Nightmare Chaser

So my actual TEXTBOOK admitted that it was biased and teaching these disorders based on opinion and not up to date research. And, as described above, the section on ODD was basically just, “these are bad kids. We will not look into why or how or what comorbidities exist and we will also not be exploring the possibility of ODD really being a manifestation of trauma/undiagnosed adhd/autism/pathological demand avoidance/persistent drive for autonomy. We will however be mostly focusing on how annoying these kids are to their parents and teachers ✨️”

It’s fucking crazy. “Yeah we know lots of people with autism struggle to follow demands. They may either ignore/not register demands or have meltdowns when demands are placed. They may engage in physical aggression, verbal aggression, and property desctruction when directed to complete tasks or be exposed to uncomfortable sensory input. They may need to know the why behind demands and consequently argue with authority figures. They may be easily upset by sensory input or social interactions and have emotional outbursts when pushed beyond their limits. Some children with autism seek attention and may engage in maladaptive behaviors to elicit the attention of peers and caregivers if positive attention is not given freely/if they are ignored when behaving appropriately. All of these are symptoms of their underlying neurological differences and should be met with compassion and understanding. They are not bad children. Their brains process information differently and therefore they have executive functioning, sensory processing, and emotional regulation challenges that cause these behaviors.

How would you even measure that?

Things adults wrongly identify as arguing:

Asking for clarification

Asking any kind of question

defending yourself

answering a question teh adult has just asked you

breathing

Existing

Oh, also:

Race and the Mental Representation of Individuals Diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder: Implications for Diagnosis

Pathologizes problems with authority to dismiss them as irrational.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

Yes, I was tearing through books constantly, and talking to this teacher at least weekly. Because even though I always loved reading as a kid, literature was always a very weak subject for me in terms of a teaching-to-standardized-test school setting (I just do awful on "what color were the curtains" type multiple choice questions. Those details don't stick in my memory THEY JUST DON'T). But that didn't matter for this class. I could just read my way out of any bad test score. I have always had fond memories of how I "fudged" my way through that class and "abused' the extra credit policy.