Unclear Contributions

I hope you're having a nice day. 20s.

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

In my opinion it's a lot more healthy to be able to own that you dislike someone for petty reasons than to do all kinds of mental gymnastics to make everyone you don't really vibe with out to be a bad person actually

[sage-nebula]

[mothric]

thinking about the time a former housemate said to me "hey I put these box fans in the living room because it's hot" while gesturing to the fans that I was actively sitting in front of because it was hot. and I said "okay thanks." and she kept standing there like she was waiting for something else so I said "am I blocking the airflow? do you need me to move?" and she said no I'm just letting you know they're here, in the living room, for circulation. and I said well yes, I did put that together. I am enjoying them. thank you. and she looked confused. so I asked "am I meant to do something with this information or are you just informing me?" and she said no I'm letting you know they're here because It's Hot In Here. she seemed a bit aggravated, and her emphasis seemed deliberate.

it took me asking three more times before she finally told me she wanted me to leave the fans where they are instead of moving them to my room or something. and I said oh! I had no intention of doing so but thank you for letting me know what the expectation is.

about a month later she brought up that conversation as the moment it actually clicked for her that I Am Autistic And Will Not Magically Intuit The Unspoken Request You Didn't Ask Me.

[mothric]

I have observed enough allistic communication to know that generally, if somebody points something out to you that you can already see or are already clearly interacting with, they are making an indirect request. but as I don't know what the request is, the only way forward is for me to guess (and likely get it wrong), or prompt the allistic to tell me clearly what they need.

however, allistics don't realize they do this, so asking them to say the unspoken surprises and confuses them. this is not their fault. allistics can be quite emotionally fragile and perceive directness as confrontation, so they habitually rely on indirect speech and coded language to preserve others' feelings. this is why they may find it difficult to be direct, even when asked. I have found that with enough gentle encouragement and reassurance that they are actually helping you, you too can achieve successful communication with your allistic friend or loved one. :)

[mothric]

I've seen more than a few replies saying "I'm not autistic and I wouldn't have gotten that either / your roommate's an outlier / nobody could have gotten that." fair enough, it was a pretty specific situation and it seems she genuinely didn't communicate well. as I often run into issues with indirectness, it scanned to me like all the other times I haven't been able to read between the lines. so let me give a few more examples of this phenomenon that may be more common:

"You left your dish in the sink." > the hidden request is "please clean your dish, preferably right now." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my housemate thinks I forgot about it. so I reply "oh, I know." housemate thinks i'm sassing her and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the dish in the sink.

"There's hot soup on the stove." > said to me while I was preparing a sandwich. the hidden request is "please eat the soup." since it's phrased as a statement of fact, I don't immediately intuit the request and instead think my mom thinks I didn't see the soup. I did see it, but I wanted a sandwich instead. so I reply, "I saw it, thank you." mother thinks I'm being rude and gets annoyed with me. only then do I realize she was asking me to do something about the soup (and furthermore is offended I am eating a sandwich instead).

"Your bread is on the counter." > the hidden request is "please remove your sliced bread from the counter and store it elsewhere." since it's phrased as an observation, I don't immediately intuit the request and think my roommate thinks I meant to store the bread elsewhere and forgot. when I reassure her I know it's there, she gets annoyed. only then do I realize she wants me to do something about the bread on the counter.

"You can turn up the heat, you know." > said to me while I was scrambling eggs slowly over low heat. this one really confused me because of course I knew I could turn up the heat, but I had no reason to as I was only cooking for myself. when I ignored the statement because I was focused on my task and had nothing to say, my mother added, "the eggs will cook faster if you do." sure, I'm aware of this too, but I don't want to cook them faster. I won't get the texture I want. when I reply, "I don't want to, though," mom thinks I'm being rude and gets irritated, then asks me how long I'm going to take. only then do I realize she was telling me to cook faster (because she wanted the stove), instead of simply informing me I could.

"There are donuts in the break room." > a more benign example, but similar outcome. once again I hear this as a piece of information being given to me, and thank my coworker for telling me. when I don't immediately leave my desk to get donuts because I'm finishing a task, my coworker hovers and says, "well? aren't you getting some?" only then do I realize there was actually a hidden invitation, and I was supposed to respond to the hidden part and say, "I'll come get them in a minute," or "no thank you I don't want any."

as I said, I've learned over time this is something many allistic (non-autistic) people do (as well as high masking autistic folks who have learned the social rules and wear themselves out following them rigidly). despite what I've learned, my default autistic response is pretty much always to take the words at face value (especially when I'm distracted or multitasking), before remembering I have to translate them. and while I can make a decent educated guess in most cases, sometimes I just cannot and simply ask, "what are you asking me?"

unfortunately, many allistic people suffer from an inability to take words literally just as much as they struggle to speak literally, which can further obfuscate communication. this is why I emphasize gentle reassurance that you are not criticizing them, but asking them to help you, a person in need, by clarifying their intent. people generally like to be helpful and I have had moderate success with this approach.

ONE MORE THING: I have a bias! this is very US-centric, as that's where I live. some cultures around the world are extremely direct, so autistic people in those cultures may not have the specific issue I describe here. however, every culture has its own set of social norms that include a complex combination of nonverbal visual cues, body language, tone/emphasis, and countless other unspoken expectations for what's considered polite or "normal." the double empathy problem doesn't evaporate in cultures that value direct speech. autistic people just face different problems. thank you and be good to each other

[dailyrothko]

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1963 Oil on paper, laid down on canvas 75.4 x 55 x 3.5 cm / 29 5/8 x 21 5/8 x 1 3/8 in Courtesy Private Collection © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / 2025, ProLitteris, Zurich

New scan, now showing a date of 1963 instead of 1969 (from the original Taschen scan. This 69 dates makes more sense to me, but I don't doubt it could be any year

[aemperatrix]

ANDY LOVELL Swirls & Eddies, North Devon / North Cornish Coast / Swans, Incoming Tide silkscreen prints

[javascript-official]

We need to conquer space travel for the only reason that zero-g would allow for new never before seen pastries, you know how the top of the muffin is the best part? Well that is because it is exposed to air so it changes the chemistry, in normal earth gravity it is impossible to make a muffin that is all top part because it needs to be placed somewhere which would restrict air flow, however in zero g it would be possible to make a bubble out of muffin dough which gets optimal airflow and becomes an all-top part muffin... This is the dream...

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

I think a lot about who I am to other people in the world–particular who I am to strangers as a mere concept in their lives.

Today this woman called our information desk and said, “my son’s band is playing tonight. I want to come see him, but he never answers his phone…..I want to be there. Have you heard anything about his band?”

And I felt so bad for this lady but I’m not in the music scene around here so I had to tell her no, sorry.

Five hours later, I’m hiking and run into a group of guys setting up for some outdoor performance, and as I watch them unload the drums it hits me.

“Hey,” I said, “are y’all in a band?”

They said yeah and smiled and I told them “one of your moms called today. She wants to watch you play, but she can’t get a hold of you. Call your mom.”

And they all pulled out their phones and started discussing whose mom it probably was as they presumably dialed their own.

And now, unless we meet again and recognize each other, that’s who I’ll be forever to those guys–some mysterious courier for mom-messages who came out of the woods and told them their mom called.

I didn’t even tell them why their mom called me. Who am I to their mom?? Nobody even asked. They just took my word for it and called their mothers.

Amazing.

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

I’M LAUGHING!!! THEY DIDN’T EVEN ASK WHO I AM.

[lipstickchainsaw]

When you're unable to solve an IT problem at work, there really is nothing quite like having it escalated all the way up the ladder. With every step, there is a degree of smugness about how real my problem is, and that yes, I was right to have trouble with this.

[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

You can get a minor version of this if one IT person solves it but they spend a bunch of time repeating things you’ve already tried and when they eventually solve it it’s by doing something you wanted to try but didn’t have the requisite permissions to do

[coral-skeleton]

Was in a situation where neither I, nor my boss knew what was causing the problem, so we ended up calling one of the head engineers, and ive never experienced anything quite as validating as the moment where said head engineer, after spending several minutes just staring at the problem, quietly said "what the fuck"

[sorrelchestnut]

My finest moment of technical triumph was sending an error ticket to a vendor, then quietly troubleshooting it on my end, and then sending them what I thought the solution was likely to be. They disagreed. SIX MONTHS LATER, they came back with the fix and it was exactly what I said it would be originally. I have never and likely will never capture that high again but by god was it sweet.

[sandpontiff]

On a trip

[hikes-and-moans]

UNPOPULAR OPINION: A lot of "mental health issues" disappear when bills are paid, rent is secure, and the fridge is full. Peace is expensive. And pretending money doesn't affect mental health is privilege.

[allisonchinart]

Flying by

[dct239394cvvd098dffgggp]

heres a thing that stays sweet since ever and for ever. in a glass jar it looks like molten gold in light. looks like the sun bled. and its made by bugs that dance and partake in the only monarchy you should respect. put it on anything. dip your finger in it. they dont have honey anywhere else in space this is the only planet that has honey forever who would ever wanna leave

[mortalityplays]

I highly recommend developing a tolerance for polite low level conflict, not just because it will serve you well when employers or whoever try to impose bullshit on you with the expectation you'll fold rather than expend energy arguing, but because it will make you a genuine asset to your friends and allies whenever they're in positions where they're less able to fight for themselves.

the first and most important step is learning to stay calm when someone with authority tries to pressure you. take a breath, think about what you actually believe, and respond in your own time. if they try to brush past or talk over you, you can say "excuse me, can I think about that for a moment. I'd like to give you a proper answer." self esteem. you're both just upright monkeys.

[un-monstre]

Bloopers are movie aftercare and it’s fucked up that we got rid of them

[honourablejester]

I don’t know why that affected me so strongly, but I’m watching a youtube video on disasters on Lake Huron, and the first one involves a coal freighter that was lost in the White Hurricane of 1913 called the SS Argus. Everyone on the ship was lost. But it’s mentioned that the captain’s body washed up later, and was found without a life jacket. So they thought, based partly on testimony of another ship that thought they saw them go down, that it just happened too fast for him to have time to get his jacket. But then another body was found, that of the second cook, and she was found wearing the life jacket marked ‘captain’. And that’s …

It didn’t work. It didn’t save her. But it’s so very possible that he spent his last moments alive trying to save someone else, one of his crew, and they probably both knew that it wouldn’t work, that there wasn’t a lot of hope in a blizzard on the lakes in November, but he tried … he tried anyway. Even if it did nothing but maybe make her body easier for her family to find.

You know that Mr Rogers thing of ‘look for the helpers’? How many times has someone, facing the end, done something tiny and fragile and maybe hopeless just to try and help someone else? Whether it works or not. How many people went to their graves at least trying?

That has to say something about us. As a people. As monstrous as we sometimes (perhaps often) are, so many times we were also …

Whoever saves one life, saves the whole world.

And sometimes you can’t save one life, sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes there’s no getting out of this for anyone, but … try anyway. Because it matters anyway.

And maybe no one will ever know. But maybe also some day more than a century down the line, maybe some idiot will be crying into her coffee because of what you died trying.

[l0stvegas]

Some time ago (I think in 2021) I had to go see a neurologist over really scary symptoms that resembled seizures. I was a nervous wreck about what I was feeling and had barely slept all week, which seemed to be apparent to the doc’s assistant when I sat down in the exam room for questioning or whatever. Dude was pretty young and soft spoken, around my age. He was laser focused doing something on one of those tablet-laptop Surface things as I spoke, presumably writing down my symptoms.

Midway through talking about my symptoms my voice audibly started shaking as I was describing them, clearly upset.

In the middle of my monologue he turns the tablet to face me, closes whatever program he has open and the wallpaper is this fucking collage of pictures of lord farquaad from shrek, lovingly decorated. Dude just sat there placidly smiling at me until I noticed and stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. We sat there in silence like this for like a solid minute before I started wheezing laughing. Before I could even say anything else or process it he picked up the tablet and wordlessly left the room, and I just sat there dumbfounded until the doctor showed up. 10/10 doctor experience tbh

I didn’t own a cell phone at the time to get a photo so this rendition from memory is all I can provide you

[snow-nose]

ID: a digital drawing of a man in scrubs sitting on a wheeled stool, serenely smiling with his elbow on a rolling cart, where a tablet is flipped open to show an approximation of the Lord Farquaad screensaver. end ID

[enigma-absolute]

[l0stvegas]

Reblogging this bc it’s making rounds again

[stuckinapril]

“Do it scared” “do it alone” are all great tips, but my biggest takeaway from therapy is do it messy. This is especially true if you’re getting out of a burnout, which I experience often. Literally just do it messy. You don’t need to pick the perfect trail to walk, the perfect playlist to listen to, whatever the fuck it is. You don’t need to have a meticulous to do list and wake up at the exact time you planned and drink the exact amount of water you planned to drink. Like the biggest thing for people like me to remember is sometimes it’s okay to do it messy. Put on a random yt workout and just get it done in sweats. Do 5 minutes of a daunting task and go from there. Sometimes just getting up is a win during intense burnouts or depressive funks. Literally just do it messy.

[dailyrothko]

[dailyrothko]

Mark Rothko, Untitled (White and Blue-Green on Yellow), 1956

Oil on paper mounted on linen

© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York