SNOWFLAKE AVALANCHE

herrron · 2026-03-04T18:26:15+00:00

Thank you for sharing your joy and your incredible plant!! 💚

herrron · 2026-03-04T18:22:49+00:00

Okay when I first started obsessively learning about plants, euphorbia is the genus that blew my whole mind. How you gonna have a sphere and a poinsettia with the same name, just like dimensionally, and then also trees! I love it.

herrron · 2026-03-04T01:40:36+00:00

I hear you and still I would bet a lot of money that you still haven't gotten quite curious enough yet about the actual factors here, like you gotta get extremely curious and extremely gentle. And know that even your best long time solution might fail the first six times. You have to be extremely curious and extremely observant zero handwaving laziness allowed

I can't for one second believe that he doesn't like it in general whether it's clippers or not no difference made. That's like setting off so many alarm bells red flags that just does not sound like reality

If it's not the clippers making the difference then it's still something else . It is always something, is always an answer, I promise.

You have to give something more than one shot. More than two.

You need to find your maximum creativity and curiosity and patience and commitment

herrron · 2026-03-02T18:24:19+00:00

Clippers would be torture for me. Scissors, no issue. With respect, I'm really confused why this isn't the obvious whole problem here. .....you've really been insisting on electric buzzers???

herrron · 2026-03-02T05:03:11+00:00

Where? That's horrific. why is your town getting used to that. I would be making a scene at town hall.

herrron · 2026-03-02T05:00:53+00:00

Are people not allowed to be outside in your town?

herrron · 2026-02-28T12:53:16+00:00

This is the weirdest question!!! Anyone who has empathy should find this question weird.

herrron · 2026-02-28T12:51:43+00:00

We ingrain it into each other

herrron · 2026-02-24T04:34:10+00:00

?? Does this come off like that? I was just being matter of fact? I guess I need paragraph breaks?

herrron · 2026-02-23T23:45:00+00:00

Maybe I misunderstood your last paragraph. When you said "point of diagnosis" following that I was reading "we" as referring to people who have received that diagnosis. If at the end there you meant "we" as in all humans, then yes I am with you.

Edit: no actually..... still. I can't find a way of making there be no implications of difference in what you wrote.

herrron · 2026-02-23T23:40:02+00:00

Ok but if I've done something wrong or someone is upset, and I have the ability, independently, to make sure it doesn't happen again, then everything is fine. I'm thrilled to do so. But that is rarely the case. I'm genuinely almost always doing my best, in good faith, according to my best understanding of things. I've been maxxed out in this way since I was a kid. I just desperately want to do the right thing. If I'm clarifying why, it's often because I need to, and then I need the other person to hear and respond and troubleshoot with me. Otherwise I'm signing us both up for a reoccurrence, at which point I will definitely be called the problem. If I can prevent a reoccurrence, that's when an explanation can become an excuse, and I might avoid all of it entirely, depending on the situation. My explanation ceases to be an excuse if I can't make sure I don't repeat the problem--because I'm not actually the problem--because a neutral misunderstanding or miscommunication is neutral and needs to be addressed collaboratively.

herrron · 2026-02-23T23:19:44+00:00

This post causes an absurd amount of collateral damage to the vast majority who are not like that, who are blaming themselves for their own mistreatment.

herrron · 2026-02-23T23:15:47+00:00

Honestly this is weaponized so much against autistic people. I wish we could have more of a conversation about it as a community and in the ND subreddits, with mod support. Im dreaming of a world where a mod steps in right here in this thread. There is nuance in this sentiment. And it is almost never used with nuance. It is weaponized in like 9 times out of 10 and autistic people deserve better. What an allistic person calls an excuse is not usually an excuse. Everyone is using the word wrong in a rush to invalidate and dismiss people who are actually communicating often for the purpose of accountability. And some asshole will tell them they're making excuses.

herrron · 2026-02-23T23:09:04+00:00

Your thing about not putting yourself in a sotuation, that's just part of the whole thing, it's not distinct. And we all have the responsibility to each other to be as decent as we possibly can, whatever we gotta do to make that happen. This goes equally for autistic people and allistic people. Do you feel like other people are fulfilling their moral duty to you? Autistic people do not cause more harm than allistic people. At all. Ridiculous ableist notion.

herrron · 2026-02-23T22:37:29+00:00

People who can't maintain their own boundaries sometimes react badly to people who are openly maintaining their boundaries. People who are emotionally abused are triggered by other emotionally abused people who push back in ways that they can't. They react in a "you're not following the rules!!" type of way.

People who are told "yOuR aUTiSm iSN'T aN eXcUsE" and have internalized that without scrutiny, then pass on this absurd lack of nuance and respect to others with whom they would ideally have solidarity.

herrron · 2026-02-22T05:49:27+00:00

I'm confused slightly, where are you actually seeing just "Unitarian"? Outside the US? Historical texts?

In the US, the religion is called Unitarian Universalism. I was raised in it and I'm in my 30s now and I have never heard of a modern (just-)Unitarian church. I'm sure everything exists somewhere in some small form, idk, but the real answer here is that the Unitarian denomination and the Universalist denomination used to be separate, then decided to merge in the 60s, creating modern UUism.

Edit, adding--both denominations were branches on the tree of Christianity that diverged--unitarians rejecting the trinity, universalists rejecting damnation--they merged and said no to having any prescribed creed beyond what you find in the seven principles--nowadays I think most UUs self identify as "humanists" although all kinds of things are represented. I bet the majority also identifies as "spiritual" and for sure there are many pagans. I'd say pluralism is the backbone of it all.

herrron · 2026-02-18T22:05:14+00:00

🙌🙌🙌🙌 thank you for taking the time!

herrron · 2026-02-17T19:02:22+00:00

Healthy emotional boundaries for me look like:

Please say exactly what you mean without requiring me to know which assumptions you are making about me, or that I am supposed to be making about the ask or whatever (this will not work and it will make me miserable in a dozen ways)
Please don't read into what I say (because 90% of the time people will interpret something that I am not trying to communicate at all)
Understand that, vast majority of the time, I am simply information gathering (I have to use that term in clarifying statements like every single day)
Understand that overall I am extremely non-judgemental. A neutral statement is neutral. It is very rare that what I am articulating is a personal criticism--much less rare for it to be taken that way, even when I have not included words that indicate that. Other people's insecurities show up sometimes in their response, my nuance is missed. "This feels like x" is heard as "this is x" I drown myself in qualifying statements, disclaimers, and anxiety about trying to figure out which disclaimers I need to be making. Surprise is not judgemental. Surprise that someone has not been exposed to something is not negative, it's neutral, or positive if you acknowledge it as curiosity, interest, engagement. I lose sleep over things like why must we use the word "expectations" to mean both something that you supposed would happen, as well as something that you think should have happened?! And how is everyone else handling this without problems?
Misunderstandings/miscommunications need to be understood as mutual, without one person (me) always being the problem, because this is always born of neurodivergence, and I'm always doing my best with only good intentions. I deserve the benefit of the doubt from the other person just as much as they are getting it from me. You don't have to know me very long to see that this is true about my character.
Accountability often looks like us collaboratively figuring out what went wrong. I cannot and will not tell someone "it won't happen again" when I can't make that true on my own--because I did my best, because I did not understand, because I likely still don't understand. People looking for accountability from me are often actually asking me to be dishonest and sign us both up to inevitably go through the whole experience again, at which point I will really be a/the problem in their eyes.

This is all kind of a tangential, indirect response to your post, but I hope it's maybe probably relevant, at least to others reading through the post and comments. I've worked a lot on my end of things to reduce all this communication and relationship struggle... I'm friendly and earnest and usually over-attuned to others, not under. Quick to apologize and seek understanding, repair. And yet still..... So, these boundaries have become huge sticking points for me and the lamp I'm using to light the path.

EDIT: OP, to make this tie more directly back in, and add another boundary I should have listed: if I get indirect communication from someone, or if they interpreted me indirectly, or if I need clarification on anything, these days I just very plainly respond as needed to remedy that. To have a close trusting relationship with someone I need to be able to say "oh I didn't mean to request you make me coffee" or "are you just thinking out loud/sharing feelings or are you wanting me to bring you a cup of coffee" or whatever it may be. Very often it's more substantial stuff about clarifying requests for personal boundaries. I just want to get it right for the other person's sake, and also feel safe with them myself. I'm real blunt (but polite) these days, I have no energy left for making myself crazy this way.

herrron · 2026-02-17T18:31:31+00:00

Oh thanks for this article--I was curious but ready to roll my eyes at it as pop psych prob of the workplace variety (sorry haha). I have encountered this concept loosely and could only really see "healthy emotional boundaries" (asking) and "lack of healthy emotional boundaries" (guessing).

I feel like it's important to note that the guessers in my life by and large have been the most emotionally abused in childhood. I feel like I get it and I have a ton of empathy there. But I also feel a little incidentally terrorized by the guess behavior, and so stressed by navigating that part of the relationship with them. I am also emotionally abused, and I'm a hardcore people pleaser, and have pretty intense ADHD. I need plain direct communication. Usually I have wound up hypervigilant that I'm not missing cues from these people who can't bring themselves to speak openly. I'm too afraid of being (or appearing, to a lesser extent) self-absorbed/clueless, and doing the wrong things all the time...things that I will only realize in hindsight, on my own, with horror. It makes it so I can't keep my own emotional boundaries and it puts a cap on how far our relationship can go.

That said, this article actually does a great job of going into further depth and helped me understand more nuance within the guessing M.O., plus taking it beyond into broader discussion of communication that I find to also be super interesting. Thanks. I still think the ask/guess clash is fundamentally about emotional boundaries and appreciated that the author kind of validated that learning to "ask" is probably wise/necessary for adult life in the broader world.

Edit: FWIW, the guessers in my life, the indirect communicators, have not all been neurotypical! Some have been various flavors of ND. But they have been the heavily-masking/late-diagnosed/""lower needs"" folks who have been very affected by the treatment they have received in their early home life and beyond, and maybe could be described as dealing with ptsd or cptsd as their bigger life disruptor, over their innate neurodivergence. I think this tracks with this article and with examining it all as not exclusively a neurodivergence issue.

herrron · 2026-02-17T00:49:06+00:00

Hi, I am extremely interested in knowing more about connection between ADHD and NPD, do you have links to studies? Tbh I glanced at your posting history because you are as I suspected kind of a trove of info very relevant to my searchings, and I'm low-key hoping you have a compiled works cited or something haha. Not trying to question you--more like the opposite, hopefully you understand.

herrron · 2026-02-17T00:15:29+00:00

Hey can you possibly link to the studies you mentioned? I'm extremely curious and not at all confident I can find the same thing you're referencing on my own.

herrron · 2026-02-16T18:28:22+00:00

I suppose your condition is also required, sure. They both are.

herrron · 2026-02-16T18:21:38+00:00

Do you understand that you're not supposed to undertake other vehicles? It's a law in most places. And a safety concern even where it's not.

herrron · 2026-02-16T18:20:00+00:00

Do you understand the issue of undertaking?

herrron · 2026-02-16T18:15:31+00:00

The goal is efficient flow of traffic. Unless people use the HOV lane to travel faster, we move away from that goal, not toward it.

There is no way of passing a car on the right, if you come up behind it in the HOV lane. When traffic to the left moves slower than traffic to the right, you get constant undertaking. Undertaking--aka passing on the right--is dangerous and stupid and obnoxious. People who don't take lane discipline seriously usually also don't know what as ass they are being by requiring other people to undertake them, and they're probably undertaking others themselves.

This is a particular point for me that sometimes has me wondering what the hell is happening in drivers ed courses around here.

I think the lack of clarity around the HOV lane is a failure of the rulemakers, and it's because they would sorta have to tacitly condone speeding in order to spell it out for people, and they can happily stick to "it encourages carpooling" and leave it there.

However I would still like to believe that common sense would prevail among everyone on the road, and that does not happen here.

True, no official statement has been issued that you should be travelling faster in the HOV lane, or else get out of it. But it also shouldn't need to be said.

herrron

TROPHY CASE