a person: i’m autistic. i don’t have a professional diagnosis.
a neurotypical: you can’t! self diagnose! autism!!! onLy a dOctor can do that!!!
most doctors: don’t know what autism looks like in people other than nonverbal white cis boys
most doctors: recommend abusive therapies for autistic kids and teens
most doctors who specialize in diagnosing autism: refuse to evaluate adults
an autism evaluation for a minor teen: requires having supportive parents who understand that autism is not a tragedy and looks different for every autistic person, and that many autistic people can talk, have friends, do okay in school, and otherwise fake looking neurotypical
an autism evaluation for an adult: very expensive and often not covered by insurance in the U.S., also extremely difficult to get in France
an on-record autism diagnosis: can be used to deny you custody of children, to have your kids taken away, to forcibly institutionalize you
autism advocacy orgs that actually help autistic ppl like ASAN, AWN, AANE: Here are some resources for figuring out if you could be autistic. Professional diagnosis is a very personal decision and is not required for knowing that you’re one of us. We support you as an autistic person even if you don’t have a paper diagnosis.
a sincere autism self diagnosis: harms no one even if it’s incorrect, enables the person to feel part of a community of people with similar issues and learn more about autism, a gateway to learning about autism acceptance movements, often the first step toward self acceptance and self esteem
I thought long and hard about this…. it’s very tough… I had to eliminate baby birds from this because that makes it too hard (it would be baby emus though, prbably… or quail.. or…)
ahem, anyway. I had to settle on the african pygmy falcon. Everyone thinks it’s a babby but it is not. It is a full sized birb.
pleasure, in the fun late-capitalism hellhole of present-day america, is treated like a luxury. it’s expensive. it’s frivolous. it’s guilty. if we want to eat ice cream out of the carton and be socially acceptable at the same time, we’d better have earned that ice cream. maybe by like running a marathon or getting dumped by an asshole. if we’re going to duck into the corner store and buy fresh flowers, it’s because we’ve had a hard week, not because flowers are nice. we can take a day off work, but only if we’re sick. we have to suffer before we’re allowed extra kindness.
in this equation pleasure is optional (irresponsible, even), except when it’s a balm for suffering.
however! we need pleasure to live. a life without nice feelings in it is like a diet with no vitamins in it. it’ll make you sick and eventually it’ll kill you. we know this because people with depression stop feeling pleasure, and they often kill themselves. left untreated, depression is a fatal disease.
pleasure is not optional. pleasure is not a luxury. without it, we die. that is literally the opposite of a luxury.
because pleasure is treated like a luxury, and priced accordingly, it is fucking hard to get. it’s hard to take time to relax and see loved ones when corporations aren’t required to offer paid vacation. it’s hard to buy that special face scrub or art print or pretty yarn when it costs $35 and student loans are breathing down your neck. so pleasure gets saved up for when things are really bad. pleasure gets budgeted. pleasure, once again, becomes something we have to earn by abstaining and hurting and gritting our teeth.
do this to people long enough and pleasure becomes potently associated with guilt. this thing we need desperately to stay alive is suddenly something we can’t seek out without looking over our shoulder and wondering if we’re allowed to have it.
that’s why it’s so important that we talk about self care, and tell ourselves and each other that it is okay to do things that feel good. it is necessary to do things that feel good. we have to uncouple suffering and pleasure, because the idea that we have to earn feeling good by first feeling bad is monstrous and wrong.
take care of yourselves, darlings. don’t feel bad about it.
Sensory overload has been found to be associated with disorders such as:
Fibromyalgia (FM)
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Autistic spectrum disorders
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Synesthesia
Sensory overload occurs when one (or more) of the body’s senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment.
Basically it feels like everything is happening at once, and is happening too fast for you to keep up with.
Sensory overload can result from the over stimulation of any of the senses.
Hearing: Loud noise or sound from multiple sources, such as several people talking at once.
Sight: Bright lights, strobe lights, or environments with lots of movement such as crowds or frequent scene changes on TV.
Smell and Taste: Strong aromas or spicy foods.
Touch: Tactile sensations such as being touched by another person or the feel of cloth on skin.
Obviously, everyone reacts in differently to sensory overload.
Some behavioural examples are:
Irritability – “Shutting down” – Covers eyes around bright lights – Difficulty concentrating Angry outbursts – Refuses to interact and participate – Covers ears to close out sounds or voices – Jumping from task to task without completing Overexcitement – Low energy levels – Difficulty speaking – Compains about noises not effecting others High energy levels – Sleepiness/fatigue – poor eye contact – Overly sensitive to sounds/lights/touch Fidgeting and restlessness – Avoids touching/being touched – Muscle tension – Difficulty with social interactions
There are two different methods to prevent sensory overload: avoidance and setting limits:
Create a more quiet and orderly environment – keeping the noise to a minimum and reducing the sense of clutter.
Rest before big events.
Focus your attention and energy on one thing at a time.
Restrict time spent on various activities.
Select settings to avoid crowds and noise.
One may also limit interactions with specific people to help prevent sensory overload.
It is important in situations of sensory overload to calm oneself and return to a normal level.
Remove yourself from the situation.
Deep pressure against the skin combined with proprioceptive input that stimulates the receptors in the joints and ligaments often calms the nervous system.
Reducing sensory input such as eliminating distressing sounds and lowering the lights can help.
Calming, focusing music works for some.
Take an extended rest if a quick break doesn’t relieve the problem.
What if someone you know is experiencing sensory overload?
Recognize the onset of overload. If they appear to have lost abilities that they usually have, such as forgetting how to speak, this is often a sign of severe overload.
Reduce the noise level. If they are in a noisy area, offer to guide them somewhere more quiet. Give time to process questions and respond, because overload tends to slow processing. If you can control the noise level, for example by turning off music, do so.
Do not touch or crowd them. Many people in SO are hypersensitive to touch – being touched or thinking they are about to be touched can worsen the overload. If they are seated or are a small child, get down to their level instead of looming above them.
Don’t talk more than necessary. Ask if you need to in order to help, but don’t try to say something reassuring or get them talking about something else. Speech is sensory input, and can worsen overload.
If they have a jacket, they may want to put it on and put the hood up. This helps to reduce stimulation, and many people find the weight of a jacket comforting. If their jacket is not within reach, ask them if they want you to bring it. A heavy blanket can also help in a similar way.
Don’t react to aggression. Don’t take it personally. It is rare for someone who is overloaded to cause serious harm, because they don’t want to hurt you, just get out of the situation. Aggression often occurs because you tried to touched/restrained/blocked their escape.
When they have calmed down, be aware that they will often be tired and more susceptible to overload for quite awhile afterwards. It can take hours or days to fully recover from an episode of sensory overload. If you can, try to reduce stress occurring later on as well.
If they start self-injuring, you should usually not try to stop them. Restraint is likely to make their overload worse. Only intervene if they are doing something that could cause serious injury, such as hard biting or banging their head. It’s a lot better to deal with self-injury indirectly by lowering overload.
To summarise – Remember the 5 R’s
Recognise The symptoms of overload
Remove Yourself from the situation
Reduce the stimulus causing the overload
Relax Your body and calm yourself down
Rest Yourself as you will most likely feel fatigue.]
(the original post is a photoset and the above was part of an image description, hope no ones minds i just changed it into a text post)
i had no idea that this could have been sensory overload, but it really figures lmao
i had a really fucking weird dream where homestuck was a musical. like. a Broadway musical. and i went to see it and all i really remember is that 1) the opening number was called “everybody dies” and 2) bro strider was inexplicably played by shia labeouf, who did an interpretive dance scene with a smuppet that lasted roughly seven minutes. it was uncomfortable for everyone involved
what do you mean “inexplicably” that’s exactly how it would go down
I’m pretty sure snoop dogg was aimless renegade? honestly it was an experience
like the stage was essentially four room in the beginning and every time John would get a notification on pesterChum the particular room of whoever was messaging him would light up and you could see Jade Dave or Rose. when the trolls did their thing (it was early on), you could just hear the disembodied yelling of Karkat. Rose had a dramatic monologue that ended with mom physically pulling her away from her empty suicide threat. bec was just some guy in a fursuit. shia laBro passionately ripped off his shirt before kicking dave’s ass. lil cal was played by Ellen Degeneres(?)
do you have a medium to talk to because the more you talk about this dream the more it sounds like you’re spirit channeling andrew hussie and i’m concerned
don’t get me started about the medium bro
also when the trolls were introduced the lusii were these freakish jim henson monstrosities but honestly the best part was the felt. like. the actual composition of music was beautiful, and the choreography for the dance numbers was sublime.
Dave also kept trying to sing but was continually interrupted by Bro Shia, terezi’s echoing ululations, and his own self doubt. once he finally had his moment his voice soared through the theater, only to come to an abrupt end as he was drowned in hot puppet ass.
now that I think about it, dadbert was definitely nic cage, which was confusing as fuck because John kept talking about how Greatly He Was Caged By Nic while his father stood by. it was uncomfortable
idk man, it’s been like a reoccurring lucid nightmare for the past week, but the sb&hj sequences were performed by acrobats above the actual stage, who looked dangerously inebriated and probably needed immediate hospitalization (they were also narrated by dave and a bunch of dissonant recordings of the cast? what the fuck man. what a visionary)
It always seemed like “if you’re not (obviously/culturally) a poc you’re white end of story” but I guess there’s more to it..
Privilege, I mean. Maybe not whiteness.
OKay so… there’s a simple answer, but the actual application of that answer is complicated.
“White” as an identity was created wholecloth by wealthy and powerful europeans, as a way to divide poor and working class people from the same ethnic groups who had everything in common with other exploited groups (eg, people of color).
By preventing working class whites and working class people of other groups from unifying, wealthy and powerful white people cemented their own power: suddenly there was no unified group large enough and angry enough to dethrone them.
As a result, the “white” identity can be approximately defined as “from the same ethnic groups as the people with the power.”
Who has the power, and who is othered as alien, depends hugely on where you go.
In the UK for example, it is common enough to refer to north mediterraneans as lazy, dirty, overly sexual scoundrels: the men are rapists and drunks, and the women have loose morals and don’t take care of their children, and to the last they are all broke scoungers. Features of the mediterranean peoples (loosely curled dark hair, olive skin, roman noses, etc) are hyperbolized and stereotyped.
In short, north mediterranean people, in the UK, are racialized as non-white. This benefits the English lawmakers and wealth holders. After all, by racializing mediterranean and eastern european ethnicities as nonwhite, they were able to convince working class british people to completely destroy their own rights and economy just to “keep them out,” and coincidentally, it strengthened the grip of power that old, wealthy white familiars in the UK have on the government, the media, etc.
As a result, I feel very uncomfortable with the claim that, in the UK, Greeks, Spaniards, etc are “basically white.”
But, in the US, the time where Italians and Greeks are singled out as “WOPs” (’without papers,’ basically calling them illegal immigrants) has long since passed. Mediterranean people can hold a lot of power in American society, in a way that is precluded in the UK.
There is no benefit to trying to racializing north mediterranean peoples as Other in the US, and so it doesn’t happen, and so, the definition of whiteness in the US extends to cover them.
This is the malleability that people are referring to when they say “white culture doesn’t exist.” Because whiteness is a made up label that covers whoever the people in power say it covers.
It exists singularly to separate working class “whites” from their other working class peers, and to coerce them into helping social elites maintain their power.
And it does it’s job very well.
White, basically, is a nonsense term that doesn’t describe any real group. It just covers whoever the government/wealthy/powerful/whatever want it to cover that decade, in a way that helps protect their power.
And there are groups who have never been, and likely will never be, included in that definition.
That includes people who are “visibly” nonwhite, like Black and Asian peoples.
It also includes people like “white jews,” “white latinxs” and “white passing POC” who look white- whose blood may even be the blood of white people as whiteness is defined in their region- but whose tenuous acceptance in white society is destroyed the moment they fail to imitate the political identity of whiteness perfectly.
So, simple answer: white means exactly what rich, powerful white people want it to mean, and excludes anyone right and powerful white people want it to exclude.
And like anything that changeable, the actual, real world effects of this are… exceedingly difficult to calculate.
And that’s all before we get into the complicating factors of colorism and racial hierarchy.
We finally finished the latest batch of charms, and the battery necklaces, overload necklaces, and gender pronoun necklaces are all back in stock!
Apologies for being super slow on this, and also not getting back to all inquiries about when they’ll be back in stock or giving inaccurate time estimates… We started another job recently and are still trying to work on balancing that job with our etsy store, spoon management, etc. But everything is back in stock now, and we’re working on more.
Where the main character gets into an accident and must use a wheelchair.
(And is written fairly accurately as the author is also in a wheelchair.)
There are more disabled characters than you can count.
The ones who aren’t disabled are the enemies.
It takes place in an alternate version of the 1950s, at an institution for people with disabilities and superabilities.
You see how the disabilities relate to the superabilities (superpowers).
The main character goes through the stages of grief after she realizes that she won’t be able to walk again but she is able to come out of it, not because of a love interest, but because she’s able to find her own strength. (And hit her mentor in the face with a weight.)
In fact, the main character doesn’t have any love interest at all.
None.
You could make the argument that she’s aromantic/asexual.
And the author would totally support that argument.
But despite not having a love interest, the main character is truly cared for, especially by her gruff mentor with a heart of gold.
Did somebody say found families and father-figure-daughter-figure relationships?
Also there’s an interracial couple thirty years in the making.
And an underground resistance of students with disabilities trying to prove that they’re stronger than people think.
And in the end, they’re able to save the day.
And there are a lot of hugs.
And a lot of chocolate milk.
And the main character comes to terms with the fact that her biological family is horrible but she’s fine with that because she’s got the gruff mentor with a heart of gold who may or may not be in the CIA and also knew Al Capone.
And nobody dies.
And nobody dies.
And nobody kills themselves because they think that their lives are over now that they are in fact disabled.
Unlike some other books!
Oh and there’s a pig in a wheelchair.
And it’s all written by a disabled college student who really really needs the money for college and her apartment because apparently life is expensive (who knew?)
And it’s not the best written and it’s not error free but it was written with a lot of heart and a lot of passion in the early hours of the morning because that’s when the author had free time. But if nothing else, it has amazing disability representation. And a pig in a wheelchair.
Interested?
Well, guess what?
That author is me, that book is mine, that book is published, that book is available for you to buy, that book even comes in a paperback version so that you can hold in your hands a story with disability representation in which none of the characters die or talk about how they’re a burden and how they’re lives are over (well, Juniper does once but Ryder knocks some sense into her.)
It’s called The Defectives and you can buy it here:
So if you’re looking for disability representation that doesn’t end with death and you want to help out a novice disabled author who really needs the money, please consider buying this book.
* every time I come across an article or blog post about, for example, “how autism presents in women,” (all of which would be more accurately titled “a bunch of autistic traits that are common regardless of gender identity, but which nobody ever mentions because we’re so invested in only noticing and mentioning the things we associate with guys,” BUT ANYWAY)… there are always tons of comments on it from middle-aged women who are only now figuring it out, or only now getting Officially Diagnosed.
* in fact there’s evidently considered to be a Lost Generation in autism – basically, just tons of people who are blatantly autistic, but who grew up before the people around them had a name for it. (I mean even more than nowadays. like, if you grew up in or before about the 1980s, you were basically only identified as autistic if you never spoke/couldn’t speak with your mouth parts, and even then you were more likely to be diagnosed as something else.)
* even now, there are so so so many people in their teens and twenties who are just now learning about this stuff and going “OMG THAT IS ME THAT IS WHAT I EXPERIENCE”.
* most people still have no idea. there are so many stories on Autistic Tumblr of people whose parents and teachers and everybody else refuse to believe they’re autistic, because [insert myth here]. everybody has their mental stereotype of what being autistic looks like, and if you don’t fit the stereotype <em>because they know you and you are a person to them and not a stereotype</em>, or for any other reason, then they either don’t notice, or can’t believe it.
* there are even tons of stories on Autistic Tumblr of people whose parents or friends refuse to believe they’re autistic <em>even though they have a diagnosis</em> sooooooo
* heck, even people who KNOW autistic people – or, ESPECIALLY people who know autistic people – don’t notice it in anybody else, because (for example) the autistic person they know is nonverbal, or infodumps constantly, or has very autistic body language, or can’t eat anything but plain rice, and unless somebody else has the exact same autistic traits, they can’t imagine the two people are similar.
* so no. nobody would have mentioned it because they are totally clueless and have no freaking idea.
* also, you have every right to explore these things. it isn’t some kind of cultural appropriation or something to think you might be autistic. i won’t tell you not to feel guilty bc you can feel whatever you feel, but like, you don’t deserve any guilt.
queerhomestuck 