Best posts made by thhppbbbt

@kestrel Co-signed on pretty much everything. Additionally I noticed that it seems to increase symptoms of anxiety and compulsive disorders, so my doctor prescribed anxiety meds for me (though I haven’t seen the effects yet). The appetite suppression seems to wane a good bit over time. My meds also seem to wear off at such a time that I can relax in the evening… but I lose a degree of executive function that allows me to decide to go to sleep when I mean to. Ahhhh, brains.

Also, if you get to like 5-6 hours into your day and are just like, “god, why am I so fucking tired today?” go check if you took your meds. (I highly recommend getting a day of the week style pill counter so it’s easy to verify if you did.) Damn near guarantee you forgot. The effect has been pretty profound.

I have a child who's been diagnosed autistic, and haven't ruled out that I might be. A lot of my experience makes a lot of sense when seen through that lens. I remember taking a psychology class in college and proposing to my professor that I could write as an honors paper a reflection on how roleplaying games have allowed me to formalize certain social rules, habits, and cues that otherwise confounded me growing up (including research within the community to find out if this was a common thing). I didn't think I was autistic then. Having an autistic child now hasn't convinced me that I am - I just think it's a little likelier than I did. I'm not neurotypical - and to whatever extent I do share traits or proclivities with autistic people, I think that roleplaying online has been incredibly adaptive for that.

@ganymede Assholes might be assholes, but NT assholes very often asshole at ND folks specifically using the pretense that because they don't need [accomodation X] they don't need to respect anyone else's need for it. It's a really, really common thing, and saying it's just assholes being assholes disappears that NT assholes who mash ND buttons often face no repercussions because the other NT folks can't figure out why ND person is being so insistent, pushy, needy, particular, etc etc etc until the end of time.

@kestrel If you enjoy reading about that thesis, you might enjoy a book called The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh (who argues that the relative dearth of those kinds of stories in western culture has left us unprepared for grappling with climate change). One of the most interesting books I’ve read in recent memory.

@groth said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:

On the subject of Dunning-Kruger I think it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you understand something if you're not challenged to it. One thing that happened to me recently was that I had watched a video on induced current from a moving magnetic field and I thought I had a grasp on how it worked, however after getting into a discussion with a physicist, I quickly realized that no, I don't actually understand it at all.

One of the things I've found most helpful in avoiding DKing myself is practicing a discipline of assuming I'm wrong in most* conversations in which someone disagrees with me. It doesn't mean that's where I finish, it's just where I start. If I start from "I'm wrong" then my learn all the things mechanism takes over and I'm likelier to treat someone more like a generous teacher/sharer of knowledge than "that asshole that disagrees with me."

If I can't resolve what I learn from them with stuff I've previously learned - because I'm not in school anymore, it isn't anybody's job to teach me - I'll usually ask for a recommendation for further reading. And sometimes it turns out I was wrong, and I learn something. Sometimes it turns out I was right, and I still learn something.

* Obvious or not so obvious, I don't do this in conversations about my own personal experience, because I take as a given that I am the authority on that.

It's so interesting that people suggest entitlement is a reason not to ask for money. Because... not getting paid doesn't seem to be saving anyone from entitlement? Like what makes it worse if there's money?

@il-volpe Yeah, I've got ADHD for sure. The overlap is... not small. But there's also stuff that ADHD doesn't quite cover, and some of the diagnostic criteria aren't things that cause me any trouble now, but that's also because of significant adaptations in my life. I do Remember When.

I’m sort of baffled by the through-line I’m seeing here - that money would make it worse because what if it gets weird or they turn out to be terrible and entitled? Like, you know that even with money on the table you can back out, right? You can still ban a creep. Toss a refund, part or whole. You can still be selective. That’s what consensual means. You don’t consent once and give up your right to change your mind. Unless I’ve accidentally time traveled back a few decades, in which case I’m gonna need more flannels, I missed my moment with the grunge thing.

I don’t actually know who specifically I’m addressing here. This might just be a thing I don’t get and continue not to get. Thanks for answering my questions anyway, all.

@macha I was legit expecting you to say you then walked out without your groceries and I was so relieved when that never happened.

@saosmash This! I feel like maybe it’s the fact that it’s free that drives the entitlement.

@boneghazi Attend to the sensory pieces. Find out what he needs in order to focus as well as he can, and give him that to the greatest extent possible. Anecdote: In kindergarten one of my kids was accused of being deliberately inattentive (I don't know what the actual fuck that means), and so during a parent-teacher conference where the teacher was trying to demonstrate that he wouldn't pay attention even when she was speaking directly to him, I spoke with her in a much quieter tone of voice than she was using... and as I was speaking, I slowly removed everything from the table between her and us. As soon as the table was free of objects, my kid looked up and started watching the conversation between us, particularly my half, until the teacher dropped her voice to a lower volume, and then he started looking at her, too. I have learned over time that he learns best:

1. in a visually uncluttered environment,
2. with a quieter volume than we use for typical conversation, much less kindergarten-teacher-boss-voice,
3. with some kind of physical touch sensory input (snuggled up to me works pretty well)

and additionally he melts down when hungry (ADHD is not his only diagnosis), and his school had his lunch scheduled criminally early (9:45am! with 5 more hours of school to go!), so I had them giving him a (nut-free) snack in the afternoon.

Basically, this is the last step of HALTS (hungry, angry, lonely, tired, sensory) - once you're sure focus isn't being impaired by one of the first four, run through the senses and see if you notice attention focusing on less-prefered topics more when there's higher or lower inputs on any of them. I'm happy to talk with you more about this if you think it would help.