Autistoria @autistoria - Tumblr Blog

(via hornedchick)

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.

tiktoks-i-enjoyed

Clip of Lucy Dacus on the Las Culturistas podcast.

traegorn

I went to my first pride when I was sixteen.

I didn't come out to anyone until my early thirties, and I didn't fully come out publicly until I was thirty-seven.

forestgreenandgray

Hey do you know what rumination is?

Rumination is probably the most common type of OCD compulsion, but I rarely see anyone talking about it. I've talked to multiple people diagnosed with OCD who didn't even recognize it as a compulsion.

Basically, if you have OCD you have terrible intrusive thoughts. They can be about anything, but common themes are fear of being a bad person, fear of hurting someone, fear of contamination. etc.

Rumination is when you get stuck in a spiral. Rumination is when you spend hours catastrophizing, overthinking, analyzing, telling yourself it's going to be okay.

I'll say it again:

Rumination is a compulsion.

Rumination is a compulsion, and that means you have to stop doing it.

I did ERP (exposure response prevention) for my OCD with a therapist! For 9 months! And it did help, but the idea didn't really click until I found this website a couple years later.

And Oh My God. It made things make so much more sense, and I was able to pull myself out of an episode even though I wasn't in therapy or on meds at the time.

Genuinely if you have OCD, or even if you suspect you have OCD, I'm begging you to read some of these articles.

Like this was genuinely life changing for me.

Here are some of the ones that were most helpful to me:

Defining Rumination

How to Stop Ruminating

ERP Exercises for Compulsive Rumination

What to Do When You're Triggered

weevil-mastermind

Imagine if we did the “public libraries are punk” thing for other subcultures. Imagine if people made shirts that said “Soup kitchens are grunge” or “Mixed Use Urbanism is Juggalo”.

vintar

exitwound

I have a disease called I can’t reply to your text. I love you

rythms-of-synthax-deactivated20

Quote of the day

baffledtreesquid

I’m seeing a lot of people saying this post changed their brain chemistry, and as a neuroscientist I wanted to say yes!!! Yes it does!

Wanting something requires dopamine signaling, but liking something doesn’t.

If you have a mental illness/disorder that affects dopamine, you might feel that you don’t want to do the things that you like. You do still like them. You will appreciate having done them.

Let your likes guide you.

(If you want to read more, here’s one experimental paper about it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5171207/ This theory called the incentive-sensitization theory was originally created to explain behaviors in addiction but can be applied elsewhere as well)

Rewards are both ‘liked’ and ‘wanted’, and those two words seem almost interchangeable. However, the brain circuitry that mediates the psych

furryprovocateur

the people who go "we shouldn't be so open about nudity because it could trigger someone's dysphoria" are like two steps max removed from "fat people being fat in public could trigger someone with an ed". like peoples' bodies are not the problem here, trying to restrict someone else's body because of how you personally feel is indistinguishable from conservative praxis. i'm sorry if that sounds harsh but there is basically no interpretation of "we need to control the bodies of [demographic]" that does not fall down the slippery slope of fascism.

autistoria

I see this shit about pregnant people too, like saying that visibly pregnant people should not be naked/in bikinis/in public at all because that might trigger people for any number of reasons (usually infertility or pregnancy loss or tokophobia). As if these aren’t people’s bodies going through a major life event and health issue. As if pregnancy discrimination isn’t a major issue in this world.

Your body is your body, and shouldn’t need a trigger warning just for existing!

toboldlynerd

headspace-hotel

Why do I feel like I'm suffocating when I do breathing exercises. It's like the stages of breathing I'm counting out don't line up with what my body wants to do, and I feel like I'm getting less and less air the longer I'm doing it, or that I can't fully fill or empty my lungs, or that I have to tense up on the "hold" stage so I don't breathe. It is so uncomfortable I have a hard time doing it for longer than a few cycles, and I feel such relief when I can return to breathing normally

headspace-hotel

ive had therapists tell me like "well it's proven that it physiologically calms you, it makes your body stop having the fight or flight reaction" but like. it feels really bad

headspace-hotel

I just did a bunch of "box breathing" because I was having an anxiety attack and gasping for breath and with every cycle I could feel my shoulders and back getting more and more rigid. It felt like I had to clench the muscles in my whole torso tighter and tighter to make my breaths have the right rhythm,

I"m not having the fast breathing and heart pounding that I was having earlier, but my neck, back, arms and ribcage still feel really locked up and tense, and I feel a little dizzy.

autistoria

I also struggle with any breathing-focused mindfulness activities. I find I do much better with exercises that have you focus on something other than the breath— I especially like doing walking meditations.

longwindedbore

fierceawakening

This absolutely. I said he wasn’t a hero on less tumblr y socmed and people were just like “show me where this wonderful man has EVER said ANYTHING racist” and I just. They absolutely would not believe that anything I said wasn’t a Left Wing Smear Job. They kept asking over and over had I seen whole episodes of the podcast. (As if this would make me see “black pilots are going to kill me” as anything but horribly gross. And ironic, considering that is not how that man died.)

Which I mean, I gave up, as these aren’t my friends and I don’t want to get sucked in.

But yes, it’s entirely possible someone you know and DO see as a friend knows nothing beyond “colleges are scary and indoctrinate people and this VERY BRAVE MAN goes there even though it’s SCARY and talks REGULAR HORSE SENSE.”

autistoria

Ok this… makes sense and I’m shocked I never even considered it

frawgs

life actually gets better when you leave the house consistently btw like im serious

dykecosette

if you don't know where to go, just wander! go to the store and don't buy anything, go to the library just to sit and do whatever you were going to do at home, go to a park and just walk around/sit outside for a bit (weather permitting, of course)

just put some headphones in and walk around the block a couple times if you really have nothing else to do, just getting a bit of air and change of scenery is so good for you

anderswasrightt

me the first few weeks of forcing myself to go on daily walks (it gets better tho)

spacelazarwolf

i really need tumblr to learn the concept of “if you physically cannot do this then this post is not talking about you” because jesus christ.

spacelazarwolf

@a-spectacular-pigeon you get it.

fierceawakening

I will never understand people’s obsession with calling random things ableism when actual ableism exists and is terrible.

autistoria

Once someone on Reddit told me it was ableist to say that a parent should work on coping skills with their 5-year-old because the 5-year-old might be autistic and/or have ADHD. When I said that I’m autistic and coping skills are actually really useful in enabling me to, you know, do literally anything, they again told me that I was ableist because some autistic people are not able to leave their home or work paying jobs or be in relationships.

Still baffled by that whole exchange…

fairycosmos

does anyone know how to make a desicion

fairycosmos

never mind i figured it out it's like when tracy chapman said leave tonight or live and die this way

ms-demeanor

Look.

This is a super easy litmus test.

If you are ever talking about someone in the context of human health and nutrition and they make a recommendation for fluoride-free toothpaste, you can dismiss their perspective on all other subjects relating to human health and nutrition.

If someone wants to improve human health but they're willing to profit off of fluoride-free toothpaste, they're either totally unaware of what they're talking about and are therefore not worth listening to, or they're a scammer and are therefore not worth listening to.

Lead Safe Mama sells a bunch of bullshit through Amazon affiliate links, but the easiest one to see right away as the sign of someone who cares more about their money than your health is fluoride-free toothpaste.

"Lead Safe Mama Says" is not a good reason to do anything except ignore whatever instructions follow.

There is definitely reason to be concerned about the lead concentrations in cassava flour, there are a few products that, if consumed daily, would put you at risk of having higher lead levels than recommended by the FDA.

But Lead Safe Mama doesn't bother with the FDA, the difference between the presence of lead and exposure risk, or the way that lead is actually tracked by people who are looking to prevent heavy metal poisoning.

Lead Safe Mama says "there is no safe level of lead according to the WHO." What the WHO means when they say that is is that there is no known safe level of lead in your bloodstream. What LFM means when she says that is "all lead is scary and coming to turn your children into autism zombies."

Lead Safe Mama was also the one who raised a huge stink about lead in Stanley cups and other thermoses a couple of years ago. There is lead in some of those products - it's present in the solder used to seal things and isn't bioavailable. Lead Safe Mama was also the one who was scaremongering about vintage plates. She tests for lead in paint using dubious techniques then over-states the risk of exposure and possible outcomes from exposure. There was a whole tumblr shitpost that went viral about it.

So this post (descriptions in alt):

Is entirely based on reporting by a lady who believes that childhood lead exposure is being misdiagnosed as autism, and claims that explains the current high rate of autism diagnosis. A lady WHO RECOMMENDS NATURAL CHELATION for autistic children when they are too frail for CHEMICAL FUCKING CHELATION.

There's a similar post by the same blogger circulating about this Consumer Report's survey of lead in cassava flour that says that Bob's Red Mill is showing lead levels that is 2343% higher than the Consumer Reports recommended .5 micrograms per adult per day (that .5 microgram number is itself modeled on California Prop 65 standards).

So that's got to be a ton, right, like a crazy amount of lead, right?

Nope. It's 11.715 micrograms.

That is below the 12.5 microgram per day reference value set by the FDA for people who are pregnant or could become pregnant, but definitely higher than the 3microgram per day value set for children. Probably your child should not consume a cup of cassava flour from Bob's Red Mill per day.

One point I'm making here is that actually Bob's Red Mill and Pamela's are actually probably fine with their CA65 warning labels - there's not an absurd risk of high blood lead levels from eating their cassava products.

The other point I'm making here is get this fucking autism mom and her bullshit bad science and her child chelation recommendations and her fluoride free toothpaste off my dash.

ms-demeanor

The chemophobia set has latched onto sunscreens in the last five years and that is even more nightmarish than the fluoride thing please buy whatever drug store brand has the highest SPF that you do not have a literal allergic reaction to sunscreen is so safe and so important and not dangerous please buy regular actual sunscreen made with chemicals in big factories by people who have been doing it for decades "natural sunscreen" is like raw pet diets and chicken pox parties - it probably *already* has a death toll and we just haven't heard about it there are lightweight and fragrance free and sensitive skin sunscreens from skincare brands if you can't use drugstore sunscreen but please please please please please use real sunscreen people are making homemade sunscreen for their babies because they're more scared of the chemicals in banana boat than they are of skin cancer and that is such an absurdly wrong set of priorities i love the ocean too and want to save the coral too but if you have the choice between a 100% natural coral safe sunscreen and 20spf drug store sunscreen use the drug store sunscreen and don't get fucking cancer I'm sorry prev i know you probably made good choices about sunscreen but the chemophobia anti sunscreen stance makes me want to eat glass it is so important to use real sunscreen and LSM turning up in your searches is going to make me start biting.

autistoria

THANK YOU I’m so tired of Lead Safe Mama being cited as a reliable source in various parenting groups I’m in. She’s not, and the more you look into her back story the griftier she seems. (Also yes on the anti-sunscreen stuff it makes me so mad! Chemical sunscreen is fantastic! Use it!)