libramoon

egb , 1 day ago to writing

If you’re a poet / creative writer who shares your stuff on mastodon, plz like or share this post 🙏

I feel like there’s gotta be way more of us & I want to fill my feed with y’all!!

#poetry #poets #creativewriting #writers #writing @poets @writing

Uair , 2 months ago to actuallyautistic

@actuallyautistic

How are you with animals?

I tend to throw off the wrong vibe for people, but get along with even the iffy animals. Dogs that don't like most people warm to me.

Just wondering how much of that is autism and how much me. My dad hates animals.

pathfinder , 3 months ago to actuallyautistic

@actuallyautistic

I once wrote about how it was not unrealistic, to think that there was no such thing as an un-traumatised autistic. About how so many of us have known bullying and persecution simply for being different. Not even always for what we may have said or done, but often for simply standing out; in all the ways that we didn't even know we were. How just simply being, was so often an excuse to be attacked or punished. That our very existence, even as hard as we tried to mask, whether we knew that was what we were doing or not, was the cause of so much pain.

All the scars we carry from misreading situations. Or from believing in something, or someone, and being burnt as a consequence. All the times we've tried to stand up for ourselves, or as often as not for others, and been dismissed and ridiculed. All the misjudgements and disbelieve and times when our intent and purpose have been seen in the ways that were never, ever, meant. The sheer inability for others to see us as we are, or to judge us accordingly. But, always to seem to want to see the worst and to base everything else on that.

But the more I learn and understand about being autistic. The more I realise that so much of my trauma and the scars that were left, came not just from this overt pain, but from the covert well-meaning of others as well. From my parents and relatives, from friends and teachers. From all the advice and instruction I have received over the years that was meant to shape me in the right way. As a child, to teach me how to grow up, how to behave and act. What was expected and what wasn't. And then, as an adult, how I was supposed to be and how a successful life, with me in it, was supposed to look. All the rules I was supposed to learn, all the codes I was supposed to follow. How to act, how to speak, what to feel, when to feel it. What I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to be.

Not in any unusual way. Not in any way that you weren't supposed to raise a child, well a normal child anyway. That's what makes this so covert. If you were trying to do this to a child knowing that they were autistic, then it's overt abuse. It is ABA, it is infantilising and punishing a child for always failing to become something, that they had no more chance of becoming than a cat has of becoming a dog. But for those of us who didn't know we were autistic. It was simply the constant hammering of the world trying, without even realising it, to fit a round peg into a square hole and all the pain and disappointment that came from their failure to come even close.

For me, what made this worse, was that it wasn't as if I didn't know that I was different, not in my heart, but that I thought that I shouldn't be. That I should be able to learn what I was being taught, that I should be able to follow the guidance. That I wasn't any different really from anyone else and so if I failed to act in the right way, or react the way I should, for that matter, then it was my fault. All the patient sighs and familiar looks, simply became just another reinforcement of my failure. Even being told off for the simplest things, became a reminder that something that I should have been able to do, was beyond me and always for the only reason that ever made any sense; that I was broken, that it was my fault somehow.

Is it any wonder that so much of my life has been about trying to justify myself in the light of this, of trying to become that "good dog". Of judging myself against an impossible standard. A constant lurching from one bad to choice to another, and always because I thought they were the right ones. And for each new failure and inability to even come close, another scar, another reminder of what I wasn't. Further proof that my self-esteem was right to be so low. Of how I was such a failure and a bad person. That I was never going to be a proper son or brother or friend. Because I couldn't even be what I was supposed to be, let alone what I should become.

Looking back, I can't help thinking about how much of my life I spent living this way; of trying not to repeat the sins of my past. Of not repeating the actions or behaviour that led to those past failures and trauma. Of, in fact, all the effort I put in to not being myself. Because that, I realise now, was what I was trying to do. I was that round peg and trying to hammer myself into the square hole. Because everything I had learnt had taught me to think that this was how I had to be. That this was how you grew. And in so many ways, I can't help feeling angry about this. About the wasted years, about the scars I carry that were never my fault. About the way I was brought up, even though none of it was ever meant, but only ever well-meant.

#Autism
#Actuallyautistic

clayrivers , 5 months ago to blackmastodon

💛 “Anti-Racism 101: Own Your Racism”

Point out sexist or homophobic behaviour, say, and they’ll try to laugh it off. But racism? They’re outraged. Most of us will declare we’re anti-racist, but few of us are genuinely, actively anti-racist.
—Rebecca Berry

#Allyship #Inclusion #RacialEquity

@BigAngBlack
@BlackMastodon
@blackmastodon

https://www.ohfweekly.org/anti-racism-101/

Likewise , 6 months ago to bookstodon

Obviously.
#fediverse @bookstodon

18+ AimeeMaroux , 8 months ago to smutstodon

Happy #LesFicFri :BlobhajHeart:

The theme is dreams. I have written a story in which #Persephone approaches #Lethe, the #nymph of the #underworld river that makes shades forget their former life, and asks her to help her forget about her life on the surface.

In Memoriam (Lethe / Persephone)
https://www.patreon.com/posts/fiction-in-lethe-56822028

@smutstodon @mythology @lgbtqbookstodon @lesfic

#lesfic #erotica #mythology #GreekMythology #indie #indieAuthor

superheroine , 9 months ago to religion

@religion

it does not escape me that i take on the sins of #Christianity and Christians, to be railed on by angry white male atheists.

i am willing to take on those sins and repent and atone for them.

but a little perspective please.

it's their ancestors who created this modern #christian landscape, not mine. rejecting the faith doesn't remove the mindset, culture, or learned ideals. there is a ex-christian brand of #atheism that is still authoritarian, eurocentric, and paternalistic.