The whole article seems a bit all-over-the-place to me, BUT it had one of those sentences in it where as soon as your eyes hit it the penny drops and your heart skips:
“Harvard professor Judith Herman even believes that BPD may not exist at all, suggesting that it’s actually a form of PTSD that has turned into a label to be slapped on troubled women because it fits so neatly into our ideas about them, conveniently allowing them to dismiss us as “born bad.” Add the fact that most people diagnosed with BPD have experienced severe trauma to the list of things that are probably not coincidences.”
I didn’t mean to code Olivia as autistic, no: Olivia is autistic, full stop. She says as much a little later in the book, when she’s talking about her relationship with her parents (mostly her father) and some assumptions they made about her future before she was old enough to shut that shit down.
This was so important to me reading this book. As someone with Asperger’s, it happens so often that a character is speculated within a book/show/movie to be on the spectrum but the character denies it/other characters deny it/or later the writers/actors deny it. And it hurts. Like when people speculated Cumberbatch’s Sherlock was on the spectrum and Benedict said no, because he’s met people with autism and they can’t hope to be that advanced. Or how Will Graham literally says on the NBC show Hannibal that he is on the spectrum but actors/writers later say he isn’t and other characters say he isn’t because he has empathy, playing into the myth that people on the spectrum lack empathy. It hurts to think you have representation and then have that jerked violently out of your hands with the erroneous claim ‘people on the spectrum can’t do this/be like this.’
having a character explicitly and uncontestedly being on the spectrum was so important to me.
That is honestly why I try not to code people unless they’re at a place where diagnosis is not available to them, and then to be upfront about their neurological state when asked. (Example: Jack Wolcott, from the Wayward Children series, has the same kind of OCD I do. But she’s never been diagnosed. She was too young when she left for the Moors, and when she got back, she had better things to worry about. So she’s technically coded OCD rather than explicitly OCD, but I talk a lot about translating my own experiences onto her.)
Olivia is autistic. Everything about her was written with that in mind, including the fact that she’s a very successful media personality who dresses as Emma Frost for conventions, and these are absolutely 100% things that autistic people can do, because I have met real, live, non-fictional autistic people who do them.
Yesterday I went to buy some yarn and so you know how annoying it is when fucking people put those stupid bullshit “don’t use this, wool is murder” PETA stickers on the label?
First of all, stop defacing stock in someone’s store. You’re not clever or saving the planet or anything. You’re making it hard for customers to shop and see the info they need on the label (yardage, weight, dye lot)… You’re making employees spend hours peeling the damn things off, and in some cases, you’re causing damage to the label and or yarn itself. That means loss to the company, which affects employees who probably make minimum wage, you shit bags. You want to make change happen? Contact corporate, you fuckhead. That’s where decisions are made.
Second of all, wool is not murder. Are you fucking stupid? (Obviously the answer is yes). It’s a fucking haircut for a sheep. They’ve been domesticated so long that if we don’t sheer them, it’s bad. Yes, some sheep don’t live in ideal conditions. Got a problem with that? Going to a yarn store and putting stickers on things isn’t going to change it or the minds of customers. For fuck’s sake, you absolute cockwomble, go to the yarn companies. Make them use wool providers that use humane conditions for their yarn, like A LOT OF YARN COMPANIES DO.
And third of all.
You. You precious, empty-headed little shitnugget. You complete and total sawdust-for-brains.
You put your fucking stickers all over acrylic yarn.
There’s no fucking wool in there. It’s all synthetic fiber. Basically, it’s plastic.
I didn’t mean to code Olivia as autistic, no: Olivia is autistic, full stop. She says as much a little later in the book, when she’s talking about her relationship with her parents (mostly her father) and some assumptions they made about her future before she was old enough to shut that shit down.
Excuse my ignorance – what’s the difference between somebody being “coded” and actually being it? I was under the apparently erroneous impression that they were basically the same thing, only coded being used exclusively for fictional characters showing real life disorders/sexualities/whatever.
Frequently when a character is “coded” one way or another, it’s to get the schema of a group of people without actually having to commit to the realities of fictional diversity.
Example: Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory is coded autistic. He does things that are stereotypical “autistic behaviors,” as interpreted by the mainstream media; he talks in the “ha ha funny” way that is often used for neuroatypical characters.
But.
The creators will not say that Sheldon is autistic, because then the fact that much of the show’s humor (”humor”) is at his expense would be visibly and blatantly cruel. Look at us, mocking an autistic person for being themselves, aren’t we swell people ha ha ha oh wait. So they basically say “no, he could be just like everyone else, he could be ‘normal,’ so when everyone is awful to Sheldon, he’s bringing it on himself,” while still writing the character using a set of schema and narrative shorthands that makes it very, very clear that we’re supposed to laugh at people mocking an autistic man.
(Sheldon is also an asshole. You can be autistic and still be an asshole. But consider how hard it is to have conversations like “knowing what dinner will be at 9am is important for my mental health because I have food insecurity” if you’re not allowed to say the words “mental health” or “food insecurity.”)
I saw something earlier today that pointed out that mocking people for behaviors we code as autistic–special interests, stimming, etc.–is an asshole move whether they have a diagnosis or not, and that is absolutely true. But mocking the “weirdo” is still considered socially acceptable in so many circles, and that means that characters get coded as autistic, or OCD, or queer, or Jewish, and then never actually given that identity, all to make them “other.”
It’s the acceptable face of bigotry. It’s also why you have a lot of really intense same-gender relationships in mainsteam tv shows (Rizzoli & Isles, White Collar, etc.) that never turn romantic or sexual, because they want the numbers queer viewers bring, but they don’t want to lose conservative viewers. Before you think, ‘oh, but they’re just really good friends!’ remember that any relationship on tv betwen opposite-gender people is all about ‘will they/won’t they’ from day one (The X-Files, Castle, Bones, etc.) If you think this is an exaggeration, consider the amount of shit Elementary has gotten from trying to keep Sherlock/Joan platonic. It’s only okay to have queer-coded dynamics if you never intend to pay them off with actual representation. Some shows try to do this right, but are actively stopped by the network (Leverage) and others give representation, but then invoke the Bury Your Gays trope as the endgame (Buffy). Things are slowly improving. Both the Librarians and Brooklyn 99 have given us bi representation in the last year. But there’s a long way to go.
He’s the best kid in the world. He’s 10 years old, autistic, and charming as heck. I love spending time with him.
I just found out just a couple of days ago that my ex–my son’s other mom–is suing me for full custody of our son because I am living in California rather than Massachusetts (even though she knows I have been working hard to move back). In order to avoid losing the case out of hand, I need to move back to Massachusetts much sooner than anticipated–early February rather than late August– to avoid losing access to my son.
My son is the most important person in my life. I talk to him every day and I do everything I can to see him as often as possible. I am hoping to go back to having him live with me 2-3 days per week once I am back east, since that is what I did before.
For the past several years I have been disabled and unable to work. After years of struggling I moved across the country in 2016 to be with my (ex) partner who said they would take care of me and make sure I would be able to see my son as often as I needed to. That relationship ended because they were abusive, leaving me stranded and broke in San Diego.
Since then, I have gotten help for my disability and I am working again and going back to school. I am rebuilding my life. I am making just enough to pay for my own rent and food and I can put a little bit aside. I will have just enough money in cash and loans in early february to rent a van and move myself and my best friend/partner back to New England, but I can’t do it safely without a little bit more money.
This is a bare bones, budget move where I will arrive with almost nothing to move into a new apartment and barely enough money to pay rent.
I am putting in $4300, which breaks down to:
$800 Van Rental $400 Gas and Tolls $400 Hotels and Food for 5 days $2700 Move in rent and security for the new apartment
I still need at least another $2500 by early February:
$800 furniture so that my son can have a place to live with me $700 expenses for while I am finding a job $1000 retainer for my lawyer, just to get started
I will continue to work as hard as I can to make it happen even if I don’t reach my goal, but I really don’t want to end up being homeless after all of this.
Please help as much as you can. My son is so important to me and I can’t even imagine losing him.
My heart is heavy to even say this – I am homeless. I am writing this from inside a local McDonalds because it is freezing outside. My social worker is working on finding me a motel to stay in, but I am scared to be out here with nowhere to call home. The shelters are full tonight, and most of those are not even wheelchair accessible.
My heart is breaking – I have lost everything I once had. I was enrolled in university, living in student residence, and making friends. It all went south on November 14th, 2017 when I tried to end my own life. I was admitted to the psychiatric ward until December 4th, 2017. When I came home, the university said they were concerned for my safety and they could not offer me the resources I needed to be well mentally. I was asked to leave my only wheelchair accessible home.
Tomorrow I am going into the school to appeal their decision to evict me from student residence. No one should be treated badly simply because they have mental health struggles. I am going to therapy and taking all the necessary steps to ensure I do not end up back in the hospital.
Tonight I will stay in a motel with the money fundraised and see where it goes from here. My mother is still working on making the necessary renovations to our family home but we need your help. Please reblog this and share it everywhere.
If you can, please click here to make a monetary donation to my GoFundMe.
Ok if your introvert friend tells you “you don’t count as people” you know they will ride or die with you for life. Not counting as people is the introvert Platonic friend equivalent of getting married.
This is a thing with autistic people too! Some of the best people I know are not-people. Friends I can just hang out with and be as ‘not-on’ as I need to be to be happy. Sometimes that means sitting around having super-in-depth conversations about fandoms and media and literature, and sometimes that is all of us on our own devices being quiet, and everything in between. Not-people are the best.
Was finally able to get a picture of my mittens with a snowy backdrop.
Happy Winter Knitting Everyone!
I don’t know how you colourwork. I try and it turns WRONG and completely inflexible and horrible. Meanwhile, I drool over fair isle gorgeousness and wonder WHAT IS THIS WITCHCRAFT. It’s beautiful, hon.
knitting in the dark 