cardboardangel

[cardboardangel]

I want to be the person who, when I come online, people are thrilled to see me. I want to be the one that everyone wants to talk to and be around. I want to be the one that is visibly adored, and treasured by those around me. Accepted wholly.But I'm also painfully aware that I'm also very like Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock. No one really likes me unless they're the exact right kind of people.I've never really felt that way in my entire life, from when I was a child to now. I've had moments where I feel amazing warm and fuzzy like I found my place/people, but on a whole I have spent my entire life feeling like I Don't Belong(tm) And that is an exhausting feeling. I know my family loves me and does their best to accept all that I am or all that I'm not--but it's different when it's with your family and when it's with your social circle.So many people and the media portray autistic people as being high functioning sociopaths or as robotic emotionless people who just don't have the capacity to feel the desire for being wanted and loved. I feel things SO keenly. It isn't even just what -I- feel that I feel, I find myself feeling what everyone else around me feels as well, and that is often what hurts so bad when miscommunications or misunderstandings happen. Because I am feeling what they are feeling and I assume that is something everyone does, but it really, really isn't. Maybe I don't experience empathy the same way everyone else does and I don't express it like everyone else does and that makes me not everyone's cup of tea. While I understand that, I still feel it. I wish sometimes that I could turn off my ability to feel, my ability to care, just so I can settle back into being ME.

[cardboardangel]

just once. just ONCe. 

I would like to feel like I am someone’s first choice. 

[cardboardangel]

[cardboardangel]

[Tweet from @/fozmeadows: "human gender and sexuality are very much like animal taxonomy, in that both look structured and simple on the surface, but once you start investigating, it turns out there's actually no such thing as a fish despite the fact that we all know what a fish is, and that's okay"]

[cardboardangel]

[cardboardangel]

[cardboardangel]

Texts From Superheroes

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[cardboardangel]

i am so very tired of feeling like all i do is make things worse

[cardboardangel]

[cardboardangel]

so tired of being reminded that i suck at being human. or talking to them. or living with them.

[cardboardangel]

If you live in America and you care about people's water supply then this video is for you.

There is a proposed pipeline expansion that will bring nearly 1 million tar sands per day from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin. It's known as the Line 3 Pipeline. The pipeline will be carrying several kinds of tar sands crude. which is a carbon intensive oil which contains 37% more carbon than conventional oil, giving it a far greater impact on climate change.

To illustrate the pipeline would have the climate cost equivalent to 50 coal power plants!

When tar sands spilled the heavy oil mixes with the sediment and sinks to the bottom of the river or lake making it very difficult to clean up.

And the company Enbridge has a long history of spills, averaging one oil spill per week for the last 15 years.

Pipeline three also violates several treaties with the Ojibwe people.

All of this and not a cent of that pipeline will go to the American economy. There are links in my bio to help educate you further as well as where to show up for protests in Minnesota.

Please join us in protesting pipeline 3.

StopLine3

Resources In the Bio are here

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[cardboardangel]

𝐴𝑙𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑎 𝑂𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑜 𝐶𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑧 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 2021 𝑀𝑒𝑡 𝐺𝑎𝑙𝑎 𝑖𝑛 𝐵𝑟𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑉𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑠

[cardboardangel]

wow millennials are glued to their i-phones and laptops so much they cant even be bothered robbing in person anymore!!! maybe these trust fund babies should stop phishing credit cards while sitting on their butts and go out there and put some elbow grease into their thievery!

[cardboardangel]

My Disability Experience

CW: Medical trouble, pain, gaslighting

(When I refer to a 'you' I am talking to a roommate)

Most people would start by saying 'in a typical day', but I can't because there is NO typical day. No day is the same for me, as much as I wish it was. Like today. I woke up, my right shoulder feeling like there was a rusty screw somewhere in the joint, and my left hip feeling like someone was shoving a nail into it every time I moved. And my uterus feeling like something inside is stabbing outward every so often. Yesterday, for most of the day, i felt like I had a balloon full of oobleck behind my face, my ears were killing me. But I wanted to make soup for all of us, cuz I know soup is super comforting and can help a lot with recovering. Plus minestrone has beans, veggies, spinach and such, so good nutrients to aid recovery. I threw away my trash, and put away the remaining veg and that was all I had energy for after cooking. Hell, if I didn't use the instant pot I couldn't have even done that much... the main reason I WANTED an instant pot was because it's something that can cook without me having to stand over it, and takes much less time than the crock pot... When I cleaned the yard? That pain in my shoulder was in both shoulders, and in both my hips and knees. I was completely wrecked at the end of each day it took for me to do it all. The end of each day meant a sunlight hangover--my sinuses swelling, my joints throbbing, my head and neck aching like whiplash. On the last day of it, even my goddamn FINGERNAILS hurt and my asthma was beginning to act up because of the exertion and inflammation it all put me in. And yet I could not stop, because after months of trying to get all of the household involved in it, I knew I had to lead the charge.

Some days I am lucky and I'm in very little pain. Those are the days that I start doing things, even though I know if I'm not careful I'll trigger the pain.

But often on those days, it might not be the pain, but the lack of energy. And when I say lack of energy, I mean it feels like I am moving against a current in a river, fighting the weight of my own limbs just to get shit done. On real bad energy days, I am trying to wade through that thick kind of mud that is often on the sides of some rivers, so much so that even getting out of my chair to get something to eat is a monumental task. When I don't tell you how I'm feeling, there are several reasons behind it. First and foremost, I have been conditioned my entire life to minimize my pain, don't complain, it's unbecoming to bitch about things all the time...

The next biggest reason is because for most of my life, I've been told that I was imagining the pain. That I was just lazy, or just a baby about the usual aches and pains of life. My own mother didn't take my pain seriously until I was 18, and learning how to drive. After an hour of driving, I was unable to close my hands. To the point that I couldn't open our front door for myself because my hands hurt so badly. Then she finally said 'yaknow, that ain't right' and we began my quest through dozens of doctors telling me that it had to be imaginary or I was exaggerating, or perhaps wanting attention.

The third reason I often don't broadcast what pain I'm in... because I don't WANT to make you guys feel bad. I don't WANT to give excuses, I don't want to make you guys have to do more because of me, when I SHOULD be able to do things.

Getting my Sjogren's diagnosis was a day I actually cried in relief, because there was a name for why I was in pain for so much of my life. Why I was always so tired. Why being outside always seemed to drain me and make me sick. Yes, Sjogren's could kill me if it ever comes out of remission and begins to attack my internal organs and not just my joints. But it's real, and it has a name. It's something I can take a blood test for and it tells a doctor why I'm complaining about this stuff. But... overall?

It's bittersweet. I might know that I have a real diagnosis, but I can't help but start to remember all the years I was told it was fake. That it is an excuse. Year after year after year of that shit wears down on your mind. You start to doubt your own experience, your own ability to judge reality.

Something I also have run into is, even with an official diagnosis, people tend to get frustrated because I can't reliably do things. I can't guarantee I can do a thing one day to the next, because I can have three good days in a row--and then suddenly I can hardly get out of bed. And people tend to get annoyed when a condition doesn't go away. When you can't get better.

More than once, I've told someone I'm feeling icky, and they've replied with 'don't you always feel icky? push through it!'. Some days I can. Like the days I cleaned the kitchen or laundry room. Other days, my neuroses--anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, feelings of obligation, feelings of compulsion--overpower my pain. Those days are the worst because I start out knowing that I'm going to be in absolute agony as a result of whatever task I've started--and yet my brain won't let me stop. Even though it knows that what I'm doing is probably going to make me sick for days as a result.

As for being autistic... that compulsion is part of it. The neuropsychologist who diagnosed me was stuck for days trying to decide if I had OCD or if I was Autistic. She decided that I was Autistic with strong obsessive compulsive features. And those obsessive compulsive features have pushed me to do things that I know I shouldn't, because GOTTA DO THIS is all that drowns out the static and pushes me forward. So when you say things like 'I don't wanna hear excuses', it is a trigger for me. It brings all the voices of those doctors, teachers, authority figures telling me that I was making it all up. I hear my own voice telling me that my pain doesn't matter, that everyone's in pain and I should just suck it up. That is why I started crying, why I got so upset. I wanted to be a nurse, or maybe even a doctor. I went into medical training right out of high school. Slowly but surely, each career I tried to train for was eliminated because I couldn't physically do it. I know I am a highly intelligent person, that my knowledge could be valuable to someone. I wanted to help people--others like myself in particular. But my health kept deteriorating more and more. In college, I had to have a handicap placard so I could park closer, get to my classes on time because the books were SO heavy.

Then I trained for a desk job. And I couldn't even do THAT because of my autism. Because I was so unpleasant to be around, and no one wanted to work with me. No one wanted to have to deal with me, train me properly or be in the same room as me after my first day. I went in to work the second day and they told me to leave. That they didn't want me anymore. The thing you mentioned, about my face not changing? It's called masking, and it's often something I do as a coping mechanism, or defense mechanism. It's not something I do intentionally, and it's not something I really control.

If I was JUST autistic, and not physically disabled, maybe I could deal. But... yeah. That is what I feel, and what I experience.

#disability #invisible illness #sjogren's syndrome #autism #chronic pain

[cardboardangel]

Do you ever just… favorite-character-at-first-sight? Like, they walk on screen and say ONE WORD and immediately you’re just smitten.

“That one. That’s the one. I don’t know who they are yet but they’re my fave.”

[cardboardangel]

If you wish to support Activision Blizzard workers in their walkout today, they haven't asked to not cross the (virtual or otherwise) picket line but rather for people to raise awareness of harassment issues in the games industry and to support the following:

Black Girls Code

Futures without Violence

Girls Who Code

RAINN

Women In Animation

WIG International

If you wish to show your support, they're asking people to use the #ActiBlizzWalkout hashtag and the blue heart emoji 💙

[cardboardangel]