Dear Autistic Kid, on meltdowns and shame

Autistic Science Person

Dear autistic kid,

I just wanted to let you know that autistic adults have meltdowns too. I still have meltdowns as an adult sometimes. I hate it when everyone is staring at me when I have them, especially in public, because I don’t want to be angry or yell at people or cry, but I can’t help it when it’s happening. And sometimes the people around me don’t know what’s going on, which is extra frustrating. Sometimes when I know I’m going to have a meltdown though and I’m in a safe spot at home, I’ll punch a springy pillow to tire myself out and I’ll scream too, so I don’t yell mean stuff at people. When I’m having a meltdown or sensory overload, I really want to hit my head sometimes because it feels too pressurized/like it’s on fire, but I try not to do that if I can…

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Christmas Carols Nobody Asked For, Vol. 2: Christmas Will Christmas on Christmasing Day

Wrap me a peppermint baby, be gay
While Christmas will Christmas on Christmasing Day!

Not the same

I recently learned there’s a phrase for this. it’s ‘tribal epistemology”:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/16/20964281/impeachment-hearings-trump-america-epistemic-crisis

a coherent heart

Stop saying that the protests against DJT today and the previous protests against Obama are the same. They aren’t. I will give you two reasons. (There are more.)

I heard during Obama’s administration (First List):

-Obama is not American (he was born in Kenya)
-Obama is not Christian (he’s a Muslim) + Obama’s going to put us all under Sharia Law

Republican pundits kept on about this, and on, and on, and never stopped about this. There was/still is a lot of fear and anger on these points.

That is NOT THE SAME as (Second List):

-the (nominee for) health secretary and Republicans in Congress are trying to repeal my healthcare although they have no working plan to replace it
-the education secretary has no experience and is considering defunding public schools
-the labor secretary’s career is based on undermining worker’s rights
-the head of the EPA wants to abolish…

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Wherever You Are Is Where I Want To Be: Crip Solidarity

#1218: “Irritability and constant criticism in a marriage.”

CaptainAwkward.com

Dear Captain,

My husband (he / him / his) is extremely smart and good in his job, has a close relationship with his sister, and good at figuring out mechanical challenges (e.g., setting up a new type of tent) patiently and thoroughly.

But I can’t bear the constant criticism. He’s always miffed about something. It is many, simultaneous small things: being hot, not reading for fun anymore, allergies, my refusal to go surfing, my lack of passion for running, that I don’t plan trips/activities, that we don’t share hobbies, that we don’t spend enough time together, that he has to constantly alter his schedule for me, that I interrupt him to serve dinner when he is putting away laundry, that I asked him to hang out when he was clearly doing something, that I can’t travel with him for > one month each year, that I work too much (I…

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#1222: “Love my family, hate my mean red-pilling brother who is always around.”

CaptainAwkward.com

Behind a cut for emotional abuse, misogyny, and discussion of these things as specifically related to recent gun violence and the possibility thereof, which is not what the Letter Writer asked, but definitely something I saw in the question.

I did a giant dump of cat photos for patrons if you need to click on over that way. ❤

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I identify as tired

Chavisory's Notebook

I started wondering something explicitly for the first time recently, and that is: How many autistic kids who fly under the radar for years, or forever, present primarily to non-autistic observers as exhausted?

I wonder this as I continue recovering from a recent production, and my main problem is just that I’m so exhausted. If I get up at 10:00 AM, I need a nap by 4:00 or 5:00, and not for having done all that much in my waking hours. Every time somebody has made me exercise the slightest amount of planning ability outside of work, I just want to cry. It’s taken my writing brain a couple of months to even think about coming back online. And transitions are still the worst.

But mostly I’m just so tired.

And I look back on being a kid and obviously there was so much that I just had no frame…

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Why the Jellyfish

echolaliachamber

I am fascinated by the way we talk about other life.

I am fascinated by the linguistic richness we are capable of, and how alternately we bless or deprive other life of this richness.

We are supposed to be amazed by jellyfish because they are such complex creatures, capable of swarm coordination, and even apparently intentional, agential movement, of hunting — yet they “don’t have a brain”. We are supposed to be amazed by jellyfish because they can make movement choices based on light conditions — yet they “don’t have eyes”.

Many creatures have senses and structures that we do not have. Mechanoreceptors, like antenna, tentacles, or hairs can sense the flow of air, of water — the pressurized movement echos of their community. Chemoreceptors, specialized tissues, can detect pheromones, secretions, the “scent” diffusions of their predators and prey.

Would they find us fascinating? “Look at those amazing creatures. They…

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Confederate Memorial shit

I keep seeing stories about southern towns & states having a Confederate Memorial Day “to remember those who lost their lives in the war between the states”.

boy that sounds admirable! what a great idea! why don’t we do that in the north as well? set aside an entire day to commemorate the veteran dead of the civil war?

we could call it… Veteran’s Day.

or Memorial Day.

oh wait it appears that there’s already two national holidays for that. there doesn’t need to be a special racist slaveowning day in the south after all.

I (also) *REALLY* hate how these narratives imply that nobody cares about the war dead but the former confederacy, that union soldiers didn’t fight and die, that confederate soldiers weren’t literally killing union soldiers and civilians, that the only dead worth caring about were the confederates.

that not only we should be proud of them, but that the only ones we should be proud of here were the southerners fighting to retain the right to hold slaves.

like, it’s not even “Civil War Memorial Day”; it’s specifically “Confederate Memorial Day”.

what the absolute fuck

that the south is STILL talking about this on a regular basis boils down to the rich white property owning southeners still brainwashing the middle class and poor white southerners:

“Hey remember the time we totally made you go fight and die so that we’d be able to stay rich and powerful? you did a great job! even though you lost, we’re so proud of you! keep defending us and the poisonous hate that enables our wealth forever!  Because we like being richer and more powerful than you!”

 

Cowards and Accomplices

Longreads

Judith Hertog | Longreads | Month 2018 | 13 minutes (3,153 words)

The first thing I did when I learned the alphabet at age 6 was to spend a weekend writing out a stack of flyers that said, in large, uneven block letters: “Ret de weerelt!” a clumsily misspelled Dutch phrase that translates into English as something like “Sav the worlt!” I finally had a chance to express the urgency I felt when I discovered that, outside the idyllic life my parents had created for me in our small apartment in Amsterdam, the world was a dangerous and terrifying place where children starved to death in famines, innocents were killed in wars, factories poured chemicals into the water, and nuclear warheads stood ready to destroy everything in a flash. The world was in trouble and something needed to be done urgently.

So I copied the words “Sav the worlt” 50…

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