All of this. #WGAStrong
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John Madden ebrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr
john madden! john madden! john madden! football!
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mark! mark! mark!mark! mark! mark!mark! mark! mark! mark! mark!mark! mark! mark! mark! mark! mark! mark! mark!mark! mark! mark! mark! mark! mark!mark! mark!mark! mark! mark!mark! mark!
all your stuffed animals love you. they're not sad if they're in a box, or on the floor, or not held/played with as much. they understand. they know that you might need another stuffie more, or that you don't have enough space. they're just happy to be with you, and if you ever give them away, they'll be happy there too. stuffies are for comfort. they understand. they love you too. it's okay.
" if you ever give them away, they'll be happy there too. " that hurt me sm idek why
Another autistic poll because once again I am curious.
I'm autistic and am trying to learn how to drive but it's not going super well. I'm not sure if it's because of motor control issues (mine, not the car's motor lmao), overstimulation, or something else, but either way I think I need to start memorizing my city's bus schedule.
Now I'm curious, is there a correlation between autism and driving ability?
So now I ask (both autistics and allistics!)...
Please consider reblogging for bigger sample size!
I know the polls closed but my experience with driving while autistic has been very much “autistic, can’t drive, forced to drive”
I’m still learning, haven’t gotten my official license yet, but I have a lot of pressure on me to learn (living in poverty with no affordable transportation options)
I happen to have car related trauma (got in a wreck at 14, dad got in a wreck a year later) so I didn’t want to learn as a teen
I think for me specifically it’s a combination of:
Sensory Overstimulation - car horns, the sound of the road/wheels, the lights and road signs, etc there’s just a lot of overstimulating factors, not to mention the physical aspects of driving, the pressure sensitivity of your foot on the gas pedal, your hands gripping the wheel, your eyes staring at the road
Communication issues/trauma - idk if you’ve encountered the term “communication trauma” in the autism community, I believe it’s relatively new, but it’s that whole feeling of “I need to either over-explain my intentions or not say anything at all to avoid a misunderstanding.” Or the feeling of “I need to understand someone else’s intentions to make an informed decision about the situation around me.” Except when you’re in a car we don’t really have that. Cars can’t really talk to each other, or if they can they can only do so in very limited ways. No one entirely understands what your intentions are. Also, not everyone is correct about the rules to driving either! I once had someone behind me lay down on their horn bc I paused before turning right on red. Are you supposed to pause and make sure that nothings coming? Yes absolutely! Was that person just being an impatient jerk? Yep! Did I have to pull over and stop crying before driving again bc the sound of the horn made me have a panic attack bc I felt like I had done something wrong? You bet! Would that person still have honked at me like that if they had known my intentions or that I was a new, autistic driver or that honking at me like that would cause me to panic/have a small meltdown? Idk, possibly, some people are just rude and impatient but a lot of people aren’t actually cruel. People are taught that the car horn is an acceptable form of car communication, and basically that imo is a big “fuck you” to anyone with sensory issues or panic conditions.
Depth Perception - A LOT of autistic peeps struggle with having depth perception issues, where judging distance/space/size/etc is really difficult for them. I struggle with it a good bit, knowing how deep to turn, how big the car is, whether or not the car can fit in an area. And again, that impatient mentality people have about driving comes back, rearing it’s ugly head. I feel like 90% of drivers (especially allistic drivers) expect everyone to be able to know what to do and when and how to do it and if you don’t do what it is the person behind you or in front of you wants then they blow their horn at you or zoom past you and it can be very overwhelming. Sensory wise or even I’ve found it can trigger my Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria at times.
Executive Dysfunction - Driving very much needs executive functioning, knowing what to do and what order to do it in. Not just in the like “sit down, adjust your mirrors, buckle up, turn the key, put the car into drive, take off the break, press the pedal” sense but in the “okay I need to go to this road, stop, turn on my blinker, sit and look at traffic, wait, turn, make sure my blinker turns off, and keep going, maintain my speed, be aware of the speed limit, keep going, watch the road, watch the speedometer, etc.” Sense as well. While also keeping in mind the other possible variables, like cars coming out of nowhere, people who have their turning signals on but aren’t turning, sudden stops, etc. Basically driving is really really hard to script for and when you’re someone who has trouble processing your thoughts and ordering your actions it makes sense that driving would be very difficult for us!
Stimming/ADHD/Boredom/Etc - most autistic peeps have co-morbid adhd, making it difficult to concentrate on one task for a long period of time without also being able to stim or something. Driving a car can be as boring as it is overwhelming. It’s a lot of sitting still and keeping the right pressure on a pedal, keeping your eyes focused on the middle space out ahead of you. You can’t really close your eyes and daydream, you can’t flap your hands, you can’t scratch your face or anything. Personally I can’t really listen to music while driving but that’s because I panic if I do. Basically for a lot of people, driving doesn’t really give much of any serotonin or dopamine, which means it’s inherently going to be difficult to do for anyone who’s chronically low on those two things.
Gross Motor Skills - you mentioned this already but this is a big one for me personally as someone with EDS as well, driving is physically exhausting in a way that you don’t really expect. My ankles, knees and hips are almost always subluxed if not fully out of place by the time I reach a destination, as well as sometimes my fingers, wrists and shoulders. My eyes are often dry and itchy and my neck is sore as well. When you’re autistic often times it’s difficult to get your body to do what you want it to, from making turns with the steering wheel (apparently I turn the wheel too much but idk what that means bc the car doesn’t turn unless I turn it that much?) to keeping the right amount of pressure on the gas pedal, to being ready at a moments notice to take your foot off the gas pedal and put it on the breaks, etc. It’s A LOT.
There’s probably plenty more reasons that “Driving While Autistic” is so difficult but those are the ones that effect me the most.
It’s difficult to really find a good instructor who understands autism and the struggles of autistic driving. I had the opportunity to go to a driving school (thanks to my therapy/community outreach program) but the instructor didn’t know how to really help me with my issues, he’d just slap the dash and say “this is not rocket science!” And expect me to know all these things that he never said outright.
And I think that whole “there are unwritten rules that are never really explained out loud” aspect is a huge factor too.
You could read the entire Drivers Education handbook and not know those instinctively understood rules because they basically operate the same as social cues do for Allistic people. The majority of the people driving are Allistics and they’ve unfortunately made their own sort of language out of driving, a language they don’t realise they’re speaking and they don’t really know how to write down for us, effectively elbowing autistic people out of the realm of driving.
That doesn’t mean we can’t learn to drive, but in my opinion everything about driving is counterintuitive to being autistic and vice versa. Not to say I don’t know a lot of awesome autistic drivers, because none of us are exactly the same and some peeps are really good with driving and stuff
But it’s silly that allistic people act like driving is so easy.
Guys, if you read on AO3 please try to create an account. So many of us writers are going to be forced to lock down our fics to registered users out of necessity to help keep AI away, and it kills us because we don’t want to stop any of you from reading.
AO3 is invite only. So if you know an AO3 user, ask if they have an invitation to give you (we’re given invite codes to share with others who want to join) because that’s an easy way to get in. If you don’t know someone you can ask, this is AO3’s instructions for requesting one from them…
I know this seems like an extra step and maybe you don’t think you need it and can just read from people who haven’t locked their fics. But this isn’t just about you as the reader. If you enjoy fics and you want to keep them coming, this is how you support your favorite writers! If our stats and comments plummet, I guarantee writing is going to start going down as well. Nobody wants that! So please consider making an account and signal boosting this as well! 🙏🏻
**NOTE: AO3 indicates (as of today) there’s 48k some people in the queue for invites and they’re sending out about 5k per day. That’s not a bad wait at all!!**
Just me?
They need to invent writing for sleepy tired people curled up in bed eyes closed and dreaming
We set two alarms while waking up. One for the person we want to be, and one for the person we are.
Inside you there are two alarms…
ngl if a bi girl is talking about a hot guy and shes like “im so gay” you dont get to be like “but-” no buts. shes feeling queer about it.
you, reading this. you're a creature now. reblog to creature your followers
So, Dove soap and Lizzo are endorsing KOSA, in the name of "social media is bad for teens' self-esteem" (even though that's bullshit) and I am mad.
If you don't know, long story short KOSA is a bill that's ostensibly one of those "Protect the Children" bills, but what it's actually going to do is more or less require you to scan your fucking face every time you want to go on a website; or give away similarly privacy-violating information like your drivers' license or credit card info.
Either that or force them to censor anything that could even remotely be considered not "kid friendly." Not to mention fundies are openly saying they're gonna use this to hurt trans kids. Which is, uh, real fucking bad.
Given that in terms of their actual products they don't have a direct stake in it, it might be possible to get Dove to rescind this (can't find contact info for Lizzo sadly), if you want to contact Dove about this, here's their contact page.
And, as per usual, I urge you to contact your congresscritters, especially given that as of now (Thursday, 4/13/2023) they plan to re-introduce the bill this Monday, and we're going to need a flood of people saying this is awful to kill it.
Hey everyone, long time no see, life is hitting hard again
But I recently entered a writing contest and wanted to share my story! It’s a 100 words or less micro-fiction contest (known as drabbles back in my day but shhhh)
I hope y’all like it! It will really help me out if you read it and share it!
Somewhere in the world, there is a tree that sprouted the same day you were born and has been growing along with you.
Love bombing is not a euphemism for "too much affection too soon," or "high desire for contact."
"Love bombing" is a term originally used in the context of cults to describe a deliberate and coordinated recruitment method that involved feigning friendship and interest in a potential recruit, via flattery, flirtation, physical affection, and very directed positive attention to everything the recruit says in order to lure them into the cult.
Since cults and abusive relationships operate in similar ways and use similar tactics, love bombing in an interpersonal relationship looks like manufacturing closeness in order to trap someone into a relationship in which the abuser has all the control.
And I know these days there's a million bullshit junky articles out there that make you think this is a symptom of cluster b personality disorders, but there is no way for you to be love bombing somebody without realizing it.
If you are an affectionate person and the level of affection and attention you give makes someone uncomfortable, you are not "accidentally" abusing them.
If you are uncomfortable with the level of affection and attention someone is paying you, they are not de facto abusing you.
Love bombing is about using someone's desire for human connection to fast track them into a situation you control and will feel disinclined to leave.
anyways (I say this as someone who is deeply critical of the united states government, military, unchecked capitalism, police, etc) I am SICK of people treating america as if it has no cultural value or positives so….. I love u 85 million acres (bigger than italy) of national parks. I love u harlem renaissance. I love u groundhogs day. I love u sweet tea and fried chicken and jambalaya. I love u apple cider donuts and maizes on crisp autumn days. I love u 95k miles of coastlines and new england fisherman and hand knitted sweaters. I love u halloween where millions of people dress up and give candy to strangers and carve jack o’lanterns. I love u small talk and small towns and potlucks and bringing over casseroles to your struggling neighbors. I love u cowboys and ranch hands and arizonian cactus. I love u appalachian trail and dirtbikes and divebars. I love u sparklers and fireflies. I love u mark twain and toni morrison and emily dickinson and henry david thoreau. I love u rock n roll i love u bluegrass and hippies i love u jimi hendrix and nirvana and CCR and janis joplin. I love u victorian houses and jonny appleseed and john henry and mothman and bigfoot. I love u foggy days in the pacific northwest and neon signs and roadside attractions. I love u baseball and 1950s diners and soft serve. I love u native american art and pop art and poptarts. I love u blue jeans and barbecues and jazz musicians
