If I Were A Zookeeper My Intrusive Thoughts Would Be Wild

if i were a zookeeper my intrusive thoughts would be wild

OH MY GOD THIS IS THE BEST STORY EVER and I want MORE

Not completely true: some of us allistics carry around with us massive anxiety about social interaction, sometimes having to do with phone calls or emails. Of that group of people, it’s not uncommon to use mental or written scripts to help manage anxiety or prevent overwhelm.

Though I think that the idea that it’s something very big still does apply: it’s just that sometimes, a brain like mine will decide that responding to somebody about a particular thing that makes me anxious is very big. Even when it’s really not. But (at least for me), that’s not every social interaction.

wait wait wait, having to prepare to make a phone call is an autistic thing??? omg. I was taking these online classes and I had to do some tests over the phone, like the teacher asks questions and I answer. I would prepare for at least 45 mins (not study for the actual test, like prepare to have to talk) and write a script for what to say if I had to leave a voicemail. allistics don’t do that?

Nope!  Allistics do not “prepare” in order to socialize.  They do not have scripts.  They do not write them, memorize them, or use them.  They just magically know what to say.  

An allistic might prepare for something very big, like a job interview.  Or right before asking a person out for the first time.  In that case, some of them do practice what they might say.  For BIG things.  But that’s it.

For us, every phone call is a job interview.  Every socialization is a performance where we are being judged.  This is why socializing is exhausting.  Dear allistics, if every time you talked to anyone, it was a person deciding whether or not you deserved the job, you’d feel exhausted, too.

controversial opinion

you are not better than fat people!

even REALLY fat people!

even fat people who don’t put a lot of time into their appearance!

even fat people who wear clothes you think are unflattering!

your appearance literally does not make you better than a fat person. you are not more fun to hang out with because you’re not fat. you are not funnier, smarter, or more interesting by virtue of not being fat. you aren’t harder working, you don’t have more self-control, you don’t have your life more together.

the only difference between you and fat people is that they have to put up with a lot of harassment, discrimination, exclusion, and other bullshit that you don’t even think about.

try not to add to it.

my head is hurting from this Facebook post does no one understand Hendrix played a distorted version of Star Spangled Banner to protest the Vietnam War and not as some act of great patriotism, it’s like the boomers who lived through this event rewrote the history and purpose of Woodstock to fit with their nationalism, the 1960s saw some of the worst acts of American imperialism and racism....these “hippies” were not just anti-establishment, they wanted civil rights and they wanted America to stop killing people in east Asia simply because they were a threat to American wealth

What if there was an apocalypse but some people were really really in denial and optimistic and thinking everything will be back to normal soon?

Like they’d be foraging through the ruins of New York for supplies, shooting raiders in the face and saying “Man, this recession is really bad, huh?”