Someone in an autism facebook group I’m in just asked “How am I supposed to earn enough to make a living without burning out?”
Someone replied: “You’re not. Even neurotypicals can’t right now in the system designed for them. We’re the canaries in the coalmine. When we start failing, they know something is wrong.”
People keep saying, “Oh, everyone thinks they’re neurodivergent now!” or they’ll say it’s the foods or chemicals or whatever other nonsense they’ve fallen for, but to me the answer is so obvious?
We’ve gotten to a point that more and more people are being left behind by the system, making it so that neurodivergent parents who could get by fine *enough* in decades/centuries past are bringing children into a world that cannot and will not attempt to accommodate them. There’s nothing in the water and people aren’t faking, it’s just that this is no longer sustainable or livable and of course people with disabilities will be hit first and hit the hardest. There aren’t more people with it, it’s just harder to go through life without being aware that you’re not functioning the way your peers seem to be able to.
look if chiropractics have helped you then i think that’s great but i do think every chiropractor should be legally required to disclose the fact that the guy who invented it said he learned it from a ghost
‘bread is bad for you’ ‘rice is bad for you’ sorry im not subscribing to the idea that staple grains that have been integral to cultures for centuries are evil. i love you carbs
me and all my traumatized loved ones have such a hard time finding anyone who can even begin to sit with and hold what we went through. we’re considered too fucked up to handle. we’re labeled as too damaged and too interfered with to be safe to be around. the things we’ve been through make people shut down— or worse, they go haring off in directions they think are helpful but are really just more role violence centered around fixing/saving/remaking us. we are starved for capacity. we go through the world feeling so profoundly other. meeting that one person who can sit with us without shutting down or freaking the fuck out or saying something stupid or objectifying us with their incomprehension is so incredibly rare. we cling to you for dear life when we find you.
and the rewards are worth it. once you build capacity and awareness and practice talking about it with enough people. enough about the dangers of overwhelm and how scary and hard it all is. everything can be talked about. everything has happened before, everything will happen again, and all of it can be described. the way you describe it and the way your soma resonates with the somas around you as you describe it provides the road out of the horror story, into capacity and the ability to hold the truth. I can’t think of anything as desperately needed as this.
“Run into a cave and break your ankle so that people have to come find you and they see you lying at the bottom of this beautiful cave and maybe there’s a waterfall and the light from the crystals makes you look really beautiful and they say “Are you okay?” and you say “I think so” and they say “oh my God have you been here alone this whole time with a broken ankle” and you say “it’s okay” and they say “you’re so brave” and you are brave and you look so beautiful surrounded by cave crystals and everyone stands over you and says “oh wow” and “you poor beautiful thing” and “I’m so sorry we let you run into the cave but I’m so glad we found you” and let them carry you home and promise to be your best friends forever and that everything’s their fault and also they named the cave after you and you’re prettier than all of your enemies and your enemies all died of jealousy while you were in the cave.”
from what I’ve seen, there are exactly Three Jobs hiring at any given time. they are:
senior logistics strategist at Hewlett Packard. $140,000 / year. requirements: three separate MBAs, fifteen years of business experience, no “ethnic” grandparents, unearned sense of confidence
“customer success ambassador” at Glurp. $70,000 / year, give or take, since 90% of your pay is based on commission. requirements: associate’s degree, no experience, has never heard the phrase “pyramid scheme,” no sense of shame
part-time server at Le Bon Mot. $15-$16/hr depending on level of experience. must work weekends, overnight shifts, holidays, while asleep. requirements: you will let customers spit on you.
I feel like I make some variant on this post once every two weeks, which should tell you how well the job hunt’s going.
