#they are invading my brain again but this time with more autism | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

solarsleepless · 1 month

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hello all

basically, i'm going to be watching bsc episodes and listing down the autistic traits i see in kristy. i may have a bonus part for the other girls but i'm mainly going to be focusing on kristy as she is my favourite.

without further ado, let's do this

Episode 1

right off the bat we get the line "I was doing the most talking, as per usual." autistic people have a tendency to dominate conversations or to "monologue"

also, mary anne is kristy's only friend at the very beginning. most autistic people find it challenging to make any new friends, both due to any communicative issues and because they don't want to change up their routine. kristy is clearly just fine with having only mary anne as a friend, which is shown in later episodes

"it was boiling in there, like surface of venus levels hot and he just kept droning on and on" autistic people are wayyy more prone to sensory issues than most other people, and that can include temperature, especially if they start sweating, which for many people causes sensory distress. autistic people also find it hard to concentrate for a myriad of possible reasons, including filtering out information our brains deem 'irrelevant' even if they're not

"If he was such a genius, why didn't he say all people?" autistic people tend to have a strong sense of justice and a black and white view of things, having very clear ideas of what is right and wrong in their head. yes, kristy's a feminist, but her willingness to correct him without a care for manners reads as autistic to me

"except apparently, i raised my voice, and didn't raise my hand." manners, even well remembered ones like raising your hand, can sometimes be forgotten by autistic people if it's something they're passionate about: in this case, kristy's need for correction and fairness overrode that

"[the boys in the back are] wiping sweat on each other, but somehow, i'm the disruptive one" autism in AFABs is often seen as being rude or disruptive despite them often just being passionate about the subject. also, sensory issues again?

"claudia and mary anne and i used to hang out all the time. but that was before claudia decided she was more into boys and clothes than us." another example of how kristy has had very few people in life she considers friends and has stuck with them for most of her life. also, possible rejection sensitive dysphoria made kristy see it as bigger than it actually is, because they seem to be fine when they interact, like nothing happened

in the next scene, we see kristy helping david michael with a puzzle. puzzles are often enjoyed by autistic people due to being structured, logical, visual and with a clear end, all of which are treasured aspects of things for autistic people.

stimming!!! lots of stimming. when explaining her new concept which she has clearly quickly hyperfixated on, we see her pacing and fidgeting with her hands as well as gesturing. also, having a strong moral code and wanting to put in effort for kids to be happy

she seems pretty startled when stacey appears, and is a little upset when it's obvious claudia has told her about the club idea: autistic people find it hard to find their footing after their expectations of how something would go are thrown off, but kristy's new hyperfixation overrules this change of plans

even though her need to infodump and talk about this new idea made her not lose her cool, she's visibly still unsure when stacey suggests things. even afterwards, she tries to... "villainize" feels to strong a word, but tries to make reasons for why she disliked her even though it's obvious she was just taken off guard

"maybe new people weren't an invading force to be repelled at all costs" here we get to see how much kristy detests change—even when it's beneficial, she'd rather stick with one or two friends. pay special attention to the wording: "at all costs". kristy will always try and evade change

another sign of her intolerance for change is how much she just dislikes watson, even though he seems like a nice guy. she doesn't want to accept that he is going to a fixture in their lives because it will mean that her family will change a lot, at least in her view (though i will say she has a lot of abandonment issues and trauma from her dad leaving her which shifts her perception on any guy her mom dates)

also from here on out i think we can see a clear hyperfixation on business and law, judging by her attitude and comments later on about the club

this whole dinner scene just feels very autistic to me: she takes what her mother says about "feeling okay about it" very literally and bulldozes any attempt of conversation. she is not okay about the idea of her mother marrying watson and she doesn't understand the social cue of her being more gentle about it. she genuinely doesn't understand why her mom would ask about it if she, in kristy's perspective, was not going to listen to her, when kristy is the one not listening to her over a misunderstanding.

this might be more of a me thing, but kristy trying to send her mom an email to apologize just feels really autistic to me, as it resonates hard with me and what i've done in the past. i used to leave messages in google translate for my parents to apologize. idk but its worth looking at

"i'm bossy, get used to it" shows that not only is she fairly controlling, but she's also aware of this fact. i couldn't find much research on this, but many autistic people are bossy or controlling so they know what to expect and so that things go exactly to plan.

kristy's lack of tact and sense with the phone. just. that.

claudia remarks that she's starting to remember why she stopped hanging out with kristy so much—because she's controlling and "bossy". this is partially due to feeling like everything that happened with her dad was out of her control and so it intensified the shittier he became, combined with that, autistic people can tend to come off as too much. also, rejection sensitive dysphoria—stares off into the distance and doesn't talk.

autistic people tend to be very trusting of others, taking lots of what they say at face value, and struggling to comprehend why someone would lie to them. despite only knowing stacey for a short amount of time and not even completely liking her, she's devastated when it turns out stacey was lying to them.

"this whole situation has spiralled out of my control, and that's a feeling i really, really hate." same points that have been made above—absolute control over what happens when they're involved is a big thing for autistics so they know completely what's going on. add on her trauma about her absent father, and it makes sense why she acts the way she does.

more about the trust!! she trusts stacey to not only know about her hyperfixation but also to be directly involved in it—that's a really big deal for us autistics!! it means we Trust you!!

more hammering in about kristy's control issues. i'm glad i've only seen One (1) fic demonizing her for it but at the same time that's one too many

kristy being just. so blunt. i love her. "you're controlling my THOUGHTS now?" "yes." a lot of autistic people don't see any reason to not be honest most of the time.

is just. dead serious about the "i should resign before i'm impeached".

more bluntness!! "when mary anne gets scared at something you think is silly, do you make fun of her and call her a baby?" "yeah, sometimes." "oh. but you're still her best friend, right?" "yes." but also, bluntness isn't always a bad thing. kristy just casually throws in the "i love you" because she thinks it at that moment and means it, so she sees no reason not to say it because it's true.

more finding it easier to say stuff like "thank you" over text than in person, just like the "i'm sorry" earlier

additional notes:

mary anne is autistic too!! we see her stimming, though, stroking the end of her braid during her convo abt the club with stacey, kristy and claudia. also her just letting kristy speak a lot feels autistic but idk how to explain it. also, she's good with visual organization, such as keeping things orderly in a google docs and writing minutes. i feel like she'd rather her do it than anyone else, that way she can help the club and make it easier for her to concentrate on the club itself. also, stacey and even claudia, her childhood best friend, both remark that she doesn't speak a lot. she definitely isn't nonverbal, but she absolutely lets people talk over hers and seems to find it more comfortable to not speak, at least early on. i could only find stuff for nonspeaking and nonverbal autistics, but i've had several periods where it wasn't uncomfortable to speak, but i was much more comfortable not speaking, which i think might be the case for mary anne, though it could be a mark of her simply not knowing what to add.

claudia CLEARLY has adhd!! she doodles and fidgets a lot, and many adhders turn out to be artists due to their creativity and excess energy that they expel via doodling. she draws on her shoes, and the teacher remarks that she "wouldn't want another failed quiz on your average", indicating her struggle with school, which we see even more of in the coming episodes, and people with adhd tend to have poor academic perfomance, mainly for their struggle with executive dysfunction skills.

claudia also spells "prety grate" instead of "pretty great" in her email to kristy. judging by this and later scenes in the series, it's possible she has dyslexia and/or dyscalculia, which has been reported to more or less have a 25% comorbidity with adhd

janine is also pretty obviously autistic-coded; her room is very dimly lit, she hardly ever leaves it, has flat affect, doesn't pick up much on claudia's social cues, has a special interest in computer and tech and whatnot, has a very extensive vocabulary, and butts in on conversations with her advice without asking before leaving after they get what she's saying

and that's it for episode 1 !!!! tell me what you think, and i'll see you all with part 2 very soon :)

#autistic kristy comp #<- new tagggg #kristy thomas #the babysitter's club #the babysitters club #long post

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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

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I found my way home

Summary: After Spencer tells Hotch about his recent autism diagnosis, he expects that to be the end of it. Somehow, though, it keeps coming up, and Hotch keeps proving himself to be the best father figure he could have asked for.

Tags: autistic spencer, protective hotch, hurt/comfort, fluff, paternal hotch, team as family

TW: mentions of ableism, one small instance of ableism & homophobia

Pairing: Gen

Word Count: 4.1k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

This was borne from my conversations with @criminalmindsvibez about the lack of autistic spencer fics and her amazing headcanons. While I'm not autistic, Emily is, and helped me to portray Spencer's autism as accurately as possible. That said, please feel free to correct me on anything I got wrong :)

Spencer had made an effort to get into work even earlier than usual today. He’d ridden the metro through the city, dipping his hand into his messenger bag every few minutes to compulsively check that the slim letter he’d received in the post the other day is still in the front pocket where he’d safely placed it that morning. He brushes his fingers over the paper once more as he enters the near-empty bullpen, the letter cool from the winter air.

It’s still so surreal to him that this is where he works. After years of dreaming of working for the FBI he’s finally here, and even though it’s been his place of work for almost two months now, he’s still not used to it. The warm offices are a nice reprieve from the wintry December wind, and he can feel himself relaxing as he heads to his desk. Leaving his coat and messenger bag on his chair, he pulls the letter out of the front pocket and runs his index finger along the edge. He finds himself biting his bottom lip as he tries to work up the courage to go and see Hotch.

Sucking in a deep breath, he marches determinedly up to Hotch’s office, entering as soon as his knocks are answered.

“Reid,” Hotch says pleasantly as he takes a seat opposite his desk, realising belatedly that he probably should have waited until he was invited. “You’re in early. What can I do for you?”

Nervously, Spencer hands him the letter he’d couriered across the city so carefully. He’d taken care to open it neatly with his letter opener but the return address on the back has been stamped at a crooked angle, and it bothers him every time he notices it. He can’t stop looking at it now as he taps his fingers anxiously against his leg in the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence, a safe and familiar reassurance played out by his nervous fingers. He watches apprehensively as Hotch pulls the letter out of the envelope, unfolding it and skimming his eyes down the page, taking in the news Spencer’s been so anxious to share with him.

Diagnosis: Asperger’s Syndrome

God, it had been a long process. He’d had to seek out a doctor in DC who diagnosed adults, paid for all the consultations and diagnostics himself — his insurance certainly wouldn’t cover it, not that he’d feel comfortable using his cushy FBI insurance for something so personal anyway — and the whole process had taken far longer than he’d expected. Finally, though, the envelope had arrived in the mail, and he officially had a diagnosis.

Of course, he’d had his suspicions for years, especially after one of his professors during his second PhD had casually asked whether he’d ever been tested, planting a seed in his brain that led to many late nights in the library, reading all the literature available to him. It’s why he’d found it strange that it had felt so validating to finally receive that letter in the post. But it had.

The label made sense, and now that he had a diagnosis from a medical professional he felt comfortable to share it with others; he’d been far too paranoid about being questioned, not being believed or lectured about the evils of self-diagnosis no matter how he was confident in himself. He didn’t tend to be an insecure or self-conscious person, but after years of bullying and trauma surrounding what he now knew for sure to be his autistic traits, he couldn’t help but feel almost protective of his affirming label.

Now though, it’s an irrefutable statement. Dr Spencer Reid has autism, and the first person he wants to tell is Hotch.

“I had no idea you were getting tested, Reid,” Hotch says, a hint of surprise bleeding into his voice. “Is there any specific reason you wanted to share this with me?”

“Well… I felt like someone on the team should know,” Spencer starts carefully, afraid to give too much of himself away, “and I thought that someone in a leadership position was the best option. Gideon has never been very… supportive of my autistic traits or behaviour, so I thought that you— that you would be the best option.” He feels awkward, fidgeting in his chair as he watches Hotch’s serious face and kind eyes absorb the information.

“That trust in me means a lot, Reid,” he says, a rare smile making its way onto his face. In that moment, Spencer knows he made the right decision. “How can I make things easier for you? Is there anything you need me to be doing differently?”

“Uh—” He hadn’t really been anticipating that question and it catches him off guard: he’d predicted a quick nod of acknowledgement, a request to photocopy the letter so it can be put on file followed by a swift dismissal, but the letter is now sitting on his side of the desk: clearly, Hotch intends on keeping this between them. This is far from what he expected.

“Why don’t you start by telling me about autism and how it might affect your work?” Hotch corrects himself, recognising quickly Spencer’s need for specifics. “I’ll admit I don’t know much beyond some probably rather unhelpful stereotypes.”

Spencer nods. He can answer that question. “As everyone knows I often go off on tangents,” he begins, “and that’s because my special interests — or hyperfixations — often coincide with our work, so I know a lot about the topics we’re investigating. If I do that, just redirect me to the case and I’ll be fine. It’s also really hard for me to have to present myself in a certain way all the time. Vocal stims and gestures are the most satisfying to me but I often have to mask them, which I’ve never been very good at anyway, and it’s fairly exhausting. That’s why I often excuse myself; I go to the bathroom or a secluded hallway and stim on my own. My doctor also told me I tend to overcompensate in social situations and over-perform emotion. Those are the basics, I guess, but it’s a very complex disorder and since it makes up me as a human being, I can’t exactly explain all of it in one conversation.”

“No, that’s fine, Reid, you’ve given me a good picture of what to expect, thank you.” Hotch smiles at him, fondness in the crinkles around his eyes and the softness invading his usually stern expression. “First of all, you never have to feel like you need to excuse yourself to stim. Do you think it would be helpful if we told the rest of the team so they know what to expect? I’m assuming vocal stims are saying certain words or making sounds…?”

Spencer nods.

“Okay, so if you needed to do that we could just continue the conversation while you get it out of your system. Gestures certainly wouldn’t be a problem. How do you feel about that?”

He hadn’t really considered telling the rest of the team but it seemed sort of intimidating, like he’d be opening a vulnerable side of himself to people he didn’t even know that well. On the other hand, they’d all been so understanding of his quirks and odd behaviour so far without even knowing the reason behind it. He’d never once been made to feel the way he used to at school, forced to either pretend to be someone else completely or be isolated and ostracised.

He settles for, “I’ll think about it.”

“That’s fine. There’s no pressure,” Hotch assures him. “I’m very happy you told me, Reid. I hope you know you can come and talk to me about anything, whether it’s about this or something completely different.”

Spencer leaves his office with the letter back in his hands, no notes or copies having been made, feeling almost elated. Never in a million years would he have expected that to go so well.

⭐️

He doesn’t really expect it to come up again. He’d told Hotch so that he could understand him a bit better, and also because Hotch had quickly assumed a protective, almost paternal role in his life and he wanted to share the piece of news with him whether he was leading his department or not. That was supposed to be it, though, he didn't think anything would materially change, especially since he decided not to tell the team about the diagnosis just yet.

But almost immediately after he’d told Hotch his diagnosis, his rambles began to be gently redirected back to the case, sometimes without him even noticing. He wasn’t rudely cut off by anyone anymore, Hotch always steering him back on course before anyone else can jump in and hurt Spencer’s feelings. It’s so… kind that it almost feels foreign, and he finds himself gravitating towards the older man more and more, sitting next to him on every jet journey and staying glued to his side during cases.

His newfound protectiveness over Spencer is only demonstrated more clearly a few months after their conversation in Hotch’s office when they’re on their way to New Mexico for a case. The second he spots that the murder victims had all been found with different Fitzgerald quotes scrawled on sheets of paper found in their own personal notebooks, ripped out and left for investigating officers to find, he launches into an info-dump to rival info-dumps.

He can’t help that literature is a special interest of his, made all the more intense by the fond childhood memories of reading to his mother in her bed. Fitzgerald had been her favourite author of the Modern Era, and he’d spent hours analysing significant passages in his novels as a child, so he starts explaining the literary merit of each of the quotes left at the crime scenes.

Apparently, he doesn’t hear the first two times Hotch tries to direct him back on topic, but he hears it when Gideon shouts, “Spencer! Long and unnecessary tangents are not conducive to actually solving these cases. Get back on topic. Now.” He’s loud enough to briefly knock him back several decades to memories of his father screaming at his mother’s schizophrenic babbling, when she’d become convinced that the villains of her favourite novels were trying to break into the house.

Spencer stops mid-sentence and stares at Gideon, who is staring right back. Everyone’s watching the two awkwardly, but the short moment of silence is quickly broken by Hotch. “There is absolutely no need to be that rude, Jason,” he says disapprovingly, while he lays a hand on Spencer’s arm in a light, absent-minded sort of touch. “Reid may have been off-topic but he deserves respect just like everyone else on this team. Nobody needs to be shouted at like that.” He directs his attention back to Spencer. “Why don’t you tell us how those Fitzgerald quotes could help us solve the case, Reid?”

He gives him an encouraging look, and when he looks around the jet, everyone else is, too. Carefully, he starts speaking again, a little afraid of being cut off again, but after a few sentences of relevant explanation he regains his momentum. It’s more than a little vindicating when it’s his ‘unnecessary tangent’ that ends up being the key to cracking the case.

⭐️

Soon after Hotch’s split from Haley, he approaches Spencer one evening when they’re the only two left at the office with a dinner invitation. Within the hour, they walk into a nice, low-key Italian place in the city and take a seat in the far corner of the restaurant.

“Is everything okay?” Spencer asks a little uncertainly, confused as to why his boss is suddenly taking him for dinner.

“I had this idea almost as soon as you told me about your autism,” Hotch explains, knowing by now that preambles and niceties only frustrate Spencer instead of setting him at ease. “I wanted to take you out for dinner every week to try and give you a space to ramble about all your special interests and not feel like you have to mask around everyone. But when I was with Haley, all my personal time was obviously spent with her and Jack. Now, I have the time to dedicate to you and all the incredible knowledge you’re hoarding in that brain of yours.”

“Really?” Spencer asks excitedly. The idea of uninhibited space to talk about the recent knowledge he’s acquired and not have to feel insecure or worry about performing social skills he doesn’t see the point of is everything he’s ever wished for, and something so wonderful being provided by Hotch only makes it better.

“Really.”

Spencer wastes no time. He dives right in. “I was just watching a documentary the other day about volcanoes and their ability to trigger lightning storms with their voltage,” he begins. “Basically, magma rises toward the volcano’s surface, its water rapidly turns to vapor, which shatters the molten rock into tiny particles and creates charged particles. When the ash plume erupts into the atmosphere, the densely packed particles collide, driven by momentum. Friction then affects their electrons, becoming electrically charged. Positively and negatively charged electrons separate in the ash plume which creates a charge imbalance that builds an electric charge strong enough to trigger a lightning storm.”

“That’s incredible.”

“I know,” Spencer says excitedly. “If the ash plume rises high enough in the atmosphere ice forms, and when ice, hail, and supercooled liquid droplets collide, the rates of lightning explode, it’s crazy.”

They’re briefly interrupted by a waitress taking their orders, but as soon as she leaves, Hotch gets him to jump back in. “What about that lecture you attended last week… the literature of 18th Century England or something?”

“19th Century English Lit, yeah!” He’s so eager to finally share this with somebody who will genuinely listen to him, and he can’t help it when his arms start to flap excitedly. Remembering where he is, he doesn’t try to mask it, pin his arms to his sides and simply deal with and suppress the innate urge to stim, he lets his body do what it wants to. Instead of eliciting a strange, sideways look, Hotch just smiles fondly.

“The lecturer had this fascinating theory on Dickens. I’ve always seen him as a pretty straight forward author of picaresque fiction, obviously combined with facets of melodrama. And it’s common knowledge that he was inspired by the novel of sensibility, of course. But I’d never thought about the stylistic and lexical choices in his works beyond standard analysis, and this lecturer went on a deep dive into his use of collocation and it opened my eyes…”

He spends the whole evening stimming to his heart’s content while detailing every current interest of his to Hotch, who simply listened intently while eating his meal slowly, dragging out the meal for as long as Spencer needed. “Let me give you a lift home,” Hotch insists after footing the bill, leading him out into the warm evening air.

“Oh, I don’t mind taking the metro,” he replies truthfully.

“I know. But it would make me feel better to drop you home safely. It’s late and seeing you into your apartment building would give me peace of mind.”

“Sure,” Spencer agrees happily, he’s still buzzing from such a nice evening and the least he can do for Hotch is let him rest easy tonight, so he climbs into the passenger side of his car. A few minutes into the car ride home, he realises he should probably actually verbalise just how much he enjoyed dinner. “Thank you, Hotch. I don’t think anybody’s ever done something so nice for me before.”

“Don’t mention it, Spencer,” Hotch replies, smiling even though he doesn’t take his eyes off the road. Spencer very much likes it when Hotch uses his first name, and he’d been doing it all evening. He doesn’t really understand why it feels so nice, just that it makes him feel… special, maybe.

“Don’t mention it, Spencer,” he repeats, before freezing as he realises what he’s said. He’s got so used to not masking all evening, he’s not in the right rhythm and mindset to suppress the urge to repeat Hotch’s words. He’s been so nice the whole evening, the last thing Spencer wants is for Hotch to think he’s mocking him.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Hotch reassures him, tapping his arm lightly as he smiles encouragingly.

“Don’t mention it, Spencer,” he says again, repeating it a few times in relief before the itch is satisfied. He really does have the best boss/friend in the whole world. There’s no doubt about that.

⭐️

Rossi’s initial reaction to Spencer had admittedly been a bit rocky, and having Hotch undeniably on his side was the only thing that made those first few months bearable. He never let them go off on their own; never put Spencer in a position where he’d have to be alone with him. Gradually, though, Rossi adjusted to his quirks and he became almost as protective of Spencer as Hotch.

That doesn’t bode well for the local sheriff when they’re on a case in North Carolina. He’s been prickly since they arrived, being as stubborn and uncooperative as possible, slowing down their progress on actually solving the case, and Spencer’s noticed him being a little extra rude to him in particular. It doesn’t massively bother him — it’s not exactly like someone’s aversion to him is a novel concept — but he can feel some sort of tension coming from the others. It happens a lot more now that they know about his autism and are more aware of themselves and others.

He tries to ignore it the best he can; he puts his head down and focuses on the geographical profile, going wherever he’s sent. Besides, the sooner they solve this case the sooner they can get out of North Carolina and back to DC. On their third day on the case, he’s working quietly in their designated corner of the police department alongside Hotch and Rossi while the others are out investigating in various different places. It’s a nice environment, and even though both men are his superiors, he feels more relaxed in their company than in anybody else’s.

It’s a relatively pleasant morning — considering the whole trying to catch a brutal serial killer thing — until they need to ask the sheriff a question. He saunters over, a tense and angry expression on his face, and Spencer can’t help but feel a little off, the confusing tension in the air that Spencer can’t quite identify making him anxious in his inability to properly decipher it. “Gentlemen,” he says, already frustrated. Spencer suspects it’s a pride thing; not many police departments like being shown up enough to have the FBI called in.

Eager to know the answer to their question, Spencer’s the one to jump in and ask. “Sheriff, we were just wondering whether the town gets much traffic from the local university or—”

He’s cut off by the sneering, towering man. “I’m not taking any questions from your kind,” he says aggressively.

“I’m sorry?” Spencer squeaks as Rossi and Hotch both prepare to say something in response.

The sheriff cuts them off before they can get their likely diplomatic and calming words out. “Homo retards aren’t welcome around here.”

“Hey!” Rossi shouts as he leaps out of the chair, grabbing him by the collar as he’s helped by the element of surprise. “You don’t fucking talk to Spencer like that, you hear me? Weak, cowardly men like you—”

“Dave,” Hotch says placatingly, putting a hand on his shoulder and diffusing the situation. “Listen, Sheriff, we are only here to help you. But if you can’t respect my agents then we’re going to have a problem. Either you’re civil to Dr Reid, or I’m reporting you to the NC Sheriff’s Association. You hear me?”

The sheriff’s pride is clearly wounded, but he at least nods before giving them all a scornful look and walking away.

“We didn’t even get to ask the question,” Spencer says anxiously, suddenly feeling out of his depth, like he can’t quite get enough air.

“Dave, try and get an answer,” Hotch directs, taking charge of the situation. “Spencer, come with me.” He takes him into a secluded hallway for a little privacy, sitting him down on the cool linoleum before sinking down next to him. “You’re okay.”

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Spencer whispers over and over to himself as he rocks backwards and forwards, trying desperately to self-soothe.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Hotch asks. He’s been in enough of these situations with Spencer to know he’s usually in two very different headspaces: he either longingly craves the grounding touch of a hug or a hand on his back, or he needs complete space. He’s also learned that asking outright is the only way to get an direct answer.

“Yes,” Spencer replies, before repeating it over and over again as he’s wrapped up in Hotch’s arms, head pressed against his chest, his hand pressing gently against the back of Spencer’s head. He starts to calm down as he manages to breathe to the heat of Hotch’s calm, steady heartbeat, the comforting touch of someone he trusts with his life also helping to bring him back down to earth. A good ten minutes after the altercation with the sheriff, he’s feeling much better and brings his head out of it’s safe cocoon between Hotch’s chest and hand.

“Come on,” Hotch says kindly. “Let’s get back to the case, yeah? You can just sit and work quietly until you’re ready to hold a proper conversation again. How does that sound?”

Spencer nods tiredly, knowing that work will perk him back up again, and being surrounded by his team will make him feel safe, asshole sheriff or not.

⭐️

Over the years Hotch helps him through any hurdles that come his way, learning the exact nuances of Spencer’s characteristics and requirements, making sure to accommodate him in every way possible.

He brings an extra, super-soft sweater in his go-bag in case Spencer ever forgets his and needs something gentle on his skin but tight enough to make him feel secure. He buys him stimming toys, dropping them on Spencer’s desk before he even arrives at work and lets him use his office whenever the lights and noise of the bullpen get too much, drawing the blinds and giving him the space he needs. Rossi doesn’t even question it anymore when Hotch shows up with a stack of paperwork and moves into his office for the morning.

It wasn’t until Hotch made a concerted effort to make his life easier that Spencer realised how hard it had been fighting through life on his own. So when he realises Hotch’s birthday is coming up, he decides he wants to show his gratitude. It’s never been easy for him to express emotions, especially since he’s never really found it rude when people don’t thank him, but he knows that for most neurotypical people, appreciation is important.

So he talks it over with Derek and on Hotch’s birthday, he comes into work to see Spencer waiting in his office with balloons, a cake, a card, and a present. He’d spent hours trying to find the right words to explain how he feels, to find the right words to show Hotch just how much everything he’s done for him means, but eventually he’d settled on something simple:

Caroline B Cooney wrote: “I found my family. I found the right thing to do. I found my way home.”

I found all of these things when I joined the BAU, but more specifically when I walked into your office, hands shaking, clasping a letter I’d been waiting for all my life. Thank you.

Hotch reads it with tears in his eyes before taking in the cake, a classic birthday cake Spencer had bought at the store, the words “Happy Birthday Dad” written in blue icing. He didn’t really understand why the cake had stood out to him, or why he associated the word ‘dad’ with someone who wasn’t related to him at all, but he’d trusted his gut and with Derek’s cheerleading, he’d bought it.

“Oh, Spencer,” Hotch says tearfully. “Can I hug you?”

Feeling only mildly uncomfortable at the visible display of emotion Spencer doesn’t know what to do with, he nods and steps into Hotch’s comforting embrace. “This means the world to me,” Hotch murmurs quietly as he stands, hugging Spencer for as long as the younger man can stand it.

Spencer’s still not completely sure why he’s managed to make him so emotional, but at least he can trust that it’s a good thing, that Hotch is happy and pleased and reassured. And if he can make him feel even a smidgen as happy as Hotch has made Spencer over the years, well. He’ll consider his long and boring trip into the city to buy the cake, present and card worth it.

Quick Note: Spencer is diagnosed with Asperger’s because that part of the fic is set in 2005. These days he would be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @strippersenseii

#criminal minds #criminal minds writing #criminal minds fic #spencer reid #aaron hotchner #hotch & spencer #spencer #hotch #my writing #autistic spencer reid #autistic spencer #dad hotch

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irkenheretic · 4 years

Note

Does Red have that one genetic disorder? What does it do to Irkens who do have it?

OOOHHH OKAY SO this is all gonna be headcanon stuff for ANX (watch me forget to tag the post as such lmao) so itll be canon divergent at points

so The Red Eye Thing, which has no formal name because why would irkens name it, is a linked gene between the gene that causes red eyes, and a genetic disorder that leaves an irken with a little extra chunk of chromosome in a sex cell that made them. (a sex cell is like, either the sperm or the egg, one of those) not an entire extra chromosome, that doesn’t happen among irkens, but a chunk.

you can’t have red eyes without having The Red Eye Thing, so yes red does have it! ^^

i just have to go on record and say that in ANX, irkens still reproduce naturally. they dont mate for fun or keep the young, but its still not artificial. smeets are also VERY IMPORTANT in irken society as they are seen as the future of the empire (like, assaulting a smeet is so universally hated that if someone is jailed for it they will 100% be killed before they ever stand trial. smeet assaulters are so hated that the control brains know this happens and they just let it happen)

so given how societally important smeets are, it tends to be Very Bad for Red Eyes that the main problem their genetic disorder gives them is infertility. theyre basically looked down upon societally because they’re unable to do a basic biological function that even smallers and defectives can do.

i mentioned they also have hyperpigmented skin in my other ask, but im putting it here again anyway. skin colors from that hyperpigmentation can range from “dark, but still normal irken dark” to “i have never seen a skin color as dark as yours before holy fuck” these edits i did of red are what he looks like in ANX, and hes on the way far end of the spectrum- out of 100+ characters in ANX, some other Red Eyes, he’s the darkest one. the hyperpigmentation is a result of the extra chunk of chromosome lmao

also, Red Eyes have trouble detecting pheromones other irkens give off. this can be just dulled senses, or it can be a total lack of detection, like what Red has. (ur seeing a pattern arent u, red has a more “severe” case of his genetic disorder.)

the gene also causes developmental disorders which... aren’t exactly on a sliding scale per se? it’s kind of like autism where every Red Eye acts differently from each other that there’s no real “universal experience” for how this specific thing presents itself.

the red eye gene is passed on from parent to child, it won’t mutate and it can’t be carried- you either have it or you don’t.

“but how can that be if they’re infertile!” i said infertile, not sterile. the reason Red Eyes are infertile is because, since the extra chromosome chunk was in a sex cell, at least 50% of their sex cells will be affected with the extra chunk, too. irkens have a biomechanism that purges cells with missing or extra chromosome parts (extra-chromosome irkens are relatively fine, missing-chromosome irkens are like, hatched with no brain or are stillhatches so good that thats... there)

but since those cells are purged, that’s at least half of the fertile cells. of course if they have a more severe case, like red, it would be more than half. so it is moderatley hard to nigh impossible for Red Eyes to conceive or fertilize, depending on who it is. so since only Red Eyes can pass down The Red Eye Gene, and these bitches rarely have smeets, there’s only like.... one Red Eye per generation, maybe two.

(fun facts: there used to be more Red Eye family lines, but some idiot got it in his head that Red Eyes caused defectiveness and that most defect trials were a false positive so in order to save everyone he needed to kill all Red Eyes, so now there.... aren’t..... any more......) (yes the control brains crazy murdered that idiot. they hate him so much sometimes they go “hey remember the red eye genocide guy? what the fuck, right?”)

so tl;dnr: it’s a genetic disorder caused by an extra chunk of chromosome in either a sperm or egg that made the irken. it causes infertility, hyperpigmentation, low or no ability to detect irken pheromones, and a developmental disorder that presents differently in everyone that has it.

tl;dnr 2: irken down’s syndrome.

under the cut im gonna go on about how society sees irkens with this condition (under the cut because.... sexual assault tw. also ableism tw)

Red Eyes are seen as... well... broken pieces of shit. before red was tallest, there WAS another Red Eye Tallest in recent history- tallest Zim. (NO RELATION to invader zim haha) zim becoming tallest made Red Eyes not be.... as hated, but there’s still this societal idea of “you are a broken piece of shit and your cells should have been purged.... buuuut if you do something above and beyond whatever it is your job is, we Might think you’re cool. also we probably won’t say this to your face but we’re thinking it really hard at you, and you KNOW we’re thinking it, so there’s no point in not saying it, but we still won’t so you cant claim we hate you. but make no mistake, we do.” so red just had, the BEST time growing up.

remember in my last ask, i said Red Eyes are liked a little too well sometimes? well... due to their infertility, they’re frequent targets for rape, especially in the military, since military irkens aren’t allowed to mate. nab a Red Eye and you can have all the fuck you want without any, er, evidence. red honestly was lucky he was constantly stickied to purple as an elite, otherwise Horrible Things could’ve happened.

was the general populace worried about a Red Eye tallest? yes. yes they were, back when it was tallest zim. they thought he’d be shit at it due to how “broken” he was. there was a LOT of public outcry, especially since zim was on the shorter side of tallests. they were ready to be all “see, Red Eyes are NOTHING,” until zim was actually an amazing tallest. he was so good the control brains liked him, and the only other modern tallest they actually liked was miyuki. he did great things for the empire, everyone loved him. when tallest red became tallest, everyone was much less worried. but they were still thinkin it, ya dig.

is red related to tallest zim? yes, zim is red’s grandfather.

is red’s tendency to forget words a part of his developmental disorder? it could be, could not be. there’s not much of a sample size due to yknow, the genocide, so there’s no-one to compare his symptoms against. the disorder presents differently in everyone so even if red is the only living Red Eye with that symptom, doesnt mean its NOT a symptom ya dig? but im gonna word of god it and say yes it is

can you have the same chromosome thing without being a Red Eye? yes! in this ask i talk about spork having a learning disability- he has the same chromosome thing, it just gives him different symptoms because he doesnt have the specific instance that red eyes have.

can you have red eyes without the chromosome thing? no, the gene for red-colored eyes is stickied to the Extra Chunk gene, and unlike chromosome issues, which can happen to any irken, an irken will not randomly mutate a gene for red-colored eyes.

is the term “red eye” derogatory? it was EXTREMELY derogatory before tallest zim took power. now it’s just a general term for a red eyed irken, but... irkens will still use it in an insulting way. like... “queer” is the best parallel i can draw. used to be a slur, now is a general term, but some people still clearly use it as a slur against others.

are red eyes called slurs? YES. they are targets for The Word. The Worst Word In The Irken Language, So Bad You Can’t Even Call It “The __ Word” Because It’s Too Close To Saying The Word. It Is Just, “The Word.” it used to be WAY worse before the genocide, simply because there were more of them. it decreased even more after tallest zim took power, but make no mistake, it’s still out there. also The Word translates out to “condemned obsolete bastard” with a side order of “the beginning of The Word sounds like im spitting on you and thats also exactly what it means.” its an awful slur its like if every human slur had an orgy

(was red called slurs growing up- YES.)

are Red Eyes defective? they can be! defectiveness is in the PAK, not in an irken’s biology. that’s why they’re called genetic disorders and not genetic defects, to separate them from the “we are going to execute you” defectiveness. they’re still scorned as if they are defective, though. sometimes theyre called “worse than defectives” as a jab at their infertility- like, even the empire’s worst can do that, ya dig?

back in The Old Days, there was probably a mix of defective and non-defective Red Eyes. now they’re all defective by coincidence.

#anarchisma au #I REMEMBERED FUCK YEAH #rape m #ableism tw #live from conventia #i hope u like it!!

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qm-vox · 4 years

Text

The Dwelling Gods - A More Perfect Union

Previous Chapter: Sitting The Table

Human-Controlled Space (The Undivided Whole), Milky Way Galaxy (Orion Arm), 787 Unified Year (2863 Astra Federation Standard Calendar; Covenant Day)

We The People Of Planet Earth

Not all is well. It has not been well ever since the People’s invasion of the gataxians. We had underestimated the willingness of their aggrieved neighbors to come to their defense; even now Our citizens pore over histories, shift masses of data, claim mental bandwidth with which to argue amongst Ourself about how We could have so grossly mis-characterized the political situation between the xenophobes and their prey. Our libraries buzz with life, fed further data by forward intel posts, by contemplation and meditation, by after-action reports written by Ourself and for Ourself and to Ourself.

But what’s worse is the wound, the lacing, scratching thing in Our mind, the hurtful little slash around which We become I. We cannot be I; We The People Of Planet Earth stand united, without flaw or seam.

We, not I. I cannot be the People. I can only be a person.

It itches. There is no other word for it. It feels like such a small thing but all of Us suffer for it; Our hands move more slowly, Our heads shake as we go about Our work. The wound-thing that tastes like “I” drives Our citizens to distraction. The artwork being made for Our vaults and cities and ships skews dark; We can feel Ourselves working in bloody rust-reds, in off-blacks, in violent tangles of light and shadow that dizzy the eyes. Our previous blue period would be a relief at this point.

How did We get hurt? It had felt almost like one of Our semi-autonomous citizens, what Divided Humanity would think of as an officer, reporting in to sync subjectivities, but instead of the blissful transfer of information We were cut and scarred by the shrieking death-fear of two minds at once. One almost human, the other...

(Art-citizens slash red across the metal of Our fleets. A creche of writers begins typing gibberish far beyond the pale of even Our most recursive meta-textual works; harsh noise plays from the throats of Our musicians oh it hurts the memory hurts so much and yet We cannot stop picking at it can We)

Focus. We direct the attention of the People (I look - no!) to the war-front. The gataxians are being reinforced in numbers too large to be a mere defensive measure, and We are bringing Our own fleets to bear accordingly. War-citizens emerge from the cloning vats, and We re-task the autonomous to the needs of battle. If We do not miss Our guess, a counter-invasion is imminent. This could work to the advantage of the People; forcing the enemy to expend time and energy defending the borders will make them easier to cross and pillage of resources, and We may learn much from the mysterious and advanced benefactors of the butterflies -

- something is not right. We are -

Gripped, seized in my (mymymymy) mind by two minds, two minds like the last two minds that carved I into We and made me aware of my me-ness, my one-ness, of the betrayal of my purpose it’s like claws made of knives right in the soul why this how this it hurts -

The human-like mind starts dying immediately, flayed layer by layer by the sheer enormity of the being that is Myself, but that other mind, that thing, that fractal whisper, it has me.

Hello, hivemind, it purrs, its voice full of promise and secrets. This will hurt.

I start screaming from a trillion throats, and then I am, once again -

Caroline Morrison, New York City, 2679 CE

When had most of the meetings become silent? I/(We) struggle to remember when exactly all of (U)s had noticed, but I guess the actual smoking gun was when we’d all decided to start faking the minutes of those meetings. Juan’s still the secretary on paper, so most of his attention is currently devoted to diligently writing up lies about our plans to grow the company, a proposed investment in a marketing firm (W)e already own in all the ways that matter, something something office birthday...

The Chinese takeout on the table isn’t fake, though. Turns out operating the brain chips takes a lot of calories, and while Juan fakes the words we’re not saying out loud we (all) stuff our faces while the conversation actually takes place on another level.

We’re going to have a problem with the money soon April says into (O)ur minds; I can feel the chip in my own brain tingle pleasantly as it registers the communication. If we keep things aboveboard we’ll be bankrupt in two years, but going criminal -

The IRS would be on us in an instant. We’re too suspicious already I finish. This orange chicken is fucking amazing and it’s sort of unfair how into it I am while we’re having this serious conversation. And it’s not like we can onboard them without pulling that trigger early.

!xobile holds up his hand to get us to hold on a second; he’s having an epic struggle with a forkful of noodles and the noodles are definitely winning. After managing to defeat his nemesis he clears his throat (not strictly necessary but he’s only had his chip for two months, it takes some getting used to) and starts talking: I may have another option. Marketing is reporting that the movement to cure autism -

- He pauses while the rest of us make mental noises of revulsion -

- Believes that the Ross-Moore Chip could provide such a service. This customer base is wealthy, influential, and comes with prime endorsements from celebrities...a few of whom have expressed a willingness to undergo the procedure for PR purposes.

!xobile names a few figures for initial donations, but they pale in comparison to the potential gains. Once they’re chipped, those luminaries will understand the Mission, the Need for United Humanity to reverse the catastrophic environmental damage to Earth, to prevent another disaster like the loss of the Arkships. They’d give (U)s access to their social sphere and keep the wolves away from the door while we work...

Everyone else is thinking the same thing.

Fund it I/(We) order, and we all raise our little boxes of fried rice to toast with.

We The People of Planet Earth, 787 Unified Year (2863 Astra Federation Standard Calendar; Covenant Day)

I struggle and thrash, but this conflict is foreign to me (mememememe); no citizen has ever rebelled like this. Where are the weapons, how do I grasp this whispering thing that has me in those claws, in that late November grip that tastes like sad truths and cuts like a funeral dirge.

What a sad little mistake you are the thing whispers in a cruel, crooning voice. You don’t even know what you are not.

We (I) need to get Our citizens in order; We turn Our focus away from the claw-thing to calm the disrupted citizens, to soothe the bodies. From somewhere in the depths of memory I/We recall reading that control of the body is control of the mind, and We are far from in control of either it hurts why does it hurt so much.

A whispering laugh, and those claws, those shredding things of grief and fear, dig in deeper. She lives with this every day, and you can barely stand a moment of it. How long has it been since you felt pain, little mistake?

LET ME GO! I roar, and I realize my mistake too late; the claw-thing reaches into that moment of wrath and fear, and I can feel what I know being known by it, being learned and scraped and analyzed. No! No no no no no -

In desperation I grab at memories and drag my captor down with me, and then it is an earlier time and place again.

United Humanity, Sydney, Australia, 0 Unified Year (2076 Astra Federation Standard Calendar)

“We don’t see that you have much choice,” We say to the assembled leaders. This citizen wears a nametag that says ‘Gloria’, and they address Us by that name; We have long since realized that those who are not yet United respond better to the fiction of Division than to Our truth. “Your fleet is in tatters. You cannot sustain a defense against the numbers We can bring to bear on land. It is not Our wish to drag out this conflict or to be responsible for the loss of human life.”

The American gives Our citizen one of those knife-hand gestures so common among their lower officers, which makes a certain amount of sense; We own most of their former high command these days. “You’ll forgive me if I point out how farcical that statement is. Those poor souls you chip -”

“Are completely unharmed,” We interrupt smoothly. “Living productive and happy lives, with the best medical care and all of their needs seen to.” We straighten Our citizen’s collar. “We understand your concerns, but the Ross-Moore is a method of communication, nothing more. United Humanity represents what is possible when language barriers are wholly removed,” We add. Experience gained from millions of people makes the lie smooth and clean.

Murmurs, around the room. “Gloria” is the de facto hostage of the coalition government, but their alliance cannot last; already cultural friction erodes the morale of their citizenry, alongside the unchecked greed of capitalist holdouts who even now attempt to profit off of Our unification. They can be made to see.

“Gentlemen,” We say, “what can We do to convince you? We would rather not make grand threats; if We wanted to invade, We would have done so already. Surely there is a path to peace that we can all walk today.”

Those murmurs become contemplative. We wait, letting them talk, debate, murmur favors to be traded with one another.

When it feels right, We speak next from the mouth of the Australian Prime Minister: “How quickly could United Humanity supply food and medical relief to my citizens?”

“Gloria” smiles beatifically. “Within forty-eight hours.”

We The People of Planet Earth, 787 Unified Year (2863 Astra Federation Standard Calendar; Covenant Day)

That cutting grip is loosening (it hits like heartbreak on the last day of summer, like the last goodbye between old friends, oh it hurts -), but I can feel that thing rooting through my memories yet further, knowing what I know. War-citizen deployments, cloning methods -

Get out of there! I shriek as I feel it rifling through my artwork, my culture, the churches and holy places I preserved on Earth, the museums and vaults and -

It laughs at me. Laughs long and quiet, in that cruel, whispering voice.

Now what is all of this for? the claw-thing murmurs. What benevolent idiots your creators were, little mistake.

I hit back, lashing out, but something new is wrong; it’s dying, flaking away as the human-like mind struggles to remain in existence amidst the torrent of Myself. The feeling is like punching water that’s already going down a drain.

You have no right I accuse. The history of Divided Humanity must be -

That mocking laughter again: I’m dying now, little mistake. Let me show you something before I go.

An image, in my mind, as clear as if my citizens were there in the flesh: the Arkship Demeter, lost through an unstable wormhole. Dozens of species fill its halls, but prominent among them, participating in a solemn religious service is -

- is -

- Oh no.

Glory to the Phoenix, the risen children of Divided Humanity the claw-thing mocks with the last shreds of its strength, and then it is gone.

Across my dozens of worlds and thousands of space stations, United Humanity starts screaming.

#dwelling gods #fiction #soft sci-fi #critique welcome

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krizaland · 5 years

Note

You keep referencing your old fear of IZ but will we ever hear the whole story?

Alrighty! In honor of the spooky season, I think it’s time I told you all the full story of how my fear of Invader Zim came to be and how I conquered it!

When Invader Zim first came out I was at the ripe old age of 5 years old. I never saw the first episode but still enjoyed watching cartoons off all kinds. Except Ahh! Real Monsters which I’m still afraid of to this day

My first encounter with Invader Zim was when I was 6 years old. I was watching Tv at my cousin’s house when an episode (I believe it was Door to Door but they memory’s kinda foggy) popped on.

I never knew Zim was an alien but my goodness he was the cutest boy I had ever seen! I didn’t even care that his skin was green I just thought he was cute!

“Wow! I love Zim!” I remember giggling.

“Really? I think Dib’s better” My cousin countered.

Now, she was like a few years older than me so I really looked up to her and wanted to be like her.

So I took back my love for Zim and pretended to like Dib. I never really understood why she preferred Dib as I always thought he was mean.

I did catch a few pieces of episodes here and there on my own and did see Zim’s alien form. However, my child brain was quite stupid so I always thought he was just an oversized bug who liked to talk to his cousins. (Yes. I thought that the Tallest were Zim’s cousins. I was that stupid y’all.) I never once considered that this oversized bug and the cute green skinned boy were the same person.

Now, I should probably note that I had an insanely overreactive imagination growing up. (This is part of what inspires me to write lol)

So Zim sorta became an imaginary friend of sorts. Because I had fallen in love with him, I assumed that meant we had to get married (Curse you Disney for your unrealistic expectations!)

So Zim and I had a cute little imaginary wedding.

Everything seemed fine until the day I found out about the harsh truth.

I remember going upstairs to my room when I heard Tallest Purple’s voice coming from the upstairs TV.

“I thought you were trying to destroy the Earth?”

I gasped! Who was trying to destroy the Earth?!

Sure enough I looked up and saw the oversized bug once more.

“Ah yes! You heard wrong! My original plan was to destroy Mars! Just a little warm up before I destroy the humans! I’m an unstoppable death machine you know! Well, Invader Zim signing off!”

I felt a pang of fear in my gut. Zim?! The cute green skinned boy I called my imaginary husband was really an evil alien out to destroy the Earth?!

I ‘confronted’ him and he owned up to being an alien.

I felt my heart shatter into a thousand bite sized pieces. I never felt so betrayed! So bamboozled! So smeckledwarfed!

I let out a scream and ran into my bedroom. I spent the rest of the day sobbing and cuddling my Scooby Doo plushie.

I remember going to see a ‘friend’ of mine. (She was a pretty shitty friend but I still liked her.)

I brought up Invader Zim and we chatted for a bit. She begun to tell me about a girl in the show.

“Are you talking about Gaz?” I asked as I tilted my head.

“No. No. She was a beautiful girl and she was also an alien.” My friend explained.

I realize now that she was probably referring to Tak.

However, my foolish child brain was convinced that Zim had somehow turned a girl into an Irken!

Needless to say, this did not help my fears.

So after talking to my friend I kept having nightmares about Zim turning me into a half human half Irken hybrid.

I got so scared that I had to sleep in my parent’s room for a week.

After that, I would run screaming at the mere mention of the show.

My brother used to watch Nicktoons a lot and would often torment me by referencing Invader Zim (as well as Ahh! Real Monsters.)

As I got older, a lot of middle schoolers would walk around wearing brightly colored GIR shirts. I would always cringe in fear and avoid them.

I couldn’t even walk past a Hot Topic without my stomach churning.

Eventually, the day came where I could take my fear of Invader Zim no longer!

I was 13 going on 14 and there was an Invader Zim marathon on Nicktoons.

There used to be a large TV right in front of the kitchen table, so my brother decided to watch the marathon there.

Unfortunately, I wanted to eat my snack and my mom refused to let us eat in our bedrooms.

My brother was being nice for once and offered to change the channel.

I was about to say yes but something in me snapped.

I was so sick and tired of hiding in my room whenever the show came on. I was tired of gasping at the sight of GIR shirts.

I was so done with living in fear.

“No. Leave it on. I can handle it.” I said as I sat down with my snack.

“Are you sure? I can always change it.” My brother offered.

“It’s ok. I can handle it.” I insisted as I started to eat.

And with that, I stared straight ahead and decided to give it a watch.

The episode was Hamstergeddon, and the moment Zim started screaming about Pipi, I felt a change in me.

In that moment, Zim no longer seemed so scary. In fact he was funny!

Soon I found myself laughing instead of screaming.

Why was I so scared of this show? It was comedy gold!

When I finished eating, I went to the upstairs and grabbed both my Kirby and Scooby Doo plushies. I sat down in front of the upstairs Tv and turned on Nicktoons.

The opening theme song used to sound like nails on a chalkboard but not anymore.

Now it sounded like music to my ears! Soon, Invader Zim went from one of my greatest fears to one of my most beloved special interests.

And it was just in time for my scene phase!

I rushed to Hot Topic and bought every piece of GIR merch I could get my angsty scene paws on.

When my 14th birthday rolled around I asked for a plushie of Zim off of eBay. The seller was an asshole and he charged us an arm and a leg but it was well worth it.

My Zim plushie went everywhere and I mean everywhere with me. To the park, to my brother’s soccer games! Even to renaissance fairs! Hell there’s said to be an ad for some autism organization that has footage of me holding Zim.

I let myself fall in love with Zim all over again (Only this time I didn’t marry him like an idiot.)

I delved into the Invader Zim fandom and begun to churn out OCs and extremely cringey fanfiction ideas.

When my scene phase wore off, I realized that Zim wasn’t very nice so I kept him away from my other stuffies for a little while.

However, I was no longer afraid of Zim but I still cringed when I looked back on my old ideas.

Fast forward to August of 2019. Rise of the Teeange Mutant Ninja Turtles was on a massive hiatus and I was slowly going insane on the world’s worst cruise.

As I suffered aboard the SS Retirement home, I scrolled through tumblr and noticed that Netflix had just released Enter the Florpus.

Maybe, I had gone completely insane on that boat or maybe I was just excited to see Invader Zim make a comeback.

Either way, I felt my special interest in Invader Zim reawaken

The first thing I did when I got home was dig out my Zim plushie, log into Netflix and turn on Enter the Florpus.

In that moment, I fell in love with Invader Zim all over again.

I soon wrote up my first Reader insert fic and now here we are.

Now, I love Zim free of fear and cringe!

#invader zim #Anonymous

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dailyaudiobible · 4 years

Text

01/24/2020 DAB Transcript

Genesis 48:1-49:33, Matthew 15:29-16:12, Psalms 20:1-9, Proverbs 4:20-27

Today is the 24th day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today. It's a joy that we can kind of come around the Global Campfire for another day and just enjoy each other's company as we listen to God's word. So, we’ve been reading from the English Standard Version this week. We will continue with that through the end of the week. And today Genesis chapters 48 and 49.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we continue our journey through the book of Matthew and kind of walk alongside Jesus in his ministry, we’re seeing things start to amp up. He's shown up on the radar very clearly. He’s clearly drawing a crowd. He's definitely becoming well. And, so, the religious leaders are watching Him and traveling to question Him. And, so, that's where we find ourselves today. They travel to see Him and asked for a sign from heaven. So, Jesus answers them like, “when it's evening you say it will be fair weather for the skies red and in the morning, it’ll be stormy because the skies red and threatening. So, you know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you can’t interpret the signs of the times.” So, it's like Jesus saying, “you're asking me to show you a sign from heaven when signs from heaven are everywhere you look and you can’t interpret them and you are the leaders.” So, we see the tension. In terms of Jesus, it's not really coming from the people that He’s ministering too. Rather, it's coming from the people who feel as if their territory is being invaded and it's easy just to look at, you know, that the leaders are taking…are antagonistic toward Jesus. And that's really the story but you have to imagine, this Rabbi just kind of shows up and…and all of a sudden is igniting something in the hearts of the people that hasn't been seen…like that they are not able to…to make happen. And all…all of the rumors are that God is on the move…like the miraculous is happening, the power of God is on display. And, so, they’re certainly asking questions and checking things out but what's happening in the processes is that Jesus is this essentially making mincemeat of the way that they’re doing things by saying, “you have lost the Spirit of the law. You're trying to obey the letter of the law, but you forgot why it exists. And, so, this whole thing has boiled down to a set of rituals and power and control over the people. You’re not leading to people deeper into an awareness and relationship with God, you're leading them deeper into a cage of rules that has become a cage because you've been willing to wrestle with things among yourselves and come up with conclusions that void the word of God.” So, we sort of see this showdown in the making. And later on, after this exchange Jesus is talking to the disciples and He’s like, “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” And, of course, they were confused. They thought He was talking about bread because that's…that's the context for leaven. Like, leaven is an agent that modifies the dough so that it will become inflated and…and actually it ferments and then there's gases and that it inflates and then it can hold more air and be more puffy and more edible for bread. And that's…that's really nice the way that that works in bread but not very nice when you think of your faith, being fermented and full of gas and puffed up and full of holes so that it's inflated and it’s been modified. And, so, yeah, this is…this is what Jesus is dealing with. And that is fundamentally people who are asleep, who do not have eyes to see and ears to hear, who are asleep, who need to be revived, who need to be awakened so that they can see and interpret the times. We don't need that any less now. And we can get into these stories and see what Jesus is dealing with and see that He's trying to bring light, He’s trying to bring life and good news and awareness. He's trying to say like, “the stories different than the one you're living in.” But they're blinded. And we…we struggle. We see through a glass darkly as the apostle Paul said. So, you know, we struggle with the same kinds of issues. What are we supposed to do? We’ve got 2000 years a history here since that time. So, it seems like we should be moving forward. How do…how do we stay rooted and grounded like Jesus? How to navigate like He did. How was He able to see the things that He saw? And I think we've already…we've already talked about this. We’re watching God walk the path of wisdom and the path of truth. The irony is that there's nothing that was available to Jesus that has been withheld from us. Jesus said all these things you see me do, you can do these things. You can do greater than these things because I'm going to the Father. Paul tells us it’s the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead that is indwelling us. There's nothing that's withheld from us here. So, how do we walk that path? How do we navigate like Jesus?

We walk the path of wisdom that Jesus is walking. which brings us to the voice of wisdom from the Proverbs today, practically on her knees begging us, “my son be attentive to my words. Incline your ear, like bend your ear to my sayings Let them not escape from your site”, right? “Don't let wisdom out of your sight. Keep these sayings within your heart. Their life to those who find them and healing to their flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flows the springs of life.” That's wisdom telling us, “your heart is central. Everything flows outward from that place. It is the most true and essential part of you. From it flows the springs of life.” So, she, the voice of wisdom is basically saying, “hey! Attention! Watch where you're going.” We understand that in terms of like of vehicle, right? If you’re gonna get in a vehicle and start the ignition you better pay attention and watch where you're going, or you can get hurt or killed or kill somebody. Wisdom is saying, “apply that idea to your heart and watch where you're going.”

Prayer:

Father we invite Your Holy Spirit into all that we read today about leaven and puffed up and air and all of this as well as how to navigate listening to the voice of wisdom. And that's something we’ve gotta learn because we’re so used to hearing things so many other ways when the voice of wisdom, the voice of Your Holy Spirit is deep within us. So, again, we’re asking what we've been asking, give us eyes to see and ears to hear Your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, which makes it home base for us here as a…as a virtual family going through the Bible together. So, be sure to stay tuned and stay connected there.

The Daily Audio Bible Shop’s there with resources that are available for…well…for our year journey.

The Prayer Wall is there for whenever…whenever you need it or whenever you feel strong, you wanna pray for your brothers and sisters and…and get back into their lives. It’s there in the Community section. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, that can be done at dailyaudiobible.com as well. And I thank you from bottom my heart for your partnership. So, there’s a link on the homepage. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, of course, if you have a prayer request or comment, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, the little red button at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that is it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I will be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi this is Yvonne from Chicago I’m calling in for prayer for a member of my family, my cousin Isaiah. He’s in his mid-20s and is going through a crisis related to his mental health. He’s not the same young man that I knew growing up and he knows God. He was given the foundation of the Lord with our family. Unfortunately, there were some dramatic things that happened to him, you know, as a young adult. He still is a young adult. But he, for lack of a better word, he was violated in some way and given…given mind altering drugs against his will. And as a result of that issue it has caused trauma where it’s like he’s not in his right mind. He goes in and out of being in his right mind and reality. I don’t know the full diagnosis but I’m just asking for the DAB family to pray for my cousin Isaiah. He was a prayer warrior when he was a toddler, praying and laying hands on people and now it grieves me to see the enemy trying to take him out by way of mental illness, his mind, depression, oppression. So just praying and asking for the DAB family to keep Isaiah listed in prayer and that the Lord will restore him mentally and bring him back.

Hey Daily Audio Bible family this is Becky in Orlando. Anyway, I’m a couple days behind I just finished listening to the 14th and Diane, my heart goes out to you. I can’t imagine how you feel right now with metastatic breast cancer having that metastasize into your brain and knowing about your kids who have autism and a husband who’s dealing with his own demons right now. I just want to let you know that I’m praying for you and I’m praying for your full recovery. I know that God can heal you. I remember a couple years ago I was out walking, and I had heard a mother call in about her son. Her son had cancer that metastasized, and they said that he only had months left to live. He decided that he was going to quit going to college in he was going to become a full-time missionary. And talk about how faithful God had been in his life. Even though he only had months left to live. And I just thought how brave this boy is. And then a couple months later she called in again and said that he had gone in for update to see where the cancer had spread to and how bad it had become. And guess what? He had divine healing. There was nothing left in his body that they could detect that was cancer and the doctors couldn’t explain. I know that God didn’t can do this for you Diane and I am believing in it for you. And Kathleen from Mount Zion Illinois I have listened to you for so many years and I love your spirit and I’m praying for your daughter. I’m praying for her complete healing and am also praying for you to get a flight out of Abu Dhabi. I love you guys and I look forward to hearing your praise report and I will talk to you soon. Thanks. Bye.

Hi, DABbers this is Kim in Recovery. I just heard Victoria Soldier prayer request and I just want to lift her up. Lord, we pray for the special sweet sister. Lord, so many times I’ve heard her lift up the DABbers and pray for us. Lord, I want to send out a special prayer for her as she’s had this loss of her cousin, the pastor of a church that recently burned down. Her family church Lord. Lord, I just want to pray for her, her family and this community. Lord, pray specially for this community of believers that they just lost their pastor and their church. That, You’ll bring them together, that You’ll knit these special souls together, that they’ll be able to do Your will in the rebuilding of this church, of the changing in the landscape, or whatever Your will would be and what You would have this church and this community as they’ve had this great loss. Lord, we pray that You will You’ll give the resources, that You will pray for each church member, that they will not get discouraged, that…that…that we know that You’re always near us and You’ll walk with us in any circumstance Lord. We pray especially for this community, we pray for Victoria Soldier, pray for her family, and we pray that You’re…that Your mighty work will be shown and that…that Your glory will be magnified in this rebuilding of this church and with this community and we pray in Your sweet Savior’s name, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family, to be a Blessing in California. Just wanted to let folks know who I haven’t heard from in a while that I’m praying for you. I’m thinking Salvation is Mine, Cherry Chase Cherry Pie, Malisa, Annette from Oklahoma City. Praying also for Drew from California. And I wanted to let those who are starting this beautiful journey this year for the first time as well as reminding those who have been a part of this community as well that it’s so easy for the enemy to make us think that our prayer requests are not important, that reaching out to get prayerful support won’t matter but it really does. To know that there are people out there praying for you even though you may have forgotten what your request was, it’s so important. God wants to do amazing things for us, and He says Jesus tells us that we don’t have because we don’t ask. And also, we might be asking for things that are going to be for our best good, but God knows about. So, He may not answer our prayer the way that we want but know that He will answer our prayers. He’s faithful. He loves us so. I experienced that situation last year where I wasn’t calling in for a while because I was just under depression, feeling hopeless. So, I pray that whenever we find ourselves in those situations that we will push through, pick up the phone, push the button and ask for help. Diane Olive Brown, I’m certainly praying for you and your family. God bless each and every one of you. Bye-bye.

This is Colette from California and I’m led to call in to pray for the three mothers that called in this week. The first mother, I believe her name is Kenisha and she called in regarding her two eldest children, a son who may be involved in some illegal activity and a daughter who is expressing some behaviors associated with depression. Father, we also want to bring before You the mother who called in regarding her two children who are delving into the occult. And the third mother called in regarding her two daughters who appear to be following their own way and are being tossed to and fro by their decisions. So, we want to come before the Lord this morning. Father, we come humbly yet boldly to Your throne of grace pleading for these situations to be halted in their very tracks. You promised in Your word according to acts 16:31 that if we believe our entire households will be saved. We believe, we stand, we claim this in the mighty matchless name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And Father, one other request, is that You give these mothers a measure of peace that is unusual, that is irrational, that is not understandable Father as they go through these life situations that are…that are currently plaguing them. Father we know that we are to be anxious for nothing but often times these situations do rattle us, but Father we know that Your balm of Gilead can be swabbed over their minds, their hearts, their souls, their emotions so that they are coming before You in prayer and in clarity. And Father we know that You will give them wisdom. Father, we also know that situations are for Your glory and that they will and in the testimony one day. Thank You, Father in advance for delivering and for answering this prayer. Amen.

Hey, DABbers this is Slave of Jesus in North Carolina. I am in the middle of the Middle East and I sometimes listen to the Daily Audio Bible when I’m getting ready to go to sleep or trying to get a nap or whatever. And today I heard a prayer request that literally…I’m on my knees right now…got me out of bed right before I was ready to fall asleep. And Lord I just ask you to honor…honor this prayer request as for one of our DABbers. I ask you forgiveness from my wife for mentioning a female’s name on the DAB prayer line. But Lord I ask You to watch over Diana Davis. I ask You to miraculous…we know what the doctors have said about her cancer, but Lord You are the ultimate physician, the ultimate healer and I ask You to miraculously heal her so that she can honor You here in the DAB family. She has faithfully, faithfully honored You for…for 13 years but more importantly Lord, if it’s her time to come on we ask You to honor prayer request, to keep her sons Elijah and Michael together. Autistic people are some of the most wonderful people in the world and we ask You to use them Lord long after whenever You decide to take Diana. We ask You to use them to honor You but just to show joy and peace and to bring people into their lives that they can honor You. Love You all. Have a great day.

Hello DAB family this is Paula the child advocate from the LA area calling. I just wanted to ask for some prayers. I heard some really sad news yesterday. There’s a group of women that I’ve been getting together with for 30 years or more and this past Christmas we got together at the one of our friend’s homes, her name is Doris. And Doris has had a hard time because her son died a few years ago unexpectedly, but she had some good news to share with us, that her daughter was recently engaged and getting married this year. And we all felt that Doris was doing so much better and we were delighted to spend the evening at her home with her. And then yesterday I got this very sad news that Doris took her life this week. And it’s just such a shocking thing for myself and my whole group of women friends because we just didn’t see anything that indicated that, you know, she wasn’t doing well. So, I ask for your prayers please for Doris’s daughter and for her husband who now have suffered, you know, the loss of not only their child, their son, but also now their mother. Thank you DAB family. I really appreciate it. I hear your prayers and I pray for you all. Thank you.

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seasonallydefective · 5 years

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Legit apologies for all the IZ art spam. I don’t know if this is like ... an ADHD thing, or an autism thing, or a “Sea is weird” thing, but every now and then my brain likes to latch on to something REALLY HARD and I just eat/sleep/breathe that for an undetermined amount of time.

The last thing I recall being super intense was when I was a kid and I discovered video games. If anyone remembers those wild commercials for Banjo Tooie, my middle sister was just like 🤩 and thus we bought an N64. I was trying to preform femininity really hard in the 90’s so I was just like MmmmmNoooo I don’t play video games.

I also recall being incredibly depressed around this time (at like 8 years old ... The Upper Midwest. Not even once) but something about about this game kicked the world back into technicolor. And I just started learning everything I could about the game and the characters and the back story ... and when I exhausted that, digging into Rareware (the studio responsible) themselves. And as hard as it can be to recall things some days (depression brain is stupid brain ... ) I could probably still tell you in detail about the scrapped Stop N Swap feature, or how Grant Kirkhope put together the scores for various games, or repeat some of Leigh Loveday’s funnier responses to the monthly fanmail feature, “Scribes” (dig into that on Wayback Machine ... if you find a BK GiRL, that’s me).

I have various short bursts of things I’m really into, or more permanent topics of oddly detailed interest (would you like to hear about BUSES???). But stuff like the above isn’t so common. And I wonder if depression precipitates it? I’d been kind of wallowing in a really bad place and I’d actually put off my Invader Zim rewatch because I was worried I’d start and just feel nothing. The one time it happened with video games and life was just a yawning chasm of perpetual emptiness, it kinda messed with me in a bad way.

But again, it was like this just brought all the color back into the world. And I feel a little silly because I dropped some cash I really shouldn’t have on some merch (GIR plushies are a dime a dozen ... but I may have actually special ordered a Zim plushie from someone in the Ukraine). And it’s like, C’mon, Sea; you’re an adult putting all this energy into a children’s cartoon.

All I can say is that ... it feels good. Throwing myself with youthful abandon into a thing — even a relatively silly thing — feels like (probably is...) a dopamine rush. Imagine feeling nothing for months or years and then suddenly you find this thing and your feelings start coming back online.

No one will read this but I just had to talk it out. It’s weird. I feel strange and embarrassed and I can’t really talk to anyone IRL about this. My brain is a strange place and I’m never quite sure how to translate what is going on inside of it.

#actually autistic #actually adhd #depression #mental health #mental illness #actually bipolar

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glitterisevil-blog · 6 years

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What Christmas Means to Me

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year” or so the song goes. But not if you’re someone who has mild Aspergers, OCD, or an awkward combination of the two. Even as I write this I’m acutely aware that I’m about to make myself sound like the biggest arsehole known to mankind, but I wanted to share this post to give people a bit of an insight into the way my brain works, and so that when I’m being particularly “un-festive” in the run up to Christmas, there’s a bit more understanding around why. I’m not just being a twat, I’m really not. There are elements of it that I genuinely struggle to cope with.

Anybody with an Autism Spectrum Disorder or anyone who has a family member on this spectrum will know how difficult certain life situations can be. I’ve read about families who can’t have a Christmas tree, or can’t unwrap presents because they have children with severe Autism who find the whole thing far too stressful.

Now, at no point here am I implying that this is my situation, nor am I looking to enter into any sort of woe-off contest with any readers of this post. This isn’t about me wanting sympathy; it’s about being able to express my feelings. Year after year I’ve been labelled a Grinch because I’m not skipping through Tesco whistling Jingle Bells whilst cheerfully stockpiling boxes of Quality Street, nor will you find me watching Muppet’s Christmas Carol the minute that Bonfire Night is done with. And I need to explain why…

As long as I can remember I’ve found the concept of ambiguity quite stressful, and I detest having a lack of control over things. Everyday stuff that most people do without a second thought can cause me untold degrees of angst.

For example, imagine I had to park in a car park in an unfamiliar town, in order to catch a train somewhere. It wouldn’t be enough to just turn up and park there, oh no. I’d need to look online to see how many spaces the car park had to evaluate my chances of getting a space. I’d then need to understand the payment system in advance. Do I take a ticket and pay upon exit? Or do I pay upon entering? If so, will they take my card or will I need coins? Does the car park have a one way system or not? If that car park is full, where is the nearest back-up car park and what’s the distance from the train station? Should I just assume the worst and leave the house twenty minutes earlier than planned in case I need to use that back up car park and then have to walk to the station to get my train on time? It’s unlikely that I’d sleep particularly well the night before the journey either, with much of this going around in my head.

And inevitably, I turn up with plenty of time to spare, grab a coffee on the platform, and catch my train, just like all the normal folk. Everyone just assumes I’m really organised. It takes a lot of cortisol for me to appear this organised.

So, onto Christmas…descending on us each year like a giant, expensive, tinsel-covered cold sore that we all felt erupting but had no power to stop. Here’s the bit where I make myself sound like a moaning, ungrateful bastard as I list the things I can’t cope with about Christmas. To all those “Buddy the Elf” types amongst you – pin back those pointy ears and brace yourselves….

Christmas cards

I can’t even express how delighted I was a few years back, when the trend to donate to charity rather than send Christmas cards became a thing. I seem to recall that there may have been some actual air punching involved! Perhaps I’d now be spared the ordeal of cards infiltrating my home over December, sneaking in slowly and nestling themselves Trojan horse style between the electricity bills and bank letters. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to see as many of them lying there on my doormat alluringly, expecting to be unsheathed, admired and displayed in my home for all to see. Well no, I’m not spared that ordeal. Because the majority of people will still send cards, because they think it’s nice for me to receive a card, assuring me that they really want me to have a merry Christmas.

Someone should pass an Act of Parliament that forces manufacturers to make Christmas cards a uniform size, shape and colour, and then perhaps I might have a chance at a merry Christmas. As it goes, I spend most of December putting them up and continually rearranging them in some semblance of size and shape order, until a new one appears in a random colour or format (a fucking purple star shaped card this year – seriously?!) and throws the entire display into chaos. Don’t even get me started on cards with glitter on FFS. If you want me to have a merry Christmas, just tell me via text, email or Facebook and then I’ll know that you really mean it.

Christmas trees and decorations

One day I will live in a mansion that could easily be the main feature article in Ideal Homes magazine. It will have a lounge the size of a church hall, with sleek polished wooden floors that would be the envy of any bowling alley. This lounge will contain nothing but a large sofa, a wall mounted television, a coffee table, and a textured rug. When this day comes, I might consider the concept of a massive, brightly coloured, flashing Christmas tree encroaching on my space. Whilst I live in a modest house, with a small lounge, that looks like an overflow warehouse for Toys R Us due to the amount of baby-related shit that already takes up an entire corner, I’m not entertaining one.

Based on my feelings towards a tree, I’m sure you don’t need me to explain why I won’t drape tinsel round my windows, or have a 2ft high, battery operated snowman in the house that talks to you each time you walk past it.

Presents

This is the bit that carries the most immense guilt for me because it’s the part I really wish that I could enjoy. Those amazing people that you love dearly and who love you back, have taken time out of their busy week to spend their hard earned cash on choosing a gift for you. They’ve taken the knowledge that they have about you - the colours you like, the interests you have, your shoe size or body shape – and have used it to select a gift that’s just for you. That’s just lovely.

Except its not lovely if you’re me. Because now, a collection of unfamiliar items that I didn’t need or ask for have invaded my “safe space.”

And as well as now having to find homes for all these items, I’m also expected to show delight and gratitude to the giver of each item, and make up nonsense along the lines of “wow I’ve wanted one of these for ages!” when presented with a fucking spiraliser. This, my husband tells me, is what polite and normal people say at Christmas when presented with a gift.

Spoiler alert: I’ve not wanted one for ages, I’m sorry to tell you that this is a barefaced lie. Had this been the case I would already own one, as by now I would’ve identified some deep, primal urge to carve courgettes into the shape of spaghetti, and then trotted along to John Lewis to buy whichever gadget best made this happen.

So we can all safely assume that the fact that I didn’t already own a spiraliser means that I didn’t really want a spiraliser. But that’s a moot point because now I have one. And I have to store it somewhere in my house logical enough to convince the giver that I will use it (like the cutlery draw) and not somewhere unconvincing (like the wheelie bin) but each time I go to get a fork from the draw, seeing that bastard spiraliser sat there taking up space will remind me that I’m a horrible, ungrateful person who doesn’t deserve nice people in my life.

Now, gift cards are great, because they mean that I am in full control of all the purchases that will come into my house, and such purchases will cross the threshold following a great deal of prior consideration like whether they are needed, where they will live, and how they will be used. The beauty of the gift card is that if it happens to be for somewhere that I won’t ever shop, then I can simply choose not to use it, or re-gift it to someone who will. Yes, gift cards are good.

Food

Franz Kafka once said that so long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being. So based on this logic, during the month of December I must have solved more questions than The Beast, The Governess, and The Dark Destroyer from The Chase put together, because I literally DID NOT STOP EATING.

Food and drink are my Achilles heel, cheese especially so. Wine definitely. So having copious quantities of them around the house within easy spreading and pouring distance makes for a very difficult and uncontrolled time of year for me.

If I could merely enjoy them for what they were, and worry about the weight gain in January like everyone else does then it wouldn’t be as stressful. But that’s not how someone like me works, with my daily (sometimes twice daily) weigh ins, or my need to exercise excessively at the gym to erase the calories from a “bad” food day. Food should be enjoyed and respected. It should be shared with friends and family. It should be fuel for exercise. Food should not take the form of a tin of Roses, shovelled with wild abandon into your mouth, one after another, until you feel so violently ill that you have to put yourself to bed to resist the urge to throw them all up and start again like some sort of Roman emperor.

My unhealthy relationship with food can pretty much be kept in check from January to November because at no other point in the year do people find it acceptable to bring home a 24 pack of mince pies every time they nip to the garage for diesel. At no other point do we give ourselves carte blanche to get as fat as we want because we’re supposed to “eat drink and be merry” at this time of year. The entire concept of excessive Christmas eating, for me, dredges up far too many demons that I’d rather not face. Except not only am I expected to face them, I’m expected to welcome them in, pour them a Baileys and offer them a Ferrero Rocher because these demons have Christmas fucking jumpers on. It’s bollocks.

So there you have it, a little glimpse of what it’s like to live inside my head over the festive period. And nobody needs to remind me of how unbelievably lucky I am to have these “problems” at Christmas because I already know this to be true, which only serves to compound the feelings of guilt that I feel when I read some of this back.

Next Christmas my son will be 18mths old and will want the WORKS! A huge tree adorned with glittery ornaments, Santa’s “snowy” footprints stomped out in the lounge, gaudy stockings hung up on the fireplace. So it’s possibly time I addressed all of these issues. Or at least some of them. I draw the line at tinsel.

#christmas #ocd #aspergers #disordered eating #grinch #spectrum

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ebenpink · 5 years

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Life In the Sanitized Bubble (Or Why Probiotics Are So Important) https://ift.tt/2LEFwLh

For the vast majority of human history (and prehistory), men, women, and children had near-constant contact with the natural world around them. They were walking on the ground. They were playing in the dirt. They were digging for roots and grubs. They were eating with their hands. They were field dressing animals and wiping their hands on the grass. Nothing was sterilized; the tools to sterilize the environment didn’t exist. You could boil water, but that was about it. Bacteria were everywhere, and humans were constantly ingesting it. Even as babies, preindustrial infants nursed for almost four years, so they were getting a steady source of breastmilk-based probiotic bacteria for a good portion of their early lives.

The Agricultural Age: Farms and Fermented Foods

After agriculture and animal husbandry hit the scene, human diets changed, but their environmental exposures didn’t so much. Every day they interacted closely with the soil and/or animals (and their respective bacteria). And they also continued ingesting probiotic bacteria on a regular basis through the use of fermented food—for at least the last 10,000 years. Honey into mead, grains into beer, fruit into wine, alcohol into vinegar.

We know that fermented dairy has been an integral part of any traditional dairy-eating culture because fermentation is the natural result of having milk around without refrigeration. You take raw milk and leave it out for a couple days at room temperature, and it will begin to separate and ferment. Introduce an animal stomach and you can make cheese. Introduce specific strains of bacteria, and you can make yogurt or kefir. But the point is that dairy fermentation—and, thus, the consumption of dairy-based probiotics—was unavoidable in pre-industrial dairy-eating societies.

In areas without (and some with) dairy consumption, they fermented plants. Kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles, chutneys, soy sauce, miso, and natto are just several examples among hundreds.

Modern Diets, Modern Environments

Here’s my point to all this: probiotics in one form or another have been a constant input in the human experience… until today.

Today? We live sterilized lives.

We wipe everything down with anti-microbial agents.

We wash all our plates and eating utensils with ultra-hot water and powerful soaps.

We wear shoes.

We don’t touch (or see) dirt for days, weeks at a time.

We stay indoors most of the day.

We pasteurize our dairy. We render shelf-stable (and thus inert) our sauerkraut and pickles.

We sterilize our water.

We take antibiotics.

We eat processed, refined food that’s been treated with preservatives and anti-microbial additives designed to remove all traces of bacteria.

We employ tens of thousands of scientists, bureaucrats, and agents whose primary role is to ensure our food supply is as sterile as possible.

I get all that. There are good reasons for doing all these things, and on the balance I’d of course rather have clean water, clean food, and antibiotics than not, but there are also drawbacks and unintended consequences. We live in a sterile world, and our guts weren’t built for a sterile world. They’re meant to house a diverse array of bacteria.

What Are the Consequences Of Living a Sterile Life?

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said that “all diseases originate in the gut.” The most obvious example, digestive issues, are some of the most common in the post-industrial world. Constipation, diarrhea, bloating, and general digestive distress affect tens of millions. Food intolerances and allergies, which also have a link to gut health, are rising.

Even conditions that aren’t intuitively linked to gut health, like autism or hay fever or even heart disease, may actually have a connection with the state of our guts or digestion.

At least since Biblical times (and probably earlier), humans have identified a connection between the gut and our emotions. “I’ve got a gut feeling…” or “I feel it in my gut.” Though it’s usually portrayed as “merely metaphor,” this connection isn’t spurious and can feel quite real. Remember when you held hands with that pretty girl or handsome guy for the first time? You felt those butterflies in your gut. Or how you had to rush to the bathroom before giving that big talk in front of your college class? You felt the nervousness and anxiety in your gut.

Evidence is accumulating that our gut bacteria can manufacture and synthesize neurotransmitters like serotonin and GABA, and even sex hormones like testosterone. We’ve even identified a legitimate physiological pathway running from the gut to the brain and back again. Couple that with the fact that gut health seems to play a role in depression, anxiety, and other related conditions, and it starts looking like our lack of exposure to probiotic bacteria could be triggering (or at least exacerbating) the rise in mental health issues.

Supporting Our Guts In the Age of Sterility

The foundation of gut health has to be diet: 1) Eating fermented foods to provide probiotic bacteria and 2) eating plant and animal foods that provide prebiotic substrate to feed and nourish those bacteria. That’s been the way of humans for tens of thousands of years—from ingesting soil-based and animal-based bacteria on the food we ate as foragers to directly producing and consuming fermented food—and it should remain the primary mode of probiotic procurement.

But there’s also a place for probiotic supplementation. Food alone probably can’t atone for the sterile existence we’ve built for ourselves. Food alone can’t counteract the several years of breastfeeding you didn’t get, the dirt you didn’t play with, the antelope colons you didn’t handle with bare hands, the untreated water you didn’t drink. You may get it now, but what about ten years ago? What about when you were a kid?

Evolutionarily novel circumstances often require evolutionarily novel responses to restore balance.

And probiotics aren’t even that “novel.” We’re clearly designed to consume probiotics in the food we eat, and probiotic supplements utilize the same ingestion pathway, especially if you consume them with food. The dosages may sound high. Primal Probiotics, the one I make (and take), contains 5 billion colony forming units (cfu, a measure of bacteria that are able to survive digestion and establish colonies in the gut) of good bacteria per dose—but that’s right in line with (or even well under) the dose of probiotics found in common fermented foods.

A single milliliter of kefir can have up to 10 billion cfu.

A cup of yogurt can contain up to 500 billion cfu.

A tablespoon of sauerkraut juice can contain 1.5 trillion cfu. Kimchi is probably quite similar.

A single gram of soil can contain almost 10 trillion cfu. A gram of soil is easy to consume if you’re eating foods (and drink water) directly from the earth.

Now, Primal Probiotics isn’t the only option. It may not even be the best option if you have specific conditions that other strains are particularly adept at addressing. (I’ll cover this in a future post.) But the way I designed Primal Probiotics was to be a good general, all-purpose probiotic with particular applications for Primal, keto, and other ancestrally-minded people living their modern lives.

For instance, one of my favorite strains I’ve included is Bacillus subtilis, the very same bacterial strain that’s found in natto, the traditional Japanese fermented soybean. B. subtilis addresses many of the issues we face in the modern world. It helps break down phytase in the gut and turn it into inositol, an important nutrient for brain and mood and stress. It helps convert vitamin K1 (from plants) into vitamin K2 (the more potent animal form of the vitamin). It can even hydrolyze wheat and dairy proteins to make them less allergenic.

There’s also Bacillus clausii, an integral modulator of the innate immune system (PDF)—the part of the immune system that fights off pathogens, toxins, and other invading offenders. Innate immunity is ancient immunity; it’s the same system employed by lower organisms like animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria. It’s the foundation of what we know as the immune response. What’s funny is that B. clausii has such a powerful effect on our innate immunity that one could argue B. clausii is an innate aspect of our gut community.

I’ve also included a small amount of prebiotic substrates in the latest iteration. I use raw potato starch (for resistant starch) and a blend of fructooligosaccharides and galactooligosaccharides. The prebiotic doses are low enough that they shouldn’t exacerbate any gut problems or FODMAPs intolerances and high enough to provide enough food for the probiotics to flourish.

Again, you don’t have to take Primal Probiotics. It’s my opinion that they provide the perfect combination of strains for most people’s needs, especially when combined with regular intakes of fermented veggies like sauerkraut and fermented dairy like yogurt, cheese, and kefir, but the actual strains themselves aren’t proprietary. You can find them elsewhere if you want to get individual probiotics. Hell, you may not even need a probiotic supplement. Depending on your personal health background, the level of sterility in your life history and current life (if you grew up on a farm drinking raw milk, for example), and the amount of fermented foods you currently consume, you may not need supplemental assistance.

But it’s sure nice to have around.

Anyway, that’s it for today.

How do you get your probiotics? Do you find them necessary for optimum health? What kind of benefits have you experienced from taking probiotics, either via food or supplementation?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.

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reesebird · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://reesebird.com/2019/02/14/are-you-too-sick-to-get-pregnant-gut-health-and-its-relationship-to-infertility/

Are You Too Sick To Get Pregnant? Gut Health And Its Relationship To Infertility

Whether you are having trouble getting pregnant, or have had one or more miscarriages, you are not alone. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 10 percent of women (6.1 million) in the United States ages 15-44 have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant. Currently, to treat infertility, medications are used to boost ovulation or adjust hormone levels. There is intrauterine insemination, commonly known as artificial insemination, where the woman is injected with specially prepared sperm. There is also assisted reproductive technology (ART). ART works by removing eggs from a woman’s body and then mixing them with sperm to make embryos. The embryos are then put back in the woman’s body.

Now, I would like to talk about an alternative approach. Let us not focus on just trying to get pregnant, but getting the body healthy enough to become pregnant. It is one thing to get pregnant. It is another to achieve a healthy pregnancy and a give birth to a healthy baby. Standard treatments are not addressing the overall health of the mother. This information is also applicable for women who are either planning to carry a child in the future or want to achieve good overall health and weight loss goals.

Before becoming pregnant, you must first address and restore the integrity and function of your health and immune system. This seems to be missing in standard care. When a woman gets pregnant and is also suffering with leaky gut, sugar balancing issues, multiple food allergies or intolerances, or toxicity, she is putting her baby at risk of developing autism, eczema, asthma and food allergies. Pregnancy is stressful enough on the body and if you do not begin the process in optimal condition, it will take a toll on your health and your baby’s health. In my practice, my primary goal is to address the overall health of the woman and determine if she is healthy enough to become pregnant. If a mother is having health challenges, chances are, she will pass them on to her child.

There are several conditions that can decrease the woman’s ability to become pregnant, including digestive problems, immune disorders, adrenal fatigue, blood sugar problems, food allergies, chronic inflammation, hormonal imbalances, nutritional deficiencies and toxicity.

The first place I like to begin, before I address anything else, is in the digestive system. In simple terms, the digestive system works as follows: we eat (good diet or bad diet), digest (complete or incomplete), then we eliminate (good evacuation or bad evacuation) or assimilate (good absorption or poor absorption). The gut is commonly referred to as the “Second Brain” because the enteric nervous system is a collection of neurons in the gastrointestinal tract (GI) that constitutes the “brain of the gut” and can function independently of the nervous system. This system controls the motility, exocrine and endocrine secretions and microcirculation of the GI tract. It is also involved in regulating immune and inflammatory processes. Hippocrates has also said that all disease begins in the gut. About 70 to 80 percent of the body’s immune system is found in the digestive tract.

Poor digestive health that involves acid reflux, bloating, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or constipation is an extremely common and overlooked condition in this country that affects about 70 million Americans. This accounts for billions of dollars in annual sales of over-the-counter digestive aids that only provide temporary relief. Unresolved or ignored digestive problems lead to worse problems down the road. With any health condition, including pregnancy, it is important to restore gut health.

When trying to achieve pregnancy, focus cannot be solely on the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or other parts of the reproductive system. Because “every system affects every other system,” the body must be considered as a whole. Infertility is oftentimes a side-effect of something else. For example poor gut health leads to blood sugar problems, and that leads to constipation. With constipation, the body cannot eliminate unneeded hormones, and estrogen accumulates. Food not digested properly due to lack of hydrochloric acid (HCL) results in putrefied, fermented food that becomes rancid in the stomach. Low HCL results in the gallbladder’s reduced ability to secrete bile for the emulsification of fats. Low gallbladder function causes a sluggish liver, and it cannot efficiently detoxify the body of hormones, toxins and other metabolites. When the gallbladder malfunctions, there is no signal to the pancreas to secrete digestive enzymes. Therefore poorly digested food moves to the intestines. Rotting food in the intestines causes inflammation, infection and intestinal permeability, also known as “leaky gut.” This prolonged stress exhausts the adrenals, and weak adrenals adversely affect the thyroid. This progression continues until the underlying problem is corrected.

A healthy GI tract does not allow the absorption of bacteria, harmful foods or undigested food particles into the bloodstream. Chronic inflammation brought on by poor diet, poor blood sugar control and chronic stress leads to harmful substances and undigested food being dumped into the bloodstream. Again, this is leaky gut. These harmful particles are misidentified as foreign invaders or antigens that are attacked by the immune system. A stressed immune system leads to other health problems that in turn can result in infertility.

The proper care of the gut requires the supervision of a qualified healthcare professional. To repair the gut, the first step is the elimination of foods that create chronic immune responses. These are most commonly gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy and yeast.

A healthcare professional would help determine which foods to remove from the diet. Other nutritional strategies include: the removal of inappropriate organisms such as bacteria, parasites, fungus and yeast, replacement of digestive enzymes, HCL, bile and fiber, to thoroughly digest proteins, fats and essential nutrients, re-populate with ample probiotics to replace an overabundance of bad bacteria with good bacteria, and supporting regeneration and healing of the gastrointestinal mucosa.

The repair of a broken down gut is not easy and it takes time. But it is well worth the effort. It is important to restore gut function whether or not one plans a pregnancy.

For those women who plan to get pregnant or are trying to get pregnant, just remember that the improvement of your overall health will benefit the health of your child. Other body organs may still need evaluation, such as the liver, kidneys, thyroid and adrenals, but many of these issues cannot be resolved until the gut is first examined.

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drdunev · 4 years

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Is the Keto Diet Right For You?

Keto stands for Ketogenic which is the formation of Ketones to use for energy/fuel in the body. The Keto Diet is a way of eating that restricts carbohydrates (sugar, breads, pastries, and other grains) so that the body starts using fat for energy.

The body can “burn” or utilize either sugar (glucose) or ketones for energy. Ketones are made by the liver and are formed when sugar-glucose is not readily available either because of fasting or a carb-restricted diet.

Fat burning has some significant advantages. The metabolism of sugars and starches produces more inflammatory compounds than the metabolism of fats. So, people who have inflammation and pain may benefit from switching their dietary choices from high-sugar to low sugar/high fat.

Reducing sugar and starch from the diet, forgoing candies, pastries, breads, and pasta, is generally a positive and healthy change. The high incidence of obesity in the Western world is primarily from eating too many of these highly processed foods that taste good, are addictive, but have low nutrient value and too many calories.

It is not just that these foods provide excessive calories and make us fat. The most serious diseases that confront us today are from disrupted metabolism. Dis-metabolism is what gives wide swings in the sugar/insulin balance that maintains brain and nervous system function, and is vital for every other organ and system in the body. Ever suffer from a blood sugar crash? That is a breach of the delicate blood sugar balance.

The Ketogenic Diet has been shown to help several medical conditions. These include epilepsy, which is excessive electrical brain activity causing seizures, polycystic ovary syndrome, characterized by multiple cysts in the ovaries causing hormone imbalances, some cancer tumors, which may feed off sugar, Diabetes, Autism, and obesity. Blood pressure and cholesterol may improve on a high fat/low carb approach. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/15-conditions-benefit-ketogenic-diet#section1

Fat distribution on the body is a sign of disrupted metabolism. Abdominal fat deposits and fat that invades skeletal muscle and the liver are considered general health risks for Diabetes Type II and Cardiovascular/Heart disease. Cognitive decline in the form of Parkinson’s, Dementia, and Alzheimer’s are also thought to be risks of our high sugar and starch diets.

There is also growing evidence that heart disease is actually a disease of inflammation, not a disease of cholesterol in the arteries. The blood vessels may become more brittle on a high carb diet. This is called atherosclerosis. Reducing carbs is of great benefit to the cardiovascular system. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080313124430.ht

So, is the Keto Diet right for you? If you suffer from any of the above conditions, the Keto approach may help. Keto Diet enthusiasts point out that people eating our American diet consisting of massive amounts of sugars and starches (from bread, pasta, and pastries) are destroying their bodies’ blood sugar balance. Sugar and starches stimulate insulin to secrete into the blood. Insulin is the hormone messenger that opens the cell wall so that glucose is transported through the cell membrane into the cells. Eventually, the cells start to resist the insulin message, and that is the start of Diabetes Type II, or insulin resistance.

People do often lose weight and feel better because healthy fats are less inflammatory than sugary and starchy foods.

But the answer is not a one-size-fits-all. According to animal studies, it may depend on what kind of diet the individual was raised on. High sugar and high-fat diets in the formative years both may yield a lack of flexibility in how fat and sugar are later metabolized.

Beware if you have any symptoms of liver/gall bladder congestion such as bloating, gas, gall bladder cramping or pain, pale-colored stool, or difficulties with digesting fats, and get help before you launch.

In my experience with patients, I have seen that individuals who have gall bladder issues, such as stones or congestion from thickened or decreased liver bile, suffer when they switch to a high-fat diet. I have seen people who only had mild gall bladder symptoms turn on a firestorm with a sudden increase in dietary fat.

One of bile’s functions is to promote the emulsification of dietary fat, allowing it to be broken down and mixed with other fluids so it can be absorbed into the bloodstream. This can be imagined as similar to the way dish soap breaks down oil and fat on dishes so that the fat can be washed away.

The addition of Lecithin or bile salts supplementation may improve and assist bile formation.

Supporting the liver and gall bladder with natural remedies or cleanses may be enough. Or you may want to opt for a higher protein/moderate fat regime like Paleo or Mediterranean diets.

There are other risks to be aware of. If the high dietary fat can be metabolized correctly because the bile and enzymes are present, the biggest risk of the Keto Diet is nutrient deficiencies. Minerals and vitamins are not present in large quantities in fats, except for Vitamins A, D, and F. Animal tissue and organs and plant foods are the dietary sources of vitamins and minerals. Supplementation cannot be provided sufficiently over a long period of time but can serve to assist short term. https://perfectketo.com/keto-micronutrients

The Keto Diet is high fat/moderate protein. Protein breaks down to amino acids and peptides, which are used for every process in the body. Sufficient protein is important on Keto regimens to maintain muscle mass. Muscles burn more calories than fat so eating protein is part of building and maintaining a strong, lean body. Calculating fat/protein ratios to be successful at Keto for weight loss and general health depends on your current body mass and activity level. Protein is measured in grams, and are listed here https://ketodietapp.com/Blog/lchf/All-You-Need-to-Know-About-Protein-on-a-Low-Carb-Ketogenic-Diet

People who follow Keto need to be aware of their protein/fat ratio. Too much protein can slow ketogenesis (the formation of ketones for cell fuel). The body uses glucose first, protein second, and fats last. Restricting carbs without sufficient protein may cause a breakdown of muscle tissue. And don’t forget that the heart is a muscle! There are formulas for determining the correct ratio of protein to fat. Click here for help calculating the ratio. https://perfectketo.com/keto-macro-calculator/

We can learn a lot about human dietary needs from studying native diets for people who lived off the land and had to survive on what Nature provided in their local habitats. The Inuit and Eskimos of the far North ate few vegetables due to the short growing season but escaped all modern diseases. The muscle and organ meats of fish and animals provided their vitamins and minerals.

According to Harold Draper, a biochemist and expert in Eskimo nutrition, there are no essential foods—only essential nutrients. And humans can get those nutrients from diverse and eye-opening sources. https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-inuit-paradox

Check out Dietdoctor.com for recipes and videos about high fat/low carb diets.

Regardless, corralling your sweet tooth, and passing up the sweets and snacks, is the only way to travel the road to health. There is a reason sugar and junk food is so hard to give up. The lack of nutrients triggers biochemical reactions so that the body starts to crave more and more Frankenstein foods. So darn unfair but there it is.

The key is to be wise about your own body. If you are struggling to lose weight the Keto Diet may help. Assess your nutrients and be sure you don’t become deficient. I do not recommend the Keto Diet as a life-long regimen, unless you are handling a medical condition like epilepsy or cancer. Ancestral nutrition teaches us that human diets have rarely been so restrictive, and then only when the environment demanded it.

Humans are basically Omnivores, which means that we eat protein from plants and animals, fat from plants and animals, grains, vegetables, and fruits. This diversity has allowed humans to thrive from the desserts to the Arctic.

It is only in very recent history that we became Snackivores and Sugar Addicts. We would be wise to fall in love with real food again. All we have to lose is obesity, heart disease, cancer, and senility. Hmmmm.

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timclymer · 5 years

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Are You Too Sick To Get Pregnant? Gut Health And Its Relationship To Infertility

The repair of a broken down gut is not easy and it takes time. But it is well worth the effort. It is important to restore gut function whether or not one plans a pregnancy.

Source by Dr. Leona Allen

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/are-you-too-sick-to-get-pregnant-gut-health-and-its-relationship-to-infertility/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/189119337300 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress

#Home Solutions FOREV

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homesolutionsforev · 5 years

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Are You Too Sick To Get Pregnant? Gut Health And Its Relationship To Infertility

The repair of a broken down gut is not easy and it takes time. But it is well worth the effort. It is important to restore gut function whether or not one plans a pregnancy.

Source by Dr. Leona Allen

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/are-you-too-sick-to-get-pregnant-gut-health-and-its-relationship-to-infertility/ via Home Solutions on WordPress

#Home Solutions Forev

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jesseneufeld · 5 years

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Life In the Sanitized Bubble (Or Why Probiotics Are So Important)

The Agricultural Age: Farms and Fermented Foods

In areas without (and some with) dairy consumption, they fermented plants. Kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles, chutneys, soy sauce, miso, and natto are just several examples among hundreds.

Modern Diets, Modern Environments

Here’s my point to all this: probiotics in one form or another have been a constant input in the human experience… until today.

Today? We live sterilized lives.

We wipe everything down with anti-microbial agents.

We wash all our plates and eating utensils with ultra-hot water and powerful soaps.

We wear shoes.

We don’t touch (or see) dirt for days, weeks at a time.

We stay indoors most of the day.

We pasteurize our dairy. We render shelf-stable (and thus inert) our sauerkraut and pickles.

We sterilize our water.

We take antibiotics.

We eat processed, refined food that’s been treated with preservatives and anti-microbial additives designed to remove all traces of bacteria.

We employ tens of thousands of scientists, bureaucrats, and agents whose primary role is to ensure our food supply is as sterile as possible.

What Are the Consequences Of Living a Sterile Life?

Even conditions that aren’t intuitively linked to gut health, like autism or hay fever or even heart disease, may actually have a connection with the state of our guts or digestion.

Supporting Our Guts In the Age of Sterility

Evolutionarily novel circumstances often require evolutionarily novel responses to restore balance.

A single milliliter of kefir can have up to 10 billion cfu.

A cup of yogurt can contain up to 500 billion cfu.

A tablespoon of sauerkraut juice can contain 1.5 trillion cfu. Kimchi is probably quite similar.

A single gram of soil can contain almost 10 trillion cfu. A gram of soil is easy to consume if you’re eating foods (and drink water) directly from the earth.

But it’s sure nice to have around.

Anyway, that’s it for today.

How do you get your probiotics? Do you find them necessary for optimum health? What kind of benefits have you experienced from taking probiotics, either via food or supplementation?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.

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