#spectrum and then some

[darkfrog24]

This is something I think about a lot, and not just for ASD kids: How often do the teachers pick the targets?

When a teacher makes that face, you know the one? "You have missed my social cue but I'm not going to stop playing games and just tell you what I want because then I'd have to admit out loud that I want it"? I think a lot of the other kids in the class see it and go, "Ooooooh, the teacher doesn't like this kid."

And then when the target kid gets into a conflict and the teacher says something out of the "You're too sensitive" column, then the rest of the class goes "Ooooooh, people are supposed to mess with that kid. Look at that guy not getting punished."

On some level, do teachers think that a class needs to have a kid to use like that? I've heard that the K-12 system was built off a Prussion model that was meant to suppress free will to create obedient soldiers, and it's natural for kids to rebel against that and assert their autonomy. Are some of these teachers saying, "Here. Assert it on this person"?

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

[necromimetics]

can’t stop thinking about my friend’s cishet partner who said last night that he doesn’t think anyone is the same gender. god-tier take.

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[consultingfujoshi]

inconsolable over irving in this episode. no nuance here, irving is straight up suicidal in this episode. essentially placing him in the same circumstances in which mark chose to become severed - suffering unimaginable heartbreak and seeing switching his brain off as the only viable option for coping with it - and giving him that same choice at surface level to be relieved of it - except it's NOT the same at all, because innies don't get to compartmentalise, they ARE the compartmentalisation, if they choose to switch themselves off, they DIE. the illusion of choice here. irving can either suffer mindless torture of monotony every day with the knowledge that the man he loves is dead and never coming back, or he can fucking DIE. and he genuinely sees that as a viable option. as his only way out of this pain. because even if he did make it out, if he somehow against all odds gained his freedom in the outside world, he'd still have nothing. burt would not be waiting for him.

"I should be happy he's happy" and the way he doesn't even feel entitled to his grief?? like he has no right to be feeling the pain he's feeling right now? innie indoctrination goes so hard he's incapable of seeing that the very fact he's grieving innie burt, a hypothetical life they could have had together, is proof that he's just as real as his outie counterpart! he has just as much right to that life as anyone! like, NO, irv! you have been wronged, you have been so deeply wronged, they made you capable of feeling these things and forming this relationship and falling in love and then systematically removed every tool you could have had to pursue it, and then effectively handed you a length of rope and made you feel like the only empowerment you can find is in the act of hanging yourself with it.

"if he's gone and I'm gone, then somehow, we'll be together" broke me because he really has been so beaten down by this point at the hopelessness of it all, realising that there is no scenario in which he can be with the man he loves, that his only hope at finding any triumph or meaning in this is to die along with burt. at least in chasing him into oblivion, he will have made the one choice he could have to follow his heart. and that as a queer-centric narrative specifically is actually devastating.

SUCH an insane and heavy thing to come straight out of the gate with in the season premier. immediately cementing irving as one of the most masterfully complex characters I've ever seen - i can only hope his arc this season is in finding strength in the act of defiance at last and making good on his promise to burn lumon to the ground for what they've put him through. to carry that grief and channel it into bringing the system that has wronged you down. I believe in the power of queer rage and vengeance!!!!

[darkfrog24]

Hey, so there are these places where you can get tested for ADHD...

are you ever scrolling through tumblr and you have a thought and immediately lose it so you have to scroll back up to give your brain the conditions under which it originally created the thought so you can bring it back

[estragonsgayass]

[angelsdean]

everyone you admire, idolize, put on a pedestal is just a person. everyone you hate, demonize, find irritating / annoying, is also just a person.

[canisalbus]

I swapped them around in a silly doodle

.

[darkfrog24]

There should be two sets of manners, one for people-can-leave and another for no-they-can't. We spent so much of our childhoods in can't-leave/dire-consequences places like schools that we forget that leaving is a thing.

asking people to be mindful of others when sharing a communal space (especially one you cannot just up and leave from) is not selfish or misanthropic. come on now

[coraxoxo]

at least half of the male population should die

(my celebrity crushes can stay)

(also, hope this reaches the stinky bald fat old men’s porn blogs here)

[leftarmofl1fe]

killer being a stupid ugly theater kid

Color belongs to superyoumna

Killer belongs to rahafwabas

[darkfrog24]

Sensory hellscapes are unpleasant and then some but do they typically put the autistic person in the hospital? No they do not.

I keep seeing people put accommodations for people with epilepsy on the same level as sensory accommodations for autism and like... no??? Obviously both are important but epilepsy can kill people, SUDEP is a thing. If you expose someone with photosensitive epilepsy to strobing lights they could suffer permanent brain damage or die. Epilepsy is a condition with physical, sometimes deadly consequences. I'm not sure how many different ways I need to say this before it sticks, but epileptic seizures are physical neurological phenomena that can cause lasting neurological damage or death. Epilepsy can kill you. You can die from epilepsy.

[ghostselkie]

Head cannon for before they figured out they were lesbians:

Annabel had "oh no, oh no! Something is wrong with me, I must hide this!" queer angst

Lenore had "I am the only normal person here. All of you are weird and/or faking it. wtf is wrong with you" queer delusion

Mostly I think it would be funny to have Lenore be hit with the "wait, people actually like men!?" thought brick

[duodipersponsh]

i never see people talk about it, so

happy july to autistics who can not listen to the same song more than once or they'll go mad

happy july to autistics who can't be near stimming people. you're not a bad person, you're disabled

happy july to autistics who can't eat the same food more than one or two times in a row. you're not faking it, you have food restrictions

happy july to autistics who panic when there's too much comfort food

happy july to autistics who watch videos on mute

happy july to autistics who have a routine that's good for them but who are lonely, bored or tired. autism sucks sometimes, agrh!

happy july to autistics who are scared to use their comfort items. i hope you can easily repair them/ask for help and replacements aren't hard to find. you deserve using things that bring you joy, that's what they're here for

happy july to autistics who get bouts of energy when they're so active/talkative/excited that they are exhausted and disappointed in the end

happy july to autistics who are so involved in their special interests they don't have the emotional resources to interact with them. i hope there's a way for you to engage with your favorite things slowly and quietly

happy july to every autistic person who has complicated feelings about their autism, who doesn't feel proud and who sometimes wishes they weren't autistic

autistic community on tumblr is great and it helped me see so many of my "quirks" and needs as neutral and common qualities, but autism is still a disorder and it's okay to feel frustrated with it, it's okay to complain and it's okay to ask for help!

[darkfrog24]

That can also be the PTSD doing that. Just saying.

Original post was made unrebloggable so I'm reposting the link. Click through for the whole thread.

[frindoka]

save me arospec siffrin save me save me save me arospec siffrin. Save me