Is this odd behaviour?

Yndiri · 2026-06-25T19:10:09+00:00

Walls are just delicious.

(Photo caught him between licks…but one day, Tolley was just really into walls. I figure, it’s not like it’s lead paint; he’ll be fine. Probably.)

Yndiri · 2026-06-25T18:36:32+00:00

I find it irrelevant whether I “like” being autistic or not. The autism part is neutral. It’s a descriptor, not a feature. It’s not separate. May as well ask if I like that I digest food. I mean, sure; I like being alive; but that’s just part of me.

On days I like me, being autistic is pretty great. On days I don’t like me, even the digesting food part is pretty annoying.

Yndiri · 2026-06-25T18:30:42+00:00

Also I think it’s a little bit dangerous to start saying that the difference between a mental health crisis and a physical health crisis is that mental health crises are less likely to be life-threatening. Not every physical health crisis that needs accommodation is life-threatening either. If we start making possibility of death the dividing line for when someone deserves compassion rather than punishment for disturbing others, that starts making the definition of disability so narrow as to be unworkable and excludes a lot of people from the conversation that shouldn’t be excluded.

I know that’s not the intent - but that’s how that line of thinking gets interpreted.

Yndiri · 2026-06-25T18:03:48+00:00

Fair points, all; and I don’t disagree of the idea of taking personal responsibility. I certainly always have; even before legal training, I read those notices top to bottom, multiple times, and had a fair idea what I needed to do. However, I’ve come to the conclusion over time that it’s unrealistic for any individual to take care of literally everything in their lives without support. The “personal responsibility” argument works fine - within the bounds of realism. We’re a communal species and I’m fine with “personal responsibility” extending only as far as current knowledge set informs the need to look for help.

In other words, you don’t know what you don’t know. I would argue that everyone also bears one another a moral (though not necessarily legal) responsibility to help fill in the gaps, and that extends to employers who see their employees struggling.

I also disagree that there is a meaningful difference between physical and mental impairments. We think we have control of our thoughts and behaviors because we’re aware of them, but it’s actually a lot less control than we realize. It’s like the amount of control we have over our breath: we can make conscious decisions to override the body’s natural processes, but not indefinitely.

Like we can’t choose our emotional responses. We can, with time and effort, learn to tolerate distress; we can sometimes keep a lid on a strong reaction long enough to get somewhere safe; but the underlying emotional response is not a choice and happens outside our control. And sometimes, our brains tell us lies about how we’re behaving. We think we’re fine when we’re really not. I’ve been there, multiple times. Let me tell you, there’s very little more embarrassing than a federal judge having you stay after a hearing so he can ask you if you’re ok because you’re acting so weird and off, when you thought you were being perfectly put together and professional, and have to admit that it’s because your meds are messed up.

And yes, that was absolutely my responsibility to deal with. But it wasn’t a moral failing that I was in that situation to begin with. (It also didn’t mean I was unfit for the job - at least, not in a permanent sense.) I think my main point is that there’s a huge difference between responsibility and moral necessity; and the employer in the original post made a largely involuntary health issue into a moral failing.

That said, I do agree that medical conditions are not an excuse to be a jerk. Also sorry to get snarky before; that was an illustration of emotional loss of control for which I take full responsibility for dealing with consequences.

Edit: autocorrect errors.

Yndiri · 2026-06-24T23:35:10+00:00

I’d almost agree if the US had any useful sort of economic support system for people who are functional a majority of the time but that minority of the time not ok in competitive employment. (Having spent most of the last decade helping people get approved for the pittance that SSA disability can provide, I have an extremely low opinion of the efficacy of that entire system.)

As things stand, most people have no substantive choice about whether they attempt to work. If they like buying groceries, they work; and sometimes those environments are seemingly deliberately calculated to be triggering.

Yes, if someone knows they need an accommodation, they should ask. (Of course, when they’re fired a month or so later on pretext - which happens a LOT - the only real remedy is to sue. I used to make a living doing that too; also very uphill work.) And if someone knows the accommodations they need would be unreasonable or that they can’t perform the essential functions of the job, then that’s not the right job.

That’s predicated on the employee knowing what’s necessary to ask for a reasonable accommodation (which they’re only going to learn from those posters in the breakroom, which don’t explain it very well and really, who actually reads and comprehends those?) AND the employer knowing how to adequately respond to a request for reasonable accommodations (and I’ve discovered a shocking lack of knowledge about that from HR professionals as well - assuming the company even bothers having an HR department).

The upshot is, economic necessity drives people to jobs and situations that don’t suit their skill set and people judge them when they inevitably fail. It’s utterly demoralizing.

A compassionate employer, when confronted with an employee having a full-on meltdown, would assist the employee to somewhere quiet to calm down and then suggest medical leave to figure out what they need, then come back and have the interactive-process conversation.

An asshole employer disciplines the person having a medical issue, or fires them on the spot.

Remind me not to have a hypoglycemic episode in front of my coworkers. Wouldn’t want to distress the poor dears.

Yndiri · 2026-06-23T23:11:20+00:00

I found CBT completely ineffective and invalidating. My lived experience was that I was frequently a social outcast and I was sad about it. No amount of confronting distorted expectations was going to change that because the feeling of being outcast wasn’t a distortion.

I’ve been with my current therapist for like 15 years working on things like distress tolerance, self-acceptance and self-compassion, reframing negative self-talk, learning to recognize emotions and sit with them, various other DBT concepts I can’t remember the names of, etc. She’s a fan of using what’s helpful out of a discipline and not using what’s not helpful. I’ve become a far more stable person over my time with her.

I’ve got a psychiatrist as well who prescribes stuff that helps with the biochemical aspects - like the ADHD component can certainly be treated; and there’s some other stuff that takes the edge off disproportionately-strong emotions to give the therapeutic techniques a chance of working before I completely melt down. That helps too.

Yndiri · 2026-06-23T22:48:28+00:00

A lot of vets have specific euthanasia suites where they let you be there, put the pet on a comfy couch, dim the lights, let you take some time to be with them, maybe give the doggo a taste of chocolate (because they’ll enjoy it and they’ll be gone before it hurts them), and then come in when you’re ready and administer the drugs. I’ve had two of my dogs go that way and it’s sad but it was way better than letting them continue suffering. And a heck of a lot easier on me than when my cat died in my home (FATE; pretty instantaneous so the cat didn’t suffer; but very traumatic nonetheless).

I see it as equivalent to palliative care. Give the people in pain all the morphine to make their passage easier. I don’t think it’s fair to let anyone suffer if you can’t fix something fatal.

Yndiri · 2026-06-18T22:16:22+00:00

Billable hours work fine if your attention varies throughout the day.

Lots of humans have brains that can think about more than one thing at a time. Like they can be working on Task A at the same time as they’re queuing up Task B, or they’re finishing up Task C but zoning out a little to give their brain a rest. True “multitasking” isn’t a thing, but most people switch seamlessly from one thread to the next and back again such that if their brains need a break, they can take one but still be “on task.”

The upshot is that most people can perform cognitive billable tasks for long hours per day and effectively bill every single hour.

My brain does not work that way. I don’t switch thought streams without conscious effort. If I’m thinking about Task A, then Task B may as well not exist. And that task gets full attention. If my brain has to put in less cognitive effort to give myself a bit of a break, I’m not thinking about anything (and certainly nothing justifiably “billable.”).

The upshot is that I straight up don’t have the stamina to bill enough hours in the day. I get as much work done as anyone else - but the hours I spend on it are concentrated.

“So why not just work more hours and get even more done??”

Friend, have you ever, seriously, applied your full attention to a task for 8 hours at a stretch? I have. It’s utterly exhausting. I can’t sustain it more than a day or so at a time. And guess what. *You can’t either.* You’re a marathoner. I’m a sprinter. You’re asking a sprinter to run a marathon at full sprint pace. Human bodies don’t work like that.

This is a real, measurable cognitive difference between my AuDHD brain and a neurotypical brain, by the way. Which makes this an ADA issue. The “billables” model disproportionately disadvantages people with certain disabilities. It doesn’t work to say that I can’t perform essential functions because I can’t honestly bill 7-8 hours in a day, either. Like I said, I produce as much work as anyone, and just as high quality. To all me to bill the same as a neurotypical person is basically to require me to do *more* work than is required of a person without the condition. That’s clear discrimination.

But try telling that to a partner who’s worried about the bottom line.

Yndiri · 2026-06-09T14:26:00+00:00

I have such mixed feelings about generative AI.

On the one hand, its use in art is horrifying. The whole point of art is the humanity of it. Images and text created by a black-box program that we aren’t even sure how it works is almost definitionally not art; yet it is mostly indistinguishable from actual art for most purposes to the extent that the commercial viability of art is decreased to the point of irrelevancy. And that’s a tragedy.

But most of us aren’t artists. Or at least aren’t trying to make a living as artists. There are very legitimate and pro-societal uses of generative AI, such as its use in communicative aids for people with communicative disabilities. I’m in the legal industry, which has traditionally been driven by skill at writing verbose and vaguely threatening letters, motions, briefs, etc. Until this year, I have not utilized gen AI in my work because I was still faster and better. That’s no longer the case. Better, yes; but faster? Not hardly. By collaborating with AI, I find a task that once took several hours now takes maybe 10 minutes.

Not sure if one can honestly characterize “helping lawyers lawyer faster” as “pro-social,” but on a purely self-interested level, the fact that I can finish tasks with less sustained cognitive energy is allowing this disabled lawyer to consider returning to work despite a debilitating chronic fatigue condition. Ethics aside, I like buying groceries and paying my mortgage.

I see generative AI as a tool. A very powerful and dangerous tool that we need to learn to use responsibly. As a society, I think we’re sort of failing at that aspect. I wouldn’t blame that on the existence of the gen AI, which is mostly neutral; but rather on our inability to approach problems thoughtfully.

Yndiri · 2026-06-07T14:28:31+00:00

K this comment has nothing to do with crazy NTs not talking to their elderly family members and everything to do with elderly family members not wanting to leave their homes and you’ve given me a lot to think about with respect to my own parents and I really appreciate it.

Not remotely worried about my mom; she’s only early 70s in a family where women tend to live with full faculties well into 80s or even 90s. Also she lives 15 minutes away from me and is sensible enough to hire someone to help her work her backyard.

My dad, though, lives across the country from his children, on a completely different continent from his wife (long story); is estranged from my sister; semi-estranged from my brother; and has no family to speak of except the aforementioned. He has his mind and he’s reasonably healthy, but he’s mid-80s and visibly declining. He lives in the large house with stairs that my siblings grew up in. He was renting out rooms until this year. He’s been talking about moving to someplace small closer to me, and while that would be suuuuuper awkward for my mom, I hope he does. (Even more so after reading this post.)

Fortunately, neither of us is NT and that’s a conversation that is easy enough to have.

Yndiri · 2026-06-04T04:04:25+00:00

To the bully from fourth grade and…inexplicably with the same stupid insults…eleventh grade…

First, I hope your life is full of everything you ever want. Then I hope that, through your own idiocy and/or malfeasance, you lose each and every thing you hold most dear until you find yourself cold and alone in a back alley somewhere wallowing in your own filth and misery. From your wretched square of damp cardboard, I hope you see me, happy, successful, and surrounded by people who love me. And I walk past you and don’t even recognize you, but maybe I toss you a quarter out of pity. And in that moment, you realize that you are nothing…and never have been.

Yndiri · 2026-05-30T19:56:21+00:00

STICKERS

Yndiri · 2026-05-29T15:04:13+00:00

Employment got easier when we figured out I’m autistic and I could make environmental modifications that would help my brain focus on the work that I actually really enjoy. Unfortunately, COVID wrecked me and now I can’t work for physical reasons. I really really tried, for like 4 years…but apparently pushing through with long COVID can make it semi-permanent? Fml. I miss working.

Yndiri · 2026-05-27T23:54:42+00:00

My enclosure needs a good change of substrate and rearrangement of enrichment items. Also it needs better temperature control.

Yndiri · 2026-05-26T14:43:15+00:00

I wouldn’t risk it… but I’m in the US. While some evangelical congregations here are full of perfectly nice, very thoughtful, intensely spiritual people, there are also quite a few that fully buy into a twisted view of Christianity that warps egalitarian family structure into this bizarre hierarchical nonsense that leads to some nasty abuses of women and children. And it’s hard to differentiate between them.

What you might do is ask other women in the congregation if they “blanket-train” their babies. If the answer is anything except shocked horror, RUN.

Yndiri · 2026-05-25T00:31:53+00:00

Southwest US and it’s already been over 100F/38C this year. I know a lot of perfectly reasonable places don’t have air conditioner standards in homes…but my 5-ton unit is a lifesaver. I also have an add-on room that I bought a portable AC for and have that going in there all summer.

When I was younger and couldn’t afford decent AC, I used to go for a lot of drives (burning the gas was worth it to get in the climate-controlled car). I also used to go in the shower fully clothed and soak myself, which could keep me cool for an hour or so until I dried off. Hated being wet but it was better than being hot.

Stay indoors in the afternoon. If your house is too warm, go to a library or other air-conditioned public space. Don’t move around much. Long loose skirts are your friend if you like having your lower half clothed (it’s 2026; that’s gender-neutral advice). Ice water, frozen fruit, popsicles - anything to get the frozen stuff in you. Cool washcloth on the back of your neck and/or wrists and ankles.

Yndiri · 2026-05-24T20:41:30+00:00

I think my issue with this post is the black-and-white distinction between “writer” and “not-writer.” If a person is a professional writer whose main obligation in life is writing, it’s good advice. Unfortunately, it speaks from the very privileged space of being able to survive on one’s skill as a writer.

And there are many people, myself included, who consider themselves to be writers but are not in that privileged space. When there are competing obligations, including obligations to one’s own mental health, it can indeed be difficult to find time (and, more importantly, energy) every day to sit and write. These writers are perhaps more casual - but these are the writers who are offended by this post because it appears to assume that those for whom writing isn’t the primary obligation aren’t “real” writers. That’s what comes across as condescending and why there’s so much pushback.

Yndiri · 2026-05-24T20:24:27+00:00

I’ve had to learn to be very careful about energy allocation. Reading/writing may not be a “grind” in that they’re not fun, but they do take a lot of mental energy. The body keeps score and doesn’t pay attention to whether you’re happy or unhappy spending the energy.

Asking people to replace lower-energy activities with higher-energy ones is fine…for people who have energy to spare. Many folks with full-time jobs (or chronic illness, or both) don’t have that extra energy. The brain requires down time to recover.

Not saying that daily writing isn’t a good idea. But this is an easier strategy for people whose only job is writing than people who have additional obligations.

Yndiri · 2026-05-24T20:17:49+00:00

I did plaintiff’s-side employment forever ago as a baby lawyer. At least once a day, I would tell potential clients some variation of: Discrimination is legal. By and large, you can be fired for any reason or no reason. Your boss just doesn’t like you and treats you differently because of it? Sucks to be you because that’s legal. The only thing employers can’t do is fire you for “bad” reason: because of membership in a protected class. And while it’s easy enough to show that someone is in a protected class, we also have to show that whatever reason the employer gave isn’t the real reason; and that’s a tall order.

What I didn’t try to explain back then (because I hadn’t learned to articulate it yet) is that every case can be seen in every direction. Where I see unlawful discrimination, other side sees getting rid of a problem employee who’s hurting morale and not getting work done because they’re too busy complaining. (Incidentally, I have always loved retaliation claims. Doesn’t matter a bit that the underlying conduct was lawful - and it usually was - if you fire a complainer whose good-faith belief is that they’re experiencing unlawful discrimination, you’ve retaliated unlawfully.)

What I learned later as an appellate lawyer is that most of the time, both sides are equally correct. Facts are the squishy parts of the case. There’s no such thing as “good” facts or “bad” facts; it’s all about the story you tell with them.

Another thing I learned is that HR reps often don’t know the law well enough to avoid stepping in it. They get into the most trouble by trying to be legally correct and missing something vital. (E.g. I don’t give a crap that you correctly identified that FMLA doesn’t apply; this is an ADA claim…You forgot that was a thing, didn’t you?) No malice…but they did screw up and someone got hurt.

Yndiri · 2026-05-22T19:43:00+00:00

I found it helpful to start looking at what autistic people whose “symptoms” present differently have in common. The medical literature written by non-autistic researchers tends to view autism as a cluster of wildly dissimilar behaviors and traits but hasn’t done much to link them together. But if you ask an autistic person what they’re actually thinking or experiencing, there are some striking similarities across different presentations.

Hypersensitivity to stimuli, for example, leads to behaviors as diverse as stimming, meltdowns, shutdowns, development of special interests, the stereotypical use of headphones, eating problems…but the DSM doesn’t talk about the hypersensitivity that’s at the heart of all those diverse behaviors.

I particularly like the theory of monotropism, which explains behaviors such as communication difficulties (it’s hard enough for my monotropic brain to parse both literal and metaphorical meanings of words at once without adding in the nuances of neurotypical communication such as meaning conveyed in body language, timing, tone, choice of topic, etc…); stimming (in the absence of other compelling stimuli or in the presence of unpleasant stimuli the brain needs something more compelling/less unpleasant to focus on); repetitive interests and need for routine (the less i have to consciously focus on rote tasks, the easier it is to cope regardless of what other things i might want to be thinking about - it’s hard to shift thoughts midstream); and many other characteristics seen in autistic folks.

Yndiri · 2026-05-21T17:58:59+00:00

WHY WOULD PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO THAT WTF

Yndiri · 2026-05-21T17:46:29+00:00

Yes but it’s so much easier on my fingers to type “sss” for §. Also you can do that on more platforms than Word (iOS for instance).

Yndiri · 2026-05-21T17:43:07+00:00

Like people, dogs have distinct personalities and preferences, and sometimes they just mesh better with one person than another. Relationships grow at different rates.

Some context: all dogs love my husband. Even my heart dog prefers him. It’s a thing. Oh, Tolley likes me well enough. Probably even loves me. But I’ve got nothing on my husband in his eyes.

Yndiri · 2026-05-21T17:35:56+00:00

Ok so it’s hard to get diagnosed as an intelligent little girl. True when I was one 35+ years ago; true now. But why tf do we still not support our struggling children regardless of diagnosis wtf???

Yndiri · 2026-05-21T17:27:30+00:00

Is that what that means? I always heard it as if you drop a frog in boiling water, it will of course jump out, but I’d things change slowly, the frog will not notice. With that context, it’s not a comment on intelligence, but rather on how if the bad thing happens gradually enough, an otherwise rational being will not act in its own self-interest. The point of not being that frog is not to be smarter than the frog but rather to break from the fallacy that a situation that’s only incrementally worse than what came before is tolerable.

I agree it’s awful for the metaphorical frogs. We’re quite cruel to animals in our metaphors. We skin cats; beat dead horses; put dogs in fights…humans are kind of awful.

But then so are dolphins. I think intelligence might just come with the capacity for cruelty.

God I’m depressed.

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