beep boop

Dear cis people,

Don’t do this.

The fucking truth. The. Fucking. Truth. Gentrification is such racist fuckery. You discriminated against Black people for centuries. Refused them mobility. Stuck them in areas where you did not invest in infrastructure, school, roads, business or anything else. Took their taxes and funneled it to richer neighborhoods to take care of their shit. Overpoliced them using brutal tactics. Even trafficked drugs into their neighborhoods. Nevertheless they rise above it, create something special, unique and lasting out of less than nothing and now that it looks pleasant to your eyes, white people want to come into said neighborhood, take it over, kick all the Black people out, tear it down, destroy everything Black people built and bleach the fuck out of the area. Fucking pigs.

Friends, family members and loved ones of learning disabled and mentally ill people need to have a working knowledge of what Executive Dysfunction is, and respect the fact that it is a prominent feature of that person’s psychology and life.

Executive Dysfunction is best known as a symptom of autism and ADHD, but it also features in depression, anxiety disorders schizophrenia, OCD (which by the way is also an anxiety disorder), personality disorders; etc, a whole myriad of mental illnesses and disabilities can result in executive dysfunction.

Years ago when I was like 14 and had recently learned of my autism diagnosis, I watched a youtube interview between autistic people, and an autistic woman said something along these lines:

“Sometimes, a lightbulb will burn out, but I cannot change it. I have the physical capability to change the lightbulb, and I want to change the lightbulb, and I know I need to do it, but because of my autism I just don’t do it. So the lightbulb remains unchanged for weeks. Sometimes people have to change the lightbulb for me.”

When she said that I related so much, because constantly throughout my whole life I have wanted and needed to do things with my wanting and needing being akin to my spurring an extremely stubborn horse who refuses to move. For the first time I learned that I wasn’t just “lazy”, I had a condition that prevented me from doing things as easily as other people can, but unfortunately it took me years since then to understand that.

Imagine that you are a horserider, but your horse is entirely unwilling to move even if you want to move. You dig in your heels, you raise the reins, but the horse refuses to respond. Your wants and needs are the rider, and your executive functions (the parts of your mind responsible for getting things done) are the horse.