Percy listens to those whale noises that people use to sleep and he just listens to them like a podcast.
And any time he hears someone like Annabeth listening to them he's like "Wow Daphne is really something else. Honestly I can't believe she would do that"
And like she's like "what?"
And Percy just translates the entire thing to her and instead of calming sounds to help her concentrate she now has Percy tell her all the whale drama which she is oddly immersed with.
Sometimes I long to make something or do something in hopes of being remembered, and feel an aching shame for not having learned any of the skills I need for that yet, but then I remind myself that I've talked to people and loved people and left some kind of impact on them just by existing beside them, and that can be enough. I'm still going to learn, and create, and grow, and I can do that without the guilt or shame or fear or pressure. I can just be, and that's enough
one of the things that makes autism a disability (and why some of us choose to label it as such rather than an “alternate neurotype”) is the stress.
part of autism is just being incredibly stressed. overstimulation? stress. holding a conversation? stress. something happening to our schedule? stress. people talk about how often autism is recognized and diagnosed via our stress responses (like meltdowns) because it is just so common to see autistic people stressed because of lack of accommodations to how our brains work.
and this matters because stress kills. stress causes a lot of health issues, or it can trigger pre-existing ones by making certain chronic conditions flare up. i once had a psychiatrist very unhelpfully tell me i “just need to manage my stress” when the stress i was describing was things i could not avoid in neurotypical society and can’t “just get over”. i can do “self care” all i like but i cannot at the very base level change the way my brain inputs information and reacts accordingly.
Something really not talked about with trauma disorders is the paranoia.
Being scared and jumping to conclusions when people stand a little too close to you, not believing people’s compliments and thinking they have hidden motives, not believing when people tell you they like/love you, thinking that strangers you see on the street want to hurt you, etc.
No shade to op, in fact I understand and respect where you're coming from. I personally would just be careful with the phrasing here, because it sounds like what you're saying is that some systems are faking which, even if they were, saying so causes a lot more harm than good
Instead, how I personally would go about this particular topic is that if you are a system, then there's probably something you don't remember, or something that you haven't recognized as trauma, or you have a lot of processing ahead of you, so maybe be gentle with yourself, and be open to the possibility that maybe things actually were that bad, and you weren't being dramatic, and you were hurt that badly
But that's just my thoughts. I wish everyone the best of luck on their journeys through this tangled world
u know what makes me lowkey sad? when someone says ‘i know it seems silly’ before talking about something they clearly care very deeply about bc u know that means someone gave them shit for caring that much about that thing before which is Fucked Up.
One of my favourite parts about autistic people is how you can use other peoples' reflections of them like an echolocation bullshit detector. Like they personally do not need to do shit for this to work, they just passively emit their own autistic vibe that bounces off every surface around them, and you can assess another person's level of self-awareness by how they reflect it back.
"Autistic people do not understand social hierarchy" nope, they understand you're supposed to be an authority here, but they won't politely pretend to respect you if they think you're incompetent.
"Autistic people do not understand humour" nope, they just don't politely pretend to laugh to humour you, and you are simply not funny.
"Autistic people are rude" nope, they just don't think it's polite to lie to you, and don't care about trying to tell you what they think you want to hear instead of telling you what they think.
"Autistic people sometimes have emotional meltdowns for absolutely no reason" nope, you're just insufferable to be around and the person with the lowest tolerance of your shit is simply the canary in the coal mine who breaks first.
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