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Stop telling people things are 'easy'

People often say things that are not helpful when giving advice - "It's easy", "If I can do it, you can do it", "You just need to try harder", "You'll get it next time", "If you wanted it badly enough, you would find a way". I get that they mean well. But sometimes people just CAN'T do things, or at least, can't do them as easily. Everyone's ability levels are different. We know that. Why does our attempt at support not reflect that?

If you tell someone that the thing they're struggling with is 'easy', if you say there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to do it, then by that logic if they continue to struggle, you are saying that THEY are the problem, or that they're the error in the equation. There's a good chance they'll internalise that and feel like a failure, especially if it comes from someone whose advice they trust.

A better form of verbal encouragement would look like, "I've done something similar in the past, can I share some tips I learned along the way?" Or, "I'm sorry you're struggling, what part are you finding most difficult and how can I help with that?" It's okay to acknowledge someone's shortcomings, if they themselves are acknowledging it and seeking help. It's way more honest and authentic and builds more trust than some empty platitude.

Another radical idea would be to offer practical support instead of advice, but we've wandered so very far from the concept of 'it takes a village' and now it's every man for himself. Nobody wants to 'feed a man a fish' because we've been taught that letting people work things out for themselves is more beneficial in the long run. But the reality is that some people won't have a long run, if they can't overcome some of the hurdles at the start of the race.

Words are important. The language we use matters. It can be be hard to train ourselves out of using phrases and auto responses we've used and heard others use our whole lives. But to truly empower someone you have to meet them where they're at, and let them know that you've got their back win or lose. That's what really counts.

Change is hard. Growth as a person can be uncomfortable. But finding better ways to support each other is worth it.

#relationships #spilled thoughts #spilled ink #neurodiverse #neurospicy #adhd #autism #asd #depression #communication #neurolinguistic programming #nlp #wordsmatter #support #community #life tips

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“Deep in my heart I know I am a loner. I have tried to blend in with the world or be more sociable, but the more people I meet the more disappointed I am. So I’ve learned to enjoy myself, my family, and a few good friends.”

— Steven Aitchison

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Remember, it's about attraction, not action! Identifying as ace or aro isn't invalidated because of what you do or don't do. Have sex and identify as ace? Still ace. In a romantic relationship and ID as aro? Still aro.

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As a queer Gen Z, I constantly think about how there’s such a huge chunk of the queer community that’s simply… missing. So much of the queer community died during AIDS that almost an entire generation of us is simply not there anymore.

Those queer people were supposed to be our teachers, our mentors, maybe even our parents or grandparents. Those queer people were supposed to be there for us. They were supposed to be at pride events, welcoming all the young queers. They were supposed to be representation in our careers. Those people were supposed to be there to help us navigate life as queer people, and it’s devastating for both us and them that they never got to do it.

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I want to live my life in such acway that this becomes my epitaph. ❤️

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ND Love Languages - Penguin Pebbling

I've been thinking about the Neurodivergent love languages ever since I mentioned them in another post. Of the five "languages," Penguin Pebbling is by far my go-to strategy for signalling "Hey, I like you!" Sometimes referred to as "Look at this cool rock I found!", Penguin Pebbling is based on the practice observed in Gentoo penguins, who will scoop up a good pebble in their beaks and carry them to their nest partner. This BBC article says it's "a gift that acknowledges the relationship between the two penguins and helps grow the nest for their budding family.”

In humans, ‘pebbles’ can be anything from a funny meme to a pic of the dinner we just cooked, to an art piece we're working on. It can be a random snap that encapsulates our experience of any particular given moment, or a small thing we bought that brings us joy. The point of Penguin Pebbling is to share something you found/saw/did/experienced that you thought was funny and cool, to let the other person know you're thinking of them and wanting to include them in your world. It's also an easy test to see if the other person is on your wavelength, and a great way to connect and add to a “nest” for a budding relationship. 

To further build on the idea of ‘love languages’ in general, today I found out about something called 'emotional bids', via this page: "[Emotional] Bids can be small or big, verbal or nonverbal. They’re requests to connect. Bids are often purposely subtle because people are afraid to be vulnerable and put themselves out there. It’s scary to say, “Hey! I want to connect! Pay attention to me!” so instead, we ask a question or tell a story or offer our hand for connection. We hope we’ll receive connection in return, but if not, it’s less scary than pleading, “Connect with me, please!” 

Penguin Pebbling is an extremely low risk emotional bid. If you share something you like with someone, and they think it's gross, stupid or unfunny, or judge you for it… well then you know you haven't found the right person to connect with, and you can choose to dial back your investment in them no harm no foul. It's certainly an easy way to avoid being hurt; instead of a wild declaration of intention that leaves you vulnerable, at worst you're left with a joke that didn't land, or an artistic endeavour in need of appreciation by someone else. 

But what happens when two Penguin Pebblers get together and pebble each other until there's an eight feet wall of tiny stones between the two of you? Honestly this is a very real problem, ngl. It probably involves someone punching a hole through the wall to finally have a frank conversation about all the cool rocks you've collectively gifted each other, which turns a low risk activity into an extremely high risk one.  But if neither of you does it, you’ll just be awkwardly staring at each other across rooms and up all night texting memes to each other until your friends finally stage an intervention to get the two of you together. (Remind me to post on “Lesbian Sheepitude” sometime!). 

At any rate, I find it interesting to have discovered a new ‘love language’ (my traditional LL is ‘words of affirmation’, which as a writer, should come as no surprise).  I can definitely identify lots of times in the past where I engaged in pebbling, without knowing what it was or why I felt so hurt when partners and friends didn’t care about the shiny thing I was trying to show them.  I know it’s impossible to wrap everything up in a tidy box with a neat little bow, but it does give me some tools to understand and communicate more transparently with the important people in my life. 

One of the things I’m the most proud of myself for is that I took the time about a decade ago to do some intentional and intense personal development work around improving my attitudes towards honesty and integrity and improving my communication with people. That’s why I find all this stuff about how humans relate and communicate and feel about each other so fascinating.  In another life I’m sure I would have made a great actual psychologist, instead of just an armchair one. :P 

#relationships #neurodiverse relationships #neurodiverse love languages #love languages #penguin pebbling #communication #relationship psychology

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THIS

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I miss kissing. To be fair, I was never a huge fan of sitting there snogging for hours on end. But my last partner was a sex-averse ace who refused to do more than the barest of pecks on my lips every once in a while, and I felt like a parched throat, trying to be satisfied by a single drop of water. It's been over half a decade since I've had someone to kiss who also wanted to kiss me.

I miss kisses hello and goodbye, daily kisses with lips that press passionately against mine. I miss the feeling of gently pulling someone's tongue, warm and wet, into my mouth. I miss that feeling of deep connection when two fully clothed bodies press against each other, exploring the nudity of teeth and soft faces and the heated crevasses of necks instead.

In so many ways, I've been made to feel lacking, less than, not good enough. I'm no longer waiting for my prince to show up. I no longer feel adequate or worthy enough to even throw my hat into anyone's ring. The trauma I've endured this year has finally broken me. But... I still yearn for intimacy, even while believing that I don't deserve it.

I guess this line of thinking started because I was thinking it will be New Years Eve soon, and while I do have plans to attend a party, I assume this will be yet another NYE without a kiss at midnight. Silly, I know. But if I could get a holiday wish this year, it would be for someone to kiss as the clock takes us from one year to the next, to share that moment of time-outside-of-time, to feel human again for a split second so that maybe I can carry some of that magic with me into the new year. Yes, I'm superstitious... just shut up and kiss me! 💋🥂

#shut up and kiss me #kissing #new year's eve #nye #spilled thoughts #intimacy

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This!! Lol... the audacity is mind-boggling. Like, allies are important and we love y'all to bits, but this is OUR space, not yours. Please just support us from the sidelines, and don't try to insert yourselves into our acronyms kthxbai!!

A does not stand for ally, it stands for ASPECS. aros and aces and agenders and aplatonics and ASPECS damn it.

i will fucking swallow a motherfucker whole if I hear that argument again.

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I love how intricate asexuality can be. No sex at all? Sure! Just want to watch? Brilliant! Only comfortable with topping? You go girl! Only rarely feel aroused and when you do it's very touch and go? Wonderful! Kinky but not in a sex way? Coolio! Queerness is full of nuance and people are complicated and things never live in a vacuum!!

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feeling called out today

credit: _ADWills

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it's always so fascinating and heartbreaking when a character in a story is simultaneously idolized and abused. a chosen prophet destined for martyrdom. a child prodigy forced to grow up too fast. a powerful warrior raised as nothing but a weapon. there's just something so uniquely messed up about singing someone's praises whilst destroying them.

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Neurodiverse Relationships and Trust

I recently came across the statement that a Neurodivergent's “love language” is Trust. 

Now if you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what love languages are, it’s a system of how different people express love to the people in their lives.  The five identified “languages” are Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Quality Time, Acts of Service, and Receiving Gifts.  This is not a post about that, but there are plenty of resources online if you want to look it up. 

There’s been content circulating in recent times about ‘Neurodivergent love languages’ which is quite good, looking at some additional ways a Neurodivergent person might express their affection - Infodumping, Body Doubling/Parallel Play, Support Swapping, Deep Pressure, and Penguin Pebbling (more info here: https://careclinic.io/neurodivergent-love-languages/).  

Getting back to the idea of Trust as a love language, I would disagree that it is a ‘love language’ in itself.  Rather, I’d say that Trust is the foundational requirement for a healthy relationship to flourish - it’s the umbrella under which love can be expressed. And it’s intrinsic for the survival of a Neurodiverse relationship.  

See, a lot of Neurodivergent people have “learned” that showing others our true selves is often the quickest pathway to rejection. What is ‘learning’?  At a base level, ‘learning’ is the acquisition and retention of knowledge for future application.  It is the ability to comprehend that x + y = z, and to later apply ‘y’ to ‘x’ to get ‘z’ because we know that is the formula for a successful outcome. 

People learn all kinds of things. We learn mathematics.  We learn to spell our own name, to tie our shoes.  We learn how to boil water and make soup. We learn that socks and sandals are a combination to be mocked.  We learn that humans make mistakes. We learn that touching a hot stove hurts.  We learn that love hurts. 

And what do we do with that knowledge?  We retain it for future use.  We use math to sew and cook and create. We use appropriate tools to avoid physical pain.  We use social cues to avoid emotional pain.  We learn to exercise caution in relationships, because we know they can fail.  We avoid circumstances that have harmed us in the past.  

It can be hard to unlearn things. Because in fact you never ‘unlearn’ something - it’s always there, embedded in our brains.  All we can do is add to, overwrite, amend and adapt the knowledge we’ve gained through past education and experiences.

Neurodivergent people ‘learn’ early on that we are different, that we don’t quite fit in, that some of the things we do are odd or ‘quirky’.  We learn because we are told that our whole lives will now be a series of masks and pretending to be "normal", a pretension that will often demand every resource in our bodies and leave us exhausted for days, weeks or months. We learn that our emotions and natural responses to things are unregulated and unacceptable. 

Some of us only know that we are different, but never know why.  A lot of us end up choosing to shut down, to shut the world off, or to seek out other neurodiverse people for our primary social circles. Some of us give up on finding love, on finding acceptance, indeed, on even finding a place for ourselves in this world at all. 

This is why it is absolutely necessary to know that when we do open up, when we do choose to trust another human enough to let them through our defenses, that we’re not inadvertently subjecting ourselves to yet another instance of being othered.  That we’re not going to experience ridicule, condescension and disdain just for being ourselves.  Because we are weird - and we know we’re weird - but we don’t want to have to mask around the people who should accept us at face value. 

I’ve got a particular stim that past partners have made fun of me for doing.  I’ve been called weird for talking to myself and made fun of for instances of involuntary echolalia. I’ve been coerced into social occasions because my partner hasn’t understood my battery is way too low. I’ve been forced into conversations I didn’t have the energy for just because I didn’t want the other person to be upset. I’ve been patronised by partners for failing at a task they thought was easy. I’ve been dismissed by partners during moments of vulnerability, because they didn’t understand how the things I was being exposed to could pose a challenge for me, because it didn’t for them.  

Of course, there’s always going to be misunderstandings, and the need for communication lines to be kept open and flowing to combat those misunderstandings will always be present. Humans are always going to find other humans weird.  But we need to know that the people we choose to spend our most intimate moments with are not going to judge us for being weird.  We need to know that they’re not going to fetishise our quirks.  We need to know that they’re going to be supportive, no matter what. 

If we feel like we are being othered or forced into situations where we will need to mask around a potential partner, it only creates barriers to the fostering of that relationship, or even brings the premature conclusion of what could have been a potentially good partnership.   

Some personal examples… 

I was chatting to a guy a few years ago who wouldn’t stop bombarding me with messages.  He said all the wrong things, through no fault of his own, and I didn’t have the words to be able to tell him. He finally started hurling passive aggressive phrases at me until I blocked him.  (Interestingly, he still follows me on Instagram!) 

I was dating someone during an intense period of stress where my ability to be verbal was wildly fluctuating, and he didn’t understand that sometimes an emoji or meme was all I could manage, even after I summoned enough spoons to tell him that. He laughed off my meme-speak as an ‘attempt to be funny’ and kept trying to force conversation. Needless to say, he didn't last long either.

Another person I met was fairly “mainstream” - normal job, normal style of dressing, typical cishet "guy" interests like pub rock and footy. He constantly commented favourably on my alternative style of dress, my alternative hair, asked me to take him to a goth club some time, etc.  He said he’d never met anyone like me and it was “cool” how I was so “different”.  Yet whenever I tried to deepen our connection and share some of my challenges on the spectrum, he either didn’t want to or was unable to understand that the very thing that made me ‘cool’ in his eyes also presented barriers he would have to acknowledge in order for us to take things to the next level. 

Even recently, I had brunch with someone who really wanted to meet me, and the conversation kept cycling through me sharing something about myself and then having them question why I had said or done this, why didn’t I just do that instead, etc. It was exhausting and as a result I didn’t give this person a second date.  

So assuming I even have the spoons to be able to navigate the hurdles necessary to form a significant connection, I now have a huge amount of trust-trauma, a kind of trust bankruptcy if you will, and no desire to ‘be myself’ around a potential partner only to have that backfire in my face again. 

But the feeling of being loved and supported unconditionally is amazing, when you can achieve that with someone. When you feel you can be your most authentic self with someone, you have the confidence to let them laugh with you, because you know they’re not laughing AT you.  And when you know the person you’re with isn’t going to judge you, that you don’t have to monitor every word or action, that you don’t have to live every moment self-consciously, that you can be as weird as you want and let your freak flag fly and they’re not going to walk away - now THAT is pure magic.  

So I guess the TL;DR here is - Trust is not just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.  Especially for Neurodivergent people who are often operating on a deficit of trust. Because a lot of us have had the world telling us we’re weirdos from the moment we were born, and it’s so refreshing and soul-restoring to sit confidently in a relationship environment that celebrates our weirdness as uniqueness, without judgement.  It’s like being able to breathe fresh air again, after being underwater for far too long.  

#love languages #neurodivergence #neurodiverse #neurodiverse love languages #autism #dating on the spectrum #autism and dating #neurodiverse relationships #relationships #trust