#*doesn’t mean that my brain isn’t doing more work than a neurotypical person’s and needs support so that it doesn’t have to*

[fumifooms]

Laios Touden and autism; admiring the non-human

Do you think people exaggerate when they scream about Laios being autistic? Do you feel like it’s weird that so many people including autistics are so set on Laios, the problematic (but incredible and kind) king TM, being the most autistic that has ever autisticed? Why do we cheer on autistic people wanting to be monsters?? Isn’t that weird?

Well, of course it depends on the way it’s done, it can be done quite offensively, but long story short Kui blew it out of the park. The thing is, autistic people really do like monsters and animals and robots. Nonhuman does not mean subhuman, it just means Other. Feeling a connection with them has been shown to be an extremely common autistic experience for that very reason.

Because some people don’t understand why we autistic Tumblr Laios stans cheer “autism! Autism!” whenever he talks about monsters and feeling alienated to humans so! Here’s a post about how yes even research papers are analyzing the special connection we form with animals. I’m not even joking but Laios Touden & the mass cries of relatability with autistic people he gets and all the love for him could be used as study material and evidence for future papers because the link is that strong. Oh also I think it’s notable that being autistic and undiagnosed vs diagnosed makes a huge difference. In my experience as someone who was undiagnosed up until 18, it’s even more alienating to not know that there’s a reason why you’re different, being gaslit that you’re ‘normal’ and you just need to try harder and get with the program, etc. Personally when getting diagnosed I went through the 5 stages of grief because the thought of having been fundamentally different all your life (a difference which you will never be able to change) and mistreated for it when you weren’t “wrong” all along makes you unload all the anger and sadness and loneliness and sheer trauma you’ve built up over time. Like it’s world shattering.

So! Back to seeing dogs as family. Also I implore you to value experiential evidence when it comes to autism and other neurodivergences because brains are complicated and neurotypicals not being able to understand us well even with scientific research is like, a whole thing even though we’re right there speaking about how we feel and being right every time because the topic is literally us and how we experience the world. 

Disclaimer for this whole post that, of course, no group is a monolith and everyone has different experiences or can diverge from the norm of the group, and that doesn’t diminish the validity of either side! Like, I know autistic people who have trauma with dogs and hate them. But, trends do happen, and in this case... Autism is very “My experiences with humans make me feel dehumanized in a bad and lonely way so instead I’ll dehumanize myself in a good and inspiring way”.

“I was treated like a failed human my entire life and you’re surprised that my response was to become a dog.” -Patricia Taxxon

It’s literally well recorded that autistic people relate to animals more than humans globally. With this post, besides spreading autistic Laios truthism and explaining why the portrayal hits so deep for so many,  I want to show in what way this is a very specific experience and not looking at his character through an autistic lense really misses a lot of why he’s everything that he is. (Tacking allegedly onto here for legal reasons, different interpretations are valid etc etc /gen). This honestly isn’t super long though.

To define an important term, anthropomorphism in the studies and in this post means to attribute human traits to the nonhuman, which not only includes anthro furry designs but also animals irl, inanimate objects, and animated media as opposed to live action, to humanize them and empathize with them.

Paper: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/aut.2019.0027 

“Dogs taught me how to hunt and socialize and work in groups”, Laios having internalized body language... So real so real. I, too, make a great dog impression. And I want to emphase the part that it helps greatly develop a sense of emotions and relationships! For Laios, he didn’t get along with kids his age, it was him, Falin and the dogs against the world. Since it’s a group of dogs too, it taught him group dynamics and social hierarchies (like with Falin being considered as being below the dogs in authority according to the dogs rip), and the importance of group coordination when hunting.

For me, I cannot like, concisely explain just how much animals were important to me developmentally. I also grew up with dogs, but like I vividly remember encounters with like hamsters as well just radically shaping my understanding of boundaries, the importance of giving something space and the way you interact with them and respect their side of it. Unlike humans they don’t really mask how they feel, it’s direct cause-effect reaction and data gathering. There are no words involved, so the focus on having a perfect phrasing and tone is gone, leaving just pure interactions. 

There’s also no reason to mask how you feel either, and you don’t have to feel silly over wanting to form a connection and it showing, what, is the dog gonna laugh at you because you obviously want to make friends with it? Toshiro or Kabru might, but dogs and cats will just tell you to fuck off and leave it there worst case scenario. I often say that I think one reason Marcille is special to Laios and he feels comfortable around her is because she emotes INTENSELY, she gestures, she puts her whole body into it, her facial expressions are pretty exaggerated and her ears even emote too- like with a dog’s ears!

I think there’s def also things to be said about how he gravitated towards Izutsumi at first, all excited, was eager to sleep in the same bed as her, but in the Izutsumi sleep rating chart we see they really just casual and chill so it’s not a Laios talking to Shuro deep into the night situation just a “I like sleeping besides animals” situation and that is enough to hype him up. I love how he pet her in the extra about why Chil let her sleep with him too. He’s just so transparently eager to befriend her, even if in the end they weren’t all that compatible and he accepted that.

There are honestly so many examples I could give for this. Like Grandin the famous cow lady.

More about autism & empathy:

https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/double-empathy-explained/ (Also mentions a study in which groups of autistic, allistic then a mixed group played a game of telephone and both singular groups had similar levels of information retention, but the mixed group was significantly worse. As an autistic person yeah duh, obviously autistic people are different from one another and can have plenty of interpersonal issues, but communicating with other neurodivergent people feels pretty intuitive and straightforward and comfortable. One of the reasons why neurodivergent people tend to naturally gravitate towards each other I suppose.) 

^ Paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5932358/  For good, extensive summary of why we relate to animals so much you can go to the “anthromorphizing and asd” section of the paper. This paper extends to our widespread liking of cartoons and robots as well. Ok so this is a whole thing I won’t get into here but this is a big reason why a lot of autistic people are agender leaning as well. Genders and queerness in general is a lot about social constructs, and being queer is being marginal to these, not fitting into boxes or challenging those social norms and conventions. Queerplatonic relationships are a great example of this, where the framework of the relationship is platonic but the intangible nature of what it is exactly is the point, not familial not anything but everything at once too, just adoration, I like to say having pets is a bit like it as well, bc obvi it’s not romantic and often not fully familial, very platonic but also sooo much cuddling and adoration and kissing and whatnot that you wouldn’t typically do with a friend or family member. I’ll talk about qpr and labels another day though.

I got carried away but queerness in Dunmeshi is something I 100% want to make a big post on one day. Experiencing the world with different guidelines and not registering things to have the same boxes, sigh. Personally I also relate to Laios on a gender level, “cis by default because I don’t care all that much but if I were to dig deeper I’m probably otherkin and I want to be socially associated with traits of monsters and animalistic rather than man/woman” sighh hard to be a cryptid in this day and age. I wish we had a term like furry but for monsters, I want to be in the fantasy or folk tale genre ty, like changelings. Goshh changelings... You know, the irl myth where people said their neurodivergent kids were fairies’ children instead of human. Diminished physical sense of self means I see myself as some unknowable black  void aesthetic wise, but like in a way that simultaneously makes me feel seen. Like becoming a monster, losing your sense of self but also somehow just being simplified and seen for what you are, it’s weird to try and explain. This post is more about relating to the nonhuman than about seeing yourself as such, but like connect the dots right, that IS an important point of Laios’ character. It’s because our brains literally work different than allistics which makes us feel as other, but also because of social ostracization and functioning in a different way than society at large, living in the margin of society, being weird and non-conforming.

Meanwhile, animals and social norms... Like ok, showing your neck and rolling on the ground to show that you’re friendly and harmless and play biting might not be proper. But have you considered that it’s also fun and feels very intuitive. Play with a dog in the dog’s way I promise it is so nice and freeing. Play tug of war and growl back when they growl. Hiss at your cat to tell them they do something wrong, engage with them on their level.

Autism made social life hard, but it made animals easy. Do you have anyyy idea how good it feels to mask all day every day and feel constantly misunderstood or like you’re doing a performance but then you can just, drop all of that in the company of animals and they understand you. They understand you. You form an understanding and rapport so easily.

And this whole thing with Laios is so explicit too, with the Winged Lion saying “You’re sick and tired of the human world”. Notice the choice of words. Sick and tired of the human world. Exhausted from the constraints, sick of the mind games. It really isn’t as much about loving monsters as it is about loving the nonhuman. Relating to them because you feel that you can actually understand how they work and think, and feeling like they could understand you back as well. Animals are safe.

Like I could go on about how Laios admiring even just demi-humans like orcs is because they’re socially seen as non-humans more than any true physical thing, that they’re not bound by human society and its rules and live with their own lifestyle. But it would deal myself 1000 points of psychic damage and I am not ready to cry today. It’s idealization 100%, and like, Laios DOES want to be treated as human, to be valued, but it feels like an unreachable thing meanwhile becoming a monster is instant gratification and freedom and a sense that now no one will be able to hurt you in a way that reaches you, never again shall you be defenseless, and then if people dehumanize you then that only strengthens your sense of identity as a monster and UGHH ugh ugh.

And like. This post is a mess at this point but if you want to kinda delve into the more “why” then I recommend this Patricia Taxxon video essay. It starts out on a very different topic, but it’s all about autism and finding comfort in the inhuman. Long story short is othering made us like this also animals are just simpler to intuitively get along with.

So when I post this

I mean it. I really mean it when I say he’s me. I have never felt so seen. So many conflicting emotions all wrapped so concisely yet so intangibly woven into the whole storyline so subtly. 

Not being depicted as a monster of an human being for feeling/having felt that way?? The manga understands you. The world can understand you. Other humans can understand you. You can bond with them. You can. And I think that’s a big part of Dungeon Meshi too- Laios opening up to others about how he really is and his interests, and all the bumps on the way but how it was the only way to truly get to know each other and bond. With the climax being Laios confronting head on his complex with monsters and humans, and his monster-loving side and animalistic side being exactly what saves the whole world, what saves humanity. Because Laios does value his friends, does think humanity has beautiful sides to it, he wants to help it thrive and eat and become more accepting, carving out a kingdom for misfits and demi-humans. At the end of it, transforming into a monster and being free is a daydream fantasy, and the reality of it is that Laios does belong in the world as he is, and does receive and give out love.

If you enjoyed this you’ll probably like some of my other Laios analysis!  Here’s an analysis of his succubus and what it says about his relationships with other humans. And here’s an analysis about his relationship with Shuro from his perspective.

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #laios touden #character analysis #i guess #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #spoilers #autistic laios touden #asd #autism representation #meta #draft so old it uses the old Tumblr post editor #it would be much better if i could put them side to side rip #i also wanna do an analysis trying to pin down his level of social awareness #i love that the monster story epic saga about misfits and your place in the world on an ecosystem level is just sooo autistic so perfect #this post has a weird structure but hopefully it can showcase some things and make ppl understand and others relate! I know we're out there #hiii therians how we feeling today. Brain chemistry is weird but ours is just wired different not broken #feeling self-conscious bc even with studies this is the equivalent of going 'trust me bro I get it' which usually doesn't go well with us #Humanity is beautiful <3333 Humans are social animals broski love yourself!!!

[fanficfanattic]

I want to be clear that this is not an attack on anyone or any group. It isn’t a call to action. It isn’t an accusation of ableism.

It is a lament.

The fun thing about being autistic is that it is not an excuse to fuck up within other marginalized communities. I fully believe that. But it absolutely affects how you interact with the world. And so it also does with said groups.

It’s already hard to explain that you think you are going from A to B to C* . It’s how your brain works. But you recognize that your disabled fucking brain is capable of being wrong. That level of self-doubt seems to me to be the heart of being autistic. The default setting is that you are wrong. (At least for things that are social behaviors or norms. If it is one of my special interests I will plant myself firmly.)

So when someone else says you actually went over to numbers and then came back to the alphabet on F. You believe them. You don’t understand how though. And is it someone else’s job to point it out? Depends on whether you subscribe to “you are your brother’s keeper”. Generally I think the answer is no, it isn’t their job. And if they go to the trouble of helping me with that, I view it as a gift. I thank people for it.

I also don’t think anyone has to do me the honor of witnessing me process and integrate new information. No one owes me anything. But it is a hard thing to do and being told your effort is wrong? That you’re doing it wrong and are going to be punished for it?

It’s devastating. It is also just another day that ends in Y. Cause that is so often the response from society as a whole. And then also specifically to whom you are directly conversing with. Double whammy of being reminded your brain is broken (by current standards). But told as though that is something you have done by choice.

Is the fact that it is devastating anyone else’s problem? No. I cannot emphasize enough that I know my issues are in fact my issues. That’s why this isn’t pointed at anyone. The only person it ever applies to is myself.

I suspect that this reads as defensive. And maybe it is! I am not an accurate gauge of that and trusting non-disabled people to tell me is just me tilting at the same windmill over and over.

If you think that saying this is once again the wrong thing to do, I’d ask that you just mute or block me. I don’t begrudge or judge for needing to take care of yourself. But I won’t apologize for trying to take care of myself.

I am sorry that this derailed people’s days. That what I thought I was communicating was hurtful. Hurting others is one of the things I wake up and make an active decision that I don’t want to do that. I choose kindness whenever I can.

Impact is more important than intent. But ‘more important’ doesn’t mean the other has no place. And, again, if you disagree with that sentiment you can keep the concept from coming across your dash by blocking me. I support you making a healthy decision for yourself.

Normally I embrace my disabilities**. I know that I can see connections that others can’t or won’t follow. But that can create something beautiful when it comes together. I love being able to talk about my special interests with an intensity most people lack. I’m not ashamed of being autistic. I love myself as a whole ass person.

But as a person who always, always has to grow. I think that all white people (myself included) are racist overtly and/or implicitly. In America specifically but also most of the high white population colonized Crown locations. We grow up in a world that inundates you with false, negative “facts” about BIPOC people and equally untrue, positive “facts” about whiteness. We can and should push back on that social structuring. But it’s got tendrils that infect all aspects of life. We have to keep seeing and looking for the rot and dig it out.

All of that applies to us autistics. How we do that often looks different than how neurotypical people go about it. But isn’t that the whole point?

#* like in the sense that you are telling people outside of the conflict #fandom #ableism #racism #bigotry #actually autistic #autism #the wonders and hardships of being autistic #**also have an autoimmune disorder that is slowly fusing my spine together

[voidingintotheshout]

Here’s what I hate about autistic masking and I guess this is going out to the Neurotypical friends of autistic people.

Maybe this is just me, but I do unmask around my friends from time to time but usually at first I don’t actually tell them that I am unmasking. I may offer a caveat that I don’t feel like myself, or I might share a podcast episode that I made. I might share a story that I was working on, and it seems like every single time when I’m just myself they don’t like it. They say that I’m bored, more combative than usual, what I’m doing is stupid, or whatever. The overall consensus is that when I unmask, I am a version of myself that they wouldn’t like. I am fully aware that I’m not explaining this right but I’m sorry but this post is unmasked. I’m not making an effort to say it in a way to appeal to Neurotypical people I’m just saying the way I need to say it. The hardest part about masking all the time when I’m around other people is that it creates this expectation that they don’t like you, they like the mask. If you remove the mask, you would just be an unpleasant version of yourself they wouldn’t like as much. Part of this might be due to the fact that the mask is all they know because that’s all you let them know, but it doesn’t feel that way.

Tonight, I’m in the difficult position of I can’t mask and I feel like shit and I can’t talk to anyone about it because I’m not going to seem like myself. And unfortunately, when you don’t seem like yourself and you’re feeling depressed, then people will assume the worst and so I can’t really talk to anyone. It’s the loneliest and most upsetting part about having autism for me is when you really need someone but you can’t reach out to anyone because no one is gonna get you. There’s no easy way to say that you need to be fake around them all the time so they’ll like you because in the past when you are yourself, they don’t enjoy being around you as much but they won’t admit that they like the mask but not you.

I want to reach out to my support system, but I can’t and the reminder right now is that my support system isn’t actually a support system if they won’t be there when I need them is really frustrating. I want to connect with other people more but the fact that I am reminded that I don’t really need anybody else because I can’t rely on them so I end up just doing everything myself. At this point, it’s a vicious cycle and I don’t really know how to break it.

Maybe this is stupid, but I feel like a person who has been drinking socially, and has started to become an alcoholic, but doesn’t feel like they can stop drinking around other people because they might not be a version of themselves that other people will like. I don’t know whether anybody else gets this, but that’s just what I’m dealing with right now. And it doesn’t help that I imagine fit well-adjusted people don’t have this kind of problem. I know they do. I know they are just as likely to have brain bullshit. I know that enjoying fitness and eating healthy is a personality trait and isn’t something that is a sign that they are totally fine. It’s an ability like being able to write really well or draw well that you can practice or you can be born with. I know that people who look like they have it all are masking as much as me, because Simon Dunn looked like he had it all, and he killed himself. I don’t know if I wanna be completely aware of the vast amount of people that are secretly incredibly unhappy. I just wish that my emotions had something to do with things going on in my life. That I could look at something specific that happened to me and identify that is the reason why I feel bad right now, and not just something in the wind or whatever.

And this isn’t a beg, but it also makes me sad that I know that at most, I’m gonna get like three notes on this post where I’m pouring out my heart, because no one ever bothers to pay attention to this shit. I mean, I don’t pay attention to these posts when other people make them. It’s too personal, too uncomfortable. I feel inadequate to help them. Maybe that’s how other people feel with me, I just wish they didn’t. I just wish other people were as competent as I give them credit for being. 

A shout out to my cat Kakapo, who heard me saying all this with anguish in my voice, dictating it into my phone and came over to snuggle with me because he knew I needed someone. I’m so grateful to have cats that can be there for me when they can. I just wish my heart could feel something besides pain right now. 

Update (version 2): I felt really hopeless for the last hour or so. I tried doing Duolingo at about two hours ago and I just felt hopeless and like if anyone had any alcohol I would just be a bad Muslim and drink until I blacked out. Just to feel nothing. Then, I felt something… like it was from Allah, I just got the tiniest impulse that if I considered myself a Muslim then I should be turning to the Qur’an right now, so I read the third surah (The Family of Imrân), which was where I had left off. The darkness still had a hold on me, and I was finding fault with everything, but I kept at it, and after about three or four more pages, the darkness started to go away. A few more pages and I started to feel better, and by the end of that surah, I felt fine. Sleepiness started to take over and I felt relief. I know most of the people reading this aren’t Muslims and that’s fine but it’s Islamic dogma that the reason why Muslims need to purify their bodies when they awake is because when you sleep, it is said that your soul briefly returns to Allah, and then re-enters your body, with his blessing, in the morning.

Feeling sleepy, after the rough night I had, feels like Allah was calling me home for a brief visit, but not forever. It’s moments like this that I can’t imagine not being a Muslim. Mashallah. 

#mask off #unmasking #autism #Simon Dunn #Mashallah

[factorialsfandoms]

Autistically Flavoured Link Headcanons

(Disclaimer: these are all based on my personal experience of autism. I also have other brain weird, so while I’m /pretty/ sure its all autism, some might not be. Not representative, etc etc etc. Also I just wanted to write all these down before reading other people’s, because its interesting to compare, but I need the reference point for my own.)

(Some Links have more points than others. This isn’t always dependent on how much I like or have thought about them, its just which ones I had more ideas and firm vibes are)

(Also general that even if I don’t stick to these headcanons, I always write all characters as autistic as I’m literally incapable of not being so myself, and have to run the dialogue. Its just easier if I accept they have my neurotype and have fun.)

Cut because very long

Legend - is in constant sensory hell from everything. made it a little better by ditching pants, gnawing on necklaces, fiddling with his rings, and similar. the constant sensory hell makes him snippy, as the world is constantly too much. - As a kid he was constantly told off for being rude/pretentious, but never managed to work out why. So, he has decided to just pretend to be rude so it hurts less when people think he’s mean. It’s easier, no? to be hated for something you're pretending to be, than for something you can't control. And anyway, he can't read intent, so has decided to believe the worst in everyone and everything. A very few people can convince him they’re not awful, but it takes a lot of work. Everyone takes the worst interpretation of him, so why not return the favour?

Hyrule - what's autism and what's a feature of his Hyrule is very hard to tell sometimes. He's aware that he can't read emotion, tone, or body language, but just assumes it’s because he's spent so little time around people. - He has made a conscious choice to believe the best of everyone, and has been taught very quickly that if he isn't sweet and kind then he will be murdered. It reads as naïve to most people, but its as much a survival mechanism as Legend's constant snark. He doesn’t know what people are doing, so he has made a conscious choice to be kind, and to assume other people are too. Until they prove otherwise. Proving otherwise usually involves actually hurting them - His special interests have long involved magic. His sensory issues are rarely obvious, but certain colours are physically painful - there's a reason he sticks to his brown and greens. - All of his stims are forcibly suppressed to the point he doesn’t know any of them. Even the gentle flapping of his hands at his sides is a danger when you’re being hunted.

Four - I don’t have a whole grasp on Four, but blacksmithing? Blacksmithing is his special interest. He’s very blunt a lot of the time, but he’s generally just taken for distracted rather than rude. Everyone where he lives knows he’d rather be in his forge, and its useful enough they let him.  - He usually seems to have most of it under control, but when things get too much it looks like a very sudden shift. - The colours things gets tricky with all this. Yes they would all be autistic. They’re kinda all also different ways of dealing with it. As a whole Four can shift between them as situation necessitates, but split each colour only has one way of handling the social weirdness.

Time - didn't have his whole childhood being told off for being rude, and so for a long time was completely unaware that he can come off that way - or worse, insensitive. Forest children notice these things much less, but it means in adulthood he doesn’t always realise he’s coming off as mean. He is trying to learn to do better, but being the eldest of the group few of them call him out on it.  - As a kid relied a lot on his masks to work out the rules of different engagements, taking on different personas and so forth. He hasn't quite realised he put one of them on and never took it off again (figurative). Neither has he realised what it is costing him.

Wild - near constant state of not enough sensory, except for occasional moments of too much. he doesn't have a line of just enough. sensory seeking until he implodes. licks things, touches things, looks at shiny things - all of that. This has only gotten worse since his death and rebirth; the nerve damage with his burns has left huge expanses of his body in constant sensory deprivation, which he can only try to counter via elsewhere. - His social skills are a work in progress, but what's autism and what's trauma and what's amnesia is anyone's guess. - Cooking is great but fire noise distressing. So, he does the little hum. He likes the hum. It is a stim, but a stim that only works in specific situations. Sky - fakes it until he makes it, but it drains all his stamina and spoons, and neurotypicals still read something off about him anyway. He used to have a special interest in flying, its still sensory very pleasing to him, but his adventures have burnt all of his special interests away. Unlike Time he's uncomfortably aware of his masking, and that its hurting him, but has no idea how to turn it off. He is suffering badly from autistic burnout. Combined, of course, with actual burnout. Still, he's doing his very best to be kind. - Pressure is very good for him. Many blankets, also hugs. If he ever learns about Wild needing to be squished sometimes he'd love a cuddle buddy. For now its clinging to blankets and pillows and covering himself in everything. - Conversely, if he eats food with actual flavour, he might die. He wouldn't die, but the slightest bit of taste is too much for his brain to handle. Wild doesn't get it, but makes him very plain food anyway. Twilight - spends time with animals over people, as they actually make sense. Has always known he's weird and not quite... normal, but assumes its a result of his messy ancestry. Everyone else also knows he's a bit strange, but he's good with the horses and the kids, so what does it matter? Swaps between wolf and Hylian form to try control his sensory brain - if light is too much or smell too little, go wolf. Vice versa, go Hylian. It doesn't always work, but its one of a handful of pros. Wind - special interest in boats. Has far fewer problems than the other heroes, in part because young, in a small community, and his grandma wasn't going to stand for any nonsense. Now the chain protects him from nonsense as he explores himself. - Has, with Wild, recently discovered he's not actually easily overwhelmed by taste - he's actually underwhelmed by it, but bland food is easier for his brain to manage than slightly flavoured but not flavoured enough to deal with the sensory underwhelming he has. Grandma's soup had been the only flavoured thing he could stomach before. She knew the trick of actually flavouring things. Warriors - Can get through any social situation just fine, having absolutely delighted in the complexities of the rules and the drama of it all. Unfortunately, while he looks incredibly socially competent, he's still running largely from a script. So much attention is on how he himself is presenting and his own words and how people read him that he's completely unable to process what they're doing. Someone else really needs to take notes on the conversation for him, because he will remember precisely none of it later.

#linked universe #headcanon #both percieve and do not percieve me #its complicated #I repeat again that most of these are personal experience in different situations #etc etc etc

[yuna-writes]

Following your heart vs intuition

Everyday we always make decisions based on what we feel versus what our brain is telling us. I still don’t fully understand what intuition is or what it means. It’s most likely the little voice in your head that tells you whether your ideas are good or bad. We all have intuition, strangely enough, we are also very emotional humans who make decisions based on feelings. 

For instance, my recent desire was to go back into full remote work. It’s what my heart tells me, and many people would say ‘just do it.’ But than I tried to change the situation in which if I had hypothetical adult children, would I want them to live their life working remotely? Surprisingly, I would say no, which tells me my intuition is saying remote work isn’t good for their personal development. This isn’t to say I’m trying to be prude because I have worked remotely for a couple of years. It has its benefits but it also has its challenges. Some challenges include being socially isolated, especially for a single person. The answer depends on variety of factors too. If my children are neurotypicals, than I would really push for in-person office work where they can create relationships with co-workers, bond with a team and also form memories. It could be hybrid work too if they want to work remotely for two days a week. But if my children are exactly like me than the answer would be no. I think remote work will be perfect for them. 

In-person office work is more of hassle but there was something about bonding with a team felt rewarding too. Meeting with them in person and having a conversation. My point is that maybe following your heart doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for you, sometimes it can be, but it really needs more thought into the decision making process and how much you know yourself. For me, being in a group was always overwhelming. This is something I’ve dealt with as a child so working in-person does require that group mentality and fitting with a specific culture and their rules. I prefer meeting and working with someone individually but unfortunately most jobs don’t function this way unless you open a private practice meeting clients individually. Most jobs are very collaborative and requires a lot of people involved and forming relationships with variety of people. It can be overwhelming for a neurodivergent person. 

I always had challenges which voice to follow my heart or my intuition (aka brain). The intuition is such a funny emotion. I perceive it as an emotion too, but it’s detached from your surface level emotion which is your feelings. Intuition is like the underlying emotion you haven’t either become aware of them until later or you are aware of them but choose not to acknowledge it. The surface level emotion is just what your currently feeling at the present time. 

#notes

[nope-body]

.

#thinking about a comment my dad made a bit ago #that my accommodation for extended time is unusual for someone like me because it’s usually for people who have an intellectual disability #and it just. makes me so upset? and frustrated and just. sad. #upset because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is just assuming that he’s right (like always when it comes to my mental health) #he had no reason to say that! #that comment compounded with other comments he’s made about me relying on accommodations too much #and how I should be trying to overcome my challenges instead of just getting an accommodation #stuff like that #his comment with the context of what he’s said before just comes across as extremely ableist and uncaring #and I’m frustrated because I know exactly why he said it! because it’s what my counselors are saying to justify not wanting to give me the #accommodations I’m asking for #they’re using the excuse of ‘I’m too smart for accommodations’ essentially #and it’s frustrating because at the very least my *counselor* should be on my side because she’s my counselor! her job is to support me! #but instead I’m put in this box of ‘too smart to need help’ by the people who’s job it is to help me #and guess what! just because I’m smart does not erase my need for help! #just because my brain can work overtime to compensate for all the problems I have and still be able to do advanced work #*doesn’t mean that my brain isn’t doing more work than a neurotypical person’s and needs support so that it doesn’t have to* #and all their comments just reflect a basic misunderstanding of what ADHD even *is* #my parents and my counselor and the school psychiatrist- none of them understand that ADHD is a way of functioning and thinking #and that it goes down to the biological structure of the brain. that it is inherently different than a neurotypical brain and that #is not changeable #but they don’t get it! they think about it like anxiety or depression. where you can change your thought patterns and break out of it #that’s not how adhd works!! #and I’m sad because it’s the same problem with my parents again and again. #they’re demonstrating that they don’t care enough about me to learn about adhd #something that has been a problem with them ever since I was diagnosed #they just. don’t learn. they don’t educate themselves #and I want my parents to care about me! but they’re showing that they don’t. not really. #because they won’t even learn about a mental disorder that both their kids have. one that impacts them daily and will continue to for #the rest of our lives

[purplespaceace]

very few characters actually have adhd in media, and when they do, what people mean by that is just that they fidget a lot, not that they have adhd. the only character with adhd I can think of where I’ve watched/read it and I’ve gone, “oh, this character actually has adhd” is Jake peralta from Brooklyn 99. so, here’s my take on how to write adhd, with examples from Brooklyn 99.

I’ll do the best I can to separate them into three categories; the three things people look for in adults with ADHD, which are rejection sensitivity dysphoria, an interest-based nervous system, and emotional hyperarousal.

I’ll also randomly bold and italicize bits so people with ADHD can actually read it.

Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, or RSD

Rejection sensitivity dysphoria makes people with ADHD overly sensitive to criticism, even if they perceive a rejection and there actually isn’t one. Their emotions are also very strong generally. Because of RSD, people with ADHD become people-pleasers and can develop anxiety because they’re so eager to please.

For me, RSD makes me cry an embarrassing amount for any little reason. in your writing, make your characters overdramatic, criers, and/or people-pleasers. They’ll have trouble saying no. They may also be over competitive, as their perceived rejection may include losing.

how does Jake show this in b99? When Jake comes up with a catchphrase and Rosa says it’s terrible, jake is far more hurt than he should be. He hates losing, and he gets overly upset whenever someone says they don’t like him or don’t trust him, etc. he’s also a people pleaser who has trouble saying no.

An interest-based nervous system

An interest-based nervous system includes hyperfocuses and an inability to pay attention. It stems from the fact that we can’t make as much dopamine as neurotypicals. This means that while neurotypicals get dopamine after completing a task, people with ADHD don’t. That means that people with ADHD don’t have any reason to do tasks, especially those they don’t like. This leads to executive dysfunction—people with ADHD will know they have to or want to do something, but they can’t seem to do it. people with ADHD hyperfocus on things that bring them dopamine. I was obsessed with warrior cats for three years. But hyperfocuses can also last a short amount of time—I’ll have a drawing idea in the middle of class and won’t be able to concentrate on anything else before I finish it. this is where our impulsiveness comes from. we can leap into things we think will give us dopamine without thinking, which can lead to injury. We also tend to tell people personal things they don’t want to hear because of this, and don’t have very good boundaries. We sometimes say whatever comes into our head, which can also result in us being rude on accident. Our voices can also get very loud or we can interrupt people frequently because we’re so impulsive. When people with ADHD hyperfocus, they can forget about anything else. I’ll forget to eat if I’m busy reading a Wikipedia article about feminism in the 1850s, and won’t go to the bathroom or drink water either. It’s also important to note that taking away distractions doesn’t help, because we can do things like pick at our skin and daydream—something that people with ADHD do a lot of. Because of executive dysfunction, people can call people with ADHD lazy or irresponsible.

people with ADHD can also be extremely indecisive because ADHD affects our executive functioning, and making decisions requires planning and prioritizing, and task initiation, which are both executive functions!

people with ADHD also have poor memory for important things, but tend to remember random bits of trivia. Poor memory leads to object permanence problems, which means people with ADHD can forget to call a friend back for weeks, forget that they need to read library books in a closed cabinet, or forget that the vegetables they got will go bad. People can sometimes say that people with ADHD don’t care about anything because of this.

people with ADHD can also be prone to depression because of under or overstimulation. Boredom feels painful for people with ADHD. If we’re overstimulated, we can experience sensory overload—if things are too bright or too loud, if too many things are touching us at once—often it’s not because the thing is too intense, but because too many things are happening at once.

We also have something some people call dolphin brain, where we jump from one thing to another. From the outside, it looks really random, but I find that when I’m talking to another neurodivergent communication is generally easier. For instance, someone with ADHD might see a bee at a baseball field and tell their team about the time they saw whales at seaworld because their little brother was also stung by a wasp there. people will see no connection on the outside, but it makes perfect sense to the person with ADHD.

people with ADHD can also be overachievers, either because they hyperfocus on schoolwork or their RSD makes it so that failing at something isn’t an option. people with ADHD can also be very controlling and stubborn, probably because we hyperfocus on something and cant handle it being any different, and any change to our plans can be seen as rejection.

we can also have a hard time ordering our thoughts or doing stuff like math in our head. a lot of the time I number my thoughts like, 1. this reason, 2. this reason, etc. even if theres only two or sometimes I just need the 1. as a transition for my brain. when I don’t write it down or organize it like that it feels like I’m trying to grasp ropes that have been covered in oil (it’s not going to happen) and then my brain gets all jumbled and I have to restart at the beginning. this is probably just me, but it feels the same way when I’m reading long paragraphs of something uninteresting, or even short bits of historical documents because the way they phrase things is really pompous and hard to process.

also, stuff like caffeine calms us down and helps us focus. people who don’t take medication (me) often drink coffee or caffeinated sodas to focus.

another random tip, but if your character with ADHD also is genderfluid or genderflux, they might have a hard time figuring out their gender sometimes, because we can be known to have a hard time putting our feelings into words or our brains will just go, “nope, not thinking about that right now” and move on, which can be pretty frustrating.

people with adhd also have a trait called time blindness, where we have no idea how long something takes and therefore can’t manage our time very well. this often results in us being late or just sitting around the house because we got ready way too early.

we also have something called consequence blindness—we do things and are completely unaware of the consequences. if I don’t brush my teeth, I get cavities. but I don’t think about that when I’m deciding I’m too tired to brush my teeth.

in b99, jake regularly stays up all night solving cases and watches documentaries on random topics. He’s also very distractible—when they’re trying to find the person who sent Captain Holt death threats in the train yard, Jake says he and captain holt should take a train trip together sometime. Jake says that he’ll forget Amy if they don't work together because he’s like a goldfish.

Emotional hyperarousal

This is the only thing people tend to include when writing characters: the fidgeting. People with ADHD tend to need more stimulation than others, so we’ll do things like draw during class and chew on pens.

people with ADHD can also have apd, or auditory processing disorder. we tend to watch shows with subtitles on and may take a second to process what you’re saying, or hear it wrong. The subtitles thing may be partially do to creating just the right amount of stimulation, but if I don’t have subtitles, me and my other friends with ADHD will watch tv with the volume turned up very high. People with ADHD also can have a hard time interpreting other people‘s tone and have a hard time controlling their own. They can be bad at social cues and have poor manners because we don’t pick up on that stuff.

people with ADHD also tend to observe everything or nothing at any given time, mostly based on the amount of stimulation they have—if they dont have a lot in their main task, they’ll need to take in something else at the same time. Likewise, if I’m hyperfocusing on something I often don’t notice anything else, like if someone asks me a question.

in b99, Jake fidgets with things a lot. In the intro, he’s picking up and examining a figurine on his desk, likely because he was bored with paperwork or some other task.

#adhd #writing #writing adhd #brooklyn nine nine #b99 #brooklyn99 #Jake peralta #Adhd Jake #neurodivergent #writing tips #adhd problems #adhd misconceptions #nd #neurodivergence

[thatadhdfeeling]

The differences between HYPERFOCUSING and HYPERFIXATING

Tl;dr: Hyperfocusing is intense, uncontrollable concentration that can be productive and/or harmful. Hyperfixating is an obsession that can take up a lot of time, effort, and money, but is suddenly dropped. Both of these are common experiences with ADHD and other disorders, and hyperfixation can be mildly felt by neurotypical people, but to a lesser extent and far less frequently.

Hyperfocusing

is the state in which your attention is solely focused on the current task. This could be as simple as filing a nail, or as complex as reorganizing a room. It could be a minute, or several hours. And I don't mean this task is your main focus, I mean it's your ONLY focus.

Nothing else in the world exists to you. People struggle to interrupt and grab your attention. Time isn't a construct you understand anymore. Your nervous system stops sending alerts to your brain about physical symptoms. Hunger and a full bladder don't exist. Being in pain from not moving or muscle aches from heavy lifting aren't a recognizable thing.

It can be dangerous. When your body doesn't recognize hunger and you forget humans need to eat, you can cause digestion issues, low blood pressure, low brain oxygen levels, heartburn, etc. When your body doesn't tell you to stop and go pee, you can cause UTI or bladder infections and fevers. It is not a choice, it's not just working through lunch, and it's not just being super interested in something (although 99% of the time hyperfocusing is related to a task you find interesting).

Once you come out of the hyperfocusing state or are successfully interrupted, executive dysfunction tends to sink in and returning to that task is almost impossible. And everything hurts! It hurts to pee. It hurts to not eat. No time to prepare food, only to eat the food. You can feel very faint and confused due to lack of brain oxygen levels and lost perception of time. It's honestly not a fun experience to come out of. But you can get a lot of detailed work done while hyperfocusing! Hopefully something useful, but as it's not a choice of what on or when it happens, it isn't always productive.

Hyperfixating

is being obsessed with something. Could be anything. Learning a new skill, picking up a new (or old) hobby, an object, a person, a TV show.... Anything. But it's not just liking this thing a lot. It's an obsession.

Spending hours doing or researching or practicing or reblogging about it, even during inappropriate times. Sneaking it or something you can use to look it up with into work or school. Risking a lot to immerse yourself with it. Constantly thinking about it. Dreaming about it. And possibly hyperfocusing on it.

Everyone can enjoy a hobby or be a fan, but this isn't just enjoying it, it's obsession. It's the craving for that dopamine hit as though it were a drug. You find yourself spending so much money on it, and you're convinced it will last for a long time. You have this overwhelming desire to share it with the world. You'll tell your friends and family about it. Show them. Try to get them involved. Have your entire world surrounded by this hyperfixation by inserting it into every part of your life.

And then it's gone.

There's no warning, no getting bored period, no slowly becoming disinterested. You wake up one day and you don't care any more. It's over. It might come back in a few months or years, but more often than not it doesn't. And this can be a very low period. You feel incredibly dissatisfied and bored, but nothing fills that void. Nothing compares to the feeling of the thing you hyperfixated on, including the thing itself. It's like finishing a book or show and not knowing what to do with yourself after. When people ask you how it's going with that project or interest, it feels like a walk of shame to admit you haven't touched it for a very long time and no longer want to. That you spent so much effort and time and money on it and told yourself and everyone else that you weren't going to get bored of it. But you did.

And then the next hyperfixation comes along...

Hyperfocusing and hyperfixations are two common symptoms neurodivergent people experience. Mostly found in those with ADHD, but can be seen in other disorders as well (I believe autism is one of them. I am not autistic, I can't speak for members of the autism community on this). Both hyperfocusing and hyperfixating have their pros and cons, and neither can be controlled or started/stopped at will. The subject matter is also not a choice. Many neurotypical people experience times of intense focusing or obsessions with interests, but not quite to the same extent as often. Neurotypical people can mildly hyperfixate, but it tends to be for a longer time and usually includes a more gradual decline of interest. Some people are able to turn careers into it. If you are neurotypical and truly hyperfixate on something, congratulations, you've discovered your passion. But for someone with ADHD, they may struggle with this, as the hyperfixation can stop suddenly after a shorter time so they can't use it to help with career advancement. These are things that take over the lives of neurodivergent individuals. People have lost jobs over it, gone bankrupt over it, caused health problems because of it.... It's not just something everyone experiences. Neurotypical people can, but it's rarer and less intense. ADHD isn't a lack of attention, it's the inability to regulate it. So while we struggle to maintain focus, we also struggle to stop focusing at times.

If you know someone who's neurodivergent and tells you about these experiences, just listen. Let them teach you about their interest. Let them passionately talk to you about it. If they are hyperfocusing, follow up with them later. Even if they responded to a question during that period, double check if it's important to make sure they remember. Prepare them food ahead of time. Let them know if it's been hours since they got up and walked or went to the bathroom. Don't shame them for dropping an interest, or tell them their hyperfixation is annoying. Understand that they can't control hyperfocusing. Care for them, because they'll need it.

I don't speak for everyone with ADHD, this is just me trying to explain the differences and how strong they can be. I don't speak for anyone else, neurotypical or neurodivergent. Yes, everyone experiences these symptoms sometimes, but not everyone experiences them to the same extent and less frequently. That's why disorders are classified as they are. Please see my "Why saying everyone has ADHD is harmful" and "Disorder and disability aren't bad words" posts. I also have no sources, just personal experiences and what I have been explained by my therapist (who also has ADHD) and other neurodivergent people. So hey, I could be wrong. I'm always open to education, and wish for the world to understand that neurodivergent people are different, and that's not a bad thing!

#adhd #neurodivergent #adult adhd #adhd problems #living with adhd #adhd things #actually adhd #adhd brain #adhd inattentive #sorry it's so long #I keep seeing posts of people mixing up these two terms #thatadhdfeeling #theadhdfeeling #tadhdfpost

[whumpster-fire]

His Dark Materials Thoughts: Daemons and Disability / Neurodivergence

More stupid His Dark Materials thoughts and headcanons because I still can’t get over this series.

I’m really curious how various disabilities would interact with having a daemon. I’d guess that for a lot of conditions the daemon could basically fill the role of a service animal, especially if the person had the condition from childhood so they could settle in a form that was capable of helping - e.g. daemons assuming forms with strong senses of smell to check for allergens. And this would probably be true for some neurological conditions where there’s something physically messed up in your brain.

However, I think for neurodivergency, it’s different: if the human is neurodivergent their daemon is neurodivergent as well. And while a human and daemon are “one being,” daemons still have their own personalities and emotional needs.

Using autism as an example because I’m autistic and can speculate based on my own experiences:

Autistic people are usually very close to their daemons, even by the standards of the setting, because while anyone’s daemon inherently understands them better than other people do, the gap is much, much wider for ND people. Real talk, I think I was drawn to this series and the concept of daemons so strongly because the idea of a companion I could fully trust and interact with without the constant fear of breaking some unknown and unspoken rule and who fully empathized with me was something I wanted soooo badly.

A lot more sensory information is “transmitted” between human and daemon than most people notice because the brain tends to filter it out. Autistic people’s brains aren’t as good at filtering out “junk” sensory info though, and this includes what comes through over the bond between them. You can’t actually see through your daemon’s eyes but autistic people tend to feel shared sensations more intensely and pick up on things like smells and textures that a neurotypical brain would tune out (and this works in both directions). This makes autistic people more vulnerable to sensory overload than in our world.

Sometimes only one of the pair is verbal, or at least verbal with others / much more comfortable talking to others. If it’s the human, people tend to not notice because “daemons should be seen and not heard” is kind of the norm in the setting but if the daemon is speaking for the pair most of the time it’s seen as weird. Some autistic people may also be more comfortable talking to other people’s daemons than to the humans, which isn’t technically part of the taboo but it’s pretty frowned upon.

For both tactile-seeking and tactile-defensive people, the daemon’s settled form is often determined by the need for physical affection - either because as they grow into teenagers it becomes less socially acceptable to touch other people as much as they need to, or because the only touch that feels safe for the pair is with each other. A settled form doesn’t always follow the human’s preference, but is always a form the daemon is comfortable with and likes. Daemons settling in forms their human actively hates is rare, and usually means there was already serious conflict between them with the human refusing to accept their nature - i.e. sailors’ daemons usually take seabird forms or mammals like otters or minks that can stray away from the water, settling in a dolphin form was noteworthy for a reason because it’s such a drastic act, and IMO that was probably caused by the human trying to abandon the sea entirely and fighting with his own daemon about it until she was like “Let’s see you take us away from the sea now!”

But anyway: daemons don’t just settle in forms based on symbolism or social convention if it’s going to make both them and their humans miserable and/or mess up their relationship IMO, and usually they show a preference for forms similar to their settled one in the years leading up to settling (e.g. Pantalaimon clearly liked his stoat/ferret and wildcat forms and mostly took other ones for reasons of practicality and convenience, and I said this in another post but I think he became a pine marten because it was the closest he could get to combining the two). If a pre-adolescent human and daemon are super cuddly with each other and that touch is really important to them, the daemon will probably settle in a form that’s compatible with that. It’s rare for autistic daemons to settle as something as small as a mouse where they could only be carefully pet with one or two fingers, for example, and they usually take mammalian or sometimes avian forms.

Brushing a daemon’s fur, and other techniques such as joint compression that are hard for a person to perform on their own body, can help both of the pair calm down and cope with sensory issues.

Unfortunately, given how fucked up the culture in Lyra’s world is, I shudder to imagine how they treat neurodivergent people. I can totally imagine people treating this closeness as the cause of autism and not a symptom, and treating it as a child “being socially impaired because they only interact with their daemon / let their daemon do too much for them and never learn to socialize with other people.” Aside from attempting to cure autism with Intercision, there are probably a bunch of horrible, abusive treatments passed off as “therapy,” like forcing children to do therapy sessions with their daemon trapped on the other side of an opaque, soundproof wall (doesn’t interfere with their bond if it’s within the separation limit, but keeps them from seeing / hearing / touching each other), caging the daemon, muzzling them to keep them from speaking for their human, or even not letting them sleep in the same room.

Another common problem is parents / educators treating an autistic person’s daemon like a service animal and offloading their responsibilities on them. Just expecting them to handle something like a meltdown or panic attack by themselves because “You’re part of them, you understand them!” and ignoring that the daemon also has fears and anxieties and sensory issues.

Expectation: Your autistic child’s daemon understands them better than you ever could and will be able to quickly and discretely calm them down from a meltdown / sensory overload without you needing to get involved and actually do your job as a parent.

Reality: You have two autistic children who share a soul and feel each other’s emotions and pain, and one of them likely has at least one sense that’s way more sensitive than a human’s. They can certainly be a source of comfort and support to each other, and can pick up on each other’s warning signs and remind each other to use coping strategies / get out of stressful situations and not try to “push through,” but this is a skill that takes time and maturity to learn, and it only works before the pair are completely overwhelmed. As stated above autistic people feel sensations and emotions from their daemon extra-intensely, and vice versa. A full-on meltdown or panic attack is such an overpowering flood of negative emotions that, combined with the stress of whatever caused the meltdown in the first place, usually just overwhelms both partners, especially in children. The best you can hope for is whichever one holds it together a bit longer is able to help their partner into a safe place and ask someone for help. Even if the daemon (or human) doesn’t have a meltdown their emotional battery will still be absolutely drained for probably the rest of the day.

#His Dark Materials fandom #daemons #silly headcanons #autism #not whump

[ganymedesclock]

These are questions I've had for some while and it's hard to find someone who'll answer with grace. This mostly relates to disabilities (mental or physical) in fiction.

1) What makes a portrayal of a disability that's harming the character in question ableist?

2) Is there a way to write a disabled villain in a way that isn't ableist?

In the circles I've been in, the common conceptions are you can't use a character's disability as a plot point or showcase it being a hindrance in some manner. heaven forbid you make your villain disabled in some capacity, that's a freaking death sentence to a creative's image. I understand historically villains were the only characters given disabilities, but (and this is my personal experience) I've not seen as many disabled villains nowadays, heck, I see more disabled heroes in media nowadays.

Sorry if this comes off as abrasive, I'd really like to be informed for future media consumption and my own creative endeavors.

Okay so the first thing I'm going to say is that while it IS a good idea to talk to disabled people and get their feedback, disabled people are not a monolith and they aren't going to all have the same take on how this goes.

My personal take is biased in favor that I'm a neurodivergent person (ADHD and autism) who has no real experience with physical disabilities, so I won't speak for physically disabled people- heck, I won't even speak for every neurotype. Like I say, people aren't a monolith.

For myself and my own writing of disabled characters, here's a couple of concepts I stick by:

Research is your friend

Think about broad conventions of ableism

Be mindful of cast composition

1. Research is your friend

Yeah this is the thing everybody says, so here's the main bases I try to cover:

What's the story on this character's disability?

Less in terms of 'tragic angst' and more, what kind of condition this is- because a congenital amputee (that is to say, someone who was born without a limb) will have a different relationship to said limb absence than someone who lost their limb years ago to someone who lost their limb yesterday. How did people in their life respond to it, and how did they respond to it? These responses are not "natural" and will not be the same to every person with every worldview. This can also be a great environment to do worldbuilding in! Think about the movie (and the tv series) How To Train Your Dragon. The vikings in that setting don't have access to modern medicine, and they're, well, literally fighting dragons and other vikings. The instance of disability is high, and the medical terminology to talk about said disabilities is fairly lackluster- but in a context where you need every man you possibly can to avoid the winter, the mindset is going to be not necessarily very correct, but egalitarian. You live in a village of twenty people and know a guy who took a nasty blow to the head and hasn't quite been the same ever since? "Traumatic Brain Injury" is probably not going to be on your lips, but you're also probably going to just make whatever peace you need to and figure out how to accommodate Old Byron for his occasional inability to find the right word, stammers and trembles. In this example, there are several relevant pieces of information- what the character's disability is (aphasia), how they got it (brain injury), and the culture and climate around it (every man has to work, and we can't make more men or throw them away very easily, so, how can we make sure this person can work even if we don't know what's wrong with them)

And that dovetails into:

What's the real history, and modern understandings, of this?

This is where "knowing the story" helps a lot. To keep positing our hypothetical viking with a brain injury, I can look into brain injuries, what affects their extent and prognosis, and maybe even beliefs about this from the time period and setting I'm thinking of (because people have had brains, and brain injuries, the entire time!) Sure, if the setting is fantastical, I have wiggle room, but looking at inspirations might give me a guide post.

Having a name for your disorder also lets you look for posts made by specific people who live with the condition talking about their lives. This is super, super important for conditions stereotyped as really scary, like schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. Even if you already know "schizophrenic people are real and normal" it's still a good thing to wake yourself up and connect with others.

2. Think about broad conventions of ableism

It CAN seem very daunting or intimidating to stay ahead of every single possible condition that could affect someone's body and mind and the specific stereotypes to avoid- there's a lot under the vast umbrella of human experience and we're learning more all the time! A good hallmark is, ableism has a few broad tendencies, and when you see those tendencies rear their head, in your own thinking or in accounts you read by others, it's good to put your skeptical glasses on and look closer. Here's a few that I tend to watch out for:

Failing the “heartwarming dog” test

This was a piece of sage wisdom that passed my eyeballs, became accepted as sage wisdom, and my brain magnificently failed to recall where I saw it. Basically, if you could replace your disabled character with a lovable pet who might need a procedure to save them, and it wouldn’t change the plot, that’s something to look into.

Disability activists speak often about infantilization, and this is a big thing of what they mean- a lot of casual ableism considers disabled people as basically belonging to, or being a burden onto, the able-bodied and neurotypical. This doesn’t necessarily even need to have an able neurotypical in the picture- a personal experience I had that was extremely hurtful was at a point in high school, I decided to do some research on autism for a school project. As an autistic teenager looking up resources online, I was very upset to realize that every single resource I accessed at the time presumed it was talking to a neurotypical parent about their helpless autistic child. I was looking for resources to myself, yet made to feel like I was the subject in a conversation.

Likewise, many wheelchair users have relayed the experience of, when they, in their chair, are in an environment accompanied by someone else who isn’t using a chair, strangers would speak to the standing person exclusively, avoiding addressing the chair user. 

It’s important to always remind yourself that at no point do disabled people stop being people. Yes, even people who have facial deformities; yes, even people who need help using the bathroom; yes, even people who drool; yes, even people whose conditions impact their ability to communicate, yes, even people with cognitive disabilities. They are people, they deserve dignity, and they are not “a child trapped in a 27-year-old body”- a disabled adult is still an adult. All of the “trying to learn the right rules” in the world won’t save you if you keep an underlying fear of non-normative bodies and minds.

This also has a modest overlap between disability and sexuality in particular. I am an autistic grayromantic ace. Absolutely none of my choices or inclinations about sex are because I’m too naive or innocent or childlike to comprehend the notion- disabled people have as diverse a relationship with sexuality as any other. That underlying fear- as mentioned before- can prevent many people from imagining that, say, a wheelchair user might enjoy sex and have experience with it. Make sure all of your disabled characters have full internal worlds.

Poor sickly little Tiffany and the Red Right Hand

A big part of fictional ableism is that it separates the disabled into two categories. Anybody who’s used TVTropes would recognize the latter term I used here. But to keep it brief:

Poor, sickly little Tiffany is cute. Vulnerable. How her disability affects her life is that it constantly creates a pall of suffering that she lives beneath. After all, having a non-normative mind or body must be an endless cavalcade of suffering and tragedy, right? People who are disabled clearly spend their every waking moment affected by, and upset, that they aren’t normal!

The answer is... No, actually. Cut the sad violin; even people who have chronic pain who are literally experiencing pain a lot more than the rest of us are still fully capable of living complex lives and being happy. If nothing else, it would be literally boring to feel nothing but awful, and people with major depression or other problems still, also, have complicated experiences. And yes, some of it’s not great. You don’t have to present every disability as disingenuously a joy to have. But make a point that they own these things. It is a very different feeling to have a concerned father looking through the window at his angel-faced daughter rocking sadly in her wheelchair while she stares longingly out the window, compared to a character waking up at midnight because they have to go do something and frustratedly hauling their body out of their bed into their chair to get going.

Poor Sickly Little Tiffany (PSLT, if you will) virtually always are young, and they virtually always are bound to the problems listed under ‘failing the heartwarming dog’ test. Yes, disabled kids exist, but the point I’m making here is that in the duality of the most widely accepted disabled characters, PSLT embodies the nadir of the Victim, who is so pure, so saintly, so gracious, that it can only be a cruel quirk of fate that she’s suffering. After all, it’s not as if disabled people have the same dignity that any neurotypical and able-bodied person has, where they can be an asshole and still expect other people to not seriously attack their quality of life- it’s a “service” for the neurotypical and able-bodied to “humor” them.

(this is a bad way to think. Either human lives matter or they don’t. There is no “wretched half-experience” here- if you wouldn’t bodily grab and yank around a person standing on their own feet, you have no business grabbing another person’s wheelchair)

On the opposite end- and relevant to your question- is the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand does not have PSLT’s innocence or “purity”- is the opposite extreme. The Red Right Hand is virtually always visually deformed, and framed as threatening for their visual deformity. To pick on a movie I like a fair amount, think about how in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the title character is described- “Strong. Fast. Had a metal arm.” That’s a subtle example, but, think about how that metal arm is menacing. Sure, it’s a high tech weapon in a superhero genre- but who has the metal arm? The Winter Soldier, who is, while a tormented figure that ultimately becomes more heroic- scary. Aggressive. Out for blood.

The man who walks at midnight with a Red Right Hand is a signal to us that his character is foul because of the twisting of his body. A good person, we are led to believe, would not be so- or a good person would be ashamed of their deformity and work to hide it. The Red Right Hand is not merely “an evil disabled person”- they are a disabled person whose disability is depicted as symptomatic of their evil, twisted nature, and when you pair this trope with PSLT, it sends a message: “stay in your place, disabled people. Be sad, be consumable, and let us push you around and decide what to do with you. If you get uppity, if you have ideas, if you stand up to us, then the thing that made you a helpless little victim will suddenly make you a horrible monster, and justify us handling you with inhumanity.”

As someone who is a BIG fan of eldritch horror and many forms of unsettling “wrongness” it is extremely important to watch out for the Red Right Hand. Be careful how you talk about Villainous Disability- there is no connection between disability and morality. People will be good, bad, or simply just people entirely separate from their status of ability or disability. It’s just as ableist to depict every disabled person as an innocent good soul as it is to exclusively deal in grim and ghastly monsters.

Don’t justify disabilities and don’t destroy them.

Superpowers are cool. Characters can and IMO should have superpowers, as long as you’re writing a genre when they’re there.

BUT.

It’s important to remember that there is no justification for disabilities, because they don’t need one. Disability is simply a feature characters have. You do not need to go “they’re blind, BUT they can see the future”

This is admittedly shaky, and people can argue either way; the Blind Seer is a very pronounced mythological figure and an interesting philosophical point about what truly matters in the world. There’s a reason it exists as a conceit. But if every blind character is blind in a way that completely negates that disability or makes it meaningless- this sucks. People have been blind since the dawn of time. And people will always accommodate their disabilities in different ways. Even if the technology exists to fix some forms of blindness, there are people who will have “fixable” blindness and refuse to treat it. There will be individuals born blind who have no meaningful desire to modify this. And there are some people whose condition will be inoperable even if it “shouldn’t” be.

You don’t need to make your disabled characters excessively cool, or give them a means by which the audience can totally forget they’re disabled. Again, this is a place where strong worldbuilding is your buddy- a handwave of “x technology fixed all disabilities”, in my opinion, will never come off good. If, instead, however, you throw out a careless detail that the cool girl the main character is chatting up in a cyberpunk bar has an obvious spinal modification, and feature other characters with prosthetics and without- I will like your work a lot, actually. Even if you’re handing out a fictional “cure”- show the seams. Make it have drawbacks and pros and cons. A great example of this is in the series Full Metal Alchemist- the main character has two prosthetic limbs, and not only do these limbs come with problems, some mundane (he has phantom limb pains, and has to deal with outgrowing his prostheses or damaging them in combat) some more fantastical (these artificial limbs are connected to his nerves to function fluidly- which means that they get surgically installed with no anesthesia and hurt like fuck plugging in- and they require master engineering to stay in shape). We explicitly see a scene of the experts responsible for said limbs talking to a man who uses an ordinary prosthetic leg, despite the advantages of an automail limb, because these drawbacks are daunting to him and he is happier with a simple prosthetic leg.

Even in mundane accommodations you didn’t make up- no two wheelchair users use their chair the exact same way, and there’s a huge diversity of chairs. Someone might be legally blind but still navigate confidently on their own; they might use a guide dog, or they might use a cane. They might even change their needs from situation to situation!

Disability accommodations are part of life

This ties in heavily to the previous point, but seriously! Don’t just look up one model of cane and superimpose it with no modifications onto your character- think about what their lifestyle is, and what kind of person they are!

Also medication is not the devil. Yes, medical abuse is real and tragic and the medication is not magic fairy dust that solves all problems either. But also, it’s straight ableism to act like anybody needing pills for any reason is a scary edgy plot twist. 

(and addiction is a disease. Please be careful, and moreover be compassionate, if you’re writing a character who’s an addict)

3. Be mindful of cast composition

This, to me, is a big tip about disability writing and it’s also super easy to implement!

Just make sure your cast has a lot of meaningful disabled characters in it!

Have you done all the work you can to try and dodge the Red Right Hand but you’re still worried your disabled villain is a bad look? They sure won’t look like a commentary on disability if three other people in the cast are disabled and don’t have the same outlook or role! Worried that you’re PSLT-ing your main character’s disabled child? Maybe the disability is hereditary and they got it from the main character!

The more disabled characters you have, the more it will challenge you to think about what their individual relationship is with the world and the less you’ll rely on hackneyed tropes. At least, ideally.

-

Ultimately, there’s no perfect silver bullet of diversity writing that will prevent a work from EVER being ableist, but I hope this helped, at least!

#disability #writing ruminations #readmore

[informationsorter]

Let's talk about self diagnosing.

(This is purely a personal opinion piece.)

CW: Descriptions of hypothetical physical injury.

So I'm going to start off by immediately settling your minds - I believe self diagnosis can be both good and bad. I’m not here to judge, gatekeep, or vilify. *************************************************************

A quick overview of the sections: 3 problems/examples. 5 questions/opinions.

 *************************************************************

Determining that you have an issue, does not mean that it is the only issue.

Lets start with a hypothetical example where the self diagnosis is obviously correct:

- You've fallen down the stairs. - You can see a bone sticking out of your leg. - You deduce that you have broken your leg.

This is almost certainly accurate, as there is no healthy explanation for the visible evidence.

However, this may not be the whole story.

What we’re really doing in this situation is identifying symptoms and possible/probably causes.

The symptoms are: - Pain. - Visible evidence of a broken bone. - Visible evidence of wounded skin. - Probably experiencing shock - Pale, cold, clammy skin. Shallow, rapid breathing. Anxiety. Rapid heartbeat. Etc.

The probable diagnosis: A broken leg bone.

When you arrive at the hospital, they will do an x-ray. They may discover additional injuries, for instance the bone may be broken in several places, a tendon may have been severed.

Their treatment of your issues relies on the full knowledge that they are able to learn via their tests. If they (somehow) were to treat only your broken bone and the flesh wound, you would likely end up with further health problems as the extra broken bones were not set properly, and the severed tendon would not heal on it's own.

This is a rather ridiculous example of course, but that's why I started with it.

You may believe that you know what the issue is, but if you do not have the right equipment/training, you may not be able to identify the full extent of the issue.

Even if you know what the issue is, you may not be able to determine the full impact of it.

For example: - You notice that whenever you eat citrus, your mouth and tongue start tingling/going numb. There may be also be symptoms such as sweating, feeling faint, swelling of lips/tongue. You conclude that you are allergic to citrus. You act on this by avoiding citrus. That’s all fine and reasonable. However, with this information you only know that you have a reaction to citrus. You don’t know the full extent. Are you mildly allergic? Are you at risk of anaphylactic shock? Sometimes you do not need to know the full extent (in this example you can simply avoid lemon). But sometimes you DO need to learn everything you can about it, in order to live the best life possible. 

Especially when the issue is not something easily avoided such as a minor food allergy.

You might group all of your symptoms together, leading to you accidentally obscuring one issue by presenting it as another.

(An example using some of my own symptoms & past trauma experiences.)

You have diagnosed yourself with autism based on the following symptoms:

- Difficulty forcing eye contact with others.

- Inability to read the invisible social cues that neurotypical’s can see/read.

- Discomfort/anxiety in social settings / large groups.

- An extreme feeling of mental shutdown in response to loud noises/music.

These could indeed be symptoms of autism, however they can also be symptoms of other issues in play.

For instance, discomfort or anxiety in social settings could be due to an anxiety disorder.

The loud noises/music may mimic sounds from traumatic events - initiating flashbacks or fight/flight/freeze instincts.

You go to a therapist.

Your therapist listens to your concerns and symptoms, and looks for other explanations for these symptoms.

This is to ensure that the diagnosis they give you will be accurate, and thus the treatment you receive will be the most effective treatment possible for you.

If you did not go to the therapist with this, you may have been able to deal with the autism symptoms fairly well, but the anxiety and PTSD would go untreated. Your problems would not go away, because you weren’t treating ALL of your issues.

When do I believe it is acceptable to self diagnose without seeking professional verification of your self diagnosis?

- When the issue/symptoms do not affect your life in any substantial way;

- When the issue is self evident;

- When there is no indication that there is an unseen element;

- When the issue does not require urgent or extensive treatment.

Eg: Mild allergy to citrus, which can easily be avoided in your daily life.

In this sort of case, I believe it is important to stay aware of the symptoms and immediately seek a professional opinion if there is a change in severity, frequency, or perceived cause, of these symptoms.

Eg: One day you have a drink that had a lemon wedge on the rim, and the symptoms are far stronger, or appear far sooner, than they used to.

Or:

One day you have the same reaction, but you did not consume any citrus.

When do I believe that it is helpful to ask a professional to confirm/refute your self assessment?

Always.

There may be situations where the professional can’t offer any treatment (eg: a mild food allergy, where avoiding it is all that can be done). But if you feel anxiety over the uncertainty of it, and you want a professional assessment, diagnosis, or testing, you are of course entitled to it.

Whether it pinpoints a cause, or rules out a cause, finding out for sure will increase the chances of you receiving appropriate treatment.

Additionally, professional tests and assessments can identify previously unnoticed symptoms and/or issues.

(Such as additional injuries in example 1, or separate disorders in example 3.)

Do I believe that you should tell your health professional that you have self-diagnosed / self-assessed your symptoms?

Yes.

Especially with mental health issues, where your therapist’s assessment of you may be affected erroneously by them noticing that you are holding something back.

They may believe you are uncomfortable with them, or have some trust issues which you may not have.

If you simply tell your therapist that you have recorded your symptoms and searched for answers on your own, the therapist will be able to make a more accurate assessment of you.

It also gives them a good starting point, as they immediately know that the issue is concerning to you, and that you are ready to seek help for it.

Any health professional worth their training should be able to understand that you seeking explanations for your symptoms is natural, and should be willing to look into something that you are concerned about.

Eg: I told my GP (physical health doctor) that I was concerned about a specific lung condition which seemed to fit symptoms that I had been experiencing for over a decade. He listened, he asked further questions, he performed tests for the condition I had brought up, and he performed tests for other possible explanations.

In the end he determined that I did not have that condition, and we went from there.

Why do health professionals dislike self-diagnosis?

The issue with self diagnosis is that a patient can become convinced that they have something that they do not actually have.

This can lead to the patient: - Misinterpreting symptoms - Ignoring symptoms which do not fit their self-diagnosis - Unintentionally manifesting somatic symptoms which fit the self-diagnosis (this refers to a patient believing they have a condition, and their body beginning to show those symptoms. This is not the same as purposefully faking.) - Refusing testing for something other than their self-diagnosed issue - Refusing to accept that there may be a different issue - Refusing to accept that there may be additional issues - Resorting to self-help remedies which may be ineffective or actively dangerous to the patient

They aren’t just being difficult or elitist - they are concerned that your self-diagnosis may impact their ability to accurately diagnose and help you.

This is a particular concern when the health professional doesn’t know you well enough to be able to determine how much your belief will impact your symptoms, or whether you will be open to treatment if they determine a diagnosis which conflicts with your self-diagnosis.

Your health professional has YOUR health and safety in mind.

(If you believe this isn’t true, you should seek a second opinion.)

Should your health professional just accept your self-diagnosis?

It is your therapist’s duty to independently assess your symptoms, and possible causes for those symptoms.

It is not an attack on you, it is not a sign of distrust.

Think of it like scientists - they don’t just say “oh well that guy’s experiment showed these results, so they must be correct.” They go out and duplicate the experiment to check their results against the original results.

Yes, it’s not a perfect metaphor. No two people’s life experiences are the same. No two people’s brains will react identically to the same thing.

But the spirit is the same - in both cases, doing the extra work is to ensure that the stated result is accurate, NOT to discredit or demean the person who originally stated it.

  What if you are certain you have a certain issue, and will not be persuaded otherwise?

I urge you to rethink this, and open your mind.

You want to heal from whatever it is that is interfering with your best life.

You want answers.

You want validation that such-and-such issue isn’t a personal failing but a neuro-divergency.

Those are great goals, but the best way to find the truth is to be open to explanations that you may not like.

And the only way to know it’s the truth, is to be honest and objective about yourself.

#CW: Descriptions of hypothetical physical injury. #did #osdd #self diagnosis #therapy #actuallydid #actuallyosdd #actually neurodiverse #actually autistic #actually multiple #long post

[mellometal]

Is it time to tear ANOTHER Dhar Mann video to shreds? YOU BET.

I've been sitting on this one for a bit because I wanted to make sure I talk about this tactfully. The subject of parents abandoning their disabled children is a very touchy one.

Parents abandoning their disabled children simply for being disabled is way too common. Like, I understand that not everyone has the resources to care for a disabled child (which is why you reach out for help, and why people like me, who work with disabled people, exist), but it doesn't mean you just walk out of their life. There are exceptions, like if you truly didn't want children or something like that, but just flat-out walking out of your kid's life BECAUSE they're disabled is fucked up.

I know someone personally whose biological mother abandoned her when she was born. Why? Because she's disabled. Physically, and mentally, to a point. I work with this woman on a daily basis. I don't really know WHY exactly her biological mother abandoned her, but I do know that her being disabled was part of it. It's sad. It doesn't affect her, thankfully. I'm happy that she's got her biological dad, her brother, and another maternal figure in her life, at least.

ANYWAYS. Before we get to the topic at hand, I need to put an obligatory trigger warning, like I do with EVERY Dhar Mann post:

This post will be talking about parents abandoning their disabled children simply for being disabled, treating disabilities like they're tragedies (in this case, we're talking about autism...again), divorce, and some SPICY ableist bullshit from an allistic (nonautistic) PIECE OF SHIT.

If any of this triggers you or makes you uncomfortable in any way, you don't have to read this post. This isn't worth putting yourself in a bad state mentally. I would never ask for any of you to put yourselves in that position all for a post. Put your mental health and well-being first. Consume media that sparks joy for you.

As far as my response goes, it's definitely more calm than normal. Funny....since this video is about autism spectrum disorder again. (Third time's the charm, huh, Dhar Mann? NOT.)

LET'S FUCKING GET IT.

The video starts off with these two parents (Gwen and Allen) in a psychologist's office. The psychologist tells the parents that their son (Chance) is autistic, and she tries to explain what autism is to the parents, but Allen cuts her off. Why? Because he teaches at a prestigious university, so he AUTOMATICALLY knows what autism is from that fact alone.

Um, excuse me? Just because you're a teacher at a prestigious university, it doesn't mean you're an expert in everything. It doesn't make you an expert in ASD or anything like that. Unless you SPECIALIZE in that area. Even then, shut the fuck up. The people who know about being autistic are AUTISTIC PEOPLE THEMSELVES! SHOCKER.

Hey, Dhar Mann! QUIT WITH THE VIDEOS ABOUT AUTISTIC LITTLE WHITE BOYS AND YOUNG WHITE AUTISTIC CISHET MEN! I'M SICK AND TIRED OF IT. It's annoying, ignorant, and it feels like you're doing this on purpose at this point to piss people off. If you're so uninformed about autism in women and girls, FUCKING ASK AUTISTIC WOMEN AND GIRLS! DO BETTER RESEARCH THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE AUTISM SPEAKS. The Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and the Autistic Women and Nonbinary People Network (AWN) are great organizations to go to for any kind of research on ASD in women and girls. STOP GOING OFF OF THE BRAINS OF AUTISTIC WHITE BOYS AND AUTISTIC WHITE MEN.

I don't feel I need to go too deep into the fact that autistic women, autistic girls, autistic nonbinary people, autistic BIPOC, autistic AAPI, autistic LGBT people, autistic teenagers, and autistic adults exist. Y'all already know.

Gwen asks the psychologist if that means Chance isn't healthy. (I understand not knowing about autism, but don't treat it like it's a terminal illness. Please.) The psychologist tells her that Chance is fine, but he just learns differently and might need more support compared to his peers.

Yeah, autism can affect how you learn about certain things (limited and repetitive patterns), but there are other disabilities that can affect learning as well. Like how dyslexia can affect your ability to read, dyspraxia can affect your ability to do math, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can affect your ability to focus or on impulse control. Autism affects how your brain is developed, it affects you socially, behaviorally, and how you communicate.

Allen is upset, says that he can't have a son "with a learning disability" (ASD is a neurological disability, not necessarily a learning disability), and treats Chance like he's stupid for being autistic. Gwen tells her husband that autism doesn't make you any less intelligent, WHICH IS SO FUCKING TRUE. ABSOLUTE FACTS. I was totally with her until she began that little monologue with "Just because a person HAS autism". SAY "JUST BECAUSE A PERSON'S AUTISTIC" INSTEAD! IT'S NOT HARD. PERSON FIRST LANGUAGE ISN'T WHAT EVERY DISABLED PERSON PREFERS. Allen says that "they could have another kid" and "put Chance up for adoption". Gwen obviously wasn't down with that. Allen gives his wife an ultimatum that it's either HIM or their son Chance. Gwen says that she can't choose between the two, but she will stand by her autistic son. Allen gets up and leaves the office, saying he wants a divorce.

Years pass by, Gwen is single and taking care of her autistic son Chance, and Allen has a new life with a ✨perfect son✨ (Samuel). He never mentions the son HE abandoned (Chance). He's completely forgotten about Gwen and Chance. (YOU OWE SO MUCH CHILD SUPPORT, ALLEN.)

Hey, Allen, how much do you wanna bet that your ✨perfect son✨ Samuel is autistic too?

There's the SATs, they're announcing a winner, and guess who it is? IT'S OBVIOUSLY CHANCE, OF COURSE. He's got the highest score in the country, with Samuel in second place. Allen is PISSED.

Chance gives a speech about how his mom really helped him, he struggled with autism, how Allen LITERALLY ABANDONED HIM, and THE CROWD GOES FUCKING WILD. Samuel, instead of being a sore loser, APPLAUDS FOR CHANCE. Stay humble, Sam.

My thoughts on the video? If you cannot tell by my tone throughout this post, IT WAS DOG SHIT. This video was insensitive to the true reality of parents abandoning their disabled children just because they're disabled. What do I expect from Dhar Mann at this point?

Here's my response to his video below. Don't worry, I will fully type out my response soon for anyone who cannot read the screenshots easily. It's a lot easier for me to do that on the desktop site than it is for me to do it on my phone.

For anyone who can’t read my response, I’m typing it out for you. Like I said, it’s easier for me to type it out on the desktop site than it is for me to type it out on my phone. It’s a real royal pain in the ass. But because I’m trying to make my posts easier to read for people, I’m doing this anyway. /lighthearted

First, second, and third screenshots (broken up into paragraphs):

Hey, listen, I appreciate the message you’re trying to go for, but can you please stop putting autistic people into a box? Can you stop treating being autistic like it’s a tragedy? Not every single autistic person is a little white boy in elementary school who’s considered “wild and unruly” or “super quiet and makes no friends”, nor are they a young white cishet man who’s a super genius or is how Chris Chan was before she came out as trans. (For anyone who doesn’t know about Chris Chan, there are many documentaries people have made on YouTube, and I highly recommend Geno Samuel’s docuseries, if you’re really interested in learning about Chris Chan.)

Autistic women, girls, nonbinary people, BIPOC, APPI, LGBT people, teenagers, and adults all exist too. 

It’s very apparent now that you get your resources from Autism $peaks, a hate group that spends the vast majority of their money on funding eugenics instead of helping autistic people like they claim, claims that only little white boys and young white cishet men are autistic and ignores all other autistic people who don’t fit that description, have no autistic people on their leader board or on any board for that matter, have members who have actually fantasized about k1lling their autistic children, treat autism like it’s a tragedy or a disease someone can catch (completely false), act like autism should be cured (there is no cure, and ABA therapy is a total shit show in itself), and treats autistic people like they’re broken and need to be fixed. Also, not every autistic person is a Super Genius(tm). That’s so demeaning to autistic people who aren’t seen as intelligent in any way. I’m autistic and seen as smart; however, there are subjects I’m stronger in than others.

If you can’t handle the possibility of having autistic children, or just disabled children in general, DON’T HAVE CHILDREN. If you can’t handle working with or alongside disabled people, including autistic people, maybe find a different profession. Even if you do that, you’ll never get away from disabled people. Disabled people aren’t a disease. We’re human beings just like neurotypical and able-bodied people.

Fourth and fifth screenshots (broken up into paragraphs): 

I would highly suggest getting resources from reputable organizations for ASD, such as the Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) and the Autistic Women and Nonbinary People Network (AWN). Talk to any autistic person who isn’t a little white boy or a young white cishet man. 

Instead of using the puzzle piece, which is a symbol that many autistic people, myself included, are offended by (because of Autism $peaks and other organizations before them using it, plus it symbolizes that only autistic children exist and that we’re “missing a piece” like we’re broken), use the rainbow infinity sign (for all neurodivergent people) or the red and gold infinity sign (just for autistic people). Instead of “lighting it up blue”, light it up red or gold. Do both if you want. 

I’m actually really sick and tired of seeing just autistic little white boys and young autistic white cishet men being represented in the media, and y’all manage to fuck that up too. 

Before anyone mentions Sia’s movie “Music”, that’s also very poor representation of autistic girls. Besides, the actress who played the autistic girl isn’t even autistic. She MOCKED autistic people. I know she’s a kid, but that’s still super fucked up. I hope she’s able to turn that around. 

If anyone would like to discuss this topic with me or ask any questions, feel free to. I’ll answer as best as I can. Thank you and have a good night.

Before I get attacked for mentioning Chris Chan in my response, I bring up Chris Chan because allistic people think that every autistic person is like her (especially before she came out as trans). That person is part of why I wasn't open about being autistic or talking about my diagnosis until this year. I didn't want to be grouped up with Chris Chan because I do have very similar interests to her, I've been seen as cringey for having said interests, and just the way Chris treated autistic people who were formerly diagnosed with A$p3rg3r$ $yndr0m3 (like I was) really made me feel even more alienated.

Also, S1a supports A$ (Autism $p3aks). She's not a very good person to support. Some of her music is good, but her as a person....no. Her movie "Music" was gross, from what I've read about it and seen pictures of.

If you've read this far, thank you so much!

#mello speaks #dhar mann #dhar mann talk #dhar mann will live to regret his decision to make these fucked up cringe videos #dhar mann will live to regret his decision uwu #dhar mann is a piece of human garbage #please stop supporting dhar mann #autism isn't a tragedy #we need better representation for autistic people who aren't little white boys or young white cishet men #dhar mann is a cringe ass nae nae baby #tw abandonment #tw ableism #cw sia mention #cw chris chan mention #tw dhar mann

[dionysianfreak]

some spicy things I do in my practice because of ADHD

given that it's literally my brain, adhd takes over a lot of things in my life. it finds a way to wiggle into everything I do in both bad and good ways. it's just how it is being neurodivergent and it's just how life goes for me, but that doesn't mean it doesn't aid me in many ways. growing up we aren't taught about mental divergency. we're taught the abled and neurotypical way and that's it, but in truth neurodivergent people only struggle due to not having the resources to do things the way that'll let them work efficiently. so here is a list of ways my personal adhd effects my pagan practice and ways I incorporate it into my worship !

stimming

stimming ! i stim a LOT and sometimes, if the emotion I feel is strong enough, they turn to uncontrollable tics. this also means that when during things like rituals, I'll have to pause so I don't tic and ruin something. this is totally normal and okay ! I've never once had a problem with it, and the Gods just patiently waited for it to pass as it always does. we both know it's just something that happens and it's apart of me, it isn't something to be ashamed of or hide.

accepting stimming once I was diagnosed was also something I did as a devotional act to Dionysos ! instead of trying to mask or push down the urge to stim, I'd allow myself to just let it out. my stims vary between very overt to covert, and accepting the overt ones as normal was a feat worthy of devotion imo. you can also keep stim toys on your altar when you're not using them, if you wanted to.

time and schedules

consistent worship ????? never heard of her. same goes for offerings. sometimes I give 294894 offerings in a day and sometimes I've given one offering in a week, it just depends on my ever changing behavior. there's no need to be stuck on a schedule if you don't want to or even make one to begin with. when I first started out, I asked Hermès, Apollon, and Dionysos (who I worshipped at the time) if I should make a schedule and the no was so hard I haven't asked since. my worship is a part of my daily life, as just like I don't drive places every day I don't worship every day. both are still important in my life regardless if I'm actively doing it or not. if you stuggle with consistency, I urge you to speak with the Gods you worship and see if making things more fluid would help !

hyperfixation is also a pain in the ass sometimes, especially when it becomes something other than paganism. due to the free nature of my practice and that I've chosen to devote, it sometimes translates into "well I don't haveeee to do this" and suddenly poof, all the motivation is gone. it's VERY hard to come back when your brain is so wired on something else entirely, and I understand the feeling. during these times I personally do very small things to keep up. if I make dinner for myself, I'll offer a portion and eat with the Gods just to show that I'm participating even when I'm struggling to. the small things count.

RSD - Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

my RSD is crippling in my life, and it's reach extends to paganism sometimes as well (if you're unaware, RSD is the extreme sensitivity to perceived rejection in any form). sometimes during readings I receive a card that I believe is saying something "negative". sometimes it's criticism, sometimes advice, sometimes it's a slap on the wrist, but no matter what it is in reality I'm at the mercy of my brain to interpret it. so this has lead to meltdowns, long depressive/anxious episodes, and crying fests when I think a deity is angry with me. it has gotten so bad before that delusions have appeared and made me believe false memories or feelings of hatred from the Gods.

it's so hard and I'm so sorry if anyone else has to deal with it. to help with this, I have to fight to remind myself that advice is not an attack. the Gods are trying to help me and, even if They were angry at me, I've made mistakes before and They've allowed me to grow from them. i also have a checklist of questions I ask myself to allow logic and reality back into my head. a few questions include "have i done anything recently that's worthy of anger from a God ?", "is this something that will last forever ?", and "is this a message that has something to teach me ?".

impulsiveness

ask most people with ADHD about being impulsive and you'll probably receive a nervous side glace. we're impulsive often, which can do a multitude of things in paganism. one, starting a devoting and never finishing it. i am SO guilty of this one, and it make me feel bad even now. i have plenty up unfinished plans, drawings, and other devotional items that look around and guilt me. I've been in this cycle for a year and I don't think I'll ever grow out of it, but from what I've noticed the Gods don't mind. doing some of a devotion is a wonderful feat, and the energy that took is a wonderful offering even if you don't finish it.

I'm sure other adhd people and probably some autistic people have been in the position of "I just discovered this new Deity and oh my god I NEED to worship them RIGHT NOW or I'll DIE". They're just SO COOL and you automatically feel a connection. then three weeks later you feel demotivated to worship Them and now you feel terrible about it. don't worry, me too. to help with this nowadays I personally honor for a bit then worship if the worship relationship doesn't involve any help between us. this is what I did with Pan, and it worked VERY well for me. i recognized our connection but I didn't feel the pressure to consistently worship Him.

back to the start of the second paragraph, if you're stuck in that situation just communicate with the Deity. it can be hard to admit you're wrong, especially with adhd. however, just sitting down and calling to Them to let them know how you feel and that you think you made a mistake is a huge communicative step !

demotivation

this. one. sucks. inbetween hyperfixations, being stressed out or anxious, going through a depressive episode, and more can cause very deep demotivation and loss of energy in people with ADHD and other disorders. sometimes I'll just lay in my floor with my headphones on for hours because I literally can't find the energy to get up. a lot of people worry that this directly conflicts with Paganism and would slow progress. i understand why it seems that way, especially since adhd is a very "GO FAST, DO THIS THING N O W" disorder. there's actually a few solutions here I can think of

devote your personal healing to the Gods as this can give your brain a "reward" and can help you personally feel better in many ways. after weeks without a shower, devote a bath to a Deity or maybe eat breakfast at Their altar if you haven't been eating much. allow Them to be your motivation

take a break entirely. paganism certrainly isn't a 24/7/365 commitment and your practice molds to your needs. if you're just absolutely knocked out and need rest, take a break. I've taken MANY breaks before. I've been forced on breaks too because the Gods noticed my mental health declining before I did. never feel ashamed for needing time for yourself

do multiple small things rather than big things. a little bit of your dinner when you eat, redecorate Their altar or space, listen to music that reminds you of Them, think of Them when you're out and about in case you see something. you can weave devotion into daily acts in order to reinforce mundane things you need to do and calm your mind about paganism.

and finally, miscellaneous list of other things I do that are too small for their own section.

if you need to keep track of divination readings, no need to write down every reading you've ever had in detail. you can voice record them as you go, take photos of the cards, or use apps like Labyrinthos that can act as a tarot log.

your altar doesn't need to look perfect, it should reflect your worship and your devotion to a Deity. this means if your altar looks like a mess, as mine ALWAYS do, it's perfectly okay ! clutter aesthetic altars are the most beautiful altars in my eyes, and they're so worthy of adoration. I've never once heard of a Deity disliking an altar, They appreciate our work to put in a space just for Them. let your altar look messy and wild as you want, altars don't need to be aesthetic or color coordinated

you see everywhere that many of us are devoted to one deity in particular or multiple, I fit in here too. i just wanted to say that you never have to devote to any Deity if you don't want to. you could worship when you need help from a specific Deity or worship a different deity every month. never feel like you have to tie yourself down just because other people feel comfortable doing so.

you don't have to celebrate every festival. it's okay to skip celebrations that don't really apply to you or are at an inconvenient time ! you could also reschedule if you find yourself wanting to celebrate but burnt out or busy.

#hellenism #pagan #Paganism #hellenic #hellenic worship #hellenic pagan #hellenistic polytheism #polytheist #polytheism #greek gods #deity #greek paganism #adhd #neurodivergent #neurodivergent pagan #tips and tricks

[shrimpmandan]

I’ve been reflecting some on my views lately.

I wanted to give my thoughts on the MOGAI community and my perspective on it as a neurodivergent trans person, and just kind of reflect on my stance on and understanding of it. This is really rambly because it's 3 AM and I'm tired, but this is just my own perspective on the MOGAI community and its relation to transmeds. I think the issue I have with MOGAI is mainly its conflation with being transgender, and how these terms are labeled with -gender at all.

To preface for anyone who doesn’t follow me and is just scrolling through tags, I'm autistic + ADHD, and to my knowledge a binary trans man. I consider myself a transmedicalist and anti-MOGAI, just on the basis that I don't think MOGAI genders can be, well, genders. From what I understand, gender is your neurological sex. I know there's been critiques of the brain sex theory, but it's the one that makes the most sense to me. In essence, your brain can't be pupgender because pupgender isn't a sex. I'm very science-oriented and I'm not inclined to support something as a label if it does not describe a real, proven occurrence. 

Though, I understand why people, particularly people with autism, use these labels. Some of them appeal to synesthesia, a complicated experience often comorbid with autism. I understand how an autistic person with synesthesia would 'feel' their gender. Hell, I know I do. I always described my gender as a feeling. Now, gender is more complicated than just 'a feeling', but my point stands. An autistic person may think their gender is foggy due to synesthesia, though I don't think there are any existing studies discussing such a correlation yet. Other labels, such as "autigender", are simply descriptors. It's not "my gender is autism", but rather "my gender is affected by my autism". This is where I have another issue. MOGAI labels are made for neurodivergent people, so why are they named in such a way that makes it really easy to misinterpret them literally? Even neurotypicals I've met see "autigender" and infer that it means "my gender is autism". Additionally, when getting into neopronouns, a lot of neurodivergent people have difficulties using or remembering neopronouns and how to conjugate them. I literally can't use nounself pronouns because it fucks with my language processing issues so much. But again, I can understand why they're used. Some neurodivergent people have difficulties using singular they/them. I read a post about someone having standard pronouns (he/she/they) be misophonia triggers, so they use neopronouns that don't trigger such a response. My only issue there is just how many there are. Thon/thons existed as a singular neutral pronoun at one point, and I think we should bring that pronoun back for folks who can't use standard pronouns comfortably, without having this laundry list of them.

In my opinion, MOGAI would be basically harmless if MOGAI genders weren't conflated with being transgender. Simply put, most transgender people can't relate to the MOGAI crowd. And by extension, what is MOGAI fighting for? How would their activism fit into ours? I know that many people who use MOGAI labels are also transgender, but some of 'em aren't. Some MOGAI users are cis neurodivergent people who have varying difficulties understanding or describing their gender. Now, I never experienced that, so I can't relate, but I can see it. I can see why a cis ND person would think "my gender feels kinda fuzzy" and then be like "fuck it, guess I'm fuzzgender." But, that doesn't make them trans. This weird conflation between MOGAI and being trans is extremely harmful and what a lot of people in transmed/anti-MOGAI circles take issue with. A lot of us don't relate to MOGAI and feel like our issues are being trivialized by this narrative that gender is just a fun way to express yourself, which is sadly not a reality for a lot of trans people, especially the teens who are pre-transition (the ones who are typically transmeds). It feels extremely invalidating for many. 

I think this is just down to the way MOGAI is presented. MOGAI was originally coined to be a more inclusive term for LGBT after all, and MOGAI genders are branded as, well, genders. I think that MOGAI should be rebranded and adjusted to be more cohesive (so that there aren’t a billion labels that are unused or just repeats of each other) as well as better described so that they don’t necessarily conflate with being trans. I've seen some people propose calling xenogenders "xenoidentities" instead, for example. "Xenodescriptors" could also work, possibly. I'm the type of person who tries to look for compromise. While I do put labels on my stances, my opinions on issues tend to be more complex than the label lets on. There's definitely a way to make both communities happy and healthy and fulfill their intended purposes. It's just difficult to get anything done when most of the online discourse is spent shitting on each other and harassing each other. I frequently see both transmeds and tucutes be doxxed, harassed, suicide baited, et cetera et cetera. That doesn't accomplish anything. That's just bullying. Name-calling and harassment is just bullying. If we could just facilitate a respectful, meaningful discussion and work together as communities to understand each other better and come to an agreement, then this discourse wouldn't need to go on any longer. Nothing is black and white. Both sides have their reasons for feeling the way they do. This applies to literally every other major LGBT discourse going on as well, from bi vs pan to acecourse to whatever the hell else. We need to make an effort to understand each other. This post is absolutely open for discussion if it doesn't get buried. I think I covered both sides pretty well but obviously the experiences of people who actually use MOGAI labels are much more important than my views from the outside. I’m cross-tagging this since I don’t want this to just be flooded with one side. I am actively welcoming interaction from either side on this post. Please just ignore this post/block me if you don’t wanna see it. This isn’t cross-tagged with malicious intent. I simply wish to gain more perspective on why people may use MOGAI labels, and also why other transmeds dislike them so. I obviously could be missing a few things.

#long post #mogai #anti mogai #lgbt discourse #trans discourse #transmed #transmeds #transmedicalism #tucute #anti tucute #anti transmed #please reblog

[luna-tiel]

What Entrapdak Means to Me

On the eve of Entrapdak Positivity Month, I thought it was as good a time as any to share my rambling thoughts on a ship that’s affected me in a way I didn’t think was possible. 

Entrapdak is the first ship I have ever been invested in. It’s such a new experience for me that it’s taken me the last few months to wrap my head around the whole thing. I may relate to the characters in a show, but when they form romantic attachments I view it with a degree of passive distance. I don’t understand what it’s like to have those sorts of feelings for someone (I am aromantic and ace as a brick), and, well, I’m honestly not curious enough to give the subject a thorough study. My mind tends to fixate on other things. 

What does this have to do with Entrapdak, you ask? Long story short for people who don’t want to read my meandering essay -- I relate a lot to these characters, and the way they bonded together struck a deep chord in me that I can’t ignore. 

Let’s start with the characters. I knew going in that Entrapta was neurodivergent-coded, but I took it with a grain of salt. When I actually watched the show, however, I found myself relating to her so deeply it shocked me. Never have I felt such a kinship with a fictional character! We don’t share every trait, but it was still like seeing my brain put to life on screen. I related to her enthusiasm over her special interests, her struggles to fit in, her desire to make friends who accept and understand her for who she is. 

The fact Entrapta is completely herself is something I love about her. Over the years of growing up undiagnosed, I developed a lot of masking strategies. Human psychology is one of my special interests, and even with all that accumulated knowledge, masking isn’t easy. It’s extremely mentally taxing. Masking can certainly look easy -- I can, when I have the drive and energy, “pass” as neurotypical, and only people who know me extremely well can tell I’m dying inside. All that effort is taken for granted by a lot of NTs because that’s how people are “supposed to” act, and surely I can “do the bare minimum.” The accumulated stress of near constant masking has led me to the darkest moments I’ve had in my life.

Entrapta’s struggle with leaving Beast Island hit me hard. It threw me back to a time when my feelings of isolation and worthlessness got so bad that I lost the energy to do anything, even the creative pursuits that were the obsession of my life. I retreated so deeply into my inner world that I hardly interacted with anyone. That total apathy shocked my family into getting me professional help, which gave me my autism diagnosis, the coping skills to move forward, and a good start on the road to self-acceptance. It also opened a channel between my family and I, allowing me to feel heard and understood. (An important side note on mental health: if you or someone you love needs professional help, please seek it! Sometimes you have to try out several therapists -- it took me three to find a good fit -- but you are worth it!)

It took me longer to realize, but I also relate to Hordak in some ways. Mercifully I was not raised in an extremist cult environment. However, I know what it’s like to feel defective next to a sibling that seems perfect. I was constantly being compared to my younger brother, and in all areas but art, he was superior. He was smart, athletic, and above all, he fit in with everyone. I didn’t hate him for this -- I hated myself. Trying to measure up to his standard is what caused me to develop such strong masking strategies. Underneath it all, I felt the despair of knowing my peers would reject me as soon as the mask cracked. I also live with chronic joint pain, starting at around age seven. The jury is still out on what’s causing that (the worst of it was due to a previously unknown food allergy, but the pain still comes and goes, even though it’s a lot more manageable than it used to be). This cocktail of pain, stress, and sensory issues I had to deal with gave me a very short fuse at times. 

As an aside, just because I sympathize with Hordak does not mean I am excusing his actions. He is still going to have to face the consequences of his choices, and work to adjust to life post-Prime. The series end gave him a new beginning, the opportunity to be redeemed, and I prefer this to a rushed redemption arc. 

What I love most about Hordak and Entrapta’s relationship is how they accept each other as they are. Hordak gives Entrapta near free reign of his sanctum, he listens to her when she talks, and he respects her opinions. Even when he pushes her away, he still considers the logic of what she tells him, and sometimes ends up doing things her way despite his initial instincts. This is something I do in my own life; I am easily overwhelmed by new information, so my initial response to an idea/activity is almost always a firm (and sometimes rude) “no,” until I have time to properly process and think about it. Hordak is the first person in Entrapta’s life that truly listens to her. He still has things he needs to work on, but it’s a lot better than how most of the princesses are with Entrapta. The Alliance treats her as someone to be managed -- she is useful, but unreliable. Hordak, in contrast, trusts her to get things done in her own way. 

On the other side, Entrapta is the first person in Hordak’s life to accept him without judgment. Hordak spends so much of his energy putting up a front of strength and intimidation, and Entrapta cuts right through that. She’s not frightened by his appearance, and even his outbursts have little effect on her until the two of them start to bond. Entrapta doesn’t come into their interactions with any preconceived ideas of what Hordak is like, or more importantly, what he should be like. This lack of expectation leaves her completely open to accepting whatever Hordak does and says, and it also relieves Hordak of the burden of needing to put on a front around her. When Entrapta sees him at his most vulnerable, she reaches out to him with compassion, something he has never felt before. Entrapta also does this in a way that doesn’t belittle Hordak. His imperfections are not something to pity, they are a valuable part of who he is. 

I loved watching their friendship develop. Entrapta and Hordak’s shared time together evolved slowly into a bond that gave each of them a sense of belonging they had never experienced before with anyone else. It gave me the hope that, despite what an oddball mess I am, perhaps I could find someone who understands me too. 

When a romance subplot inserts itself into a story, I tend to gloss over and ignore it (if I pick up on it at all). I’m even less interested in sex. Way back when I was first getting into fandom I was so excited to go online and meet fellow fans of the books and shows I liked, only to discover the spaces being dominated by arguments over character pairings. I was baffled. This is what people are most interested in? Oh well… back to the hermit cave I go! 

I was late to the party with SPoP. I’d watched a few episodes, but the show didn’t really hook me. This was partially because all I ever heard people talk about online was Catradora, and if that was the main appeal of the show, I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it (sorry Catradora shippers, romance is not going to entice me to watch a show, even if it’s rep). Quarantine was the ultimate cause for me embracing my curiosity and diving headfirst into SPoP, binging the entire thing a few months before the release of season 5.

I vaguely knew about Entrapdak as a ship going into the show, and I admit, had I not been primed for it, I probably would have missed the romantic potential entirely. In no way did I expect to become invested. I was immediately intrigued by their dynamic, and as they got closer, I found myself thinking “oh, I see why people ship these two.” I didn’t understand this realization until months later. I was relating to the characters, and for the first time in my life, I was relating to their relationship.

I headcanon Entrapta and Hordak as an asexual couple. I’ll elaborate on this at a later time (asexuality is a spectrum with a lot of nuance, and this post is plenty long already), but at the core of it, I find joy in imagining these characters in a loving platonic relationship, something I hope to find myself one day. I hope this love comes across in my artwork and in my fanfictions <3

To those of you that read this far, wow, you must be patient! Have an imaginary cookie! I hope this ramble has provided a decent picture for why I, as an aro ace on the autism spectrum, have come to cherish Hordak and Entrapta’s relationship. It’s my first and only OTP… I’m still in shock thinking about that… I guess we’ll see where things go from here!

Take care of yourselves out there!

#entrapdak #entrapta/hordak #entrapta #hordak #autistic entrapta #autistic experiences #relatable characters #fandom ramblings #spop #spop headcanons #asexual headcanon

[saundraswriting]

Missed Signals Chapter 1

SUMMARY: Reki might have a problem. He gets hyperfixated. He is too loud. He has a delayed sleep schedule. He forgets to eat and drink sometimes. He zones out a lot, and even more when he tries to pay attention. He fidgets with his hair and his clothes and his skin to the point of injury. His brain works, sometimes. Other times he has to fight it. He has learned to cope enough over the years but just like everything else, some days are better than others.

WARNINGS: Nothing too grand, descriptions of ADHD symptoms,

NOTES: I am trying to cope with what I am thinking is undiagnosed ADHD by projecting onto my favorite characters. I mean no harm and no offense.

Ao3 // Missed Signals Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Next Chapter

With the sound of the last bell, Reki and Langa tore off to the skate park. They had just finished mid terms. Both boys were lookin forward to the three day weekend. They both missed going to 'S' and the skate park and even Joe's place, trying to studying as much as possible. Langa was still terrible with his Japanese and Math even though he was getting better. Reki's English and Biology scores were dismal, but he seemed to be scoring consistently well on his other tests.

"Hey, Langa, Reki! Over here!" Joe called. "Long time no see." The four other skaters were standing near a bench in the skate park all seeming to wait for the two high schoolers.

"Joe! Cherry!" Reki's bright grin was visible to them from the entrance.

"Shadow! Miya!" Langa was a little more subdued in his greater but no less enthusiastic.

Both boys felt a weight shift off their shoulders at the presence of their friends. They were really finished with midterms, they had three days to hang out and skate with each other. Their week of hard work seemed to finally pay off.

"Hello there, boys. How did midterms go?" Cherry asked. He was dressed in his robes but had his hair up.

"I think we did okay. It helps that we struggle in different subjects. I am glad we decided to take the days to review things." Reki said.

"It was a smart idea to use past test to study off of, instead of just notes. Your notes are also so lacking but you do so well on the tests." Langa commented absently as he bent to retie his shoe.

"What do you mean?"' Joe asked Langa. They all watched as Langa fiddled with his shoelaces.

"Oh. Um. Reki often forgets his homework or his notes are very scattered. Rarely does he remember his homework and take good notes. But he scores high on his tests. I even overheard the teachers discussing that if he applied himself and did his homework and took better notes Reki easily could be a top student." At the second mention of his name, Reki stopped looking at his phone and came back to the conversation, glancing at Langa who was sighing at his shoe.

"Langa, your aglet is broken. You'll need new laces. but for now I think some tape will do." Reki said. Everyone looked at him confused. "What? The thing on the end of your laces is called an aglet. It is derived from old French meaning 'needle' or 'pin' designed for lacing shoes or bags easier. Originally they were for ornamental reasons." Reki rattled off unprompted into the silence. His face grew pink at the attention of the others.

"Reki, why do you know that?" Miya asked.

"I had a period of time where I customized shoes for people. I liked how different it was from doing a board. I could show off my art skills better and helped steady my hand a bit more." Reki shrugged, not seeing the big deal.

"You know the old French origins of a part of a shoe no one cares about but you can't be bothered to learn English?" Cherry demanded.

Reki shrugged again, rubbing the back of his neck, embarrassment evident. "I don't mean to not do it. I sit down and I get ready to do it but then my mind blanks. Sometimes I can force myself but then I am frustrated quickly and easily irritated. Sometimes I work on it at school but then my notes are shitty." Reki rubbed his forehead, voice hard. "Sometimes the lights are too bright. Sometimes my brain says no to English but yes to physics and even sometimes my brain says no to everything and I just sit there telling myself all the things I need to do but it is all too much and not enough." Reki's hands begin to shake, while Joe and Cherry share a look over his head.

"Skating is the only thin that helps. But when I skate I give up time that I could be studying or working on the homework. I don't mean to be bad at school, just sometimes I can't help it." Reki seemed to curl in on himself, drawing his shoulders up and ducking his head down. His voice grew small and weak.

"Reki we didn't mean to make you upset. We were just curious. You aren't the only person that has issues organizing their thoughts or staying focused. Has this been an issue for a while?" Cherry gently asked. Reki seemed to relax when the group stayed quiet, seeming to expect derogatory comments.

"I think I began noticing in my second year of middle school." Reki spoke to the ground, unable to look at anyone in the eye. Langa could see his muscles tensing, sensing Reki's desire to bolt.

"That is enough of that. We came here to skate. Let's skate." Joe broke the tension seeming to sense Reki's urge to flee.

"Yes! I have something I want to show you slimes." Miya skated off after joe towards the halfpipe, throwing taunts over his shoulder as he went. Reki and Lana flew after him, throwing their own teasing comments at Shadow, who deemed himself the adult supervisor of the rowdy children.

Cherry and Joe hung back a bit, watching them all tear off. The previous conversation still lingering in the air. Both adults tracking a brightly laughing Reki as he skated around Miya and Langa.

"Poor kid. That must be so frustrating. He tried to make it out like it was no big deal but even if he learned some coping mechanisms, they won't work all the time if he doesn't know what the source of the problem is." Cherry said.

"He won't. He isn't self aware enough to know that he even has symptoms. He seems to have an executive dysfunction though." Joe said, thinking back to his high school days, where everything was too much and not enough, the days of skating until the small hours to hopefully be able to focus, the cooking and baking he did to keep from tearing things apart.

"Maybe we can help him? Maybe if we play our cards right he will even let us. He is so smart, it must be terrible to be stuck in your own head like that." Cherry said, finally picking up his board. Joe followed suit.

"The hardest part is the executive dysfunction. You need and want to do the thing but because you're frontal cortex didn't develop fully you completely freeze and your brain checks out and you are worthless all day. No one else can really get it unless they know. It is hard to explain it to neurotypicals." Joe tried to explain to the best of his abilities. Cherry nodded and made a mental note to research neurotypicals and neurodevelopment disorders.

The two adults finally made it over to see everyone was in the middle of a trick imitating game. Miya was keeping the tricks to a lower difficulty than normal so Reki wouldn't get to disheartened Joe noticed. Langa was doing pretty well, some of the more subtle footwork tripping him up since he wasn't a long term veteran. They skated for a few more hours before finally taking a water break. They were leaning against the fence or the bench or even each other in Reki and Langa's case. Langa had his full attention on Reki as he lectured on another topic, Cherry wasn't sure but it seemed to be about the manhole covers in the streets.

"They have to be round cause any other shape will fall in when turned upright. It is to save the people who are in the pipe below it." Reki was saying. Langa soaked up every word, and Cherry almost felt sorry for how gone the kid was for Reki.

"Honestly kid, why do you know that?' Joe said, looking just as interested. Cherry could only sigh and hope he wasn't as readable on how gone for his idiot gorilla.

"I collect interesting facts. I like to keep them in my brain, never know when you need them." Reki said. Joe just smiled down at the young man, fondly.

"Of course you do, kid. Of course you do."

#saundraswriting #sk8 the infinity #renga #reki kyan x langa hasegawa #adhd!reki #Domestic Sk8 family #matcha blossom