Changing Should Never Be Shameful

it’s crazy that when i explained to my brother how i’ve been suicidal (bc of my disability) he’s like that’s your fault for living in the darkness and refusing to look on the bright side. excuse me but ANYONE who has ever met me or worked with me will tell you i am annoyingly positive and hopeful by nature. i’m not overwhelmed by “darkness” i’m overwhelmed by loud noises and fluorescent lighting go eat a dick

how to get rid of the feeling that there is something irreversibly and unforgiveably wrong with you?????????

oh so when vampires have heightened sensory awareness it’s cool, but when I have it it’s ‘autism’

Thank you, Matthew Perry (August 19, 1969 - October 28, 2023)

Ever since I was a child people have asked me 'what's wrong?', 'why do you look so sad?', 'why are you moody?' even when I have been enjoying myself

My facial expressions do not necessarily match-up to my emotions or neurotypical expectations

I might look sad or down but I show and feel my excitement in different ways than you might expect

Just because I'm not smiling from ear to ear doesn't mean that I am being moody or not enjoying myself

idk if it’s the mental illness but sharing literally any information feels like oversharing. i’ll be like “i skipped breakfast this morning” and immediately im like “i might as well have told them where i buried the money”

here’s a little comparison for people who say engagement hasn’t gotten that bad and anyone who complains is ungrateful.

these are two posts from my first go round on tumblr circa 2014-2017, my most popular gifset of all time

& a text post

notice how the ratio is about even on likes to reblogs?

here’s from this go around, my most popular gifset

and my most popular fic

do you see how that’s discouraging?

i love being on this site. i love the little community i’ve found and the people who follow me and the mutuals i’ve made friendships with and the mutuals that i’m still getting to know. i love it. but at a certain point it’s hard to justify spending so much time on works that get bad engagement.

reblog, comment, send asks. without them, this site doesn’t work.

Mmmmmmhhhhh

#relatable

People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.

I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.

I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.

There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me