an-autistic-with-personhood - Tumblr blog

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

clownfish be like "i know a spot" and take you to a fucking deadly sea organism

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

No, Mr. Horse, don’t worry, I certainly don’t have a Plinko down here! What I do have is this lovely cask of wine, specifically for horses, Amontillado in fact! Exquisite vintage.

I know you’re not supposed to be in this hospital, but if you’ll just follow me down this corridor—no, that’s not blood on the floor, it’s color theory, I’ll explain it later—I can bring you to this cask of wine that is certainly NOT a plinko machine—

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

Let me sleep.

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

Submitter never would have thought to do anything other than boil the water in the pot, but has run into quite a few people who boil it in a kettle first, and is curious how common this is!

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

I think I've found my favorite [citation needed] on Wikipedia.

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

Me: I hate gossip

Also me:

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

realizing that sticking to the "do it bad" "do it scared" mentality implies theres also a "do it bored"

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

i saw your art on twitter, it's very good but the fact you have minors following you while you draw literal witches ("creatures" practicing m*gic) is REALLY iffy

it's over. 17th century puritan philip wittebane has found my tumblr at last. sorry i failed you general

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

I need people to understand that sometimes autism is just this

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

A surprisingly helpful bit of social maneuvering I've figured out from trial and error: Throughout your life, you are going to need things from people. Often, it's going to be on a deadline. And when that deadline passes, you generally want to know what's going on. So, you need to ask them.

There are two kinds of people, broadly, in this situation. The Shameless will tell you what the holdup is, with absolutely no regard for if the reason is "good enough". This is actually very helpful, because you get the real reason immediately, and can start working on a solution.

The Ashamed is trickier. People who are Ashamed are people who were often told they were giving excuses when they were trying to explain, and they'll often avoid you until they solve the problem on their own. This causes them and you a lot of stress, and often takes a lot longer to solve.

Long term, the strategy for dealing with people who are Ashamed is to provide a supportive environment where they're comfortable sharing any problems they're having with getting things done. But, there's a way to at least partially short-circuit that:

Provide an explanation for them.

One example might be "Hey Susan, I noticed that I don't have your report yet. Are you busy with other projects?" The readymade explanation signals that you're willing to accept an explanation, which is the big anxiety point.

Sometimes, you still won't get an honest answer- especially if the honest answer isn't "good enough" by the standards of the person who traumatized them. But, I've found that it often at least gets you a lie that lets you give them some slack or work around the problem.

Let's say that Susan has actually completely forgotten that she needed to do the report. She's horrified at herself, and completely unwilling to admit the real problem. But, she can now safely reply with "Sorry Jennifer, I've been swamped, and it got lost in the mix. I can have it to you in two days. Does that work?"

From there, so long as Susan gave an estimate for when she can actually do it, she and Jennifer can hash out a solution.

It's not a perfect solution, but it works astonishingly well for how small of a change it is.

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

One day a few years ago I decided to go for a walk. My betrothed was hanging with a friend who was over and neither wanted to head out so I shrugged and went alone.

My neighborhood is exceedingly safe, there’s a little school right down the street and I’ve never had a worry. It was getting closer to dusk but there was still plenty of summer sunlight laying around.

The route I picked was a circuit, it ends in a cul de sac and spins me back homeward. Along the way is a small manicured loop around some grass. It’s surrounded by trees and shrubberies. There’s a little play place and it’s popular to bring dogs and kids while not technically counting as a park.

As I came up on the loop I saw a young man jogging the circle and no one else. He looked to be about late teens to early twenties. I didn’t think anything of it, it’s a popular place to walk.

But when he spotted me coming he froze. He moved off the trail. I was still a ways off so it seemed oddly preemptive. Then to my surprise he went even further to move back into the bushes.

I hastily took off a headphone so I could listen to my surroundings and texted my betrothed and friend to be like, “Hey, here’s where I am on my walk and there’s some kid making me nervous.”

I aborted my trip on the loop since I would have had to pass by his patch of bushes, and continued down the main sidewalk. To my alarm I saw him moving closer through the bushes and I sped up to clear his hiding spot before he intersected with me. I had one glimpse of his blank staring face from his hiding spot before I was safely passed.

I immediately called my betrothed to be like, “There’s some Bush Boy making me nervous, stay on the phone!” I finished the circuit and had to head back the way I’d come from. My betrothed asked if they should come get me but I was feeling a little silly so I said no. I was jumpy on the walk back but didn’t see him again.

It’s possible that he was just a weird kid but it spooked me. Now my betrothed and I will call someone a Bush Boy if they’re behaving like a creep or we have reason to suspect they’re up to something.

“So-and-so is being a real Bush Boy,” is a common phrase for us. I’ve never seen him again.

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

unsung benefit i think a lot of ppl are sleeping on with using the public library is that i think its a great replacement for the dopamine hit some ppl get from online shopping. it kind of fills that niche of reserving something that you then get to anticipate the arrival of and enjoy when it arrives, but without like, the waste and the money.

[an-autistic-with-personhood]

Had a 'fun' new experience today in the form of my first ever mammogram because I found a lump on my chest a few weeks ago, and when you find a lump, you get that shit checked out.

Ironically, the lump I went to get investigated turned out to be nothing, likely just a cyst that made its way to the surface, but they did find something else on the scan that requires me to do a follow-up ultrasound in six months. The doctor stressed that it is most likely a fibroid, but given my family history of breast cancer and general weird health fuckery, they're being vigilant and keeping an eye on it.

The mammogram itself was fine. The technician doing it kept complimenting me on the "pliable" nature of my breast tissue and how easy it was to smoosh me into the machine. I was like thanks, I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome; my body is basically made of only slightly more reinforced laffy taffy.

She said, "That explains that," and then proceeded to smush my tits into a pancake. Apparently, they were the most compliant tits she's worked with. I said thank you because what else can you do in that situation. And then she asked me if I wanted to know how much they weighed, and I said boy, do I?!

So she started reading off the results and was like, "17.7 lbs," and I was like, gosh, no wonder they feel so heavy, and then she kept talking and said, "And the other one weighs..."

And that's when I realized she didn't mean total.

She meant one boob was 17.7lbs.

So in case you've ever wanted to know, my right boob weighs 17.7 lbs, and my left one weighs 17.3 lbs, bringing the grand weight hanging off my chest to an even 35 lbs.

The tech was like "gosh! That's a lot for someone of your size!" and I was like "ya fucking think?!"

For a frame of reference, I weigh 136 lbs total. One-quarter of my weight is tits.

I am one-quarter titty.

And I'm telling that to the next doctor who suggests I lose weight.

Anyway. Remember to do regular breast exams, and don't be afraid of mammograms. Yes, they're checking for cancer, but they also tell you fun things like how much your chest weighs and whether or not your boobs are compliant.