ScottinSoCal 🇺🇦 🕊 🏳‍🌈 @ScottSoCal@computerfairi.es

I still hear people arguing that prosecuting a former president sets a “dangerous precedent.”

The truly dangerous precedent would be to establish that presidents are above the law.

Doomscrolling? That’s silly. Put that phone away, go outside and EXPERIENCE the doom!

@actuallyautistic

I have often said, and largely it's true, that I'm fairly open about being autistic. There are a number of reasons for this, but mostly it's because I feel that it's important to be as open as I can be. That by doing so I am hopefully opening people's eyes to the fact that autistic's can be anyone, the bloke they stand next to in the pub, the one they work with, the person they've known for so many years. That we can be any age and anyone.

But, to put this in some context. I live in a smallish town and have done so all my life. For various reasons I am quite well known. I am also male, and single and old enough and secure enough in my life not to give a damn any more. So the risks for me being this open aren't the same as they would be for others. A fact and privilege I am very aware of. I have also masked in a way that, I think, is possibly different from others. I found a way to be essentially myself. To highlight the aspects of myself that were acceptable and submerge the elements that weren't. In other words, I didn't really try and hide the weird, only the true depth of it. So the leap from "it's Kevin" to "it's Kevin and he's autistic" doesn't appear to have been that great for a lot of people.

Having said this, though, it is still not easy. Dropping the mask is hard when you're not sure what is actually mask and what isn't. The internal masking, the ways I learnt to hide so much from myself, is perhaps the easiest, if not the most painless. But the external mask still has so many elements and not all of them are easy to forgo, or even possibly be part of a forged mask any more anyway. Maintain a way of being and doing something for over 5 decades and really where's the difference between you and it?

Much has been said though, about the effort of maintaining a mask over a long period of time. The effects it can have on us. The way the drain of it is more and more likely to lead to burnout. The way that restricting our natural movements and behaviour is harmful, especially in the long run and to our mental health. And I certainly don't argue with any of this. I can feel that strain, the cost of it for me. I also can't help thinking about how much of my aches and pains, the injuries I carry, the growing infirmities, aren't just age related, but caused by how much I've stifled and restrained my body from moving naturally over the decades and the cost of that.

But, as much as this is motivating and helping me to learn to unmask, there is, of course, the other side of the coin. I didn't learn to mask on a whim, it wasn't for laughs and giggles. I was the outlier, the strange, voiceless kid, who came within a hair's breadth of being institutionalised. I was the one who had to learn how to fit in and above all be safe. For that is what masking allowed me to do, at least as much as it could. And this, for those of us who are older, is perhaps one of the major problems with trying to unmask. It's very possible that one of the very reasons that allowed us to live so long without realising we were autistic, was that our masks worked too well. Not just in hiding us, but in allowing us to fit in, in so many ways, if not obviously in all.

And certainly for me there is a deep functionality in the way that I mask. It allows me to behave and to communicate with others in ways that they are comfortable with and understand. Not so much with set scripts, but more a menu of available options, of both body language and speech, that have proved to be viable and effective. It has allowed me to exist in their world and even though I'm essentially a foreigner to it, in ways that don't make that so obvious. But start dropping the mask and that illusion is quickly shattered and then it becomes a lottery how people react. Confusion, rejection, aggression, hate and dismissal. All of these I have experienced and even trying to explain that I am autistic, rarely makes matters better. In fact, it's more likely to make them double down on the necessity for me to do it their way.

For that is what mostly happens. Try not to speak and they insist that I do so. Be too weird in my movements and the most random of strangers will suddenly be up in my face over it. Try to be myself and have to watch the reactions and atmosphere change. Because the simple fact is that most people don't like having to do any of the work or put in any of the effort required to bridge divides, especially if they know, or suspect, that you are more than able to make it so that they don't have to. It will always be up to us, for so many of them. I'm not saying that this makes them bad people, although some of them are, just human and with perhaps too much on their plates already. Extra effort is sometimes hard to justify or find for a lot of people

But all of this simply makes unmasking even more difficult for me. It's hard and not always practical to forgo the functionality of it. And also the safety of it, the reasons why I began to do it so long ago. That difference is still so often a target for so many people, not something to be understood, but attacked and taken advantage off and age doesn't make any difference to that. Even as an older white male, I have to take that into account. The fact that unmasking simply isn't always safe, in so many places and ways.

So will I ever manage it? Will I ever reach the point of being truly open and maskless? The way I want to be. Given my age and how much of it is ingrained and, by now, a part of me. How much safer and easier it can simply make my life, I have to admit that I'm not sure. Let's just say that it's still a work in progress and a hope as much as a dream.

#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic

@catswhocode @braininjury @actuallyautistic @actuallyadhd.
I'm lucky if I remember anyone's name. Been this way all my life, although since burnout it seems to be worse.

@ScottSoCal @actuallyautistic I'm sorry to read about your mother. I also have a complex relationship with my mother. That, in an of itself, is an uncomfortable thing. As for grieving, my answer falls into the dreaded "it depends."

For people/beings with whom I have a good relationship, I shut down, cram my feelings into a mental compartment and hold that compartment with great care and fear. I used to grieve normally, but I put an end to that. (Long story)

For those for whom my relationship is more complicated, it usually takes a long time to grieve. For my grandmother it took decades and struck me suddenly one day. My father has been dead 22 years and I've yet to grieve.

For me, I think I need time to process the complexity and how I relate to the whole story. There's so much to understand in familial relationships, especially ones that are strained. As I learn more about myself and the family history of those before me, the context becomes clearer allowing me to grieve.

A great story from Oregon this morning where a burned puppy was rescued after a trailer fire and has found a home with the local volunteer fire chief. The chief has named him Smoky and plans to one day use him as a fire prevention dog.

#giftarticle #giftlink

via https://wapo.st/4aBMyL0

'Election denialism' could cost these 10 GOP reps their seats — and end Johnson’s majority https://www.rawstory.com/election-denialism/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

The USS Discovery completes her final mission. S5 and the show draw to a close...

VWOORP!!

The TARDIS materialises on the bridge, the Doctor pops his head out and says "you need to come with me"...

[insert crewmember here] takes his hand and flies away

THE END

Dystopian. Americans are forced to spend $4,000 more per person on health expenditures than those in any other comparable, wealthy nation.

Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.

A different perspective for those folks who are having trouble seeing women's point of view.

#AbortionRightsAreHumanRights #Abortion

@ScottSoCal @alexisbushnell @haui @hellomiakoda @actuallyautistic hoo boy covid mask and autistic masking in the same convo got my gears spinning. 😂

@ScottSoCal after going done the rabbit hole ok this, it appears life on earth will end long before this occurs. Some .5 to 1.5 billion years from now.