chai your best

Most shows I’ve seen that mention fan fiction readers/writers portray them as kinda oddball super-geeks with no lives or social skills.

So I wanna take a moment to appreciate the fact that in Parks & Recreation, the character who writes fan fiction is the intelligent, successful, and good-looking primary love interest of the main character.

Here we have Terry from Brooklyn Nine Nine. He’s an Absolute Unit, father, police officer, black, intelligent, kind, a main character……and writes fanfiction from The Good Wife.

B99 - breaking stereotypes all over the place.

They don’t segregate like some parents do, i.e., ‘this is an autistic thing and I’m going to try to correct it to help them’. I’m treated differently than my sisters not because I’m different neurologically, but because I’m a different person. I was raised according to my personality just like they were.

Too many parents tend to categorise. This is an autistic thing, but that is who he actually is. These meltdowns are her autism problems but bullying is a personal problem. This is because they’re different; that is because they’re them.

This is very damaging because neurodivergency is inseparable from one’s core personality. To them, they’re not “Autism Parents”. They’re just parents. Which is how things should be. They don’t care for autism first and their child second - they care for their child first and autism as a part of their child.

@thingsthatcauseautism @growingupaspie @asystemdifferent @asdmemory @autistips @autistic-culture-is @adulting-with-autism @sensory-heaven @hexed-stims @thatautismfeel @autistic-memes @autism-asks @autistic-flower-fairy @myautisticjournal @relatable-autism-memes @autisticvoices @autismtypes @questioning-autistic-dreamer @howtoautism @autisticlifehack @sweet-autism-things @isthisanautistictrait @autistic-flirting @6-word-autism @aspergers-reality @allllltheautism

did everyone see these photos of Jason Greene aka Freckle, though

Potent minimalist art sends a strong message about police and vigilante brutality in America

Journalist and artist Shirin Barghi has created a gripping, thought-provoking series of graphics that not only examines racial prejudice in today’s America, but also captures the sense of humanity that often gets lost in news coverage. Titled “Last Words,” the graphics illustrate the last recorded words by Brown and other young black people — Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and others — who have been killed by police and vigilantes in recent years.

I’m going to describe a way of thinking about being neurodivergent that has been gradually emerging for me this past year and a half. 

There are many ways to think about being neurodivergent. Telling your disability story is one of the most important and personal decisions you can make. So, even more than usual, your mileage may vary. Also, there are a lot of ways this perspective can be misunderstood. I’ll do my best to clarify, but it’s possible people skimming might think I’m saying something hurtful or triggering. If you’re only up for skimming right now, scroll past. I don’t mind.

…

Being neurodivergent is hard.

Sometimes, it’s hard because the world is designed for people with brains unlike ours. We face pressure to hide who we are, and we’re expected to do things that our brain wasn’t meant to do all day while making it look easy.

Sometimes, it’s hard because our brains betray us. We want to get up from the chair and make dinner, but the connection between our brain and body isn’t working. We want to start that creative project we’re excited about but sit staring at an empty screen for hours. Countless times a day, we forget midway through an everyday task what we were doing, leaving a mess and nothing finished. We lie in bed in fatigue and pain when we want to go out to work, run errands, or see friends.

But what if the very difficulty of neurodivergence was an opportunity?

I don’t mean “opportunity” in the sense of “ADHD is a gift” or “I love being autistic.” These are good feelings to have. But the struggle itself could be meaningful, even if you see no advantages to your neurodivergence.

It means the Hero’s Journey (or Heroine’s Journey) is our birthright.

What makes a hero(ine) is confronting difficult situations and doing the right, but hard, thing. That might mean confronting fear while facing down a dragon. It might mean speaking the truth even if everyone rejects you for it.

I think most people have moments where they have to choose between the easy thing and the right thing. Ask anyone who’s tried to go to the gym first thing in the morning or give up coffee. But for us, everything can be hard, even painful. So the heroic moments are both more obvious–and more numerous.

We have opportunities to become hero(in)es multiple times a day, every day.

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?” -Jalaluddin Rumi

We can have some of the clearest mirrors in the world. (I DON’T mean that we shouldn’t feel hurt or be sensitive to the sandpaper).

I DON’T mean that we should just “push through everything” with sheer willpower. Sometimes the hard but right thing to do is to rest and care for ourselves–especially if everyone’s telling you to work harder. Sometimes the best strategy is to befriend the dragon rather than fight it. I mean acting according to our values as best we can. Stepping into the boots of a Hero or Heroine means we’re not “putting … life on hold waiting for a cure.” We’re doing what we care about, however overwhelmed or unprepared we may feel. 

I often feel discouraged because I keep growing and learning new skills, but life gets harder faster than I can improve myself. It feels so unfair that most people get to find an equilibrium in their thirties or so, and for me, my family, and other neurodivergent people I know, it just keeps getting harder with no end in sight. But what if feeling like running to stay in place is just what it feels like to “level up” in life? What if living in a neurotypical world means we have to “level up” more than the average person?

Then there’s the meaning the struggle brings.

We can work on the world. We can try to change the world so other neurodivergent people can have a happier, safer life. 

We can work on ourselves. We can practice being proud. We can learn to work with our brain so we can accomplish as much as possible with the brains we have. We can explore our interests, develop new skills. 

(Note that I did NOT say fight to “overcome our disabilities” or become “normal.” Even if that were possible, it would mean turning ourselves into a copy of everyone else. Conforming. Assimilating. No thanks. I mean becoming a happier and more capable neurodivergent person).

Yes, of course we can pursue any purpose in life. Our life mission might have nothing to do with disabilities at all. We can pursue all the purposes neurotypical people can, plus our brains drop extra ones in our lap.

…

ASIDE: Coming to this perspective has been a struggle, and sometimes I have trouble holding onto it. I grew up in a high-pressure upper-middle-class suburban environment, absorbing the idea that one should be happy and healthy all the time. If you’re depressed? Something’s wrong with you, you should fix it, take some medicine to fix the chemical imbalance. (Taking antidepressants definitely helped and I’m glad I took them, but I took them for the wrong reason, and my expectations were unrealistic. Depression can mean real struggles with the world or finding meaning that are a natural, maybe a necessary, part of life. It’s not always or only a chemical imbalance. Antidepressants can make it easier to work through the content of depression. The problem was my belief that life can and should have no depression in it). If you feel like doing a few things is painfully hard and overwhelming while all your high school and college classmates are doing a lot more with seemingly little struggle and fatigue? Something must be wrong with me; college is supposed to be the most fun time in your life. 

Without this perspective, I’d never have been diagnosed as neurodivergent. But I’d probably believe in myself more. I’d probably be stronger.

I know people who grew up in a less affluent environment who expected struggle and pain, physical and emotional, to be part of life. They have their own problems, but they don’t shy away from pain or struggle. They know they can handle it, because they always have.

So, what I’m saying here might seem obvious to folks like @clatterbane or @withasmoothroundstone. It might not be to some of the high school and college students I hear from here, who sound like I did.

,,,

When we entertain a thought, make a decision, reinforce a habit or behaviour, we strengthen that pathway. We feed that wolf. Most of the time, we do so with tiny morsels.

Every time I see a cup on the counter and don’t put it in the dishwasher? Procrastination pathway.  

 Every time I see a cup on the counter and put it in the dishwasher? Tidy pathway.

Every time I think “I should really meditate,” and don’t? Procrastination pathway—again.

Every time I think “I should really meditate,” and sit my butt down and open Headspace? Self-care pathway.

Every time someone elbows me on the bus and I assume they’re just a jerk who doesn’t care about my personal space? Assuming the worst pathway.

Every time someone elbows me on the bus and I assume they might not know they’re doing so and ask them to move up? Assuming the best pathway.

Of course, some of the wolf-feeding moments we encounter are more high-stakes than this. …I’ve found the more I feed the good wolf for micro-decisions, like not procrastinating about putting a cup in the dishwasher, the stronger that good wolf gets in other areas of my life…It’s situations—and decisions—like these that end up defining our lives.

✦ADHD is not a personality quirk

- some things that tag along with ADHD are:

        ~sensory processing disorder

        ~executive dysfunction

        ~poor fine motor skills

        ~sensory overloads (that lead to meltdowns)

        ~sensory seeking (self stimming)

        ~hyperfixations

        ~moderate to severe memory problems

        ~Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria- is an extreme emotional sensitivity and emotional pain triggered by the perception that one is being rejected, teased, or criticized. The emotional response is complete with suicidal ideation and people suffering from RSD often get misdiagnosed with serious personality disorders. RSD is only seen in people with ADHD and the emotional sensitivity/reaction is much more severe than that of a neurotypical person.

✦Some other “fun” ADHD things! 

          ~inability to regulate emotions

          ~no concept of time

          ~noticeable public stimming (resulting in stares from neurotypicals) 

          ~no impulse control

          ~insomnia

          ~listen but cannot absorb what is being said 

          ~no volume control 

          ~increased inability to focus when emotional

          ~difficulty stopping a task and transitioning to the next 

          ~social anxiety

          ~higher levels on generalized anxiety

          ~extremely forgetful 

          ~”all or nothing” mentality  

@ neurotypicals- some things to be aware of: 

- you cannot hyperfixate. only people who are neurodivergent can hyperfixate. please don’t use that word when describing your latest obsession :-)

- please don’t stare at neurodivergent people who are stimming in public

- be respectful of those who actually need fidget toys so they can subtly stim in public 

- if we forget something you tell us it is not because we don’t care, we just have a million other thoughts racing through our mind and no way to filter through them.