The #autistic experience of watching people cling to social constructs that are leading to the destruction of humanity & not understanding why these shared hallucinations are more important to them than our long-term survival. tldr: our insistance on the objective reality of #money is gonna kill us. - ThreadSky

drtanenbaum.bsky.social • 19 days ago

The #autistic experience of watching people cling to social constructs that are leading to the destruction of humanity & not understanding why these shared hallucinations are more important to them than our long-term survival.
tldr: our insistance on the objective reality of #money is gonna kill us.

Comments

enbyautieokie.bsky.social•19 days ago

Bruh my pattern recognition is dinging constantly right now! 😭 Maybe it's the PDA talking but I don't understand why people are just going along with everything? I haven't understood since I was young but it's getting worse as I get older

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

Right?! It's always been so fucking strange to me that people are so eager to invest things like money with so much power and then complain constantly about feeling powerless because they don't have it. As if it isn't *us* who are the source of that power. As if we can't do anything about it.

enbyautieokie.bsky.social•19 days ago

Ole "that's just the way it is" mindset is my fucking enemy for life

yraceauntie.bsky.social•19 days ago

It’s exhausting. I feel like Cassandra.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

My wife and my therapist have both accused me - not without reason - of having a Cassandra complex. I'm just so tired of having to see the nightmares on the horizon. Of being told I'm imagining things, or being hysterical. As if we aren't all collectively imagining away our actual power and agency.

yraceauntie.bsky.social•19 days ago

Right? It doesn’t help that the Holocaust was one of my special interests as a kid. The only thing I can do is watch it all play out. And say “I told you so,” I guess.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

Oof ...hard same. I was one of the only Jewish kids in a pretty small, antisemitic, New Hampshire town, and I grew up with that deep intergenerational, epigenetic, trauma: They came for us over and over, throughout history. They'll come for us again.

yraceauntie.bsky.social•19 days ago

Awful 🫂 I’m old enough to remember when survivors were among the community elders, too, and that did not help with the anxiety.

leighsterkel.bsky.social•19 days ago

🙌🏼

stinasdemons.com•19 days ago

It's one of the most maddening & frustrating things. As is being forced to navigate in that world.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

Right?! Like we could all just stop. Wake up from the nightmare we're trapped in. We could organize our society in completely different ways. We could take care of each other. It's just us. There's no weight to these things that are oppressing us beyond what we imagine into them.

stinasdemons.com•19 days ago

Yes! Growing up, my parents always chastised me for saying, "But that isn't fair!?!" And they'd say, "The world is unfair..." which always made me furious since: that's because people MADE it that way, and we could, you know, collectively... *TRY* TO STOP DOING THAT.

aoxxi.bsky.social•17 days ago

I just realized I wasn't following you. It feels incredibly impolite of me. Lol.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•17 days ago

Lol...same! I feel silly!

But also, easily corrected!🤣

aoxxi.bsky.social•19 days ago

Is that autism? We need more of that.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

One of the diagnostic characteristics for autism is an inability (or refusal) to recognize social constructs as meaningful. Which is to say, an unwillingness to acknowledge the validity of the consensual hallucinations that our society has developed over the years.

And yeah, we need more of it! 😄

aoxxi.bsky.social•19 days ago

That's sad. It confirms two things. I'm autistic AND I'm not perceptive, I'm dumb but autistic. It's a win lose situation.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

I mean, it's just one of quite a few diagnostic markers, so do with it what you will, but I'd say it's never sad to have a deeper understanding of how your brain operates. Especially if the other commonly recurring traits also resonate with you, and help you on the path to self understanding.

aoxxi.bsky.social•19 days ago

I reread each of your comments. Thanks. Hello.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

Hey! Hi! I hope it has been helpful and not existentially terrifying!

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

Labeling any neurodivergence is always an exercise in trying to fit an elephant into a leotard: sure it might technically fit into it, but parts are going to stick out awkwardly, the fabric might be stretched too tight elsewhere, and a lot of people will have opinions about how to do it properly.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

But if it helps: I got my ADHD diagnosis at 41, and self-diagnosed as autistic shortly thereafter (self-diagnosis is absolutely valid, IMHO) and it was such a huge relief to realize that I wasn't alone in my struggles to navigate the world.

carmenloup.com•18 days ago

Does it make a difference if it’s intentional or not? I was under the impression that autism relates to not knowing or being able to follow social rules, and that knowing social rules but choosing to not follow them for reasons that you can articulate is more like punk or counterculture.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•18 days ago

This is a common misconception about neurodivergence. I'll speak from my own experience here: I understand the rules and norms perfectly in the abstract, but most of them seem arbitrary and irrational. Or they seem well intentioned but misguided.

aoxxi.bsky.social•17 days ago

Hi again. Please feel free to block me. Analogies. Do you find analogies help explain things better? I seem to always find myself making analogies for everything to explain or understand things. Maybe it's just me. Lol. Self discovery is fascinating and scary. Exciting too. Life altering really.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•17 days ago

No worries! You're good!

Analogies?! Yes! All the time! (I did, after all, compare diagnosing autism to putting an elephant in a leotard!🤣)

It may just be my particular social circle, but it seems like a lot of neurospicy folks enjoy word play and language games.
https://bsky.app/profile/drtanenbaum.bsky.social/post/3lhpdwu22x22r

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•18 days ago

I experience a neurological aversion to anything that I perceive as unfair, or unjust - comparable to the physical reaction I have when I encounter a rotting animal carcass in the woods. Unfair rules feel like a profound *violation* that I experience viscerally in my entire body.

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•18 days ago

From what I have gathered, this isn't true for many people. Like...I understand why cruelty happens, but I don't comprehend how anyone can tolerate the experience of being knowingly cruel. And so many of our norms and rules are unjust and cruel by design.

saralamie.bsky.social•19 days ago

Omg YES. Same for the daylight savings debate and time in general. Like you guys know those numbers are just made up? We change it twice a year. What say we change it once (to standard) and leave it, then the old 8:00 just looks like a 7 on the clock instead, and operating hours change or goseasonal

drtanenbaum.bsky.social•19 days ago

100% this!!

martingarywood.bsky.social•19 days ago

Brilliantly stated.

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