I posted a tiktok video talking about alexithymia. I’m going to try to do a whole series using the #ndconcepts hashtag and then reshare here as I go.
And here’s one talking about a key insight in my own life that I learned from the always incredible @ahandvanish — it turns out that emotions make way more sense when you realize they’re senses.
On CPTSD — this cuts off the last bit, which explains my theory as to why so many ND people have cPTSD. Go watch it on tiktok, I’m mykola_b there
On autism and puns!
On #neurodiversity and why of course we experience rejection sensitivity.
Wow I hate how my face/hair are framed in this one. But anyway, here’s Time Blindness.
Ok I've seen one too many TPOT posts talking about "theory of mind", a concept popularized by 1980s studies of autistic people naming its deficiency as indicative of autism.
It's not that the concept has zero value, it's that you need to understand double empathy to apply it.
Double Empathy points out that the researchers eagerly describing autistic folks as having poor/no theory of mind were actually themselves failing to properly model the cognition/experience of their subjects.
It's not "some people have bad theory of mind", it's that
the more different two people are the less accurate their respective modeling of each others experience tends to be.
But when one group is a majority and one a minority, the majority doesn't recognize their own deficits in modeling the minority. The minority is just wrong.
Thinking today about the relationship between learned helplessness and complex ptsd.
I don’t mean “I am baby and can’t do the dishes” I mean “my body gives up in advance at the thought of the slightest friction.”
How much of ND executive dysfunction is just this?
When I think honestly about how often I don’t even start something because “what’s the point” I want to cry.
How I know I’m not lazy, how I have allocated more effort to the things I have cared about than most people can understand, and how all it got me was suffering?
So maybe my task this year needs to be the cultivation of learned power?
When the food shortages hit they’ll hit the poorest people first, and there’ll be tough talk about getting through it but yall have already let them make you complicit in culling the disabled, the poor won’t be a big fight, etc.
God damn did the wrong people learn from history.
As long as atrocity is always something “they” do not something “we” are capable of? “We” are the baddies.
I think... I think I've managed to reduce two years of philosophical striving into a very basic articulation.
It's just this: the universe is built out of reflections.
Everything from string theory to semiotics is articulating the same fundamental relation: reflection.
A sign reflects a signfier.
A particle reflects a string.
An effect reflects its cause.
A problem reflects its solution.
And these reflections are all, to some extent, bidirectional. Strange loops.
Because the reflections are rarely perfect 1:1 mappings. Rather, a reflection often crosses substrate boundaries and thus dimensional variance. My idea of a hamburger reflects the physical hamburger in front of me, but they are made of completely different kinds of things.
This may sound weird but. A while back I had a dream where children's author Madeleine L'Engle appeared to me and I decided to revisit A Wrinkle In Time. Haven't read or thought about that book in 30 years but I'm on a Jungian kick so WHY NOT.
TURNS OUT:
That is a book about a group of Autistic children who go on a cosmic quest to liberate the prior generation from the clutches of an enormous disembodied brain whose goal is to make everyone follow the rules.
Like. It's literally and exactly in keeping with all of my work. BUT:
To my stunned surprise, when I started book 2 of the series, I discovered that THAT book is about a mysterious disease of the mitochondria which prevents peoples' bodies from generating energy.
And it's about the responsibility innate to being a Namer.
Air Fryer is the single most life-changing gadget purchase I've ever made. I can cook really good food now, really cheaply.
I can eat really well now, without wasting money on delivery or takeout. I feel like the air fryer is what the microwave wishes it was.
Lot of people asking for recipes and tips, let me just thread here a bit.
The reason it’s such a big win for me is:
1) with the model I have, no pre-heating required 2) no dishes to do after cooking - I line the basket with parchment paper thing and throw away when done.
What this means is that the executive function cost trends towards zero. I’m not waiting to wait. I can just throw a frozen chicken breast and some veggies in and have a hot meal faster than delivery, with no mess.