i s2g the biggest conflict in online spaces is autism being flattened such that many autistic people think other autistic people will have the same way of reading things they do

mixed with the unknowing-autodidact curse many of us have until we don't of thinking the whole world can learn as fast as you, for the thing it took ten years of building your own context to understand in the way that you do, and not all that many people in the grand scheme has exactly that context. but it reads as condescending for them not to if they aren't asking questions. because you've given them no indication about your pile of context

(this is at best a rough draft. it's also radioactive to my brain so I'm probably never touching it again.)

So for awhile now I've been thinking about:

recurring and cyclical patterns and failure modes of most communities I've been in, and struggling to put a lot of it into words until Boinking Dog People (P. Taxxon, 2023) gave some nucleation points. Followed by watching The Autistic Horror of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (Taxon, 2023) which is explicitly about ABA trauma)

a lot of autistic people have been through what amounts to ABA, essentially dog training them how to act normal (where "normal" here means "the least nuisance for parents, care workers, and educators").

even if they havn't been officially subjected to ABA. because SPED teachers internalized it (or, rather, rotely memorized the formulas as if it was algebra).

In the book Me Talk Pretty One Day,

David Sedaris talks about his speech pathologist telling him his regionalisms were abberrant, because the speechie was taught in the midwest and not the south. She told him randomly talking about sports after games wasn't normal, even though that's what everyone around him had done.

related thought: schools (and DARE), using kids who parse things literally and are trained to trust authority figures and fear the threat of punishment for not doing that systemically...

unknowingly or not, train them into being snitches to make the lives of those with power easier

and you see this manifesting most in the conservative-puritanical-but -"left"-conservative milieu online in their teens and twenties before they get enough exposure to non-structured stuff that they can realize the world is much larger than they were allowed in their formative years.

RECHOST!

and if you haven't watched Taxxon's essay on animal people, DO IT, you will do yourself a favour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws9g3igw51s&pp=ygUPcGF0cmljaWEgdGF4eG9u

i'm losing my mind, i've always felt this way and never heard it vocalized so concisely

Imagine, if you will, cutting out the portrait’s face as wearing a mask.

It’s expressionless and unconvincing but those around you seem to believe in it more than they believe in you, because when it’s up you get called “brave” and “smart” and “exceptional” and “gifted” (all stinging like insults), and if it slips, or Heaven forbid if you lock up or melt down, that’s all the real you, and they’ll fall on you like a hawk on a rabbit.

So, as much as it hurts and exhausts you, and makes you feel worse by all metrics, it any wonder that you never take it off altogether? Is it any wonder that your self-consciousness is anchored with self-hatred? Is it any wonder that therapy and psychiatry and mindfulness all ring hollow? it any wonder that there is more than one of you living in your head? Is it any wonder that you dream of losing your mind?

And, of course, the less said about your portrait lacking a face, the better.