WHERE TO GET THE BOOK: http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=F6B31A8DAFD6BD39A5986833E66293E6

PRIOR THREADS:

In this chapter, Dr. Price discusses various ways of reframing and rethinking autism. Once the decision has been made to unmask, there comes the issue of what exactly that looks like. To even begin the work of rebuilding an identity that celebrates autism rather than hiding it as a source of shame, you must first reframe the way you perceive autism.

Step one is of course recognizing you're autistic and then discovering what that means. Step two is re-examining painful labels that are enforced by a society society that devalues neurodivergent behaviors, stims, and ways of thinking. Recognizing that you are not cringe, you just been touched by the 'tism. Dr. Price provides a number of charts and exercises that help the reader reframe autistic tendencies as things that have value in and of themselves and that are a core part of an autistic person's identity. Reducing self-stigma is a key part of the process of reclaiming your identity. Regarding your "deficient" social graces as having some advantages -- being principled, being passionate, etc. -- can rebuild some of that eroded self-esteem that came from years of rejection and correction by people who insisted you conform to an arbitrary set of behaviors determined by random chance and trend over centuries of cultural construction.

He goes over ways to think about how your autistic traits have actually improved your life and helped define who you are. If I hadn't been an obsessive reader since the time I was a toddler I probably wouldn't be so good at writing. If I hadn't been obsessed with video games my entire life I'd probably not be so good at constructing fictional worlds and characters and dialogue. If I wasn't so focused on making people laugh as a defense mechanism and way to endear myself to them out of a desperation for someone, anyone, to accept and like me, I probably wouldn't be so goddamn funny tequila-sunset

Celebrating special interests comes up. I love bugs, for instance, and got a lot of enthusiasm in the responses for my late-night bugposting when I was deep in the pits of depression. My new girlfriend shares my passion for cheesy romances between humans and nonhumans. Dr. Price tells the story of Clara, who was obsessed with Pete Burns. When she went to college she shelved that interest to be "normal" and it depressed her so much that she had to move back home. Once she was surrounded by her Pete Burns shit and Pete Burnsing it up with her online friends again the depression disappeared like a bad dream. The lesson is: embrace your special interests and draw life from them. Also, you can have more than one. In fact it's pretty common for ASD folks to go super hard on a few things to varying degrees over our lives. Just roll with it. Enjoy yourself. You're not a weirdo if you collect baseball cards, but somehow if the pieces of cardboard have pictures of Yu-Gi-Oh! on them you're a cringe failure (which you know is impossible since you have the Heart of the Cards). Fuck the haters.

Plunging these special interests can help you develop the key values identified in earlier chapters (remember that shit? I didn't lmao) to help you find key moments that illustrate these things in action. Dr. Price gives the example of confronting a drunken asshole trying to force himself on a young woman and getting between the two of them until the girl could get away. A frightening moment but one that showed his commitment to justice and protecting people who need help.

The chapter closes out with Dr. Price talking about the concept of having gratitude for your past self for doing what you needed to do in order to survive and protect yourself from a harsh world that usually misunderstood you. Those years weren't wasted. You did the best you could. You're uniquely you and through it all have remained as such and just need to re-awaken the parts you've hidden out of shame.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  • Any passages that stuck out to you? Things you need explained? Things you want to expand upon?
  • Any certified he literally me fr moments? denji-just-like-me k-pain
  • If you'd care to share any of your values or moments or special interests or whatnot below and how they've given your life value, please do. Tell us about your pokeymans pika-pickaxe

As usual, tag post to follow in comment. creature

  • roux [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 天前

    I've been using Linux for 12ish. My first distro was Ubuntu 9.10 before Unity DE was introduced. I first spun up a vm of that release probably in 2011 though if I had to guess. It was an old disc from a professor. I duel booted for a good 6 years after that but after a hardware upgrade, I borked my Windows 7 partition and said fuck it and went full time Linux as my daily driver. I was way down the rabbit hole and was actually quite evangelical about it for a good long while but that passion fizzled out a bit and I just focused on just using it.

    I distro hopped from Ubuntu to Mint and ElementaryOS, then to Arch and it's derivatives, then back to Ubuntu and eventually back to Mint. I did use Fedora and Sues for a bit but it was mostly just to check out. I used to have like 10 distros on vms for tinkering with.

    Oh and holy shit gaming? It's come such a long way even up to before Proton was released. After though, I remember that day when 90% of my Steam library went to not working to "just working".

    and their undying benefits and drawbacks.

    So do you cringe whenever a new user comes in and is like "How do I use Kali?" too?

    • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
      ·
      2 天前

      Haha. I told a friend at work I was getting into Linux and he sent me a link to KaliOS. Followed by Don’t worry. I use Kubuntu 😆

      • roux [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        2 天前

        I forget the other pen testing distro but I have a friend that is actually in cyber security and he uses that over Kali. He's like the only other Linux nerd I know IRL and we only really found out we both use Linux like a few months ago.