Towards an intersectional model of neurodivergence.
Okay, these are things that I wrote in a conversation with a friend, so I’m not like submitting it for peer review before a scientific council or anything, but I’m kind of sticking it out there because I kind of feel like I have to radically restructure the fundamentals of psychology in order to talk about our neurodivergences at all.
(Image description: A series of traditional psychiatric diagnoses stacked on top of each other, with an accompanying straight line from “high functioning” to “low functioning”. The straight line next to autism, for example, lists NVLD, Asperger’s, Autism, and non-verbal autism in a linear order.)
This is a half-assed graphical representation of the traditional “spectrum” model of psychiatric disability. It groups individual disorders as being definitely distinct from each other in a pretty linear quantification from high-functioning to low-functioning. You’ll get some stuff like SAD which is allowed to be on two spectra, and the whole “everything is caused by PTSD” thing happening, but ultimately in this model you try to pidgeonhole people into one or two of these spectra if at all possible.
This is completely inadequate.
(Image description: An imperfect visual representation of the Intersectional Model of psychiatric disability. The image features a gradient that fades through many different colors, and superimposed upon different colors are diagnoses, such as AVPD, BPD, Bipolar, and Schizophrenia. There is a little star labeled ΘΣ, representing us, tucked right between BPD, AVPD, STPD, and Plurality.)
This is closer to the way I perceive myself in reality. Because tucked away in my brain is some primordial ooze of avoidance, borderlineness, schizotypy, plurality, and you know what, probably some other things. I can’t separate any of these things from each other.
- Πανδώρα
To clarify I wrote this; I think from now on I’ll post substantial writings here too for in case somebody wants to read the substantial things I have to say but doesn’t feel like refreshing the page every time I eat breakfast.
(Source: sibylsillysuperiority)
Who would like to define Greek and Roman Classicism for me?
:D please?
(animated gif removed)
southernfriedweird answered greece and rome are called the “classical” cultures, so a classicist is someone who studies them, and classicism is what a classicist studies
No, ancient Greece is called “a” “classical” culture. A classicist studies ancient Greece and Rome from an imperialist perspective, ie, Greece used as a western rationalization. Classicism has nothing to do with modern Greece or modern Greek people.
Trigger Warnings: self-harm, eating disorders, suicide, hospitalization
One of the great things about Tumblr […]
Except what about risk-reduction strategies? Far too often the sort of websites that would be outsourced to, that are hosted elsewhere, are “abstinence-only” and “this is horrible and must be ceased immediately.” There is no room for process, for acknowledging that these may be vital coping mechanisms preventing anything worse from happening, for advice on how to not accidentally kill yourself through self-harm or starvation. This hard-lining will reach fewer people. Glorification, okay, I can side against that. But I foresee this being used to shut down all nuanced dialogue, all efforts to be accessible to people who are participating in these activities and finding them useful - all support that doesn’t manifest as “this is bad, stop immediately.”
So yes, I think blogs recommending safer techniques for self-harm and starvation serve an important function. Perhaps they should be phrased to acknowledge that, well this isn’t a good thing, but also to acknowledge that the readers definitely are aware of that and still need support and help, and maybe this is keeping them alive right now so let’s use that, because that’s what’s most important.
The timing of this is really horrible, as March 1st is Self-Harm Awareness Day and its message is to not judge. People do a lot of things to survive. Abstinence-only addiction rehabilitation does not work for everyone. Both abstinence-only and safe sex education ignore the reality that people will make their own decisions about what risks are acceptable in their lives, and could really use information on how to reduce those risks.
I understand it’s hard to regulate a more nuanced approach, to determine what is “promoting” and what is acknowledging where people are and trying to provide them with tools to stay safe there and maybe gradually tone it down. But this is a vitally important issue, and I firmly believe Tumblr is an important arena for this to happen, and that a blanket policy like this is going to do harm. Honestly, what’s worse: providing safety tips and support for where people are at, or joking about how weak self-injurers are and how you totally want to cut yourself and wish your lawn was emo and so on? Both may end up being triggering, but one is invalidating, and one is safeguarding.
(I also seriously recommend the official implementation of selectively blocking certain tags/words in posts, such as “cutting” and “self-harm,” because if you’re really worried about people’s mental health, you’ll make it easier for them to block triggering material from appearing on their dash.)
This isn’t very articulate, and I hope to find other and better posts on the subject, but seriously, I don’t find this policy laudable nor this issue cut-and-dry, and I guarantee its enforcement will be sticky, will leave up plenty of triggery not-okay things, and will take away important resources and spaces for people actually living with these issues.
WORD. I AGREE SO HARD.
Tumblr staff, if you want to do things to ACTUALLY HELP people who self-injure, there are much better places to start than by forcing us out of tumblr. You could start by actually taking action against tumblr bullies, for example, rather than siding with them in saying that because you think we’re weird we shouldn’t be here.
We know about your fucking hotlines and your non-profit organizations or whatever the fuck else. We know because their analysis and their philosophy and their very presence are culturally privileged. We know because they continually position themselves as authorities on us, and using their immense social capital they get to define our identities and experiences before we ever get the chance. Their shit is all over our tags already, and given the violence inherent in such approaches, this re-enforces the messages that we’re all worthless failures, especially for those of us who are otherwise marginalized. Many of us have been forcibly hospitalized and have heard it all before.
Your shit doesn’t work. We’ve tried it. This is us finding another way. Let us.
having the same mental disorder as hitler
i find this morbidly hilarious.
tagged: #bpd
Wooooooah. No.
The BPD diagnosis didn’t exist until the 1960’s. Hitler died in the 1940’s. Anyone claiming to diagnose Hitler with a personality disorder is talking out of their ass with some ultra-bigoted pop psychology bullshit.
You don’t have the same personality disorder as Hitler. Hitler’s actions were because of his own choices and they were, by and large, supported by significant portions of German society and other people in powerful positions. They weren’t symptoms of a personality disorder.
Please don’t believe this for a second. <3
Who would like to define Greek and Roman Classicism for me?
:D please?
(animated gif removed)
It’s a way the west legitimizes wonton appropriation of Greece’s history. By positioning Greece as a predecessor to Rome and erasing our history from roughly the year 324 AD onward, and all but the most privileged members of Greek society from any time before that, it uses us as the West’s creation myth. This is the idea behind the appropriation of concepts like democracy.
this is relative
This is so, so, so, so cool.
People living openly, as nonhumans, together.
<3
Via Memento Mori
fishspeakers asked: you are such a genius that I really care about what you say to me over the internet. how did you find out that I was the evil mastermind behind the conspiracy to send asks to your friend. have you even met her in real life?
Used to live together, actually. Not that it would invalidate anything if we hadn’t.
-J
nevernotbroken asked: gtfo the fictionkin tag, bigot. leave karkat alone.
tw: ableism, anti-otherkin bigotry, especially anti-fictionkin.
WHOOPS SORRY. Did my pointing out that Karkat Vantas is a fictional character grind a few gears?
Or the fact that he doesn’t actually exist outside of a website?
Seriously can accept that some people don’t exactly feel completely human (but that doesn’t stop me from making fun of it).
But shit. Thinking you are a FICTIONAL CHARACTER from SOMEONE ELSES creation is a complete crock of shit. I’m not even going to dignify it with the possibility of being legit.
Unless you’re mentally ill.
SO WHAT IF WE’RE “MENTALLY ILL”??? “Mental illness” refers to a lot of things, some of which DO change the ways we develop identity and self-image… SO THE FUCK WHAT? Some people are different from you. Get your privileged ass over it.
No fucking shit Karkat Vantas is a fictional character. There are also a *few* Karkats on tumblr so of fucking COURSE they exist.
You don’t even know what you’re talking about. I don’t know of anyone claiming to be The One And Only Karkat Vantas, but if Karkat Vantas is a useful identity for someone then fuck all the way off. How about developing an actual understanding of what identities mean to people instead of rushing off to draw conclusions and decide you know everything?
I don’t know what’s funnier. The fact you’re accusing me of being a privileged for not believing in Fictionkin or the fact that you tagged this with a trigger warning for ‘anti-fictionkin’.
I know all about mental illness, doll. I’m part of a charity organisation specifically targeted at it. I also sufferer from one. I can therefore understand why someone may legitimately believe they’re a character if it’s directly related to their mental illness.
Identifying WITH (key word, here) a character is also possible. I mean, I identify strongly with Suzanna Kaysen from Girl, Interrupted, for instance. That doesn’t mean I AM her.
Identifying AS a character is ridiculous. You are NOT a troll, you do NOT live on an alien planet. You did NOT create our universe NOR did you create cancer. You did not play a game called Sburb because Sburb doesn’t exist.
Therein lies the fine line of identity.
I don’t give a *shit* how many charity organizations you work for targeted “at” neurodivergent people… which fucking one, Autism Speaks?
Your bigoted attitudes towards neurodivergent people here are extremely obvious to anyone paying attention. You claim that you understand that neurodivergence might affect the way someone’s identity is structured, but you go ahead and mock the trigger warning for it anyway meaning you acknowledge that it’s real, and that thus your mocking and invalidation can be hurtful to people, and you don’t care.
I fucking dare you to find a fictionkin who won’t tell you that the body they’re typing from is located on Earth. They know this. They catch on to the fact that they’re speaking English PRETTY QUICKLY. You are a bigot of the highest caliber.
It’s not like fictives on average are particularly ruder than anyone else out there… why not send one of them an ask about how they reconcile their existence on Earth speaking English using Earth technology with their identities, in a non-bigoted way? Lots of fictive friends of mine love it when they can talk about their identities non-judgementally! You might learn something!
or did you just never get the idea that you might not know everything?
Oh I know I don’t know everything. I never claimed to know everything.
My point was that it’s ludicrous to actually believe you’re a fictional character when you don’t have any sort of psychological impacts that would influence that. As I have stated previously, I don’t deny people spiritually identifying as animals or whatnot. That has been practiced for more than thirty thousand years. Believing you’re a different species is something else entirely.
And insofar as bigotry goes, you’re not doing yourself any favours by attempting to insult me be systematically insulting people with Autism.
…There’s been a miscommunication. She’s autistic, severely so. Her jab was at charities, not at autistic people. Apologies if it went over your head, and actual non-sarcastic apologies to actual autistic people who thought she was taking a pot-shot at you.
So you realize your idea of what’s mythological, zoological, cryptozoological, and fictional is socially constructed, right, and that your understanding of that is influenced by colonialism? As in, you’re not actually throwing Earth’s indigenous peoples any bones by saying that it’s cool to identify as things as long as you draw arbitrary lines elsewhere between what is real and made up as if there’s an actual dichotomy based in fact and not bigotry. Probably in a lot of settings and places identification as mythological characters and beings is more common than identification as physical Earth animals. Possession, for example, goes back a really long way, and we’ve had that here.
And it’s also bigoted to assume that people who identify in certain ways don’t have any neurodivergence going on at all. And it’s still bigoted even if they don’t.
We kind of bickered over whether to put this in Miluda’s blog or mine. So here it is in both.
(Source: cherry-burlesque)
Anonymous asked: You assume and jump to a conclusion, way to make yourself seem like a good person (you may or may not be, but you're not seeming like one). Please take your "bad crazy" internet out of the "good crazy" part where the rest of us dwell. Also, my apologies for anon, I don't have a tumblr so I can't ask a question from an account.
Okay, but only if you take your bigotry out of our tags.
I don’t go around looking for people to call out. I only am talking to this person at all because they posted bigoted shit in the fictionkin tag.
blinko asked: I'm the anonymous person who asked about the term "neurodiversity." Thanks for answering my earlier question. I just wanted to follow up on that question because I really didn't think you addressed what I was getting at, which is that IMHO one can't logically call psychiatric illnesses "neurodiversity" since there is afa[science]k nothing abnormal or unusual about the neurology or brains of those with mental illnesses. I think it is detrimental to call us "neurodiverse" as i reinforces biologism
Can you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by biologism? It’s a term I’ve never heard before.
I also don’t look to science for validation of my identity because I acknowledge that the scientific research that has been done doesn’t exist in a vacuum and that there are ideological reasons that it has been done.
I’m also not arguing for any specific cause for neurodiversity in particular (the term encompasses such a variety of things that that would be ridiculous); I find it irrelevant. We exist, end of story, don’t particularly care why.
About me
I am Pandora of the Sibyl ΘΣ, a system of multiples based in the Pacific Northwest that has been in a perpetual housing crisis since we were 17.
I am Greek, Borderline, trans, plural, vaguely and nebulously human, 
