn't working anymore. And I think... While it might have worked for a short period? It didn't just stop working long term, but by continuing to take it despite it 'seeming less helpful' it was making certain symptoms worse.

Which was a complicated thing. On the one hand, right before finally getting off of it it very clearly was having like, 0 positive effect. I was acting in a way I considered 'how I feel unmedicated'. Which I guess wasn't wrong, but also was missing the important 'and when horrible things are happening.' my last downward mental health... Situation happened really, plainly obviously in response to, again, external factors. Like, yeah, sedate someone who is hysterical while they're dealing with extreme trauma like watching someone get murder or some shit so they don't hurt themselves but like. Yeah diagnose them with PTSD later if shit still is going on but I don't think 'IM UPSET ABOUT EXPERIENCING SOMETHING SUPER BAD' when it JUST happened is like- who the fuck looks at that and goes 'oh, well, you're just depressed. Have a prozac and get over it.' HOMIE I JUST HAD TO MOVE TO A NEW STATE TO ESCAPE POTENTIALLY BEING STALKED BY MY ABUSIVE FAMILY AND LOST LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE SUPPORT SYSTEM AND FRIEND I HAD OUTSIDE MY SPOUSE IN THE PROCESS SORRY IF IM A LITTLE FUCKING JUMPY MATE MAYBE I WOULD BE ABLE TO GET OVER IT IF WE HAD ENOUGH MONEY TO BUY MORE THAN PASTA AND RICE FOR FUCKING FOOD AND TURN THE FUCKING HEAT ON.

so um. Yeah. Because I was Not Good I was afraid to stop the Trintellex without a replacement. Which I was given by my PCP here because she took my fibro more seriously and suggested Cymbalta bc it's supposed to help both pain and depression. I've always been a very 'ill try any med once because fuck if I know how my body will react' but the shady nature of its side effects prevented me for ditching it like I had a lot of other shit I didn't have a good reaction to in the past. But in hindsight with how... Better I am bow, and knowing I started the Trintellex really REALLY not that long before my fibro set in... I'm really worried about how much it was the culprit the whole time and the cymbalta just continued those symptoms. Especially since like... I don't just feel more like... Capable of doing things like had before the cymbalta or moving, but like feel almost how I did back in COLLEGE. When I was fully functional, insanely overworked myself and in a perpetual state of ready to fist fight God.

I'm probably not Quite that good, but I'm at the start of recovering from this stuff and in my 30s so maybe I'll get a bit closer and maybe I'll get not quite THAT energetic but will still be allowed to feel 'normal' instead of sickly and weak.

Oh, it's also worth noting both of these turned out to be in a category of what I like to call Nobody pills. Because while they allegedly 'balance' emotions or just dampen a certain subset of negative thoughts, they actually combat bad feelings by... Removing ALL feelings! YOU CANT BE DEPRESSED IF YOU DONT HAVE EMOTIONS!

This has become blazingly obvious not just by my recent ability to feel impassioned and like, not having that Thing where you Know something is a thing you like but you can't bring yourself to engage with it because you lack any and all desires, but also because I now tear up at every 3rd slightly emotional commercial and literally was moved to tears over... An ai waifu in a box.

So yeah. I'm not saying never try these things but be on high alert about the fucked up ways they can interact with existing conditions. Take it really seriously if the 'im doing better' you're feeling on them suddenly stops, and trust your perception of that because no, you're not crazy, and it might feel hard to be objective about it but let me tell you it's a lot better than waiting for hindsight to do it for you.

Oh, and I still take the propranolol. It has a very noticeable effect on my anxiety- the ACTUAL anxiety not the depression or other symptoms- and stopping taking it made me feel worse not better. Plus I think the physical effect on a physical condition helped a lot too. Though it's again sad that we live in a society where we are told we're crazy and to take pills to alter our perceptions before a heart medication. When you have a resting heart rate of. 120.

It's possible that another big factor was... Getting a tooth removed. See, I had a tooth knocked out when I was 7, but they just sorta... Shoved it back in on a post with a root canal. It was dead and I fondly called it my zombie tooth. Unfortunately it was SUPPOSED to be replaced with a crown but my parents just... Did not??? Do this? And after 20~ years, shockingly, the dead tooth all but hot glued into my jaw began to rot and break. The socket was infected for gods know how long, it started literally SHATTERING piece by peace, and the rot was eating away at the neighboring teeth. But, given some of what I expressed in this, I was very much too poor for dental work on top of having a lot of dental related trauma. But we couldn't ignore it when the metal post it had been on was exposed from the tip breaking off. Ever since it's been out though I've had less migraines. Dental health, unfortunately, can be a bigger factor contributing to overall health, but despite this it... Isn't covered in normal insurance or treated with the same urgency.

But yeah. There was a point I was being told to take like... 5+ pills a day and now I take one very tiny one and a weekly vitamin D supplement. Huzzah.

[nikolaniks]

This is going to sound horrible to only me, mainly my moral scrupulosity OCD. I was having a conversation with my (extremely MAGA) dad about how eugenics is wrong and bad and what RFK Jr js planning on doing to autistics around the country and even, god(s) forbid, the world. I mentioned that I feel like if you’re having a kid and you find out through some test that they’re going to be disabled and you choose to have an abortion because of that, that’s eugenics even though I wouldn’t force one into having the child it would still go against my morals and values as the person in question was, in this hypothetical, totally planning on having the kid anyways and tbh would have loved them nondisabled and neurotypical so why does that have to change for a disabled/neurodiverse person? Again, I fully support bodily autonomy and the basic human right to abortions, I just think that if your ONLY reason for abortion is because your child might be high support needs or really disabled in any form, you’re being eugenics-y and while I would support you through said abortion and wouldn’t make my feelings clear on it, id honestly feel horrible about your choice even though yes, it is exactly not my choice to make! Point is, I told my dad this and he said the basic “abortion is baby murder” shit and “why the double standard” and tbh it hit me because hey, I don’t at all want anyone to go through what is a ostensibly physical and psychological trauma in the form of abortion, but if they need one I’m not gonna stop them and I’m gonna support them the whole way. Tbh I feel like an asshole because yeah, I wish NOBODY had to get abortions because it sucks and I wish we had resources for people who actually want to be parents to be able to parent, but in this America we just don’t and people of all genders and identities will end up suffering because of this desire of conservatives to control mainly cis women’s bodies, plus the bodies of anyone they see as basically cis women which includes a large demographic of the trans community as well as intersex folks and just… I don’t know how to respond to the bullshit. I care about my dad but I’m sick and tired of him making his stupid baby murder comments because he KNOWS it triggers my ocd and I just don’t like anything right now.

[tobydandelion]

Medicalization and Public Health:

I used to think that the diagnosis of level 1 autism was almost meaningless, once I learned a lot about it and how to identify it, because I realized that maybe a fifth or more of the population would probably quality, if nobody masked. I used to think that since it's such a common neurotype, and so many less disabled autistics use their traits to their advantage to gain or retain power and wealth, that their experience is so far removed from level 2 and 3 autistics to the point they are hardly disabled by autism.

But they are- they just pretend they aren't. Or rather, don't want to accept that they are in great pain, and have wasted years training themselves to needlessly and detrimentally take that pain every day. And that, combined with the results of their childhood trauma and lack of emotional intelligence, cause undiagnosed level 1 autistics who don't properly accommodate, or continue to mask, to be some of the most harmful people to society. Undiagnosed and unaccommodated autism is a public health crisis.

Some people don't like to accept the reality of the cycle of abuse- that 'hurt people hurt people', but it's just true. That's just how some brains react to trauma, and that reality making you uncomfortable shouldn't matter when it comes to what to do about it.

And acting like autism is some cute fun quirky club, and not a medical/neurological problem, doesn't help the angry internet troll who's childhood was nothing but confusing pain, only to grow up and be told he has all the power and control, despite not being able to understand why he can't connect with people or society as a whole. I could definitely understand how that feels like gaslighting.

"That doesn't make it right to treat people like that!"

Yeah no shit? But when has shaming ever changed human behavior? Studying to become a parent has only reinforced what I learned when I worked with animal behaviorists- positive reinforcement is really the best way to change behavior.

People act like neurodivergence and mental health should be such private, personal things- but they aren't. It is a matter of public health. The same way you're harming someone who cannot be vaccinated by refusing one yourself, refusing to treat and accommodate neurodivergencies are similarly Not Just Your Business. We, unfortunately, live in a society, where our mental well-being affects each other's. And this, "I dont owe anyone anything" attitude is how we got to this level of collective trauma- it needs to stop.

Remember, masking doesn't just hurt you, it hurts everyone around you by hurting you. These cycles need to stop. Every time you choose to mask, or don't accommodate, you are making a choice to harm yourself and others.

I'm not saying anyone can be perfect at this- sometimes we need to push through the pain and then heal. But preventing the harm in the first place whenever we can is just the most ethical and logical practice.

---

Trying to forgive the Glindas and Curlys is hard, but when they say, "forgiveness is really for the forgiver," they might have been, to my frustration, correct.

[sharpth1ng]

When do you think Billy realizes he's autistic? do you think he would actually get a formal diagnosis?

This goes one of two ways imo.

1. Billy gets a formal diagnosis young because he’s an obvious autistic kid

This one is more likely if Billy is cis, because it’s a lot easier for AMAB kids to get diagnosed than it is for AFAB kids, especially in the 80’s when he would have been a kid. Also, an autism diagnosis would have made it a lot harder for him to access transition (which is a stupid but unfortunate reality).

In this case I think Nancy is just an attentive mother and notices some places Billy is struggling so she brings him for assessment. It’s the 80s/90s and the internet doesn’t exist the way it does now, so Billy might know he’s autistic but he probably wouldn’t be open about that or have the kind of language to describe his experience that we have now- meltdowns, sensory overload, ect.

Those are concepts that come from autistic communities because historically diagnosticians have been neurotypical and tend to label us based on where they are “deficits” so the language is more like “social difficulties and restricted interests and patterns of behaviour” (never mind the fact that many of us have restricted patterns of behaviour because we are avoiding sensory triggers- that’s a conversation for another day).

In this version he grows up knowing he’s autistic but all the information he gets about it is from neurotypicals and is framed in that “but you can overcome it and be totally normal” kind of way which can be really easy to internalize if you don’t have contact with other autistic folk. If you’re capable of masking at all, people start going “well I couldn’t tell!” like it’s a compliment, which just feels patronizing as hell, but you only realize it’s patronizing when you’re exposed to the idea that “normal” is both a deeply biased concept and also not something that exists objectively. It turns your identity as an autistic person into something that should be hidden which sucks. Dude doesn’t need more shit to hide.

2. Billy doesn’t get a formal diagnosis and doesn’t consider himself autistic until adulthood

This version is more likely with trans Billy for the reasons listed above. This one also hinges on the fact that he’s growing up in the 80s, when there is significantly less widespread knowledge about autism.

In my family I am the only person with a formal diagnosis, and the other family members I have who I believe are also autistic are much older and they just got treated as “weird, sensitive”. I don’t think they considered diagnosis because they were able to survive despite having some really obvious difficulties that could have been dealt with or accommodated if they had considered themselves autistic.

I think given when he grew up this could easily have been Billy’s experience, and again, with no internet he wouldn’t have access to those concepts or that language until much later in life. It would have been “he’s just standoffish and really into movies” rather than “he struggles with neurotypical social expectations and he has a special interest in movies.”

Anyways this was a long, ramble answer, hopefully it makes sense!

[saltymcsaltything]

TIL that the K-12 Special Education version of "Active Listening" is called "Whole Body Listening" and it is just as fucking ableist

*CW/TW: Suicidal ideation*

Credit to the article "What's The Problem With Whole Body Listening?" at Parenting Autistic Children With Love & Acceptance (PACLA) -

https://autloveaccept.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/whats-the-problem-with-whole-body-listening/comment-page-1/?fbclid=IwAR0DsNa_wqcCUuz2PbbQARqipQvZkbdJkun346V-SqnExGn0fm4zPyX2j5s

Spoiler alert: I fucking hate active listening and it's neuronormative "body language" and nonverbal communication. Those expectations in the workplace are disabling. I won't shut up about it anytime I see some bullshit workplace training with "Eye contact, warm smile, fork handshake, open posture" and all the usual bullshit. If I am doing all of that *I am not listening effectively* because I can't fake normal for your benefit and process the words you are saying at the same time. Hell, I am lucky if I understand your jargony, vague, vapid workplace patter even when I am not busy pretending to be normal so as not to be treated like bullshit.

Unsurprisingly, but infuriatingly, the education system pushes the same compliance-based normative agenda for the comfort of neurotypicals, even though evidence shows that coercing autistic people into masking behaviors leads to long term harm including suicide. I've been in that place where I have been pushed well past my capacity to mask and was hovering on that precipice because of violence I experienced in the workplace - I reached a point where I did not see a way to survive if it continuer and an escape plan where I at least could stop the pain felt necessary. I was lucky I was able to hang on long enough to get help and wasn't pushed any further before I started to slowly recover.

So apparently, Special Education classrooms have *this little fucker* saying "for everyone else's benefit, please hurt yourself in the following ways to show you're listening!"

Hey Larry! You're a garbage ass little bootlicker! Tell the ableist shitstains that created you and shill their harmful "Social Skills" training that hurts autistic kids that I hope they hammer car splat.

It's Active Listening with bright colors and a cartoon bully.

And half of this shit doesn't even make sense. If I am faking normal by focusing on the first 6 things on Larry's checklist of self-abuse, I don't have the capacity for the last two.

Also, you have to actually care about my needs for me to care about what you're saying. If you've proven that you don't by expecting me to behave in a way that hurts me and impede my ability to communicate, then frankly, I don't give a shit about anything you say beyond comprehending enough for me to protect myself from you.

The article linked above skewers Larry brilliantly and is definitely worth a read, but I wanted to share their edited poster here because I think it might be useful. I am open about my autism and assorted co-occuring conditions at work and I want this hanging in my workspace - I will have to edit in "Active Listening" to match the workplace version, but I am hoping it will ruffle some feathers. And I am more than happy to tell anyone who thinks Active Listening is somehow an appropriate thing to force onto people in the workplace just how harmful it and other normative expectations couched as "communication skills" really are.

tl;dr - Fuck Active/Whole Body Listening

[spellscarred]

Self Dx are not real. Do not encourage this. Especially as a mental health professional you call yourself. Encourage people to go get a proper evaluation and diagnosis. Anyone can self Dx themselves with anything, it’s completely invalid to self dx and offensive to those who have been through the actual process of it.

Alright, as a mental health professional I completely disagree with you, for several reasons.

First of all, it's very classist of you to make this claim. Sincerely. There are plenty of people who can't get a professional diagnosis, because it costs a lot of money. It's great if you're in the position to get diagnosis or long-term therapy, but there's a lot of people who aren't financially capable of sustaining or affording this.

Second, professionals know near to nothing about autism in practice, and I was misdiagnosed for years, even after doing an "autism test" during my diagnostic evaluation, and I did CBT for a while before the psychologist concluded that it wasn't working, and then I finally got my autism diagnosis. After that, they dumped me because there was nothing more they could do for me aside from, "oh, I guess read some stuff about it?" In my professional life, this is a reoccurring theme, where I have to tell people what autism is and isn't. The DSM-V criteria is, while better than its previous iterations, incredibly flawed and stereotyped, and that's me being very generous — and this criteria is all most professionals know about autism.

Third, the only time an autism diagnosis will help you is for getting the accommodations you might need, such as additional help in school or disability welfare from the government. In all other instances it might actually harm you because we live in an incredibly ableist society that will punish you for not being productive to able-bodied or neurotypical standards. There's also the little fact that actual professionals won't give you a diagnosis, not because you might not have a neurodevelopmental "disorder" (see: autism or ADHD), but because the diagnosis in your situation will do you more harm than good! From this ask, I assume you don't even know that's a thing.

Fourth, please don't state your opinions as facts. You think it's invaliditing and offensive. I certainly don't. If viewing their experiences in an autistic light gets people to better balance and compassion towards themselves in their life, I'm all for it. Yes, even if it turns out, in the end, that it's not autism after all, but a secret third thing.

— Fun fact, back in ye olden days (70s and back), the autistic and psychotic communities were inextricably connected, because autistic kids weren't diagnosed as autistic, but as "childhood onset schizophrenic". To the professional mental health community, we were all considered schizophrenic, because of the lack of knowledge and understanding, and the big overlap between autistic symptoms and negative psychotic symptoms. Someone self-dxing (usually not in a whim either) as autistic might not be autistic, but they might be psychotic or another form of neurodivergent. I refuse to pull support for people who clearly need it just because they framed their experiences under a "wrong label". Psychology is fucking complex but people needing support really isn't.

Surprise surprise, it's so much more important to me that people get the help and support they need than the purity of labels, especially where something like autism is concerned. And I say this as a mental health professional professionally diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder for 13 years now. You know, since that is part of your validity criteria.

An autism diagnosis doesn't really do shit in practice. The community can help each other so much better than any mental health professional can, and I will help people, with everything I know and have learned and will continue to learn, with or without your approval.

[gwydionmisha]

A Trip to the Lake, Jet Ski Rich Asshole Crutch Thieves, and the Uncleaner Stole Some Stuff.

Sunday I took some of the Millennials for swimming/picnic at the Lake for the first time this season.  I got to watch New Millennial fall in love with the PNW landscape exactly the way I did more than thirty years ago.

You can really tell which of us grew up with cold Northern Ocean.  Me: wading steadily deeper and deeper once I'm far enough in to keep my balance by my self on the rocks and the bottom gets a little smoother, then slowly swimming out a little deeper in search of the warmer tide.  (It's a run off fed lake, and the mixing of the cold inflow with the water that's been in the lowlands long enough, makes these weird little temperature striations you can very much feel even after you cold adapt).  Everybody Else: Wading crotch deep and thinking for a while about whether they want to swim after all, then going way slower and stopping a lot to rethink.

I love my Millennials.  The other two each had one of the newest Millennial's arms to help them over the rocks because the rocks suck and I'd forgotten to warn them.  Me, urging them on:  Keep coming!  I found the warm current!  New Millennial: Looking concerned this might be hazing, followed by the moment of delight and surprise on finding I was not.  Look, it's only like ten or fifteen degrees on a good day, but it does make a difference and the activity of swimming or treading water and the adaptation once you go up to your neck and then duck your head, all add up.  You just need to get into a sweet spot.

I discovered on the way back that my fucked up arms really, really don;t want to do backstroke.  I managed a lopsided curve towards shore until I was far enough in to pull along the rocks with my hands and kick.  So Goth Millennial is hanging close on the way to the shallows, because I can't really get out safely by myself and need help getting up onto my feet and staying there until I'm reasonably sure they are working, at which point either Goth Millennial (or Techie Millennial, who couldn't come), would grab my crutch so I could use it and their arm to get out onto the "beach."

My crutch was not where I left it.  My crutch was not anywhere nearby where someone might have moved it if it were in the way of say launching a jet ski from the wrong stretch of "beach"  instead of the boat and jet ski launch area.  I mention jet skis as their were two anchored in the swimming area where they were not meant to be we we arrived, one of which way out past the swim buoys where it was meant to be, and the other parked on the "beach" where it emphatically should not be, surrounded by mostly kids, obscuring view of the corner where the "beach hits the cit off with the higher land and grass.  But I hadn't gone near that, and I needed the crutch to get out to look to see if the crutch was there.

I am still angry about that fad a decade or so ago when asshole able bodied art students would steal poor people's wheelchairs for shitty "art projects" and then brag about it on line as if stealing an expensive thing someone couldn't afford to replace and stranding them somewhere like a park or a bathroom or an inaccessible public building was something virtuous and clever instead of an incredibly cruel things to do to someone, as if their crap project was worth more than someone else's independence.  My crutch is basically one of my legs.  Someone's wheels are their legs.

Every time I go into the water anywhere, I know there is a chance someone will steal my crutch.  This is the PNW, and I think someone leaving a mobility aid next to the water makes sense to the ableds, whereas someone leaving a wheelchair on the pavement in a park doesn't for some asshole shitty lack of empathy and imagination neurotypical reason, I guess.

So I'm starting to get really upset and Goth Millennial is really worried and we are having a loud conversation along the lines of Me: shit!  I can you see my crutch anywhere?  I left it right there. I think someone may have stolen !it! Millennial standing up and going to look across the bad rock stretch craning their head around to see if some asshole maybe put it on the grassy bit above the cut:  I can't see it!  It's not there!"  Middle School age, glaring resentfully at one of the younger kids, stomps around to the other side of the illegal parked jet ski, where we had zero chance of seeing it, retrieves it and hands it to me.  Me: you're very kind!  Thank you!  Goth Millennial hoists me to my feet while I use their arm and the crutch to just barely get my balance.  This is a complicated and painful procedure, returning to gravity after freedom, and I need to stand their awhile like two or three feet away from Asshole Jet Ski Extended family.  These kids just stare at me the whole time we are doing this.  It is very, very obvious that my normally invisible disability is very, very real.  Grumpy teen in charge to a younger kid:  You better go apologize.  No one apologizes.  They keep staring at us hobble slowly and carefully up the shallow stairs.  After I went to pee and wash lake water off my hands before eating, I went to set my crutch down by my chair and all this water poured out of it.  I'd left it on dry land.  

Asshole Family who was too privileged to use the boat and jet ski launch who thus had to drive their jet skis through the swim area had stolen my fucking crutch to play with in the water and the missing adults and the grumpy teen in charge had let them, and then they hid it behind their angled jet ski so no one could see it afterwards.  They could have lost it in the lake.  They could have kept it.

We found out when our friends came out of the water that they’d also stolen and hid our blind friends flip flops, which they grudgingly had returned when it was clear they were hers.

Rich people are the worst.

So we go get dinner stuff at the grocery store and drop a Millennial off and I'm in my kitchen searching for my reusable straws, of which I own four.  I have one I was using for lemonade which I put in the refrigerator last night.  I had assumed the other three were in the wash or something up until now, but I searched the dishwasher and they weren't there.  All the flatware are in the dishwasher except the chopsticks and some specialty use items, since we didn't know which the Asshole Cleaner hadn't cleaned properly before putting back.  we’d emptied the trays.  I search there and around there anyway.  There are no reusable straws in the kitchen except the one I was drinking out of Friday when Asshole Stoner Cleaner was uncleaning the apartment.

The time she was here high as a kite she kept wiggling them and shouting "Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle!"  She was obsessed with them.  They were a gift from Goth Millennial.  I don't think they were that expensive, but they were cute and had a nice texture and are earth friendly.  (Some people can't use reuseable straws for a bunch of reasons and we have emergency plastic straws here.  This is not any sort of judgement on people who use single use.  Let's ban fishing industry plastics which are most of the ocean plastic pollution before going after disabled people's straws, okay?)

I think the only reason she didn't steal the forth straw was it was right next to me so I could poke it up under the mask for brief sips.  I'd left it and the cup in the fridge because I don't like to put them to wash until I see a new clean straw I can use in situations like this or when my arms are bad, and it's easier and safer to hold the cup low, or sometimes just because.  They are reusable!  It hurts nothing.  I wanted a straw because my body wasn't working and I wanted to drink the juice I'd bought for dinner while lying down and waiting for things to stop hurting so much. 

There is zero chance the other three are still here.

I had checked my bedroom right after she left for small, easily stealable things missing from the bookshelf where I put curios right after she left because the comment about my interesting things felt like something a person might say anyway, but also a things someone who might pocket once would say and I was already upset and wary of her because of everything.  There are things it would be hard to check, like my BPAL Collection, but odds are she wouldn't steal those.  She'd have had to climb on the bed and go through the little boxes and she was only unsupervised in there for a few minutes with the sweep and mop.  I will need to see if she stole the bottle where I keep a few tramadol in case I wake up unable to get out of bet or occasionally, even roll over without an hour or more of slow, excruciating effort.  While they clean, I'm sitting at my desk right next to the bottled meds collection that mostly feed assorted pill organizers, and the shelf above where the things I need to grab quick in an emergency are not surprisingly untouched.  If anything had been stolen when I got up to go to the bathroom the parent tramadol bottle would be easiest to raid and the only really attractive thing to steal except throat pearls, and you'd have to know what they were and they are not recreational, just a little expensive and perscription.  The altar and display shelf over the sofa seems fine, and she definitely didn't go in grabbing distance anyway.

When I went into the bathroom to bathe the lake water away, I noticed some small things missing.  One of them I'd assumed was in the wash, but I have done a bunch of laundry over the weekend since the Ajax tainted clothes get washed separately and I don't want the dye to be leached by cleanser by letting them sit unwashed, and we have to wash the mop head by itself between uses to get all the ajax out.  It's not in the wash.  It's gone, a small, very useful thing.  Nothing expensive is missing that I've noticed yet, but I haven't properly inventoried all the otc things and the prescription ointments and such, but I'm guessing those wouldn't be attractive.  I doubt she'd steal books.  She didn't strike me as a reader, but when I am in less pain and less exhausted, I'll inventory them better.

Asshole.  Fucking asshole.  

I know it could have been worse.  Every little curio and most of the art except some things in the bathroom that are there because of the risk of steam or water damage have a story.  They were given to me by friends or lovers or made by me when my hands still worked right or purchased at particular events or on particular occasions.  These are memories and irreplaceable regardless because they are mostly hand made or limited edition from conventions.

We don't have money for replacing straws right now.  They haven't paid Goth Millennial for a month and a half, not even for the supposedly paid training sessions.  I owe money to the Honest Mechanic for the third time in three months and am about to burn two thirds of my bill money tomorrow on that, because you never ever fuck over a small business, just like you never ever fuck over another poor person.  (I don’t steal, but I think ethically, stealing from a big chain to feed your kids is okay, and very much better than letting you kids starve, especially given the wage theft and lobbying against the social safety net and minimum wage those chains do.  They steal from the poor, particularly their workers and if they hadn’t paid politicians to do things that prevent people from having enough to eat, then which is the bigger evil?  Mom and pops?  Family Businesses? Little micro businesses and artists and what have you?  Never, ever okay.  Small businesses are the life blood of a community online and RL, and letting me defer payment is a major fucking favor, so they are next after housing, whatever happens to my other bills.  The other few things I spotted are replaceable if we had money for it.

I am so fucking angry anyway.  I already felt my home was desecrated by her uncleaning it and distressing Tavy and the all over fuckery of it, but this small thing, this thing that wouldn't matter if I were a little better off or they weren't a gift, but feel like a big thing when added to all the rest.  

It takes a lot to make me hate someone.  We are not there yet, but if I do find something important I overlooked gone, I will, much like I still hate the ex-friend from first college who took three important things with sentimental value that were/are irreplaceable when he dropped out.  This is how he became an ex-friend.  He knew that the plaque was the last thing the artist my first freshman lover bought it from made and that it had a bunch of layered meanings in what was written on it.  The things he stole from me and another friend were like that.  Very personal and chosen with surgical precision to cause the most distress.  (He did other, worse things, then made sure everyone thought, I’d done them and I was a monster.  none of this we found out until he’d gone and we none of us could figure out why.  Okay, the terrible things he needed someone to frame, but the rest... Sociopathy was the best guess for all of it really.  Last I checked he was still working with children and there was fuck all provable we can do about it, but he really, really shouldn’t have been working with children). These things the Uncleaner stole were small, replaceable things, not something where there is no other one even if memories weren’t attached. 

All the things missing I've looked for off and on since the time she was here high, under the belief they were misplaced or in the wash.  I wouldn't be surprised if that's when she took them and that's part of why she was so embarrassed the second time, but if she were really embarrassed she could have brought them back then and I'd never have known.  Like, she could have tossed them into one washer or the other, or tucked them around the sink, and I'd have just thought that was where they were.

I know the Asshole Agency will do fuck all, but I'm going to call them anyway.  Goth Millennial said before we knew about the theft that she was the one who was a class traitor, because you don't do shit like this to another poor person.  I have no idea when my apartment will actually be clean again.  I'm doubting that an extra two hours this week even if someone turns up will do it.

We are still baffled by the thought process.  

If she'd put the dishes into the dishwasher like I'd asked, it would have been fine and not tons of extra time and work cleaning everything.  I still need to sit on the kitchen floor in the Ajax to go through all the pots and pans in case the extra cleaner does come.  If she'd rinsed and dried them before putting them away, it would have been not ideal, but likely fine.  She did neither for no reason we can understand.  Putting them away wet and soapy was actually more work than racking them in the dishwasher like I asked.  

Not only was the bottle of liquid all purpose cleaner right in front when I opened the cabinet under the sink to hand it to Goth Millennial Saturday when they decided wet mopping wouldn't be enough, there was a literal second full bottle behind it because I hate running out of things so I tend to buy two at once if I have enough cash for it and the trip to get the one I like that is effective but doesn't make bad smells is annoying if I don't want a big mark up.  It was right there.  couldn't have missed it if she'd opened the compartment.  To get at the Ajax I use only for the toilet, she had to go past the dish soap for the sink and tub and the shampoo and conditioner I bought before the engine light went on last month.  She could have used the dish soap and it would have been not ideal, but fine except for all the extra water.  A wet mop after she left would have solved it.  She had to go on her hands and knees and move things to get the Ajax.  Following directions was Easier.  Asking me to get it if she somehow couldn't recognize it as a bottle of liquid cleaner was easier.  Getting about a third to a half of a big cylinder of Ajax out of those small holes was definitely harder than doing it properly.

WTF!?!

I get that stealing small stuff you don't need is actually a symptom of mental illness that requires therapy she likely can't afford, and given how high she was she really had no observable impulse control I could see, hence her repeatedly stopping work to pet a cat I'd warned her not to, and the 'wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, and all the many other things.  This is the only explicable part of it.  Like I get it.  If that's all she'd done I would have been mildly miffed and reported and blocked her because I don't like people stealing my stuff and she might take something from someone else they couldn't eventually replace, but I wouldn't be this kind of furious.  A compulsion to steal and/or walking away with something because one is borderline incoherent high and then going oops later are pretty easy to understand motivation wise.

Doing all this extra work to do so much damage to someone you barely know makes zero sense.  I was nice to her!  I sent her home with a big bag of food each time!  We none of us think this was malice.  It can't be laziness as this took so much extra work than not doing damage would.  so seriously WTF, with the dishes and the Ajax?  This question haunts us all.

[fogemorfem]

Okay, this reminds me of a thing, which has to do with this: Healthy people have spoons too, just more of them!

I used to be "healthy" (I had undiagnosed-even-by-myself anxiety I didn't deal well with but mostly healthy). I am at my core a people pleaser, and I had a bf who would throw a temper tantrum at the slightest inconvenience, and accuse me of being selfish if I tried to assert even the smallest of bounderies, while I was bending over backwards to accommodate his every need or want. I was constantly walking on eggshells, trying to make sure nothing inconvenienced him, because anything might set him off, but it also might not, and I never knew which it was gonna be.

I have no doubt that he was suffering, incapable of understanding how to feel better. And I have no doubt that we were the worst match possible, because I needed someone who takes care of me like I take care of them, and I think he needed to be held accountable.

Anyway, he was starting to self-diagnose as neurodivergent in some way, and one day he told me about the spoon thing, saying how "Neurotypical people have unlimited spoons, but for neurodivergent people they run out."

And my jaw just dropped. And I had one of the rare moments where I told him exactly what was on my mind: "I don't have unlimited spoons! I am using spoons I don't have!". And he seemed completely taken aback by this, so much so that he didn't even get angry, apparently having assumed that taking care of our household and him while trying to keep my life together and being screamed at every other day was something I just... had the energy to do.

I went on like this for years. When I finally broke up with him, it was because I had nothing left in me, just a big hole. Afterwards I felt like I could have laid on the floor staring at the ceiling for six months and it still would not have made a dent in my emotional fatigue. But I didn't have the luxury to do that. I continued with work and friends like before. Actually fell in love with a wonderful guy who made me feel a bit like myself again.

And then I had a stroke. And being in the hospital afterwards I actually felt relief. Finally, I could just lay down.

The crux being that I now had not only a physical handicap, but I was realising efter a while that I had mental fatigue. My brain's battery capacity was way smaller. And after running head first into a metaphorical wall several times a week (and finding out the thing I was running from was anxiety and having to deal with that), I thought about the spoon thing again and went "Oh. I get it now."

But as this post says. Even though I had waaaaay fewer spoons now, and my ability to use spoons I didn't have was equally diminished - I was expertly trained in doing exactly that. I am perfectly able of running myself into the ground and even further, and no one would notice a thing until I had a complete breakdown and had to shut myself away from the world for months, early on it even took a whole year, because "You seem so happy and energetic!". No shit, it's what I do, I had seemed happy and energetic for years while feeling exhausted and empty inside, constantly toeing the line of a burn-out.

Learning that no one but me is gonna stop me from harming myself in this way, and I need to communicate my needs, has been a long and difficult journey and I am far from done.

But in it I have learned that I can connect to healthy people, because they need rest and recovery too. They overexert themselves - and they can run themselves into the ground, resulting in burn-out. They need to take care of themselves and set boundaries to stay healthy. So idk. I just feel like, explaining how my fatigue works, people can often relate - just not about it taking so little to overexert myself and to burn me out.

TLDR healthy people have spoons too, just way more of them, and they can borrow spoons from the future too, they can just take out way bigger loans before breaking.

One thing I don't think the Spoon metaphor has helped able-bodied people understand is that you can overdraw.

Generally, for most conditions, running out of spoons doesn't mean you collapse, doesn't produce an effect they can actually see. What it means is that you run on life support, quite possibly unsafely, until you get to a safe place and can stop. But you'll owe those spoons back, with interest. You'll have hurt yourself to do it.

Sometimes I hang out with a friend and they'll be like, wow, I'm really glad you had a good day. And I have to decide whether to make them feel bad by explaining that in fact they did not catch me on a good day, and tomorrow will probably be bad. I just made choices.