doctors: GOOD NEWS EVERYONE we have found a treatment for diabetes it’s called insulin! people won’t die from this illness anymore if we just give them insulin isn’t this great news?
united states of america: how about we make it so poor people have either limited to zero access to this insulin?
doctors: but don’t we have enough resources to provide for everyone in need of such a medication?
the united states of america: yes!
doctors: isn’t that genocide
united states of america: YES
united states of america fist pumping and chanting ‘U’ ‘S’ ‘A’:
a few times now I’ve seen anons ask stim and autism blogs about suspecting they might be autistic, and the answer seems to often be “definitely get a pro dx if you can!!! but self dx is ok if you can’t I guess”
but they don’t mention any of the potential drawbacks of having a pro dx?
like…it’s not just about whether you have money and time or no.
It’s about whether you’re white or a person of color. It’s about whether you might want to adopt kids someday. It’s about whether you’re cis or trans/nb and what kind of medical treatment you might want in relation to that. It’s about whether you have or want a driver’s license. It’s about whether you have other disabilities/conditions whose treatment might be affected (guess who they don’t like giving organ transplants to).
That’s just a sampling of the factors that might influence that decision in the US. I’m sure it’s a different mess of stuff elsewhere.
Getting diagnosed is actually a pretty heavy decision!
I feel like casually tossing out “make sure to get a diagnosis if you can!” is just a tiny bit irresponsible.
How about “do some research to decide if you want or need a diagnosis”? I think that might be a more balanced answer.
also if you’re a kid you might be forced into therapy, your parents might react badly. if you have abusive parents worst case scenario they might use it to try and get guardianship
diagnosis can be really great for some people and lead to people getting accomodations and more understanding. but yeah
I was just at a pre-assesment meeting this week and the nurse casually told me I would have to report my diagnosis to the DVLA, and my car insurance provider, and my blood ran cold
I ask her how much more I would have to pay, and she said she didn’t know in a tone implying she’d literally not thought about it until now.
my car insurance costs me the better part of a grand already, with no claims and no driving offences, low mileage, social and commuting only, non-comprehensive cover. it is the single most expensive thing I have to pay in a year by a huge margin and I basically base my entire budget around it bc I literally can’t afford not to. it took years of safe, lucky driving to get it even to this incredibly expensive level, and now I’m being told a piece of paper could potentially put it right back up again, and she can’t even tell me if that’s gonna happen or by how much. no assesment to see if my autism even makes my driving a threat, just told I have to report myself and that’s that.
compared to losing your kids or being forced into treatment you don’t want that’s mild I know, but the bottom line is being autistic is seen as a being less of a person and there are a thousand ways that can hurt you.
it’s been a difficult few months, after i moved back with my mom because i couldn’t live alone anymore.
a few years ago, i resolved to be a young working professional right out of college. i was going to enter a media team to become an animator, and from there my own director. famous and rich
then, i got very sick during the summer prior to my junior college year. suddenly, i couldn’t reliably live independently anymore. continuing school was hard enough, upholding a job was out of the question.
i managed to graduate college with honors, very impressive for someone with a new chronic illness. but having neglected therapy and medication for three years, i crashed a few months after turning 23. i had to move back with my mom. she would take care of me.
it’s both disheartening and enlightening to realize that i’m someone i dreaded to become; in my early twenties, with an art degree, and unemployed while leaching off my parents. i continue to create art and flex my skills, but it can be a struggle when i get caught in a depressive loop of, ‘what’s the point?’
during the past few years, i had to re-learn what it meant to be a productive artist. although i spend many days where i can’t even go outside, i’m still an artist like any other. i can’t produce media the way i wished i could, but i’m still making good things.
it’s a lesson that no one taught me. high-school graduates aren’t taught to expect the possibility of becoming disabled in the midst of their formative years.
its a lesson i’m still trying to absorb, but it’s an important one.
“If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed. People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them, or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder. Maybe you weren’t always able to look at human behavior this way. That’s okay. Now you are. Give it a try.”
(And a footnote I didn’t see explicitly covered in the article: laziness still doesn’t exist when it is you yourself making no progress and not knowing why. You deserve that respect and consideration, too, even from yourself.)
If your aroness or aceness stems from dysphoria, you’re a valid aro or ace.
If your aroness or aceness stems from past trauma, you’re a valid aro or ace.
If your aroness or aceness is an integral part of who you are as a person, you’re a valid aro or ace.
If you have no idea what your aroness or aceness comes from, you’re a valid aro or ace.
I’m sorry I don’t make the rules.
my “aro/aceness” did come from trauma and dysphoria and this mindset is what kept me from getting better and pursuing healthy relationships because i was told everything was perfectly fine with me and getting help was aphobic. then i did actually get help and listen to my therapist and low and behold that “aro/aceness” was a symptom not an orientation and, after getting better, straight up vanished.
if you think you’re aro, ace, or both because of factors like trauma and dysphoria, go get some help or at least try to heal before deciding to use the labels. and if you don’t know where it comes from, think about that.
no one becomes gay due to trauma or dysphoria, that doesn’t actually happen. if you think your orientation comes from those things, you need to reevaluate some stuff and get help. chances are if you actually are aro or ace, it had nothing to do with trauma or dysphoria. correlation is not causation and if your ace or aroness is caused by those factors, you need to get help. and, hey, if you’re still ace or aro after getting help, cool, that happens, but your personal issues would have nothing to do with that. if you’re like me and many others, however, and you realize you aren’t aro or ace, you were never either of those things to begin with and you were holding on to pain.
That’s not an appropriate rhetoric.
Neurodivergence isn’t some monster that represents all thats wrong and disgusting with humankind. It’s a word that describes what people are.
The a-spectrum has always had a close relationship with neurodiversity. And thats precisely because of people who discover their asexuality/aromanticism through exploration of their neurodivergence.
And you’re wrong – people actually do ‘become’ trans and non-straight due to trauma and neurodivergence. That’s a thing that happens. And we can frown all day and question their legitimacy, but that’s such a non-issue.
People question and re-question their sexuality all the time. Ace/aro people in particular are under extremely strict scrutiny. There’s many reasons why someone would drop their a-spec label, or perhaps pick up a slightly different one, and so on. You attributed it to forsaking your trauma. That’s your story. And yours alone.
Queer identities are spawned by neurodiversity all the time. It doesn’t suddenly become suspect because it’s ace/aro people in the picture.
I’m all for fighting for marriage equality in the LGBT community. But we’re so focused on that no one knows about this problem.
W…wait Thats a thing????
Yep! The man I refer to as my husband? We aren’t actually married. We can’t be.
If I married him, the government would literally expect me to care for him and be his sole source of income. He would lose all of his benefits, including SSDI. Spouses are expected to share income and that effects ALL of his benefits, even his health insurance. We simply can’t afford to be married.
But it goes even further than that. If I were disabled, our incomes would STILL be combined, meaning BOTH of us would have our benefits cut.
For people reviving supplemental income, their benefits can be cut anywhere from 25% of their current income all the way down to 0%
In fact, one of the stipulations of receiving income under the adult disabled child program (which provides benefits for people who were disabled before age 22) is that they LITERALLY never be married.
I normally don’t link to blog posts as resources, but since social service resource sites like to dress this problem up and make it seem smaller than it really is, I’m gonna call it appropriate! Check it out!
She’s SUPER racist and also strike me as butchphobic and biphobic. We have something about it in the queue, but it’s probably still a while before it comes up.
~Mod S
EDIT: An anon pointed out she also makes ableist comments against anorexia.
For fucks sake, she’s a horrible fucking person
Doesn’t like Asian girls? Refers to bisexuals as whores? Calls anorexic people freaks?
Disgusting
if she’s calling bisexuals that then you can add anti-sex-worker to that list
whitemanning critical 