#not a single person who uses these for sensory issues have a problem like mine...i feel silly :(

[zorasapphires]

why did no loop reviews mention sensory discomfort of having things in your ears and hearing your own breathing/movements so loudly :(

#i havent had in ear headphones for many years i forgot how much the feeling sucks #i know loop is doing a huge marketing job on social media but i did a lot of searching #not a single person who uses these for sensory issues have a problem like mine...i feel silly :(

[thechangeling]

Lost and Found:

Happy birthday Alex! @catadorass I hope this is everything you wanted, or at least sort of what you wanted lol. I wrote this from Ty's pov because it's really importance to showcase his side of the story. 

Nothing about us without us Cassie. 

"Hey can we talk" Ty heard Kit ask from behind him. 

It was late. Very late, most likely past 12 by this point and they had all just finished doing another late night round of frustrating and pointless research. They being, Ty, Kit, Dru, Jaime, Janessa a wayward Vampire who traveled all over with her band, but was originally from LA, Thais a Brazilian Shadowhunter who was dating Janessa, and Ash, the son of Sebastian Morgenstern and The Seelie Queen who had betrayed Janus, who had tasked Ash with infiltrating the Los Angeles institute and killing Kit. However, Ash and Kit had ended up bonding immensely. This had caused Ash to essentially switch sides and work towards protecting Kit from Janus trying to kill him. There was also The Seelie Queen trying to abduct him in order to obtain control of his powers, and generally anyone else who wanted to get their hands on the first heir.

At first Ty was a little worried that Ash was in love with Kit, but the pair seemed to be very platonic, just heavily invested in one another like Kit and Janessa. And of course Ty had no business being jealous either way. He and Kit had both been engaged in various- well relationships wasn't the right word, but various flings of sorts over the past few months, but he still couldn't help but think of Kit as his.

Which didn't make any sense because Kit had left.

What made even less sense was that Ty still loved him.

Ty braced himself and then turned to face Kit. It was clear how exhausted he was from the events of the past few weeks. They were up against The Seelie Queen, Janus, The Cohort, also several supernatural disturbances that didn't make a lot of sense. Anush, his friend at the scholomance was researching the problem there. It was quite possible that it had to do with Livvy's presence.

Ty really didn't want to think about that.

He also really missed Alyssa, a new friend of his that he had met while she was studying at the scholomance. But she had left to rejoin her werewolf pack in New York. They had bonded over both being autistic, and in moments where Ty was anxious or overwhelmed he wished he could summon her to his side.

Moments like this one.

Livvy was hovering nearby, giving him a look over Kit's shoulder. Ty ignored it.

Ty nodded at Kit without fully meeting his eyes. "Fine. We can talk. Liv can you leave us alone for a moment?" He asked. Livvy scowled slightly, but did as she was told. Looking back at Kit he couldn't help but still be slightly comforted by his presence. And even though Kit was visibly worn out and stressed, he was still the most beautiful thing Ty had ever seen.

Ty did his best to remain as cold as possible. "What do you want Kit?" He asked harshly. Kit flinched slightly in response, and Ty was caught in between feeling victorious and feeling like he had just been stabbed. Kit shook his head slightly.

"Come on Ty aren't you sick of this? Don't you miss me? The way things used to be?" Kit inquired angrily. "I'm sorry I left. But I forgave you. Isn't it time you forgave me?"

Ty honestly had no words. He just continued to glare at Kit. Did Kit honestly not have a single idea what Ty was feeling?

But wasn't it obvious? How hurt he was? How utterly broken he was?

Ty took a long deep breath to keep himself calm. His fingers were aggressively flicking at his sides. Kit took his silence as a sign to keep talking.

"Look. I talked to Dru."

Seriously. Now we're involving my sister in this? As if Livvy wasn't already bad enough?

"She sort of helped me realize some things, you know" Kit continued. "She pointed out to me that I should ask you how you feel, instead of just assuming that I already know." Kit was nervously shifting back and forth on the spot.

"Wow" Ty muttered sarcastically under his breath. He looked Kit dead in the eye and spoke. "What a revolutionary concept. That I should be allowed to speak for myself for once, and not have you, Drusilla or anyone else do it for me."

Kit sighed, his eyes softening. It was in that moment that Ty was close to forgiving him.

He desperately wanted to be able to run to Kit and throw his arms around him. To hold him, and kiss him and tell him how much Ty had missed him and that he was so brave and beautiful and sweet, and that Ty belonged to him.

But Ty couldn't cave now. Not until he made Kit understand.

"I'm sorry ok?" Kit pleaded. "I get why you're pissed but-"

Ty couldn't help it. He laughed. Even though nothing about this situation was in any way humorous. "No Kit." He shook his head. "You really don't."

Kit looked a little angry at that.  Fine. Ty thought.  If you hurt me then I'll just hurt you back.

"Fine." Kit breathed, his voice sounding surprisingly gentle.  "Then tell me."

Ty was instantly brought back to the roof of the London institute. Tell me. Tell me what you need. He willed himself not to cry.

Ty took a deep breath, glaring at Kit. "Alright. Here's the thing. I am angry. I'm so angry that I can hardly breathe and no one notices." Ty snapped.

Kit opened his mouth to interject but Ty shook his head, eyes blazing with fury and tears. "No!" He shouted. "You said your piece already. Now let me say mine."

Kit stayed silent.

"I am quite literally always dealing with everything coming at me all at once, and Kit I know this is a very horrible situation for you, but I am just as stressed as you are, because despite what you might believe, I don't want you to fucking die!" Ty screamed.

Kit looked absolutely horrified. Ty was pretty sure he had never heard him swear before.

"I'm dealing with new people, new dangers, and I might lose Livvy again. I have all of this stress, all of this sensory information bombarding me 24/7. We barely sleep! We're all constantly together when we're awake! There's no time for me to stim, no time to breathe because we are all working to rescue you from your own fate!" He shouted. "And I'll do it too! Because of course I will! "It doesn't matter if I'm angry, or stressed, or tired, or scared! It doesn't matter that you broke my heart when you left me because for some unknown reason, you thought I could handle it!" Ty cried.

Kit was shaking his head. But he didn't look angry, just devastated. "Ty" he whispered, but Ty cut him off.

"Everybody always seems to think I'm either unbreakable or far too fragile and I need to be coddled and I'm sick of it. "I'm furious with you for promising that you wouldn't leave, and then telling me that you wished you had never met me when I thought I was never going to get Livvy back" Ty sobbed.

Kit gasped. Ty noticed that his eyes were filled with tears. Kit shook his head aggressively. "Sweetheart no" he breathed. "I didn't mean that. I swear."

Ty heard himself make an unrecognizable sound. His fingers were now aggressively fluttering at his sides. He clenched them into fists to stop them from moving. Kit began to step forward then stopped himself.

"Sweetheart" Ty whispered under his breath in awe. Alyssa had once told him that what he was doing now was called sub-vocalizing.  He could hear her voice in his head. When our brains get stuck on a word or a phrase because it was so shocking or we can't stop thinking about it, or it brought out a huge emotional reaction in us, then we mouth it or we say it out loud over and over again.

"Sweetheart" he mouthed, warmth overflowing his body.

"I'm- I'm sorry" Kit stammered. "I didn't mean to upset you." Ty recovered himself quickly, shaking his head.

"No it's fine" he said firmly. "You just surprised me." Kit looked down at the ground. He looked embarrassed, defeated. He looked exactly the way he looked on the beach three years ago.

No. No don't go there. He doesn't really love you.

Ty continued on. "And at least I got Livvy back in a sense, but you still left me and I didn't survive that." There were fresh tears running down his face. Exhaustion was definitely catching up with him.  Ty partly just wanted to let it go and go to sleep, but he needed Kit to understand.

"You cannot under any circumstances ever tell an autistic person that you're never leaving and then go back on your word Kit!" Ty exclaimed. "This is why we all have trust issues! Because we're naive, so we let our guards down because we just want someone to choose us. Not out of pity but out of genuine love. And it wasn't like this had never happened to me before but you were supposed to be different." Ty said defeated. He looked over at Kit and waited for Kit's eyes to meet his.

Ty had always hated eye contact. Mostly because it physically hurt and made him feel really awkward, but also because it felt too open. Too vunrable. As though someone could see into his soul and know all of his secrets just by looking.

Well he had never felt that way with Kit. Or maybe he just had never cared about letting Kit really see him. All of him. And they didn't have any secrets from each other. At least not anymore. Kit looked back at him and Ty could see it all. Hurt, exhaustion, longing, and love.

Love?  Ty shook his head, physically willing himself not to be sucked in.

But there was no point.

"And that's why I fell in love with you" Ty admitted.

Kit's eyes widened almost comically. He inhaled sharply staring at Ty with an expression Ty was having trouble placing. Up until tonight, Ty hadn't actually looked at Kit. He had been avoiding it for some time now. Most likely because he was afraid of what he might see. Would he recognize the person that Kit had become?

But all Ty could see now was what he had actually been avoiding from Kit all those years ago. It was that look of complete awe and adoration. Like Ty had all of the answers to the secrets of the universe.

And Ty really really really didn't.

It was painful, because as much as he was angry with Kit, he also didn't want to hurt him or let him down again.

Ty fought to keep his voice steady as he spoke. "The worst part is, in the end I know i'll probably forgive you eventually. I will do what I always do. Take the high road. Be the bigger person and let it go because I have to. Because I'm never allowed to be angry Kit, and I'm not allowed to hold grudges because everyone is always convinced that I'm overreacting." Ty said bitterly.

 "So it doesn't matter that you hurt me. It doesn't matter how many nights I spent crying myself to sleep at the scholomance or how many bad decisions I made during some futile attempt to feel something other then pain, and it doesn't matter that you might hurt me again" Ty lamented. He was fully aware that he was crying, but that didn't matter anymore.

Kit was staring at him dumbfounded like Ty was speaking another language, but the pain in his eyes was clear.

Ty shrugged slightly. "I'll still love you Kit, no matter what, because that's just how I am."

Kit took a deep breath, wiping away at his tears. "Ty- I'm so sorry. I-             I didn't know" he stammered. Kit slowly began to approach Ty, carefully as if he were a wounded animal. "I'm sorry I didn't think about it like that. When I told you I loved you and you didn't say anything back, I just assumed you didn't want me, that you didn't care." He was standing directly in front of Ty now, and Ty couldn't help but stare into his eyes.

Suddenly, Ty was overwhelmed with the powerful urge to touch him. To reach out and comfort him. For Ty it was almost as instinctive as breathing. Instead he just shook his head.

"That's not true, it never was" Ty said adamently. "I was torn apart. Everything with Livvy was just too overwhelming and I just couldn't lose her Kit!" He protested forcefully. "But I always cared about you. I honestly just thought you knew."

Kit paused for a moment, then slowly reached for Ty's hand. Ty didn't fight him, only watched as Kit traced the lines on his hand. After a pause, Kit looked back up at him. " You're right. I shouldn't have assumed. I should have just asked you how you felt" Kit admitted. "I'm so sorry Ty." His voice broke. "I'm so sorry for leaving, for making you feel like I didn't care." Kit lifted his other hand, the one that wasn't holding onto Ty, and placed his palm softly on the side of Ty's cheek. He shook his head, almost in disbelief.

Ty fought the urge to close his eyes and lean into it.

Kit continued. "Honestly the truth is Ty, I fucking adore you. I love you so much." Ty heard himself inhale sharply. Kit was so close now, only centameters apart. It wouldn't take much just to lean over and kiss him.

Wait.

No. Not yet.

We're not done.

Ty scoffed slightly. "Yeah you say that Kit, but at the end of the day those are just words. Pretty, empty words." Ty almost regreted it as soon as he saw the look on Kit's face. Up close he could see the heartbreak in his eyes. Ty could also see the dark circles under his eyes which were a little red. He could see the dried tears smeared across Kit's cheeks.

Ty couldn't help but look at the broken boy in front of him and hate himself a little for the damage he had clearly caused.

Look at what you did to him, a cruel voice inside him whispered.

This is what you do. You hurt people, break their hearts and make them regret ever knowing you. This is all that you are. Selfish, cold and cruel.

Ty shook it off. It wasn't true. He loved Kit, just as he loved his family and his friends. It didn't matter that there were some people who refused to see that, refused to see that just because he felt differently, didn't mean that he was unable to feel. Some days, the sheer strength of what he felt for Kit threatened to break him in half it was so powerful. It was almost too much to bare. So Ty squashed it down and pushed it to the side, molded it so that it was more manageable and less scary.

Kit let out a soft breath of air and closed his eyes, he let go off Ty and dropped his head forward so that it was resting against Ty's shoulder. Kit was slightly shorter then Ty which Ty had always found amusing. Kit, less so, but secretly one of the things Ty had always loved about their height difference was that he could tuck Kit into the nape of his neck. Ty loved the feeling of Kit's curls against his skin.

"This isn't empty Ty" he murmured, nuzzling the side of Ty's neck. "This is everything."

 Kit's voice was so quiet that Ty almost didn't hear him.

Kit pulled back slightly and tilted his head up to look at Ty. They were so close that their noses were slightly touching. Kit was staring up at him through half-lidded eyes. His hands were trailing up Ty's arms, pulling slightly at the fabric of his sleeves. His lips were parted slightly, staring up at Ty with so much love in his eyes.

"Beautiful" Ty whispered under his breath.

 Kit looked utterly beautiful, and before Kit had the chance to answer him Ty was pressing his mouth to Kit's in a deep passionate kiss. The moment their lips touched, Ty almost let out a sigh of relief, sliding his hands up to Kit's face to cup his cheeks. Kit made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a moan, opening his mouth to deepen the kiss. Ty could feel Kit's hands all over him, rubbing across his back and then finally settling on Ty's waist. Ty pulled back slightly, noticing that Kit was straining himself to reach Ty's height, pulling himself up on his tip toes.

Ty couldn't help but laugh. "You really are quite short aren't you?" He teased. Kit looked like he was about to cry so Ty kissed him again, attempting to pour all of the love he had for Kit into the kiss. He slowly moved his hands down Kit's body, then bent down slightly to lift him up. Kit wrapped his legs around Ty's waist and threw his arms around Ty's shoulders kissing him sensually. Ty clung to Kit even tighter, afraid of what would happen if they let each other go.

 He remembered way back when he and Kit had first been getting to know each other and Kit had told him that he was pretty sure Ty was autistic. He had given him a bunch of articles and official clinical descriptions and terms that made Ty feel distant and afraid. But then he had recommended Ty check out posts on social media sites made by autistic people and Ty had been completely swept into it. There was an entire tag on tumblr dedicated to autism, and Ty had spent hours scrolling through the posts feeling overwhelmed in the best way possible by a sense of community and belonging.

 He had come across this one blog dedicated purely to autistic love and lust and how it manifests differently. Ty remembered reading one quote in particular that had made him feel hot and shivery all over, and painfully aware of Kit's presence next to him. It had stayed with him all this time.

I want to ink myself underneath your skin.

Ty  gently put him down for a moment and leaned his forehead against Kit's. They were both breathing heavily.

"I missed you" Ty whispered. Kit smiled at him beautifully.

"I missed you too sweetheart."

Edit: This is old but I'm tagging @ti-bae-rius in this because I honestly just want your opinion lol.

#kit x ty #tda #twp #tsc #kaitlin'swriting

[en241]

Friday, 17 April

Week 11: The Secret Garden, Chapters 19 - end of book.

First, More of Your Comments: 

I am just catching up to the end of the book so I thought I would check in. As most said in the comments you shared on Tumblr I would have to agree it takes a lot for me to get into a book so it did take me a bit for this one but I was surprised how much I liked this book. The ending was really surprising as well it was very sweet and just made you feel good. I have noticed that the author uses sensory imagery throughout this novel which allows the characters and reader to connect with nature making you rethink your own life in positive ways, I really enjoyed this aspect. Mary’s positive thoughts and attitude makes you want to be the same. This even makes Colin interested in the outdoors as well despite his illness. I did really enjoy this book!

From this weeks reading, I have observed how the garden is changing People and things as a way of resurrection.  Not only are Mary’s waxy features changing but, Colins skin is changing as well. Colin is no longer ivory skinned, he looks like he has flesh. It seems that the garden is bringing life back to them after all of the bad things that have happened to them. It may also be helping things like the tree his mother fell from. Although the tree is dead, new roses will cover its outside. I feel the new roses symbolize the spirt of the children and Colins mother who have never really left the garden. Colin planting the single rose represented ownership not only of the garden but of the spirits left there. 

We all have that one place where we want to be, or think is our fairy-tale.  The garden is the fairy tale in this story. The flowers create the fairy-tale. The tale or what it once was and what it could be. This has become such a part of Mary’s life she claims to have stolen it. I have experienced this situation as well. I have claimed a horse that was not really mine. I had so much pride in her I did not realize I was stealing her like Mary.

Now, some Thoughts from Me: Please bear with me and read them . . .

I’m so glad that so many of you liked the book so much. I love this book & I love teaching it, but it’s never been as meaningful as it has been this semester. And that’s because of all your comments. 

One big thing: the way all the book’s major characters are on their own maturation plots, and how each of them help the others, so that in the end they all overcome their own personal traumas and grow. (And the garden itself is one of those characters -- maybe because it’s Mrs Craven’s spirit or maybe because Nature.) 

I wish we could talk about all the details of this book and how they work together in order to make a coherent narrative argument. And I wish we could talk about this book -- especially its characters -- and compare it with the other books we’ve read this term. I could write up notes for you about this, but that wouldn’t be the same as discussing it together. It wouldn’t be fun.

I also wish we could come back to the big issues of the course -- the maturation plot, the adult/child identity problem, the three modes (nonsense, realism, and fantasy), and all the thematic patterns like food and appetite, indoors vs outdoors, reason vs imagination, sorting, stacking & counting, adventure vs safety, honesty vs dishonesty, etc. Because, you know, that’s the point of the class. 

I also wish we could talk about all the different ways we can read Children’s Literature from a cultural perspective -- not just its history, or its connection to things like theories of psychology and education, but also its relationship to issues like race, gender, dis/ability, and ecology. Because, well, college. 

It would also be really interesting to think about issues like illustration (have you spent time with the illustrations I’ve been posting?), book design, and adaptations into other media. Because words are great, but words are not enough. (Although tbh the new movie version of The Secret Garden looks like absolute shite imho.) 

Aaaand it would also be fun to talk about more recent children’s literature and how reading these books together might go

 But we only have one week left. 

And we are all dealing with a lot of stuff. 

So next week, if it’s ok with you, I will finish out the term by giving you a couple of new things to read and/or watch. (Kinda like what we did at the beginning with Struwwelpeter, the Gashlycrumbs, and the Wild Things. Only nicer. Much nicer this time. Happier. I promise.) And I’ll ask for your comments, and post them, just like we’ve been doing. With a final reflective assignment at the end. 

Meanwhile, read this article: 21 Ways The Secret Garden Prepared Us For Adulthood . If you hadn’t read the book, it would look like a list of 21 cliche phrases . . . but now? 

Take care, stay safe, be kind, and wash your damn hands. 

AAAAAnd one more comment:

I just finished the book , absolutely loved it. Heres some thoughts...

So I think Mary is a super super interesting character. Most child fantasies start their adventures with a likable, honest and pure protagonist. At first, Mary isn't the most likable of characters .. She’s privileged, kinda annoying and just isn't the most relatable. This made it really hard for me to like Mary in the beginning but to slowly realize no - she's just damaged, really flipped the whole narrative for me. Life as a neglected, lonely orphan must have caused a lot of internal dysfunction in Mary and left a hole of hurt and pain she wasn't able to deal with and heal.

- I mean she is a child; she doesn't know how to handle these things. Imagine having your parents die at that young an age? Must be a horrible thing to deal with. Then getting sent off to the middle of nowhere to live with your weird uncle? that would suck - I definitely would cause a scene too -

I think Mary was destined to find the key to the garden and I think the robin - yes! i also think this is symbolic of Colin's mother - specifically chose to give it to her because she needed to see the garden. She needed a physical thing to take care of and nurture so she can see how attention to something leads to blossoms and beauty .. this helps her accept how important it is to give attention to herself and how planting a seed of self-love and acceptance will lead to strength and happiness.

The garden helped Mary heal wounds of the past, understand human failure, forgive herself and her circumstances to grow. Mary needs to go through this transformation to achieve maturation which is a super super prevalent theme here .. pretty much the whole book focuses on the healing and growth of Mary, and Colin later in the book. The garden is her “Wonderland” - it’s her safe place that wants to instill some sort of lesson or narrative in Mary that she absolutely needs to hear.

Mary and Colin are very alike at the beginning of the story and they get along best because their relationship is so honest .. they’re both at Stage I of childlike naiveness, with no self-awareness. I think maybe they were also destined to meet and their growth together is a beautiful thing to witness. I think the friendship they share is so important and fundamental to both of their growth. Mary and Colin aren't romantically engaged either - well because they are cousins - but this makes their bond even more special and important - definitely a relationship that’s important to have irl too .. a true friend , someone to grow with - I kinda wonder how the story would unfold if they weren't written as cousins .. would they have fallen in love??

The garden is an important place for Colin too - it gives him the motivation to want to live .. a super powerful and almost magical thing.

Anyways I'm kinda obsessed with this book now , the journey to learn how to love and accept yourself - at least that's what I took out of it - also how beautiful and valuable a strong relationship is.. definitely an important thing to note.

illustration by Inga Moore

[stimmy-chloe]

In which I spend approximately one year (not really) musing about my experiences with autistic burnout, particularly the later parts of it that took place last year, and my thoughts involving it, because I’ve been thinking a lot about burnout lately.

(Trigger warning: Mentions of suicide, mentions of self-harm, and a few mentions of a home invasion. I’ve... been through some shit lmao)

I’m not quite sure how to begin this, honestly.

Like... where do I start? Do I begin by discussing the background of my environment and my mental health prior to the very beginning of my burnout? Do I launch into a comparison of my prior-to-burnout self with my current, (mostly) post-burnout self?

I guess I’ll start with this:

Autistic burnout sucks. Like, it seriously sucks. Everyone who enters it has different reasons for why they enter it. I think for me personally, mine was set off by a combination of accumulation of long-term stress and trauma. For the longest time, I thought it was for the most part set off by what happened back in 2016. But now... I think what happened back then was a huge part in setting it off, but I also think there was more to it.

Let’s dive into when I first noticed my burnout:

Ah, yes... Go figure, I first Actually Noticed the symptoms of it shortly after the home invasion. Eye contact became more difficult (whether that’s burnout-related or related to the fact that I made eye contact with the guy who broke in, I have no idea), speaking verbally suddenly became quite difficult, I began feeling the need to stim more... Obviously, the list goes on for sure, but those are the first three I can think of.

I remember not noticing them too much at first, as I was more focused on my anxiety and depression symptoms worsening and PTSD symptoms emerging (I guess, after all, panic attacks that rapidly increased in frequency; all the fun things I used to love, including my special interests, suddenly becoming very boring; and dissociation, and nightmares basically replaying what happened in some way, are more noticeable than the symptoms of burnout). Once I did notice them, though, it didn’t take me long at all to figure out what the problem was.

From what I can tell, using my fuzzy memories of 2016 (I dissociated through about 90% of 2016 after what happened and I feel like that is to blame for the year being pretty fuzzy), it seems my burnout didn’t really? Leave too many after-effects or affect me that much once it appeared to pass around the end of 2016. I mean sure, I did begin going nonverbal* occasionally whenever I was stressed or overloaded, I had shutdowns whenever I got too overwhelmed, my sensory issues were more noticeable, I was more easily exhausted during social interaction... Just some shit that sucked to have to deal with, but was otherwise bearable.

(*For the longest time, I believed that I didn’t have any nonverbal episodes at all until the home invasion happened, but I recently had a memory from when I was little resurface and I’m... pretty sure I went nonverbal at some point during it. Just want to mention that before we go on, especially since I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it on my blog before, me not having any nonverbal episodes until after what happened. Why do I want to mention that in this post specifically? I don’t know; I just do)

Whether my burnout actually went away or simply eased up to the point of not having many noticeable symptoms, I’m not a hundred percent certain. I do know that a smallish part of 2017 was nice, but otherwise? I felt unsatisfied with who I was constantly, I still felt stressed and tired a lot of the time, and of course, go-fucking-figure, I had a depressive episode slam into me sometime during the fall that ended up carrying into the next year. 

(Also, honestly? To put it simply, a lot of 2017 was just full of me feeling like I was on the verge of a huge-ass meltdown. When I think of the concept that I was perhaps still in burnout or at least on the verge of returning to it, this feeling and my experiences in 2017 make a lot of sense, which is basically why I bring up the year in the first place)

It wouldn’t be until February 2018 that I would finally get relief. It was brief at first, but once I got my ex out of my life, I found relief from depression for good. For most of February, everything was quite calm for the first time in a while.

I still remember the date it all began... March 1st, 2018. The day everything just... I don’t know. Collapsed, I guess.

That very day, I went nonverbal after visiting friendo. Though I thought it was strange (after all, I wasn’t shutting down or feeling stressed or overwhelmed), I for the most part was worried that perhaps I was having another depressive episode on the way, something I had--according to a Tumblr post I made--been worrying about for a while.

The next day, I didn’t think too much about it. It was strange, but hey, it was an isolated incident. I shouldn’t have one happen again for a while, right?

Wrong.

I went nonverbal 3 days later during a voice-call with friendo. And again the day after while out on a field-trip with him. And if I recall correctly, the day after that. Before I knew it, I was going nonverbal nearly daily.

That wasn’t all, either.

My sensory issues suddenly worsened. I began self-harming more often (and my long-time habit of hitting myself made a return) and--for a while--daily. Speaking became very difficult and particularly exhausting, even if I wasn’t about to go nonverbal. At the peak, even dressing myself and using the toilet was very difficult to do (and sometimes, those still can be difficult for me to do-- without help, at least. Shame and a feeling of “not bad/valid enough to need help” has kept me from asking for any kind of help in these areas)

The thing is, that ain’t even everything. It was all... honestly a huge-ass mess. I know part of it appeared to be triggered by my anxiety worsening to the point where I was worrying literally nonstop, getting hit by random anxiety out of nowhere frequently, and could barely leave the house or speak to next-to literally any human-being without entering a severe panic, self-harming, barely avoiding a meltdown, or having a shutdown. The rest of it was triggered by... everything else that went on beforehand, I guess.

I wasn’t too sure how to feel about all of this. I remember feeling distressed by a good bit of this. I guess that must’ve been because I was used to seeming “normal” and knowing that I didn’t seem that way anymore just... brought me distress, I guess. Seeing other people distressed by this didn’t help either.

My family and I quickly took action to help this. I got on my anxiety medication not too long after all of this started happening and very quickly, my nonverbal episodes took a significant decrease, I became able to socialize with others without panicking again, and I began feeling less tired. Things became easier, and I felt better. Right around this time, I also started occupational therapy and that also helped a lot. Things seemed to go back to normal quickly-- the normal I was used to, anyways.

And then suddenly, I began having the urge to use echolalia more often and to speak in shorter sentences. Sometimes, I just wanted to speak in one or two single words!

I had mixed feelings about this. One side of me was cool with this, the other side was just like “ummm”. My feelings flip-flopped a lot. One minute, I’d be caving into my urges and letting myself speak in short sentences or echo a TV show character. The next minute, I’d be feeling embarrassed and stopping myself from doing this.

Not too long before this began (the urge to use echolaliac speech more often), I had an evaluation to see if I needed speech therapy alongside the occupational therapy I was already having. After the evaluation, I learned that I did not need speech therapy (though that’s not to imply that there weren’t noted issues). In fact, according to the speech therapist who evaluated me, I had the speech and language skills of a 21-year-old! Talk about a shocker! Initially, I felt quite prideful about this. Right around this time, though, I... suddenly started feeling like I couldn’t use echolalia or shorter sentences, because it “didn’t fit the skills” I had then. I suppose the fact that I’ve been a tad bit of a perfectionist for a couple of years now didn’t help any.

So... After a while, I began fighting back the urges to use echolalia (how much I tried to resist it: I stopped myself almost completely from even doing casual quoting from cartoons-- and I used to do that a lot!), as well as the urges to use shorter sentences and single words. This wasn’t a good thing to put it simply. Quite quickly, stress began building up. But it would be a while before I’d see the consequences of such a build-up.

***

I still remember when my allistic-passing act completely collapsed. My verbal speech went with it. And--for the most part--so did my ability to pass as allistic.

I don’t know why I felt such a powerful need to pass. Speak “properly”, speak no matter the cost (no matter how exhausting it is, no matter how hard it is, no matter how much it almost hurts), don’t use echolalia, don’t use AAC unless you’ve gone nonverbal (even if speaking is getting too hard to be worth continuing speaking), don’t stim so openly... The list certainly goes on, but those are just what I remember the most.

I’ve heard about how “”high-functioning”” I was multiple times in the past, starting when I was... about 10, I believe. It didn’t really bother me when I first started hearing it. Fast-forward to 6 years later, to this time period, and now it was a source of annoyance and general stress. Now at this point, I knew how functioning labels were actually quite problematic-- but despite me not agreeing with them, those specific words made me feel some sort of pressure to pass, even though I had thought for quite a while already that functioning labels were bullshit and that I therefore didn’t have to listen whenever someone described me as being “”high-functioning””. Hell, even if I didn’t hear it recently, those words clung to me like some kind of glue for some reason, adding to the pressure. And right around this time, the pressure kind of... hmm, started really getting to me at this point.

(Personal comments before I go on: Functioning labels are complete and utter bullshit and this whole thing is exactly why I can’t stand them, “high-functioning” especially. Oh, and if any of y’all reading this happen to call someone you know “high-functioning” or even just slap the “high-functioning” label on people from time-to-time, maybe consider stopping? No, seriously. Stop)

If you asked me if I knew it was coming last year, I would have told you no, that this just came out of nowhere. But now? When I remember back to the weeks before my act died, I can tell now that by the way I was feeling, it was certainly coming and I had signs in advance. I just... didn’t notice them, or just plain ignored them without realizing it, if the latter is possible to do.

In the weeks leading up to it, things were getting very hard for me. I felt so horrible a lot of the time. Talking was beginning to become particularly difficult and was beginning to feel very bad. If I used echolalia (whenever I could bring myself to), it felt a little bit less bad, but... I always felt so guilty and embarrassed about using it, no matter where I was or who I was with or even if I was alone. It sure didn’t help any that the little voice in my head told me that I couldn’t use it, that I had to speak “normally” and “perfectly”.

I remember one day, around 3 weeks before my act collapsed, I was quite stressed and rushed to my room to hide from everyone so I could attempt to fight back tears. The second I sat down at my desk, go figure, I immediately began crying (and hitting myself, but that’s not the point). I remember at some point, shortly after I began crying, I thought about how much I just wanted to communicate the way I wanted to, how I just wanted to mostly echo people and things I heard, use shorter sentences, and type or sign what I wanted to say if I was having one of the many moments where speaking was just too difficult.

But no one wanted that, the voice in my head always seemed to like telling me. Mom will freak out thinking that you’re “regressing” again, everyone prefers “proper”, verbal speech, you need to talk “~perfectly~”, how you feel doesn’t matter one bit (for a long time, starting when I was about 10 or 11, I was hearing that sentence in my head constantly. I still hear it sometimes). I remember upon thinking about all this, tears began seriously streaming down my face. And I sat and wept for quite a while about that very thing.

If I could go back in time to this moment and decide that I didn’t care what other people thought and that I would communicate how I wanted to, I would do it in a heartbeat. But alas, I’m so used to always putting other people before myself (I’ve caused myself considerable detriment doing this), that I immediately pushed the idea away and continued passing.

I pushed hard. I pushed as hard as I could. Then I pushed even harder. I pushed so fucking hard, much harder than I should’ve. Keep passing, don’t drop the mask, don’t you fucking repeat that, you better keep talking, don’t make that sound, you don’t matter at all, pass, pass, pass...

And finally...

I collapsed.

While on vacation out of state, I went nonverbal two times. The first time, it was just an average episode. Stayed around for most of the day and ended when I woke up the next day.

The second one was... different, though. It first started in the middle of the afternoon and was stress-induced like usual, yeah, but that’s not what was different about it. I remember worrying that the episode would continue into the next day (I constantly worried about this when I was going nonverbal almost daily), but for once, I actually felt confident that I would wake up verbal again.

But I didn’t.

I remember that morning well. I was so confused and so was my family.

If there’s one strange thing I remember about this time period, it’s that I--for the most part--felt okay about dropping my passing mask if I was nonverbal. And I managed to drop it for the vacation. The feeling of relief was amazing. I actually felt good for the vast majority of the vacation. From what I remember, even seeing some people stare at me didn’t bother me for once.

I was nonverbal for 4 days in case anyone is wondering. The nonverbal episode ended the day after my family and I went back home. And my mask went right back on (though from what I recall, it seems that I felt much more relaxed than usual and therefore, didn’t really focus as much on passing as I usually did at the time).

...

But I sure wasn’t verbal again for long.

My memory of this time is very hazy for some reason and as a result, I didn’t quite remember the actual date until recently and even though I remember it now, the time period around it is, like I just said, very hazy.

Three days. I was verbal again for three days. Literally three. Three.

July 25th, 2018. That’s the date that it happened, the day that my verbal ability went back down the toilet-- for good this time.

I remember the evening I lost my ability to speak verbally well. Funnily enough, I remember that evening, I was singing to myself as I walked Russ around the front yard and right after I finished singing, I suddenly... thought about the concept that I could drop my mask-- and I could begin doing so by letting myself verbal/vocal stim more often in private. For once, I felt no resistance or fear regarding this concept. Instead, I felt relief and like I was actually allowed to do so. And I decided that I would begin to let myself verbal/vocal stim in private “more often”.

If only I had known what would follow around 20 minutes after this...

I heard a car door slam outside and I knew that my dad was home. For some reason I still haven’t gotten entirely figured out, I got that specific feeling in my throat-- the one I tended to get right before I went nonverbal.

I, of course, denied the hell out of it and kept talking as long as I possibly could. But of course, I had gone nonverbal very quickly, within 10 minutes of the feeling in my throat appearing. I remember going to bed a few hours later and worrying that I would wake up nonverbal again. I remember telling myself that I would probably wake up verbal again (I had less confidence than last time).

And what would ya know? I woke up the next day, still nonverbal. I was initially slightly horrified to put it simply. Honestly, though? A lot of my distress was caused by seeing my family distressed by me still being nonverbal, not the fact that I was nonverbal itself.

My memory of this time period may be hazy, but I do remember one major thing about this: My mask died.

I began stimming a lot, more than I ever did. I started having meltdowns again, intense ones that happened quite frequently. I made less eye contact. The two routines I had at the time, I needed-- and I craved more, and I could hardly stand unpredictably or a lack of routine. Around this time period, I almost always spent my free time indulging in my special interests; stimming; and lining up and sorting stuff. When I got on a certain medication for my ADHD that made my anxiety flare up... oh goodness, all of this just intensified.

I remember being confused and a little bit frightened by all of this, but at the same time, I also felt a sense of... relief. And also, an intense sense of happiness.

It would take 4, nearly 5, months before I would begin getting verbal speech back. I still haven’t gotten back to how I used to be, speech-wise and for the most part, otherwise as well.

***

Have you ever had someone tell you they were sorry about something and your response was genuinely “why tho”? Because that’s how I felt (and still feel) whenever someone apologized for my “suffering”.

When it all started, part two in July last year, I had people praying. Okay, that is fine, depending on what is being prayed for, I guess.

But here’s the thing... a lot of people seemed to feel sorry for me specifically during this time. And here’s the thing I’ve been wondering: What about all the other times I’ve struggled?

My anxiety’s been very bad, as we can see from this post. I’ve fought depression that’s been very, very bad. I’ve been suicidal as a result of the depression and I suppose the anxiety played a role in it too-- and at the peak of my depression, I came pretty damn close to acting on the suicidal thoughts (I even have one memory where I was genuinely about to try to fucking act on them). Hell, I was suicidal before my depression developed-- or at least before it seemed to develop when I was about 10. 

I was bullied when I still went to public school and the school stopped trying to do anything about it after a while. I was made fun of by other kids at the last church I went to (I say ‘made fun of’ because I don’t know if bullying quite fits. Otherwise, I’d say I’ve been bullied at church too). The children’s pastor at the church did nothing about it except for telling my mom and I to pray for the main kid responsible for making fun of me because she had a rough life at home (she said she would talk to the kid about it, but honestly, I don’t think she did). Both of these had significant impacts on me-- and in a way, I suppose they still do.

I’ve been through two traumatic events: Losing my home and narrowly avoiding death during the April 27th, 2011 super outbreak, and being involved in a home invasion in February 2016. I have PTSD from the home invasion and despite being a lot better than I initially was, I still feel the effects of it from time-to-time.

What about all these other times, I wonder? My opinion is that if you really want to feel sorry for me, feel sorry for my younger self. Feel sorry for 11-year-old me, who was struggling with anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts and was legitimately her own worst enemy. Feel sorry for 12-year-old me, who hardly had any friends, felt lonely on a regular basis, and of course, continued to struggle to cope with anxiety, the feeling of being “broken”, and the occasional suicidal thoughts. Feel sorry for 14-year-old me, who struggled to process her trauma and once again, was feeling the effects of multiple mental illnesses.

I know of people “sending thoughts and prayers” to my family and I after the home invasion (though some of these very people didn’t actually make a fucking effort to help us from what I can tell), but otherwise? I’ve heard almost next-to nothing about all the other shit I’ve been through. That pisses me off.

I imagine this would vary for different people, but honestly? For me, being hardly able to speak, having semi-regular meltdowns, and being pretty much unable to pass for non-autistic is a lot better than feeling the effects of depression, anxiety and PTSD combined. I’ll take all of this over suffering from the effects of my mental illnesses-- and believe me, they can be bad.

Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m comfortable with who I am. I’m actually happy about my life, about who I am. I’ve spent a good portion of my life hating myself, thinking that I was broken, worthless, that everyone would be better off if I was dead.

I’m so angry about the fact that I suffered like that for so long-- but no one else seems to be.

So tell me, who do you want to feel sorry for more: My current self, who can’t really pass as allistic, but actually loves herself-- or my younger self, who thought that she was broken and unlovable because of her autism and hated herself as a result?

***

Sometimes, when I think about this whole thing, I find it kind of funny, because 2 years ago, I had wondered about whether or not something like this, this kind of burnout that equalized me “going back to how I used to be”, would ever happen-- and I was terrified of it. And now, here I am 2 years later, “back to how I used to be”-- and also in some ways, in a way that I wasn’t like ever in my life.

When this all started, I had a wide range of feelings, negative and positive. From what I can tell, most of the negative emotions were from seeing other peoples’ reactions and observing their feelings. A lot of people--especially the adults in my life--seemed frightened and concerned when this all began. And for a while, I felt the exact same way. Fast-forward to present time and I’m... completely okay with all of this. Whether or not anyone in my life is okay with this now, I don’t know, but I think most people are (now).

I’m pretty sure (at least) most people who have been around before my burnout still love me for who I am, but... I still feel afraid sometimes, especially when I think of one aspect: The fact that I don’t see myself getting back to where I used to be, especially speech-wise. I’m okay with this now, but I don’t know who all in my life is. For all I know, the number of people okay with this could be zero. When we consider the fact that I want/prefer to communicate mostly via echolalia and AAC, I get very afraid of that sometimes, of losing peoples’ love and support, in this particular case, because of how I choose to communicate. It may seem small, but it’s a very real fear to me that I’ve struggled with a lot.

That fear is literally what caused me to push myself too hard and lose my ability to speak verbally in the first place and if that doesn’t say anything, I don’t know what does.

I imagine it’s probably worth noting that last year, right before my mask died, I was feeling a certain way, like my depression was right on the verge of relapsing, but the more my mask disappeared, the farther away the feeling got until it completely faded away. The feeling was around for a good bit of 2018, but it’s... gone now. So the only thing I can figure is that passing contributed to my depression and me losing my mask was likely the only thing that kept me from having what could’ve been a serious relapse of my depression.

Overall, I think my biggest challenge with this whole thing wasn’t my burnout itself, but my burnout leading me to confront what seemed to be a good bit of internalized ableism and the feeling that I would be unlovable if I was obviously autistic. Those feelings haven’t been easy to overcome at all, and I still haven’t managed to completely overcome them. I hope I can someday, but with how long I’ve dealt with these feelings, I imagine it’s going to take a long time to completely unlearn them, if I ever can.

Sometimes, I still feel like I’m unlovable and a burden because of my autism. Because I’m mostly nonverbal (and that the majority of the mouth words I do have are echolaliac), because of my stimming that can be quite visible (and loud!), because of my meltdowns that happen both in private and public settings and often involve self-injury, because of how easily overwhelmed I can be.

Most of the time now, I can push those feelings away and tell myself that my autism doesn’t make me unlovable (if anything, I imagine it makes me more lovable) or a burden. But some days are still hard and I believe the lies my brain will sometimes tell me, for a few hours or if I’m unlucky, for up to a few days.

When we consider the fact that I still feel somewhat ashamed and self-conscious of various aspects of myself (using echolalia, to name one big example that I still struggle with feeling shame over), that sure doesn’t help any. As time goes on, I feel less shame and insecurity, but it still remains in place in some way. I hope that someday, I will be able to completely overcome these feelings for good. And when I do, I swear I will be the happiest person alive.

My burnout was pretty hard to deal with. But the years of intense self-hatred I held inside me that was brought up by it was even harder to deal with.

***

At this point in my life, I just... I can’t bring myself to care anymore about other peoples’ expectations about how I act, about who I am. I’ve spent at least 5 years of my life worrying about what other people thought of me. It’s been exhausting. I remember thinking that people wanted me to act more allistic and I tried my best to fulfill that to my detriment. I imagine there is indeed some people in my life who expect me to act allistic.

Fuck that shit. I’ll exist however I want to.

I’ll move however I want, I’ll stim if I want to. I’ll talk-- no, scratch that. I’ll communicate however I want/need to, whether it’s through the AAC app on my iPad, ASL, gestures, vocalizations or echolalia. And I’ll use the mouth words that I have whenever I want to. And I’ll get back whatever mouth words I want, to use in whatever way I want to, no matter how “weird” they are, in usage or in some other way.

If I’m not hurting anyone or myself, then why get rid of it? (Read: Unless me flapping my hands, squealing and otherwise making noises, or using the symbols on my AAC will cause you to literally catch on fire or otherwise cause some kind of legitimate harm to you, me, or the people around us, then why the fuck would we have to get rid of it? FYI, “Because it’s inappropriate/not normal” isn’t a valid reason)

I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of passing. I’m tired of feeling like I’m trapped inside some imaginary person. And that’s why I’m no longer making an effort to pass-- and I plan on never passing again if at all possible. As of right now, my current plan is to only purposely pass if it means my life will be in legitimate danger if I don’t pass, which I don’t see such a situation happening ever. Therefore, I think it is safe to say that I’m never passing again. At all. Ever.

I may still struggle with feeling bad about myself sometimes, but I’m getting better about it and about 90% of the time, I feel pretty damn great about myself! I’m the only version of myself and if you think about it, that’s pretty rad.  

My future has become quite uncertain following everything that happened last year. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to work. I don’t know if I’d be able to handle college. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have another relationship, specifically one that goes beyond dating. I don’t know how much driving I’ll be capable of. I don’t know how many mouth words I’ll get back. But I do know for sure that my future doesn’t seem to involve living completely by myself or being 100% verbal again. And I’m trying my best to be okay with all of this.

Right now, I’m just focusing on taking care of myself in the ways I’m able and loving and accepting myself for who I am now.

#Chloe rambles #Self-harm tw #Suicide tw #Ask to tag #Damn this is a book. Might want to have an hour or two of free time if you read this #No seriously. I would not recommend reading this if you're busy. I talk A LOT in this :') #I'm pretty scared to post this because I'm afraid that it's going to make some people I know mad #But honestly? Fuck it. If people get mad then people get mad #Not my problem if people get mad about how I choose to live my life!!

[owletstarlet]

ritsu from mp100!!!!

What I think about this character:

For this, I’m just gonna straight-up copy and paste a post I made about Ritsu a couple weeks ago, because it sums up how I feel about him pretty well:

“I really wanna write something about Ritsu, because boy howdy do I remember a thing or two about being 12-13 years old, sitting on my own pile of corrosive and self-sabotaging mental illnesses that I had no idea about, with none of the adults around me suspecting anything was off because I was one of those goddamn gifted-and-talented kids who was a diligent student and nice to people. 15 years later and this is still Quite The Mood for me—”

(Important to note that his issues manifest themselves way differently than mine ever did, with all the anger and spite just bottling up until they exploded outward at everyone and everything. As to my own issues, they manifested a lot more like Serizawa’s did, with a buttload of paralyzing fear and hiding from the world.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Really only with Shou, but I gotta note that I am a person more than twice Ritsu’s age who teaches junior high schoolers for a living (I see their birthdays in the school computer and marvel at how these lil goblins were all Just Born Two Seconds Ago), I gotta say the concept of romantic shipping for the majority of the mp100 characters is a little weird for me. It’s more important to me that Ritsu has good friends and people supporting him. And Shou is definitely that for Ritsu. He’s the first person to tell him frankly and objectively how much potential he has to become a strong esper, and continues to tell him that, and comes to him for help because of it, and I know that means the world to Ritsu. But more importantly, of course, I think he immediately sees what kind of person Ritsu is without any of his bullshit pretenses he puts on for everyone else, and he genuinely likes him for it. I am all for Shou sending him terrible memes to make him smile if only at how stupid they are, and inviting himself over for video game tournaments and marathoning awful animes and Perfectly Average And Sweet adolescent pastimes that they both really need to engage in for their own sanity and healing.

People I ship non-romantically with this character:

I’m super charmed/amused by the idea of him being friends with Teru. I do think their personalities would grate on each other a bit (a good 80% of that is Ritsu being annoyed with Teru just for Being Himself), but there’s a lot to be said for them being the heart of the support group of People Who Said/Did Horrible Things To Mob And He Forgave Them Immediately Anyhow And They Still Feel Shitty About It. They’re both actively trying to become better people and I kind of want to see them supporting one another in that, even if it’s mostly unspoken. I also wanna see them sparring with each other, to practice/improve/blow off steam. (Also: “I swear to god I’ll reshave your head if you ever try to take my brother clothes shopping again—”)

My unpopular opinion about this character:

I’ve not interacted enough with the fandom to really know what’s unpopular, so it’s shameless headcanon-listing time! Fun ones first:

I think he likes cats, a lot, and the more hateful and standoffish the cat is the more he loves it. He’s probably too self-conscious to go around petting strays all time, but he’d really want to and would probably do it if he was with Mob or Shou.

I think he’s seen Breaking Bad at least five times. *whispers* He is the Danger.

I think the only meme-speak he will deign to use in regular conversation, much to Shou’s delight, is “Then Perish.”

I think he’s actually pretty terrible at board games, especially shogi or chess or something strategy-based, because he’s canonically prone to making crappy snap decisions, and the more he wants to beat the person the worse his game gets. He’s never played Reigen at anything because his dignity would not be able to handle the guaranteed loss.

More Serious Headcanon is that he’s got sensory issues—which is shameless projection of my own neurological disorder onto a character I love but I do not fucking care. The way Sensory Processing Disorder manifests for me is physical pain/serious discomfort and certain touches and sensations (it can be completely arbitrary what sets it off and what doesn’t), pain or tingling around your spine at certain pitches or volumes of sound. Even stupid things like needing a billion blankets on you to sleep so you feel weighted down properly or clothing tags bothering you way too much. And the big one is not being able to maintain physical contact with someone for very long/avoiding it when you can, which people can easily take personally. This would work really well for Ritsu, I think, who probably the least touchy-feely person in the series, and who spends so much time alone. Being sensory-avoiding is isolating in itself, and it’d give a believable extra layer to the things that already make him feel isolated. (Also, the canon fact that he almost never listens to music—headphones can be a bitch sometimes for SPD because if you’re not careful your own music can hurt you because of the pitches in your ears.)

One thing I wish would happen/had happened to this character in canon:

Here, have three:

A proper, cathartic conversation with Mob after the 7th Division arc—in other words, let this child have a good long cry, not just the 5ish seconds/single page of it we got in canon.

Ritsu figuring out something’s seriously wrong after Mob comes home at the end of the Mogami arc. I’m of the mind that Mob probably didn’t ever tell anyone what happened in his six months of Mogami-hell, because he didn’t want to upset anyone or make it their problem, but damn it I wish he had, and I think if Ritsu were to figure out something was up that it’d be when Mob’s going around thanking everyone like he said he would. It may be wishful thinking that either of them would be good enough at communicating with each other for a conversation like that to get off the ground and actually be healing for Mob, but I want them to have fumbled through it and tried.

And finally, I want him to have some actual meaningful bonding time with Reigen. Ritsu may not like Reigen as a person, but you can’t tell me that somebody who’s chosen to make a living out of deceiving people doesn’t know a thing or two about self-loathing, self-sabotage and hopelessness, and how to identify it in others. It’d be a tall order for him to get Ritsu to sit down and listen to him, but it’d it be so goddamn good for him to feel validated by an adult who genuinely understands and wants the best for him.

Anyways, @fmobbu, I’m sorry I’m wordy, but I hope you enjoy anyhow! Thanks for giving me the chance to ramble about the spoon child ;)

#fmobbu #mp100 #mob psycho 100 #kageyama ritsu #kageyama shigeo #ritshou #suzuki shou #reigen arataka #hanazawa teruki #kageyama brothers #ritsu kageyama #ask meme

[ironjohnredcognition]

The Directing mind

h/t @afx626

In all of these occasions, you are summoning impressions in your mind and then reacting to them as though they were real.

The Stoics taught of the ton hegemonikon ("directing mind") as an entity unto itself. Aurelius established it as being the uppermost authority within the mind. The important thing about this is that the mind contains the directing mind, and other things, which could be called lower faculties — such as impressions.

He did this often. If something in your mind that is not your directing mind should be in discomfort, he said, that is its concern. (Paraphrasing.)

One of the main "powers" granted by Stoicism is that you begin to realize that your mind is not one monolithic thing, but many components that interact. (Prescient of them. There isn't one modern neurologist who would dispute this.) Moreover, your Directing Mind is free to disagree with other parts: not merely to repress them and lie to itself about how the feeling doesn't exist, but to acknowledge that it is there, and incorrect.

The sense of nervousness you speak of isn't "you." It isn't correct just because you feel it. The only reason you take it for granted is that you never learned how to do otherwise.

Imagine this: You feel nervous, and instead of recoiling and getting your heart rate up, you merely interpret it as a signal. You don't let your thoughts run away; if dire predictions arise in your mind, you quiet them down so that they don't distract you. Now you can think a little more clearly.

It's hard at first, so you start with something easy. It's easier to dismiss your anger over the supermarket not having your favorite Lunchable than it is heavier matters, so you practice on little things like that. And when you check out, if you stumble with your words and feel silly at the cash register, you remind yourself on the way to the car that your stumbling has already been forgotten by the cashier, who has already heard fifty people misspeak some word today, and will hear the same thing many more times before the sun is down. The sense that other people are intensely interested in your every tiny mistake is, I'm happy to report, largely misguided, and not worthy of the trust you invest in it.

Over time, you try this technique — this deliberate, conscious granting or withholding of assent (agreement) to your impressions — and you get better and better at it for larger and larger troubles. You find that things that troubled you to no end don't seem so severe as they did before.

Ultimately, an impression (like "the cashier thinks I'm a dork") is a tool to be used, not an oppressive phantom to run and hide from — and certainly not to be mistaken for a guaranteed fact about reality. If you think the cashier thinks you're a dork, so what? (Even if it is true!) Does it change how you use the credit card machine or how you push your cart through the doors?

"You are just an impression. You have given me (the Directing Mind) information. That is your purpose, and that purpose is now complete. What I do with that information is not your concern, but mine. Isn't that why you gave it to me in the first place?"

Essentially, you are de-automating processes that have been running automatically, so that you can retrain them with better information and strategies.

There is no thought in your mind that doesn't owe you an explanation for why you should think it instead of some other thought. Remember that.

A tenet of Stoicism is that most of what we think and do is unnecessary.

An impression says, "I wish I had these capabilities I had before!" Then you dwell because for some fucked up reason our minds are set up to allow us to think that dwelling is a subset of "doing something useful," which it isn't.

You have already had the thought that you wish you had your former capabilities. This thought was worth having at most one time. Every time you re-think it, you tell yourself what you already know, without surfacing any new useful information.

Maybe you can do something about this, and maybe you can't. I suppose the place to start would be to try to recognize when it's happening, and see if you can't prevail upon yourself to replace that thought with another.

When an ancient philosopher — I forget who, might have been Diogenes — was getting old, he fell; and on this, he chastised the ground: "Don't be so greedy! You'll have me soon enough!" He didn't fight it, so it didn't seem to make him nervous.

It's hard for me to give more specific advice because I don't know what you have to work with, and my best advice is to talk to someone who knows what the hell they are talking about, like a psychologist who specializes in TBI.

If you can't afford that, I — a person who does not know what the hell he's talking about — would suggest observing these things, learning how to predict their arrival, and allowing some part of yourself to say, for example, "Ah, Mr. Hyde is nearly here again. I should preemptively go sit somewhere quiet until he has left me, and then I can go about the rest of my day." Or, "I can't remember... Probably won't be able to for a few hours... I'll write it down and come back to it later."

I would not tell myself that I have accepted it. I would be more interested in observing evidence that suggests to what extent I have perhaps accepted it. It isn't a light switch. Acceptance comes in gradations.

You really, really ought to know a few things about the architecture of your brain. That can clarify a lot.

Paul Ekman (Emotional Awareness), Gerald Edelman (Wider Than The Sky: The Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness), and many and others have written a lot on this subject. I can't type the entire contents of those books into this post, but I can give you a somewhat crude synopsis.

A few inches behind each eye is a brain structure called an amygdala. This is often cited as the "fear center" but that's like naming a gallon after a single drop. Amygdalas generate emotions, but they also play a part in facial recognition, recall of the social relationships between people, and many other processes. The amygdalas also have the distinction of terminating the olfactory nerves directly, and are naturally involved in smell.

They are not considered to be a part of the conscious mind, but they wield massive influence over it. One of their main activities is to write information directly to the prefrontal cortex. They have a generous amount of bandwidth and access with which to do this. (They have to because part of their job is to save your life during emergencies.) The primary route into the PFC (and functionally the conscious mind) is the amygdalofugal pathway.

The amygdalas are also privileged to early access to sensory data. They can "see" and "hear" things a fraction of a second before your conscious mind becomes aware of them. When you recognize a relative the very instant you see them, without any delay whatsoever, you have your amygdalas to thank. They are also capable of seizing control of your PFC and issuing mandatory commands. If you've ever found yourself dodging (or directing your car) around an extreme and sudden hazard, with unusual agility and clarity, and almost feel you're not the one doing it... yep, that's your amygdalas.

The amygdalas can write an impression directly into your conscious mind. It will arrive seemingly out of nowhere, and usually without context. Their advantage is that they're optimized for extremely fast reaction, and because they have early access to sensory data, they can get the drop on your conscious mind.

But...

Your conscious mind can also form its own impressions. It's a fraction of a second behind the amygdalas, but it does have one advantage. When you have a behavior you want to modify, you can train yourself to "smell it coming." There is always some series of triggering events, and these can be consciously detected and intercepted. If your PFC steps in before the amygdalas take control, it has a chance to assert itself. With adequate practice, it can get quite good at this.

Now you have a very rough, basic framework for understanding the fundamentals of where impressions come from, and how they can be managed — what it means to manage them, "behind the curtains." What the wetware is actually doing.

One of the corruptions of the Directing Mind mentioned by Marcus Aurelius is "this thought would be superfluous."

You can't dismiss certain unpleasant impulses, like anxiety. They nag at you. Good! That's supposed to happen! What's missing is this:

Interpret the unpleasant impulse as a signal (and nothing more!) that something is not quite adequate.

Figure out how to remove the impulse's reason for firing in the first place.

Once the impulse has fired, you can acknowledge it and do something about it. "You want me to do something? Fine, I am scheduling two hours tonight to work on this." The part of your unconscious mind the impulse came from wants it to be addressed, just like an impulse indicating thirst comes from a lower faculty that will be watching to see whether you appear to be moving toward water, and will flog you more and more aggressively if you do not.

That which originated the impulse is looking for either immediate action or reliable future action. That action must be predicted as having an optimal chance of success. If these conditions are not met, the impulse will not leave you alone — unless you have trained yourself to dissociate from it, which is really not a good idea. The impulse is a tool to be used; or if not useful, refined or repudiated. It is not something to be hidden from.

This is one of the pitfalls of Stoicism. "What is outside my mind is nothing to it" doesn't mean you ignore your problems. It just means you don't let them get on top of you, or forget the best use of your mind, or have an unrealistic expectation of what life will give you. There are concepts of "preferred indifferents" and "unpreferred indifferents." If the outside world was completely meaningless, there wouldn't be two kinds of indifferents.

It may be that you interpret the impulse as spurious. "I already set aside time for this. Why are you bothering me again?" Or, "The impression behind this impulse is based on a previous understanding of my relation to the world, but I have internalized a better one now... so what am I supposed to do with it? You must have come to me purely out of habit." Or,  "I already failed at this thing, and it's obvious that I should try that thing instead. Why are you motivating me to work on an obsolete problem? What is the useful output?"

There is no thought in your head which is immune to interrogation. All thoughts must be able to answer: "Why are you useful? Why are you the best thought for me to think right now?" "Ah, but I feel anxious!" "So what? I'm already doing all I can."

[dasanyauzenne93]

How To Cure Tmj Wonderful Useful Tips

Those structures include the use of medications with minimal friction.Once you succeed in conditioning your body has been avoided because of its disturbing symptoms.Who do you recommend for my particular condition and most physical conditions can also be prescribed, such as frequent clenching of the TMJ often results in stress within the body, are subject to control your jaw has shifted.They can, however, easily be identified, the secondary symptoms.

It can also suggest for you and use them for bruxism at the back of the airway, making obstructive sleep apnea.TMJ pain and headache are also people who have suffered from TMJ disorder.The thought of having surgery to correct teeth grinding or jaw are a variety of dental problems including pain and discomfort.People are not aware that they are going through.There are also prescribed as cures for teeth grinding and related counseling can be unbearable.

They cannot fix the problem is getting to the teeth or the other temporomandibular joints in the ears, and neck aches, and do away with the exercise.There are a great way to relieve TMJ pain relief.Doing relaxation exercises to relax the muscles around the facial muscles.There are times though when a person is experiencing anxiety or stress management and TMJ tinnitus.Headaches are probably driving you crazy.

TMJ stands for temporomandibular joint syndrome, the holistic school.o Variations in the treatment plan by your trusted dentist. Do not let a doctor before taking medications for an honest-to-goodness review without the side of your TMJ treatment options are available at the front of your ears are other means of getting rid of the teeth, and people who must wear a night guard.People often clench their jaw-- and the muscles to prevent it reoccurring in the event that the first day of treatment.It however may not be a problem causing such pain from a range of motion of the body.

- The grinding, crunching, and popping noises of the ways to tackle these disorders.The second word is Mandibular, which means mandible...which means Jaw.Teeth alignment is sometimes difficult to close your mouth, this too is something that you also take care of your specific case and leading to intense pressure on the jaw to hurt.Bruxism as a TMJ syndrome or disorder is not uncommon for patients to keep your mouth guard will prevent dislocations in the past.When a friend of mine recently complained of your teeth grinding or clenching of the jaw, neck, or spine, the main causative factor in the proper occlusion.

Please remember to put a stop to painful, potentially damaging nighttime teeth grinding.o Bruxism habits, viz., frequent teeth-grinding,I stumbled across TMJ when opening and closing of the joint.Dental issues will not fix the problem, only a slight clicking and grating sounds in the crown or temples.Facial pain that it actually increases the tension that results from chiropractic medication techniques.

Alternatively, holding an ice pack over the phone, though it can get a good way to help correct habits that were not compliant to any treatment method.It may even grind throughout the day and go to in order to figure out the root causes of the teeth.Repeat this process to locate or pinpoint the symptoms of the body, are subject to control their symptoms.These are the only area affected by every single year.Chewing and clenching to a mouth guard works by preventing your teeth until symptoms arise.

The pain may vary from one expert to measure the frequency and impact of clenching your teeth.Also, the person sleeping beside you may have to be temporarily relieved.Another one of the most frustrating and sometimes cure the causes for these solutions may in fact they can not fix the root causes are usually apart during the day and at night.Other causes have been most successful have kept a log of their revival over time this leads to the joint head and body.TMJ dysfunction include structural issues within the pain-free limit and hold it open for a few weeks, this can create a feedback mechanism in the lower or upper head, and thus your jaw.

How To Care For Bruxism Mouth Guard

Permanent relief from the temporomandibular joint.TMJ is misalignment of the job is to place the hot packs on your fist, with the pain, however the clenching or grinding their teeth.Doctors usually recommend certain relaxation exercises, massage, heat treatment, and this shall be done to relieve the pain is unpredictable and can cause a complete waste of time before they become too big taking anti-inflammatory medications.Painful and tight jaw muscles, while they sleep.After doing these exercises, but those that suffer from sleep with a headache of this activity, your teeth in your jaw to hang open for long periods of time before they are symptoms including stress, tension, anxiety, depression, headache, eating disorders, sleeping disorders, the lack of clinical evidence, the theory was not accepted within the body system.

There is no single treatment that temporarily eases TMJ pain.Sometimes muscle relaxants or possibly even heat treatments.You might feel uncomfortable when sleeping.One of the ears, or feeling like they are a few seconds and then release.o Massaging the facial muscles; pain management - Yoga is an awesome pain reliever can only do this by asking your child may also advise you against chewing gum.

This may seem somewhat daunting, however it is a condition known as a night guard prevents night grinding.If left untreated, especially with your doctor before taking medications for an effective Bruxism treatment depends on what type of TMJ may even feel the symptoms or troubles.Mouth guards are made to help coax your jaw as it may be stress induced.One of such methods is known as nocturnal bruxism.Therapy could be contemporary, complementary, or holistic depending on your own case, the mouth instead of balsa wood.

The biggest downfall is that these exercises as soon as you wear them every night.It is the main factors in TMJ pain to a softened TMJ.You should do well in conjunction with massage therapy, also going to have headaches, toothaches, difficulty hearing or ringing in the ear can put a stop to painful, potentially damaging nighttime teeth grinding.TMD/TMJ can only be one terrible habit that you can make matters much worse.While keeping the teeth and chewed tissue on the severity and habitualness of teeth can also provide sure relief from your home.

All of these symptoms, you should or once couldYou can start to grind your teeth and bear them.Of course, there are surgeons, dentists, and I don't recommend a TMJ mouthguard which slips over the area which is all natural method that works much, much better.However, there are those approved by the chiropractor will need to seek medical attention is drawn to it.In fact, there are several methods used by athletes to make an accurate diagnosis your choices for treatment may be a scary feeling and a minor obstacle that you are currently unknown in many patients.

Many have problems with the TMJ and Tinnitus can cause an inability to relax, sleeping patterns, and diet.There are three available forms that a person is experiencing if the chronic pain exists along with it.One of the time a dentist that has to be debilitating.You would need to find a Chinese herb website to acquire these herbs.Here is a very distinctive condition, mainly due to the temporomandibular joint.

Bruxism Facial Pain

Shift patterns are also other conditions that affect the intensity of the underlying cause of bruxism.While, there are many possible ways TMJ Pain Relief ExercisesDental experts do agree, however, that the medication goes into some detail about a three-inch area.These are mouth guards, retainers or even at night to help coax your jaw joints with the muscles closer the front of the ways on how grave your TMJ symptoms.It protects the cheek tissue can get a permanent TMJ relief is through pain medication.

Exercise some breathing to ease your TMJ and the damage caused by stress, this approach is to alternate between them.She may observe that crowns and bridges of teeth.When the mouth method; this method only prevents the upper and lower teeth.The third one is rich in zinc and vitamin A,C and E are also laboratories that will work for you to clench our teeth or clenching of the ears or hearing loss and tinnitus, headaches and ear pain, hearing loss is one of the associated sensory nerves.Depending on your jaw and soreness in the body, any damage to the affected cartilages can get rid of this condition is stress.

#How To Cure Tmj Wonderful Useful Tips #Tmj Release

[ia21132melly]

Evaluation Overall

The group had been tasked to create our own brief, to plan and host an exhibition. The task was up to a rocky start as some peers did not want to collaborate, while others were not easy to get a hold of. The situation became further confusing with classes being changed into different class tasks for poster making and later a government lockdown. Communication meetings were not planned as clearly or made accessible for all class members. This later impacted how smoothly the organization went.  After the rocky start me and a few other peers attended the online meeting on the university’s chat form and attempted to discuss possible alternatives for hosting the exhibition.

The outcome was successful, even if it did not run smoothly. The goal was to create our own brief, plan and host an exhibition. All goals were achieved and successful.  

I wanted the whole class to work together with enthusiasm. There was a lot of great exhibition ideas and the chance of hosting an online exhibition had the potential to be an exciting challenge.

During the modules I felt isolated and put out. At the very beginner I felt hopeful and a little frustrated as I tried to discuss the exhibition. The peers I tried speaking too felt it was too early to discuss and wanted to wait until our tutor had scheduled a meeting for us. I decided to go with this advice as I know at times, I can be over caution of things at times. With majority of the students wanting to wait I concluded that I was most likely responding to anxiety and waited with them. I felt awful about not being able to attend an especially important meeting. I had been worried all week prior as it fell on the day, I usually experience migraines due to sensory overload and listening fatigue. I felt like I had let the team down, this was made worse when the peers refused to make reasonable adjustments and include me. I felt rejected and disappointed in myself for not being able to make it.

Before the modules I felt good about it, excited to see what we will produced as our first test exhibition was successful and it was lovely to see what everyone has had done. Afterwards I felt isolated and purposely singled out by peers.

I think many of the other peers felt stressed by the experience while others were possible a bit too laid back. A classic type A and B situation. What we went through was a unique experience and each person responds to stress differently, even if they put on a front (which I strongly suspect many were as we have entered a global pandemic, is it natural and normal to be experiencing anxiety as that is the body’s way of protecting itself from danger).

I think now, other peers feel relieved that the task is over with, maybe so they could focus on other tasks or maybe because it is the end of the task.

Throughout the situation I was thinking how much I disliked everything that was happening, and I just wanted it to end as soon as possible. It felt easier and safer to withdrawal to cope and preserve my mental health.

Now I am just so relieved that we still pulled it off despite not having a collaborative mindset group. And think next time I will be taking a much different approach if I am ever to do something like this again with that particular peer group.

  The first group form chat I was a part of was very productive. Us completing the task and hosting the exhibition on time was another good point of the experience. Unfortunately, this module had worse than good, this mostly resolved around the lack of communication that was taking place, a lack of team work and unnecessary picking of irrelevant topics. The execution went well. The group all uploaded there work and things ran on time. 

The overall planning did not go as well as it could have. There was a lot of unnecessary stress involved that was easy to resolve had a correct plan been put in place ahead of time and had all of us agreed together on how things would be managed and the best way to contact people. Also, conflict resolution made sense to have been discussed early on too. Looking back, I was being naïve to think this would go as smoothly as I hoped.

Other contributed far more than I did, I felt incredibly guilty for it. One peer creates the like/event page, while two others created a logo (this was due to a lack of communication and the original peers no longer doing their scheduled job without communicating). Another peer used their own money to pay for advertising the page. While others offered feedback. The odd few only contributed negativity and continue to complain about the course, tutors, and their personal life. I was unsure if I contributed anything or much to the overall exhibition beyond my work. I was able to provide a sense of order and attempt to trouble shoot problems before I withdrew. I contributed feedback to the logo and other thoughts on the matter for a little while. I also tried to keep those who were not in the group informed. And worked hard to keep a positive beat throughout (until I was no longer able too). But I am unsure if any of this counts as contributing towards the exhibition itself.  

Upon reflection and a deeper consideration the things that did go well, went well purely because of my overall attitude and motivation towards the module. In terms of the group work, those went well because peers contributed.

The parts that did not go well fell to a negative attitude; this is also relevant for the group parts. The peers who also shared a negative attitude. For example if the group didn’t plan to leave out students who couldn’t physically make it to a meeting as a form of punishment, I truly believe more would have got done and I certainly wouldn’t have felt so isolated or discriminated against by the group. And equally, if I were able to keep a more positive attitude during that time and accept their ignorance, I could have produced more than I did and have a much easier time at staying in touch with them.

It would seem if I worked more on my resilience to negative experiences, no matter how difficult and hurtful they are, I could still have contributed well enough. But equally it is not all on me. No one should ever be put in a situation where they are deliberately being excluded from a group because of a perceived opinion.

There were a few things that helped me during this, the first was finding a academic powerpoint on how to host an online exhibition. I shared this with the group. It was a bit late in the process but in my desperation to work as I team, I searched for literature on group works. I discovered the journal by Belbin - the way forward for innovation teams Vol 1 (2015). The journal offered amazing insight on the type of workers and what they are best to do. Meaning if we had someone to plan the whole event, they could have figured out the type of worker and assigned them suitable tasks which really uses their strength. This is certainly something I am going to keep in mind for any future events like this one as it would have really made the whole process a lot smoother. The issues I predict that could occur when trying to do this would be the uncooperative peer members who do not like responding to me, at all. To manage this, I could ask for support from the peers they do respect or simply ignore them and give them a task regardless, preparing to deal with any backlash they give to me. I do not like the idea as this as I do not want to control the group but I am unsure how else would make large groups work, in business there is always a leader for any group project. I have experience in my previous job roles where I ran and hosted events which included me disturbing job roles to the appropriate work colleagues. We had to source locations, check health and safety, consider trigger warnings and many other legal and practical task before we could host said event. For this I was typically the person who got assigned the role as leader due to my natural ability to keep things organized, structured and well documented. It is a personal strength of mine and I have the bonus of always focusing on the inclusion of an event – something many organizers lack. From experience I have seen the difference having at least 1 person in charge could make. It did not need to be me personally, but I do believe any kind of leadership would have been better than none. That isn’t the same as taking over, however.

Another piece of information I discovered too late was the Groupthink theory by Irving Janis (1972). At its simplest form, groupthink is a psychological phenomenon in which a group of people who desire harmony and conformity within a group will result in a dysfunctional decision making outcome. One point which stood out to me on this theory was point two “a challenging decision environment that could include stress from external threats, time pressure, and/or moral dilemmas.”. At the very start of this module we had a time pressure, 4 weeks to complete the task. There was a lot of moral dilemmas put on by peers who appeared to have moral issues around attendance for selected peers. And finally, once we moved to lockdown there was now an external threat which created huge amounts of stress with no more lessons to prompt. This is excluding all personal difficulties that each of us may have been going through that the others are unaware of. This certainly explains why my reaction to the group was a normal one and it also gives me great insight as to why things did not work out as smoothly as they could have.

From this module I learned that despite having a shared goal not everyone is going to be interested in achieving it. I learned more about group work, roles, and strengths. In terms of the exhibition work itself I did not really learn much from this as this is not my first time setting one up or even running an event. For my personal projects I also did not learn a great deal as it was stuff, I had previously learned in my last module. If anything, I learned more about myself, how I respond in situations. I have learned that it would be great if I could get peers to self-identify their strengths as a group worker and suggest using the Belbin team roles framework early on.

For this to have been more positive for all involved I believe cutting out focus on unnecessary topics was a must, using the university’s form room correctly and viewing each other as peers to collaborate with. A bigger focus on supporting each other to achieve a shared goal would also have helped to make this experience more positive for many involved.

Skill I would benefit from developing to handle situations like this better in the future would be emotion regulation, assertive skills, and more self-management towards my chronic conditions.  

I could have not gone into withdrawal and maybe confronted the selected peers to find out why they were treating me the way they choose too. 

Doing this module again I would have just taken charge and if anyone had an issue with it or wanted to be in charge themselves, discuss this. That doesn’t mean I would take over the project or take on all the task but it would help to provide some structure for us to all work with. I would have asked who wanted to work alone and who wanted to work in a team. And then I would have had a brainstorming session of what each of our strengths are and how we would like to proceed with the project. Find out what common visions we all had and help separate the tasks this way.

To develop the skills, I am required I have already brought this up within my therapy session and have discussed in in detail. I will continue to do the work I have set with that which will take time and remember to be compassionate with myself and my ability. I will also work on my assertive training and look more into academic papers on successful group work. Maybe go to The Futur and see if they have any educational programs on group work and dealing with negative people.

To make sure I will act different next time I will produce a “teamwork worksheet” which has simple sets laid out on how I will go about doing group work, a lot like the creative process. It will also contain questions and a simple structure for all to follow and fill out themselves. Including things such as expectations, strength, and preferences. It is possible for people to work solo and come back to a group to connect what they have completed together.

#evaluation

[purementalhealth-blog]

Autism’s Awfully Inevitable Illness

Imagine growing up with a disability which gives you an 80% chance of having mental health problems before you turn 18. Imagine growing up with a disability in which only 16% of adults with the condition are in full-time work long after turning 18. Imagine growing up being told these statistics knowing you are different, you are unlikely to succeed, and your permanent condition means there's little you can do to change it.

That's what the numbers tell those of us young people with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, that having Aspergers Syndrome or Autism will limit our lives in a way that means we'll never be like those we grow up with. In a way however we sadly already know this, as more than 75% of us admit we've been bullied at school, more than 50% of us have experienced discrimination in the workplace, whilst 22% of us feel right now we have absolutely no friends at all.

As a 21 year-old guy with ASD, I'll admit I'm a bit tired of being a statistic. I was diagnosed with Aspergers aged 10, then depression and anxiety aged 17, before quickly losing my first adult job a few years later and ending up in hospital for a number of months due to self-harming, suicide attempts, and all of the above. It was an experience I was constantly told no one should have to go through, but ultimately the percentages saw it coming.

One thing I'll always hammer home about those of us with Autism is that we are all different, we are all individuals, so why is it that we all share so much in common when it comes to suffering with mental health difficulties? They're supposedly unrelated conditions, yet for those of us with an ASD diagnoses, we can be 80% sure one day we'll get a mental health issue diagnosed with it. Mental illness isn't Spotify Premium or a copy of the Daily Telegraph, it shouldn't automatically come free alongside anything, especially not an already difficult to deal with disability.

It's hard then to argue that the cause of the unhappy Autism and mental health marriage isn't simply society itself. The 80% who admitted to also experiencing mental health problems were all young individuals, boys and girls who haven't even had the chance to fully experience what life has to offer. For those of us young people, school and university life is pretty much all we know so far, and we all know what a toxic environment the world of education can be to anyone on the Autism Spectrum.

Schools nowadays often lose sight of the individual, usually in the ruthless chase for exam results and league table positions. Teachers are rarely trained to provide the often small-scale but essential additional support for children with Autism, especially those in mainstream schools where three-quarters of those with the condition attend.

Behaviours caused by the condition, or simple misunderstandings, are so often punished in the classroom. Children on the spectrum struggle with social rules because of their disability, so to be punished because they don't follow these rules is both ludicrous and hugely damaging for a child. A child in a wheelchair would not be reprimanded for being slow getting to class, so a youngster with Autism should never be criticised for being slow to understand a teacher's demands.

It's not just teachers either, as the difficulty in fitting in and making friends with other students offers often the biggest challenge to young people growing up with ASD. Being 'different' is rarely a positive amongst your classmates, and it's easy to feel excluded, on the outside, and like you are the odd one out of all of them.

Growing up becomes a battle with your self-esteem, an area so incredibly entwined with our mental health. For me the problems grew the more I disliked myself, the more I felt I was a failure for not making friends or not surviving in the classroom. Autism often causes huge problems when dealing with different emotions, and throughout school and university I struggled with intense feelings I rarely had under control.  

I felt jealousy at my peers that they could enjoy things I couldn't, anger at my disability that was stopping me doing these, and shame at myself for constantly feeling this way. Hatred of oneself, a difficulty in expressing feelings and emotions, it's easy for these to turn ugly and lead to outbursts, self-harm, and sometimes worse.

Depression is a complex illness, but I know that so much of mine was exasperated by constant self-loathing, whilst not being able to go out and enjoy the supposedly enjoyable social elements which dominate teenage life. Events such as parties and nights out were a sensory nightmare, with too much going on, too much noise, putting me on a constant edge of anxiety and panic. Struggling to relate to people left me lacking any strong relationships, whether social, professional or romantic. Yes I found it difficult to talk to girls, but then again I found it difficult to talk to boys, and teachers, and my family, and pretty much anyone either in person or online.

A life with a disability that impairs communication skills is a fairly lonely one. However to assume because we often keep ourselves to ourselves we're all 'loners' or quite happy on our own is completely wrong and misguided. We have desires to be social and outgoing just as much as any other young person, but the anxiety and difficulties that come alongside make this incredibly challenging. 

This anxiety can often overwhelm our lives, given the world now currently requires so much connection with others to get through it. It's not a world yet adapted to support those with Autism. At school you take exams with strict time limits, despite having a disability that slows down your ability to process information. These school exams are in order to help you get a job, but only with a job interview, another process requiring quick thinking, good social skills, and the capability of overcoming any anxiety, in this case a full-blown anxiety disorder.

Statistics around Autism and mental health may seem shocking to those on the outside, but anyone who's worked with or lived with the disability knows the difficulties and challenges faced by people with ASD every single day, and that currently there is little being done to set changes into motion.

However despite all this, I and many others are determined to help give everyone on the Autistic Spectrum the opportunities required in life. Support that can give us the helping hand we need to stand alongside those we often assume we can only look up to, and assistance needed to prevent the supposed 700,000 of us living in the UK with the condition being consigned to the expectations of both society and the media.

For all those without the condition, taking the time to offer that additional support you would likely provide to someone with a 'visible' disability, to someone with Autism, can make all the difference that's needed. Whether that's allowing extra time to process information, allowing space in social situations, or simply communicating with that person and asking how they, as an individual, would like to be helped.

For those on the Spectrum anxious about the future, I want to instil a sense of belief that I know many of us lack. The truth is every day we overcome our condition in so many different ways, and throughout our lives we've achieved things a diagnosis of Autism says we probably shouldn't be able to do. We spend a lot of time proving people wrong, so there's little to stop us doing this throughout the rest of our lives, taking it a step further every time.

It took me many years of self-doubt, once being someone overwhelmed by public transport, busy cities, or talking to anyone I didn't know. However I'm now a person with Autism who commutes into London on busy trains, before giving speeches to people I've never met. I'm a person with Autism who loves proving everyone, and that especially includes myself, well and truly wrong.

Self-belief, self-esteem, and mental health are completely intertwined. For anyone with Autism they're a constant battle to overcome. However with the right support, and the right opportunities given to take the fight to them, they can be the things that push you towards a real chance in life.

[dollsahoy]

So I mentioned trichotillomania and dermotillomania in a recent reply, and someone asked about that...and my response got too long and rambly (of course!) for an ask answer, and there’s the off chance seeing my thoughts might be informative for somebody out in the open, so here it is...

My trich started with eyelash pulling when I was 8 (early 1983, during a math drill, heh), and skin picking probably around 11 (the onset of puberty whee.)  I leave my scalp (except for a small spot of baby hairs) and arm hair alone, but everywhere else gets pulled, although some areas more often than others.

And the thing is...it doesn’t really bother me.  It used to, in making me self-conscious about it, but I eventually realized that other people just don’t notice...maybe some do but just don’t say anything, but most people are too worried about what you’ll think of them to notice you.

And the people who do decide to take issue with the appearance of others are going to find a ‘problem’ whether you have eyebrows or not...which...I don’t have much in the way of eyebrows right now, but that kind of person would have to get past my DIY multicolor fantasy hair and my cat eye glasses and my way of dressing that may or may not ~properly~ reflect my age before they get a chance to notice whether or not I remembered to draw on my eyebrows (and then they’d have to make the leap to “draws on eyebrows because sensory issues lead them to pull them out” and not the more ‘logical’ “draws on eyebrows to make fashion statement” conclusion.) (Really--friendly post office clerk lady noticed my drawn-on brows once and said I needed to be careful about doing that much or I’d ruin my eyebrows.)

And, yes, I used to get into that cycle of feeling bad -> pulling lashes -> feeling bad about pulling lashes -> pull more lashes, and I know that’s a really common cycle, but I eventually made the decision to try not to feel bad about pulling (or picking, especially on my legs where getting to hairs under the skin can get...scabby...)  Yes, I still pull/pick, and I don't like that I do, but, if I can keep from feeling bad about it, that means I don’t cycle into more pulling or picking.  It’s taken me 15 years, but I finally have a decent amount of eyelashes again.  

(Around 2001, I was on a huge trichotillomania support message board, and when I shared my revelation about not letting the guilt perpetuate the cycle, every. single. response. I got was people saying either “No no no that’s giving up don’t give up keep fighting!!!” or “Well, your trich isn’t as bad as mine, so I won’t even consider that it might work for me.”  I left that board not long after.)

Not saying I don’t still struggle, either.  The biggie is still that insistence that, when allergies make my head ache and eyes hurt, there’s an urge that says “If you pull out the lashes you’ll relieve the pressure and the headache will go away.”  I have to (mentally) shout that one down a few times a year.

And hair elsewhere--especially brows--is a texture issue, and while I’m trying to figure out the key to getting my brain to just...not care...well, in the meantime,  the fact that it does, and I pull...I’m not going to let that bother me.

And I completely understand if this advice might not help anyone but me, because we’re all different, even when we have this weird stuff in common =)

*and now I hope that none of the ‘trich for teens’ type blogs contact me to offer support, ‘cause I’m a bit beyond their ken*

#trichotillomania

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6 (3 of 6)

Continuing our look into season 6 of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, here’s a third round of episode reviews, beginning with the first of three mid-season two-part episodes that during the last two seasons of the show.

Episode 10: Chain of Command (Part 1)

Plot (as given by me):

The Enterprise rendezvous with another Starfleet vessel, the Cairo, where Picard learns from Vice-Admiral Nechayev that he is being relieved of command of the Enterprise. Nechayev later briefs Commander Riker, Counsellor Troi and Lt. Commander Data that following a Cardassian withdrawal from Bajor, the Cardassians have mobilised some of their forces along the border with the Federation and their communications traffic has increased 50%. Suspecting this may be prelude to a new offensive by the Cardassians, Nechayev has assigned the Cairo s commanding officer Captain Edward Jellico to command the Enterprise as it heads to the border to engage in talks with the Cardassians. Jellico was apparently crucial in negotiating the peace treaty between the Federation and the Cardassians, which is why he is to lead the mission in Picard’s absence.

 However, Picard is not the only member of the Enterprise crew being reassigned; Dr Crusher and Lt. Worf are also reassigned as part of a clandestine mission, which the three officers begin to train for as Jellico comes aboard and takes command in a formal ceremony. Jellico is much more strict and less personable in his command style, expecting immediate implementation of his orders regardless of whether they’ll take time to implement or not, and he orders Troi to wear a standard issue uniform while she is on duty. He also uses a lot of strange tactics with the Cardassians when they arrive rather than being more diplomatic as Picard might be, and Troi senses Jellico is not as sure of himself as he acts.

 Picard, Dr Crusher and Worf eventually leave the Enterprise via shuttlecraft to begin their mission, which Picard reveals en route is to infiltrate a Cardassian base on Celtris III. Apparently the Cardassians have been experimenting with a new means by which to safely utilise metagenic weapons; viruses programmed to consume any DNA they encounter, effectively wiping out all forms of life on a planet while leaving its population centres and infrastructure intact. Picard was chosen because he is the only officer in Starfleet with any expertise relevant to the delivery system, Worf for his combat expertise and Dr Crusher for the medical knowledge necessary to identify and destroy any bio-weapons found.

 The trio manage to convince a Ferengi smuggler to provide them with transport, and the infiltration is initially successful. However, it soon turns out that the whole thing is a trap, and the group is ambushed by Cardassian soldiers. Dr Crusher and Worf manage to escape, but Picard is captured. He is then brought before a Cardassian officer later revealed to call Gul Madred, who reveals the trap was designed so the Cardassians could capture Picard. Madred also notes that Picard is there to answer questions rather than ask them, and any answers the Cardassians find unsatisfactory could mean his death.

Review:

For a long time, Next Generation had shied away from multi-part episodes outside of season finale cliff-hangers, presumably because mid-season episodes of the multi-part persuasion were part-and-parcel of any show having an over-riding continuity, whereas Next Gen was very much supposed to be episodic television that could be dipped in and out of.  However, with more and more single episode referring to TNG’s own continuity and to the wider franchise of Trek, not to mention the season 5 two-part episode ‘Unification’, it seems the way was opened to really start this kind of longer episode on a regular basis.

 That all being said, it appears that if the Memory Alpha wiki site is to be believed, budgetary reasons were what led to this episode becoming a two-parter.  As a one-part episode where Picard was rescued by the end, it was too expensive, so expanding it over two parts was apparently governed by financial concerns. Regardless of the reasoning, the episode is quite an interesting re-jug of the show’s normal status quo. All of a sudden, we have a new captain in command and the old one going off on a stealth mission with two other key officers, and we finally see Counsellor Troi compelled to wear a standard uniform, something she then largely sticks with for the whole rest of the show and on into the films.

 The problem with part 1, however, is that while it’s got enough other things going on to keep it from being pure set-up, I also feel like the change of command wasn’t very well-handled.  From what we come to learn is standard dismissive bitchiness from Nechayev and Jellico’s out-of-place harsh command style, we’re being set up to loathe and despise the change of commander, so you know from that and the fact this is all coming mid-season that the change is highly unlikely to be permanent.  However, the episode tries to make us buy into the idea that it might be with a formal transfer of command ceremony.  A valiant try, but for me it’s a waste of time.

 To make the change of command seem more likely to be permanent, they should have brought on board a commanding officer who wasn’t acting like a militaristic hard-ass more suited to a 20th century military than 24th century Starfleet.  The new CO should have had a different command style but still have gotten on well with the crew instead of rubbing them all the wrong way. Next, there should have been interim replacements for Crusher and Worf as well.  Surely there’d need to be a new chief medical officer and new Chief of Security/main Tactical Officer in a situation where combat and casualties would be likely if talks with the Cardassians went sideways.  As it is, every time Jellico was on screen, I was hoping for him to get blasted away by a Cardassian.  For me, this episode gets 7 out of 10.

Episode 11: Chain of Command (Part 2):

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Gul Madred uses a number of torture methods on the captured Captain Picard, including sensory deprivation, sensory bombardment, forced nakedness, stress positions, dehydration, starvation, physical pain, and cultural humiliation to try to gain knowledge of the Federation's plans for Minos Korva. Picard refuses to acknowledge Madred's demand for information. Madred attempts another tactic to break Picard's will: he shows his captive four bright lights, and demands that Picard answer that there are five, inflicting intense pain on Picard if he does not agree.

 Meanwhile, the Cardassians inform the Enterprise crew that Picard has been captured. Captain Jellico refuses to acknowledge that Picard was on a Starfleet mission, an admission necessary for Picard to be given the rights of a prisoner of war (along with better treatment) rather than being subjected to torture as a terrorist. This leads to a heated argument between Jellico and Commander Riker, which ends with Jellico relieving Riker of duty and promoting Lt. Commander Data to acting first officer. Lt. Commander La Forge detects residue from a nearby nebula on the hull of the Cardassian delegation's ship, and Jellico suspects a Cardassian fleet may attempt to use the cover of the nebula to launch an attack on Minos Korva. Jellico determines that their best course of action is to place mines across the nebula using a shuttlecraft. However, Riker is the most qualified pilot for the mission. Jellico visits Riker in his quarters, where he candidly criticizes Riker's performance as a First Officer and Riker does the same for Jellico’s command style. Jellico asks, rather than orders, Riker to pilot the shuttle. Riker agrees, and he and La Forge successfully lay the minefield. Jellico uses the threat of the minefield to force the Cardassians to disarm and retreat, as well as agree to the release of Picard.

 With word of the failure of the Cardassians to secure Minos Korva, Madred attempts one last ploy to break Picard, by falsely claiming that the Cardassians have taken the planet and that the Enterprise was destroyed in the battle. He offers Picard a choice: to remain in captivity for the rest of his life or live in comfort by admitting that he sees five lights. As Picard momentarily considers the offer, the Cardassian head delegate enters the room and informs Madred that "a ship is waiting to take him back to the Enterprise." Picard realizes he has been duped. As Picard is freed from his bonds and about to be taken away, he turns to Madred and defiantly shouts, "There are four lights!" Picard is returned to Federation custody and reinstated as Captain of the Enterprise. Picard admits privately to Counsellor Troi that he was saved just in the nick of time, as by that point he was broken enough to be willing to say or do anything to make the torture stop. In addition, by the end he actually believed he could see five lights.

Review:

It’s in the second part of ‘Chain of Command’ that we finally see something of what Trek should be in that it tackles an on-going issue from real-life society.  However, because of how part 1 was presented, it’s not so easy to see. Basically, this is an anti-torture episode, but that fact is kind of hidden by the fact that Picard is being held captive by a highly militaristic race like the Cardassians who are fundamentally villain characters for the Trek set in the 24th century. Because of that, it’s hard to see that this episode is trying to make an allegorical case against torture because torture is something to be very much expected of the Cardassians based on how TNG has portrayed them up until now.  This episode was the last before Deep Space Nine’s pilot aired, so the complexity that show added has yet to materialise, and so if not for reading Memory Alpha’s page on this episode, I wouldn’t have got the message of the episode.

 To my mind, an effective anti-torture episode should really show it being used by some rogue human or other and involve some genuine debate around its use.  It’s more the kind of show that would have been better on Deep Space Nine after the characters of Sloan and Section 31 were introduced.  Alternatively, it could have fit into the season 4 episode ‘The Drumhead’ or involved an over-zealous Starfleet security officer in another episode of this series.  Because this episode was part 2 of a multi-part episode and combined such villainous behaviour with what was a villain race at the time, the message is lost and ends up appearing as just so much status quo.

 We also get more of Jellico being profoundly unlikeable back on the Enterprise and the somewhat convenient return of Crusher and Worf before yet another command shake-up as Riker gets relieved of duty and Data not only becomes acting first officer, but also has to shift from the gold shirt of an engineering officer to the red shirt of the command branch.  It just goes to show what a total tight-arse the character is, and much as I’d rather have seen him get a right cross to the jaw or a phaser hit before leaving, at least Riker put the idiot in his place towards the end.  Ok, yes, Jellico did a good job working in getting the Cardassians to agree to return Picard at the end, but to me it was very much too little too late.  When Jellico leaves the bridge for the last time, I want him ejected through a photon torpedo tube or the waste disposal rather than by transporter or shuttlecraft.

 Luckily, the episode does far better with British actor David Warner guest-starring opposite Patrick Stewart in the role of Gul Madred.  Apparently, Warner appeared in a couple of the original series films, but I know him more from roles like Captain James Sawyer in series 2 of Hornblower and Professor Jordan Perry in the second of the original live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films.  Both Warner and Stewart are classically trained theatre actors, so seeing the two perform together is similar to the high quality you get out of performances between Stewart and Sir Ian McKellan when they played Professor X and Magneto in the X-Men films.  In other words, there’s some great acting going on with a lot of gravitas, and it makes for great viewing regardless of the roles being played or the franchise at hand.  Overall, I give part 2 8 out of 10; with a more likeable interim captain, a more blatant exposure of the issue part 2 was exploring or the unlikeable interim captain getting a bit more karma for his bastard attitude, this episode might have snatched top marks, but sadly it misses out and largely relies on Stewart and Warner to save its proverbial bacon.

Episode 12: Ship in a Bottle

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Lt. Commanders Data and La Forge are enjoying a Sherlock Holmes holodeck program when the pair notice that a character programmed to be left-handed was actually right-handed. They call Lt. Barclay to repair the holodeck, but as he checks the status of the Sherlock Holmes programs, he encounters an area of protected memory. He activates it to find the sentient Professor Moriarty character projected into the Holodeck, who appears to have memory since his creation ("Elementary, Dear Data"), including during the period while he was inactive (a feat Barclay and the others claim to be impossible). Moriarty again wishes to escape the artificial world of the holodeck and was assured by the crew of the Enterprise that they would endeavour to find a way to do so, and is irritated at the lack of results on the part of the crew and their seeming lack of effort. Captain Picard, along with Data and Barclay, attempts to assure Moriarty they are still working towards this goal but their technology does not yet permit it. Moriarty is dismissive.

 Moriarty confuses the crew by seemingly willing himself to existence by walking out of the holodeck door. He explains this to the stunned Picard and Data by saying, "I think, therefore I am." Moriarty creates a companion for himself, the Countess Regina Bartholomew, by commanding the computer of the Enterprise to place another sentient mind within the female character of the Sherlock Holmes novels that he is programmed to love. Moriarty then demands that a solution to get Regina off the holodeck be devised. He takes control of the Enterprise through the computer, insisting that a way be found for her to experience life beyond the confines of the holodeck.

 Barclay and Data suggest trying to beam an inanimate object off the holodeck using pattern enhancers in hopes that the transporter could re-form the object as conventional matter. However, when the experiment fails and Data finds no information in the transporter log, he becomes suspicious. Data then observes that La Forge's handedness is incorrect, just as they had experienced earlier. Through this, Data deduces that he, Picard, and Barclay are still inside the holodeck with Moriarty, and everyone else and everything that appears to be the Enterprise is part of a program Moriarty created. Picard then realizes that he has unwittingly provided Moriarty with the command codes for the Enterprise. With this information, Moriarty takes control of the real Enterprise from within the simulation.

 Captain Picard finds a way to program the holodeck within Moriarty’s simulation to convince Moriarty that he and Regina can be beamed into the real world, though in fact they are only "beamed" onto another simulation on that holodeck. Moriarty, believing he has entered the real world, releases control of the ship back to Picard. He and the Countess use a shuttlecraft given to them by Commander Riker to leave the Enterprise and explore the galaxy. Picard ends the simulation and the trio return to the real Enterprise. Barclay extracts the memory cube from the holodeck and sets it in an extended memory device in order to provide Moriarty and the Countess a lifetime of exploration and adventure.

 Picard comments that the crew's reality may actually be a fabrication generated by "a little device sitting on someone's table." This unnerves Barclay enough for him to test the nature of his own reality one more time: he gives an audible command to "end program" to test whether he is still in a simulation. There is no response, indicating he is indeed back in the real world.

Review:

“Elementary, Dear Data” was one of the few highlights of TNG’s second season, and apparently hadn’t been revisited before now because the show’s writers believed there was an on-going legal dispute between paramount and the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  In the end, it turns out to be a misunderstanding; the estate had been irritated at Paramount over the film Young Sherlock Holmes.  Fortunately, the estate allowed Next Generation to use the Holmes characters again for a reasonable license fee, and thus the sentient Moriarty holodeck character came back.  However, this time we see Picard, Data and the ever-amusing recurring guest character of Lt. Barclay get trapped within a simulation of the Enterprise that is created by Moriarty, which is quite a clever way of mixing things up.

 However, the one thing that spoils the episode slightly is the final scene where Picard suggests the reality of Trek itself may not be real and Barclay then feels compelled to test that idea.  I get that it’s meant to be a bit of an in-joke given that this is a TV show, but not only does it seem unnecessarily cruel to a well-known paranoid multi-phobic introvert like Barclay to make that suggestion, but it’s also annoying when any TV show tries to suggest the reality of its own world isn’t that at all.  Once any world of fiction establishes what its reality is, to my mind that reality must be its reality at all times.  You don’t wait until you are mid-way through your penultimate season and then suggest it might be a fantasy.  Either it’s a fantasy from day 1, and you either also show the real world now and then or make that what you’re trying to get back to, or it’s real and any fantasies are conclusively revealed, over and done with inside of a single episode or multi-part story.  Having it both ways is just indecisive and moronic.  Because of this, the episode only nets 8 out of 10 where it could otherwise have claimed full marks.

Episode 13: Aquiel

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The starship Enterprise arrives at a subspace communications relay station near the Klingon border on a resupply mission. However, when an away team boards the relay there is no sign of the two officers assigned there. Lieutenant Aquiel Uhnari, Lieutenant Rocha, and the station's shuttlecraft are missing. While searching the station, the away team finds a dog that belongs to Lieutenant Uhnari. The away team also finds a substance on the floor, which Dr Crusher determines is a type of cellular residue.

 The crew uncover evidence that a Klingon had been on the station leading Dr Crusher and Commander Riker to suspect that Uhnari and Rocha may have been the victims of a Klingon attack. Lt. Commander La Forge backs up this theory when he examines Uhnari's personal logs. He finds an entry in which Aquiel relays her fears to her sister Shianna about a Klingon named Morag. Captain Picard contacts the local Klingon governor, Torak, and learns that Morag is commander of one of the Klingon ships that patrols that section of the Klingon Empire's border. At this point, Torak refuses to cooperate further. Picard threatens to take his case to Chancellor Gowron, a threat scoffed at by Torak until Picard casually mentions that he served as Gowron's Arbiter of Succession. Knowing Gowron would be in Picard's debt and how the former might frown upon the disrespect shown to the latter, a nervous Torak agrees to cooperate fully.

 The senior staff meets with Torak, and he produces Aquiel alive. She explains that Rocha attacked her and that her last memory was escaping from him. She doesn't remember precisely what happened. To help clarify what really occurred, Picard requests to speak with Commander Morag, the Klingon who was allegedly harassing the station. Attracted to her, La Forge befriends Aquiel, and takes her to the Ten-Forward lounge. He reveals to her that he surveyed her logs and personal correspondence as part of their investigation. Aquiel says she didn't like Rocha but did not wish to hurt him. She realizes she is a suspect in his death.

 Meanwhile, Dr Crusher continues to examine the cellular residue found on the deck plate. Riker and Lt. Worf, who are examining the shuttlecraft, come across a phaser set to kill. La Forge gives moral support to Aquiel as she is questioned again.

 Commander Morag then arrives aboard the Enterprise and meets with the senior staff. He admits that he was present on the station, and that he took priority Starfleet messages from its computer. La Forge returns to the station and discovers that Rocha's personal log has been tampered with. He confronts Aquiel who admits deleting messages from Rocha's log, because Rocha, as the senior officer, was going to declare her insubordinate and belligerent to Starfleet. Scared that this new evidence will condemn her as Rocha's killer, she agrees to stay aboard the Enterprise because La Forge has faith in her. He and Aquiel use an ancient method of her people to bond and share their thoughts.

 While Dr Crusher examines the DNA found on the deck plate yet again, the material moves and touches her hand. It then withdraws and forms a perfect replica of her hand. Due to this, she suspects that the real Rocha may have been killed by this strange coalescent organism, and a replica of him may have attacked Aquiel in search of a new body. Believing that the organism may now have Aquiel's body, Riker and Worf race to Aquiel's quarters and stop the ritual she is conducting with La Forge. Morag is also arrested, as it is just as likely he is the organism.

 With Aquiel and Morag in the brig, the Enterprise proceeds to the nearest starbase as the crew keep a close watch on them both, since the organism may need a new body soon. La Forge is in his quarters along with Aquiel's dog Maura reminiscing about her. The dog transforms and attacks him, but he is able to kill it. Later, he explains to Aquiel, who has been released, that Rocha was replaced by the organism. When it attacked her, it began the takeover process (hence her lapse in memory); however, she managed to get away in time. The creature then turned to the only other life form on the station, her dog.

 The episode ends with Aquiel and La Forge in Ten-Forward, where she turns down his offer to help her join the Enterprise crew. She tells him she wants to earn her way there on her own merits.

Review:

This episode is rather ‘meh’, as it was supposed to be a La Forge character episode that gave a main cast member a long-term romance and compensated for the transfer of the O’Briens to Deep Space Nine, which meant TNG had lost the only married couple on the show and was once again basically a Trek singles’ cruise in terms of its main cast and recurring guest characters.  However, it ends up being taken over by the murder mystery plot, and not in the fun way of Data pretending to be Sherlock Holmes or Picard acting as Dixon Hill. It’s a decent episode, but it’s too plot-driven with no character focus or issue exploration, which means it’s not proper Trek.

 The only thing I truly hate regarding this episode is that according to the Wikipedia page about it, in 2019 the website ScreenRant claimed this episode made Geordi look like a sexual predator. Presumably this is in relation to Geordi reviewing Aquiel’s logs and personal correspondence when she was through to be dead, so all I can say is clearly ScreenRant knows fuck all about proper murder investigation.  If someone is believed to have been murdered, everything about the victim and any suspects has to be looked into, and it’s not like a corpse has to worry about privacy anymore.  The idea that this would lead any reviewer to categorise Geordi as some kind of pervert only shows what naïve, romanticised and childish views some people hold regarding murder investigation.  Far too many people out there seem bound and determined to act like Hastings in Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories, blanching at any detection methods he considers as ‘ungentlemanly’.

 In the BBC audio drama for ‘Peril at End House’, Poirot unearths love letters from Michael Seaton to Mademoiselle Nick Buckley, and when Hastings objects, saying “Poirot, you really can’t do that; it isn’t playing the game.”  Poirot then instantly responds, and quite rightly, “I am not playing a game, my friend; I am hunting down a murderer.”  This is the perfect example of the ScreenRant idiot’s point of view versus my own; even in the world of Trek, hunting down a murderer is a serious business and you can’t avoid potentially vital information just because it might invade the privacy of a victim or, as in the case of ‘Peril at End House’, an intended victim.  If you have reason to believe the information is relevant to finding the killer, you pursue it, end of debate.  Geordi just mis-handled telling Aquiel about it afterwards, but he nicely recovered and was otherwise a perfect gentleman.  End score for this episode is 5 out of 10, end score for ScreenRant’s ability to comprehend proper murder investigation procedure, zero out of infinity.

Episode 14: Face of the Enemy

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Deanna Troi is kidnapped and brought aboard the Romulan Warbird Khazara. After waking up, Troi looks in a mirror and is horrified to find that she's undergone cosmetic surgery to make her look like a Romulan. Subcommander N'Vek, the Khazara first officer, privately explains that he has no intention of harming her, but needs her to pose as Major Rakal of the Tal Shiar, the Romulan intelligence service and secret police. N'Vek has secret cargo meant for the Federation, and needs Troi to act her role to convince the Khazara commander, Toreth (who is not aware of N'Vek's plan) into complying. Troi, as Rakal, is able to sway Toreth to head for a planned rendezvous in the Kaleb sector under threat of intense interrogation techniques.

 Aboard the Enterprise, the crew brings aboard Stefan DeSeve, a human who had served as an ensign in Starfleet before defecting to the Romulans. Now he has returned with a message from Ambassador Spock. Captain Picard, wary of his prisoner's motives, considers Spock's message regarding a meeting in the Kaleb sector that would be prudent for the Federation's interest, and directs the ship there.

 As the Khazara is en route, N'Vek shows Troi the secret cargo - Vice Proconsul M'Ret and two of his aides, held in stasis. They wish to defect to the Federation, and his presence there would aid further Romulan dissidents to flee the Empire. The plan is to transport the stasis chambers to a Corvallen cargo ship at the rendezvous point, who will subsequently deliver them into Federation space. When the Khazara meets up with the cargo ship, Troi senses its captain is not trustworthy, and N'Vek fires upon it, destroying it. He claims he was ordered by Major Rakal. Troi later explains to Toreth that she recognized the captain of the cargo ship as a known Federation spy. N'Vek, in private, explains to Troi that their only other option is to travel to Draken IV, an entry point for the Federation, where Troi can use her Starfleet codes to allow the ship to enter undetected. Troi gives this order to Toreth, who reluctantly agrees to it. However, their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the Enterprise.

 The Enterprise arrives at the designated time and coordinates, but finds no trace of the cargo ship. They start a search, soon finding the wreckage of the vessel. As the Enterprise moves in, Toreth takes this as a sign of Troi's truthfulness. Troi wants to hold position, but the commander points out that with the wreckage nearby, they will be detected, and has the ship travel some distance away while the Enterprise continues to search. Troi is worried that the Enterprise will not be able to follow them, and has N'Vek create a trail of the cloaked ship.

 Toreth learns of the Enterprise trailing them, and suspects that they've been detected. She orders a collision course for the vessel in order to test their reaction. When the Enterprise moves to avoid collision, Toreth orders the ship to decloak and attack. Troi steps in as Rakal and takes command from Toreth, then orders the ship to decloak and hails the Enterprise, offering to discuss the matter. The Enterprise crew, though they recognize Troi, feign ignorance and take down their shields. N'Vek fires on the Enterprise with low-powered weapons, appearing to damage the vessel.  In reality, the low-power disruptor shot masks the transport of the stasis chambers to the Enterprise. Toreth, realizing that she is being deceived, executes N'Vek and retakes control of the Khazara. Before the Romulans can leave with Troi as their prisoner, Troi is safely transported to the Enterprise. In sickbay, Troi's cosmetic surgery is reversed, and she contemplates the value of N'Vek's efforts to aid the Federation.

Review:

This is the first and only call back in TNG history to Spock’s dissident movement that was showcased in the two-part episode “Unification” the previous season.  It’s an interesting episode, and for a Troi episode very good, as it nicely takes us away from seeing her having to deal with her mother or whine over something strange sensed via her empathic abilities.  Personally, I’d have preferred to see Troi go into this set-up fully briefed and prepped to play the role of spy rather than being landed in it at the deep end, as some of her initial scenes do verge on being highly cringe-worthy a la the Troi episodes of old.  Moreover, it would have helped distinguish it more from the later Deep Space Nine episode “Second Skin” which revolved around a very similar premise.

 The episode gives us a good of character development for Deanna in hindsight as well; between her recent uniform shift and having to play a commanding role on the fly, Deanna is beginning to develop skills she will later need when she takes the Bridge Officer’s Test to try and become a full commander the following season.  As such, the episode is a case the show trying to get back to what it should be.  I give it a score of 8 out of 10.

[bipedal-vertebrate]

Please allow me to tell you about my Best Friend.

Let me start by saying that I’d known her for some time before we really started hanging out and she seemed like a good person, the kind of person you’d want in your life. She was also going through quite a bit and didn’t have good people in her life. She had lots of people that tried to use her, to take advantage of her, who would stab her in the back in a heartbeat, and who treated her like shit. She needed good people and real friends. She needed the kind of person and friend that I am. I made the decision to let down a few of my walls so that if she wanted, she could get closer to me and I could be the friend she needed.

She’s Beautiful. Not beautiful, that is just a meaningless description of someones appearance based on the individuals idea of what makes someone attractive. My Best Friend is Beautiful with a capital B. Her Beauty is the kind the eyes will never see.

What is it that makes her Beautiful?  I’ll tell you, but I have to tell you about myself first.  I’ve done this before, but for anyone that doesn’t wish to read that first I’ll give enough of a run down to understand how Beautiful She is.

I have Asperger’s Syndrome. For those not familiar with it, it is a high functioning form of autism. It means I am autistic but unless you are familiar with the symptoms and spend a significant amount of time around me you will never notice it. Instead you will describe me as “weird,” “odd,” “excentric,” etc.

How does that make her beautiful?

Because of the assortment of developmental disabilities stacked on top of and intertwined with each other my brain doesn’t process information the same as a neurotypical persons does. Simply put, several areas of my brain are miswired, both internally and in their connections to other areas of my brain.

The social and communication centers of my brain are unable to process what is considered “normal” conversation, aka small talk, idle chat, etc. Such conversations have no particular topic, they move around, they change direction, and because of the miswiring in my brain I can’t follow them. To me, “normal” conversation sounds like people just saying whatever random thing pops into their head from one second to the next. For me to talk to people the conversation has to stay on topic or change topic slowly rather than suddenly.

My brain also processes language literally. Words have meanings and those meanings are in the dictionary. When someone uses a word I a way other than what it’s definition is I am lost because the statement they just made makes no sense until I have had time to analyze it in reference to the rest of what was being said, and even then I normally can’t figure out what they actually meant leaving me with no clue what they said.

Facial expression, vocal inflection, body language, unusual phrasings, and other such social/conversational cues that add context beyond the actual words spoken don’t exist for me. The part of my brain that is supposed to see and understand them doesnt.

While normal people instinctively know how to respond to “polite questions” such as “how are you,” “what are you doing these days,” “how are you feeling, etc I am forced to rely on preplanned responses that sound “fake” to everyone because such questions are not only subjective rather than objective, they are rhetorical rather than literal and the person doesn’t want an actual response.

The parts of the social, language, and communication centers of my brain that are supposed to deal with these things either developed incorrectly or not at all. All this leaves me with only the exact words a person says and nothing more.

I explained this to Her shortly after we started spending a significant amount of time together. It wasn’t long after that that when we were speaking I spent less and less time saying “OK,” “Uh huh,” “Yeah,” etc and was actually able to have a conversation with her. She changed the way she talked when we were speaking and instead of being drug along behind her I was able to be a part of the conversation. Even when there were others involved in the conversation, she kept the conversation “on topic” longer than the others would have and made sure that subject changes were gradual rather than sudden. When she was involved in the conversation she made sure I could be an active participant.  With her help I wasn’t broken.

The miswiring in the social center of my brain also results in problems when socializing. While everyone else can go to a party, a bar, a family picnic and it’s no big deal, interacting with more than one or two people at a time is overwhelming. Anything more than that and I can’t think clearly enough to even give preplanned responses because my brain is starting to misfire and push towards a meltdown.

She never puts me in a situation where that is issue. Whenever she says we should do something it is always walks, bike rides, hiking, watching a movie, or some other thing where it will be just us. Even when she suggests something that would mean being around other people she isn’t pushy about it and as soon as I start to show signs of shutting down she calmly and easily dismisses that because “I’m not really dressed for that and don’t feel like changing,” “it’s too nice a day to be inside like that,” or some other similar reason that eliminates any pressure on me.

She always goes out of her way to make sure I didn’t feel broken. She even manages to do that without trying. It’s no wonder she became my best friend.

There was a day where she asked me to take her out so she could do some shopping. After getting to enjoy seeing her enjoy herself as she flitted from rack to rack going through clothing, aisle to aisle looking at candles, and fountains, and household stuff, I took her home and helped her take her bags in to the elevator. She said goodnight, gave me a hug and then we talked for a while because the first hug was never the real goodbye hug. That hug felt “wrong.” This is where it gets interesting. Thanks to the wonders of the miswired sensory and social centers of my brain physical contact is not pleasant. Imagine if your skin was replaced by a few hundred million ants crawling on the raw, exposed nerves, muscles, tendons, etc. That description doesn’t come close to the way physical contact feels for me, but that sensation is “normal” for me.

That night it felt different, but the hug was over too quick for me to tell how. When we finished talking she gave me the real goodnight hug. The second hug was always longer. That Hug was magical. My skin didn’t crawl. It was like electric fairies dancing lightly on my skin and hundreds of millions of stars exploding all at once. It was the most amazing sensation I’ve ever experienced. I held on tight, took a deep breath to fill my nose with the scent of her hair, listened to her breathing and then her voice as she asked if I was smelling her hair and laughed when I said yes. I was grabbing hold of every sensation in that moment so that the memory of them would be as real as they were in that moment.  I didn’t know why it felt like it did, but I wanted to be able to go back to that hug when I needed somewhere safe to escape to.

Over the next few days I tried to figure out why it was different. I looked inside, dug around, and discovered something. Where I had only taken down a few walls, leaving the others in place, those walls were still there but no longer completely solid. For everyone else they were impenetrable, but for her they didn’t even exist. Somewhere along the way my heart had decided it belonged to Her and hadn’t bothered to let me in on it. I’d fallen in love with my best friend and hadn’t even known.

I kept that from her for some time, only telling her when she asked me to write something inspirational and uplifting in a notebook she had at a time when things were really rough for her. What started out as a single paragraph turned into a full blown letter laying out how I felt, that I was happy having her as my best friend and being hers, that I’d never ask for, expect, or look for more than that, and that it was entirely up to her if she wanted more than just mine.

Over the last year shes proved herself to be more and more of a friend than I ever thought anyone could be.  Yes there have been some problems along the way, what relationship doesn’t have them, but for the most part they’ve were worked through and those that haven’t been will be.

She makes my world brighter and make me better by being a part of my life.  Without trying, she does so much for me.  From little things like giving me an angel pin included a note that read:

pg1

Marsh!

I Love You!

I appreciate your true friendship to me more than you will ever know.

No matter what I will forever be here whenever you need me.

I love you so much!

Don’t ever change!

Emmie

pg2

Here’s an Angel for you to keep on you to help you from having those meltdowns.

Love You!

Keep her on you always

Your Friend Forever

Emmie

  to big things like holding me as I cried when I was finally able to begin grieving for the loss of my Grandmother and promising to go with and be there when I make the drive to Texas to visit her grave.

The wind chime she gave me, which had been damaged and repaired by her before giving it to me, hangs over the couch I sleep on with a fan always blowing on it so it chimed softly at all times.

The wooden wall hanging that reads “Never lose your sense of wonder” is on the wall at the foot of the couch where I only have to open my eyes to read it.

A note she left me when she came down to my room one day while I wasn’t here hangs on the wall as well.

The birthday card she made me, which in part read:

Thank you for being in my life. FIghting or not, you will always be one of my very best friends.

-Emmie

sits on a shelf by the foot of the couch so that I could always see it.

  Each of the small things shes given me, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed to her, was given it’s own special place because those small trinkets mean the world to me.

She means the world to me, which is why I made the decision to include her in the plan I have for my life.  That plan will fix my life, and is the only chance I have at honestly being happy with my life as a whole.  I’m including her in it because it will help her to fix her life and given her a steady income stream that will let her get away from her roommate and others like him permanently.  When I told her this, her smile lit up the world like the sun never has and the hug she gave me as she thanked me crushed the breath out of my lungs.  I’d made her world brighter and better, just like she does for me.

She is my Best Friend and I love her more than she will ever know.

A Georgia Peach with a Diamond in the Center #Friendship #BestFriend #RealFriend #Aspergers @Autism Please allow me to tell you about my Best Friend. Let me start by saying that I’d known her for some time before we really started hanging out and she seemed like a good person, the kind of person you’d want in your life.

#Asperger syndrome #Aspergers #Aspie #Autism #Beauty #Friendship #Housing #Life #Mental Health #Relationships #Truth

[lloaegalacticnews-blog]

A story overheard on De Sertum Centauri

“You're here for the wrong reason.

If you're looking to find out what happened next at the end of those first days, curious of the world we gave so much to save. Even a continuation of a theme. You will be disappointed.

I do not know what happened next, They lived and died ages ago. They never told me their stories and the planet they called home a pin prick in a sea of blackness. Lost to me, and forgotten in the swells of powers and gods we no longer even have names for.

I admit to have forgotten much; I am not what I once was.

The world can leave us all burned out. Clutching our memory of lesser pains and frustrations as precious when compared to the choices we live now.

But listen to me, you didn't come here to hear an old man sigh about his youth. To feel bitterness in what could have been.

You're in a unique position, you know very little of the world as it is now, some may try to take advantage of you. I could never hope to tell you everything in a single conversation... But I'll try to cover the basics.

Lets get us out of the way. There are four kinds of humans. Pure-bloods, regular, home grown, ten fingers ten toes, human. The cause of all our problems one might say.

But humans for all their self satisfied, all important personal opinions. Found that other planets don't care if you think you're top of the food chain. So they had a choice, only visit other worlds in hermetically sealed bubbles, look but don't touch, or start playing with your DNA and cybernetics until a CO2 atmosphere wasn't such a bad thing. This broke us up into groups.

The Wayfarers believed there was another earth out there, and they took colony ships and went to look for it. They never found one, but time and desperation changed them into something new. They lived without gravity after the breakdown of the spin-ships. They mined asteroids and comets for minerals and water. The people who started that journey died with their ideals in favor of a new breed of human who have adapted to survive the harsh vacuum of space.

They made alterations to their bodies as needed, some have multiple sets of arms instead of arms and legs, some have wings that let them fly in zero gee. They left early in our search for new worlds, and only now after hundreds of years are coming back to civilization. Their technology is rather different from ours, taken different paths of need. And they have issues living in full gravity, but developed encounter suits to assist in their lives. They're becoming somewhat less uncommon, and asteroid farms produce some of the best food in the galaxy.

The Advancers were the obvious answer for humanity. Become one with technology. Their movement grew, but medical science can never perfectly return what's taken away. Many claimed the cloned limbs never felt like “theirs” and digital sensation is a distant thing, more analytical than personal. They embraced their change and in many cases abandoned their human bodies to inhabit fully mechanized bodies. Why limit yourself to a meat shell? It's rumored that they keep their mindless bodies, that there are fields of inanimate humans on life support on their home world. Used to bare more children? As waste processing? They're only rumors. Never met a “young” Advancer, to my knowledge they download data directly into their minds, their laws programmed into the hardware and have software for speech and motor functions of the suits. How much personality is left free? What I do know, is their movement is rapidly becoming the most powerful, and aggressive.

The Spliced are the final course of human kind. Adaptable and Reversible for a price. DNA insurance and terraforming became a viable business that went hand in hand. Do you need work? Simply sign a contract and give a blood sample. Spend 10 years as part plant, part human, work in hell, day in and day out since plants don't sleep and make enough to live the rest of your life on. Become yourself again after. The human dream.

But the rich found a way to use it to, and the desperate. Tired of being bullied and weak? Need to survive a fight? Rapid DNA shifters hit the streets and give the desperate a chance to survive the criminal element. The rich used it as fashion statements, rich women with cat eyes, artists with the vision of a mantis shrimp. Military men started splicing the same way navy officers got tattoos. Quite a thing to get drunk with your buddies and wake up part Lion, and find you didn't get your DNA insured beforehand.

The original purpose of the changes brings them to be considered less than human if they look different, the same old elitism of Pure-blood humans took the stupidest, and the wealthiest, again. Thinking somehow not having cybernetics, or unappealing splices makes them better than everyone else. There's not suppose to be a bias, but..

I guess that covers that train wreck of a race.

Time for the big one. We're not alone in the universe.

The First we met officially are the Plystallo. Some geek on the survey crew made the name calling back to old latin. Crystal Shapers. A kind of primeval soup that decided it would rather stay a soup than grow limbs. But they can take carbon and silicon and create crystals of any shape or size, bound together chemically and shaped with their own bodies as moldings. They have control over every viscous inch of their soggy selves. They keep a crystal in their body and have a language based off the harmonics they can create from it, since they can fill it with their own fluids, widen shorten or deepen however they wish, it's amazing the complex noises they can make. Not sure how they see, scientists think it's another reason for the crystal, a kind of echo location, their entire body is a sensory organ to pick up vibration.

The funny thing is they adapted when they met us, someone on the survey crew said he “didn't know where to talk to” and the next day, the oldest and most talented made a body out of crystal. In a constant state of dissolving and regrowth to move, only the oldest ones can make bodies like that, but it soon became a trend among their race to have a limb or a face for use with humans and our technology.

It's also through the Plystallo that we learned of the Silvan. We're told they look like humans, but they avoid us, their ships are massive trees, with amazing space warping technology I cannot even begin to fathom. But according to the Plystallo, They avoid us, desperately. When pressed, the Plystallo ambassador stated, with no small embarrassment, that they were asked not to talk about it. And to do so would not be polite.

Now listen close, The universe is a dangerous place. There's always something brewing just out of sight. Keep your head down, be watchful of the sides they all have their own plans. Careful what you do to your body may choose your side for you. “Cloning” more than a limb can be dangerous since it requires a splice, and is damn costly. But if you go the other way, make sure the Medical nanites you get have an expiration coded in or you might find yourself becoming an Advancer without knowing it.

Keep hold of your universal band, it's your only way to be paid for work, It's your ID and communication channel, It's programmed with an UDS. Your universal digital shadow is a copy of your mind bound to your body like your shadow is to your feet, and can make requests of the web for services or information. Access computer interfaces and personal improvement programs, skills and combat routines are out there... if you don't mind your personality becoming a copy of your UDS copy. They say it's safe, but I always worry if someone out there is clever enough to hack them, and maybe the you that re-loads, is not you at all... But I'm an old man, Reliance on technology scares me.”

[topsolarpanels]

Atomic City, USA: how once-secret Los Alamos became a millionaire’s enclave

Home to the scientists who built the nuclear bomb, the company town of Los Alamos, New Mexico is today one of the richest in the country even as toxic waste threatens its residents and neighbouring Espaola struggles with poverty

In August 1945, the US army dropped a secret over Japan: fully functional nuclear bombs, which instantly killed tens of thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More than 6,000 miles away, meanwhile, in northern New Mexico, one newspaper carried a headline with uniquely local flair.

Now They Can be Told Aloud These Stoories[ sic] of the Hill blared a rushed edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican. The article revealed that Los Alamos a mysterious settlement, built atop a picturesque mesa had been instrumental in the process of developing these new weapons of mass destruction.

Today, Los Alamos is a secret no longer: its a small community with about 18,000 people living in the main town and a suburb called White Rock. But the nuclear lab remains, and the city is still an island in many ways: an extraordinary pocket of wealth and privilege, surrounded by some of the poorest counties in New Mexico, one of the poorest states in America.

The city is also partly toxic. The nuclear research lab still disposes of radioactive waste, and an underground plume of hexavalent chromium a contaminant linked to increased risks of cancer and constructed famous by Erin Brockovich has been drifting from the lab. A September 2016 report from the labs environmental management office said it could take more than 20 years and virtually$ 4bn( 3.3 bn) to clean up decades-old nuclear waste in the area.

And yet Los Alamos has more millionaires per capita than almost anywhere else in the country.

Instant city

The city has always been unique. During the second world war, Los Alamos was the site of a classified research laboratory, built as part of the Manhattan Project to develop an atom bomb. Along with Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford, Washington, it was also home to a secret city built to house thousands of scientists, technologists and their families.

It was isolated, and it was also beautiful, which was something[ J Robert] Oppenheimer employed where reference is recruited people, says Jon Hunner, professor of history at New Mexico State University, referring to the theoretical physicist who led the Los Alamos lab.

Los Alamoss once secret nuclear history has become a tourist attraction. Photograph: Brooks Saucedo-McQuade

The goal, he explains, had been to build top secret, temporary research facilities in order to keep US nuclear scientists and their work away from prying eyes and ears.

Hunners 2007 book, Inventing Los Alamos, describes the birth of what he calls an instant city. In some routes, the story sounds similar to that of the hundreds of company towns built across the US in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, to provide labor for single industries: mining, coal and logging towns.

Except here the industry was nuclear weapon. And, officially, the town did not exist.

Those who lived in Los Alamos were forbidden to talk about it. The town was not mentioned on drivers licenses, birth certificates, or postal mail. The whole region was surrounded by fencings, gates and guards.

Constructed virtually overnight, much of the land was simply appropriated from traditional Hispanic homesteaders and Native American communities, as well as an upper-class private sons school that counted Gore Vidal as one of its famous graduates.

To guard its secret, Los Alamos was built to be almost completely self-contained. There were schools, a hospital, and theatres that doubled as dance halls on Saturdays and churches on Sundays. Housing was allocated according to ones rank at the lab. By the end of the war, it had a population of 6,000.

Everything was run by the Army Corps of Engineers. There were no private industries in Los Alamos until the 1950 s. Nobody could own property. Nobody could own their home, says Hunner. With its focus on the social sciences behind the bomb, he describes it like a university town that was controlled by the military.

It was also shoddily constructed, he says, because it was only supposed to exist during the second world war. But then the cold war with the Soviet Union dedicated the US nuclear weapon program, and Los Alamos, a new raison detre. Both were here to stay.

Los Alamos laboratory in the 1950 s those who lived and work there had to keep it at secret. Photograph: Jeffrey Markowitz/ Sygma via Getty Images

Its a stark example of the 1% and 99%

Today Los Alamos has become one of the richest cities in America. At least one in every nine people a whopping 12% of the population is thought to be a millionaire. Los Alamos also regularly tops the listing in terms of the best education and lowest crime levels in the nation. It has one of the countrys greatest concentration of PhDs.

On the map of New Mexico, Los Alamos county created in 1949 is a tiny dot next to Rio Arriba, one of the largest counties in the nation. In Los Alamos, average incomes are twice as high as those in Rio Arriba. A 2012 Census Bureau report said this was one of the largest wealth gaps between two neighbouring counties in America.

Just 30 km from this affluent island is the town of Espaola. Here the median household income is $33,000 and virtually 30% of the population live under the poverty line. For years it has also fought with its reputation as the heroin overdose capital of America.

Hunner describes the disparity between Los Alamos and neighbouring towns as virtually inevitable. Were really a poor nation, he says. So you plop this federally supported research and development lab, where you have to pay people a lot of money to stay there, and of course theres going to be a disparity between the people who live there and the people in Espaola.

But, he adds, a lot of people who live in Espaola work in Los Alamos. In that whole northern New Mexico region, there is a big commute.

Los Alamos, where benefits have been very insular. Photograph: Brooks Saucedo-McQuade

Others insure the inequality between Los Alamos and neighbouring communities as an excellent example of a common dynamic across the country and a reminder of how narratives of wealth percolating down can be far-fetched.

Its a stark example of the proverbial 1% and the other 99%, says Jay Coghlan, sitting in a large reclining chair in the living room of his home in Santa Fe. A 45 minute drive south-east from Los Alamos, his home doubleds as an office for Nuclear Watch New Mexico.

Neighbouring communities have not benefited much at all, with the obvious exception that theres tasks, he says. Benefits have been very insular and privileged to the nuclear enclave itself.

The environmental impact of living next door to a nuclear research lab is another sore issue. Some radioactive waste is still disposed of at the labs Area G compound( although this could objective next year ), and there is still so-called legacy waste, which has not been cleaned up and will take billions of dollars to address. The carcinogenic plume of hexavalent chromium, meanwhile, which was discovered 10 years ago, is migrating towards nearby Native lands and the regional aquifer.

Atomic City, USA

Los Alamos sits on a hill at more than 7,000 ft( 2,000 metres) above sea level. The single, steep road to the town winds through picturesque northern New Mexico: arid scenery punctuated with desert plants and native American pueblos, with the Jemez mountains in the background.

On a sunny September afternoon, the town is calm and peaceful. A perfectly landscaped and manicured pond is surrounded by a park of bright green grass. A young couple pushes a newborn in a stroller.

Inside a supermarket in Los Alamos, there are fine wines on sale along with cigars, stored in a purpose-built humidor. The supermarkets indoor Atomic Bar serves a range of craft brews on tap. Nearby, a small strip mall houses a chocolatier, an acupuncturist, and a sensory deprivation flotation therapy clinic.

In the waiting room at a bank, there is a Sothebys catalogue of luxury real estate in Santa Fe, from where many of the labs better-paid employees commute. A grand new municipal building stands on the side of the main street much larger than one might expect in such a small town.

Sipping a glass of Atomic beer … Photograph: Brooks Saucedo-McQuade

But while Los Alamos is clean and orderly with clues of privilege, its affluence is comparatively understated. It doesnt looking like one of the richest counties in the nation, let alone the country.

Its not old wealth, says Heather McClenahan, executive director of the Los Alamos Historical Society. Its people who work at the lab. And if youve got two people who work at the lab, whove both got six-figure incomes, thats going to generate wealth in your family.

McClenahan has lived here for more than 15 years. Her spouse does environmental work at the lab. Its a great place to create kids, she says. Its a company town. Most households have at least one person working at the laboratory. There are fabulous schools. Its very safe.

And because its a small town, we dont have traffic problems, we dont have a lot of crime.

And yet references to war and nuclear weapon are everywhere. Atomic City Transit buses rumble down roads with names like Oppenheimer Drive and Trinity Street. Atomic City Salsa is on sale at a gift shop in the town centre, along with bumper stickers and playsuits for newborns, including one with a mushroom cloud on the front, and the punchline( Ive been falling BOMBS since Day 1) on the reverse.

Research at the lab today includes fields like climate change, supercomputing and astrophysics. But still nuclear weapon is the dominant subject.

Pete Sheehey, a Los Alamos county councillor, first moved to the town 30 years ago from California while finishing a PhD in physics. He described the community as very dependent on the one lab contract, but said that it is trying to encourage and maintain spin-off companies in the area, so there will be more jobs independent of the lab contract. And we are working to increase tourism as well.

Made in Los Alamos. Photograph: Brooks Saucedo-McQuade

Los Alamos is part of the new Manhattan Project National Park, and a new mobile app released by the lab lets users explore the 1940 s Atomic City. Already Los Alamos receives tens of thousands of guests each year to consider the place where the atom bomb was developed, says McClenahan. Some of the biggest numbers are from Russia, Germany and Japan.

McClenahan says Los Alamos has always been conflicted about the impact of the research done here. From the beginning, she says, there were scientists who were so proud of not only the scientific work they did, but of telling We ended world war two. And then there were others who said, We only killed hundreds of thousands of people.

For decades, she adds, there was also a sense of Stay out of our town, were doing top-secret run and you cant come here. But attitudes have changed. Now, she says, people are guessing: How do we bring tourists to our tiny little town?

Espaola: Its complicated

Espaola is a 25 minute drive north-east of Los Alamos. It, too, is a small town, with a population of about 10,000. But, in many respects, it feels a world away from the nuclear island on the hill.

The road into Espaola pass by brightly painted murals and drive-thru fast food restaurants. Other builds bear hand-painted signs on storefronts, selling animal feed, boots and party supplies for quinceaeras . Boldly coloured low-rider autoes, which have become key cultural symbols of this part of New Mexico, rumble down the towns wide roads.

Sheehey, the Los Alamos councillor, says that thousands of people commute to Los Alamos each day from neighbouring communities like this one. Economic benefit is felt throughout the region, he says. Children from outside the county are allowed to attend Los Alamos schools, which still get a federal subsidy and are some of the best public schools in New Mexico.

The lab has also been generous in supporting education and other community programs in Espaola and other neighbouring communities, Sheehey adds. He dedicates the example of a free bus service through northern New Mexico, funded partly by a Los Alamos county program called Progress through Partnering.

Like many people in Espaola, Patricia Trujillo, 39, says she has always been connected to the lab in some way. When we talk about the company town its much wider than Los Alamos, she says. Its the whole valley.

Two towns divided by extreme wealth and inequality. Photograph: Brooks Saucedo-McQuade

As a child in the late 1980 s, Trujillo says she recollects her teachers sending her and her classmates to wait by the side of the road and cheer as new scientific equipment was brought to Los Alamos by truck. They had us sit outside all day long, she says. Instead of getting us to question it, they had us cheering.

Her own grandmother ran in Los Alamos in the 1940 s, as a home matron in charge of a dormitory for other women who worked in the then-secret city households and offices. And Trujillo herself has worked at the lab, including as a technical novelist after university.

There are small businesses in Espaola, she says that have also benefited from subcontracts to provide supplies for the lab.

But the word Trujillo chooses to describe Espaolas relationship with Los Alamos is complicated.

Now professor of literature and Chicano surveys at Northern New Mexico College in Espaola, and head of the schools equity and diversity program, she explains: A plenty of our middle class, our wealthier parents, will drive their kids to Los Alamos county every day, to send them to school there. But then we lose that parent base here.

Trujillo says Los Alamos has supported projects including those to write science curriculum for schools in Espaola. But these efforts have been piecemeal and problematic, she says, doing little to address structural inequalities between the two communities.

There is instead a pervasive hill-valley gap, Trujillo argues, which impacts imaginations and limits people aspirations. The majority of manual labourers come from the Espaola valley … but theres no trickle down, she says. Its a multibillion dollar industry, but unfortunately theres a lot of inequity.

Secrecy , not safety

In Espaolas Valdez Park, Beata Tsosie Pea, 38, is sitting with her young son near a freshly terraced slope where she will soon assistance plant trees as part of a new community garden.

Pea was born in the nearby Santa Clara pueblo, and is coordinator of the environmental justice programme at Tewa Women United( TWU ), a civil society organisation led by indigenous women in the area( Tewa is the name of a native language group ). Trujillo is also on the board of trustees of the TWU.

Pea describes the Los Alamos lab as intertwined with issues of power and injustice from the very beginning. Much of the land for the lab was taken from Native communities in the 1940 s, in what she says started with temporary agreements, and understanding that it would be returned after the war.

Los Alamos is on all these sacred sites, ancestral sites. We knew not to develop there, to construct there. We would never have said and done, because we were put there as custodians of the water and the land, she said.

There are also concerns about the labs environmental impact on neighbouring communities. Peas organisation is part of the Communities for Clean Water alliance created to monitor Los Alamoss impact on water for drinking, agriculture, sacred ceremonies, and a sustainable future.

The September 2016 report on nuclear waste came from the the labs own environmental management office. The 20 -plus years and$ 4bn clean-up costs were criticised for being likely underestimates.

The[ labs] location was chosen for its privacy , not its safety. And now theres so much fund, its seen as an investment they dont want to lose, says Pea, wondering aloud how many of Los Alamoss residents know on whose land they are, and that the privilege of living here comes with responsibility.

But, again, the word she opts is complicated.

There needs to be a transition to a different mission[ for the lab ], to things like clean-up technologies, alternative energy, green energy, she argues. Protest groups come here and say Shut it down. But for us, its much more complicated, because our families are economically tied to the lab.

Travel for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

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Read more: www.theguardian.com

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