#are you a... I don't even know the terminology... a self-identifying anon?

[freepassbound]

what’s your feel-good movie?

what flower would you like to be given?

what calms you down?

what’s your ideal date?

morning, afternoon or night?

♥

1: What's your feel-good movie?

Boy... I don't know how to choose. I (finally) went and looked at my movie library, and, like... I probably watch 'Groundhog Day' more than any other (though that's partially, possibly mostly, because I try to actually watch it every year on Groundhog Day); but I also have a very big soft spot for 'Charade'... and there are a bunch of other movies in there that I might turn to as well: 'WALL-E', 'Wreck-It Ralph', 'Shrek', 'Singin in the Rain'... (I'm not looking at it as I write, but there are more)

It's almost dependent on micro-moods and what I just happen to be wanting to see at that moment. I have a whole passel of them!

2: What flower would you like to be given?

I've actually received more flowers in the past month than I have in my entire life prior (it seems to have been a thing to give teachers flowers this year?), so I have new perspectives on this question.

I think my key takeaway is that variety is better. I got roses, which are... nice - they look good; they die fast. I got mums (or what I think are mums), which are multicolored, and have lasted much longer than the roses. The most recent, however, is a variety (duration TBD), which makes for both different colors but also different shapes, which I find more visually appealing.

3: What calms you down?

Space, quiet, and time. When I get worked up over something, I need time to process. Usually that looks like sitting or standing outside, just... staring... at nothing in particular, while my brain runs over and through and around and into and under and back through whatever it is that's enervated me.

4: What's your ideal date?

I think as long as it's got some kind of walk through nature, that's pretty ideal. Could be a county park, could be a beach, could be a national park forest, could be a city street with some greenery, or anything in between - as long that gets worked in there, I think that works.

5: Morning, afternoon or night?

I am definitely a night person. Left to my own devices and without any serious responsibilities, I can easily adopt a noon-4am schedule. 😅

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

The shorter version: Hey could you talk about stone tops more? Or anything like that, people who like giving but not recieving?

The longer version: I’m sort of going through that process of self discovery, I’ve been meaning to ask about it somehow- basically I am sexually attracted to people (I think??), I get aroused, I enjoy masturbating, even talking with my partner about stuff we could do is arousing to me. I enjoy some submissive kinky stuff. Hell, my boyfriend (transmasc, both of us are) recently let me go down on him and it was like a fucking religious experience, I LOVED it, but I find it really difficult to enjoy anything being done directly to /my/ genitals. Like, I can feel the sensations, and they feel good, but I don’t build any arousal, like I can’t get in the mood? I know I’m not, but I do feel fucked up and broken. Spiritually, I want my boyfriend to rail me into next week, but physically I’m afraid there’s like. Something wrong with me, like,, I don’t work??? Idk. I’ve got major anxiety, I’ve got dysphoria, I guess I always figured it was one of those things. There’s only so many times I can feel Way Too Seen by fanfiction about Noted Asexual, Archivist Jonathan Sims before I start to wonder what exactly they’ve hit directly on the head, if that makes sense. I’m not asking you to Diagnose Me Asexual lmaoo but I was wondering about more like… asexual adjacent things? My boyfriend suggested I look into “service top” too. I… don’t feel like a top? I’m very submissive. But I’ve heard it’s not always top= dom, bottom=sub… how can I be a submissive top?

Sorry this is… so much. It’s really been weighing on me. Even if you don’t feel up to answering this I thank you profusely for the sex ed content you’ve been posting lately. Demystifying sex and promoting sexual health is so incredibly important, and even just what I’ve read from you makes a difference in the agency I feel over my sex life.

hi anon,

weeeeeee!!! this is a fun one.

so, first off, I'm just gonna throw this out there: liking the idea of something - for instance, your boyfriend railing you into next week - is not an innate sign that that's something you'd like in real life. I'll jack off to the idea of getting railed like Thomas the Tank Engine, sure, but in real life vaginal penetration has never felt like much of anything to me + I haaaaAAAAaaaate the idea of doing anything with even a teeny tiny slight chance of getting me pregnant. some stuff is fine to stay in the brain!

if you do ever decide to tentatively explore it with your bf, that's also fine and wonderful, but let's focus on what we know about your likes right now. you don't want to get fucked (awesome) but you like going down (also awesome). none of that means you are or aren't asexual, btw, there are loads of asexuals in the world who love to get railed and hate going down and also feel every possible way about every other possible array of sex acts. you're only asexual if you want to be, keep that in mind.

you're also only stone or a service top or whatever else if you want to be. words exist to be useful, not as an innate ontological truth to discover within yourself. personally I think it's waaaaay more important for people to refine their sense of likes, dislikes, communication, and boundary-setting than finding the exact right word for their particular cup of tea.

as long as we're talking about terminology, let's get into dom/sub and top/bottom. you're absolutely correct that they're not interchangeable, whatever the hooligans on various hellsites would have you believe. dom and sub are terms for power exchange play, when two people enact a power differential in which one partner is consensually given a great deal of control over the other, be it physically, psychologically, financially, or what have you. top/bottom simply refer to who is acting vs who is being acted upon during a sexual act; while some people identify intensely as either a top or a bottom, it's also a simple matter for those roles to switch on a dime depending on what kind of sex you're into. it's completely possible to have sex without designating anyone the top or bottom, and I'd argue that most people have sex without there actually being a dom or sub involved.

so can dom bottom, or a sub top? of course; people can mix and match whatever pieces of sexuality they want in their own explorations. a dom can boss their sub around like a little servant, giving them extremely detailed instructions about exactly how to rail them, and perhaps punish them (in the fun consensual way, obviously) if they fail to meet those expectations and don't get their dom off the way that was wanted. you can, and I cannot possibly emphasize this enough, do whatever you want forever.

a service top, incidentally, is generally considered a separate thing from a dom (which is not to say they can't overlap!) in that a service top isn't always dominating, but is topping because they enjoy getting their partner off in whatever way they like. the overlap of service tops and folks who are stone is notable!

in your particular case I would recommend not worrying so much about which of these terms, if any, are the correct one for you and focus way ore on exploring and playing with your partner to find a rhythm that works well for the two of you. doms, subs, tops, and bottoms all have something useful to teach people about how they like intimacy, but there's no rush to figure out which category, if any, you fit in. just focus on what's fun and feels good to you and toss the rest.

[briarpatch-kids]

hEDS anon from before. I think you are right that what happened was we (reasonably) assumed two different types of symptom progression from that person saying they're "losing their ability to walk."

If your assumption was right you might be saving their life. My assumption made it look like you were taking a symptom I personally experience and saying "People with your illness don't have this, period."

Which happens to hEDS people a lot and has a serious impact on our ability to seek care. I'm sorry for getting into it. I'm jumpy because I've seen illness faker communities, including self-identified healthcare providers, swarm people with hEDS and armchair-diagnose them with Munchausens by internet just for posting a selfie in a wheelchair. Again, that's not what you were doing, it just raised red flags for me because we were getting two different things from that post. I apologize.

I wanted to clarify this point because when I say we're not taken seriously, THAT is what I mean—that healthcare providers themselves will gleefully take part in communities like that, and then go to work and be the deciding factor in whether or not somebody gets a diagnosis or a prescription or a referral or a procedure that they desperately need.

I don't have an issue with people rightfully pointing out that hEDS is not the most debilitating illness in the world, and I do understand now that that's all you were doing.

Is there a term you generally prefer people to use? I'm kind of in the same boat as that other anon. I don't really know how I should for instance quickly get across "my knees and ankles are so unstable that they will randomly drop me and every time I put weight on them that instability gets permanently a little worse, which in addition to pain and comorbid POTS means I'm walking less and less, can't leave my home without a wheelchair, and spend most of my time trapped in bed or on the couch, and I don't have access to knowledgeable providers who could prescribe me appropriate PT or orthoses that I can't afford without insurance, so this is unlikely to resolve or even stop progressing any time soon," other than "I'm losing my ability to walk."

I don't mean that in a smartass way. I do understand there's an important distinction between "This thing is hard/painful/exhausting/inconsistent" and "This thing is impossible" but I'm not sure where that distinction is or how to encapsulate it in words.

Obviously that's not your job either, I just wondered if you did know of any better terminology.

Accusing people of being into that illness fakers shit because they said you might be misdiagnosed is not okay. That's basically telling every other disabled person that I'm not safe to be around, which is not true and frankly extremely angering. I'm ALSO harmed by them as an online disabled person with very visible disability aids and I very much take offense at even being compared to them when I was trying to save your life. Not everyone with concerns about EDS is a large reddit group posting about which disabled person took a shit and what conspiracy theory they have on it. Get over yourself holy shit, I'm not illness fakers.

Also, you tell them the issue you're having. "My joints are unstable and causing problems and pain, I need PT" Sensationalized phrases like "I'm losing the ability to walk" even if you ARE aren't going to get you anywhere.

[homosexuhauls]

Hi, this is the anon who asked about TRA's views. Thanks for your reply, I completely forgot about their identity >>> reality approach when I wrote my ask. I got what you said, dw! I have another question: is there any way to get your TRA but not trans-identified themselves friends to think a bit more critically? I usually pretend idk anything about trans issues but I really don't know how to react. They'll tell me 'Did u know they want to stop trans kids from socially transitioning 😡' and I ofc can't say that I don't think trans kids exist the way they seem to think. I usually react with only very mild interest or try to say something feminist or sth positive about gendernonconformity instead but it's almost like they don't even register my words. I feel like I have almost a duty to get them to think more, but maybe it's useless idk.

I just answered another ask that added another perspective I hadn't fully explored, so check that out!

As for your question about TRA friends, well that's the million dollar question isn't it? If we knew the answer, we'd all have no problems 😅

For me, I tend to "grey rock" the concept of gender identity - pronoun discussions, social or physical transition, trans celebs, dysphoria, the issue of conflicting rights and needs etc. Unless someone has already expressed doubts or discomfort with the mainstream trans narrative, there's no point in trying to lead them to conclusions they aren't looking for. My friends aren't there for me to proselytise to!

What I do try to do is initiate a lot of discussions about mob mentality, black and white thinking, smear campaigns and media bias, all that sort of stuff. Usually using a TV show or something celebrity related as a starting point, but tbh me and my friends are all very opinionated people so it doesn't necessarily even take that!

And I talk a lot about women's rights and feminism, without making any kind of "and trans women" disclaimer unless someone else specifically brings them up. Basically I'll spout all the usual radfem talking points, be it separatism or single sex spaces or male and female socialisation etc, just without using any radfem specific terminology. My friends don't always agree with my takes on things, but removing the radfem label from my arguments means they're at least amenable to hearing them.

Some of these may or may not work for you. I think the most important thing though is that you shouldn't have any kind of agenda when you're talking to your friends. People know when you're being insincere or talking down to them. And people obviously react to being told they have no critically thinking skills, or even just the implication that this is the case! Ultimately you can't set out to change your friends, and nor should you want to. You can only widen the window through which they might view the world, by being your own intellectually curious and questioning self.

[therianimal]

what is a heart-type? how do you know if you have one?

Sorry for the wait, anon! I've been especially busy for the past week or two. I don't personally use "hearted" terminology for my own identity, but I understand it well enough to explain it!

Heart-types, like kintypes, can potentially involve many things - an animal, mythological creature, fictional race, specific character, plant, or less commonly an object or concept. For some examples: a deer, a wolf, an elf, a dragon, an angel, Harry Potter, Bakugou (from popular anime BNHA), the Na'vi race (from James Cameron's Avatar), the demon Lucifer, oak trees, robots, or "the void".

The definition of a heart-type is usually defined in comparison to kintypes: A kintype is something you ARE/identify as, while a heart-type is something you identify WITH.

For example, if you're deer-kin then you ARE a deer on a spiritual or psychological level. Your body is human, yes, but in regard to your mind, soul, identity, instincts, the way they experience the world, etc. - you're a deer. It's worth noting that for some otherkin this experience is primarily spiritual and may involve souls and past lives, while for others it's completely non-spiritual and is explained through psychological theories instead. Regardless, the fundamental aspect is that you believe that you ARE a deer - on the inside.

If you are deer-hearted, then you're NOT a deer. Rather than identifying AS a deer, you identify WITH them - which means that you feel a profound emotional connection to them. That connection goes beyond just a typical "favorite animal". They may feel like family to you, or close friends, or kindred spirits. Despite not *being* one yourself, your connection to them is an important part of you - impactful enough that you feel it's relevant to who you are as a person. While experiences vary from person to person, heart-types are *typically* permanent and life-long, just as kintypes are.

The fundamental difference is that the deer-hearted person wouldn't say "I am a deer" - it would be inaccurate to their experiences. It's also worth clarifying that there isn't necessarily a difference in intensity or relevance - many -hearted people feel that their heart-types are just as impactful for them as kintypes. Heart-types are different than kintypes, but NOT lesser in value or importance.

You can only discover whether you have a heart-type through introspection and deep thought. Never trust anyone else to tell you! - that answer comes from within. However, I CAN give some advice.

If you're considering that you might have a heart-type, there's a good chance that there's a specific animal/creature/thing you're already considering. You will need to answer two main questions: "Is this just an ordinary 'favorite thing'?" and "Is this a kintype?"

For the first question, many typical/"normal" people have a "favorite animal" or "favorite character". But these people go through most of their days thinking about that "favorite thing" very little - it doesn't affect their behavior, life experiences, or identity in a major, intense way. Even if they're very passionate about their interest, it might be short-lived - many people jump from interest to interest. For them, it's not a heart-type because their connection to the "favorite thing" is fairly minor in the grand scheme of things. So contemplate how important the [animal/creature/character/thing] is to you, how much your connection to it impacts your behavior and perspective on life, and whether it's a defining component of who you are. A hypothetical way to look at it is: "If your connection to [X] suddenly disappeared, would your life or sense of self change in a major way? Or would the loss have little to no impact?"

For the second question, mull over the words "I am a [X]", for a while. (Fill in X with the animal, character or specific thing you're considering.) Does it feel right to say that? Does viewing things that way feel like an "Aha!" moment, a missing piece of the puzzle that helps your experiences make more sense? Or does that concept not feel *right*? Maybe phrases like "[X] is incredibly important to me" or "I feel a deep connection with [X]” make more sense to you. You probably won't feel that immediate understanding right off the bat - making this differentiation can take time and thought, and your immediate gut feelings might be confusing. But in the long run, if saying "I am [X]" feels distinctly *wrong* then it's likely that [X] is a heart-type rather than a kintype.

But most importantly, I want to say that it's okay to not know, to be wrong, or to change your mind. It is NOT a disastrous thing if you publicly call yourself otherkin but then end up realizing that you're otherhearted instead (or vice versa). None of this is cut and dry, and we all deserve the freedom to be wrong. I personally don’t use “hearted” terminology for myself because it’s unusually difficult for me to sort my vague, amorphous feelings into certain boxes. It's okay to play with labels, drop them, or invent new ones - your path is your own, and your identity is *yours* to define in whatever way works for you.

(As a side note: If you hang out in alterhuman communities you may encounter the word "kith" (otherkith, animal-kith) at some point. It's *completely* synonymous with "hearted", but it’s less commonly used these days.)

[shkspr]

hey do you have any advice on figuring out your sexuality? I don't know what your experience has been but im struggling

anon, i am deeply sorry that it took me so long to answer this. it’s a combination of the fact that you can’t edit a draft of an ask on mobile (wack) and the fact that i’ve been trying to figure out how to say what i want to say (normal, i feel). anyway, this is what i’ve got, and i hope it helps.

first off, due to the nature of the things i’m discussing here, i want to state unequivocally that i am a lesbian who is open to relationships with trans women because i am attracted to women, and trans women are women. if anybody touches this post with their transmisogyny i will cast the evil eye on them. 

for what it’s worth, my experience with my own sexuality has been a long, hard process, and it’s been heavily, undeniably affected by my simultaneous journey with my gender identity, my personal identity, my childhood trauma, and my mental health. pretty much from the ages of 13 to 19 i was in a constant state of questioning everything about myself as a person. the only reason i even considered i might not be straight was bc i had friends who were not straight and i admired them. you can see how that would be confusing to a small teen who is already insecure about being a poser and a fake in every other aspect of life.

once i really examined what i was feeling, and talked it out with some of the aforementioned friends, i could admit that i wasn’t pretending, and that’s when i began identifying as bi. i wove in and out of different terminologies for a few years, burned thru several nb identities and several aspec identities, but the bottom line was that i was attracted to my own gender and other genders, and that was solid for a while.

when i was 18, i began thinking that i might be a lesbian bc, shock of shocks, i had made some very cool lesbian friends whom i admired. and i pretty much pushed that idea out of the way for a bit, telling myself it was not the truth, that i just wanted to feel special and cool, i just wanted to fit in. but then, shock of shocks again, i talked to some of my cool lesbian friends and they were very understanding and accepting and explained to me why all the reasons i thought i “couldn’t” be a lesbian were actually bullshit. 

so then i was a lesbian! and i spent a long time exploring my relationship with sex and found that i wasn’t asexual; some people are, and that’s cool! but my experience wasn’t a lack of sexual attraction or desire, it was a fear of vulnerability and a traumatic history with sexual content. i still had (or have) a complex experience with sex, and a muddy picture of gender, and a deeply flawed concept of interpersonal relationships, but i am a lesbian. and i’ve been comfortable with that for a while now, and i don’t foresee myself changing how i feel about that, but unexpected things can happen. 

and even though i’m comfortable with being a lesbian and calling myself a lesbian, there are always going to be things that give me pause. the thing is, the main way that i’ve changed and grown in this regard, is that those things don’t make me seriously question myself anymore. i’m secure enough in my sexuality to know that comphet, genderfeels, societal bias, etc etc, doesn’t make me less of a lesbian, even though it might feel like it sometimes.

that’s what it’s been like for me. my experiences are not universal, but i do happen to know that some of them are fairly common. but there’s also no right or wrong way to find yourself. there’s no rush, there’s no requirement. it is confusing and difficult more often than not, in a lot of different and scary ways. that being said, if there’s one piece of advice you take away from this post, it’s to always remember that your experiences are your own, and nobody else can decide for you what they mean or what to do with them.

it’s like this: you know when people say “everyone’s a little bit bisexual”? that’s not true, obviously. but i think there’s a truth hidden underneath it, and i think it’s a common experience that erroneously leads some people to that belief. no matter how you identify, there is almost always going to be something - compulsory heterosexuality, personal trauma that makes sex or romance uncomfortable, past relationships, one (1) very attractive man, whatever it is - that makes you think you’re wrong. even if you know you’re right. there’s always going to be something that could at any moment cause you to stop and think: wait, am i lying to myself?

and some people are not as vulnerable to those thoughts! some people go thru their daily lives and very rarely, if ever, consciously question their sexuality or their perception or performance of it. but other people are more susceptible to the thought spirals and the self-doubt and the confusion, and society at large feeds that and feeds upon it. for every lesbian you meet, there’s seven people giving twelve different reasons why they can’t be a “real” lesbian. for every bisexual person you meet, there’s a handful of thinkpieces about bisexuality that contradict their experiences. and so on and so forth. and that’s enough to cause a lot of indecision and anxiety.

but it’s also very freeing to take that thought and follow it to its necessary conclusion: that nobody on earth can tell you what your sexuality is. sure, if you’re a woman who feels genuine attraction to men and wants to pursue sex or relationships with them, you’re not a lesbian. that’s just because words have meanings. but you get to decide what “genuine attraction” is to you, and you get to decide whether you’re comfortable pursuing those relationships. and that’s just one example; the same logic applies broadly.

the bottom line is really that agonizing over labels and definitions just means you miss the forest for the trees. in a practical sense, in real life, who would you want to date, marry, kiss, have sex with, etc.? without thinking about what you should do, what you should want, what you’d be able to do if you had to, what you did last week, internet discourse, a dream you had when you were 12, whatever, none of it is relevant except insofar as it informs your current feelings on the matter. you’re not obligated to choose a label, and if you want one then there’s no deadline to pick one, and once you do you’re not locked into an identity for life.

which is all to say that no, not everybody is a little bit bisexual, but nobody is 100% anything, in this or any other facet of life. and that doesn’t mean that people’s sexualities aren’t valid; they are valid, but they aren’t objective or concrete in the way we would often like them to be. they’re helpful labels for explaining something that is actually unfathomably complicated. so whatever you do, whatever you decide: you don’t need to be sure, you don’t need to be right, you don’t need to be a certain kind of person, you don’t need to be anything in particular. you just need to be comfortable. 

[meliorn]

Normally I would be open to that but considering your friends I don't exactly feel safe doing that but honestly just read the post a little more carefully the homophobia isn't really hidden

look, i’m sorry, i’m really trying to be open here and i get not feeling safe enough to come off anon so i’m not judging that but you can’t justify not being willing to talk to me in private with “considering your friends”. what is that even supposed to mean? it might have been a mistake reblogging that post, i’m willing to talk about that and i try my best to be open to changing if i’m called out on something problematic, but what the fuck am i supposed to do with that? which of my friends are you even talking about? why is it relevant what my friends think if it’s a private conversation between us? why do you think insulting my friends is a good way of going about this conversation? i’m so confused and i don’t know how i’m supposed to react to this

and i have read it through and as i said in my tags, i don’t agree with the positioning of gay/bi/binary people as privileged because it’s easier to find terminology for those identities. i definitely don’t think there’s any systematic power given to gay people just because gay is a more well-defined term. i don’t think gay people have it easier than people who self-identify as queer. i really, really don’t. i know that a lot of lgbt people have issues with the word and for cultural reasons (in sweden where i’m from it’s common practice within the lgbt movement to use queer as an umbrella term), that never occured to me until i came in contact with the international lgbt community. but now i know better so i’m working on removing it from my vocabulary when i’m talking lgbt issues in general.

however! i do think there’s a lack of general, inclusive language to describe people who don’t feel comfortable with single labels, or who for various reasons need multiple labels for themselves, or who just don’t feel comfortable with labels such as gay, bi, pan, etc. these people aren’t more or less oppressed than gay, bi, pan, etc people. just because i think there’s a value in finding vague, inclusive language to include the people who aren’t included in “lgbt”, doesn’t mean i think gay people aren’t oppressed anymore, or that ppl who self-identify as queer are more oppressed. i genuinely don’t think so. but as someone who’s struggled with labels and not really fitting in anywhere, queer has helped me a lot. and i know it’s not good to use it about lgbt people in general, and i’m working on not doing that anymore, but it’s an extremely useful word for me personally and as the post said, to my knowledge there’s no other word that has that function. so for me, i’m using queer because i don’t have any other word that works for me. 

[coldwind-shiningstars]

Hope this is okay to reblog because it relates to me, also long post:

Even psychiatrists admit that a huge issue with their discipline is the lack of hard diagnostic lines, and the fact that diagnosing mental illness is related to self-reporting! Psychiatrists cannot do x-rays to see why a brain is different. They cannot do bloodwork. Anxiety and depression are often diagnosed by a questionnaire. The DSM is always being revised and always changing and hotly debated. My therapist told me that diagnoses are mostly important because they help billing insurance; a good mental health professional will deal with you as you are, without stereotyping you as your diagnosis, because everyone's so different. Psychology is good and fascinating and interesting but it's super difficult.

My post actually mentioned my 15+ professional diagnoses, which are constantly in flux because nobody can agree. I have never self diagnosed! I don't need to because I've been diagnosed with everything even resembling my symptoms! I don't see how "experts don't know what's wrong with me" is being anti-science; it's a fact. If I relied on identifying as what my current diagnosis was I'd never have something consistent to identify as. Seventeen year old me being diagnosed (professionally! I have the papers and everything) with autism wasn't any different symptomatically than fourteen year old me with a PDD-NOS diagnosis; what changed was the terminology.

Psychiatric care treats the symptoms because the root cause is so difficult to figure out. Ultimately, people often want a sense of community. If they find that in other people with similar experiences and symptoms, I'm happy for them.

Also some psychiatrists are awful and I don't blame people for not trusting them.

I'm a natural sciences major/lab technician who has experience in both wildlife biology and genetics it's kind of rude to accuse me of being anti-science when it's what I'm doing with my life. All science is done by people and therefore biased. Also, I calculated I've spent a year of my life in inpatient psychiatric care. I've been In Treatment, constantly, for six years. It's not like I don't have any experience with what I'm talking about. Assuming you know people's experiences is rude, as is sending grouchy anons to people.

Some of your posts are such massive anti-science bullshit. "Diagnostic anarchy"? Sure, why not throw all of psychiatry out the window then and fire all the doctors then because their diagnoses don't match up to the illnesses you feel you must have in order to be edgy and broody and "genuine" on tumblr.

That’s not at all what either I or @coldwind-shiningstars is advocating for. Kindly go and read more of both our posts about neurodivergence before hurling accusations at me.

(And guess what? I do have a “legitimate” autism diagnosis, from a “legitimate” doctor, and I still feel that the amount of time I devoted to self-diagnosis in talking with other autistic people about their experiences and doing my own research was much more valuable to my understanding of my identity than the time I spent with a doctor whose only information about autism came from an outdated list of symptoms.)