In case you can’t tell, I’m passionate about rationality and critical thinking.

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  • 263 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 22nd, 2024

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  • Laying on your stomach? Aww, honey, that might not be an option for much longer at all. Once boobs start growing, it’ll get less and less comfortable. I can’t remember the last time I slept on my stomach, but I guarantee it was before puberty.

    Pro-tip for bras - when you put them on, center your nipple along the seams. That way if it’s cold, or your nipples decide randomly to go hard (for those that need to hear it - it does not mean someone’s horny. It’s just a thing nipples do sometimes), having them aligned with the seam will keep them from poking out visibly.

    Otherwise, welcome to the boob club!



  • This is probably the 4th or 5th post I’ve seen on Lemmy about this poll this week. Each time I checked the results, they were the same (except for the very first one I saw, which was different by only one percentage point.) The answer’s pretty clear.

    Although I’m pretty sure it’s a PR stunt at this point, I do appreciate that DDG asked its users at all. Every other company seems to be like, “We’re gonna make you use AI, regardless of whether you want to or not. Suck it up!”


  • As someone with a partner who has …

    Mm, so you don’t personally know what the experience is like. I have a partner with chronic pain, and though I can see what she does to handle it and get by, that doesn’t mean I know what it’s like. If I were to tell people with chronic pain, “Oh, it’s manageable, I know someone with it and I see them get along fine, so you must not be trying hard enough,” it would sound awfully insensitive, wouldn’t it?

    That might sound like a far-fetched comparison, but if you understood what experiencing executive dysfunction felt like, you’d know just how disabling it can be. Good on your partner, I’m glad they’ve found a solution/system/medication that works for them. But ADHD is a spectrum just as autism is. Even though I’m AuDHD, I know the things that help me aren’t necessarily things that others would benefit from, because these conditions are highly individualized. To know one individual with one of these conditions and assume everyone else must be the same is beyond unhelpful, verging into offensive.


  • Username checks out. I find that better situational control has come with age, for me. I sure can put on the charm and be sociable, but it’s contextual. I can function well at work, as I’ve developed a “work persona” that helps keep me on the level, but once I’m clocked out it’s a different ballgame. I have to conserve my effort for the times I most need to focus, and doing the thing that brings me income, well, that’s a top priority. I spend a lot of “time off” alone recharging.


  • If you’re being a slob

    Although I don’t expect you’re intending to carry on ableist rhetoric, the implication that someone with ADHD is a “slob” implies a misunderstanding of why we do what we do. What someone else might call “disorganized” could actually be organized in a way that facilitates our daily lives. Sure, I could keep my medicines in a cabinet, but when I see them on my nightstand I am far more likely to remember to take them. Sure, I could put away all my art supplies when I take a break from a project for the day, but then I’ll lose track of what I was working on. Every time I “tidy up” I end up spending a significant amount of time trying to get back into my normal rhythm afterwards.

    People will use words like “slob” even though there’s no trash lying around, I keep the floor swept, I wash my dishes immediately, etc., all because surfaces are covered in items that I actually use. My private space is for living in, and it reflects that. If someone else doesn’t like it, well, that sucks for them, but to imply that we’re “slobs” for finding ways to make our daily lives run smoothly is an unfair characterization.






  • I remember back in high school, hearing how some classmates filled up their metaphorical plate with activities. After a full day of school they’d have clubs, extra-curricular classes, sports, sometimes jobs. Just thinking about their lifestyles makes me anxious. I can understand wanting to set yourself/your kid up for success, but having a bit of down time can be just as crucial to developing one’s self.

    Personally, I enjoy a number of hobbies, but none of them are requirements. That’s what makes them work for me. I like that I can pick up and put down the scarf I’m knitting when I feel like it. I like that I can paint if the fancy strikes me, but I’m under no obligation to complete it (and every bit of practice helps.) Every so often I’ll complete something, and that definitely feels good. But keeping them in the realm of “optional” goes far toward letting me create without feeling pressure about it.

    As to low-demand lifestyles, I think a lot of people here have already said some great ideas. For me, I dedicate a lot of time to myself. I feel most demands from other people, but when I’m alone I can breathe. Yeah, my apartment’s not sparkling clean. Yeah, some days off I won’t shower. Maybe I’m late to take the trash out, or I tolerate some light hunger because I can’t be arsed to cook something yet. I eventually get around to these things, I just do so in my own time. Executive function difficulties can be as much a spectrum as autism itself, though, so your mileage may vary.

    If something’s really important, I’ll set up multiple alarms (as others have stated.) I have to repeatedly be reminded when I have obligations some days, lest I slip into the timeless void and realize too late that, oh snap, the bank (or whatever) is closed. I also have an aversion to alarm sounds, yet that helps me too - I’m more likely to remember to do a thing just because I want to avoid having to hear my alarm.




  • I quit a job in part because they started edging the line of ethics every day, and I reached a point where any day I could be asked to do something unethical, and not wanting to be put in that position, I decided to quit without giving advanced notice, just an email one night where I highlighted reasons for it.

    The HR guy emailed back, accepting my resignation, but included a dig that it was “also unethical” to leave without giving 2 weeks notice. 😂 Dude, 2 weeks is a courtesy. If the company had responded to issues earlier, perhaps I would’ve considered staying another 2 weeks. But we were being asked to do things that may even have been illegal, and I was not about to stick around until something went wrong.



  • It sounds like you’re doing well on learning your adult skills. You should be proud of the independent things you’re learning to do! I like that you reward yourself for doing things, even if others don’t - that’s a part of the “self care” that a lot of older adults have to teach themselves.

    Yes, it’s normal for those on the spectrum to not line up with their age bracket. I was the opposite as a kid, always seeming older than my age. Nowadays (in my mid-30s) I’m often mistaken for somebody much younger. I often find adults to be tiring and boring, but children are full of curiosity - just like me.

    It took decades to learn the social skills and emotional regulation that I didn’t have in my youth. I imagine you’ll probably learn a lot over the coming decades as well. Don’t worry too much about matching with your age - getting along with people who are different from you is a special trait. When I was your age, I was the youngest person in my workplace, and my favorite coworker was the oldest person there. At first I felt weirded out by people my age (since I wasn’t into partying and drinking and drugs, like they were.) But I’ve grown to understand them, even if I never got into their lifestyles.

    Coloring is an activity that many adults have gotten into as of late as well, or at least that people talk about more. My girlfriend has coloring books. When we’re together, we often get creative and do crafts, but she has the coloring books for when she wants something that requires less cognitive energy (you don’t have to plan out as much on a coloring page than when drawing from scratch.) If that’s what makes you happy, go for it! They make adult coloring books for a reason.

    I’d also say, you don’t have to give up on your dreams of being an educator. However, taking the time to learn life skills for yourself is a prerequisite. I work with autistic preschool and young elementary school age kids today, but I wouldn’t have been able to do this at your age. The years of learning how to handle myself mean that I can now “pay it forward” for the kids I work with, to teach them things that I had to learn the hard way. Learning psychology has gone a long way as well, as I have more knowledge of techniques that help guide little ones toward the right decisions.

    Anyway, my comment’s kind of all over the place, but I have to leave for work in a few minutes and just wanted to reassure you. You sound ordinary for a fellow spectrumite. Keep doing what makes you happy, but keep educating yourself as well. Good luck. :)


  • Don’t they already have shadow profiles on all of us, even if we don’t use Facebook? I long ago figured that they’re able to get ahold of all the info they want on us without our consent. Is tracking our habits and relationships not enough? Even if the idea is to use this as age verification, I highly doubt Facebook’s as clueless as to not have a ballpark estimate on all of us by now. (Or did the introduction of AI break things so bad that they can no longer deduce the sort of data they want? Hey, I can dream.)




  • And of course especially in moments in high emotion everyone is TALK TO ME

    Ugh, this is the worst. Like, I don’t want to appear snippy to those who are trying to help me, but insisting I talk in that moment is going to guarantee “an attitude” in my tone and words that don’t make sense (and that I can’t explain in the moment.) As well, every word I utter will feel “wrong” in my heart, only being emitted due to coersion, soon to be followed by regret. All because language production in my brain has checked out - my mind’s too fogged to edit my speech properly, and I can’t access the words that fit appropriately. So any word salad that comes out will be more confusing than silence.

    Then when my tone is off, I feel bad for making other people feel bad, and it’s a vicious cycle of stress and self-disgust.

    After the event mentioned in my last comment, the upper management directly asked how they could help me in those times. I said, “Don’t try to make me talk. Instead, get me somewhere where I can be alone for a few minutes.” So that’s the plan in place now.