#and are instead attributed to autism

[sunflowermp4]

she gets it

"Actress Taylor Dearden partly attributes her character's sense of calm concentration to her ADHD, a condition Dearden has herself and pushed to give to Dr. Mel, too. While the Max medical drama never explicitly states that Mel is neurodivergent, Dearden says the part was written to imply it. "I was informing the writers that, actually, ADHD and autism are on the same spectrum now.

All of the research is done together," she explains. "There's an incredibly high percentage of ADHD in emergency departments, in firefighters, in all emergency workers." Through this lens, Dearden realized she could bring an entirely different facet of herself to the character. "I was like, well, I'm going to play everything I mask," says the actress. "I'm just going to let that show instead.""

[hertenskylarks]

One point that I want to talk about:

In the podcast, Clarie mentioned how she reached out to Gaiman with the intention of saying what she felt she needed to say and asking for an apology. This struck me because I did something similar with my rapist, and the response I received was eerily similar to Claire's experience.

Like Claire, when I called my rapist, I was fully expecting him to be defensive. I was fully expecting him to be dismissive and to shift the blame onto me. I was prepared to counter his excuses.

Instead, what I got was what seemed, at the time, like a sincere apology.

Yet, despite how genuine it sounded, I've always doubted his sincerity.The reason boils down to two words: damage control. When he realized I was confronting him, he said whatever he needed to say to pacify me. In Claire's case, Neil did the same. He apologized, claimed ignorance, attributed his failure to pick up signals to his autism, insisted he had never done this before, asked how he could improve, and even made a token donation to a charity Claire cared about.

How nice of him (sarcasm).

And for Neil, it worked… temporarily. After receiving what seemed like a sincere apology, Claire backed off. She decided against coming forward, felt she had the closure she wanted, and believed—or wanted to believe—that he wouldn't do it again.

But that's exactly what Neil wanted.

We now know that was a blatant lie. Not only did Neil target at least one other woman afterward, but Claire wasn't his first victim, nor likely his second or third. Not only is he a liar, he’s a GOOD liar. Here is this woman, Clair, who is finally calling him out on his bullshit, ready to hold him accountable for his bad behavior, is saying “No, I didn’t kiss you first, you kissed me first,” and “No, that’s not an excuse.” She still walked away believing (or wanting to believe) his apology was sincere and that he wouldn't do it again, even though he probably knew full well he was going to strike again. If he could convince Claire, in that situation, that he was genuine, imagine what else he's lied about, covered up with PR, lawyers, editing, rehearsing, and years of practice.

Actually, we don't have to imagine, because we already know. For years, Neil has constructed this persona of someone safe, someone who champions believing women, diversity, inclusion, and all these noble causes. Much of his fanbase resonated with these values and looked up to him for it. Hell, I used to think that man was a national treasure. And now we have to cope with the realization that the persona our hero constructed is a complete fucking farce.

Edit: So apparently, one of the newest allegations comes from a woman who had a bad encounter with him in the fucking 80s. Y'all, he's been at it for like 40 fucking years. That's longer than some of his survivors have been alive. I can't even...

[chloepleasestopdying]

Random little headcanons because I haven’t done one of these in a while;

Max got diagnosed with autism after she moved and just never remembers that Chloe doesn’t know because she regularly forgets the people closest to her don’t know Big Facts about her. Thus she forgets to tell Chloe she’s autistic and her parents that’s she’s bisexual.

Chloe would probably guess the above but most of the classic signs of autism she just attributes to Max being Max. She’s known her for so long that it’s all normal to her.

Chloe is the better cook, mostly because she’s cooked more. She’s really good at grilling because she used to do it at the junkyard to avoid going home.

Max forgets to eat a LOT. If she’s focused enough she just doesn’t feel hunger. Most of her actually eating something depends on either quick snacks or having a routine. She kinda hates cooking because it’s so much work for so little gain — if left alone she’ll just eat like five snacks and call it a meal. Accidentally makes her friends think she has an eating disorder during college because of it until Chloe puts like ten reminders on her phone to at least eat a meal bar or something.

That being said; Max loves chocolate and has a lot of strong opinions about different brands.

Chloe was/is a horse girl. She LOVED Spirit and if she’s drunk enough she’ll do a ten to twenty minute rant about how it’s beautiful and how much she hates the Netflix show.

To the surprise of many, Max is the one to deal with spiders. Chloe fucking hates them but while Max doesn’t either, she can’t kill them or let someone else do it so she’s the one that moves them outside.

Chloe, Max and William played World of Warcraft a lot before William died. Afterwards Chloe and Max stopped playing for years until they started dating. Chloe’s main was a forsaken warrior, while Max’s was a Tauren hunter (honestly just because she liked collecting pets) Chloe made them choose the Horde, btw

Max wants to like black coffee so SO bad because she really likes the coffee house aesthetic but she can’t. She hates coffee. Instead she drinks tea. Chloe made fun of people that like pumpkin spin flavored drinks until she had one and now she’s addicted to them.



[hyperlexichypatia]

Follow up to this post where I was asked about the "Autism presents differently in girls" myth, which is one of my many berserk buttons.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of reasons this concept makes no sense and you should stop saying it:

A. Autistic people are more likely than non-autistic people to be trans, nonbinary, or otherwise gender-non-conforming, so any attempt to group autistic people by binary, birth-assigned gender is even less likely to be accurate than the gender binary already is in the general population.

2. There is absolutely no evidence supporting the "presents differently" theory that could not be better explained by clinician bias.

iii. The alleged "presentation differences" between autistic "girls" and "boys" are just bog-standard gender stereotypes with "autism" plugged in somewhere. "Boys are better at math and science and logic and not having feelings and their dominant emotion is Anger, but girls are better at socializing and caretaking and brushing hair and their dominant emotion is Approval-Seeking." "Huh, that sounds like reactionary sexist hogwash." "No, I mean, autistic boys are better at math and science and logic and not having feelings and their dominant emotion is Anger, but but autistic girls are better at socializing and caretaking and brushing hair and their dominant emotion is Approval-Seeking." "Oh, okay, now it's Objective Science."

four. Sexist bias, including among clinicians, tends to frame "male" neurodivergence as essentially cognitive and "female" neurodivergence as essentially emotional, because, as we all know, Men Think, Women Feel. Psychology is obsessed with the idea that "girls" are universally and inherently self-loathing and self-destructive -- anything a "girl" has trouble with cannot possible be a skill she hasn't learned or an ability she doesn't have, let alone merely a different way of being; she must simply be self-abnegatingly denying herself the thing she cannot do. So a "girl" with the same traits as an "autistic boy" will have those traits attributed to something emotional, like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, or eating disorders. "Autistic girls" aren't being "missed" (read as neurotypical); they're having their exact same autistic traits as "autistic boys" being framed as mood disorders instead of neurodevelopmental disabilities.

cinco. Fundamentally, this premise gets completely backward what diagnosis means and why pathologization happens. People are pathologized and diagnosed, with any kind of disability, when they have traits that fall outside the range of traits considered "acceptable" for their position. "It's more acceptable for boys to have meltdowns, so autistic boys have more meltdowns than autistic girls, so the boys get diagnosed with autism" -- No, this doesn't make sense. That's not how diagnosis works. If it were more acceptable for boys to have meltdowns, then boys who have meltdowns would not be getting diagnosed with anything. Their behavior would not be seen as pathological. If "It's more acceptable for boys to have meltdowns" were to explain any kind of diagnosis differential, it would be "Therefore girls who have meltdowns are diagnosed, while boys who have meltdowns are just considered normal boys." And, to be clear, that kind of thing is absolutely a factor in gender differences in diagnosis, but in the opposite direction from how people mean it. Like, as a "girl," I wasn't really expected or pressured to be athletic, so my absolutely abysmal gross motor skills were just shrugged at and not seen as a sign of disability. Can't run or throw? Well, I was a girl, and a nerd to boot. What do you expect? A "boy" with my level of gross motor skills would draw a lot more Concern.

ζ. "Girls are pressured to mimic/mask more than boys are," even if true (debatable), elides over the fact that many autistic "girls" can't "mimic/mask," because they are disabled. They have a disability. Because some of the things their society expects them to be able to do are things that they cannot, in fact, do. "Girls don't have meltdowns because they're not allowed to. Girls don't forget to do essential tasks because they're not allowed to. Girls don't --" Okay but they do. Girls do in fact very much do those things. Because they are disabled. Because they have disabilities. Because there are things they are expected to be able to do, which they cannot, in fact, do. And it's weirdly disability-erasing (ableist) to claim that people simply develop the ability to do things they can't do just because they're expected to.

heptad. Circling back to point A., while I can't prove it, I really think a lot of this "gendered autism" stuff is a way to pathologize and also explain away queerness/transness/gender-non-conformity in diagnosed-autistic kids. "Oh, no, don't worry, the reason your son consistently Fails At Masculinity isn't because he's some kind of sissy; it's actually because he has this Masculine Male Boy Disorder where he just doesn't understand how boys are supposed to behave. Lots of boys have it. No, no, the reason your 12 year old son is kissing his male friend on the mouth isn't because he's gay; he just has a social skills disorder and doesn't know that boys don't kiss their platonic guy mate dude friends. It's a very masculine disability. Elon Musk has it." I know somebody who was told by an Autism Mom that all autistic people are bisexual because "They don't know the difference." Sure, keep telling yourself that.

8️⃣. In the past, when I was less Galaxy Brain Mad Radicalized, I conceptualized the phenomenon of "'Boys' are diagnosed with autism while 'girls' with the exact same traits are diagnosed with depression/anxiety/OCD/BPD/ED" as a phenomenon of "Autistic girls, who objectively are autistic, whose objectively, scientifically correct diagnosis is autism, are misdiagnosed with psych disorders instead." But what neither autistic nor Mad people really want to admit is that "autism" is as arbitrary a diagnostic category as any other. No two human brains are exactly alike. All systems of classification are made up. I happen to think that the proposed explanatory mechanism of "autism" (brain processes sensory input/information differently than average, results in wildly uneven skill development) is generally more accurate than the proposed explanatory mechanism of most psych diagnoses (people are weird somehow and that's bad somehow), but it's still fairly arbitrary. People with autism diagnoses get ABA and people with psych diagnoses get CBT/DBT, and you can argue about which is worse, but ultimately anything with a B in it is fundamentally abusive. Abolish psychiatry.

[autistichalsin]

I am not sure if you have made a post in depth about it or not, but knowing that there are many different types of autism/autistic traits, is there any specific trait(s) that you attribute to Halsin? I am just curious because of your URL and would love to know more about your headcanon!

Yeah, I have made posts about it! I don't have links at the moment but some of my favorites are:

Being unnerved by the phrase "I'm all ears"

Taking "you can say that again" literally

Being confused if rejected and thinking you asking about his lovers was flirting

In the platonic path dialogue, the way he just declares you friends

In the same scene, him not realizing the player snarking about him inviting himself along was telling him to get lost, and instead sheepishly apologizing for it

His special interest is nature and animals

He has lines about finding the noise of the city overwhelming

He has a history with Thaniel, a fey boy

He has a rapport with children and animals in particular, which many autistic people do

He gets VERY awkward when he's asked about himself, not knowing what to say and self-deprecatingly says his love of nature and animals is probably well-trodden territory already

I could go on for hours tbh lol

[watermelonfaerie]

Hey So- This is BULLSHIT.

Hey there! So this is going to be a long post- but here is my TLDR: The basis that autistic writers are getting flagged for AI is utter bullshit and you all really need to stop reading everything you see on *REDDIT* as fucking gospel. My essay will now follow. First off, hello! My name is Lila and I am a dyslexic and autistic writer. I have been writing fanfiction and fictional narratives since the first grade! I am also an artist, a singer and a voice actor. I am *very* creatively inclined on all sides of this argument. I would like to know who what when where why and HOW you all- [royally, I'm speaking to a specific group of people who decided reddit was the place to get this information and did ZERO research?] - decided that the take would be: "Oh AuTisTic WrItErS aRe At RiSk Of PiNgInG aS aI-" You do realize that this is pandering to a an EXTREME and very SMALL part of the population with Autism??? So you're going to tell me that every person with Autism is robotic and cannot convey emotions / writes as a cliff faced awkward phrasing individual? I need you to go ahead and look at the facts instead of trying to think that a reddit post with an individual who probably falls into the category of having alexithymia. Lets define that- shall we? Alexithymia, also called emotional blindness,[1] is a neuropsychological phenomenon characterized by significant challenges in recognizing, expressing, feeling, sourcing,[2] and describing one's emotions. Alexithymia IS NOT AUTISM. However it is proven that a little over 50% of people with Autism can and do *have* various degrees of alexithymia. According to an article written by the National Library of Medicine "However, not all autistic people have alexithymia, with a recent study finding a prevalence rate of 55% in autistic adolescents [23]. Consequently, Bird & Cook [6] have proposed the “alexithymia hypothesis” of ASD: that the emotion processing difficulties seen in ASD stem from co-occurring alexithymia, rather than representing a core feature. In line with this hypothesis, research has found that alexithymia, and not ASD, is predictive of problems with emotion processing" With this in mind: NOT EVERYONE WITH AUTISM HAS A PROBLEM / OR THE INABILITY OF CONVEYING OR EXPRESSING EMOTIONS / UNDERSTANDING THEM. And thinking that people with autism are all the same: not understanding sarcasm, unable to convey emotion and or being put under the label of being slower than other people [to put it lightly] is an uneducated and ableist take that I am NOT going to sit idly on. Now- A reddit post has been circulating that people on the ASD spectrum-[because some people don't know- it IS a spectrum of various degrees of needing accommodations and different attributes that may or may not afflict them!] -are getting flagged for AI usage for NON NATIVE SPEAKERS WHILE TRANSLATING THEIR WRITING. Meaning- AI taking one language- trying to cram it into another language syntax and sentence structure without the aid of a NATIVE SPEAKER / READER /WRITER yeah- its going to churn it out to be awkward- robotic- too formal - and most of the time BLATANTLY INCORRECT. Because translators by themselves CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT be the only way you translate your fanfictions / writing. This already has NOTHING to do with how someone with Autism writes naturally! Therefore cannot be CONCLUSIVE to the fucking argument at hand that Autistic native speaking writers are going to get wrongfully flagged as using AI.

[plurapony]

I know we've all seen the posts that claim to know when strangers online are faking DID. They're wrong of course! but we all know that and frankly I'm tired of discussing the same points. So instead I wanna get inside their heads and see WHY they think that they can tell if someone is faking!!! Fun!!!

1. Internalized Ableism

There's a lot of shame that comes with a diagnosis of DID. Some people are utterly terrified of being seen as weird or different by society, and for some that can translate into projecting their shame onto those who are comfortable with their disorder. It's a simple philosophy, if you think someone is cringe and you share a diagnosis with them then that means you're cringe too, so if you convince yourself that they are actually faking their diagnosis - you're off the hook and you're not cringe!

DID is very much a spectrum and some people are going to have more obvious symptoms than others. There are some people that have a complete inability to mask their symptoms too. It's like someone with high-functioning autism looking down on someone else who has low-functioning autism. Still ableism even if you share the disorder!

2. Lack of Research & Highly Populated Misinformation.

DID is an extremely under researched disorder, this is something we all know about. This means that a lot of therapists (even trauma informed specialists) aren't experts on DID, and as individuals we are constantly getting things wrong. When it comes to things like commorbid disorders it's basically uncharted territory! I have OCPD and believe me with the DID combo I have NO IDEA about what is going on in my brain 90% of the time.

Which means that misinformation gets spread a TONNE because if there isn't an available study to debunk it, how can we know if it's not true? For example there was an article that went round that gave an average amount of alters. That's great but for an average to be accurate they need to have the appropriate sample size (commborid disorders, different types of trauma, split tolerances, ages etc you get the point) This study didn't have all of that but it got spread anyways. There have also been claims that DID cannot be diagnosed until over the age of 18 which is entirely false. It's a disorder formed in childhood and if the child is in the right kind of treatment it can potentially be spotted MUCH earlier. ALL THE TIME I see people on Tumblr attributing systems with large amounts of introjects to faking DID. Which is just... introjects aren't a rare phenomenon! It's just not that big of a deal and it's definitely not worth fakeclaiming someone over.

3. Gold Star DID & Difference in Presentation

There are people in this community who have been diagnosed with DID and receive regular therapy treatment. Happy for them! But some of them take it too far and use it as an opportunity to become pretentious towards other systems. They know themselves and their own symptoms, so they think that they know everyone else's symptoms as well.

The truth is that there is no such thing as Gold Star DID and everyone is going to have different experiences with DID. Yes, everyone still needs the DSM criteria of course but we are human and as individuals we are all incredibly different - that's going to translate into our disorders!

So to end this, you cannot tell when someone is faking but these are all reasons people THINK they might know if someone is faking!

[nadiuu]

I saw a post mentioning how Matt most likely has ADHD, and since I 100% agree, I wanted to elaborate a bit here (also because I’ll approach it from a matt/mello angle and I don’t want to annoy anyone who doesn’t ship them). I’ve also noticed that this is a headcanon that many people share, so I’d like to delve deeper into it. I’ve been meaning to write a mini-analysis on why these two are so compatible due to their neurodivergences. Please keep in mind that English isn’t my native language so sorry for any mistakes, and I’ll be projecting a lot of myself here, so be kind XDD

It’s not crazy to think that Matt might have ADHD based on the few clues we have in canon. Mogui and Misa’s escape could indeed be attributed to good planning, and not necessarily Matt’s fault, but the guy makes it clear that he’s absolutely bored to death having to keep watch and is always glued to his console.

And you might say: Nadiu, just because he gets bored watching something static doesn’t mean he has trouble concentrating. Sure, it’s normal to get bored. But Matt is aware of how important it is to keep watch, and even then, he can’t help it. If his brain doesn’t receive enough stimuli, he dieeeees (which could be an indicator of his giftedness), and he’ll seek out little dopamine boosts wherever he can. If it’s not gaming, it’ll be eating junk food. If it’s not eating, it’ll be smoking. This could indicate a certain level of anxiety (again, a possible indicator of giftedness or ADHD).

We also know he’s someone who hates the outdoors. Why might this be? For someone with ADHD, being surrounded by too much stimulation can be overwhelming. Gifted people will tend to notice everything around them, and those with 2e (gifted + ADHD) may struggle to focus their attention if they’re overstimulated. They pick up on all the stimuli and can’t focus on just one. This could lead them to prefer isolating themselves, at least occasionally, especially when they reach burnout.

Another thing to consider is his lack of sociability. This doesn’t have to be exclusive to ADHD because it’s also common among gifted people, even without 2e. For gifted people, socializing can be hard if there’s nothing engaging to take away from a conversation (our greatest enemy is small talk hahhaha). This doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s a fairly common factor. We like to keep our brains stimulated 24/7.

Now imagine someone who perceives everything around them, analyzes every detail, and can’t discern what’s important and what isn’t. They’re chatting with you, but instead of focusing on what you’re saying, they can’t help but notice your eyelid twitching e.g., which might mean you’re stressed, and then they start thinking about all the possible reasons you might be stressed. Meanwhile, there are countless sounds and stimuli around them that they can’t ignore. It’s going to be hard for them to really listen to you, and they might not feel at peace until they get home, where they can finally relax. Gifted people can also be sensitive to light and sound; in our homes, we control everything. They’re our safe spaces.

Again, this doesn’t have to be true for everyone. Let’s remember that every person is unique.

That leads me to Mello—he’s an example of how someone can be gifted and still be sociable. I don’t think Mello has any neurodivergence beyond his giftedness, without 2e (adhd or autism). I know there’s some debate about whether giftedness counts as a neurodivergence, but let’s assume it does for the sake of this post ahhahah

I think the most interesting trait of Mello, in terms of his giftedness, is his hyper-demanding nature. We tend to be perfectionists, extremely demanding of ourselves, which leads to low frustration tolerance. We want to achieve excellence and can become obsessive in pursuing our goals. However, we’re very likely to encounter obstacles (without obstacles there’s no growth), but we often don’t know how to deal with them. Needless to say, this ties in with Near, who is a prodigy, and with Mello’s inferiority complex.

So, why are Matt and Mello such a good match?

First of all, in Wammy’s House, Matt didn’t pose a threat to Mello. Matt was ranked third, and whether it was due to a lack of interest or difficulties with studying, he never surpassed Mello. For Mello, anything below him wasn’t important; what deserved all his attention was whatever was above him.

We have to assume they maintained some kind of friendship at Wammy’s House because years later, when Mello is left on his own, he reaches out to Matt, and Matt comes to his aid. Matt drops everything to go to him. He knows what he’s getting into, the risks involved, and yet he does it. He must have some motivation to help find Kira. And if it’s alongside his old friend, even better.

Here’s where the sociability factor comes in. How many friendships could an introverted guy have made in those five years, after losing the ‘shelter’ of an orphanage full of kids similar to him and being thrown into the real world, surrounded by neurotypical people? You get what I mean, right...? Mello must have left some sort of mark on him if Matt went all the way to New York for him. Could it be that he was already in New York? Maybe, but let me dream hahaha

Now imagine how an introvert and an extrovert, both incapable of forming and maintaining relationships with others due to that sense of being misunderstood (‘the world is neurotypical and I’ve never dealt with it’), complement each other. This makes me think about Near’s loneliness, but we’ll leave that for another day XD Matt works from the safety of home, and Mello, obsessed with success, has no problem going out because he takes the world head-on. Matt, who has likely felt somewhat useless his whole life because of his ADHD, has Mello by his side telling him “I choose you”. Matt, who might have always been a bit insecure, has Mello betting on him. Maybe because he has no other choice? Maybe, but if Mello wants to find someone else who can truly understand him, his only option is Matt.

Mello, who’s willing to blow himself up to win, then has Matt telling him, “Calm down. Stay in tonight to play video games and smoke a joint.” Mello, who has some suicidal idea for catching Kira, shares it with Matt, and Matt agrees because his brain has produced more dopamine in two months than in five years. The Kira case is a puzzle that stimulates them and gives them a purpose.

To wrap this up, I want to share a dialogue (still a rough draft) that will appear later in my fic, putting the cherry on top of this tragedy. Matt tries to dissuade Mello from pursuing the Kira case after the massive scar he earned on his face.

Matt: Why is it your duty to keep going? Why yours? Mello: Who else will do it? Who can keep up with Kira? Matt: You, right? Or Near. Or me. Because we had the sheer luck of being born with this intellect. Mello: Yes. Matt: No. You and I have no duty to a society that failed us. We don’t have to fix the problems of a society that let us rot in that institution. Is it because we’re orphans? Is that it? Do we have nothing to lose but our lives? No one to mourn us if we die? Because there are plenty of other people out there with the abilities you and I have, and I don’t see them risking their necks the way you do. They weren’t pushed to become detectives. They have something to lose; they have their families. Do you deserve to die just because no one will miss you?

And if you’ll allow me to break your heart a little more, Matt’s next thought is:

'Because it’s not even true. You’ll kill me if I lose you again.'

[thecoolerliauditore]

your offhand mention of Scott maybe having autism made me think about his over-editing as a metaphor for masking. no other thoughts I just think it's neat

REAL ‼️‼️

I lovee you meta analysis I loveeee you. Him being autistic would also go very well with how he views romance and relationships e.g. him calling scar grian's husband out of the blue and being Like That about himself and Jimmy (I know that's usually attributed to him being aro but I feel like it works here too).

Lots of the more off the wall stuff he says could easily be seen as him trying to be funny or perform a role (mostly the boomer i hate my wife role) and coming off as rude or horrifying instead -- I think his interactions with Pearl in the first WL episode could be seen as him trying his best to bond with her for example and the sympathy isn't sympathy-ing so he doubles down not realising she isn't enjoying it. After all he did make it very clear in SL he thought they were over their problems and Pearl was like Yeah :) so he might take that as a cue that it's okay to joke about ++ he's still sore about it and not aware of just how passive aggressive he's being.

It's kind of making me sad cus part of me now wants to say that he's comfortable enough with Pearl and that's what's resulting in so many of his more socially not ideal traits popping up when he talks to her specifically but it could also be a consequence of him just not seeing her as a person I'm not ready to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one quite yet.

(not trying to make it sound as though Pearl is in the wrong here that Scott isn't able to read the room it's still Scott's responsibility to not be an ass but "I feel bad about the thing you did but I'm not going to admit that to myself or you" and "you haven't yelled at me to stop expressing my frustrations passive aggressively" is a crazy combo)

That line he said to Cleo at the end of her WL episode 2 about how he "doesn't hold grudges" and is "just petty" is also definitely. Something.

The whole. Scott makes himself less likeable by refusing to show vulnerability and only presenting himself as "good" to me also echoes the whole. Autistic kid who gets told their behaviour is bad so they change themselves to be "good" at every opportunity but "good"comes off instead as off-putting and insincere and they end up at square one with still being unlikeable.

There's also something here about the character's ableism like I don't think it's too controversial of me to say he talks in a very ableist way about both Jimmy (incapable) and Pearl (batshit crazy). Which very much To Me ties into his constant masking.

Sorry this got away from me ummmm

[rouge-fauna]

I think someones said it before but I feel like if tommy actually met dream irl, he never would have turned on him. He even referred to dream as more genuine when he saw his face and didn't find the 'i love you guys' cringe anymore, but instead charming.

(I think you might have sent you ask in twice btw)

Ahh, so this touches on something I think is very important that is how easy it is to be nasty online versus in person. Because I think a lot of stuff people say wouldn’t be able to say to people’s face, to see how hurt the person is. Saying things through texts or social media is easy because you don’t have to face the same consequences you do in real life. You can call someone terrible things and don’t have to see how it makes them cry or hear their response.

Many of the falling outs with my friends have happened over text, and I genuinely think the reason why is that it’s a lot easier for them to be terrible. I truly believe that they would never have said what they did if we were in person. Because then they would have seen how hurt I was. But sending a text or posting something, it’s too easy to submit and put your phone away and think nothing of it.

That’s not to say bullying doesn’t happen irl or that people can’t be hurtful in person, but I feel like cyber bullying is a whole new level as the anonymity and lack of consequences that come from it, lack of guilt. So often we forget that there is a real life person behind what pretty or silly profile pic there is, with feelings and emotions and pain. It’s easy to forget. Just like it’s easy to feel like 30 notes or likes isn’t a lot on a post, because we forget what 30 people looks like in the real world. Sure online it looks small, but man in real, 30 people listening to what I have to say and liking it, is a lot of people. And it’s so cool to see even more, seeing 100 something likes on my essay about autism really makes me so happy, because hopefully that’s 100 people I helped feel less alone :)…

Anyways, to bring it back to disc duo, I think you’re very right. I think that the outcome would be different had they met in person. How different, remains to be seen, but it is interesting that the British crowd tend to like George. Sure we could say because he’s British, but I think an argument could be made, that because they’ve spent time in person. It’s easier to see him as a person. Perhaps we could attribute Dream’s facelessness as another factor of the internet’s constant loathing, as they struggle to see him as a person. I think there is a very fair argument to made there. Kinda aligns with the dsmp, doesn’t it? It’s easy to hate whose pov you cannot seen, who you cannot see. It’s easy to forget that the green man running around is human…

Though I think this does depend on how genuine Tommy really was in their friendship, whether we go with the theory that he’s been using Dream the whole time or that it was real. And how much Dream’s autism and ADHD behavior pushed people away. But I do think you make a good point. Though Quackity met Dream in person so… who knows. It would have been interesting to see if the outcome would have been the same.

[liesmyteachertoldme]

Autism Made in USA

Over the past few decades, the dramatic increase in autism spectrum disorders (ASD), now diagnosed in 1 in every 36 children, has often been attributed to improved definitions for ASD and diagnostic tools. However, a closer look at government statistics reveals alarming trends in children’s health that go far beyond better diagnostics. Since the early 1990s, there have been staggering increases in several chronic conditions: ADHD rates have risen by 890 percent, autism diagnoses by 2,094 percent, bipolar disease in youth by 10,833 percent, and celiac disease by 1,011 percent. These numbers beg the question—what has fundamentally changed in our children’s health over the past three decades?

Despite these concerning trends, our culture continues to elevate science as the ultimate authority on health and reality, often dismissing common sense, reason, and direct empirical observation. Ironically, physicians rely on patients to describe their symptoms—a testament to the importance of individual observations—while federal health agencies and influential organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics dismiss environmental factors in favor of subjective theories, such as genetic predispositions or chemical brain imbalances as the root causes for the majority of mental and behavioral disorders in children.

This reliance on ideology over empirical scrutiny extends to vaccine development, where standard double-blind placebo trials, the gold standard for FDA drug approval, are glaringly absent. Vaccines such as the hepatitis B shot for infants and the HPV vaccine Gardasil for adolescents have been approved with minimal scientific rigor, yet they are heavily promoted and, in many cases, mandated.

The media compounds the issue by amplifying the official narrative while systematically excluding dissenting voices. This failure of transparency has allowed federal health agencies like the CDC, NIAID, and HHS to evade accountability. These institutions, which should safeguard public health, have instead become ideologically and politically captured by private interests. Their close ties to pharmaceutical companies have led to the approval of insufficiently tested vaccines, the pathologization of normal childhood behaviors, and the delivery of subpar healthcare—all at a staggering cost of $5 trillion annually.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/autism-made-usa/5874947

[ansautism]

Self Diagnosis is not the Future of Autism

I specifically want to talk about this post by Dr. Devon Price.

In this article, Dr. Price speaks about abandoning the diagnostic process of autism. That is to say, he thinks autism should not be a diagnosis at all.

He argues that the majority of autism assessors and researchers admit that the process of diagnosing autism is extremely flawed. He says that the standard evaluation of autism is sexist and excludes women who do not fit the stereotypically "male" version of autism. He also says that autism evaluations are racist and deem POC as having a conduct disorder or a personality disorder instead of autism. He says that assessments were not made with adults in mind.

None of this is untrue. There are many misconceptions around autism that lead to the belief that autistic women do not exist, and many clinicians have subconscious (or even overt) biases against POC and opt to label them as "behaviorally challenged" or as callous/unemotional when they are really autistic and in need of supports.

Ethnic Bias

A study, "Underdiagnosis and Referral Bias of Autism in Ethnic Minorities," examined the distribution of ethnic minorities among children referred to autism institutions and also examined referral bias in pediatric assessment of autism in ethnic minorities. The study showed that ethnic minorities were under-represented among 712 children referred to autism institutions. In addition, pediatricians (n = 81) more often referred to autism when judging clinical vignettes of European majority cases (Dutch) than vignettes including non-European minority cases (Moroccan or Turkish). This means that when given a vignette of a child exhibiting autistic behaviors, the clinician was more likely to label a white child as autistic than a black or brown child.

However, the study notes, when asked explicitly for ratings of the probability of autism, the effect of ethnic background on autism diagnosis disappeared. The researchers concluded that the use of structured ratings may decrease the likelihood of ethnic bias in diagnostic decisions of autism. This is already an argument for maintaining the diagnostic category of autism. An earlier study also suggests that racial bias is not very likely when explicit diagnostic categories are present.

The researchers also concluded that the bias in diagnosis may arise from cultural differences rather than racist attitudes. "The bias in spontaneous clinical judgments, which was unrelated to work experience of the pediatricians, may be explained by the superficial similarity of social and communicative problem domains of children with ASD and children from minority groups. Pediatricians may be inclined to attribute social and communicative problems of children from non-European minority groups to their ethnic origin, while they would possibly attribute the same problems to autistic disorders in children from majority groups. The absence of a bias regarding European minority cases suggests that in particular cultural differences or the combination of language and cultural differences seem to affect professional assessments."

It should be noted that a few studies showing an absence of racist bias in clinicians does not mean that clinicians cannot be racist. The main takeaway from this article is that when clinicians were asked to use diagnostic categories to explain their decision, they accurately diagnosed ethnic minorities with autism rather than attributing their traits as a cultural difference. This shows the value in maintaining the diagnosis of autism.

Gender Bias

A systemic review and meta-analysis examined gender bias in the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders. The researchers examined 67 articles that compared the difference between autistic symptomology in males and females and examined 10 studies on the topic of masking. They found that autistic males exhibited more severe social interaction difficulties (which would make them more "obviously" autistic), compared to autistic females, who exhibited more cognitive and behavioral difficulties. Females were also more likely to mask than males. There is evidence to suggest that females exhibit a different phenotype and express autistic symptoms differently than males. These differences are not attributable to masking, although females do engage in compensatory strategies more often than males.

"The hypothesis of a ‘specific female autism phenotype’ is supported by evidence showing that autistic females without intellectual impairments perform similarly to neurotypical females and higher than autistic males in social cognition tasks and language abilities, which contributes to their under-recognition. Furthermore, this hypothesis is also corroborated by higher levels of motivation for social relationships and fewer social impairments in autistic females, as well as lower levels of restricted and repetitive interests than males."

"The results indicated that autistic females show a less severe presentation of autism symptoms than males when measured using the ADOS. This is consistent with previous studies and systematic reviews suggesting that males exhibit a more severe presentation of symptoms than females when assessed with clinical instruments. Similarly, for the social interaction domain, the meta-analysis revealed that autistic males displayed increased social interaction difficulties compared to females in the ADOS, which is in accordance with other evidence." However, autistic females had higher externalizing problems like aggression and defiance, "this seems to indicate that for females to receive a diagnosis of autism, they must present marked difficulties in overall functioning outcomes."

The cause behind this bias may be attributable to masking, rather than a clinicians sexist bias.

"The results indicated that when using the CAT-Q, females exhibited higher total camouflaging scores than males. This supports the camouflaging hypothesis in females and is consistent with other literature documenting that autistic females camouflage more than autistic males, both in adolescence and adulthood. Similarly, evidence shows that non-binary autistic adults exhibit camouflage behaviours. It is possible that by masking and compensating for their autistic symptoms, females are more likely of being uncaptured by the current clinical criteria."

There is also some evidence that autism may be X-linked, which would explain higher diagnostic rates among males.

Bias in Diagnostic Tools

The ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) is considered the "gold standard" in autism psychometrics. The ADOS is highly accurate and is considered one of the best tools to use to diagnose autism.

Its weaknesses generally come from the inability to distinguish autism and psychosis. In one study, the ADOS accurately identified all autistic adults in their sample, but gave high false positive rates (identifying someone as autism when the person is not autistic), especially when the person had a schizospectrum disorder. All 21 of the study's false positives had a history of psychosis symptoms. For this reason, the ADOS alone cannot be used to diagnose autism and should be combined with other assessment measures.

In fact, contrary to Dr. Price's claims, the ADOS seems to more often diagnose autism when the person does not have autism, rather than not diagnosing autism when the patient does have autism (false negative). "If we had relied on ADOS-2 score alone for inclusion in the ASD group, 36% of our sample would have been classified as meeting ASD criteria instead of 8%." In their sample, they concluded that the reason some adults were not previously diagnosed with autism was because of a lack of community services and treatment.

In another study examining the ADOS-2 for systemic bias, particularly against marginalized genders and racial groups, the researchers concluded that their findings "suggest that the ADOS-2 does not have widespread systematic measurement bias across race or sex."

There are also many measures that assess autistic symptoms in adult populations. The ADOS-4, for example, is an observation tool that is meant to help diagnose autism in verbally fluent adolescents and adults. The Autism Quotient (AQ), Ritvo Autism-Asperger Diagnosis Scale (RAADS-R), Autism Diagnostic Interview (ADI), Adult Asperger Assessment (AAA), and the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) all are common measures used in professional settings that are specifically made for adolescents and adults.

Autism is not benign

Autism is not a benign nor just a naturally occurring "difference." Let me be clear, this is a form of Aspie supremacy. Autism is a heterogenous neurological disorder. Ignoring that is ignoring the needs of millions of autistic people, and especially HSN autistics. I have seen quite a few HSN autistics vocally denounce Dr. Price, and I can fully understand why. This is blatant Aspie supremacy, laid bare for everyone to see, and I am honestly astonished that there has been no public acknowledgment of this or any semblance of an apology from Dr. Price.

I do not think it should be a requirement to prove that autism is a disability or that it is not "benign." I think the belief that autism is not a disability and is just a difference that should not be diagnosed, researched, or treated in any way is a belief based in pseudo-science, Aspie supremacy, and an overindulgence in identity politics. Frankly, I think having to prove that autism is a disability is like proving the sky is blue. I can offer papers explaining why the sky is blue, or what the color blue is, or the hex code for the color blue, I can explain what a sky is, I can literally go outside and point to the sky and show you that it is indeed blue, but I really, really should not have to do that.

Saying the sky is blue because it just is, is not a form of authoritarianism or anti-intellectualism or prejudice. It is stating a simple indisputable reality. Autism is a disability and that is the reality of it. No matter if we lived in a police state that monitored every social interaction we made to make sure it is up to societal standards, or if we lived in total anarchial bliss where there were no rules for social interaction or demands forced upon anybody, autism would still be a disability in either of those scenarios. It's just that in one scenario, autistic people are accommodated better and social expectations are lower.

That is not how diagnosis works

There is a reason that therapists cannot diagnose you, and there is a reason why trained psychologists with years of experience under their belt cannot diagnose themselves. Cognitive biases are biases that nobody is immune to (yes, including self diagnosers who have done a good amount of research).

As I have shown before, the ADOS gives false positives to people who have a schizospec disorder. If one were to self diagnose with autism and then just get a slip from their therapist without ever confirming that they were autistic, that's a person with untreated psychosis, who does not have access to treatment for their psychosis, and who will continue to have increasingly alarming psychotic episodes which will increase their chances of anxiety and mood disorders and suicidality. How is that a better solution than a comprehensive assessment which is meant to determine which supports are right for the persons condition and needs? Unless Dr. Price is claiming that all self diagnoses are correct, that there is no harm in a misdiagnosis, and that all mental disorders are as equally "benign" as autism, which I am almost certain that he is not claiming, which means his proposed "solution" goes against his own beliefs and actively endangers vulnerable people.

And where, exactly, are these people getting their information to self diagnose? Dr. Price says that one only needs to talk to autistic people in order to self diagnose. This implies that all autistic experiences are the same and that all experiences an autistic person has is always related to their autism. Dr. Price is treating the autism community as a homogenous group of people who's experiences are the same and always indicative of autism, and that any autistic experiences that a person relates to means that person has autism. How can you simultaneously claim that not everyone is on the spectrum and autistic traits are just human traits that everyone has in varying degrees of intensity, but also claim that if anybody relates to any autistic traits or experiences at all, they must be autistic?

Furthermore, how accurate are these autistic people online at conveying information and correctly attributing their symptoms to autism? In a study looking at ADHD information on Tiktok, the researchers found that "of the 100 videos meeting inclusion criteria, 52% (n = 52) were classified as misleading, 27% (n = 27) as personal experience, and 21% (n = 21) as useful." Comparing your experiences to another persons and finding similarities also does not mean that you have the same condition as the other person. In an article, licensed mental health counselor Micheline Maalouf speaks on people self diagnosing with OCD through TikTok.

"Maalouf asked more questions about the symptoms from the video that had resonated with the client, and she also educated the client on the process of determining a diagnosis, emphasizing that it is not as simple as matching symptoms from a checklist. Disorders manifest differently for everyone, she told the client, and depend on many factors, including life experiences, gender, race and more. But Maalouf also reassured the client that their awareness about OCD symptoms was “important information … because it could be the first step in figuring out if something is actually going on."

There have also been a few research articles I have been able to find that talk specifically about the dangers of self diagnosis, including "Dangers of self-diagnosis in neuropsychiatry," "Unraveling the dangers of mental health self diagnosis: a study on the phenomenon of adolescent self diagnosis in junior high schools," "Risks and Benefits of Self-Diagnosis Using the Internet," and "TikTok and Self-Diagnosing Mental Illnesses: Perceived Reliability Factors, Vulnerabilities, and Dangers."

If we ignore research suggesting self diagnosis is not infallible, if we ignore decades of research on autism diagnosis and assessment, if we ignore facts about the world - we are no better than the people saying that vaccines cause autism.

Comparing being autistic to being LGBT is homophobia

Comparing a mental disorder to being gay or trans is homophobia and transphobia. There are proven brain structure abnormalities and soft neurological signs associated with the development of autism. Autistic traits are disabling and sometimes detrimental. Autism is genetic.

There are no brain structure abnormalities that can "make" someone gay or "make" someone trans. Being LGBT is not a disability or does it cause difficulty outside of stigma and discrimination. There is not a gene that can make you gay or trans, being LGBT is not a genetic condition but an expression of different types of attraction and gender identity.

There is not a requirement to be LGBT. LGBT labels are fluid, you can be bisexual and then discover that you resonate more with the label of pansexual. None of this is disabling or bad and labeling yourself the "wrong" sexuality (which is not the same as being forced to present as straight) will not harm you in the future, you are just in the process of discovering who you are.

Autism is not an identity label you can just opt yourself into whenever you feel like it. It just isn't. You have to meet the diagnostic criteria to be autistic. Wrongly labeling yourself as autistic when you aren't (or wrongly labeling yourself as not autistic when you are) can cause additional stress and disability, co-occurring anxiety and mood disorders, and an increased risk for homelessness and suicide.

[aidenlydia]

I have seen that you are very open about supporting trans people and that your pronouns are they/them. How were you able to understand that you were trans? (If you are.) I've honestly felt so confused lately and don't have anyone I can ask about this. I love your ftm ghost art. I think it is amazing. I just don't know what to do or how I'll ever be able to figure out myself. Totally not your job but was curious if you had advice.

Not sure how helpful this will be, because my trans experience is deeply interlinked with my Dissociative Identity Disorder and Autism, so I'm sorry if this is a bit confusing.

What is Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative Identity Disorder - Terms and Definitions

Autism and Gender

The reason why I go by they/them is because we're literally multiple people. Our two Hosts Aiden and Lydia (aka the alters interacting most with the world outside of our own head) are a man and a woman. We spend all our time together, sharing a body and the control over it.

We used to go by he/she, but people would only view us as a girl because of our body, so we switched to they/them. It makes more sense and feels better to be acknowledged together instead of Aiden being left out all the damn time.

Now bear with me here.

Though Lydia is a cis women, she grew up never belonging anywhere because we're autistic, so she feels like an imposter and a fraud when trying to connect to her feminity. Most days we barely feel human at all because we've been othered all our life. But she still views herself as a woman - motherhood in particular is a big important part of her.

Aiden is a trans man, but he doesn't mind our feminine body and doesn't plan on getting surgery ever. Testosterone maybe, but even that isn't super important to him at the moment. To him knowing he's a man is enough, passing isn't a priority at all. And because all of our Littles are girls he's rather protective of their body - any kind of medical procedure would cause a lot of fear in them.

He realized he's trans because he preferred a male name for himself, short hair and male clothing. It happened very quickly because exploring gender has never been an issue for us, it's fun and simply felt comfortable.

We do have two Agender Alters, but they don't come out in our regular daily life. They don't feel like anything really, they're deeply connected to nature and just want to exist as genderless beings, so they prefer not taking control of our body. It feels peaceful not being put into a box or defined by gender expectations and whatever other bullshit the world comes up with.

In the past we used to have another trans male Host, but he was suffering deeply from gender dysphoria. He couldn't stand the sight of our body or existing in it and became very self destructive about it. Until one day he just stopped coming out and hasn't been back since.

Before I even realized I had DID, gender wasn't really a concept to me. Same with names, it just didn't make sense to me why someone couldn't just change their name if they didn't like the one their parents gave them for whatever reason. I think of people as people, not boys and girls. Sure there are physical differences, but the meanings/genderroles we attributed to them are completely made up.

Folks love nagging me about how I draw my Ghost, but the truth is he can walk around looking like a cis girl and still be a man, I truly dgaf. So what if he's smaller and more delicate looking next to that big bear of a captain, that doesn't make him any less of a man.

The best advice I can give is you don't need to label yourself if you don't want to. You can experiment and just see what feels good. Maybe you'll find a label or make a plan along the way, but don't feel pressured to.

Common things people do is try out a different name, change their pronouns, create and play as video game characters of the opposite gender/sex (or gender non-conforming in general), listen to trans playlists/musicians, shop clothes/stuff in the other section (including underwear or things like jewelry ect), read books or watch movies about different kinds of trans characters, watch video essays about trans topics, create OCs or sonas, look at trans art and watch/read about other people's trans journeys.

Of course there are "what's my gender identity" tests you can take too, idk how helpful those are but I guess they can give you a bit more insight and maybe make you ask questions that you haven't asked yourself before.

Lastly here's a list of gender identities and definitions that might be beneficial to have a look at, as well as my trans resource list I put together last month about what can be done to change your gender in various ways

[deepredness]

I MADE A DND CHARACTER BASED ON VARIAN (TANGLED) & WYLAN VAN SUNSHINE (SIX OF CROWS)

The guys I play with don’t understand, but I had to share this beautiful creation. Everything just clicked. — I hope this finds the right people —

Scroll down for the full analysis of how they came to be ✨

So we’re trying out a new gaming system inspired by dnd called DC20 (The Dungeon Coach) and I was reading the playbook file and started building the character with their new steps. You have attributes, skills you can choose and trades you can master (and actually do smth with) and my eye landed on the trade ✨Alchemy✨ So naturally my mind went to my gay alchemists and the ball started rolling. After debriefing with my GM we landed on the wizard class but instead of casting a spell I would throw a bottled potion. This got me immediately excited to further build my alchemist child. (Bonus: the spell “find familiar” turned into throwing a fk pokeball and yelling “I CHOOSE YOU” GM approved)

Then for skills you could choose any of the knowledge skills such as arcana and recieve a free bonus skill, now I’m a sucker for free things so naturally I had too. Which led to the development of “lore slut” with latest hyperfixation “occultism” which led to the obvious conclusion of my child having both autism and ADHD.

Next up I had to choose 3 more Trades to spice up the flavor any further. First obvious choice was Sculpting, for bottle production and fidget hobby. Second became Illustration, for the alchemy diary (spellbook). Lastly I was skimming the trades and landed on Musician. You bet your ass I gave them A FLUTE! To honor my illiterate wonderkid Wylan and the ghost flute battle. I had to. I simply had no choice but to pick it solely for the reference.

So that’s how my human wizard alchemist Rhory Sallow came to exist. They are definitely not the best character regarding combat or whatever, but I truly do not care (I say fully aware I’ll decease if they’d die because of this, but delulu is the solulu✨ altho then I could do the ghost flute thing which is another win ig)

I’m just gonna lavish in this creation I made and play as the lore slut alchemist I was meant to be!

What do you guys think? Did I succeed? I think so :)

Also shoutout to DC20 for leading me towards this opportunity 🛐

[aspd-culture]

thank you for your reply! lowkey convinced I might have a dissociative disorder now—I literally am the child who’s a completely different person before bed and can entirely forget that I’m hungry and every feeling I had in the week before therapy at the ripe old age of 23! tbh I’d thought the emotional impermanence was the adhd but I don’t know anyone else w/o some sort of dissociative amnesia who has the same problem that they can’t remember anything when they go to therapy. but I am capable of having lots of emotions at once (in fact I can never point out one singular thing I’m feeling) so idk!! anyway I’ll look further into it that was wonderful

So there’s more to a system than the failure of the ego states to fuse - but that is the step that causes the system to form and to current knowledge, a system is the only thing that can cause those states to fail to fuse.

As with other children their age, a child who has developed a CDD system will develop emotionally mostly as expected with exceptions given for the delays and disruptions to this that whatever trauma they’re experiencing may cause. A 10 year old that has developed into a system will still be meeting those developmental milestones, except now it will be alters doing it.

We don’t stay as those ego states forever; instead each alter will emotionally develop individually. So now that a system has formed, each alter will - as entirely separate people and therefore at entirely separate rates - develop things like complex emotions and the ability to remember having them. This is why structural dissociation disproves the concepts of an original alter and the alters as “parts”. While the community still uses the terms “splitting” and “fragments”, we do so with the understanding that it isn’t a true breaking into separate pieces of one person in the way we used to think (though in a split pieces can technically “break off” another alter but they would still be entirely separate people vs pieces of a person) with the theory that was replaced by structural dissociation.

These alters will then each live their own lives - having different experiences entirely separate of each other, developing their own interests and hobbies and biases about the world and the people in it, etc. - and therefore become very different people. Alters may be more difficult to notice as children than as adults because they appear to be a child going through normal phases. Alters may also be misunderstood as ADHD (and, to complicate things, the system as a whole may *also* have ADHD) due to memory loss and what appears to be flights of ideas and hobby switching as various alters take the front for various lengths of time.

If you’re autistic, by the way, the thing about being a different person before bed may be explained by that (tiredness can lead to more severe symptoms of autism showing) as can the forgetting you’re hungry (autism often comes with a decreased ability to recognize body cues for needs - so many autistic people struggle to realize they’re hungry until they’re starving, or that they need to go to the bathroom until it’s an emergency, and also forget while engaging with special interests). Autistic people can also struggle to recognize and name emotions, with some of us often failing to recognize emotional changes by anything other than their physical symptoms (some emotions make your stomach feel sick, or a head rush, or a warm sensation, etc.). These things can also be attributed to some other disorders that I’m not specifically aware of but you can check out the differential section for diagnosing DID and Autism to find them I’m fairly sure.

However, it does sound like you’re describing amnesia, and specifically amnesia popping up at a time that a gatekeeper who isn’t feeling ready to process emotions might take the memories from you. Especially if you’d be able to recall those memories immediately before or after therapy, that could be a sign of a dissociative disorder that you could look into and bring up to your professional if you’d like.

Noting here that I am not a professional, and even if I was (I’m not) I’m not *your* professional, so I cannot speak to your diagnoses in any way other than non-professional guesses. Additionally, it’s important to remember that most symptoms of disorders can be from various ones, or be non-disordered traits, and that’s something you’d need to get into it with a professional or do heavy research before deciding on. And I wish you all the luck in doing so!/gen

If you’re after additional research, there is, unlike with ASPD, a decent amount of unbiased information. Be aware of and avoid sources that claim that systems can be fakeclaimed based on literally anything as these sources are not unbiased. The only one who can know if a system is faking or not is an unbiased professional who has spent many hours with their client. For example, I was not diagnosed with DID until I had known my professional for over 3 years, and she still hadn’t considered it until I said something (albeit that that was because she said she wasn’t experienced with this and actually - with my permission - went through my diagnostic tests with a couple trusted colleagues before diagnosing me). One of these resources is the diagnostic test itself which can be found if you look hard enough for it BUT I do not recommend anyone who ever currently plans on pursuing a diagnosis does that specifically. There are two reasons for that - the first is that the diagnostic test is triggering by its nature. You can skip any questions you want but for a truly accurate test result, you ideally would openly answer all questions. As hard as it was, I did not choose to skip any questions in my assessment. That means if you do have a system, you’d be arming your gatekeeper (who may well not want to be found since, when a system is first discovered by the host, the first response is often for it to be hidden from the host as much as possible by backing up, going quiet, giving or taking away memory access, etc.) with the questions you need to answer to get your answer and giving the gatekeeper time to create amnesia towards those questions or to have another alter come out and refuse to answer them or lie to avoid diagnosis. The best way in my opinion to get that assessment done is blindly, without knowledge of the questions, if you have as of yet no or little solid interaction with your alters. The second reason is that these diagnostic tests are difficult to score without the paid for score sheet so if you have the opportunity to let a professional do that, it’s best to allow for that. Because of this, taking that assessment at home would not in any way be the only piece of research you’d need in order to self dx anyway.

Plain text below the cut:

So there’s more to a system than the failure of the ego states to fuse - but that is the step that causes the system to form and to current knowledge, a system is the only thing that can cause those states to fail to fuse.

As with other children their age, a child who has developed a CDD system will develop emotionally mostly as expected with exceptions given for the delays and disruptions to this that whatever trauma they’re experiencing may cause. A 10 year old that has developed into a system will still be meeting those developmental milestones, except now it will be alters doing it.

We don’t stay as those ego states forever; instead each alter will emotionally develop individually. So now that a system has formed, each alter will - as entirely separate people and therefore at entirely separate rates - develop things like complex emotions and the ability to remember having them. This is why structural dissociation disproves the concepts of an original alter and the alters as “parts”. While the community still uses the terms “splitting” and “fragments”, we do so with the understanding that it isn’t a true breaking into separate pieces of one person in the way we used to think (though in a split pieces can technically “break off” another alter but they would still be entirely separate people vs pieces of a person) with the theory that was replaced by structural dissociation.

These alters will then each live their own lives - having different experiences entirely separate of each other, developing their own interests and hobbies and biases about the world and the people in it, etc. - and therefore become very different people. Alters may be more difficult to notice as children than as adults because they appear to be a child going through normal phases. Alters may also be misunderstood as ADHD (and, to complicate things, the system as a whole may *also* have ADHD) due to memory loss and what appears to be flights of ideas and hobby switching as various alters take the front for various lengths of time.

If you’re autistic, by the way, the thing about being a different person before bed may be explained by that (tiredness can lead to more severe symptoms of autism showing) as can the forgetting you’re hungry (autism often comes with a decreased ability to recognize body cues for needs - so many autistic people struggle to realize they’re hungry until they’re starving, or that they need to go to the bathroom until it’s an emergency, and also forget while engaging with special interests). Autistic people can also struggle to recognize and name emotions, with some of us often failing to recognize emotional changes by anything other than their physical symptoms (some emotions make your stomach feel sick, or a head rush, or a warm sensation, etc.). These things can also be attributed to some other disorders that I’m not specifically aware of but you can check out the differential section for diagnosing DID and Autism to find them I’m fairly sure.

However, it does sound like you’re describing amnesia, and specifically amnesia popping up at a time that a gatekeeper who isn’t feeling ready to process emotions might take the memories from you. Especially if you’d be able to recall those memories immediately before or after therapy, that could be a sign of a dissociative disorder that you could look into and bring up to your professional if you’d like.

Noting here that I am not a professional, and even if I was (I’m not) I’m not *your* professional, so I cannot speak to your diagnoses in any way other than non-professional guesses. Additionally, it’s important to remember that most symptoms of disorders can be from various ones, or be non-disordered traits, and that’s something you’d need to get into it with a professional or do heavy research before deciding on. And I wish you all the luck in doing so!/gen

If you’re after additional research, there is, unlike with ASPD, a decent amount of unbiased information. Be aware of and avoid sources that claim that systems can be fakeclaimed based on literally anything as these sources are not unbiased. The only one who can know if a system is faking or not is an unbiased professional who has spent many hours with their client. For example, I was not diagnosed with DID until I had known my professional for over 3 years, and she still hadn’t considered it until I said something (albeit that that was because she said she wasn’t experienced with this and actually - with my permission - went through my diagnostic tests with a couple trusted colleagues before diagnosing me). One of these resources is the diagnostic test itself which can be found if you look hard enough for it BUT I do not recommend anyone who ever currently plans on pursuing a diagnosis does that specifically. There are two reasons for that - the first is that the diagnostic test is triggering by its nature. You can skip any questions you want but for a truly accurate test result, you ideally would openly answer all questions. As hard as it was, I did not choose to skip any questions in my assessment. That means if you do have a system, you’d be arming your gatekeeper (who may well not want to be found since, when a system is first discovered by the host, the first response is often for it to be hidden from the host as much as possible by backing up, going quiet, giving or taking away memory access, etc.) with the questions you need to answer to get your answer and giving the gatekeeper time to create amnesia towards those questions or to have another alter come out and refuse to answer them or lie to avoid diagnosis. The best way in my opinion to get that assessment done is blindly, without knowledge of the questions, if you have as of yet no or little solid interaction with your alters. The second reason is that these diagnostic tests are difficult to score without the paid for score sheet so if you have the opportunity to let a professional do that, it’s best to allow for that. Because of this, taking that assessment at home would not in any way be the only piece of research you’d need in order to self dx anyway.

[quincyhorst]

HC Snippets: Big Waves' Sydney Trio

...I'll admit that @//hachiiware's ask left me wanting to go on detail about other BW families other than Quincy's; so here's a compilation of my ideas for the main three.

Like I've said, Nice, Jean and Reef all live in Sydney, and attend the same school and soccer team. This is also where Robert teaches, all too convenient.

Though there's just one detail to address, that Jean was born in Victoria. After a certain family incident his mother preferred to start a new life in Sydney instead.

Nice and Jean met at the beach by a curious encounter. One typical day where his caregiver took him to the beach, Jinbei saw a blonde boy practising surf alongside his father. Impressed by the sport, he decided to combat his shyness and approach him. Despite the surprise, Nice acted friendly enough with the mysterious child, even inviting him to learn surf too. Such fun afternoon would be the start of a great friendship.

From there on, Nice and Jean would invite each other to their homes, or in some cases they'd go to his caregiver's house to watch his anime collection (Even if Nice was weirded out by the japanese cartoons). Around the time of Primary School, both boys got interested on soccer and started to practice together. Thanks to their dedication (And perhaps some potential within them), the two completely killed it once they entered the world of Secondary School/Junior High soccer; carrying their team to the finals. They might have lost aganist a team from Queensland, sure, but nothing too bad.

On their second year it would be when things got a sudden twist with the entrance of Reef Hamilton to their school, team... And friend group.

Reef had an entirely different upbringing than them. His father was the owner of a popular hotel chain across eastern australia, so he would always go into vacation somewhere new. But although he was able to meet new faces everytime, Reef preferred to isolate himself, enjoying to be at the beach. And with the teachings of his mother -a diving instructor-, that meant also spending most of his time underwater. Even when it wasn’t summertime Reef would be seen apart from the other kids.

Even if his parents tried to set his child to interact with others many times, Reef overall seemed to have problems on forging and continuing conversations, which started to raise some concerns. Just to make sure they decided to investigate a bit, and soon enough they found out their child was on the Autism Spectrum. Understanding now and accepting what their son had, they assigned him a therapist as means to help him in life, but still prioritizing his own wishes.

For a long time Reef's interests had been only about marine biology, leading to him writing entire pages about the fish he'd see on vacation. But after seeing Nice and Jean's performance on TV, he would soon develop interest on soccer. And soon he'd meet Robert Cliser, local counselor and a huge lover of the sport, who offered himself to help Reef integrate to the team while also training it.

So yeah, things went well. Reef's fun yet clever atitude blended with the two sea bros, making a well addition to their friend group. Nice and Reef were quick to bond, but with Jean it had its difficulty. What ended up uniting him however was none than Jean's mother, Bea Baker. Her being a former marine biologist soon caught Reef's attention, making him visit her small bakery weekly. The two players got soon used to each other eventually, specially since Jean did like sealife too.

Bea likes to consider Reef a second son, but Jean doesn't feel fond of that.

Now, let's talk about the Great Barrier Reef. The hissatsu, I mean. I like to attribute its origin to the fondness for the sea the trio had. Since his early beginnings in soccer Jean liked to use the sea to hone his skills, and the idea of using marine wildlife to defend the goal didn't seem that bad. So since his first years he had been working on it, but Reef's dedication and knowledge of the actual barrier helped to polish it better. Nowadays GBR is the most powerful keeper hissatsu Australia has to offer, but also a love letter to the country's natural wonder. Whenever someone uses it, Reef feels very happy.

...I guess that's the important stuff. Outside of soccer, the three like to play other sports such as beach voleyball, bowling, and surfing obviously. Jean leans it more into windsurfing but y'know, still fits.

Joe Jones/Jaws is the fourth wheel of this friend group but I'll touch it later on.

Bonus regarding adulthood; but post FFI Nice and Jean kept playing soccer, till he got into the more professional world. Reef played gladly until soccer, but a certain self-reflection he had made him instead dedicate himself into marine biology. He studies at the local Sydney Sunshore university; and yes, he if he struggles with studies, he goes to visit Bea. Best tutor ever!