Telling Me That Being Upset By My Intrusive Thoughts Is Proof I'm A Good Person Did Jackshit To Help

yoshitoshi ABe’s an omnipresence in the wired || 安倍吉俊の『an omnipresence in the wired』

Someone: Can you please stop repeating that movement/sound/phrase?

Me:

hunter "luz better think i'm the coolest guy around" deamonne

do not tag as siblings >:)

awhile back i mentioned a loose spiritual sequel to a loose spiritual sequel to the "enlove" story i wrote, and here it is, along-with the draft of a VN script i never finished, + some art (for the VN) by henrietta (pictured), + some of my notes from church

demon5equal10birth5day3equal8.substack.com/p/gracecon-and-hospital-cold

that feeling when *goes nonverbal*

By autistic adult Erin Human of Human Illustrations.

Specify if: With good or fair insight: The individual recognizes that obsessive-compulsive dis- order beliefs are definitely or probably not true or that they may or may not be true. With poor insight: The individual thinks obsessive-compulsive disorder beliefs are probably true. With absent insight/delusional beliefs: The individual is completely convinced that obsessive-compulsive disorder beliefs are true.

For some reason I couldn’t actually answer the ask with the emojis, but this is for the anon that requested: Sensory overload? As a word or an actual emoji would be good

This took a while since it was hard to decide on what symbolism to use (I experience sensory overload myself, but it was still difficult haha), but here you go!

[ID: three emojis: two faces, and one word emoji. The first two are of an emoji face experiencing sensory overload, represented by warped radar-like waves from all angles. The first has a distressed expression, while the second has a dull, neutral expression. The third is the phrase “sensory overload” written in purple bubble letters. /End ID]

When I listen to my mother talk about me as a child, I feel such an overwhelming confusion and disconnect. With the way she remembers me, it would seem as if I had no clear personality of my own. I hardly cried or laughed as a baby, I never got into trouble to the point that I'd never even been disciplined, I followed all the rules, I excelled at all my schoolwork but never boasted, I had vague interests but nothing intense, I was kind and friendly but I didn't push for friends, etc.

The perfect child. Perfectly average traits.

I read "The Divided Self" by R.D. Laing recently.

One of the things that gave me the greatest feelings of validation and relief from that book are the childhoods of the patients he talks about- before this, I've never seen such a clear example of my own childhood painted in a light that resonates with me.

None of the patients he provided had explicitly abusive childhoods, and none of them remembered their childhoods as particularly traumatic. Of course, most recalled their parents as some mixture of distant and unpredictable, and in some cases there was definitely emotional neglect and verbal abuse, but it was passing and not incredibly eventful. (I am not making light of anyone's experiences, I'm speaking only about the example patients' own accounts).

Many of the patients and the patients' families tell tales that mirror my own: "Julie was never a demanding baby. She was weaned without difficulty. Her mother had no bother with her from the day she took off nappies completely when she was fifteen months old. She was never 'a trouble'. She always did what she was told. These are the mother's basic generalizations in support of the view that Julie was always a 'good' child."

Most interestingly, the author hears these accounts both from the patients and the patients' family, and he sees them as negative. In contrast to literally everyone else I've opened up to, he says, "I have come to regard such an account of the earliest origins of behaviour as especially ominous, when the parents sense nothing amiss in it all, but on the contrary mention it with evident pride.”

The author goes on referring to the patient Julie, "This is the description of a child who has in some way never come alive: for a really alive baby is demanding, is a trouble, and by no means always does what she is told. [...] The crucial thing seems to me to be that [Julie's mother] evidently takes just those things which I take to be expressions of an inner deadness in the child as expressions of the utmost goodness, health, normality."

Complete and total compliance and obedience is NOT normal from a child (nor from anyone, I would argue but that's not the point). Children have to make mistakes and cause problems and stand up for themselves in order to learn how to live and be their own person! If a child doesn't do that and is only ever praised for their lack of autonomy, they're not going to grow into a secure personhood.

It is very important to me to hear this for the first time, especially from a credited psychologist. For years I've felt I was crazy for thinking that my childhood was so dreadfully abnormal and concerning whilst everyone assured me I was as healthy as could be (and side-eyed me as if I was exaggerating for attention).

I've always considered myself to be afflicted by "gifted kid burnout", which I am going to assume my small audience is familiar with, but the concept of "ontological insecurity" Laing discusses in this book fits even better, which I didn't think was possible.

It's rare that I feel someone completely understands even a small part of myself, so I am very glad I read this book and I would recommend it to anyone else interested.

To end this post, here's three additional quotes from the book, each referring to a different patients' childhood, yet all I can relate to:

“There was no open neglect or hostility in her family. She felt, however, that her parents were always too engrossed in each other for either of them ever to take notice of her. She grew up wanting to fill this hole in her life but never succeeded in becoming self-sufficient. [...] [H]er abiding memory of herself as a child that she did not really matter to her parents, that they neither loved nor hated, admired nor were ashamed of her very much.” pg54

“What she called 'unreliability' was a feeling of bafflement and bewilderment which she related to the fact that nothing she did had ever seemed to please her parents. If she did one thing and was told it was wrong, she would do another thing and would find that they still said that that was wrong. She was unable to discover, as she put it, 'what they wanted me to be'.” pg59

“His father's account of him was very meagre. He had always been perfectly normal, and he thought his present eccentricities were simply an adolescent phase. He had always been a very good child, who did everything he was told and never caused any trouble. His mother had been devoted to him.” pg70

Source ~ Twitter OMGImAutisticAF

"My whole life, I enjoyed big family gatherings but also would have to go run off and hide somewhere quiet by myself for awhile and get away from it all. I never knew why I needed to get away from the people I wanted to be around. Now I know it was sensory overload."