Arima's world

In your 20s, you'll feel like you're losing the race. It's important to understand that there is no race.

Anyone else remember having their parents try to teach you Emotional Regulation Skills way too early and only understanding in hindsight how fucking nuts it is to try to do what they were doing to a kid. Like having your mom tell you "you're the only one who's in charge of your feelings :) nobody can MAKE you feel bad unless you let them :)" but at the same time you'd get scolded for making someone else feel bad by being rude or acting out, so in practice you're both in charge of your own feelings but also everyone else's feelings, and that didn't feel fair, but you had no idea how to put that into words because you're five.

it only occurred to me years later, but if "you control your emotions" and "you choose how to feel" then every time my parents got angry at me it was because they chose to be angry, which doesnt seem like the kind of thing you want to be teaching your kid

honestly it’s kind of upsetting how much of the autism experience is just being shamed out expressing yourself in any way that’s normal for you and learning to keep everything to yourself so you’re not shamed for being weird and then being shamed for being so quiet because it’s also weird to be quiet but if you tell this to anyone else they’ll say “why do you care so much what people think” and that’s when the ancient ape part of your brain gets ready to beat them to death

I used to tell myself, ‘Maybe they’re going through something.’ But then I realized that I was too, and I never treated anyone that way.

Refusing to help or teach your kid will not make them learn to be independent. It will leave them without the resources and skills necessary to be independent. You are not "enabling" someone by giving them a scaffold on which to build. By denying them a scaffold, you hinder them.

it’s fucking wild because one day you’re like i guess i’m not dying tragically young and you go to the store and you buy dental floss, ingredients for soup, and a bath mat

Fuck sex. Can you deal with me when my anxiety kicks in & my depression takes over?

Normalize guys needing affection. Let them lay their head on your chest. Rub their back & play with their hair until they fall asleep.