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put stickers on my aac device! featuring a couple toys i got on thursday and a lamb i thrifted & named flock!

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I took my little brother (autistic, mostly non verbal) out and he was using his voice keyboard to tell me something, and this little boy (maybe 4 or 5?) heard him and asked me "Is he a robot??" I tried to explain to him that no, he isn't a robot, he just communicates differently, but my darling brother was in the background max volume "I am robot I am robot I am robot I am robot"

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Hi! Where did you make the green AAC cards that you posted? I want to do mine in Brazilian Portuguese and I want to be able to translate it. Many thanks!

I made mine on procreate! Then I printed them and my schools library people laminated them for me

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Fox, a nonspeaking autistic boy who learned to communicate with RPM when he was 8, on what autism acceptance means to him.

ACCEPTANCE IS BEING APPRECIATED AND LIKED TOTALLY AS YOU ARE. ABILITY TO TALK AND CONTROL YOUR BODY NOT A CONDITION OF BEING LIKED. ACCEPTANCE TO ME ALWAYS IS HARD TO GET. I AM ACCEPTING OF ALL AUTISTICS AND FEEL IT IS AN EASY THING TO DO SO I HOPE OTHERS WILL TRY IT TOO. I THINK AUTISTICS ARE SUPER FRIENDS TO HAVE AND I THINK AUTISM ALSO CAN BE A GREAT THING TO HAVE. I AM TOTALLY BEING A HAPPY AUTISTIC. ABILITY TO APPRECIATE SO MANY HARD DAYS AND GET OVER SCARY TIMES IN MY LIFE IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE MY AUTISM IS ACCEPTED AND LOVED BY LOVING FAMILY AND FRIENDS. BE ACCEPTING OF EVERYONE, IT ALWAYS THE NICEST WAY TO BE. FINDING GOOD AMAZING THINGS ABOUT AUTISM IS NOT THAT HARD, GIVE IT A TRY.

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greetings

AAC sideblog

will update this pinned post at some point

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PSA: Please don’t ask participants to do grounding/mindful/somatic/etc practices at your events

Grounding exercises should not be an activity in large group settings, especially unsolicited and without warning, especially if you’re not aware of every single person in the space’s mental health conditions, physical health conditions, and personal relationship to their body.

Practices such as mindfulness, grounding, somatic exercises, breathing techniques, body scans, etc. are very helpful therapeutic tools to help manage stress. They can (and do!) help plenty of people– when taught safely and used effectively!

HOWEVER for people with conditions that cause psychosis and/or dissociative conditions such as depersonalization/derealization, these techniques are contraindicated and can make their symptoms significantly worse. They should only be used with guidance from their mental health team and adapted to their needs. For people with conditions like anxiety and PTSD, being aware of breathing can trigger a trauma response or anxiety attacks.

And for people with conditions that cause chronic pain or other uncomfortable bodily sensations, becoming re-centered with their bodies can cause more awareness of the pain they are in, which a level of (ideally functional) dissociation is actually helpful. For people in wheelchairs and powerchairs, touching the ground beneath their feet isn’t always an option. For people with cardiac and pulmonary conditions, deep breathing can be impossible or can trigger asthma attacks. For disabled people in general, doing body scans can be impossible due to paralysis or limb differences. They can bring awareness to things the person wasn’t aware were wrong to begin with (which is helpful in certain spaces, but not a great ice breaker at a retreat!)

And for trans people, binders and other garments can restrict breathing, and taking repeated deep breaths while binding can cause rib damage (which is why you shouldn't bind at night, while coughing from sickness, while exercising, etc). Becoming centered in a body that makes you dysphoric can be deeply distressing, again, a level of functional dissociation helps.

This also goes for plenty of other people in marginalized bodies, such as people of color, people who use substances, queer people, and more. Becoming grounded in your own marginalized body can be a heavy weight to carry, and needs appropriate and individualized care to be a beneficial experience.

As an alternative, I suggest doing a round of gratitudes instead, it allows for people to choose their level of vulnerability in spaces, while not being generally contraindicated for many people. Doing fun (and appropriate to the setting) icebreakers are great. Ask what brings someone to the space. Check-ins about basic needs such as if people need to use the restroom, eat, drink water, are rested, etc. can be more appropriate body check-ins for folks to do.

I don’t recommend doing these exercises even with a warning beforehand. If I'm in the room while someone is leading a breathing exercise, even if I try to ignore it, I (and most people) would automatically become aware of my breathing. The same goes for any other techniques. These techniques can cause real, life-threatening levels of harm for some people, and can even just be deeply uncomfortable or distressing for others. Dissociation is not inherently evil or bad or harmful. It is the way the body and mind naturally respond to adverse experiences (note: it can also cause distress and at higher levels, can be disordered) it is best to allow people to exist as they are in communal spaces. Let people show up as they are.

Most spaces are not equipped or appropriate to respond to emergencies, difficult feelings, and all the varied responses that can come from folks doing mindfulness in group settings.

I personally do some things before large gatherings and events to feel centered on the activity I’ll be doing, and afterward, I decompress. Encourage participants to lean on their natural supports and offer suggestions for it! Be creative in your caring!

This also doesn’t mean to discourage these practices! If you see someone doing deep breathing, check in with them, offer a space for them to decompress, care for them! Worksheets or posters on techniques like square breathing and 5 senses check-ins are great for a quiet room or spaces where participants can decide if they want/are able to engage with those tools. It should be a fully consensual opt-in, rather than being forced to opt-out. Having to leave a room when a group leader says “We’re going to start a mindful breathing meditation, please feel free to leave if you have psychosis, chronic pain, or are trans” is obviously othering and outs people.

Sincerely, someone who has psychotic symptoms, dissociation, chronic pain, is trans and whose body is marginalized in many ways and is really tired from trying to explain this at every event I go to

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the genocide is now as bad as it has ever been and more undeniable than it has ever been. israel is doubling down on starving every gazan and destroying every remaining piece of infrastructure until they leave. and humanitarian workers who have had access to gaza before - including WFP, WCK, UNICEF are being prevented from gaining access by israel. if you've ever seen images of kids with pots clamoring at kitchens that usually accompany articles on "looming famine in gaza" (as though it is a natural disaster and not an imposed famine by israel in gaza) then you should know that those kids have been showing up and finding nobody there, because the stores have run out and the volunteers are being prevented from access. now is the time to talk about gaza, and more importantly now is the time to point the finger at the state of israel that is committing genocide openly, audaciously, hatefully

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also what is the dealio with therians referring to animals as “theriform” ???? like i am getting that it is to distinguish therians from animals but also. tbh if you come at me with that i’ll hit u over the head w a frying pan bc

1. i have canine dna

2. i am physically a dog

3. are we doing assigned species at birth for therianthropy? who on earth does that benefit?

4. if you tell me i am human or have a human body you are wrong

5. this just feels like another way to say ohhhh therians know they’re ACTUALLY human don’t worry guyz we’re not crazy ��� ??? is anyone else getting that vibe or am i literally delusional. /genq

6. i have watched my head morph into a dog head on several occasions. would that not make me, someone generally perceived as human, theriform????

sorry if this came off as prickly i’m just???? confused?????? and agitated that once again it feels like, physical nonhumans, endels and CL/CZs are thrown by the wayside in hopes of creating a nice neat and digestible version of therianthropy.

please do let me know if i’ve gravely misunderstood anything here, but those are just my first impressions and again, i could totally be reading wayyy too much into this

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Why We Left the Alterhuman Community

Hello, again. Some of you may have noticed our inactivity on this account. There is reason for this beyond our own personal life making us busy.

The main reason for our inactivity is that we no longer consider ourselves part of the alterhuman community. We are still nonhuman, but we can no longer involve ourselves in the alterhuman, otherkin, therian, or adjacent communities because of rampant racism, colonialism, ableism, and human-centrism.

Particularly in terms of the hatred and exclusion of physical nonhumans and those whose nonhumanity is intertwined with indigenous and/or traditional cultural practices.

The alterhuman community promotes and enforces western colonialist hegemonic ideology of the self, the individual, and social reality. It centers humans as the primary and only true intelligence of the Earth, it enforces strict, socially constructed definitions of human vs nonhuman, it erases traditional cultural practices and spirituality - especially that of indigenous cultures - and it enforces institutional ableism and sanism against those who experience different realities.

Much of the community, especially the "big name" popular accounts, are aggressively opposed to any claim of physical nonhumanity beyond a strictly  philosophical approach ("I am nonhuman, this is my body, therefore my body is nonhuman"). And if someone does claim to be physically nonhuman, they are required to admit that it is only within the confines of a personal subjective reality, and concede that their personal reality is lesser than the supposed "objective reality" -  in which all of us are demonstrably physically human and can only think we're nonhuman.

One is essentially required to admit that their experiences are not actually real and that they are solely constructs of the mind. You're required to either identify as a delusional individual of some kind, or state that it's only a philosophical viewpoint.

And even when one does state that they are experiencing nonhumanity through the lens of delusion or mental illness, they are still excluded from the community by means of constant reality checking and enforcement of hegemonic reality.

The concept of physically shifting to something nonhuman is possibly the most viciously attacked experience. They completely ignore the fact that physical shifting to other forms is extremely prevelant within indigenous and non-western cultures, and that the erasure of such beliefs and practices is a direct result of colonialist enforcement of hegemonic norms.

The promotion of hegemonic "objective reality" as the be-all-end-all of what is true, possible, and acceptable has led to the complete exclusion of people who cannot make their experiences compatible with it. And if one cannot make their experiences compatible, they are often labeled as dangerous, manipulative, or accused of grooming young nonhumans into certain belief systems.

The irony being, that these social values are the result of centuries of propaganda, indoctrination, and genocide. The ideology of what is and isn't human, especially regarding physical traits, is one of the core pillars of institutional racism. Wherin people of color as defined by their phenotypal traits as being subhuman, and those who actually identify as nonhuman in some manner have their autonomy removed and also treated as subhuman. Subhuman doesnt mean "nonhuman", but rather less than human.

When people encorce this ideology, they are actively contributing to the subhumanization of many groups, human and otherwise. We can no longer stand by this. As much as we have enjoyed participating and having discussions over the years, we've realized that unfortunately these ideologies have an absolute strangehold over the community. We've tried time and time again to break through it, but we've been shot down repeatedly and people just won't listen, despite our position of relative privilege and respect within the community.

We will be continuing to interact with other nonhumans and people with alternative experiences online. We won't publicly reveal our new account here but it should not be difficult to find us. We are far less active online in general, but when we are we will be discussing our genuine experiences without the limitations of these restrictive social norms.

If you wish to continue interacting with us, feel free to DM and we will give you some form of contact.

Thank you, and we wish best of luck to those in the community who will continue trying to break down these harmful ideologies.

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We’re gonna getcha

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honestly, starclan as a religion... kinda sucks. it acts more like a magical system, or something. there are no religious holidays, and there's no like,,, "rational explanation" for atheists and other cats that don't believe in starclan. like it's canon that starclan exists and they have a legitimate afterlife and these cats can also physically manifest on earth?? there's no folklore, like a creation story. apprentices don't have any pilgrimages to the holy site before getting their full name anymore. it's all so... empty and boring.

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TMA lino print from class!

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EMOTE UPDATE!

These are not my tim and Sasha ones I promised.. BUUUUUT here they are regardless for now.

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Most of the symbols are from AACIL although I drew the “want” symbol and the question folder. For the dyslexic font, on coughdrop you can change the font in device layout, in the preferences tab.

To my AAC-using friends: Please show me your device/card/board setups, I love seeing others' AAC systems! 😁

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Fractals and Fragments AAC

To my AAC-using friends: Please show me your device/card/board setups, I love seeing others' AAC systems! 😁