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Gus Porter is autistic - Meltdowns and self-esteem.
So. Season 2 episode 18, Labyrinth Runners, huh. Tbh I’ve never seen Gus as autistic even tho I saw a short headcanon post here and there, but this new ep? Holy hell guys. This is as canon as it’s going to get, I cannot be convinced otherwise, and I’m pretty much convinced it’s intentional. This single-handedly made me love Gus much more, and I now hold him dear to my heart. If you wanna skip to the new ep stuff, go to the keep reading section.
First of all, let’s have a rundown of possible autism traits Gus has shown so far: 1- Like the others, he’s somewhat of a misfit and doesn’t have many friends. 2- Special interest in humans. Leads to rambling/infodumping and excitement, I’m specifically thinking of the whole “human” nickname scene but there are tons of examples of that. 3- His special interest in human culture is driven by a curiosity, the want to amass knowledge about it, and he likes to makes theories about it, like why humans get wires to their teeth. It’s kind of like a puzzle, but it’s also a whole rich world and culture to explore and, relatable. I couldn’t find a clip of it but iirc he explains what he likes about illusion magic at some point and it felt very in that same vein as well. 4- Speaks to himself pretty regularly. (Irl with asd it’s usually either to help sensory/emotional processing, but can also be because of a lack of awareness of social norms or even control) 5- Socially awkward gifted kid nerd trope. Self-explanatory. 6- Sometimes says rudely blunt things, seemingly not knowing it’s the wrong thing to say. Ex: Willow: “We weren’t going to leave you behind.” Gus: “I was.” Willow: “Gus!” -elbows him- (important to note it wasn’t in a sassy or bitter manner) / “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out, dead or alive!” -Willow looks at him and shakes her head. Gus sees that, his eyebrows rise and his expression shift- “Okay, alive!” / Even thought it’s magic, the “Better luck next time!” and “goodbye forever!” messages feels like an instance of this as well 7- That goes hand in hand with not being able to read a room. Ex: Willow, worried/horrified: “Luz is in a witch’s dual!” Gus, excited: “Yeah, and she can win it all! Yeah yeah!” -epic finger guns- 8- Generally a stickler for rules and knows a lot about cultural history of the Boiling Isles. He can remember specific rules and dates, etc. 9- Strong moral code, thinking of the illusion graveyard ep specifically. (that’s not a diss, rigid morality and unlikeliness for corruption really is extremely common in autism and a diagnosis trait) 10- A certain social obliviousness. With overcrowding Willow, getting betrayed by fellow illusion coven students, and I couldn’t find a clip of it but iirc most Human Club members weren’t as excited about human stuff as much as he thought 11- ”Gus chomp”? This boy just dissed every existing social norm ever 12- Self-esteem issues due to social problems and perfectionism, as well as feeling like his special interest/skill (illusions) is useless/dumb and wanting to change that about himself. Here’s a good compilation to see many of those in clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISSkcKdzN6s&ab_channel=Milasia
Ok. Um... I didn’t think that’d be so long. Well that used to not be enough evidence to sell me on the headcanon, so below the cut we get to the new ep! Beware spoilers!
The angst? Delicious. Relatable.
There’s obviously the obliviousness and naivety + hard time reading people of Gus thinking he’s friends with a classmate after they teamed up to work on 1 project together once and said classmate left all the work to him. Gus didn’t notice him/think much of him not working on the assignment at all and said “we’re practically best friends now!” before he learned the truth from accidentally eavesdropping. To think you’re best friend-level getting along with someone who was obviously using him, like let’s be honest the dude didn’t look like he’s a very good actor and the vibes are very much rather that Gus is very easy to fool, especially since Gus says he “did it again”. “Why does this keep happening?”. This isn’t a “kid learns a lesson that some people will pretend to be his friend for their own gain” thing, this is a “it happens again and again but Gus can’t see the warning signs”. He’s confused. He doesn’t get it. This is a fundamental social thing that he cannot identify, that he does not learn from no matter how often it happens to him. “What’s wrong with me, why can’t I learn?”. I’m sobbing y’all. Undiagnosed autism right there. He knows something is wrong, but social cues just do not click, and he doesn’t have the tools or knowledge he needs to know why he can't read them. He can’t tell when someone likes him or not, leaving him to wallow or overanalyze social interactions or friendships sometimes, like when he was sad over overcrowding Willow. And it’s not like he never got any trust issues either, after all he pushes away Willow at first, and wouldn’t believe Hunter’s comfort until he did the breathing exercise.
The confusion, the trauma, the anxiety, the sheer emotional turmoil of hurt and betrayal and the crushing of self-esteem for not being able to tell. “Everyone thinks I’m the smart one, so why do I keep acting so dumb?” “I can’t even trust myself [my perspective of what’s happening] anymore.”
Meltdowns share similarities with anxiety and panic attacks, because it comes from what I listed just above. This? Is a meltdown.
This isn’t just a panic attack. This is an outburst, a coping mechanism, even if it is characterized by intense emotions and stress and a loss of control.
Source: https://www.rdiconnect.com/what-is-an-autism-meltdown/ (don’t mind it being mainly written for autism moms) It isn’t necessarily written the best way for the purpose of highlighting Gus’ situation, and meltdowns can also be from sensory overload and others, but Gus’ is obviously because of an emotional overload. Hunter coming in with the breathing exercise shows that he had to calm down for it to stop as well. This may be one of the most powerful visual representations of a meltdown I’ve ever seen. Meltdowns cause you to explode and often lash out, it’s not just internal or even crumbling down alone in a corner, it’s compared to temper tantrums and you can hurt others. Which is why the illusions are affecting others as well, not just him, despite them being caused by him because of his emotional state, and that he doesn’t want it to happen. It sucks for everyone involved and it’s very overwhelming.
As an autistic who only got diagnosed at 18, who learned that she had 0 friends when she thought she was bestie with all her classmates because everyone pretended, who when I look at memories of being tricked I can see obvious signs of dishonesty when it just didn’t register at the time, this resonates so, so much. Result: I got social anxiety, but overanalyzing everything and bending myself for other people didn’t help, I still got taken advantage of and thought of as annoying, though self-improvement and learning more about social stuff did help as I grew up. I was a gifted kid academically, but couldn’t tell who’s a bff and who literally could not wait to get away from me. Time and time again. And yeah, most of the time I learned through accidentally hearing something they didn’t want me to.
If you’ve watched She-ra and the Princesses of Power or you know a fair bit of pop culture, you can see huge similarities in Gus and Entrapta, who is confirmed to have been intentionally written as autistic. And that similarity is the confusion when it comes to social situations and betrayal. It’s not that they’re not trying, or that they’re dumb, it’s that they genuinely can’t tell when someone likes them or not and such. In both cases, it causes deep self-esteem issues and trauma. It’s honestly heartbreakingly relatable to see their eyes widen in realization when the bubble gets popped and it becomes obvious and explicit that the friendship they thought they had was a lie. It’s even more heartbreakingly relatable when statements such as “I’m supposed to be smart, so why do I keep acting so dumb” and “I can’t even trust my vision of the events” and “I just wasn’t suited for friendship” be like... True, y’know? It’s not just an exaggeration of their feelings or 1 bad experience, it’s how we are, and we just have to cope with it, accept it and find a good entourage we can trust. This is a good compilation of Entrapta angst if you’re interested, huge spoilers beware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrW54RZFTAQ&ab_channel=tlr748
Also on the note of several main characters showing numerous signs of autism or other neurodivergences: Neurodivergent people tend to gravitate to each other, which makes our main TOH cast of misfits all/most having some neurodivergence not surprising or “unrealistic”. A diagnosis shouldn’t make them any less loveable to you. Though, of course, we’re all entitled to our own opinions and visions of them & that’s valid. /gen
Thank you The Owl House, for keeping delivering with the great rep
Not me crying writing this, no u, nothing more to see here
#the owl house#gus porter#autistic headcanon#my posts#my content#asd#autism#analysis#character analysis#labyrinth runners#augustus porter#actually autistic#autistic#autistic pride#angst#meltdown#relatable#autistic gus porter
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AND ANOTHER THING-
About Mafia 3
Some thoughts about characters and how some folks treat them:
John Donovan: Love this guy, wish I had more info about him that isn't all surface level and stuff I had to make up for a headcanon, but jeez I swear, at least on YouTube comments, it’s like people want to make him the Mafia games equivalent of Deadpool. Cause he’s “wacky” and “chaotic” and they want him to be the next games protag, once again, love this guy, but oh my god, NO! I think he works best as a side character and at most a secondary protag (like for Stones Unturned). If there was a game with him...what would it be? Just assassinate politicians in the 70′s simulator? Won’t be a Mafia game then would it unless he goes back to the Clay Family. That’s just YouTube comments I see though, but I got thoughts.
Vito Scaletta: I have to be clear, I DO LIKE Vito, but I think I liked him more in Mafia 3, very much Italian Uncle I deeply deserved in life vibes, I will admit though, even though I like him in M3, I feel like the devs leaned in on him being there as like, a selling point? While I enjoyed M2, I will admit as faves in order go, it’s Mafia 3, Mafia 1, and Mafia 2. Vito was getting dragged along for a lot of the events in M2 and boy, Joe was.... I wouldn't want him for a friend. Vito can be all messed up about what happened to Joe, but when I watched the cutscene movie for M2 I thought Joe was awful to Vito. Vito needs better friends :/ (also even tho I’m usually on team “RAIL THAT OLD MAN!” I think the Lincoln/Vito ship is odd, def not my thing and yet somehow not as offensive as the next character I’m about to bring up though.)
Giorgi Marcano: Oh boy where do I begin with him... I see...so many people sympathize with him or simp for him and it feels SO GROSS. (Imma be honest this mf is ugly he looks like a monkey with his busted hairstyle. Like if someone made a realistic Westernized Lupin the III but somehow removed all the charm from him). I feel like people seem to have forgotten he handed the Hollow over the the Dixie Mafia on a silver platter, that or they don’t care. The Hollow is the Black community in the game and the Dixie Mafia is all Southern Pride and Lynch mobs, all those Confederate flags... And I know that Giorgi KNEW THIS. I see people saying he was just doing what his dad said, and sure to an extent but it’s clear he enjoys what he does (He was so hyped to tell Sal what he did to Olivia), I will never forget what the Dixie boy’s did to Perla’s, to the young black women they forced to take drugs and exploited, the the specific targeting of the Black and Haitian communities in game, what they did to Casandra, etc. Giorgi was a spoiled violent Daddy’s boy that either was playing Lincoln, Ellis and Danny the whole time, or didn't care about them enough to even protest Sal’s orders against them. Even in his death scene, he never tried to apologize to Lincoln even if he knew the apology wouldn't have saved him. If they showed that, then sure I would at least admit he did care about Lincoln and all his friends that were killed, but no he didn't, just him and his old man. (PUTTING EEEEEVERRYYOOONE ON A LIST WHO SHIP LINCOLN/GIORGI! I CAME FROM THE FAR CRY FANDOM AND I’M SICK OF SEEING SO MUCH RACISM IN CHARACTER PORTRAYALS AND SHIPS! SICK AND TIRED!)
Game story and themes:
I will praise this game to the moon and back, despite it’s “flaws” like the glitches and game play. The glitches were not game breaking for me and I liked the game play honestly (I have ASD so that probably contributes to it). The driving is good despite me being a bad driver and I liked the how the weapons worked.
But I do have some thoughts about what I think was kinda lackluster and disappointing.
Lack of highlighting how horrible the Vietnam war was, condemning the army and the C.I.A. I know that’s so specific but you can’t have a Vietnam vet without having some kind of toll that it took on him, most of Lincoln’s trauma was mostly just centered around what happened to his family after he got back home, and some stuff in his childhood. Which is valid those things are traumatizing but idk, were the devs afraid? Also I know Donovan during the game is still technically in the C.I.A until he officially leaves in 1969, and he’s like, a big JFK stan, but like, does he know what Kennedy’s plans were for the C.I.A, is he blindly loyal? Was it game? I mean I know he does leave it but he’s been in the game for like 15 years, what’s going on? What’s all those war crimes for? Do the devs at Hangar 13 and 2K not wanna be put on some weird list? I don’t know, man.
My taste for found crime families keeps getting un-quenched: Looking back at the promo trailers showing Lincoln and all his under-bosses working together, with Donovan even tagging along, and seeing how the game actually played out... ow. The under-bosses hate each other, every convo between Lincoln and Cassandra feels like it leads to an argument, Burke was racist to Lincoln at the start, and....actually Vito seems like the most pleasant despite being a sad middle aged man so I’ve give him that. The most we get to them showing respect for each other is if you go to pick up kickback and talk more to them, then they’ll say nice things about each other.
Ex: Cassandra saying Vito isn't as bad as she thought, she thinks Burke is really fun. Vito thinking Burke is funny. And Burke having respect for what Vito's been through and weirdly enough, oddly respectful of her beliefs.
But that’s it, and they have no idea who Donovan is either even though he’s been working behind the scenes. And with how they are in game, I know they would NOT like him, I think Cassandra would hate him the most cause she gave Lincoln flak for willingly joining the army (I mean she’s right, I agree with her.).
So in that aspect I’m a little <:/ about. Not everything can be perfect.
OKAY THATS ALL FOR NOW!
#mafia 3#mafia ii#mafia trilogy#lincoln clay#john donovan#vito scaletta#giorgi marcano#cassandra mafia 3#thomas burke#thoughts#video games#rambling
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So this is a personal one for me to ask and if you're not comfortable with it don't mind it; how would the tmnt boys (seperate) react when the reader confesses that they're autistic after the boys got curious when she had some peculiar, behavior or stims. The reader would be stressed, because she has a crush on the tmnt boy in question and she didn't want them to find her weird or just stop interacting with her. When she's met with confusion instead, because the boys never heard of it, cue this weird conversation where reader tells them to the best of her ability what it is and the boys just keep asking questions. Also some general headcannons with it maybe?
Okay so I'm actually really happy that you asked me this because I feel like ASD isn't portrayed a lot in any type of media. My ADD and ASD have a lot of overlap so I hope I can capture what you're asking of me!
Now let's get into it!
TMNT Headcanons
The boys reacting to an autistic reader
Leonardo
he wasn't really sure what was happening the first time you reacted
one minute you were standing next to him doing dishes and the next you were attempting to claw your skin off like an angry cat
Leo tried not to look annoyed as he watched you rub your hands against your shirt until your flesh started to turn red
you looked like you were crying but he knew you weren't
but your face was starting to turn purple and your cheeks were puffy from the effort of holding your breath
"Y/N? You need to breathe."
You shot a glare at him, scathing eyes meeting his now very concerned expression
your own softened and you clutched your arms to your chest, heaving oxygen into your lungs until your face became a normal shade again
"Are you okay?"
The words were stuck in your throat and you weren't sure if you should nod or shake your head
so you gave him a half-hearted shrug
he frowned back at you but turned to finish the dishes on his own
when he questioned you about it later he couldn't help but be curious
"Well actually it's uh- it's kinda a sensory type of thing? There are certain textures that I can't stand touching do I avoid them but if I come into contact by accident my brain just kinda explodes and I shut down."
"How exactly does that work though?"
"I don't really understand it much but like- you know that feeling you get when you think there's a bug on you and there's not but it really really feels like it?"
He nodded
"Yeah, it feels like that. And anytime I touch something that triggers that reaction it takes FOREVER to get the feeling off my skin. That's why I usually wear gloves when I do dishes. Guess I just forgot to grab 'em today."
He was sympathetic
and god, you were so embarrassed
lucky for you, Leo's not an asshole
"Well thank you for explaining it to me, you really freaked me out earlier. I'll talk to April and see if we can keep a pair or two at the lair just in case you forget again."
Consider your heart melted
you couldn't even find the words to thank him and holy shit was your face red
"Hey y/n?"
"Yeah Leo?"
"Why didn't you ever tell me- us that you were autistic?"
Did you rip the band aid off now or make something up? Which would ,technically speaking, be less catastrophic in the long run?
"I uh- I really like you and I really didn't want you or the other's to look at me differently..."
wow, you liked him? miss ma'am you have saved this boy a world of anxiety and damn does he thank you for it
"Thanks for telling me... and y/n? I really like you to."
Awh fuck yeah, best possible execution of band aid-ripping-off ever
Donatello
Donnie wished he could act surprised when you finally told him
he really wanted to, it would've made you feel better for sure
but he sucked at lying and he didn't want to make you feel like he thought you were an idiot
because that was so far from the truth
after going through extensive research on Mikey's behalf when he suspected he had ADHD Donnie had stumbled across many different websites that discussed the symptoms and overlaps between both disorders
to make a long story short, Donnie knew that you had ASD and he was waiting for you to tell him
it would probably come off as rude if he brought it up in conversation right?
he didn't want to risk it
but that didn't stop him from keeping an eye on you and your behaviors
he was a man of science, of course he was going to analyze you
not in a weird way or anything, just as a curious sort of precaution
but the longer you were involved in the turtle's lives the more noticeable your stims and meltdowns got, Donnie did his best to cover for you without making you suspicious of him
eventually he'd come up with something that he hoped would come across as a friendly gesture and wouldn't set you off or scare you away
it was game night at the lair and you, as always, were perched on the arm of the sofa, a large grin plastered on your face
inside your head was exploding but you were masking it pretty well if you do say so yourself
but Donnie was, well... donnie was donnie
so when he noticed you starting to rock a little more visibly he removed his attention from commentating the game and grabbed a pair of headphones from the side table
you were beyond confused when he passed them to you but your face revealed everything
"They're noise cancelling, try them on."
holy shit it was like putting your head underwater, everything was muffled
not in the way normal headphones did, you quite literally couldn't hear anything at all, just a calm amount of nothing
you nearly started crying when you realized that Donnie had figured you out on his own
but you'd never been more relieved about anything in your life
Raphael
he wouldn't admit that he was mesmerized by your presence
you practically radiated calm
his complete opposite
it was his favorite thing about you, because despite your quiet disposition and calming aura you weren't afraid to call him out or rebut any of his insults
this was not something you expected him to appreciate nor was it something you thought would make you catch feelings
but damn if you didn't
he'd been sitting in on yours and Donnie's little experiment for an hour or so now, watching you both exchange quiet whispers and inside jokes that you always seemed to lag on
then you slipped up
not bad, nothing detrimental to the project, just the same mistake that you'd already made ten times over
you might as well have exploded
"Y'N, you just have to move thi-"
"I KNOW DONATELLO. I FUCKING KNOW AND I JUST CAN'T DO THIS BULLSHIT!"
you set everything down gently enough to avoid breaking it before turning and storming out of the lab, waving your hands like they were on fire
Raph and Donnie exchanged a look that sent the larger red turtle following after you
when you calmed yourself down enough to talk you kept your gaze locked on the wall, explaining that you couldn't make eye contact when you were upset
he might not be the smartest brother, but Raph's no dummy, he put those pieces together pretty quickly after you told him that one small detail
he wasn't upset that you didn't tell him and you'd personally never been more relieved
your heart nearly splattered into the stratosphere when you finally gace him your own explanation
"yeah, I like ya too."
you grinned so wide you were sure your face would split open and your entire body rocked side to side with excitement
he thought that was pretty adorable too
And he did stick around to offer a bit of support when you apologized to Donnie for screaming at him
Michaelangelo
to be frank it probably shouldn't have taken so long for Mikey to realize that you were autistic
the similarities between your own personality and his ADHD were so in sight it was near painful
it was his turn to make dinner that night and you'd made sure that you came over early to help him set up, you knew how side-tracked he'd get and you were the poster child for solid routine
what more perfect matchup existed?
trick question, there isn't one
you were on one side of the counter cutting vegetables and he was on the other throwing said vegetables into the mixing pot
the music was at an ungodly level of loud so your only means of communication were screaming over it
"MIKEY."
"WHA?"
"YOU GOT THE-"
"YEAH."
"AND THE-"
"UH HUH."
"COOL, HAVE YOU SEEN THE-"
"TONGS? NO, THE SKEWERS. YEAH, THEY'RE IN THE OTHER DRAWER."
"THANKS."
the two of you went about your previous tasks, thinking nothing of the conversation that had just taken place
at least until you'd begun washing your knife and cutting board
that's when Casey walked in, looking both perturbed and annoyed at the same time
"Alright, which one of you knows telepathy?"
Mikey exchanged a glance with you and you returned it with a raised eyebrow
"The hell you mean brah?"
he looked at the both of you like you were the ones that had grown four extra heads before speaking again
"You literally just had a conversation with like five words and somehow just knew what the other meant? What's up with that?"
you glanced at Mikey again
"Holy shit, did we?"
"I mean, not really. You used your hands."
now all three of you were confused but it quickly became two when Casey shook his head in defeat and left the room
"You know I think he's right."
he blinked first and your staring contest ended
"But you used your hands-"
"I got autism Mikey, one does not simply not use their hands as forms of speech."
"You're-"
"Yep."
was the silence laughing at you? could it do that? it was kinda rude
"Huh, that actually makes sense, that's not mean is it?"
you shook your head no
"You're just me but fast."
Mikey agreed with that, pestered you with a few more questions, and went back about working, as did you, you saw no reason to address it further
but your cheeks burned red
"Yo- Y/N that actually explains why everyone else thinks we're a thing."
you didn't know if you could choke on air or not but you did it anyways
"Are we?"
he gave you his signature grin
"If we are then Raph owes April a hundred bucks."
you returned his smile
"Oh this oughta be good."
I'd like to preface this by apologizing for my near three week absence. Life got crazy and my writer's block hopped on a train, went through a school zone, killed seven pedestrians, and committed tax fraud before tumbling off a cliff never to be seen again.
But on the bright side- I got my SAT scores back and started some scholarship applications. Super happy with that. School's out in a few weeks so I'll be able to write more (hopefully).
Anyways, I hope I got this one down okay. I may have hyper analyzed the request so I might be a little off. But I really enjoyed doing this one and I hope you like it!
-Mars 🌠
#tmnt bayverse#tmnt headcanons#tmnt x reader#askbox#ask response#writing requests#writing blog#writersblock#tmnt raphael#tmnt donatello#tmnt michelangelo#tmnt leonardo#tmnt 2014#tmnt 2016
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per your post "every single one of the monsters is autistic and/or adhd" will you elaborate on that?, if you do i will love you forever (not that i wont if you dont do it)
oh boy i would love to!!! unironically nothing brings me more joy than writing long, convoluted character analysis posts
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okay so i’ve written several posts before about why andrew is autistic. his moral code, the roundabout way he communicates, his body language, his stimulation-seeking behavior, his strict adherence to transactional deals, the emphasis on honesty, and a dozen other details. at this point i just take andrew being autistic as fact, not just an interpretation
h o w e v e r i also hc that andrew is dyslexic, which is also a neurodiverse condition
- - -
similarly, i’ve seen more than one person interpret kevin as autistic, and i absolutely agree that it fits. not just the hyperfocus on exy but mostly the way he communicates. he’s very indirect, especially in his affection but very direct with his opinions. he tries to be helpful in a material way to the people he cares about, even if he comes off as negative. he wants the people he cares about to be safe and successful so he pushes them to work hard and reminds them in measurable ways how to stay healthy. he doesn’t factor in a lot of room for emotions, so instead he focuses on quantifiable things that he can improve. i personally act very similarly. approaching someone emotionally is hard for me, so when the people i care about have problems all i can think to do is try offering solutions, check up on their well-being, etc. practicality instead of conventional sentiment is extremely common with asd
- - -
so now let’s talk about neil. i had to think on this one for a WHILE but ultimately came to the conclusion that neil is adhd, probably hyperactive type.
like obviously neil is high energy. i would say he probably does the most exercise of anyone on the team. morning run, morning practice, afternoon practice, night practice with kevin and andrew, plus he doesn’t have a car so he runs to class (on a BIG ass campus), and goes for an extra run when he feels stressed. that’s... insane, honestly.
neil reminds me SO MUCH of this post that goes:
“Was just informed by my mom that I do in fact have ADHD and the reason I thought I didn’t was because ever since I was seven whenever I got super energetic my mom would have me go chop wood so now when I’m feeling The ADHD I go chop wood”
(phenomenal post) and that’s neil to a t. tell me this isn’t exactly how neil handles his problems and also exactly what mary would have had to do to keep her unmedicated and very energetic son focused on the task of staying alive
neil also definitely has that ADHD on/off switch with his interest. the obvious being exy which is like the definition of a hyperfixation, but you can see it in other things: the way he runs totally hot or totally cold with people, his complete disinterest in his schoolwork, the way he can’t seem to sit still long enough to follow movies. but then there’s also the hyperfocus. doing the same drill for hours on end. watching exy game after exy game. staring at andrew until time falls away
what’s more, neil on many occasions shows racing thoughts, both in an anxiety way (and anxiety often goes hand-and-hand with adhd) but also as a way to quickly and accurately take in details about people to build a character profile of them. this is what allows him to connect with the foxes, how he manages to get through andrew’s puzzles, and even how he knows what to say in order to knock riko down a peg. his brain just works so fast and it takes in a lot of very specific details and disparate information to make connections.
but also like,, neil has a HUGE problem with time blindness. like the instant he didn’t have his mother around to manage and direct him anymore he lost all sense of time. he stayed in Millport for a YEAR. and what did he keep telling himself during that time? basically “i really need to move on, but not just yet.” for a YEAR! then he gets to palmetto and he’s like “i’ll cut and run in a month or two” then he doesn’t “i’ll be gone by halloween” wrong again “i’ll leave by the raven’s game” nope. like,, the boy just has NO sense of time and he can’t seem to make himself DO anything outside of an externally enforced schedule. and even then,,, HE HAD 48 FUCKING DAYS TO FIGURE OUT SOMETHING TO DO TO NOT GET MURDERED! 48 WHOLE DAYS. he didn’t make a plan, he didn’t write down any letters with goodbyes, he didn’t GO TO THE FBI LIKE HE’D INTENDED TO THE WHOLE TIME! nah he just made out with andrew and when he finally got to zero he was just like “ah shit, that was fast. oh well guess i’ll die” and that’s time blindness, babey!
---
let’s move on to nicky.
now i think it would be really easy to say nicky is just adhd because he’s high energy and forgetful but tbh,, i don’t think that’s all of it. like if you really look at nicky’s character and especially at his problems, he has asd problems just as much as he has adhd problems.
so nicky is dual diagnosis asd and adhd. also nicky reminds me a lot of a girl i used to know who was autistic/adhd
so, adhd:
very generally speaking, ppl with adhd will struggle with sitting still, listening to and following instructions, planning/organization, following a schedule, and some social boundaries like “appropriate” times and topics of conversation
i would say you see hints of this with nicky. he’s definitely a rambunctious personality, constantly on the move, constantly stimulation seeking. he’s very tactile. he likes to dance, he likes to party, he complains about it but he’s an elite-level athlete. he’s also decidedly very chatty, and doesn’t seem to really pay attention to what he’s saying. he distracts himself and the people around him have to keep him on track. he has some trouble with boundaries. he’s a little all over the place. he’s almost a bit of an adhd stereotype
also one thing i find interesting is that when neil sees him in the library doing work neil is surprised to see he’s capable of that, especially bc when we see the upperclassmen doing work they generally do it in their dorms or on the bus and/or with other people around. that hyper-social nicky would be alone in a quiet place is weird. but this is like the most common tip for dealing with adhd. don’t do it in a familiar space. have a designated space and time to do work. limit distractions. just a lil detail
so now, asd:
in all honesty, most of nicky’s actual problems in the narrative could be viewed as stemming from asd symptoms. his number one issue being that he has a lot of trouble with nonverbal cues (and tbh, verbal ones too). the twins are mostly quiet. andrew especially (when he’s sober) communicates primarily nonverbally, and nicky seems to have a lot of trouble with this. despite knowing them for the longest on the team, nicky honestly seems to have the least insight into the way either of the twins actually thinks or processes things. he loves them, and he’s very forgiving of them, but he fundamentally doesn’t understand them.
the twins, andrew especially, put up a LOT of nonverbal boundaries, and nicky sort of inadvertently keeps trampling all over them. he’s touchy in a way they don’t like. he talks a lot about their personal lives to other people. he treats them like they’re joking when they’re serious. etc. and like,,, you kind of get the sense that the upperclassmen feel similarly about him. beyond the homophobia, beyond the fact that he’s loyal to andrew, the upperclassmen still treat him with this sense of,, bafflement, i suppose? it’s clear that they don’t really understand him and he doesn’t really understand them. although, nicky IS curious about the upperclassmen, while the upperclassmen are pretty dismissive of him. it reminds me of when my sweet, floppy dog tries to play with my cat. their body language is different; they’re each receiving different signals than they believe they’re sending out
only,, nicky loves people!! he likes being around them, he likes talking to them. he’s interested in their lives and stories, but it’s very clear that he can’t read between the lines on people. he has an incredibly hard time with people who expect their actions to speak for them, which is most people, but is especially his cousins.
actually this is very much also an issue that i have: things need to be spelled out for me. the way i deal with it is i ask a lot of questions. ‘how do you want me to react to this potential situation?’ ‘what are specific things that make you most comfortable?’ ‘please explain to me exactly how you feel and what has prompted those feelings?’ and i’m always communicating vice versa like that with other people. a lot of specifics in both questions and answers
and the interesting thing is, when i was skimming through the books reviewing dialogue styles for another ask, i noticed that, actually, nicky DOES do this. with neil and the upperclassmen, nicky asks a LOT of quick, clarifying questions. things that ask after tone, that ask after intent. it’s kinda sad that he does this for communicating with acquaintances, but with the twins, the people he’s closest to, he makes a lot more assumptions. and i’m really proud of nicky for having this coping skill, because i can’t imagine it’s something he grew up doing. there’s no way he was raised in an environment that fostered this kind of open communication so it must have been something he learned about much later, probably in germany with the kloses, which would also explain why he’s a lil imperfect about it
---
now last but not least, aaron
this is another one i had to think through for a long time before it felt like it fit
much like how i felt that it would be easy to read nicky as simply adhd rather than also asd, i think it would be easy to say aaron is autistic simply because he is quieter, less rambunctious. however, i actually think he’s adhd, likely primarily inattentive type
in all honesty, aaron’s #1 character trait for the first two books is basically that he’s disconnected. detached. separated both from his family and his team. not in the same forcefully apathetic way that andrew is, more,, spaced out. he’s just kind,, there. not really paying attention to what’s going on, tuning in every once in a while only if something really catches his eye/ear then tuning right back out again. just sits in his corner and plays on his phone. and the thing is, from the moments when he does tune in, you can tell that he actually does care. he backs nicky when seth insults him in tfc, and we know he cares deeply about andrew even if he’s become disillusioned with their fraught relationship. he even hangs with his family, doesn’t seem to really try and slip away to other friends besides katelyn, he’s fine spending his leisure time with the monsters. so it’s not totally apathy, he’s just,,, tuned out most of the time
and, yea, that sounds like adhd. it’s not the type that most people are familiar with, and for a lot of people this causes it to slip under the radar. it can make it hard to get help or a dx because it doesn’t fit with how adhd “should” look or how someone “should” act, but difficulty focusing your thoughts and staying in tune with the current moment is absolutely part of adhd
addiction is also a huge problem for people with adhd. a lot of stimulants affect people with adhd very differently than neurotypicals, especially in small doses, and an adhd kid who’s struggled their whole lives with the disorder might try speed or god-forbid meth or fuck even coffee and suddenly find that things are a lot easier for them. they start to self-medicate, they don’t actually know what they’re doing, and then they’re addicted, and everything spirals out of control. we don’t know too many details about aaron’s addiction other than that his mother enabled him, but wouldn’t this fit? it’s also an explanation for aaron still taking drugs at eden’s, given that cracker dust seems to be a mild amphetamine. (aaron talk to betsy about the neurocog and get an actual prescription please)
(total throw away but aaron plays videogames and videogames are like,, adhd culture)
#Anonymous#txt#andrew minyard#kevin day#neil josten#nicky hemmick#aaron minyard#my posts#im talkin#cw addiction#cw addiction mentioned
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Rant from autistic with NT coworkers in autism-related field
I work in a field that works with a lot of kids on the autism spectrum. At my current job, I evaluate preschool-aged kids coming from infant-toddler services or community screenings to determine if they qualify for any services under the special education umbrella. I’m autistic. My coworkers are not. This is normally fine, but not always.
My coworkers have made great strides since I got there in learning that the autism spectrum includes more people than the very obvious kids who tend to come to us already diagnosed at age 2 or 3. One coworker, though, still insists on dismissing all suspicions and even formal diagnoses of ASD that don’t immediately fit what she expects to see, and I am ready to scream. I will not scream at her, but I would like to.
Some examples:
Recent comment about a kid I was evaluating who is very clearly on the spectrum if you interact with him for even a couple of minutes: “I don’t know, he seems to have some skills”. - because autism = no skills? (the other coworkers used to assume that too, but they’ve responded much better to some gentle education on the subject). I avoid screaming at coworker.
The other day: Mom of child that coworker is evaluating cheerfully tells coworker that she was diagnosed with Aspergers in high school. Coworker doesn’t believe the mom’s diagnosis is right (doesn’t tell mom this, but tells all of us afterwards). Coworker is also confused about how this woman could have graduated high school and now be in college, given how impaired she seems to be in conversation, her difficulty understanding coworker’s questions, and her apparent low level of basic life skills. Coworker completely brushes me off when I explain that a difference between academic skills and conversation and life skills is not at all unusual with ASD. I avoid screaming at coworker.
Every time a kid comes to us where parents express behavioral concerns that fit a pattern of ASD but kid does fine on cognitive and language testing and kid’s testing behavior is anything less than an inconsolable meltdown: coworker attributes behavior problems to parenting. Same crap my parents dealt with for years. I avoid screaming at coworker.
Now, this woman is actually pretty good at her job in terms of determining whether kids are showing a need for special education preschool support and which of the supports we can offer would best help the kid thrive in preschool and get ready for kindergarten. She shares my frustration at the serious gap in services for children who don’t need special education but whose needs aren’t being met by whatever their families currently know how to do with them. She even spent a significant part of this afternoon searching for resources for a different kid she evaluated who doesn’t qualify for special education. She doesn’t share her doubts with parents or children, and the supports we offer are need-based, not diagnosis-based, so I guess it doesn’t have any practical effect except to irritate me. But it really irritates me.
Just... stop trying to armchair un-diagnose people. It’s unhelpful, it’s not your job, and it’s offensive. It also makes me uncomfortably concerned that she might have also decided to armchair un-diagnose me, but whatever. She’s otherwise a good coworker; she just needs to stop it.
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OpheThorn III: Back to Rambling
The Memory of Babel…Wow.
If nothing else, this book GOES. We’re dropped onto Babel just as lost, bewildered, and determined as Ophelia to get to the bottom of this ark. Boy, was it worth the wait! Babel is exquisitely written and, incredible as it sounds, even more treacherous than the Pole. The backbone Ophelia shows in this book is awesome! I love that she’s taken the measure of her worth—all the things she’s been through and survived in the previous novels—and come out resilient As Fuck. This book is definitely a penultimate novel. Dazzling as it is, much of it feels like groundwork being laid for the finale.
OpheThorn is less nuanced and ambiguous in Babel. While I feel there’s less to analyze, I do really love this pairing and I like writing about their dynamic. So, I’m just going to put my thoughts down and see what comes up!
[There will be spoilers]
[All fanart images credited to @patricialyfoung]
Intro
One of the things that drew me into The Mirror Visitor series is the relationship between Ophelia and Thorn. Theirs is not a traditional love story at all; in fact, it avoids clichés and instead plays about with two romantic tropes: enemies to lovers and marriage of convenience. The series spins these tropes anew by offering subtle signs of attraction (discussed here) and giving both characters antisocial tendencies, as well as—in Thorn’s case—possible ASD traits (discussed here).
When we left these two in Clairdelune, Thorn had just put his feelings on the table. Before she could give her response, however, they were separated under upsetting, even traumatic circumstances. Years later, we meet Ophelia again…
Ophelia
…and, oh dear, she is in a sorry state indeed. We find her disastrously operating a waffle stand during a kooky Animist festival for, of all things, clocks. Just what the girl pining for Thorn needs, right? All is not well with Ophelia. As Aunt Rosaline points out,
“No, you’re not fine. You don’t go out anymore, you eat any old thing, you sleep at any old time. You haven’t even been back to the museum.” [19]
Although her mother, sister, and to an extent Aunt Rosaline all believe Ophelia is wasting away, shutting herself in her room, she’s actually been quite busy. She’s been studying and developing working hypotheses about God and the Other: where they are, there she’ll find Thorn. She’s convinced of it. Working from obscure clues dropped in Clairdelune, Ophelia settles on Babel as the ark most likely to yield some answers, and when the chance to travel there appears, she wastes no time at all.
She. Is. Going.
Thorn
In Babel, Thorn has made a name for himself as Sir Henry, rising to become a Lord of LUX, the gatekeepers of Babel who serve a similar function to that of the Doyennes on Anima. He is commanding, magnetic, and aloof as ever. It is unsurprising to find that he has been playing close to the fire again. But the stress and tension of his investigative life on Babel is certainly heightened in a way that it wasn’t at the Pole.
We also learn that his nickname in Babel is the Automaton due to his unceasing energy. Thorn, thus, has dealt with the separation by predictably burying himself in work.
The Reunion
To Ophelia’s disappointment, the reunion with Thorn does not go quite as she had envisioned, and that’s because she hadn’t really envisioned past the goal of finding him [203]. Ophelia is very much a character who takes things one at a time as she’s confronted by them. When Thorn seems less than pleased to see her, she must consider all these Troublesome Feelings and why his underwhelming reaction upsets her.
The thing is Ophelia is waiting for Thorn to take the lead. But he already did, and she didn’t follow—at least, not in a way that he could understand. As previously discussed, Thorn does not function well with non-verbal cues. He needs to be explicitly told how someone else feels, or how he is making someone else feel, in order to know when to adjust his behavior. That can be quite flustering, especially for someone like Ophelia who struggles to vocalize her feelings exactly as they are.
“Is that it?” Ophelia murmured. “You have nothing more to say to me?”
“I have, actually,” Thorn muttered, not stopping all his connecting. […] “And you?” he finally asked, in turn. “You have nothing more to say to me?” [263]
She doesn’t. Thorn coldly dismisses her and continues to keep her at arm’s length, especially when he gives her a second chance to confess her feelings and she still refuses to take it.
Ophelia has social anxiety. She’s not exactly shy, she just gets tongue-tied and befuddled sometimes. It’s part of her make-up, but it doesn’t just happen around Thorn—there are plenty of instances where she has trouble expressing herself to those she cares about, such as Ambrose and Blaise in this novel, or Fox in Clairdelune. She even struggles to express basic gratitude toward Aunt Rosaline in Promise. Unlike them, Thorn challenges her to uncomfortable levels. Her feelings for him are complex and utterly foreign; she has no idea what to do about them.
Unfortunately, Thorn is fresh out of fucks to give over her see-saw act. He’s well-past this stage of confusion and cowardice she’s experiencing because he’s been in love with Ophelia since Promise (“I’m starting to get used to you”) and dealt with the ramifications of that in Clairdelune (“I don’t give a damn whether people find me suspect, as long as I am not so in your eyes.”).
Thorn does nothing half-heartedly. In no uncertain terms, he left her with the bluntest of blunt confessions (“By the way, I love you.”), which was a milestone in his emotional growth. It is clear that he does not love frivolously or casually in the way of his foil, Archibald, so for him, nothing has changed in three years. Likely, he thinks this should be obvious to Ophelia, and it probably should be at this point. He’s done all he can, after all, what more can she want? From his perspective, it’s Ophelia’s turn to make a move, not his.
Ophelia, though, functions differently. She has always needed verbal reinforcement and reassurance. That need has been heightened by their long separation. Essentially, they’re out of touch with one another and, in Ophelia’s case, she’s completely out of touch with herself, which is why when prompted by Thorn she doesn’t provide an answer, even though there could be only one reason for her going to Babel. Things finally come to a head when Thorn loses all patience and replaces her as his assistant. Ophelia is pissed.
“You weren’t available. Waiting for you would have slowed me down in my research.”
“Slowed you down? For your information, I was also doing research of my own. It might interest you to learn…”
“Of your own, that’s precisely the problem,” he interrupted her. “I advised you never to leave your division, and you were supposed to warn me if you discovered anything new. Nothing has changed, you still always make your decisions alone.”
“I wanted to help you,” Ophelia hissed, through gritted teeth.
“I don’t want any of your finer feelings. I need efficiency. If you don’t mind, I now have a flight to take.”
Ophelia’s blood ignited in her every vein. “You’re an egoist.” She had wanted to anger Thorn, and she knew, by the way he had frozen on the spot, that she had succeeded. All the shadows of the night suddenly seemed to have been drawn to the center of his face. He threw Ophelia a look so hard, she reeled from its impact.
“I am demanding, a killjoy, obsessive, antisocial, and crippled,” he intoned, in a forbidding voice. “You can put all the defects in the world on me, but I will not permit you to call me an egoist. If you prefer to do things your way, go ahead, but don’t waste my time anymore. Our collaboration is over.” [305]
OMG, this is harsh. But it’s the kick in the ass Ophelia needs. Since taking up a secret identity as Eulalia and aspiring to become a Forerunner (essentially a scholar and a scribe), she’s already been confronted by the fact that she’s not as good a researcher as she’s prided herself on. Now, she’s being confronted by the suggestion that she’s not a very good partner, either. It leaves her feeling “drier than dust.” [321]
I think it’s interesting how Thorn’s dialogue here has a double meaning. He’s talking about their partnership as an investigative team, of course. But it just as easily applies to their personal relationship. He can’t keep waiting around for Ophelia to make up her mind. He’s got a God to hunt down, an Other to face. Having to wonder about where he stands with Ophelia is getting to be too much. By once again haranguing off on her own, Ophelia has made it plain to him that she prefers to do things without him. In his eyes, she’s pushing him away.
Eventually, she is able to see this perspective and she is ashamed to realize how badly she’s held Thorn to a double standard. He gave of himself through words and gestures as far as he was able, while she gave him nothing in return. Finally, FINALLY, Ophelia fully expresses her love for Thorn and, as he once did, asks him to forgive her shortcomings. It’s a very sweet scene, I must say.
Now, to go back for a moment, what’s really gutting about Ophelia calling Thorn an egoist is this:
“God said he would keep his eyes on you,” he muttered, in a choked voice. “Right in front of me. I make a lamentable husband, but I permit no one, particularly him, to persecute my wife. It’s impossible for me to tear you away from God, but I can tear him away from you. If a book exists that contains God’s secret, and allows his invulnerability to be punctured, I will find it.” [392]
For context, Ophelia had admonished Thorn for his dogged pursuit of this quest, expressing outrage that he should be doing this for a world that’s done nothing for him. At one time, yes, Thorn may have been acting in the interest of the world. Then, he met Ophelia (who is too curious for her own good) and he met God. God threatened her, and Thorn is not a man who could allow such a thing to go unpunished, no matter the consequence. Ever since they met—through every consideration, every move in this impossible investigation and despite each rejection from her—he’s been acting out of love for Ophelia.
As Thorn said, he is not an egoist.
The Blind Spot
After their “egoist” argument, Ophelia feels instant regret and tries to stop Thorn from walking away. She doesn’t succeed, however, because she is struck by his claws. At first, she believes he may have done this on purpose, the thought of which really scares her because it indicates that Thorn is absolutely done with her.
Later, after she finally makes her confession, we all learn that, in fact, Thorn has lost a bit of control over his family power. He has no idea that he used his claws on Ophelia. I’m a little bit unsure what caused this vulnerability—I don’t really follow the given reason, so I’m wondering if Thorn doesn’t quite know himself why this has come to be.
My theory is more euphemistic. Ophelia had reached out to touch his turned back and the gesture badly startled him. He overreacts then overcorrects, and they both take a memorable tumble. Thorn explains:
“Never again accost me from behind my back or from any of my blind spots. Don’t do any movement that I can’t see coming in advance, or then warn me out loud.” [389]
He further explains that he can retain control as long as his claws don’t perceive her as a threat and asks her not to be absent-minded with him. I think it’s entirely plausible that his control over his Dragon power has weakened due to his deep emotion regarding Ophelia. I also feel that this speaks closely to their recent conflict as well as Thorn’s coding as autistic. It’s like Thorn is saying, “No more hide and seek. No more games. Tell me straight, or not at all.”
Ophelia knows how deep his passions run. She once held his dice and thought she might die under the weight and intensity of his emotions. Perhaps it is her Animism that has wrought this change in him. Perhaps it is simply her existence. Either way, she can no longer afford to be careless when it comes to Thorn’s feelings. In the final chapter, Ophelia and Thorn have a true heart to heart, reaffirming their partnership. But Thorn has something to add.
“No half-measures,” he interrupted her. “I’m not and do not wish to be your friend.” [445]
What he leaves unspoken is that he wants to be her husband, in every version of the role: Partner. Protector. Lover. Now that Ophelia has given him an answer, Thorn is comfortable leading them forward and it is the role of lover that he specifically has in mind. Considering this is probably the first time he’s ever propositioned a woman for sex, he is understandably quite awkward. Ophelia quickly realizes that she’s added to his inner turmoil by repressing her own sexuality around him and inadvertently making him feel less than attractive. She also understands that she, too, wants to be his wife in every version of that role: Partner. Protector. Lover. What follows is a really beautiful expression of honest acceptance and true value.
Desire
My dudes, our girl is constantly at risk of exploding (or maybe imploding?) with desire in this book. It’s consuming her, emptying her, and driving every atom of her being. Look at this!
Ophelia had received no news from Thorn after his escape. Not a single telegram, not a single letter. She could keep telling herself that he couldn’t run the risk of making contact, that he was a man wanted by the law, perhaps by God himself, but it was eating her up inside. [22]
Whenever she crossed a man who was a bit taller than average, she couldn’t stop herself from looking back as she passed, with a frantic pounding in her chest. [83]
Ophelia would have recognized his voice out of a thousand. The resonance of a double bass, solemn and sullen, that echoed through her inner emptiness, shook her to the core, welled up to her throat, choked her. [240]
She waited until her heartbeat, taxed by the run, had returned to normal. But it didn’t happen. Her entire flesh seemed to be pulsating to a single chaotic rhythm. This evening, she would see Thorn again. [249]
She wanted to be with Thorn right there, right now. She’d wanted that every second of every minute of every hour, for almost three years. [249]
Although she knew the temperature of this place was strictly maintained at minus eight degrees, Ophelia felt as if it were fifteen degrees warmer. Never in her life had she cared about appearances, and yet she ran a nervous hand through her hair to tidy it up. [253]
She suddenly realized that there wasn’t much she would have refused him, had he but asked. [278]
Instead, he disinfected his hands for a second time, as if they really were repulsive. They weren’t in Ophelia’s eyes. From a distance, she took in the network of veins under the skin, the long, curved fingers, the bone that rose up on each wrist, and suddenly, she felt something like pain in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t the slightest idea what was happening to her, but looking at those hands made her want to scream. [283]
She felt it again, even more violently, this urgent call from deep inside her. [446]
Ophelia is so horny and I’m so here for it!
Closing Thoughts
Do I think Ophelia’s internal conflict over Thorn is drawn out? Yes.
Do I think it’s contrived? No.
I think it falls in line with Ophelia’s characterization and I think Thorn’s frosty reaction to her presence in Babel falls in line with his characterization. These characters aren’t perfect: Ophelia is quirky and endearing, but that doesn’t make her immune to cowardice; Thorn is highly skilled and competent but is deficient socially and sometimes emotionally. I can’t emphasize enough how well Christelle Dabos knows her characters and allows them to be who they are rather than force them to make weird changes to fill plot holes.
We can’t forget, either, the fact that they have been completely cut off from one another for years. Yes, we might think in that time Ophelia could have done more to sort out her feelings. But as we’ve seen, she just doesn’t focus on more than what she can handle at a time. She always thinks in terms of breaking a problem down into steps. The first step was following up on those clues from Claridelune. The second step was finding Thorn. The last step was dealing with herself.
Their relationship here, which has progressed in a way that felt natural and believable, is the most straightforward it has ever been. That made writing about them this time around kind of hard, actually, because it’s all plainly there in the text. For me, I think the notable takeaway is being able to mark just how far these two characters have come in their individual and mutual journeys. Now and together, they can tackle the gargantuan, perilous task ahead. It might all end on a bittersweet note. But for this couple…that seems about right, and I can’t wait to read the conclusion.
Thank you so much for reading these long posts and leaving such kind feedback! I’m glad that you, too, enjoy Ophelia, Thorn, and this magical series.
#ophethorn#the mirror visitor#La Passe-Miroir#the memory of babel#la memoire de babel#christelle dabos#long book report#slow burn romance
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A breakdown of my LATELY.
- My 6 year old is diagnosed with ASD Level 2 and ADHD
- Some teachers are supportive and helpful, others are pulling their hair out and telling me about it on a daily basis while disciplining him in sometimes physically aggressive manner.
- Husband is traveling between Italy (where we are) and the U.S. during COVID times, spending the majority of his time (3 weeks) in the U.S. raising up a new business, and less than one week at home with us. (We are trying to be patient and understanding...we are saving for a new house so that we can get out of our current rental situation.)
- Current rental situation: house floods, black mold in bedroom, water refuses to get hot in the morning hours (no hot showers until evening), there is one small room dedicated to all: living room, kitchen and dining area (and it's seriously tiny!), it's by the beach which is wreaking havoc on my sinuses (I suffer from sand dust allergies and sinusitis due to the extreme humidity - makes me tired and miserable most of the time.), No place to control the dogs' activity (they're old and pee wherever they want), kid's bedroom is so small, we cant even fit his toys, nor does he have ample floor space to play, everything breaks (fridge, toilet seats, shower hoses and heads, the pumps that suck water from the ground level when it rains - thus the flooding, closet doors get stuck, paint is pulverizing and falling right off the walls, bedroom door is accordion style and impossible to fix - thus it wont close. The list goes on.) We are truly miserable here and can't find another rental - we've looked and exhausted all options in the area! So we need to buy, ASAP!
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So...I'm alone with my special needs child, getting him set up with therapy appointments, trying to communicate with his angry and frustrated teachers in a language I'm not yet fluent in, while working on my own anxiety and depression following bouts of extreme stress trying to get his cooperation in the home as well. There is no family for support and help. All friends and possible babysitter options fall through the cracks as everyone is getting COVID, we are forced at times into distance learning depending on how many of my kid's classmates test positive at any given moment, and I'm still trying to work on my Italian by attending an adult school three mornings per week for a total of 9 hours.
I have a lot on my plate. It almost seems like I'm living life in a foreign country as a single parent without the help of family. OK, well I kind-of am! And I suffer from anxiety, depression, ADD, and now after having researched and studied about Autism for hours, days, months on end...I'm beginning to believe that I, too, need to get evaluated.
I'm starting to have panic attacks. I've had only 2 in my entire 43 years of life...and now I'm having them regularly. What's concerning for me is that my young boy is serving witness to them. And for me, that's not OK. That's an alarm bell for me that's ringing toward the direction that I need to get help for myself as well. I NEED to be focused on him. I NEED to be strong and stable for him. He is too little to see his mother in this state of mind all of the time. He's also witnessing a plethora of emotional meltdowns and breakdowns, as I'm back to the fragile state of not being able to control extreme moments of emotional overwhelm.
My head hurts on a regular basis, not only over trying to suppress emotional responses to repeated and continual stress, but also triggering situations like when one of his teachers are 12 inches away from my face, shouting at me because she's frustrated with my son. So my head already hurts from poor emotional and stress regulation, ENTER - non fluency in a foreign language which is necessary for survival and all communications with those around me.
Many expats know that when you enter a life in a foreign country, and begin to learn a language through full immediate immersion, your head gets so hot and feels like it's about to explode some days, if you're focused on listening hard to understand what's being said, and combing your rapidly increasing vocabulary for the right words to be able to articulate what you need, what you want, and how to hold a conversation.
Add to the list of normal expat adaptation: how to communicate about the needs of your child and understand school protocols concerning entering a new school or grade level or switching over to online distance learning where you need to help your ADHD Autistic child to understand and focus on the school work that you barely understand...these directions being given....in the new language! Doctor appointments and communications. Therapy appointments and communications. Psych evaluations. The list of a parent is even greater!
People are very empathetic about this struggle. But then let's throw in that the person who's needing to navigate all of this, not just for herself, but for her son....also has anxiety, depression and ADHD. (And I guess sooner or later, we'll find out about the Autism.) Dude! I'm fighting a steep and treacherous uphill battle!
I guess it's important to understand that if I can get through this...all of those moments where I break down and cry (because I can't control my emotional response to triggers and stress) that make me feel like a broken, incapable, weak person...are just crumbling rocks on the hillside beneath my feet making it difficult to gain traction, but I always do! I always come through it, and if I can manage THAT, I'm not weak after all. I'm stronger than the average person who's got their shit together and treads a lighter path. But in the end, who are any of us to assume everyone's path is free of debris. We only know our own unique situations. And as a result, we tend to feel consumed with our own situations and swallowed by our own challenges, forgetting...that we are NOT alone.
My goal in divulging all of this chaos to the world wide net is not only to process and find release (IT's good for me), but also in the hopes that someone else out there who may relate to my story for one reason or another, someone else who struggles on a daily basis to do the basic things or the hard things in life...or who finds the basic things to be hard things...I want you to know that you're not alone. I get you.
More and more sensitive people are popping up, surfacing from the waves of a regimented society that for too long has covered up or ignored those of us who are deeply emotional and sensitive to situations and tangible things in life that others don't bat an eyelash over. It's often misunderstood by others, and for so long we've been made to feel psycho or crazy by the rest of society. Really, at times, being sensitive can be a gift. But it's hard when you're in the hurricane of the struggle, and even harder when it happens in front of people who don't. get. it. I'm here to tell you, I do.
#mental health#mental heath support#mentalheathawareness#mental illness#adult add#adhd feels#adult adhd#neurodivergent#neurodiversity#autism#autistic parenting#autistic children#parenting#motherhood#expat parenting#emotional sensitivity#emotional regulation#hsp things#highly sensitive people#highly sensitive person
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I’m sorry for bothering you this way, I just happened to see your ‘words of encouragement ask’ and was hoping this is maybe somewhere I could vent, even if it’s just to the void. I... am afraid to let anyone in. Ever. I get attached to people too quickly, like only after a few interactions, but I’m so afraid of rejection that I don’t reach out to try and deepen the connection at all. All my friendships are surface level, I never talk anything serious with anyone even when I really want to. (1/?)
I see you.
I hear you.
You are not bothering me.
This will not go unseen.
You , your entirety, is seen here.
I see you.
I am proud of you.
You are wonderful.
——————————(❤️❤️❤️)——————————
I do not mean to make this all about me when I express what I feel deep down. Just know... I know what you feel. I, too have been afraid to open up in the past. I, too, have felt that I—in no way nor how—should be worthy a sliver of a time of some. To be acknowledged. To be seen. To be loved. To be the mere thought of a person in passing.
Who would care?
Why would anyone want care?
When I received these messages in my inbox, I cried. I’m still a bit teary-eyed writing a response to this. It’s just me relating to you deep down, my own struggles that I have had in the past. I know exactly what you are thinking and feeling deep down. Those feelings of, “not being good enough” or “I am unworthy” are many, many things that I have had echoe in my mind for years. That I do not matter.
I know now that it’s not true.
When I was a kid, I remember having the ones that I dared to love get up and walk away. It was too much for them to love, they had to get up and walk away. If something didn’t click in their head, they were quick to take it out on others. I remember the day my father ran away. The very parental figure that I thought I needed to love told me flat out, “I like you, but this wasn’t what I wanted. It was a nice idea.” I wasn’t enough for him to be satisfied. He packed up his stuff—I was forced to help him pack up—told me not to tell my mom where he was running off to, then he drove away. This was on my ninth birthday. He took off North. I remember thinking that I didn’t make him happy. I wasn’t what he imagined.
My father wasn’t a man. He was something else. When he was around, he made everyone sick mentally and physically. He was quick to suck the very color out of anyone around him in order to feel good about himself. He was quick to judge and he was hurtful with feelings, as well as lie. When he left, I learned two things; who my people were and who I did not want to be when I was an adult. I could breathe again.
I will admit, it hurt to left people in, yes, but view it as this: these are examples given to you spiritually in who and what you aspire to be in life.
When I was a kid, I remember searching for answers on why I couldn’t connect with kids in class. I was afraid to interact with kids my own age. I was afraid to interact because I thought that they would not accept me as well. I didn’t have many friendships in the past as well, I had a speech impediment, as well as a hearing problem. I also have ASD. In the past, I’ve been told that I was very, very smart. However, since I needed more attention due to the past, not many gave me a chance. I’ve been told many times in the past that I’m too smart for them, that I’ve needed to dumb down more in order to be accepted from people. If I ever wanted to be something with people, I had to be something that I couldn’t.
Many famous celebrities and historical individuals have come out to say that they have a disability and/or heavily theorized to have a disability. You would not believe how many people have one and they’ve made revolutionary changes for the greater good. Look it up.
It hurt hearing friends—now they’re more like acquaintances—that I had to be a completely different person that I was. Something that I couldn’t be. I’ve been picked on before with troubled speech, with hearing problems, as well as coming from a single-parent background. To hear that if I wanted to be like them I had to be dumber, it felt wrong. Wouldn’t you want to be surrounded by people who want to help build you up?
If I was to be picked on and ridiculed for having a higher intelligence and skills than them, then why would I want to surround myself with them? That taught me three things; intelligence is only mocked by those that are not taught the value of it, friends should be the ones to build you up and not tear you down, ASD—Autism Spectrum Disorder—has been my “superhero power.” I love puzzles and patterns, it comes naturally to me. I’ve learned how to use that disability to my advantage. While they were still in Intensive classes, I was taking honors and getting awards for my work. Later on in life I’ve found a few friends along my journey that have loved and accepted me for who I am. They accept my luggages, my quirks, my entirety. They do not care because they see Me.
The moral here; it is okay to surround yourself with other people that want to build you up.
When I was younger and ready to go to college, I was accepted into one of the hardest schools to get into. It was a baby IVY League school, kinda like if IVY League school had its own “community college,” that’s what it would be. I was given a change to go to a school that I’ve always wanted to go to. The acceptance letter came, but I didn’t get farther than the entrance. I was sat down and made fun of for coming from a background with a low-income, as well as a learning disability. Forget about all of the hard work I’ve done in high school, forget the ridiculously high IQ—which I find ludicrous to even calculate with in life, forget about the science awards and the experience that I’ve had in life. I was told that my kind was never to be accepted.
I’ve been told that I was sub-par and that I would always be a behavioral problem with autism and no money. I would never amount for anything and that I needed to stop while I was ahead. I wasn’t going to get anywhere.
That was two years ago.
I now attend The University of Florida—one of the hardest schools to get into because it’s considered public IVY League—and I do summer classes at Yale. I’ve received a scholarship to attend both schools to get my degrees in Art History and in Anthropology. I have people looking at my work all the time and asking me questions. That’s a huge fucking accomplishment.
I didn’t get as far as I did accepting it, I just gave life the middle finger and kept on going.
I have more to my story, but this is just me scratching the surface of my life. I promise I have a point to this...
——————————(❤️❤️❤️)——————————
The past is not what should define you, the actions and experiences of what you go through now should me. You are still Becoming. You are a work of art that is still being mastered.
I am so, so proud of you for telling me what you think and feel inside. It was scary, but you did it. That is courage at it’s finest.
I will be the first person to tell you that being up to people is hella hard. Those experiences in the past reflect and scratch at the back of your mind, telling you that this will happen again. In the past, I have loved people before and they’ve vanished before my eyes. If then vanish, it is not because of you, it is because they do not know how to process it in their heart and in their mind. To repeat, it is not your fault. Most people need to take time to understandably things are the way they are. If they ignore you, then they are not worth Your time. Soon you will find the people that matter most to you, it just clicks.
You’ll find your missing piece once when the assurance of worthiness settles in your mind.
You, my dear and wonderful person, are worthy of wanting more.
You are worthy of having more.
You are allowed to Be more.
Take this time from past interactions to have a conversation with yourself on who and what you want to be. Who are you deep down? When can I meet her, him, them, it, xem, (f)aer, em, or hir? I can’t wait to meet You.
My blog is called “Welcome to Green Hills” for a reason. It welcomes in many so they can find that chance to be who and what they are. This blog is meant to help build you up and show you that you can be more. There is no greater force on this Earth more than you. I make it a point to tell everyone that I see them and that I hear them because I want to know that they are real.
You are here, you exist!
I see you.
I want you to know another thing; it is okay to care for people. Your emotions do not make you weak, it is of those who do not understand their own that makes them weak. Having emotion is what makes you human. It’s what helps you grow and become wiser. You start to look at possibilities that you’ve never known could exists in life. You can learn something new about yourself that you may have never noticed on your own. The people that you interact with in life can influence you. I’m speaking from my own experience.
I don’t know everyone’s experiences, I don’t know everyone’s story. I know my story. I know where I come from and what I want to be. I’ve worked hard to become a better version of myself. You are allowed, and worthy, of being loved, accepted, and seen.
We love to punish ourselves and think that we accept very little of what we are given in life. Human being unconsciously love to accept little to no value for themselves because they look to what other have told them. I know that this is a hard concept to hold firmly in your heart at the moment, but I want you to know that what others tell you is not true. You are allowed love and happiness. You are allowed to have worth. I promise. Start to think in terms of “I can” rather than “I can’t.” Start thinking in terms of “I am” rather than “I’m not.” You are allowed to be more. If people keep tearing you down, even with that feeling of lying on the ground feels fine, get back up. There will be people in life that want to push you down, and I will tell you, get back up and hold your head up high. There’s always another way, that’s the glory of the Universe.
You have worth.
You have value.
And you matter.
Stay safe, my friend.
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Season 1 Episode 1
I said I would go back and start at the beginning, and here I am! After I wrote the first post, it was clear that this a live blog experience, meaning I think this is best consumed while watching or right after watching the Hannibal episode. Therefore, I’ll be putting in some timestamps so that people know where I am in the episode without me having to stop the flow of my commentary. I am watching on Netflix. Here we go!
My very first impression of this show, knowing nothing but that it was a crime show with a cannibal involved, was that I was about to get the displeasurable BBC Sherlock experience. There’s a popular video on YouTube that intricately explains what I mean (https://youtu.be/LkoGBOs5ecM), but the short version is that we have a detective who can magically solve crimes that the viewer could NEVER solve on their own. You see Will, looking at a crime scene, and rewinding it in his head - something that I admit could possibly be done with the visual evidence laid before him. But then...
2:04 “This is my design”. Will has not only visualized the crime but he now knows the “psychology” of the killer, simply by looking at the scene. There are certainly ways to deduce the generic mindset of a killer from a crime scene - a person stabbed 100 times is most likely a crime of passion - but to know that the killer wanted the man to watch his paralyzed wife bleed to death is just not possible.
But this is a work of fiction, and I’m willing to put reality aside to believe that Will can do this. The story he creates in the first scene has logic, it’s not unreasonable. What comes next is what really appalled me and drove me to write this blog.
4:46 Big, mean FBIman comes in and asks where Will falls “on the spectrum”. Rude, to start. Will then describes a spectrum that goes from Asperger’s to narcissist/sociopath and declares himself autistic because he doesn’t like being social. However, in the next sentence, he says he has empathy and imagination. Okay, so now I know what I’m dealing with - a Psychodynamic BBC Sherlock, based on psuedopsychology and wikipedia-level psychyoanalyses. The writers, five minutes into the show, have displayed a massive misunderstanding of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), sociopathy, and personality psychology.
But that’s okay - psychopathology is an advanced and technical field. It makes sense that this American crime TV show doesn’t get it all right. I won’t forgive the mistakes they make because honestly I see this show as offensive to people with ASD, but again I’m watching fiction so I’m willing to continue watching and give my opinions about the psychology that comes up.
11:32 Will finds the girl impaled by antlers in her own home. He chokes her in his little replay and this is when I started to become uncomfortable about how this show treats violence towards women. In the first scene, Will replayed the crime. This time, he just pounced and choked her. That’s not what happened to this girl - she was killed, impaled, and then placed back in her bed. So why did we see Will choking her?
14:05 Very good doggo scene. There are many good doggos in this scene. Good job to all involved.
15:28 I thought to myself, ooh is this gonna be a scary show? I’m into that. I think if this shows goes more towards horror, I’m more willing to allow all
USE THE LADIES ROOM
to allow or at least tolerate the women choking shit. Quick note about sociopaths: sociopathy is a personality disorder in which the person is unable feel some or any emotions. They sometimes act in ways that harm others because they are unable to understand how their actions make others feel and further unable to empathize about others who are harmed. Not all sociopaths are bad people or do bad things. Some actively try to understand others and fit into society.
21:34 Will magically discovers the killer eats his victims and we are shown our first view of Hannibal eating a beautiful meal of dubious origins. I liked the imagery and contrast there. The gory forensic morgue, the mortifying realization of cannibalism, and then boom - a delicate and indulgent show of pleasure.
I actually really like Hanny and maybe it’s just ‘cause of Mads, but I’m sure I’ll figure out why I like him soon enough.
FIBman barges into Hanny’s perplexing and massive office. May I also note I hate FBIman. He has bad energy - he seems like the kind of person to call a psychologist a tree hugger.
26:18 Hanny analyzes Will in public. Again, so very rude. And might I add, against the code of therapists, the Goldwater Rule, to not make public psychological assumptions about people who did not ask for help.
28:26 Again I am questioning why I’m seeing a full naked woman impaled. I’m not against gore, but I guess since I’ve watched ahead a bit I just kinda know this pattern continues and it irks me. I promise I’m trying to turn off my angry scientist brain.
He loves women he LOVES them that’s why he eats them!! Love.
I can’t imagine lungs tasting good Hannibal. Or maybe he’s just a good cook. Damn the little smile Hanny gives to that tomato. Thank you Mads.
More SPOOKY visions, this time a feathery deer. Why does it have feathers? I guess that’s scarier? No, that... can’t be it. Is it because the call the killer a shrike? That might be it.
32:03 Are you reconstructing his fantasies? Oh Hanny please give me a full Freudian report on the shrike please. Oh he’s just gonna toy with Will, darn.
36:52 This made me want to keep watching the show. I mean I assumed Hannibal the Cannibal was a bad guy but this was a cool way to solidify the viewer’s suspicions. THEY KNOW!!!!!!!!!
Now Will rewinds a crime scene he was actually involved in. Hanny acts so chill he’s like, huh, would ya look at that? I also appreciate that Will legit looks like someone witnessing a horrible crime and panicking. Sometimes in crime or horror shows, the detective is like, yeah he ripped her insides out, just another Tuesday.
Big Bad FBIman is so fucking mad and Dr. Mom is like fuck you, you hurt my BOY! Those 2 really suck you guys. Will is not a child, Dr. Mom, and he did NOT ask for your help. Hanny has the balls to be holding this girl’s hand.
Okay guys, sorry this post was a bit less funny, but I wanted to articulate why this show is not good to me and why I feel like I can make fun of it without taking it seriously. I want this blog to be a chance to laugh and maybe learn a bit about real psychology. Thanks!
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How you think ASD and ENTP personality correlate with each other? Also, got any tips on generating empathy and speaking to strangers?
This is truly a great question! And really important. I’m quite familiar with ASD actually since my brother has Asperger’s and only went to schools with kiddos with Autism and Asperger’s. Also it runs in my family-- I have cousins and uncles on the spectrum as well.
I’m making a cut because I’m really quite passionate about ASD and I talk a lot.
OK, so first things first, one frustration that I have with the MBTI system is that it doesn’t quite make space for anything other than the average. People without ASD already struggle enough with typing. So people on the scale have a hell of a time. With my brother... I forget his type because it doesn’t... quite... fit. (Also, he’s my brother and maybe too close to type)
But as a result, I dislike combining MBTI stereotypes with the ASD stereotypes because it often doesn’t translate so directly.
To answer your question directly: ENTPs stereotypically tend to struggle with responding to other’s emotions because we don’t consider it as valid or as serious. So emotions often kinda go... unheard. Adding ASD to the mix , I can see a person who is excitable and engaged but maybe doesn’t notice when a conversation changes topic, and so they keep talking about their thing until they notice the conversation has moved. Or they allow others to speak and then bring their topic back up. I can also see an ASD ENTP telling a joke that lands--and since it lands they bring it back up because it worked the first time. ENTPs are already direct, one with ASD would also be very very direct and probably less sarcastic. With my brother, my dad actually would be sarcastic to help him understand-- my bro is still incredibly direct but he recognizes sarcasm quite well-- practice makes perfect!
Regarding tips, if you’re asking about generating empathy, you’re well on your way! That already shows that you care and you’re keeping your eyes open to things that you feel like you naturally miss. Truly though, I think that for anyone, a key to strengthen empathy is exposure to things that you don’t get in your daily life. Watch movies about history and cultures and religion and war. Read books on anything and everything! Cultural education and exposure goes a long long way. Also also, even if you don’t naturally see that you should emotionally react in a certain way, just having a multitude of examples and their consequences will help you pick out from catalogue in a more logical manner! (I actually quite struggle with this when I’m dealing with my really dramatic friends because there’s nothing in my catalogue that matches their drame..)
For speaking to strangers, practice makes perfect. Challenge yourself to do it once a week (or once every other week), whatever you prefer! And gradually it’ll get easier. There are a LOT of people on the spectrum, so you’re not alone. Even if you’re the only one in a room with ASD, you’re still very normal and an important addition to our society. Also, there are people (like me) who feel very comfortable around people with ASD (perhaps more comfortable). They tend to be genuine, direct, and passionate about their things... and I find that to be relaxing because you’re not fake and you don’t do small talk for the hell of it.
I’ll tell you though.... I’m on the awkward side, I hate small talk. And I’ve told strangers some of the wEIRDEST things on first go. Once I asked a guy (who I though was hot) if he heard scratching in his walls and then I told him there were squirrels in there and then I moonwalked (MOONWALKED) out of the doorway. And it was fine. The guy still talked to me after and thought we were friends! So just remember that no one thinks about what you do more than you do, and regardless of if you introduce yourself with a splash or not.... it’s fine and you can even try again! Starting off small though is the key, and then you’ll realize that people who respond poorly to you don’t matter.
Your question is so difficult is because the world’s system isn’t set up for ASD. So a lot of these people who are particularly skilled in their own ways who have ASD don’t have what they need in school. Or they’re belittled for being different. My brother was terribly bullied before he went to the special schools, and he struggled a lot in summer camps as well. His reading skills were very very behind until my parents noticed and put him in a program to help him out in this aspect. Today, he’s a civil engineer and I have no hesitation in calling him a genius. I’m pretty sure his IQ levels are astronomical. But his teachers from his first school wouldn’t have been able to tell you this. The teachers from his special school didn’t expect him (or any other kids in their school) to go to 4-year college. He did, and is doing great.
We always talk about nature vs. nurture making on the type. But people on the spectrum have a different both. They are naturally different and society doesn’t nurture them the same way because it’s created for people around the average. This is actually something I’m so passionate about because we don’t nurture many of our people with literally the mOST potential. So MBTI.... doesn’t work.
So just like to anyone with ASD who may be reading this, while there are good things and important aspects to fitting in, matching emotions etc. Don’t let it guide you. Some of these people I’ve met on the spectrum are the smartest most talented people. And even when they weren’t the brainiest of the brainiest these people loved so deeply and tHOUGHT so deeply.
I’m on a soap box, but while you try to improve empathy and ability to deal with strangers, don’t forget that you bring a lot of importance and worth to the table as well and people should adjust to you a bit as well.
#so sorry for how long this is but like#sO very important to me#my brother has been through so much shit man#and like ASD exists on all ends#you are everywhere so why can't society adjust!?#i hate the phrase neurotypical because of the connotation of typical being right#it's not the case#kk i'm done#asd#entp#mbti#answered#macxas
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big rant/ramble below, you can safely ignore and move on to the next post in your feed.
Urgh
I shared the results of that autism screener with a quasi-friend who I thought would be "safe" (we used to work together and we connected over his being gay and me being visibly queer) but his response was blergh
Everyone has hints of autism.
okay yeah but this isn't just *hints* of autism. I'm answered yes to symptoms I've had since I was a kid that I've learned to mask or work around as an adult. But I still struggle with them.
He pointed out that he sees me as more ADHD than ASD.
Yeah, fair, and I'd need to see a professional to try to distinguish if my symptoms are ADHD, ASD, or both.
You don't hit the three prongs needed for a diagnosis.
But.... but I do. And the stuff I dealt with as a kid is still stuff I deal with today. I just mask it better. A short and not exhaustive list:
As I kid I had trouble interacting with peers. I didn't have friends, really. I didn't know how to make friends and I didn't try terribly hard to. I acquire friends when someone else "adopts" me and decides that we are friends. And once I became an adult, I have almost never had friends of my own - I share a friend group with my spouse who we're primary connected to through him. I'm okay with that. Maintaining a friendship entirely on my own power sounds impossible and exhausting.
I was okay with not having friends, I liked being alone, but my mom insisted on me being social. She made me join things so that I would have a list of people to invite to parties. I'd honestly have preferred a day of doing stuff I like or just a couple friends. As an adult, I want to be alone on my birthday. I will celebrate with certain friends, separately, usually over a quiet meal. That's it.
I had trouble understanding sarcasm and figurative speech. Like, I understand it now but I still think most figurative speech is annoying. I've been told the way I deliver sarcasm is weird, too.
I liked memorizing movies and quoting them start to finish, I thought it was fun but everyone else thought it was weird. I continued to do this into adulthood but I only quote aloud when I'm alone. Alamo Drafthouse quote-alongs are the BEST. I don't do this with every movie, either, just ones I really like.
Okay actually I also liked to listen to the same album or, in some cases, the same song over and over until I was sick of it (and sometimes even after that point). I mean, just endlessly looping on repeat. Not interspersed with other songs. I do this as an adult a LOT because it's easier with headphones to do this without annoying everyone else around you. Like, often it's fine for me to just put a playlist on shuffle, but I get into Moods where I just want the one album/song over and over. Yesterday I listened to Wellerman about 50 times in a row and only stopped because I had to get up and do something else and that song wasn't "good" for whatever I got up to do.
My special interest as a kid was cats. Literally everything cats, all the time - I sought out obscure facts and could tell you the difference between similar species, and wanted cats involved in literally everything I did. Adults laughed it off as childhood obsession. I was also pretty obsessed with the solar system. I thought asking my peers, as a trivia question, which of Jupiter's moons had its own asteroid (Io, in case you were wondering) was appropriate and interesting and was confused that they didn't know that. That was in fifth grade.
I watched the weather channel for fun. I would watch it for hours and absorb the weekly forecast info just... for fun? I never used it, could never tell you if you should dress a certain way or bring an umbrella or whatever. Everyone thought it was weird.
I was a know-it-all and literally could not stop myself from bluntly correcting people who were wrong. Didn't know or care that it was "rude". I'm still that way but I've learned how to sometimes swallow the urge long enough to find a more tactful way to point it out (but often fail).
I could read on my own before kindergarten, used vocabulary beyond what one would expect for my age, and had a special interest in spelling and grammar throughout my school years. I did not understand how other people weren't interested in learning about it and getting it right. I read at an undergrad level by 4th grade.
I hated loud noises and often covered my ears to block out irritating sounds. I could also hear high pitched noises that even other kids didn't seem to hear (or at least weren't bothered by them). Too much noise sent me into an internal meltdown, I'd just kinda shut down because I couldn't deal with it.
Textures and pressure on my skin bothered the absolute fuck out of me - sock seams, certain fabric materials, socks that weren't equally elastic, one shoe tighter than the other, tags.... all of that. (Also, fun anecdote I just unlocked - when I was 4 or 5 my grandmother started letting me use the soft silk sleep shirt she had as a young woman because I preferred it to anything else. Soft, smooth, no irritating qualities. Bliss. I wanted to wear it all the time.)
Don't get me started on food. Until I was in COLLEGE I mostly subsisted on pasta with either butter or alfredo sauce and chicken. I would eat other things, but pasta and/or chicken was (and still is) my biggest safe/comfort food. I'd eat other stuff mostly if I could control the balance of ingredients, get it made plain, or could confirm the texture wouldn't be offensive (so, like... plain burgers, plain cheese pizza, grilled cheese, mashed potatoes, etc.) I cannot stress this enough - from childhood through COLLEGE I did this. As a kid my mom had to make me a completely separate dish most nights to get me to eat something. My spouse was horrified at what little variety I ate. The only reason I eat so much variety now is that he knows what I do/don't like and tells me in advance if I'll find a texture or taste offensive. Of course, rather than wanting consistent texture like I did when I was younger, I now seek as much texture as possible (so long as they aren't Bad textures) so.... that's fun. But yeah most of my objections to Yucky foods is due to T E X T U R E. Even if I like the taste, the texture overrides it all.
I prefer animals to people. I will seek out animals and interact with them instead of people in the same room. And will pointedly focus on the animal to avoid interacting with people.
I'm perfectly happy with only myself for company. Being with just my spouse counts as me being "alone" though. Always has. I just realized last night that it's because I do minimal to no masking around him because he's a safe person to unmask with and always has been. Never batted an eye at the weird shit I do beyond asking questions about what I was doing or why. And then just "Okay."
Okay honestly just the fact that I want to vent into the void of tumblr instead of actually discussing this with a person - even my spouse! - pretty effectively shows how little it occurs to me to interact with other people directly. o_0
And there are so many more things that I won't list here because I could just go on and on. And like, sure, some of this may certainly overlap with ADHD but my point is that I have enough to point to ASD that it doesn't feel like having a "hint" of autism. And who knows - maybe it is mostly just ADHD and CPTSD stuff interacting in weird ways. Could be!
But just because I can make small talk and make eye contact and do the "normal" shit and I can interact "normally" doesn't mean I LIKE it. I had to LEARN to do those things to avoid having bad social interactions. When I'm by myself or with my spouse, I behave very differently than I do around anyone else. ANYONE. It's not just slightly changing my behavior depending on who I'm with - it's completely suppressing how I naturally would do things if left to my own devices.
Like, the things we recommended to our autistic students who wanted to know how to interact in ways that would help them blend in/be accepted by others ARE THE EXACT THINGS I ALREADY DO. Like, it did not occur to me at the time that neurotypicals literally do not have to think about doing those things. I thought, ah, these students just need to be told what the tricks are. Other people figure these tricks out on their own. It did not occur to me that other people, in fact, do not learn these tricks because they naturally do that behavior. They do not have to actively think about learning the trick, period. I literally thought other people also have to think as hard as I do about interactions. Evidently not.
So yeah, I'm feeling a little upset about the reaction I got from him because I'm like.... honestly, a diagnosis of ASD wouldn't change a lot about how I do things or think of things. But it would make me feel better about interacting with and participating in autism-related stuff if I am actually autistic. I realize I can use the resources and supports meant for ASD regardless, and for formal supports anything I can access due to my ADHD diagnosis likely covers anything I'd need for ASD. But having a diagnosis opens up more community. Right now I'm like yeah I'm ADHD but I totally relate to this ASD content. But I'm not going to interact much because I feel like I don't have the right to join in since idk if I do have ASD.
idk I have a lot of feelings. I had a bad email about the trans insurance coverage thing yesterday and I'm not in a great headspace, but finding out me and my spouse both scored very high on the autism screening stuff was honestly a high point because we ended up sharing a lot of how we view and interact with the world that was very eye-opening about why we interact the way we do, how we relate to others (and how other people think we're weird for how we relate to others), and just...everything. And having someone be skeptical after I've spent a lot of time trying to convince myself that I DON'T have ASD only to conclude that at the very least, I should probably be evaluated because I can't reasonably rule it out. Like, most people do not wonder if they have autism. The fact that I am spending this much time looking into it and trying to find examples to disprove it only to find I overwhelmingly can't in virtually every single diagnostic category.... just..... dismissing it outright is kinda hurtful.
Like, I recognize that ADHD symptoms overlap a fair bit, but seriously. My spouse (who definitively does not have ADHD) scored almost identically to me and we vibed on almost everything when we compared answers. We see most things similarly. We have similar areas of confusion about other people and for fundamentally similar reasons. I can't imagine all of the stuff that points to ASD for me is just ADHD in disguise, not when I vibe THAT HARD with someone else. Spouse does not vibe with me on ADHD content. At all. He can appreciate it since he does live with me, after all, and observes whatever's being discussed. But he doesn't vibe with it. He vibes with autism content, though. And I vibe with both.
idk this rant ended in rambling and I'm just going to go listen to Inside on repeat for a couple hours while I try to calm down a bit. o_0
#rant over#for now#I've actually been listening to Inside for the last twenty minutes already lol#maybe I'll try to nap#idk#blergh#yay Shit is playing now and I'm like LOL cause I did wake up at 11:30 feeling like shit#woot#what a bop#I'm like hell yeah you get it#let's vibe
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A Rant/Essay about Moira and Sigma and how they’ve changed my life
Hi so I am in a very very very good mood right now and I really want to rant about some things I love.
As my followers may know very well by now, I LOVE Overwatch. Specifically I LOOOVE Moira and Sigma. I less so have a special interest in Overwatch and more so in those specific characters.
Quick thing for those who don’t know, a special interest is a term used by people under the Autism spectrum to describe a subject or thing they have a very strong personal connection to.
I have recently discovered I have Aspergers syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects the person’s ability to socialize and causes them to have repetitive and restrictive behaviors and/or interests. Basically it’s very similar to Autism but there are some slight differences that differentiate the two that I won’t go into here because it’ll take too long, but you can research them yourself if you want to of course.
This has been a HUGE discovery for me because I have known I was very different from other people for a long time but I had no idea why. This discovery explains EVERYTHING. I finally understand why I have such a hard time communicating with people and why I have such unusual tendencies (such as becoming hyper-fixated on things I like). This relates to my love of Moira and Sigma.
In Overwatch, Moira O’Deorain is a brilliant Irish geneticist on the cutting edge of her field. She has made numerous revolutionary advancements in genetic technology and manipulation. She has devoted her life to her work and advancing the Human race as a species. However, she has a very dark side to her achievements. She has achieved her discoveries by disregarding all ethics and morality in her experiments. She has experimented on everything from animals to herself to even other humans. She has performed experiments on herself that have left her permanently disfigured (her right arm). She has performed experiments on people that have permanently changed their bodies in agonizing ways (Reaper). She believes that ethics are holding back scientific advancement and that they are a waste of time. Pretty horrible right? I wouldn’t blame you for calling that evil. However, you can’t say she is absolutely evil.
Yes what she has done is horrible and she is completely morally bankrupt, but she also does what she does because she wants to help people. She does what she does because it’s for the betterment of the world. And it has made the world better! In the lore, she has made numerous revolutionary advancements in genetic technology! She is an absolute genius who is helping better the world in massive ways! But at the same time, she is hurting other people to get there. That is the epitome of complete moral ambiguity.
And I LOVE that.
You can’t say she’s completely good because she hurts people and disregards ethics as a waste of time. But you also can’t say she evil because she has made revolutionary scientific discoveries that could save the lives of millions.
I love Moira not just because she is a complex character but I also relate to her on numerous levels.
For one, she is Irish and I have a lot of Irish heritage. I adore my Irish culture and I love how she seems to be passionate about it as well given that she is fluent in Gaelic (our ancient language which is actually dying out) and she has a lot of Irish oriented stuff in the game. She has actually really caused me to get invested in my Irish heritage and learn about my culture. Another thing I relate to is that she has a great appreciation for art and is just generally pretty eccentric. She loves dressing up and cosplaying and art and music and all of these different things that I also love.
One of the biggest reasons I relate to her though is her lack of ability to understand people’s emotions. I am a very empathetic person but at the same time I have a very hard time connecting to people. I have always had trouble interacting with people and making friends because I don’t understand how people normally communicate. From what I have seen, Moira is like that too. She doesn’t seem to really have any friends (she was sorta friends with Gabriel but that was more of a business friendship) and everyone seems to either hate her or thinks she’s creepy or weird. I headcanon that Moira is high functioning autistic because of her lack of empathy and difficulty understanding people’s emotions.
Obviously I am not saying autistic people are unempathetic sociopathic mad scientists, far from it actually. People with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can either be very empathetic or they can lack empathy to varying degrees on both sides. Sometimes they are just as empathetic as everybody else. Everyone under the autism spectrum is completely different. I just think Moira is one of the people who lacks empathy to a very high degree. I think Moira having autism that causes her to lack empathy is a very good explanation for her beliefs and how she behaves, not to mention it’s something I relate to.
As for Sigma, he’s a different character entirely.
Siebren de Kuiper (pronounced “Ki-per” with “Ki” as in “kite”) is a brilliant Dutch astrophysicist. He is known for being a very eccentric introvert with a brilliant mind and a deep, fiery passion for his work. He performed an experiment that would’ve revolutionized technology by being able to harness the power of a black hole but it went terribly wrong. The accident left him completely traumatized and his psyche destroyed. This accident also gave him the ability to control gravity but I’m not really gonna talk about that in this because it’s not really necessary.
Sigma has a lot of anxious tendencies, for example he has numerous voice lines where he becomes anxious or panicked. He says the phrase “hold it together” many times, a phrase he uses to try and comfort himself when he feels panicked. All of these have caused me to headcanon that he has PTSD and/or some other kind of anxiety disorder (although I haven’t decided which one yet).
I personally have struggled with generalized anxiety and social anxiety for a long time so I find myself relating to his anxiety. Something about seeing this 62 year old absolute GIANT of a man (he’s 8′1″) having anxiety and relating to me in so many ways is really comforting.
Whenever I am sad or anxious about something, I think of Sigma and I channel my fears through him. I do that a lot actually, not just with anxiety but with other emotions as well. Whenever I am really really happy about something, I think of Sigma and Moira. Whenever I’m depressed, I think about Sigma and Moira. I channel all of my emotions through these characters by acting out scenes in my head, imagining scenarios with them, or drawing them. Sometimes when I’m sad I’ll imagine Moira and Sigma in happy scenarios to cheer myself up.
These characters, these fictional things from a video game, have had such an important impact on me I can’t even begin to describe it. I connect with these characters so deeply and so personally.
I found myself connecting to them mostly during quarantine. This was the time when I was the loneliest I had ever been in my life. I was the most stressed and depressed I had ever been. I had lost a close family member and two beloved pets in a very short span of time. On top of this, I had no friends. I was completely downtrodden and lost. Then I decided to start playing Overwatch again, and everything started to change.
I fell back in love with Moira more than ever and I found a brand new love for Sigma. I felt more connected to these characters than I ever would've because I had pretty much nobody else to connect to. These characters became my strongest coping mechanism and, in a way, my imaginary friends. I channeled all of my anxieties and sadness and grief and loneliness through them. I used them to help me grieve my loved ones. At the same time, I channeled my joy and pride and passions through them. These characters give me comfort when I need it most. That is something so special I can’t even begin to describe it. I love these characters with every single fiber of my heart and soul. They have been my greatest coping mechanism in these extremely tumultuous times. They helped me find actual friends for the first time in years, friends who I have been able to relate to and who love me despite my odd quirks and behaviors.
These fictional characters, these video game models, these lines of code, they have helped me survive my darkest days and enriched my brightest moments. These characters have fundamentally changed my life.
And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Thank you Overwatch. Even though your fanbase can be one of the most toxic things I have ever seen, you have given me friends and two characters that kept me going when life was trying its hardest to keep me down. You have really shown me the power of fiction and its ability to change lives. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
And thank you to whoever is still reading this. Seriously, I can’t believe you actually had the patience to listen to me ramble for so long about something so specific to me. It’s frankly incredible and I have endless respect for you. Your attention span is literally god-like if you were able to read through all this and I wanna thank you for blessing me with your priceless time and attention. It really is amazing.
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Measuring ASD folks with NT yardsticks is always bad (for us).
Another sleepless night (I have semi-frequent bouts of insomnia, more common for a lot of ASD people, for a host of reasons). But with all that time to think, a revelation of sorts as well. Recalling a comment made on a content creator's Patreon read aloud for YouTube, the commenter noted that if a character had taken action X, it would be "a real asshole move". I also noted that the described hypothetical reminded me of how I met and got together with my (ex-)wife. I recall also in our divorce how it caused a real falling out between myself and my former best friend from High School who had been our Best Man at our wedding. I'd just assumed she told him vicious lies about me while I remained silent, and perhaps that indeed still happened. I recalled what my former best friend would say about his disapproval of me, and realized in hindsight he was judging me as having made said "asshole move" outlined in the fictional story above. But the "asshole move" in question assumes NT parameters and a level of cunning guile that is simply absent in me. And I could even see how, with said cunning guile, it would be an asshole move...but in its absence---it's just not. It's way more complicated. But measure an ASD person by an NT yardstick....you do real damage that way and it's grossly unfair. My wife might've been better off had we never met or only remained casual friends. That's a counter-factual no one can know. Our relationship didn't stand the test of time but I can say we fell for each other HARD and our love was genuine and intense. We really did try hard to make it work. But in the end, our worldviews and values were just too different and irreconcilable...most prominently my confident atheism and her need for religious belief. She had a mean streak in her she got from her father and at long last I could no longer take the emotional abuse and I quite literally fled. By the end it felt like escaping a cult. Even her own mother admitted she was surprised I'd held on as long as I did. Her own friends were astonished we'd ever became a couple since she had such a reputation for being a merciless "ball buster" to any guy who tried to hit on her...they'd borne witness to so many guys getting shot down in flames and looked at me like a magical unicorn, someone who had evaded my ex-wife's formidable defenses and won her heart. Even my then-wife marveled at it sometimes, that she had a boyfriend and later husband. She's a single parent in another state now (the child is by someone else) and we live separate lives with nothing to do with each other, which is for the best. Maybe she wasn't ready for a serious relationship at 20. Maybe it would've been better for her to wait and maybe I should've given her space and not pushed things in a romantic direction. But I had fallen in love and couldn't help it. And some man some time later would've had to have helped her the way I tried...so why not me? As flawed a relationship as it was, it was the closest thing I've ever had to a normal adult sexual relationship of any duration and I still treasure my memories of the good times we had. Before her all I'd ever had were random hook-ups, just being at the right place with the right girl who just wanted it that particular night. All one night stands, very few & far between. I had one more serious relationship of 6 months about a year after my divorce was finalized but since then it's been a LONG dry spell....and nearly nobody gettin' newly laid during COVID-19, so...yeah. I clung to my ex-wife despite the withering emotional abuse because I desperately wanted things to work between us. I held on as long as I was able. I'm sad that it failed, profoundly so. But I ultimately had to get away from a relationship that had turned irredeemably toxic. These ruminations and memories still haunt me on long, sleepless nights...these memories and regrets for roads & chances not taken, etc. Had I had my ASD DX back then and understood my Executive Function deficits, that they were a permanent part of my neurology and
not something I would eventually "grow out of", I wouldn't have denied myself so many relationship opportunities and maybe would not have been so desperate by the time I met my first wife. If I'd had more girlfriends and experiences before meeting her instead of just rando hookups, my whole mindset might've been different. I generally sucked in my 20s and 30s at the whole flirting/dating thing, to be sure, but I also denied myself relationship opportunities out of anxiety, out of fear of needing to have my shit together before I could be in a relationship, not knowing that Executive Function deficits mean I'll never not feel like I don't have my shit together. That and my amazing ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, relationship-wise. I do not know if I'll ever remarry, but I do think I'd still like to date some again once the pandemic is behind us. One silver lining, my best friend from High School has forgiven me enough to be on speaking terms with me again, and we play D&D together regularly with the rest of our High School buds over Zoom and Fantasy Grounds. I'm so grateful for this.
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Hey how are you. I know its been awhile and you've been on hiatus. Your comments/tags about mental illness hit hard for me. I'm someone with severe anxiety disorders and depression. On top of that I also have ASD level 1 (previously called aspergers). I have a hard time knowing if people genuinely like me let alone if they love me and why they would. Ian's insecurities hit hard. Mickey I think despite the anger/hurt understands. He left the door open for Ian to come back ready to love.
Exactly. When it comes to their relationship, it’s important to really see what Mickey is saying between the lines:
When you get over this whole "I'm not worthy of love" bullshit, why don't you give me a call? Maybe if Barry hasn't made an honest woman out of me, I'll still be around.
It’s harsh but he’s basically acknowledging Ian’s self-worth issues and stating that he’ll be there when Ian’s ready. Which is not to say that he would wait forever, but Ian wouldn’t let him anyway. He could have said “Go away and don’t come back, I’m tired of your bullshit” if that’s how he felt, Mickey isn’t one to beat around the bush to make his points clear. Instead he said “Why don’t you give me a call when you get over this?”. His tone was sarcastic and he was clearly hurt and he wanted Ian to know he was hurt and he was dismissive but he wasn’t shooting Ian down and definitely wasn’t ending things. The whole time I was thinking about 2x08:
What did I just say to you? Done is done. What, you think we're boyfriend and girlfriend here? You're nothing but a warm mouth to me.
Here he wants Ian to be sure that there’s nothing between them anymore. He uses hurtful words (and we can argue that he didn’t really mean them but that’s not the point i’m trying to make), he drives the point across and leaves no hope for further discussion. Done is done. It’s over. It’s so over that Ian doesn’t visit him in juvie this time, It’s Mickey that has to take that step and rebuild the bridge, since the center of the issue in this break up was his fear of Terry.
I’m not, in no way, blaming Mickey for fearing his father, at all! I’m just pointing out that it was up to him reach out that time, just like is up to Ian to reach out this time. But now things are much more complex. They’re not two teenagers hooking up in secret. They’re adults and their goal is to build a life together. So they have to address and work on their issues (Ian mainly) instead of going on like they always do, pretending nothing is/was ever wrong.
About the mention of Ian’s self-worth issues: God, it’s a long time coming! They could have explored in S6, with his recovery. They could have done it in s7, with him “exploring” his sexuality. They could have done it in S8, connecting the gay Jesus bullshit with his need for validation. They could have done it in S9, while the kids were running around excited about the movement and he wasn’t feeling it anymore. They could have done it earlier this season, when they talked about the parole. But better later than never, I guess. And it hit HARD! I felt that like a punch! Every single word he said crossed my mind at some point of my life. That self-doubt? I’ve been living with it practically my whole life! That need for having someone else telling you what to do because you can’t trust your own decisions (”And Debbie told me to”)? Self-guessing (”I've decided. I'm gonna go do it. (...) You're just gonna let me go?”)? Sign me the fuck up! That’s me! That’s me right there on the screen! I never related to Ian so much like I did this episode. And that’s really fucking sad, when you stop to think about it. But this is out now, there’s no coming back from this. He can’t just pretend he didn’t say these things. So, the only choice now is to work on himself and get better. And feel better and get his man back.
It might sound crazy, especially with Ian’s defeated face on our minds, but the end of episode feels almost hopeful to me. It’s an open door, like you said! To me, this episode (hell, maybe their whole relationship?) can be summed up in: 1) It’s NOT lack of love but Ian’s damaged self-image that keeps him guarded and 2) Mickey won’t give up on Ian. Even now, that he’s left Ian and is pretending to be with someone else, he’s not letting go of his redhead. And I think that’s beautiful. :)
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so this is another autistic andrew post, about a more specific type of Autistic Experience: Sensory Processing Disorder or SPD, where the brain has difficulty figuring out information coming from the senses and then may make the feelings much stronger or much weaker. it's a condition very very strongly associated with ASD, and pretty much all autistic people have sensory processing issues to some extent (though autistic people are not the only ones who can have SPD).
spd reactions are typically classified as either hypersensitive or hyposensitive, or, over-responsive or under-responsive
i think that andrew has SPD with primarily hyposensitive tactile issues, meaning he has difficulty getting "input from the skin receptors about touch, pressure, temperature, pain, and movement of the hairs on the skin"
these are all taken from the tactile hyposensitive symptoms list:
__ may crave touch, needs to touch everything and everyone one weird thing that andrew is ALWAYS doing is touching people. he's always grabbing people's (especially neil's) faces, but also their arms, shoulders, etc. he manhandles a lot. pretty much, if you're one of his people, he's putting his hands on you constantly. he seems to get a lot of comfort from this too, showing an adamant need to TOUCH after stressful events (aaron after dr**e, neil after baltimore). obviously, this desire for touch doesn't come back around, as andrew doesn't like to BE touched, only to touch. it's really tragic that andrew has so much trauma related to touch, actually, because otherwise it's very easy to imagine him being a cuddly, tactile person who does enjoy being touched
__ is not aware of being touched/bumped unless done with extreme force or intensity now you can definitely argue a hypersensitivity here, but i think that a trauma response and an spd response are slightly different. we cannot ever forget that andrew is a deeply deeply traumatized person and that absolutely affects the way he reacts to things. so what i think is that andrew has worked very very hard to learn body awareness. over time, he can tell when he is touched, but he still can't necessarily tell much about how. so he overcompensates. he can't tell if someone is touching him to hurt or not, he can't even feel the difference, so he's just learned to stop ANY touch. at all.
__ is not bothered by injuries, like cuts and bruises, and shows no distress with shots (may even say they love getting shots!) on multiple occasions andrew shows an extremely pain tolerance as well as a total lack of response to pain. this also seems to be one of the reasons that people find him especially unnerving. in tkm, he threatens kevin that he will break his own hand to get off the court and then punches a wall hard enough to bleed. that should be a LOT of pain to inflict on ONESELF, and he doesn't even seem to notice. similarly, in tfc he punches through a window and cuts his hand very badly, and does not even seem aware of the injury. admittedly, both of these happen when he's on medication, but the medication is described as forcing him to feel MORE, not less. it then shouldn't have a muting affect on his pain tolerance, so I think that he just naturally has a low response to pain. also, in baltimore, when neil notes the injury to andrew's face that was apparently very bad, andrew shows no sign that he actually feels it
__ may not be aware that hands or face are dirty or feel his/her nose running there's not much for this, but when andrew punches the window in tfc and his hand is bleeding, he gets the blood all over and does not appear to notice. additionally, he gets into a shower fully clothed. i undertand his need to be covered but that still doesn't sound.. comfortable to me.
__ may be self-abusive; pinching, biting, or banging his own head andrew has a history of self-harm, to the point of what seems like EXTENSIVE cutting. plus, just in general, is totally self-destructive and willing to injure himself, from getting himself in a car crash to putting himself in the middle of fights to putting his fist through walls and windows when stressed.
__ mouths objects excessively he's a smoker, which can imply some level of oral fixation, and smoking is on the symptom list for adult SPD. also, not to be crude (nsfw text), but he seems to really enjoy sucking dick
__ frequently hurts other children or pets while playing + __ thoroughly enjoys and seeks out messy play (combined two) while we never really see andrew "playing" with anyone, this isn't hard to imagine. it lines up very easily with what we know of his childhood, that he was considered a violent kid. if he had trouble with sensory input he easily could have hurt other kids accidentally, somewhat leading to this reputation, which would have just spiraled out of control once he began hurting others to defend himself. additionally, pretty much the only activity we know he engages in purely for "fun" is sparring with renee, which is apparently vicious and leads to serious bruises and even injuries. also, he's an exy player, which even as a goalie is a gross, sweaty sport
__ repeatedly touches surfaces or objects that are soothing (i.e., blanket) neil. armbands. driving car.
__ has a preference and craving for excessively spicy, sweet, sour, or salty foods what foods do we know andrew likes? ice cream, candy, jalapenos (extra content) hot chocolate, coffee, whiskey. basically any food or drink he actively seeks out is a sensory extreme; sweet, spicy, hot, whatever the fuck sensation alcohol is (burning?) etc. additionally, he's a smoker, which is kinda like breathing fire
not on the list but additional extreme sensory situations that andrew seems to enjoy/seek out consistently:
sound: the times it's mentioned that andrew plays music in the car it's both music that is very loud on its own and he turns it up to an ear-splitting volume
eden's: he likes hanging out in a night club, which can be a sensory nightmare even for neurotypical people. LOUD music, BRIGHT lights. it's like,, the height of sensory overload and it's where andrew goes EVERY chance he gets just to hang out. he goes back even when he isn't drinking much or hooking up with people anymore. he just likes being in a super flashy, super loud environment
anyway i have so many feelings about autistic andrew with this kind of spd it literally makes me so sad
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What are signs/traits of autism (specifically those relating to criteria section A) which are more subtle? Like the subtle signs and not the straight up obvious signs (like "non-verbal" or "always takes things literally" or "flat affect").
I assume you're asking because of the other post I did.
OK, let's break down DSM-5 criteria A:
A. Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, as manifested by the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative,not exhaustive; see text):
1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.
2. Deficits in non verbal communicative behaviours used for social interaction, ranging,for example, from poorly integrated verbal and non verbal communication; to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures: to a total lack of facial expressions and non verbal communication.
3. Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships, ranging, for example, from difficulties adjusting behaviour to suit various social contexts; to difficulties in sharing imaginative play or in making friends; to absence of interest in peers.
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Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity: this reciprocity refers to how involved you're with the other person during an interaction (the back and forth that takes place in communication). Part of that social-emotional reciprocity is knowing how and when to initiate or respond to others' social initiations. And we also look for sharing of interests, and how "balanced" that sharing is, how comprehensible the content of the communication is (do you talk as if the other can practically read your mind? do you give context?), how reciprocal is the conversation (do you let the other talk about stuff they care about? do you talk mostly about your own stuff? when the other talks about stuff they care about, do you give any response to that? is it to ask further? or just to change the subject back to something that matters to you?), social initiation (do you talk on your own or do you only start talking when somebody else speaks to you? do you show others stuff to share on that enjoyment? do you freely give out information? do you always expect the other to start the interaction? do you let the other start interactions?)
Deficits in non-verbal communicative behaviours used for social interaction: visual contact (is it the kind of visual contact that helps regulate an interaction or is it perfunctory, a look into the other person's face as you start speaking and then drift away? do they actually look at the person or look beyond? to their clothes? not at all?), gestures (do you have hand gestures that help clarify or enhance the interaction? do you imitate using a fishing pole when talking about fishing? do you put your thumb and index finger almost together, touching at the tips when talking about some wee-itty-bitty-little thing that you found?) , facial expressions (does your face know what you're talking about? do you look the part? if you're talking about something that makes you happy are you frowning or smiling, is the smile so big it looks like it's going to split your face in half?).
Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships: This is all about relationships and how well you can explain them considering your developmental level and language ability. And how strong your relationships are. What are friends for you? What is family for? How do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years? What is a marriage? What is a romantic relationship? What's the difference between a friend and another person? What makes people angry,sad, happy? What makes people you know sad, angry, happy? And what we look for is the understanding that some relationships, such as friendships go beyond the functional aspects of it "somebody that can drive me to work and somebody to play with" and that people understand the differences between one type or another of relationships. Finally, we also look for your history in friendships, familial relationships and/or romantic relationships. This part is often an interview by a clinical psychologist that evaluates your view of the world when it comes to other people, and what other people is to you.
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Some very subtle examples of this would be (this is not comprehensive):
1) Sam is talking with Ana, Ana talks about her day and how her boss effed up big time today, Sam keeps on eating, looks up at Ana once during her recount of her day, once Ana is done speaking, Sam talks about this really cool thing he did on a video-game, mentioning nothing about what Ana just said. Once he's done retelling his stuff, Ana comments how fun the video-game sounds.
Sam in this case was not reciprocal of Ana's part of the communication, like a ping-pong of sorts, Sam let the ball pass him by and introduced his own ball. Ana, in turn, was reciprocal in her interaction when Sam told her about his video-game. If Sam shows this behaviour in various contexts and with various people, not just because,maybe he dislikes Ana, or was tired that day, we could say it's a subtle form of deficits in social-emotional reciprocity.
Most Anas of the world, when faced with a Sam that doesn't ping-pong the ball back would say "wasn't my boss dumb?" trying to get you to reciprocate her part of the communication, and subtle Sams of the world often reciprocate only when asked/prompted to.
2) Sally looks at people only when when she starts an interaction, but then her eyes wander around the other person's face and lips or the room as she talks. She looks away or to her feet when she's done. Mark, his brother, looks at people in the eye, and sends brief looks to their eyes again when he wants to make a point, and then looks at the person again to get confirmation they were done with their turn speaking so he can respond again.
If Sally rarely uses her eyes to signal the other person or to engage the other in their interaction, and it happens in most contexts and with most people, that's a subtle sign, because she actually makes eye contact, but only briefly and not through out the interaction, like Mark.
3) Danny has 2 friends at school, who he plays with during recess, he says they're are his best friends and he really likes them, parents assure me those three boys are thick as thieves, on further inquiring it is revealed Danny does not know their last names, which grade they're in or how far from school they live, when asked what they do during recess, each of them plays in their own mobile phone, but together in the game, it's an RPG of sorts. When asked why he's friends with these two boys, he says it's because they have good phones, and they can play together, when asked what's the best thing about friendship, he answers "mobile data", because he doesn't have a plan, but this other kid does and shares it with him when they play. When asked what's the difference between a friend and another person, he answers good friends are people you play with, when encouraged to expand his answer, he adds he's not friends with people who don't play X video-game.
On the surface, it looks like Danny is an average kid with average interests, he loves video-games and playing with friends during recess, he recounts how much time he spends with them, parents know about these kids. But when we look deeper, friends are only functional to him with no deeper understanding of an emotional bond.
Another example would be the person that when asked what's important about marriage, they tell you about children and how wives/husbands are to love and to cherish. Sounds romantic and cute. On a deeper dive they have no real understanding of the give and take a marriage takes and they only perform stereotypical roles they have gathered from watching TV/films and reading books, they can't really understand why their spouse gets their pants in a twist when they don't do X,or understand X thing, because they have been really dutiful in their perceived role as a spouse (so doing and/or understanding X fall out of their purview).
None of this traits/examples are enough to say somebody's autistic, but when put together along with the other criteria it could paint an ASD picture.
Hope this answer helped clarify stuff anon!
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