"Aspie" and "autistic" are not funny insults. A polite request.

a reply to: Jonjonj

Which is, as stated, fair enough. But if that's the case, then that cuts both ways. As I said in the rest of the quoted comment:

"But if it's everyone's prerogative to say what they want - which it is - then surely it's likewise also my prerogative to humbly, respectfully request that people at least consider some restraint"

No one has to abide by that request. But if people's attitude is, "Grow a thicker skin," then I'm going to defend myself when I see a descriptor for my innate nature as human being get thrown around as a generic insult. If people's stance is, "Grow a backbone and take it," then I'm going to do so by - with considerable difficulty given my terror of confrontation - trying to have the courage to stand up to it when I see it.

ETA: And yes, I'm not seeing it here MUCH... but I have seen it here. And again, this was just for me to get these feelings of my chest. Which is why it's frustrating to be told, essentially, "Just take it." Because it's like... people can say whatever they want, but I'm supposed to keep mum about it. When what's at issue is something so core to my experience on this Earth as a person. And that of many others. Of all the topics on this site... a personal expression of exasperation is being told to STFU essentially because, "We didn't do it!" With a large side dish of, "Btw, stop being a victim."

With respect to all here, and this isn't directed at you specifically, but: screw that.

Peace.

a reply to: AceWombat04

No one has to abide by that request. But if people's attitude is, "Grow a thicker skin," then I'm going to defend myself when I see a descriptor for my innate nature as human being get thrown around as a generic insult. If people's stance is, "Grow a backbone and take it," then I'm going to do so by - with considerable difficulty given my terror of confrontation - trying to have the courage to stand up to it when I see it.

And so you absolutely should! If anybody uses such terminology to disparage a person then the comment should be reported. I am sure in the heat of the debate a lot of us choose our words less than carefully (I am, to my shame, very guilty of this) but the point is, if it is simply an insult, the moderators will deal with it.

Here is the thing, if no one reports the comment, it will very often fly under the radar and that is the problem.

a reply to: AceWombat04

Don't feel bad at all for your rant. It's disgusting. It minimizes and just because people don't see it on ATS (which your rant wasn't even at ATS) doesn't mean it doesn't happen. In fact I see it everywhere. Of course I agree that people can say or do what they want and yes I know you need a thick skin on the interwebs.

It doesn't mean you can't make a rant like this. It's like people who self-diagnose in order to be cool. People think it is cool to self diagnose. I don't get it...It's cool to have a mental illness?

But again...I agree 100%. Good rant

a reply to: KyoZero

It's like people who self-diagnose in order to be cool. People think it is cool to self diagnose. I don't get it...It's cool to have a mental illness?

Who does that?

I know some people will do questionnaires and stuff online to get some 'answer' - but mental illness is neither "cool" nor "uncool." It just is.

We are all neurotic in some way or another. Neurosis is not the same as psychopathology. Neurosis is not debilitating "insanity." As I've said before, everyone walking on this Earth can benefit from quality therapy. Including therapists.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Who does that?

People who feel the need to draw attention to themselves and crave sympathy. To them this somehow makes them "special" so they don't have to take responsibility for their own lives and the mess they've made of their lives. It's the same as people who constantly "acquire" the latest trendy physical illness, the one being pushed in tv adverts.
Back when "restless leg syndrome" was "the thing" I remember a co-worker complaining that she got no sleep the night before due to this syndrome. Her husband blew her cover by mentioning the all-nighter they had pulled at the dance club.
Back in the Dark Ages when I grew up I hated being called beanpole. I also hated being called other derogatory names and complained long and loud to my mother one day. She gave me this piece of advice, "The sooner you learn to ignore stupid comments from ignorant people, the easier your life will be."

a reply to: AceWombat04

First of all, I'm sorry for the late reply. I was at work while shooting my mouth off on here and couldn't give you a proper response due to the length of your own. Thank you for that.

it's not always a "gift" when you're emotionally and functionally paralyzed because of stimuli overload.

On the contrary, it may be debilitating "in a sense", but I'm almost sure that if I stuck you in the woods or the beach, all that extra stimuli makes you see the world in ways that others can't. You must have to practice great self control and focus in order to navigate through certain forms of exposure. Trust me, I can relate.

I'm not here to lessen what you label yourself as having or even to lessen any sense of the importance of what you're expressing, but I must first ask if your diet reflects what many would allude to as being the physical controllers of mood. I like to supplement a small organic diet full of powerhouse super-foods. If you don't, try and find something within your budget and pull the trigger. I can help you and so can this fabulous repository they call ATS. Help is only a PM away.

So while there are some benefits to being "the way I am," my particular manifestation of these issues is not a pleasant one. I essentially have to be sedated to one degree or another just to function, and even then, being "out and about" is never going to be something that happens except in fits and starts for me. Which is fine... except when it isn't.

Manifestations are thoughts that may lead to actions. One must come before the other and the latter cannot exist without you justifying it into physical existence. If your manifestations are strictly physical, then you've already won half the battle in reducing further physical harm or complicating a non-issue. If not, you must have a severe imbalance to go ahead and manifest these reactions to stimuli into physical form. Earlier, I said that I do not take medication, but between you and I (and anyone reading this), I revel in my self induced sedation.

For one, alcohol will be the death of your mind and body because of the way it affects your dopamine levels, almost halting it's production when sober, which just helps keep you in a low state of mind. I like vaping (the good stuff), digitally, which allows me to access different cannabinoids for different occasions and/or to counteract different moods that I can't seem to shake naturally. There is no shame in it and it doesn't have to control your life. If that's what you meant by sedating yourself (I hope Big Pharma isn't involved), then cheers to that.

I'm just saying... some awareness and decorum is always appreciated. Not mandatory! Appreciated. And, sometimes, needed in order to be okay. Is it everyone's responsibility to help me be okay? NO. As I said, people may do as they will. I'm just bringing to light the effects that can have. In theory, yes: it's MY responsibility to deal with MY feelings about people's words and actions. In practice though, let's just be real: it's unnecessary for people to be mean. And they too have responsibility for that choice. That's only fair imho.

To me, this is truth in blunt form. I've learned through my distaste for labels that even words themselves that we apply to everyday objects in order to aid in our comprehension, understanding and communication, can develop flexible meanings to the subjective observer. I literally force myself into subjectivity when trying to decipher something that I don't understand about myself, which allows me to feel unlocked and open to my own initially unexplained behavior.

Sounds tricky, but I look at myself not as a human, but an ever changing meat-sack of Nature's best efforts at attempting to hold me all together without any failure of the multiple systems that must act in unison to keep me upright and in a state of motion. If you think about the complexity of ourselves and Nature in general, I'd happily allow some self described imperfections or burdens in order to facilitate my will to exist. If you can't tell already, I'm an other thinker who likes to distill as many of my thoughts as possible into simplistic reconcilable musings.

Your hopes to appreciate the actions of others is nothing more than an expectation of them and that's where it breakdown every time. Simply put, Nature is cruel and survival is demanding. You would have to put yourself in a state of predictable and expected outcomes in your environment that are more or less in your control. Even then, the variables are endless and you should learn to except the uncertainty of the next moment of your next breath.

The thing is, people like to imagine the mind is a magical entity distinct from the brain. And to the extent that consciousness could be thought of as emergent behavior, I guess in a sense one can effectively argue that it is. It's sort of a ghost in the machine on that level. But at the same time, the mind is also just the brain. And the brain can be diseased or, if you don't like thinking of it in that way (which I can understand - I don't like thinking of my very nature as a disease either!) can be morphologically and neurologically "unique" in a particular way which is, very much outside the control of the individual in question, not pleasant... to say the least.

I actually agree with that whole paragraph, except when you said that it's outside of the control of the individual. Conventional wisdom and traditional routes of healing can rarely change you on the deepest of levels. Not to be funny, but if your mother was a dirty crackhead and your father a raging alcoholic pill popper, the likelihood of that child being born in an "advantage state" is unlikely, in support of your opinion.

It's a shame that curing our ailments can either cost too much or the cure cannot be obtained without creating a great difficulty. This alone should raise a flag in your head that you're in your state of mind partially because you do not have access to the best of the best, both physically and mentally. Would you give a rats ass about your condition if you didn't have to slog through your current environment? Maybe a nice life as a fisherman on some remote island? Unlikely for most of us, I know. I recommend trying an isolation tank or flame meditation and instead of calming your mind, let it run f'ing wild. A true stay-cation.

If it were, say, multiple sclerosis, people would recognize it as a physiological fact of life, and would not tell people to "grow a thick skin" and "will themselves" to "deal with it." Because it's physical. It's meat. It's ion channels. Well, so is neurology. Which means, so is the mind. Which means, so are emotions and cognition and how we process and respond to stimuli.

Many people have no idea or are too stubborn to realize how they can be cured. They rely on their own interpretations to gauge and comprehend the state of their well-being. Some refuse to be helpless and give in to being treated. Some don't believe the cure exists. In your example, the "self" can be highly dangerous. If the mind is not operating at peak levels or has developed a "disease", then most thoughts stemming from such a mind will not be congruent to the reality of the situation giving pause to possible alternate outcomes.

I ran out of space and to be honest, I don't know if anything I said is remotely insightful or helpful to you. I've always considered you a cut above the rest in terms of how you conduct yourself here and would like you to know that regardless of how you feel about yourself, you seem like a really cool and interesting person. A deeper person than most which in itself, will separate you from quite a few people. Take everything and give it two meanings. What you find a negative cannot exist without some positive balancing force, which may remain hidden to you at the moment. From my small viewpoint, don't change. You seem like a good person to me.

I appreciate everyone's responses, both critical and supportive, as well as those well intentioned even if I don't fully agree (or, perhaps more accurately, don't feel apply to my specific case necessarily.) I made this topic more on behalf of others than for myself, and it was done in a moment of bravery - which is a rare thing for me.

That said, waking up today considerably less brave, I'm now horrified that I ever made it and drew any attention to myself in this way. This is a big problem I have - the continual oscillation between wanting to express myself honestly and bravely, and the need to retreat. It never ends well or results in any positive change either for myself or for others. Other than - maybe, I hope - raising some small modicum of awareness.

So, yeah. I honestly just want to crawl back in my hole now, which is exactly what I intend to do.

Best wishes and peace to all.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

It's sad but it happens. You'll see sites with profiles such as "Undiagnosed OCD, PTSD"

Inevitably, if you ask them about how bad their OCD is, they will tell you that they can't stand when their room is messy

I retort that when I diagnose someone as OCD, there has to be a clinically significant issue and more than just "I hate my room messy"

People seem to think that it is fashionable or cool to have a mental illness. Oh well

a reply to: KyoZero

Ah, I see.

Yeah, OCD was my colleague at the Hyatt who was obsessed with germs - when we'd have lines of conference attendees checking in (1500 at a time), she'd start getting anxious - she would only type using her pinky fingernail, and would leave the front desk to go wash her hands. You could practically see her flipping out when she had to touch credit cards, or currency -

She would Lysol everything in sight every morning, and she never realized it about herself that she was, well, OCD.

I know it does seem 'easy' to diagnose oneself with the DSM being online and everything --
but yeah - the GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) is the part they just don't get, let alone the Axes and differentiations for dx.

a reply to: AceWombat04

Well, if it's any consolation to you I thought you made your point very clear. You should try it more often.

Next time you come out of your hole I hope you enjoy it a little more, and that your trip out lasts a little longer.