I Feel Like I’ve Committed A Sin

Hey shameless plug for Hozier's 2014 album. On its resume is having helped dozens of anxiety attacks, being perfectly in range for an alto or soprano voice and alluding to social justice issues in the songs. Plus it sounds fucking good the guitar and composition and piano and his fucking voice just. give it a listen you won't be sorry.

I rewatched Black Panther and I'm so sad. Sadder than I've ever been from a movie, I'm crying again hours after it's over. I can't stop thinking about how at the end Wakanda swoops in and starts to make things better for African-Americans. It's implied that things are going to improve there but it's not real. Everything that Killmonger lived, proved and died for still exists in real life and no one can come in and fix it. It just hurts and will keep on hurting. The debts of suffering last forever and the deserved level of improvement will take so long. I can stop thinking about the movie to not be sad, but I can't turn off the injustice and pain Black America faces that the movie is really about. And honestly I'm glad that I can't stop being sad about it, because I don't think you can begin to really grasp an issue until you feel the emotions that it calls for about it. Knowing that I'm closer to better understanding helps me do better work, and I can't wait to be more helpful.

Moral of the story: fiction is a great medium to deliver truths and get people to care about them properly. And that white people like me have a lot of work to do to make things better and we have to get moving now.

If you’re an adult, do the stuff you couldn’t as a kid.

Like, me and my sister went to a museum, and they had an extra exhibit of butterflies. But it cost £3. So we sighed, walked past, then stopped. We each had £3. We could see the butterflies. And we did it was great. We followed it up with an ice-cream as well because Mum and Dad weren’t there to say no.

I was driving back from a work trip with 2 other people in their early 20s, and we drove past a MacDonalds. One of the others went “Aww man, I’d love a McFlurry.” And the guy driving pulled in to the drive through. It was wild. But it was great.

I went to a park over the weekend and I was thinking “Man, I’d love to hire one of those bikes and cycle round the park.” It took me a few minutes to go “Wait, I can hire one of those bikes!”

I guess what I’m saying is, those impulsive things you wanted to do as a kid - see the dinosaur exhibit, play in the fountains with the other kids, lie in the shade for 2 hours - you can do when you’re an adult. You have to deal with a whole lot of other bull, but at least you can indulge your inner 8 year-old.

Game Boy Color Promotional Demo (1998)

Holly Blue Agate bout to drop some sick beats

Punishment for stimming is BAD.

I don't care if my blog's not popular, if this post reaches one person it'll be one more person helped. I just had a college class in abnormal psychology where the professor taught us that punishment is a workable and useful therapy to "treat" autistic symptoms such as head-banging, biting etc. What he neglected to tell the class is that those behaviors are forms of self-stimulation (aka stimming) which is necessary for most people with autism to regulate their sensory systems. Specifically the above destructive behaviors are forms of overload stimming, in which the person will turn to types of self-stimulation that blocks out whatever is causing them distress in their environment. For example, head-banging and biting cause pain and so the body is forced to process that instead of what's outside, temporarily interfering with their perception of the world to give them a reprieve. To clarify: this behavior isn't good, it's dangerous. The solution is to replace the overload stims with healthier ones, let them remove themself from the situation, and give them coping mechanisms and plans so that next time they don't have to get to overload levels of upset.

The solution is NOT to punish them for overload stimming. They are not exhibiting bad behavior, they are trying desperately to do what their body needs them to do. If you punish them and they stop overload stimming in response, it's not successful learning: it's abuse. They are not stopping because they 'see the error in their ways,' they are stopping because they are afraid of what you will do to them. All punishment works like that, but it is called for when the person does something wrong, not when they are working to do what their body needs because there is nothing wrong with that.

By the way, this is true for non-destructive types of stimming as well. Preventing any kind of stimming is abuse because it prevents people with autism's bodies from working as they should. Instead stimming needs to be accommodated and respected or, if it absolutely must be stopped, immediately replaced with an equally effective option.

To recap: punishment is designed to stop bad behavior. Stimming is not bad behavior because it is an action that people with autism need to do to regulate their sensory systems. It is abuse to punish someone without cause. Therefore it is abuse to punish someone for stimming. Instead find non-destructive stims and solutions that solve the problem without the damaging consequences.

*p.s. if someone is overload stimming they're already really upset. don't make it worse. it's common sense and so easy to do if you care about that person.*

mE THOUGH

when you touch a Bad Texture™ and have to scrub at ur hands until the feeling is gone

me

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp

So I used to have a Russian friend who had a pretty thick accent and like a lot of Russians tended to eschew articles. She would say things like “Get in car.” And stuff.

Well one day this asshole who had been kind of tagging along with us asks her why she talks like that because it makes her sound dumb and I still remember her response word for word.

“Me? Dumb? Maybe in America you have to say get in THE car because you are so stupid that people might just get in random car, but in Russia we don’t need to say that. We just fucking know because we are not stupid.”

Everyone go have a nap.

If you are reading this, go have a nap.

If you are at work, tell them I said it is okay, I am from Corporate.