hey so i know that dismissing all the “this is just like when ___ happened in ___ book/movie/tv show” posts as “white privileged liberalism” is real popular right now but like
a lot of autistic ppl process real life events through fiction
and comparisons are the only way we can understand the severity of something
(heck my four year old brother is autistic and he only speaks referentially he literally can’t understand something you’re saying unless someone has said it in a tv show)
so like when i say “oh this is just like when umbridge took over at hogwarts” what i mean is “this is a funny thing to say, yes, but im also contextualizing my experience in a way that means i can understand fully the emotions and social context involved because i’m autistic and don’t understand these things like allistics do”
(allistics are welcome and encouraged to reblog)
If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.
if you give me a task with no deadline i will literally never do it but if you give me a deadline i will get it done exactly 1 hour before the deadline even if the deadline is in six years
god dammit my tags got cut off AGAIN I’m hitting the tag limit on like every post lately, I really need to work on that
Anyway I went on to say that there are 5 major executive functions of the human brain. These are the ‘higher functions’ that really distinguish between a human brain and that of any other animal. We have added intelligence on top of that, but these are the functional abilities our brains have that the rest of the animal kingdom does not have on a a structural level. There are 5 of them. ADHD affects all 5. And none of them are actually ‘attention’ (the closest function to anything that can reasonably be called ‘attention’ is what’s called Working Memory, which is your brain’s ability to hold a specific task in mind to come back to it; distractions are inevitable, but a healthy brain will hear a phone ring, look up, and remember to go back to what it was doing before. An ADHD brain will hear the phone riBANG ALL MEMORY OF THE CURRENT TASK IS GONE. ADHD brain looks up, sees the name on the caller id, oh it’s an unknown number, oh it’s probably some political pollster, oh man this year’s election is just awful I can’t believe people are supporting that angry cheeto. Oh cheetos I’m hungry I should go make a snack. What kind of snacks do we have? Did I remember to buy cereal at the store the other day? What about dog food? Oh my god I forgot to let the dog back in the house this is why I should have gotten a cat. Oh my friend sent me a great cat video earlier I should watch that. AND GUESS WHAT YOU NEVER GO BACK TO WHAT YOU WERE DOING BECAUSE THE STRUCTURE IN YOUR BRAIN THAT SUPPORTS RETURNING TO A PARTIALLY COMPETED TASK DOES NOT EXIST THE WAY IT DOES FOR A NORMAL HEALTHY BRAIN. This is why even if you start a task well before a deadline you can’t keep to it until it’s been completed; the consequences of it being done MUST be more compelling than everything else in the immediate environment for the brain to see it.
No matter how much time you give yourself to complete the task, if you have ADHD it will take you 100% of that time, every time, which is why having ADHD actually TEACHES YOU to put things off, because it’s the only way to shorten the total time actually spent completing the task – the disorder rewards you for self-destructive behavior because it’s the only way you can get things done at all, and you end up living in a permanent state of extreme stress, hopping from one emergency deadline to the next even though you hate yourself for it every single time). The disorder has been horribly named in a way that trivializes just how serious and life-ruining it actually is.
ADHD is a very, very serious disorder and the pop psych/common understanding of it makes it seem HORRIBLY trivial compared to the real damage it actually does to people’s lives.
i want to print this out and mail it to all the teachers who ever made me feel stupid before i dropped out
i want to mail it to my younger self, with tips like “ritalin is actually your friend, don’t believe the people who say it will make you a medication zombie, it will make you capable of basic functionality” and “breaking down tasks into chunks and organizing them for maximum efficiency is engaging enough that you can often stick with it despite distractions” and “when your parants characterize your distraction-avoidance behavior as ‘hiding’ and ‘disappearing’ they’re simply wrong, and you need to fight for your alone time, not keep trying to please them by doing homework in the same room where dad’s watching tv.”
kids with ADHD and other executive disorders (such as SPD and autism) are still growing up thinking they’re failures who didn’t try harder. it’s a huge slow low-key tragedy and it needs to stop.
Shout out to people like me who have parents who are loving but are black holes of emotional labor… It took me a long time to realize that it’s okay to have mixed feelings about your parents, about your relationship with them.
Sometimes parents can love you but be somewhat toxic to you and your growth, and that’s a very hard realization to come to if you, like me, grew up extremely close to them.
Sometimes parents can love you genuinely but lack emotional maturity, forcing you to perform disproportionate amounts of emotional labor. Some parents manifest symptoms of their mental illness in ways that are toxic to your mental illness.
Some parents, like mine, try so hard to be good parents but fall back on habits of emotional manipulation because they haven’t processed their own traumas and are modeling behavior they grew up with. That doesn’t make their behavior acceptable, and it’s okay to feel exhausted and hurt when they betray you. You don’t have to forgive every mistake.
I want you to know that it’s okay to protect yourself, to need some space apart from them. The love you have for your parents is still valid, and you are making the right decision.
Placing a safe emotional distance between myself and my parents has been one of the most difficult, heartbreaking processes I’ve ever gone through… it hurts to try to curb the strength of your own natural empathy around people you love. It feels disingenuous to your heart’s natural state.
But I promise you, you are not hard-hearted or ungrateful, and you are not abandoning them. You are making a decision about your own emotional, mental, and spiritual health.
I know what it’s like in that confusing grey area of love mixed with guilt and anxiety, of exhaustion and quasi-manipulation and unreciprocated emotional labor, and I promise you, you are not alone.
Also known as an ambivert, an extroverted introvert is someone who exhibits qualities of both introversion and extroversion.
1. Their spot on the spectrum changes with their environment.
Your ambivert friend may be loud and gregarious around their family,
but quiet and thoughtful at the office. Seeing them in both situations
may feel like meeting two entirely different people.
2. Talking to strangers is fine – but don’t expect them to keep it to small talk.
Although an ambivert can hold up their end of a
conversation, talking
about the weather will not be enough to engage them. Their social energy
is
limited enough that they won’t want to waste it on meaningless chatter.
They will likely push the conversation into deeper territory or bow out
entirely.
3. They like to be alone – they don’t like to be lonely.
There is a big difference between the two. Choosing to sit at home
with a tub of ice cream and a book feels fantastic. Sitting at
home because nobody called them back feels sad and lame.
4. Getting them out of the house can be a challenge.
If you catch your friend on a highly introverted day, you may just be
better off leaving them at home. They might manage to be social, but they’ll
just be thinking about their books and their couch the whole time.
5. If they’re new, you can find them in the back of the room.
An introverted extrovert will approach new situations with cautious
excitement. If they know someone in the group, they will likely cling to
them a bit as they become comfortable. If they do not, they might waver on the
edge of the crowd, slowly getting used to the water rather than jumping
in all at once.
6. They’re selectively social.
They don’t mean to be snobs. They just have limited social energy and
prefer interacting one-on-one or in small groups. For this reason, they
can only afford to invest their social time and energy in those who they
feel truly connected to.
7. Making friends is easy. Keeping them is hard.
They like talking to people, but they value their alone-time, as well. This
can make maintaining a friendship tricky. If your ambivert friend makes
an effort to consistently invest time and energy in your friendship, be
glad. You are truly special to them.
8. Their social desires change with the breeze.
They might be desperate to hang out with you on Friday, but then not
answer your call on Saturday. They’re not mad at you. They’re just super
comfortable in bed watching films.
9. They can talk to you for hours.
If you manage to catch them in a one-on-one situation, an extroverted
introvert will just not shut up. Once their interest is engaged, there’s
no stopping them.
10. Listening is great too, though.
Sometimes they want to be a part of the action, but their social energy
levels are too low for them to contribute in a meaningful way. Listening
allows them to get to know you without burning up their social fuel. They also
know its value from their chattier moments when they are desperate for an
ear.
They posted it late at night and want people to see it in the daytime
They want others to reblog it
They want more attention for it
THEY WANT OTHERS TO REBLOG IT
They have followers in different timezones and want everyone to get a chance to see it
THEY WANT OTHERS TO REBLOG IT
IF THEY REBLOG IT MULTIPLE TIMES, THEY’RE DOING IT BECAUSE THEY WANT ATTENTION FOR IT AND THEY’RE LIKELY NOT GETTING ENOUGH, SO THEY KEEP REBLOGGING IT IN THE HOPES THEY’LL GET SOME
BE A COOL BRO AND REBLOG
THEY’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER
“Bro why you keep reblogging your own work bro” “BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE IS”
Since you mention it, I think I will start that race war.
I could’ve swung either way? But now I’m definitely spending the next 4 years converting your daughters to lesbianism; I’m gonna eat all your guns. Swallow them lock stock and barrel and spit bullet casings onto the dinner table;
I’ll give birth to an army of mixed-race babies. With fathers from every continent and genders to outnumber the stars, my legion of multiracial babies will be intersectional as fuck and your swastikas will not be enough to save you,
because real talk, you didn’t stop the future from coming. You just delayed our coronation. We have the same deviant haircuts we had yesterday; we are still getting gay-married like nobody’s business because it’s still nobody’s business; there’s a Muslim kid in Kansas who has already written the schematic for the robot that will steal your job in manufacturing, and that robot? Will also be gay, so get used to it:
we didn’t manifest the mountain by speaking its name, the buildings here are not on your side just because you make them spray-painted accomplices. These walls do not have genders and they all think you suck. Even the earth found common ground with us in the way you bootstrap across us both,
oh yeah: there will be signs, and rainbow-colored drum circles, and folks arguing ideology until even I want to punch them but I won’t, because they’re my family, in that blood-of-the-covenant sense. If you’ve never loved someone like that you cannot outwaltz us, we have all the good dancers anyway.
I’ll confess I don’t know if I’m alive right now; I haven’t heard my heart beat in days, I keep holding my breath for the moment the plane goes down and I have to save enough oxygen to get my friends through. But I finally found the argument against suicide and it’s us. We’re the effigies that haunt America’s nights harder the longer they spend burning us, we are scaring the shit out of people by spreading, by refusing to die: what are we but a fire? We know everything we do is so the kids after us will be able to follow something towards safety; what can I call us but lighthouse,
of course I’m terrified. Of course I’m a shroud. And of course it’s not fair but rest assured, anxious America, you brought your fists to a glitter fight. This is a taco truck rally and all you have is cole slaw. You cannot deport our minds; we won’t hold funerals for our potential. We have always been what makes America great.
Listen, being a fanfic writer is the weirdest thing. You write alone, building a world in your brain, seeming like a normal crazy person in this large world. But then you post the story and it’s like a revelation. The gates of heaven and hell open simultaneously and you’re left in a dilemma because you are the focus of a thousand eyes and you are the focus of a thousand eyes. You might not even be using your given name and might be the most ignored person in the ‘outside world’ but in the space of your laptop screen and that story, you become some sort of a fairy godmother who grants the deepest wishes of people craving more stories.
Then you come onto Tumblr or some other site where fandoms hound, where you meet other people. Some of them turn out to be writers who have made you weep into your sodden pillow at 3 a.m. because of a 11 chapter fic. You feel like a termite in comparison to them and stare intensely at their blogs every day, creating wondrous imaginations about how they might be. There are pedestals for gods and then there are thrones for these mere mortals who are immortal in your opinion. You have hated the kudos button for restricting your love for them. You don’t dare to look them in the eye or chat with them.
And then one day they reblog one of your posts or like it or do something equally simple. You hear angels cry and have endless internal screaming chants, with a few tears trickling down your cheeks. You think you have achieved nirvana. Is there anything more to do in this worthless hellsite life, you wonder. What more could you ask for?
So you try to act mature and think you have made a fool of yourself.
Turns out, they’re equally pathetic as you and have been gushing over your work as well.
You learn quickly that you’re all on the same boat and that moment, that moment of realization is when you understand why words are magic and writers are ridiculously human.
Fanfic writers are the most attention seeking, tired, annoyed, dorky people and anyone who thinks that they are people you need to admire from a distance needs to try having a chat once. You’ll find the resemblance of lost puppies or old cats.
Here’s to the non-binary adults trying to deal with the fact that they can’t be out at work.
Here’s to the non-binary adults who can’t even try to be out with their parents because they’re trying to keep things ok for the grandkids.
Here’s to the non-binary adults who say “Oh it’s ok, I’m used to gender-specific binary pronouns” and die a little inside.
Here’s to the non-binary adults who have learned not to care.
Here’s to the non-binary adults who really don’t care about pronouns.
Here’s to the non-binary adults who have to gender-binary themselves for PTA meetings and talking to business owners and government officials.
Here’s to the non-binary adults who feel lost and without community because so much of the vocal and out enby community is very young.
Here’s to the non-binary adults who don’t feel welcome in the trans community and aren’t part of the cis community.
Here’s to the non-binary adults who feel guilty about calling themselves trans because they don’t “feel trans enough” or that they don’t deserve to call themselves trans.
Here’s to the non-binary adults who don’t identify as trans without any guilt about it at all.
Conditional Acceptance is like living on a high wire every day, and “passing privilege” is a painful myth, one that can leave us feeling miserable and crushed and empty.
Love yourself and honor that living in the closet isn’t a privilege. It hurts, and it’s ok that it hurts. You didn’t do anything wrong, the world did.
What she says: I’m fine
What she means: I’ve been explicitly and implicitly taught since birth to value the feelings of others over my own feelings and to conceal all negative emotion so as to avoid making anyone else uncomfortable and be a “good girl” so maybe that means that you now have to put in a little extra effort to make me feel safe enough to express myself honestly and maybe that’s annoying but imagine how it feels for me
There's a Mirror on the Wall 