grumpy disabled feminist

For every person making a half million a year, there are over ten without clean water (and that’s not even counting the 43 million people whose water systems are considered “private” and are not included in EPA water safety laws).

The wealthy eat gold covered donuts while 40% of the US has vitamin deficiencies.

The bizarre nature of the US economic system means that poor people in the US can have a smartphone (under $30) and a choice between 20 different colors of $1 socks but then have no choice but to die of a tooth infection because that costs hundreds of dollars in order to access treatment.

I’ve been worse

The same way I feel every day, Pinky

All my limbs are still attached, which is nice

I haven’t daydreamed about ripping my (spine/arm/leg/head) off yet today, so that’s good

The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell

Still haven’t gotten my Hogwarts letter, which sucks

I’m not dead yet! (in a Monty Python voice)

Asymmetrical, but in a purposeful, artsy way, not like I just can’t center things

Not great, but the desire to scream bloody murder has lessened somewhat

I feel like that one part of Bohemian Rhapsody- you know, that one?

Like I spent the night roaming the countryside feasting on unsuspecting victims who didn’t sit quite well in my stomach

Like I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee

Slightly better than a hungover college kid who just remembered they have finals today

I saw (animal) so that’s always nice

The Las Vegas shooter was not mentally ill

He planned this out

Picked the weapon

Picked the event

Picked the hotel

Picked the room

He knew damn well what he was doing

He is sane

And he is a fucking monster

Stop trying to humanize him

Stop dragging those that actually suffer with mental illness under the bus

Stop acting like we’re the problem with gun violence

Stop IGNORING how this monster LEGALLY got his hands on 17 semi automatic machine gun –modified them to make them automatic– then got enough ammo to kill 59 people and injure over 510 more

Stop letting people say that this isn’t about gun control

Stop tolerating the bullshit because it’s the easier thing to do

He was an accountant by trade: methodical, meticulous.

He had a net worth of just over $2M.

He followed all the “rules” in buying guns.

Say I’m being lazy with my afternoon, and someone I know comes in and says, “You need to stop being lazy and do the thing, or Bad Consequence will happen.” And the consequence is genuinely bad. 

For instance, say I’m Not Cleaning the Kitchen and someone comes to me and says, “You need to clean the kitchen or you’re going to get ants”. And they’re even right. 

If I’m being lazy, and I agree that now that I think about it, ants aren’t good, I don’t want ants, I kick my own ass, get up and clean the kitchen. This is based on the ability of my brain to literally experience a Reward, a Positive State, from having a cleaner kitchen and not having ants. 

If I’m having catastrophic anhedonic motivation failure? That doesn’t work. It’s not that I want to stay on the couch more than I don’t want to have ants. It’s that I can’t make myself care about EITHER state because it’s all fucking horrible. Nothing gets better. I might as well fucking have ants. I deserve ants. Look at me I can’t even fucking keep my kitchen clean I don’t even WANT my kitchen clean obviously since I’m still lying here so fuck it, I’ll just lie here and have ants. Oh look now I have ants. Isn’t that fantastic proof of how fucking awful I am. 

Of course the entire thing is usually not that articulated in the brain, you know? This whole thing is an example. Usually it’s more like: 

Laziness:  … meh put away clothes later.  Executive Dysfunction: *want to put away clothes* *constantly stall on the initial cognitive step of How To Put Away Clothes* *get more and more distressed/stressed about not putting away clothes* *keep stalling* *cry* Anhedonic Lack of Motivation: *lie there. stare at clothes. know clothes should probably go away. can even think of whole set of steps to put away clothes.* *cannot fucking feel anything about putting away clothes* *stalls out forever in pit of ‘why do i even fucking bother i should lie here and rot’* *uses fact that clothes have not been put away as evidence* 

But yes, executive dysfunction and anhedonic lack of motivation are actually different things, and they also require different things to fix. 

Laziness: It’s more fun to play video games then do laundry

Executive Dysfunction: I literally have nothing that needs to get done since I did my laundry yesterday and I’ve been wanting to play this video game. I just need to turn on the system. It’s only a foot away. Any time. I’m totally going to do this. Oh, it’s been six hours and it’s time for bed

Say I’m being lazy with my afternoon, and someone I know comes in and says, “You need to stop being lazy and do the thing, or Bad Consequence will happen.” And the consequence is genuinely bad. 

For instance, say I’m Not Cleaning the Kitchen and someone comes to me and says, “You need to clean the kitchen or you’re going to get ants”. And they’re even right. 

If I’m being lazy, and I agree that now that I think about it, ants aren’t good, I don’t want ants, I kick my own ass, get up and clean the kitchen. This is based on the ability of my brain to literally experience a Reward, a Positive State, from having a cleaner kitchen and not having ants. 

If I’m having catastrophic anhedonic motivation failure? That doesn’t work. It’s not that I want to stay on the couch more than I don’t want to have ants. It’s that I can’t make myself care about EITHER state because it’s all fucking horrible. Nothing gets better. I might as well fucking have ants. I deserve ants. Look at me I can’t even fucking keep my kitchen clean I don’t even WANT my kitchen clean obviously since I’m still lying here so fuck it, I’ll just lie here and have ants. Oh look now I have ants. Isn’t that fantastic proof of how fucking awful I am. 

Of course the entire thing is usually not that articulated in the brain, you know? This whole thing is an example. Usually it’s more like: 

Laziness:  … meh put away clothes later.  Executive Dysfunction: *want to put away clothes* *constantly stall on the initial cognitive step of How To Put Away Clothes* *get more and more distressed/stressed about not putting away clothes* *keep stalling* *cry* Anhedonic Lack of Motivation: *lie there. stare at clothes. know clothes should probably go away. can even think of whole set of steps to put away clothes.* *cannot fucking feel anything about putting away clothes* *stalls out forever in pit of ‘why do i even fucking bother i should lie here and rot’* *uses fact that clothes have not been put away as evidence* 

But yes, executive dysfunction and anhedonic lack of motivation are actually different things, and they also require different things to fix. 

Laziness: It’s more fun to play video games then do laundry

Executive Dysfunction: I literally have nothing that needs to get done since I did my laundry yesterday and I’ve been wanting to play this video game. I just need to turn on the system. It’s only a foot away. Any time. I’m totally going to do this. Oh, it’s been six hours and it’s time for bed

There’s a little app called Be My Eyes. It’s been on iPhone for a while now and on October 5th, it’ll be out for Android too.

What is Be My Eyes, you might wonder? Well, it’s a community of people helping people. Namely, sighted people helping blind people with simple tasks that require sight to be simple.

See the picture?

(for those who can’t see, the picture shows the app I’m action. It shows a phone camera pointed at two red cans of food. Text above depicts a sighted person explaining the right can is a can of tamatoes.)

In short, if you’re blind and have every had trouble finding your blue shirt, the app was made for you.

If your sighted and want to help, the app is for you too.

If you’re not, reblog and spread this so more people can see.

This is fairly common knowledge among autistics, but I wanted to make a quick post explaining this for everyone.

This is an example of how it’s used:

[image description: an awareness ribbon with red, yellow, and blue puzzle design]

The puzzle piece is meant to symbolize that autism is “puzzling”, that it is a “mystery”, and that autistics have a “missing piece” in comparison to allistic (non-autistic) people. Put like that, you can probably see why we find it offensive. We are normal people who do not need to be “cured” or “fixed”, and we’d be a lot less “puzzling” if people just treated us like human beings with different needs. Autism becomes a lot less of a mystery if you listen to what autistics have to say.

It’s also the symbol of Autism Speaks, which we consider to be a hate group who shamelessly promotes and condones the abuse of autistic children. Their focus is “curing” the “disease” of autism to “get our children back”. 

We don’t need a cure. We need acceptance.

A much better option is the neurodiversity symbol.

[image description: an infinity symbol in rainbow colors]

This design is not entirely specific to autism, but autism is what it most commonly represents, and it is meant to celebrate natural human variation, rather than labeling us an “other” to be “made normal”. The neurodiversity movement is about autistic self-advocacy, and about us being accepted as we are instead of being told there’s something wrong with us.

I don’t mean to make anyone feel bad if they’ve supported the puzzle piece symbol in the past, because I’m sure you thought you were genuinely being supportive. You didn’t do anything wrong in being misled. All I want to do is correct that misinformation so you can know better in the future.

[Drawing of a stick-figure guy staring down at a stick-figure girl, who is lying face-down in the ground. Above them are the words, “POTS Problem #44: Self-doubt!” The guy says, “Whoa, Vanessa, you okay?” The girl replies, “I thought that if I just tried harder I could do the thing. I was wrong.”]