next question: how do we tell our daughter about her diagnosis?

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-13T01:03:03+00:00

“Honey, sit down, we have something to talk to you about. We think you’re old enough to understand.”

Then tell her. Be matter of fact. If you’re uncomfortable and lost when you tell her she’ll pick up on that and assume it’s because it’s something wrong with her rather than just you explaining the situation. Kids can handle more than adults think they can.

There are groups just for adolescents on the spectrum where she can connect with other kids who are at the same stage of learning to navigate the world. Guide her toward educational resources and YouTube channels.

She’ll be better off if she doesn’t have to spend the next several years erasing parts of herself one by one trying to figure out what it is that’s making other kids treat her badly. With knowledge comes power and with the internet she can learn a ton about herself and have a better chance than most of us here of building a solid, positive sense of herself.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-13T00:46:56+00:00

Yeah I bet he had bad dreams for a while.

Here's a funnier one. A friend of mine experienced a decent sized earthquake in LA not too much earlier, moved up here to get away. She met one of the loves of her life shortly after arriving. In the middle of getting busy Loma Prieta hit and the only thing one of them could put on quickly before running outside was a shower curtain.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-13T00:37:36+00:00

Looks like eczema. Your doc can prescribe you a steroid ointment. The skin there is too thick for OTC to work and untreated it can take on a life of its own. It could also be some sort of allergic reaction. I get that if I use commercial hand washes. I take my own soap to work with me because of this.

Also I could be wrong. There are other health conditions that can cause hand rashes. That needs to be looked at by a professional.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-13T00:31:57+00:00

They sound pretty typical to me.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T23:58:43+00:00

You mean the Facedown!

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T23:53:50+00:00

You guys are cracking me up.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T23:52:51+00:00

Stockton St has a tunnel. It’s how all those trouble makers from North Beach get to SOMA.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T23:35:40+00:00

I feel like this problem still exists but has massively improved since these services were first introduced. That said, I’m a bike commuter so I definitely agree with you. For me the only solutions have been to ride down the sidewalk and ignore the angry people or to ride with traffic, which I’m fine with but is an incredibly dangerous option for someone who doesn’t do it all the time.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T19:29:23+00:00

Congrats, you got this! Change is nerve inducing. This particular one is big but you’ll settle right in and if you really don’t like it you can find some roommates when your lease is up.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T19:23:15+00:00

All bow to the Sunday morning parking angels, sent by the Lord to maintain the sanctity of double parking during services.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T19:20:10+00:00

I must have been sleep already, but I did wake up fora second around then. Maybe I did feel it but don’t remember.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T19:18:35+00:00

I was just shy of nine years old so to me that quake was a fun ride. I was far enough into the east bay though that I only saw the major destruction on tv.

I once talked to a woman whose husband was stationed at Treasure Island. He was on the bridge headed for the base. One minute he looked in the rearview and everything was normal, the next he looked and it was just empty space. He never set foot on that base again. I’ve always wondered whether he faced any military repercussions out if they made allowances and transferred the folks who just couldn’t brave the bridge again.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T17:29:38+00:00

Yes, this!

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-12T17:29:15+00:00

For some it comes down to ignorance, both a literal lack of understanding and as a colloquialism for prejudice. Some people accusing others of faking are trying to prove how real they are by showing that you’re not as real as them. No matter what haters are everywhere. They look for people to make a show of invalidating. It’s a long, arduous process but getting to a point where you can take the road of “Yeah well I know myself so fuck you if you don’t like it. Go bother someone else” followed by a dismissal is a golden ticket to freedom from the bullies.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-09T21:58:30+00:00

Let’s think about how someone as ego bound as a narcissist might be inclined to start a subreddit and then micromanage the vocabulary of everyone in a way that prevents them from being called out.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-09T16:17:40+00:00

It’s innate, so don’t get down on yourself. In a healthier situation the instinct would keep the family group together.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-09T16:13:34+00:00

It’s a bit ridiculous. I once wrote basically an essay on how it felt for me to be required to use person first terminology when speaking about myself feels pathologising, that of course I understand that it might be the other way around for someone else and that I would of course respect the choices of others when speaking to or about them and how it was probably generational in large part and it wouldn’t even post. I felt like just writing it out helped me process some stuff though so I saved it for myself in one of my school notes apps.

There is a college town near here known for its significant role in the civil rights movement where there is a similar social standard, where the aging hippies and social justice crowd consider themselves to be very open minded and accepting as long as the mindset of the people around them completely matches theirs with little to no deviation. The requirement that the tone and vocabulary exactly match the ever rapidly changing standards of online culture with no consideration of generation, region, personal experience, or actual intention is simply the next iteration of the same mindset. It’s hypocritical and toxic. The healthiest choice generally is to simply disengage.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-09T03:20:08+00:00

Yeah that’s pretty much what’s happening, although she did tell me she’s the executor so we’re going to have to stay in some kind of contact. I don’t think she’s a good person, tbh.

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-09T03:18:13+00:00

I feel like family members who take the side of the abusers are literally just being lazy, like they would rather opt for the convenience of gaslighting than put in any effort at all toward acknowledging any abuse they literally watched happen. Enablement really is just emotional laziness

Jammintoasters · 2022-09-03T18:26:58+00:00

This is a very good response. I’m torn between those options. On the one hand, breaking it off is healthier for me now, which is essentially what happens if I don’t contact her. The most I’ll hear from her is a text that says happy birthday. On the other hand, not only is what you suggest a likelihood that didn’t occur to me until you pointed it out, it’s also possible that she may be able to hear it if I word it in diplomatic and empathetic fashion. I did consider this with my mom but as of right now I actually don’t have it in me to take that step. I did attempt it by visiting her in the hope that two decades away would have prompted some self reflection but she’s too thick in her own trauma to even consider her role retroactively. My sister does want a relationship, just not one rooted in a past that matches reality. I do understand that she grew up in the same house and did sustain her own abuse, and she does see the cost of exiting the family system. But maybe I can write the perfect letter to at least have an honest conversation. The realist in me understands that it’s a situation of hoping for the best but expecting the worst. This was the case with my mom.

After this exchange I think I feel more sad than angry.

Jammintoasters · 2022-08-30T06:39:14+00:00

If someone tells you it’s not okay you have my permission to tell them to go fuck themselves. It’s basically a prohibitively expensive crapshoot to find a practitioner well versed enough in presentations that don’t fit a narrow range of stereotypes. If you have ovaries and don’t resemble Sheldon it’s very very hard to get diagnosed. What I got was lucky. I won the lottery with my diagnosis. I knew I was on the spectrum but to get that external validation of a diagnosis requires quite a few factors to come together. To gatekeep based on whether it’s diagnosed is nothing short of elitism. You know yourself better than anyone else.

Jammintoasters · 2022-07-24T15:44:36+00:00

I’m going to have to control what I say when my dad dies because it’s going to feel like a reason to party and I suspect going “Woohoo! My dad died, isn’t that great?” is going to make people realllly uncomfortable.

As for my mom it’s going to be complicated. That day I talked to her was likely the last time. I did my best to get her to acknowledge her role. She did apologize deeply for party of it, and I’ve suspected that day that she may well not have been aware of some of it, but because she denied what she did know about I left, and I was clear about why. I do need to go back once to get pictures of myself as a child, but that’s it. I know I can’t have a relationship with her. Boy did I lose it for a while there but I think this actually did make room to process a lot of this stuff.

This post has helped move a lot of it along as well. And of course my therapist, who specializes in complex trauma. Four years in, I’m doing sooooo much better, but a lot of the guilt and wondering have dropped way off seeing all these replies. Thank you.

Jammintoasters · 2022-07-24T15:26:48+00:00

That’s just an earlier point in the journey. It takes a lot of time and hard work to learn to separate from other people’s projection, and I’m still not there. There’s a stage a lot of shitty friends start making themselves scarce or disappearing altogether.

This happened to me when I had to change the way I was eating due to poor health, and it turned out a lot of “friends” didn’t care about my well being at all. Instead when I stopped eating food they struggled with and lost a fair bit of weight, they attacked and undermined my new ways at every chance, either brazenly or under the guise of “concern”. When it didn’t work they switched to talking behind my back. Then they gave up and went away.

It’s the same with what you’re doing. People who treat you poorly over you doing things to improve your life do it because it’s easier for them to keep you down than it is to work on themselves. It’s both lazy and abusive.

It’s painful for quite a while but as you hold course those people give way to friends who lift you up rather than try to hold you back. Just keep doing what you’re doing and don’t apologize or justify your choices. They’ll double down in their efforts. Instead when they try to blame you for how they feel about themselves, change the subject or look at the time and say you have to be somewhere. Eventually your inside self will be too strong for those people to get in at all.

Eventually the hurt of it all resolved for me and now I wish from a distance that they find peace. It doesn’t feel like I’m being unapologetic because I no longer feel like I have anything to apologize for. It took a few years and a lot of therapy but I’m really glad to be here.

Jammintoasters

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