#where are my alexithymics at?

[olderthannetfic]

Daily accs have ruined the fandom experience.

Fandom is just generally so boring and I'm speaking as someone who's queer, ND, disabled, and POC. "Headcanons" now lack flavors. Headcanons now are limited to just making the characters non-white, cis, straight, neurotypical, and abled. Where's the plot? The elaboration? And I don't just mean "I hc him as autistic and he has alexithymia."

As someone who's autistic and alexithymic there are lots of experiences that come from being alexithymic that no one person who's alexithymic experiences the same way even when there are common traits. In fact, most of the time I don't use the medical terms and just describe the character having these traits AND THEN describe how it's relevant to the plot bunny and maybe even use canon sources to elaborate why I think this character can be or is [identity]-coded. I don't just make posts generating various labels everyday or every HOUR: "this character is [x]." and call it a day.

Not to mention lots of people are saying these HCs are the only acceptable kind of HCs because the others are problematic or harmful. They always put it in the bio, "no harmful or problematic HC," "proshipper DNI", "no [link to a card with a list of headcanons lots of people are doing].

There are open antis who are constantly making "reminders" or "hot takes", and there are covert antis who act as if they are making "content" but they are literally just spamming posts like the one I told above and attacking people in the comment section or up-ing other people's call-out posts by engaging or reposting. Antis have been creating an environment where even wanting to Headcanon is scary. It also conditioned people to like only these types of HCs and I would've been elated for some rep a few years ago but the lack of nuance is just irritating and disappointing. Ironically, I can not relate with any of these headcanons because homophobia (which was a popular tag on AO3 because it's relatable to a lot of queer folks like me) is problematic (literally had someone tell me about an AO3 tag statistics, "homophobia shouldn't be a popular tag). The lack of media literacy has people saying making an x trope is endorsing.

I keep finding anon fics or private fics on AO3, going into fandoms where people are more comfortable sharing fics thru discord servers, DMs, linked write/as posts, because my ships keep getting harassed or scrutinized by antis (even when they are not minors, don't have age gaps, incest, or are rivals), and I keep seeing more and more people say they are discouraged to engage in fandom activity at all.

Somehow this is familiar as a queer person who was in the closet and had to hide all my poetry because ofc my own people (I assume they are mostly queer like me too cuz a lot of them identify as one and put it in their bio) makes me feel unsafe LOL/sarcasm

--

[beanghostprincess]

agreed that it is impossible to remove emotions, judge could however damage the neural pathways responsible for interpretation of them, making the vinsmoke siblings alexithymic (the cruelty is however a product of the environment they were raised in and not related to the inability to name and interpret their own feelings) (alexithymia, in my personal experience, is "hm, i'm experiencing some sort of a feeling, it is vaguely good/bad but that's pretty much all i can tell about it, oh, i guess there's these physical sensations generally associated with some emotions, but that's probably unrelated/but that's associated with a few different emotions and i got no idea which one it is this time")

Wait, I?? Adore this?? I mean, it's what makes more sense regarding the siblings, actually. It's not that Judge removed their emotions, they just have a really hard time understanding themselves and their feelings, and tbh I think that frustrates them. They use the power they have over Sanji to deal with it because they might not be able to read themselves, but they were raised in a family where power dynamics are the most important thing and they only feel ""good"" when they're not the weak ones and that's something they can understand.

[coldresolve]

My grand thesis on sadism

I'm not an expert on anything whatsoever, and studies on sadism are sparse to say the least, so I'm basing this on squinting at concepts I've seen elsewhere and a layman's gut feeling. Here's my thesis:

Introduction

Sadism is when someone feels emotional pleasure as a result of someone else suffering. That's about it, afaik. And yes, this does mean that that one time you said something mean to someone else in the heat of the moment to hurt their feelings, you were behaving sadistically. Sorry lol, sadism isnt a mythical creature, everyone is capable of it

Obviously, some people are more inclined to experience sadistic pleasure than others, which is where we draw that largely arbitrary distinction between sadist and non-sadist. My thesis is that this distinction is a tad more complicated than a binary spectrum: there are (at least) two different types of sadism, both of which play a role in what type of sadist a person is. Those two types are a) emotional sadism, and b) cognitive sadism. I made these terms up just now for the record

Emotional sadism

This is a type of sadism experienced by people who have alexithymic tendencies. Alexithymia affects about 20% of people. It's that thing where you're not very good at distinguishing or expressing different emotional states; distinguishing emotions from non-emotional bodily sensations such as hunger or fatigue, and; distinguishing between your own emotions from those you feel through empathy. (Loads of alexithymic people think they don't experience empathy; they do, they just don't attribute their feelings to other people.) Alexithymics will often have difficulty describing their emotions beyond negative, positive, or neutral. But some alexithymics, in certain regards to certain emotions, will have difficulty even doing that.

By attributing sadism to alexithymic tendencies, what I mean is this: You see someone suffering, and you feel a rush of adrenaline. But because you kinda suck at distinguishing this rush as the negative emotions felt by the other, transferred to you through identification and/or empathy - your brain interprets the rush as a positive experienced by you, which is influenced by, but still independent from the suffering experienced by the other. I hope I'm explaining this okay lol but this is the most plausible explanation I could come up with as to why sadistic ppls brains will interpret other people's suffering as a source of pleasure, because there is a significant correlation between alexithymia and the dark tetrad.

Cognitive sadism

Cognitive sadism can be summerized very sussinctly by this quote from C. Fred Alford:

Sadism is the joy of avoiding victimhood, though that puts it too passively. Sadism is the joy of having taken control of the experience of victimhood by inflicting it on another.

Cognitive sadism is an expression of control over the role of victimhood by imposing it on another person. I view this as the sub/conscious justification that drives sadistic actions, seperate to the emotional state experienced by the sadist after the act has taken place. These are, in my opinion, two seperate processes.

K, but so what?

Viewing these two things as seperate processes might help us distinguish between different types of sadists, by simply adding or subtracting. Here are some terms for what I mean that I also literally just came up with lol:

The Opportunistic Sadist: Experiences emotional sadism, but has no inclinations toward cognitive sadism. This means that they will experience sadistic gratification at witnessing the suffering of another, but they have no desire to be the one inflicting said suffering themself. (A good portion of yall are like this from what I've seen)

The Remorseful Sadist: Seeks control by imposing victimhood on others, but can distinguish their empathetic response as other-oriented and distinctly negative, leading to intense feelings of guilt/shame/remorse/whatever after the fact. (Industry secret: a large portion of people who broadcast themselves as hardline sadists secretly fall into this category. They'll never admit it lol)

The Pure Sadist: Experiences both the alexithymic empathy response and control-seeking inclinations. What most people think of when they conceptualize sadists; people like this are pretty rare in my experience? But I also have no data on it so like.

Anyway here's a graph I made:

The graph means I'm basically an academic about it lol idk

Conclusion

Fuck if I know, I'm just thinking thoughts about it for now tbh

[aidsyouinthinking]

Poem: our ever dissorded thoughts

My brain stews,

With don'ts 'an dos;

Chewing on those half truths.

Feeling gone; all goes but blues,

A Jackinthebox for my personal news:

Wind and wind the music play,

To creep, and irk, an otherwise plesant day.

Wind and wind behind at bay;

I weep- they lurk, mocking wise words

That They won't say...

But I feel them, and know them,

But me Knowing they condemn.

I have to claw at my throat,

Tear tendon till on blood I float,

And rench with my caloused hand

Out past their placed gasteic band.

Or if they wish to throw me a bone,

They'll just past it me whilst I'm alone,

Perhaps they find me ever squabbling

to that silver thread oh so amusing

maybe they are really really trying

so hard to help but forever failing

but now?

But now I know, either way...

well, another step anyway;

For if they are a They at all,

Or other questions that befall:

Introspective and monumental,

Is when to knees I fall to forever bawl,

And crawl into ball and drawl and brawl;

For for me you see

I do not emote the same as you

Or perhaps you do~

Please talk to me

Achem...

But to me it's distant like it's taking the mick

It's called being alexithymic~

And burst goes the bubble and the weasle too

As now to light something new, and too; me anew

Yes with every

Revelation

A new me

Self-Revolution

A carousel goes up and down

But it also turns around

From face to face some a frown

We shift and switch it's a bitc-

...

Fuck.

We again and a shudder to boot!..

If emotions are too strong,

we sing song and strum lute

Muscles follow root to where they belong

It's never perfect, often a mess,

but we do get to what we must address

Where were we?

We weren't!

We we we, don't you see!?

Well rather you don't!

Do not personify the fog,

Or the faluty machinations;

Breath no life into our backlog:

Chastising bastardisations:

Canvas colours swapped with lapdog;

It's just sensations arbitrary relations!

We're segmented dissonant wires, not shards!

But look at you, you idiot,

you're saying our and we

Oh, so so clearly

Some part of you can agree

Own the dread

Cuz you said

We...

And we.

We are sick and tired

Of always being fired

To gallows every day

With nought even a say

...

Where we're we?

I'm so lost

So lost

This vast empty breathless void seeps everywhere

I wish we were okay...

Just do it... be okay...

But we'll never know what to say

And no one else is coming to help today

Or tomorrow

Or the day after

I'm always fixing things, it's only me, oh so loney.

But at least... I have me? Frankly, not very...

Good company...

We didn't even get to the bit about how I can't talk feelings in drama cuz It's a place I used to mask, and changing my behaviour now feels like it did then

A burdend.

Oh Guess I did it :p

Back to "I" again... aye? Hmmm alr... fair...

[entity56]

i may be alexithymic but I have this weird system where every 20 minutes to a few hours my mind repeats a phrase indicating how I feel. on its own. sometimes it doesnt make sense 'Please don't' 'You/they don't understand' and 'Just stop' being prime examples. But more often I get stuff like 'I hate everything', 'Feeling pretty good', 'Do you ever hate someone so much.' 'Do you ever love someone so much.' 'I'm pretty great!' and 'Everything is AWESOME.'

And i imagine it works similar to my anti-suicide failsafe that immediately kicks in against my will if I'm having suicidal thoughts-- it repeats positive mantras in my head and forces me into pampering myself

[adivergentlens]

Living with alexithymia often feels like navigating a world devoid of clear emotional signposts. The struggle to identify and express my feelings can leave me feeling disconnected and adrift. Yet, in the embrace of nature, I find a profound solace that helps me bridge the gap between my internal experiences and the world around me.

Nature offers a tranquil mirror for my inner world. The stillness of a forest or the gentle lapping of water against a riverbank provides a peaceful backdrop where my emotions can quietly emerge. In these serene environments, I am free from the pressures of verbalizing my feelings. Instead, I can simply exist, letting the natural world help me unravel the tangled threads of my emotions. The quiet presence of nature allows me to connect with my feelings in a non-verbal, intuitive way, fostering a deeper understanding of myself.

The diverse landscapes of nature serve as metaphors for my emotional states. A stormy sky reflects inner turmoil, while a sunlit meadow embodies a sense of calm and clarity. By immersing myself in these natural environments, I find a visual and sensory language that speaks to my alexithymic mind. These landscapes give form to my feelings, offering a way to understand and relate to my emotions without the need for words. Nature becomes a canvas upon which my emotions are painted, visible and comprehensible.

In the heart of nature, I find a sanctuary where I can safely explore my emotions. There are no judgments, no demands to articulate my feelings precisely. The rustling leaves and the songs of birds provide a comforting background that supports my emotional journey. Here, I can confront my emotions at my own pace, finding solace in the understanding that nature accepts me as I am. This safe space is invaluable, allowing me to slowly build a connection with my emotions without the fear of misunderstanding or rejection.

In conclusion, nature offers a powerful remedy for the challenges of alexithymia. It provides a reflective calm, a metaphorical language, and a safe space for emotional exploration. Through my time in nature, I find a deeper connection with my emotions, learning to understand and appreciate the complex landscape of my inner world. Nature's gentle embrace helps me navigate the labyrinth of alexithymia, offering a path to self-awareness and emotional healing.

[pheonyxian]

Personal post

So, I've been quietly identifying as asexual for the past five or so years. Quietly, because the only people I've told are my online friends. And even then, I rarely bring it up in conversation or lean into it through icons and symbolism and stuff, even though many of my friends are very proudly pan/bi/ace/trans/non-binary. Part of it was because I just... didn't like being ace. It's kind of an isolating identity, but also because no matter where I looked, I felt like my experience was completely different than every ace community (tumblr, reddit, aven, etc.) Asexual felt right on paper, but talking about it beyond just the broad strokes made it obvious just how different I and most other aces actually understood sexual identity.

Same as aromantic. I didn't ever fully identify as aro but I was aware that it was a possibility, but same problems as above.

Separately, and a few years later, I also came to the conclusion that I have alexithymia. This was because when I get really upset, it feels like there's this physical disconnect between the part of my brain that feels the feels and the part that makes the words. Like, a literal 404 Page Not Found.

Recently though, I had a breakthrough that 1) my alexithymia is probably a lot worse than I originally realized, and 2) that my asexual-ness was related, if not completely stemming, from the alexithymia. I should point out that alexithymia (at least the version I have) is not having no emotions, but not being able to identify, speak, or connect with them. I usually won't realize that I feel sad, or angry, or even happy until I stop to think a bit. And even then, I usually recognize emotions through mental patterns rather than physical ones. It's always "wow I'm arguing with an imaginary person in my head, I must be angry" not "wow my heart's racing and I'm feeling hot, I must be angry."

A part of all that is that I also don't feel compelled to act on my emotions. Maybe this was caused by a coping mechanism for typical life bullshit (feel sad/angry/anxious? Too bad go to school and act normal or else you'll draw unwanted attention.) But that goes for positive emotions too. How am I supposed to recognize desire if the physical sensations that drive it only register as a weird, annoying feeling?

Once I realized this, things clicked into place much more than they did when I first identified as asexual. Identifying as ace made me feel worse, and I only continued to do it because I knew that there was something fundamentally different between what I was feeling and "normal." Restructuring my feelings as alexithymic feels so much better.

Also I feel like this gives me a little more permission to be horny on main. Not that I couldn't while being ace, but... I don't know, it just felt weird to say I was ace and then have my third most popular post in recent history being hornyposting about Warframe.

I'm not entirely sure whether I want to keep identifying as ace. Personally, I think it's valid to have your sexual/gender identity stem from neurodivergence, but whether that's what I want for me is... I dunno. Something to think about in the future. I'll admit though, I don't want to give up our cool flag.

Anyway, thanks to my friends, who are always there for me even though I rarely talk about my feelings out in the open. And anyone who's following me for funny posts who happened to read to the end as well.

[aroallow]

Hello! Kinda personal so feel free to ignore but would you be willing to talk about your experience with alexithymia? I've only ever met one person with it and find it really interesting/gen -🥬

OH MY GOODNESS IVE BEEN FORGETTING TO CHECK ASKS

Ok so here’s the thing it’s like. It seems like you’re thinking of alexithymia as a condition but it’s actually a trait. Many autistics have it

I used to think the same thing, the misconception for me came from the show “He is Psychometric” where one of the characters was described as alexithymic because he could not experience emotions

The word alexithymia actually breaks down to “a-,” as in, a negation, “-lexi-” like word or language, and “-thymia,” for emotions. So together, it’s “no word for emotions.”

Alexithymia is not a lack of emotions, rather, it’s an inability to name emotions. So in my case, I feel a disconnect from mine, and therefore cannot name the experience I’m having. My experiences with emotions (ex. facial expressions, physical reactions, cause and effects) feel like they are separate from the emotions themselves.

For instance, I may feel the need to cry, and know that I need to, but not know why, or not associate this with typical expectation sadness. It could be that I AM feeling sad, we just haven’t gotten yet to understand that that’s why I need to cry.

Sometimes it can happen that I know I’m sad, but I can’t cry to process these emotions because those events are not correlated, or because I’m disconnected from the sadness

A lot of my emotions I am more aware of as physical sensations rather than as emotions themselves, because that is the only indicator for me that they are happening. I feel embarrassed next to my nose, my biceps feel regret, my sides are scared. I used to say that these areas “felt nauseous,” and had no clue why before I realized they were my emotions.

For some people, including myself sometimes, alexithymia may come from an overwhelm of emotions: if too many things are happening at once, you can’t differentiate what’s what. For me, that’s what happens, and then the next step is to shut them down to stop the overwhelm, hence the disconnect.

Yeah! Apparently like 50-80% of autistics are alexithymic but it also happens to allistics, it’s not a condition or disorder just a trait. I hope this helped!!

[jacketkos]

mfy+ ship thoughts even though nobody asked

Not including OT3+ 25ji ships here because that'd take forever but. An explanation of which of them I ship with who and a brief summary of how I frame their dynamic.

Also I'm using Yuki to refer to ❄/the host because that's my personal interpretation. “Mafuyu” is the honor student who acts as a protector and academic alter.

🧊🎨 - Mess. Constantly fight with each other. OWN deliberately provokes her at every given opportunity and Ena does the same. They both know this is just how they're flirting and both of them are too proud to acknowledge it. Will absolutely bicker and push each other in front of the rest of the group; OWN always wins their arguments because Ena folds like a paper bag when you corner her off. Pissed off rivals-to-lovers who still can’t live without each other. Ena realizes she’s in love with him when she starts thinking of painting a portrait of him that “even he” could appreciate.

🧊🎀 - OWN was actually the part of Mfy+ to register Mizuki's problems for what they were near immediately, but he just kind of ... refuses to interfere anyway. She activates his protector instincts though so he just keeps watch over her from a distance. 25ji MEIKO is partially based on Mizuki herself and partially OWN's own feelings towards Mizuki; Yuki is oblivious to this, but OWN is personally disquieted that their subconscious would risk ferreting him out. He eventually works up the courage to make overtures towards Mizuki, but he’s always cautious and meticulous as to how much he reveals about himself—Mizuki is perceptive enough she might see him for who he is. Truthfully, she already does suspect something—the gaps in Yuki’s memory, the way “their” voice will suddenly drop … she doesn’t have the vocabulary for it, but it’s obvious that there’s something fishy going on.

🧊❄ - As someone who is a part of a system where the hosts cannot stop getting into relationships with the primary protectors of their subsystems, #representation #matters. More serious description: OWN is aware of Yuki, Yuki isn't aware of him. OWN is as emotionally volatile and maladaptive as he is because he wants to be recognized, to be thanked, to be comforted—because he's cared for Yuki for so long without them knowing. This only starts shifting at the end of the 25ji main story and. I'll stop it here before this makes up a majority of the post.

🎼❄ - Alexithymic bozo finds true failgirl love. It's the platonic ideal of Kanamafu, I don't need to explain it to you.

❄🎨 - Yuki, unlike OWN, does not intentionally provoke Ena. However this makes them actually more generally successful at getting under her skin. They're just a bit ... dense enough to aggravate her natural impatience. They'll say something that makes her start yapping at them and just act confused in response, completely unphased and unaware of what the issue is. Eventually they find it entertaining enough they start making small efforts to get under her skin, but not nearly to the degree OWN does.

⛄💧🧊 - Mafuyu and OWN cofront a lot with each other during archery practice, so they both have a surprisingly developed relationship with Shizuku? OWN doesn't actually really talk to her, though. That's all Mafuyu; he's just there to shoot. Mafuyu’s the one that goes "Ahaha, ohh, you flatter me too much," and spits out the pleasantries while OWN is silently having a meltdown over Shizuku blatantly flirting with them by complimenting his physique or technique.

❄️🎀 - Ultimate “comfortable silence” ship. Yuki subconsciously understands Mizuki’s identity problems due to OWN’s influence, but they don’t really feel the same urge to keep watch over her. Instead, they want to understand what it’s like to have an identity like Mizuki does—something strongly felt, something far less mutable than their own sense of self. Yuki has no identity to claim as truly theirs, yet sees Mizuki drowning in herself. That makes her uniquely interesting to them in a way they can’t put into words, and the two are drawn together by this. They don’t need words, after all—their shared feelings are enough to convey what they need to.

⛄️🧊 - Mafuyu dotes on OWN hard. She’s shockingly good at getting under his skin, despite the grumpy protector act. They often cofront together, but they’re split on how to handle Yuki’s apparent lack of awareness. Mafuyu wants to show Yuki that they exist, while OWN is aggressively opposed to Yuki knowing about them “for Yuki’s sake,” even if he wants them recognize him deep down. Regardless of the fact they often disagree on major matters such as this, they’re rather close—they’re the only ones actively aware of each other, after all.

[reviewsthatburn]

This is a follow-up to my review of "Feed Them Silence" by Lee Mandelo, involving some thoughts that are too personal to make sense in the review as they swiftly veer away from the text specifically and instead into a broader meta-conversation of books like this which I have read previously, assumed correlations between emotional complexity and humanity, and how processing these thoughts has prompted me to make a change in my own life. 

CW for discussion of ableism, dehumanization, animal cruelty/death, body-horror-adjacent concepts, and brief mentions of racism and genocide.

-----

How some of my neurodivergences affect me as a reader and reviewer

I have alexithymia, which is a term referring to a collection of symptoms related to a combination of “difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings to other people, a stimulus-bound, externally oriented thinking style, and constricted imaginal processes” (Wikipedia link with sources). Experientially, I don’t like that the first two descriptions seem to assume that I and others like me have some emotional capacity, if only I/we could access it. Having lived my whole life without that additional capacity or nuance of emotion, I’m content to live the rest of my life without it and continue my stimulus-driven existence as one that keeps me interested, occasionally happy, and avoiding boredom as much as possible. I’ve turned my avoidance of boredom into a constant stream of projects (one of which is this review blog and associated podcast). 

The thing which occasionally causes trouble for me is my lack of capacity to imagine, something which isn’t always experienced by other alexithymics, but which seems to surprise and disturb people who think at all about what it means for me, from their imagination-heavy perspectives. The biggest way this affects me is as a form of aphantasia, where I can only picture things I’ve literally seen. In my reading, I prefer dialogue-heavy books which explain the reasons for various actions alongside physical descriptions. If I watch the movie version of a book then the movie version is the only thing I can picture, no matter how much it diverges from what’s described in the original text. Anyone who follows me on TheStoryGraph might notice the sheer number of books I DNF because they over-described things and told me what color everything is, trying to paint a picture with their words. I dislike an overemphasis on visual detail, or repeatedly describing facial expressions instead of translating them into thoughts or emotions, all of which makes the story unintelligible to me.

This is complicated by factors such as that I am an allistic (not autistic) person with alexithymia, but many Western cultural assumptions about autistic people are actually descriptions of alexithymia (plus or minus meltdowns), because there can be overlap between both states. I just happen to be in the less stereotypical position of being alexithymic, but not autistic. 

I have for some time (even before learning specifically about alexithymia) identified as a philosophical zombie on the basis of a basic awareness that the culturally dominant terms around me imply this greater complexity in other people which I don’t have and don’t experience. I find this conceptually interesting, and a somewhat pithy way of getting across to people without alexithymia (or without other conditions which similarly constrict emotional experience) the gulf between their emotional life and mine.

In the course of this essay I use some references to emotions that reach beyond my personal palette of neutral, happy/good, bored/bad, excited/interested (this interest is content-neutral and can be about “good” or “bad” topics), and sad/disappointed. I do this because I generally understand the context that is implied by more specific emotional terms, but not because I’m literally feeling the emotions. I’m used to saying the more specific terms in conversations with other people (which is likely a form of masking). Because my experience as an alexithymic is central to my reaction to "Feed Them Silence" and ideas of neurological complexity as a delineation of moral responsibility, I’ll translate my actual emotion from the more generally accessible specific term when possible.

Full essay at link below.

[musicalsiphonophore]

30 Days of Autism Acceptance

April 13: How important are routines to you? Are your routines more based on time ("I always do this at 6pm!"), on habits ("I always drink from this cup!") or both?

I like my routines a lot and I don't like breaking them, but I will be able to function (albeit unhappily) if they're disrupted.

With me, it's mostly habits although when I was younger I had a lot of time routines too. I always travel the same route to get to X place. I always get mint choc chip ice cream, never any other flavour. I always sit in this chair.

The reason I need routines is because I'm very bad at quick decision-making, which is funny because for important life decisions I can come to a conclusion, but I can't choose what to have for lunch. With small decisions there's often no real pros and cons between X and Y, so NTs would pick which one they felt like but I'm alexithymic so I don't know which one I feel like so I literally cannot choose! Routines help me to not have to make as many spontaneous decisions, for example the ice cream one saves me spending fifteen minutes getting more and more stressed looking at all the different flavours.

That's a feeling that I've always lived with but I didn't realise it was an autism thing until pretty recently. I was watching the Heartbreak High reboot (the show is shit but I love Quinni so much) and there's one scene where Quinni is overwhelmed by choice at the gelato place and it's never explicitly addressed but you can tell from how she's looking at the board. I was crying. I was crying over an unemotional scene in an awful Netflix teen show. IT'S NOT JUST ME WHO HAS THAT FEELING. (This is why representation is important, and also it's good for creators bcs this is proof I don't care how good your show is if it's got good autistic characters. Have my money.)

[soulvomit]

Reading ‘Aspergirls’ but I don’t relate to the emotional parts of the narrative. Nor do I relate to the emotional parts of the narrative in Highly Sensitive Person or many modern autism books. Sigh.

It helps me understand the emotional autists in my life better (new perspective on my ex husband), but... 

This is what my emotions have been like my whole life:

Default mode:  Robot Girl Then, here and there, with great frequency in childhood but diminishing frequency into my 30s: OMFGWTFBBQDIEDIEDIE SODIFJSDOFIJ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SDOISDFOISODIFOSDIFJWOERUWEIRUWOERIUWOERIUAOSDIOSIDJOQIWeoqie!~!!!##$@#%)@#$(*@#%(*@)#%(*#%

Either Robot Girl, or GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR

Nothing in between. No setting between 1-11 for my emotions.

But...

As of my 40s...

it’s 

Robot Person, and sometimes I get a bit animated or a little mad. I even get amused sometimes. 

But I do not have strong emotions anymore.

It’s like something just burned right the fuck out.

My absolute overenthusiasm that I used to have about things I got enthusiastic about, is gone, too.

And... this actually superficially looks like I’ve “grown up” and gotten over so much of my autism, or something. Because it can pass as grown ass adult emotions. Being dead inside or something is considered socially appropriate at my age. I don’t feel like I’ve cried in about six years. 

But it’s actually in some ways got *different* failure modes, and one of them is that I can’t actually generate enough dopamine to DO ANYTHING much of the time. I wonder if an ADHD med would actually be helpful at this point in my life - perhaps at a lower dose than I took before - it dialed up the extremes EVEN MORE when I was on one 14 years ago.

But also - the way my sensory overload has manifested, has changed shape over my lifetime. I haven’t cried over it in a long time. I haven’t lost my shit over it in a long time. At some point, I just progressed to dissociation/shutdown. 

And then later, it became chronic pain and migraines. Like, what would cause a meltdown in the past, would cause a fibro flare or migraine now.

In fact, I don’t cry, I get migraines, and basically I have to get catharsis through a hard stim when I feel that coming on if I don’t want to be in my room with the light off for the rest of the day, or somehow find some trigger that will actually make me cry, which is harder and harder as I get older. 

But I am definitely not "sensitive”

[eternally--mortal]

Ongoing Traumatic Relationship Syndrome. I heard the name for the first time a few days ago. It’s also called “Cassandra Syndrome.”

I’ve been doing some research into it — nothing extensive — but there’s a detail I find consistently in these articles that I feel the need to set straight.

OTRS, according to the articles, presents in relationships where a Neurotypical person is married to a Neurodivergent person — relationships where the ND spouse fails to empathize with and respect the perspective of the NT spouse. It’s a little more complicated than that, but the gist is that All Neurodivergent people are being painted as potential abusers.

What these articles fail to acknowledge is that they are not talking about Autism, but Alexithymia. About 50% of Autistic people also present signs of Alexithymia (“no words for emotions” or difficulty processing emotions). The articles also fail to acknowledge that a person can be Alexithymic without being Autistic.

So Cassandra Syndrome is being portrayed as an NT/ND problem, but it’s actually more complicated than that.

I’m Autistc. I’m ADHD. I shwaffle sometimes between thinking I’m Alexithymic and thinking I’m not. But I do have a sibling who is very much Autistic and very much Alexithymic.

We’re both neurodivergent, but based on the descriptions of the symptoms of OTRS, I am confident that I have been living with it all my life.

I just think it’s a little funny. “Cassandra Syndrome” is named after the Trojan woman Cassandra who rejected Apollo’s advances. He cursed her so that she would have the gift of prophecy, but no one would ever believe her. She predicted the fall of Troy, but her own people refused to listen. “Cassandra Syndrome” is named this way to reflect the helplessness of NT partners who are not believed when they express that the source of their depression is from a partner who cannot empathize with them, who seems incapable of apologizing or accepting fault, who struggles to see outside of their own perspective, etc.

I just think it’s funny, because if “Cassandra Syndrome” is used to represent NT people, what about all of the ND people struggling in similar relationships? Or the ND people who are considered problematic partners just for being ND, even though they’re not Alexithymic? What about how the name implies that Alexithymic people represent the ‘Apollo’ side of the story?

If you’re a neurodivergent person struggling as a result of OTRS, know that you are not alone. Know that your experience is valid. If you have a non-Autistic partner with Alexithymia and you are struggling from OTRS, know that you are not alone. Know that your experience is valid. The articles don’t mention all of us. That doesn’t mean we don’t exist.

For all of the ND people who have been or will be accused of causing OTRS in a relationship simply because you are Autistic, know that you are not alone. We do not lack empathy. We have full, emotional lives. You are valued. You are not alone.

[lonelier-version-of-you]

Just about to rewatch S20E28 “Into The Light”, ft. Dr. Ethan Hardy. Also with major storylines for both my fucked up queer king and my very slightly less fucked up queer king, yet I don’t think they share a single scene in this episode. Wild. They probably did have one that got cut for being too gay or something.

Edit 1: John just screaming in the peace garden is extremely relatable.

Edit 2: I forgot Becky Prestwich and Nick Fisher wrote this one. I don’t know who I thought wrote it but it wasn’t them.

Edit 3: Henrik in his getting therapy era!!!

Edit 4: Oh fuck, not John lying to Jac about the other trial patients.

Edit 5: Essie!!

Edit 6: “You [Rox and John] work well together, you always have.” I think there’s definitely a place you’d like John and Rox to work together, Henrik... ;)

Edit 7: Not Rox also lying to Henrik about the trial though.

Edit 8: Oh fuck, Raf’s dad and Henrik meeting each other.

Edit 9: Guy!! Fucking!! Henry!!

Edit 10: Oh hi Ethan!

Edit 11: Ethan Hardy, canonical Doctor Who fan, sharing scenes with Paul McGann is HILARIOUS.

Edit 12: The patient is Ritchie the lawyer from Eastenders apparently. I didn’t recognise her but my mom pointed it out.

Edit 13: Ethan trying to get involved with the trial was a great idea and really realistic.

Edit 14: Henrik wearing all purple. Bi king.

Edit 15: Now I can only see the patient as Ritchie Scott, send help.

Edit 16: Roxanna looking gorgeous.

Edit 17: Donna’s ex Jared mention!

Edit 18: “John, where have you gone...?” “I’m thinking.” More like ‘I’m dissociating’.

Edit 19: John intimidating Rox when she asks if he’s lied to her, in a similar way as Henrik would intimidate Sahira. Interesting.

Edit 20: This Henrik and Essie scene :’))

Edit 21: Kaye Wragg is incredible.

Edit 22: Acknowledgement of Essie’s diabetes!

Edit 23: I love Henrik being gentle.

Edit 24: Rox snooping around in the lab again!

Edit 25: I could listen to Roxanna’s voice all day.

Edit 26: Donna in her plastics era!

Edit 27: Raf’s dad talking to the statue :’) And Henrik going down there too :’)) And GUY HENRY’S ACTING :’))

Edit 28: If the rumours I’ve heard about Ollie on Casualty are right, I hope it’s handled as well for David as the first year or so of Henrik’s reaction to Fredrik was.

Edit 29: Ethan :((

Edit 30: George Rainsford giving a good performance.

Edit 31: Kaye Wragg is BRILLIANT.

Edit 32: Henrik being alexithymic. And the show being possibly the most explicit about his alexithymia they ever have been.

Edit 33: If someone had just got John psychiatric help ages ago...

Also, it’s funny how the scenes are switching between Henrik and John but they still aren’t actually sharing a scene.

Edit 34: Donna being worried about letting her kids down :(

Edit 35: Paul McGann saying the words “Ethan Hardy” sfsfsfsfsfsf

Edit 36: What the fuck John.

Edit 37: Guy Henry’s pronunciation of “olycksfågel” is so awkward.

Edit 38: Roxanna apologising for not being able to get Ethan on the trial. Awww.

Edit 39: Ethan in this episode might actually be the best Casualty character cameo they’ve ever had. They utilised him so well.

Edit 40: “I had to try.”

Edit 41: It’s so odd that Casualty didn’t mention when the truth about Gaskell came out. They’re very valid for ignoring that storyline, obviously, but with Ethan pinning his hopes on the trial... it seems weird they didn’t mention when it all turned out to be medical malpractice.

Edit 42: “Well, you certainly never gave that impression... you always seemed so competent. So in control.” See? See? Henrik didn’t know a single thing about Roxanna, nor did she know anything about him really. They weren’t soulmates. He had an idea, a perfect version of her in his head that he idolised. That’s it.

I do love the “this is how we wrestle back control” speech though.

Edit 43: Roxanna being all cute and geeky.

Edit 44: Henrik in this episode has “other people are easier to fix” energy.

Edit 45: Dom hugging Essie.

Edit 46: Henrik: “Mr. Copeland has it in him to... connect.” Raf’s dad: “We all do.” Henrik: “...Perhaps.”

Relatable autism moment.

Edit 47: Jac: “Whatever you [John] did has worked so far.” :(

Edit 48: Raf’s dad’s little speech to Essie :’))

Edit 49: Ethan was more likeable in this episode than he was in Casualty in 2018.

Edit 50: Awww, Donna giving her patient a manicure!

Edit 51: Rox: “How does that make you feel?” John: “You sound like a therapist.”

Also absolutely laughing my ass off at Rox criticising John for his “moody, secretive silence”.

Edit 52: Society if Rox had killed John instead of the other way around.

Edit 53: Henrik doing his therapy worksheet. We love a man trying his best.

Edit 54: Henrik asks Rox out in a very similar way to how he asks John out in S20E41.

Also, Johnrik TECHNICALLY sharing a scene here, but no actual interaction. And a Hexanna cheek kiss, which is more than we ever got for any other Henrik relationship. :(

Edit 55: Rox screaming in the peace garden. Me too, Rox, me too.

And John looming over Essie for no identifiable reason.

[scientia-rex]

I’m having a nervous breakdown but honestly it���s been going pretty smoothly so I feel like I can’t complain. Worst decisions I’ve made have been to eat too much when I’m stoned (which I have been getting almost every night for the last couple of weeks because of The Depression, serotonin machine VERY broke), which gives me heartburn. I bought a used but in good condition Nordic Track elliptical today and we wrangled it into the garage so one of these days I may even get back in “climbing a flight of stairs” shape. (I am currently in “yes, I can twerk, but only for the REALLY good part of the song” shape. Twerking requires a whole lot of quad strength, and also a decent sense for where to begin and end the arc of your pelvis, but it clicked for me about ten years ago and I mostly just do it when I’m dancing in the bathroom every night before I take my shower.)

I know so much. How is there so much left that I don’t know? I spend so much of my life trying to figure out, with obsessive tenderness, how to use as few words as possible to make my meaning as clear as possible. I do this for my patients. They need me to do it. If I don’t do it, who will? Who else is going to sit there and spend days of internal monologues and conversation figuring out the exact right simile to convince someone of something deathly important? To use the right pronouns for a trans kid, to take their blood pressure medicine, to get their booster now and not two weeks from now.

And that’s not what I want to be doing. Or is it? I want to write something complicated. Long, flowing, flowery sentences with deliberately disturbing and ambiguous language. But it gets so hard when so much of my time is about teaching. Explain, explain, explain. Your heart beats like this. An artery does this. It’s a water balloon—it’s a muscle—listen, two things have to be true—I’m full of short, pithy anecdotes and common sense, I talk like salt of the earth, I do it on purpose. Sometimes at night when I’m driving home after dark I talk out loud to myself in my car and I do it practicing “prestige dialect.” These remnants of a series of three linguistics classes I took eighteen years ago. I was such a child. But I still remember how to do it, or at least I think so. Lower and round my vowels. Enunciate. Erase all traces of the country hick from my voice. Because I get tired of only playing one character, one role.

Country doctor. I didn’t realize until partway into medical school that nothing about me would ever be as important as my identity as a doctor again. And now that I’m a country doctor, I get the good things I wanted from it—I love, I am loved, I have the bliss of service, knowing that I am there in a moment when I can offer something any other doctor would not have offered, understanding, validation, the voice of an elder queer who is From Here—but I am also in a fishbowl. And thanks to COVID, I’m trapped in the fishbowl. No vacations. No escape from the doctor identity. I have to maintain it at all times. No being a grody weird little goblin at 3am hitting up the gas station across the street for snacks. We don’t live waking distance from anything anymore, nothing is open at 3am, and I have to look at least relatively composed at all times. Because the person behind the counter might be my patient, or my patient’s cousin, or their spouse, or their parent. Today a guy came out to check on some repairs and I’m his son’s doctor and also the doctor of three of his employees. My patients know what my living room looks like. One used to spend Christmases there. The mother of the person we bought the house from is another one of my patients now. There is no separation and no privacy and I had counted on being able to escape to a city once in a while to get drunk and dance and eat at absurdly expensive restaurants in dresses I can’t wear in this town.

I am going insane, and I can tell because I pulled out most of my eyelashes. I’m alexithymic—I don’t know what I’m feeling most of the time, I have to look at the evidence and put it together—and I imagine it’s because showing any emotion in my childhood bought me punishment, and it’s easier not to show emotion if you don’t even know what it is. But I’m going insane. I’m short a whole lot of eyelashes. But I’m still going to work, I’m still being a good country doctor. I’m still fighting like hell for my patients. I might get too tired to do this, especially since I’ve decided to go back on the call rotation. But I miss the excitement of call. And I miss meeting people in the ED who would become my patients. It’s where I met a teenager after a suicide attempt who, over the next year, gradually came out to me and their family as trans. It’s where I met one of the clinic employees, who, a year later, stopped me in the hall to tell me how comforted he had felt by me. How he felt I never judged him, and how much he appreciated my presence there.

It’s hard not to get a big head, until you screw up so royally you almost kill one of your favorite patients, which I did last fall a few days before Thanksgiving.

I am doing my best. I am putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again. I always tell my patients, baby steps. You’d be amazed how much progress you make with baby steps. When I was 18 I almost killed myself because I hit a truck in my car at a slow speed. No one was hurt, but it was so terrible to me it was almost worth dying over. When I was 18 I failed a class for the first time and almost killed myself over that. I’m more than twice as old now as I was then. I’ve learned more than I could ever have imagined back then. I did it all via baby steps. I slowly learned to work around my anxiety, until now my anxiety barely slows me down.

It does steal my eyelashes. That’s okay. I’m having a nervous breakdown. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I’m fatter than I’ve ever been, and I’m simultaneously horrified and disgusted by myself, and aware of my internalized fatphobia, and happier than I’ve ever been. I’m worried I’ll regret not having children and it’s not quite too late probably if I changed my mind right now but also I don’t have kids and this is the happiest I’ve ever been. It must be immoral to be this happy in a pandemic. And if I’m happy, why am I pulling out my eyelashes?

I just want to write something and I have to untangle my brain first. This is how it’s always been. Unwind the threads. I have to be my own Ariadne.

[iwillstabyou]

Is this a thing or am I the only one?

I feel like one of the reasons I like daredevil (specifically Matt Murdock) so much is that I don't have to make eye contact (ik it sounds weird but hear me out...). As an autistic person, I struggle with eye contact. For me, this extends to watching TV/looking at pictures. Making eye contact with anything just makes me feel awkward to the point I often look away.

Matt often wears dark glasses, or has his eyes covered (when he is fighting) during the show, and it just made me feel kind of happy *there's probably a better word but my alexithymic ass cannot emotions* because I didn't have to make direct eye contact with his character very often. I don't really know where I was going with this but I think it's interesting. Can anyone else relate or is this just a me thing?