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Social Neurodiversity

mushamu said:
I got diagnosed with ADHD around two years ago and I’m still trying to treat my symptoms better to this day. I’m a really impulsive person, my mood can change really quickly and my energy levels are usually really high when I’m passionate about something and I can’t really focus. I snap easily when I’m frustrated, say things i sometimes didn’t mean to and I get emotionally overwhelmed easily. The impulsiveness in general is something I wish I didn’t have since it has messed up some of the relationships I’ve cherished in the past but it is what it is and I’ll improve on that aspect eventually.

I can’t really say I wish I didn’t have ADHD even though it’s caused me a lot of pain in the past. I’ve kind of just accepted it as a part of who I am, and it can be good sometimes for when I’m feeling passionate about something and I can get progress done really quickly. Otherwise, it’s just a negative attribute, and that’s okay because everyone has bad parts about them that makes us human. ADHD has caused me to do really poorly in school (I might have to do an extra year of community college), but I’m just going to try pushing forward and try to mature and understand myself more.

Part of why I’m majoring in psychology is because I want to become a therapist for teenagers when I grow up. I want to help people with ADHD and other neurodivergent people because I know how much it hurts to feel like you aren’t being understood a lot of the time and feel like you are falling behind just because of how your brain works. I think the study of how the brain works as well as what causes neurodiversity and what it causes is really fascinating.
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i think everyone inside and outside of this thread could benefit from learning about belly breathing as i too am in love with not only how the brain works and contributes to our behaviors, but how we can impact the brain and other body systems to impact our behavior as well!

TLDR belly breathing is an active way to breathe that mimics how we breathe when we sleep, and can help lower heart rate/blood pressure after just a few minutes of concentrated breathing!! so love your brain and love your bellies today folks, in the end they're both you and you are great :puff:
 
Kind of a rant more than anything else, but I can't stand how the general social discourse around ADHD is "hurr hurr lack of focus hyperactive nonsense."

There's so much more that goes into it. It's incredibly hard to maintain relationships and friendships because of impulsive decision-making along with emotional dysregulation, which essentially makes you unable to trust your own judgment half the time. In addition, it spirals into depression and a complete lack of motivation for anything. In my case, in particular, I have a severe TBI that affects my frontal and temporal lobes on top of this, so take the issues with impulse control and essentially heighten them 5x. I cannot even begin to tell you how many stupid decisions I made and stupid things I said that I regret because of an overwhelming compulsion that essentially went, "if you don't say this right now, you're gonna die." In all honesty, I only figured out decent coping mechanisms for it over the last two years, before 2020 I was a complete asshole imo. It takes around 15 minutes to look up information to understand a person better, and very few people are willing to do that basic courtesy.
 
Well, i found this thread thanks to my friend Dababy2, i was just diagnozed with ASD level 2, executive dysfunction and dyspraxia. I suffered from very nasty bullying in my school and uni years and i always was lonely and sad, when i tried to socialize it was a complete mess and always felt like an alien or some being from another planet. A lot of tantrums, meltdowns and shutdowns ( i actually had two meltdowns some weeks ago just because i was keep losing in gen5 OU and the frustration was overwhelming, can you imagine that??) , stimming every moment bitting really hard my index fingers to the point of doing damage to myself plagued my entire life and felt very guilty for that. Actually, i feel so relieved to know i'm autisitic, that nothing was my fault and that all the pieces finally fit together. There is a lot of going actually, my ear sensorial issues drive me crazy so i'm just began to use noise cancelling headphones, it's hard to deal with my boiling emotions, and other stuff.
Gonna keep monitoring this thread to share more experiences and read all of your experiences also, greetings!!
 
Morkal said:
Kind of a rant more than anything else, but I can't stand how the general social discourse around ADHD is "hurr hurr lack of focus hyperactive nonsense."

There's so much more that goes into it. It's incredibly hard to maintain relationships and friendships because of impulsive decision-making along with emotional dysregulation, which essentially makes you unable to trust your own judgment half the time. In addition, it spirals into depression and a complete lack of motivation for anything. In my case, in particular, I have a severe TBI that affects my frontal and temporal lobes on top of this, so take the issues with impulse control and essentially heighten them 5x. I cannot even begin to tell you how many stupid decisions I made and stupid things I said that I regret because of an overwhelming compulsion that essentially went, "if you don't say this right now, you're gonna die." In all honesty, I only figured out decent coping mechanisms for it over the last two years, before 2020 I was a complete asshole imo. It takes around 15 minutes to look up information to understand a person better, and very few people are willing to do that basic courtesy.
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15 minutes? That's generous. On a good day I can observe maybe 25 to 30. Like you said, creating and maintaining friendships is very difficult for us, each for our own different reasons. I've always thought that neurodiverse people, especially children, can or at least have the capability to get along better with others showing similar behavior traits. Personally, I don't have the slightest clue what kinds of changes my brain ever had and/or went through, but even entry-level psychology can explain the idea that people more easily bond with others similar to them. If I'm being completely honest, I think a lot of this issue stems from the fact that people are convinced of the whole "opposites attract" argument, when in practice this couldn't be any more false among the neurodiverse community. Whether we like to admit it or not, there are several parts of our everyday lives that still see "neurodiverse" and "typical" as opposites, without taking into account that everyone has their own "normal" that they live by. Basically what I'm trying to say here is that some of the things you go through may in fact be more normal than they might seem, and that there's absolutely people out in the world who would love to defy the stigma and actually maintain positive friendships.

Ultrabored said:
Well, i found this thread thanks to my friend Dababy2, i was just diagnozed with ASD level 2, executive dysfunction and dyspraxia. I suffered from very nasty bullying in my school and uni years and i always was lonely and sad, when i tried to socialize it was a complete mess and always felt like an alien or some being from another planet. A lot of tantrums, meltdowns and shutdowns ( i actually had two meltdowns some weeks ago just because i was keep losing in gen5 OU and the frustration was overwhelming, can you imagine that??) , stimming every moment bitting really hard my index fingers to the point of doing damage to myself plagued my entire life and felt very guilty for that. Actually, i feel so relieved to know i'm autisitic, that nothing was my fault and that all the pieces finally fit together. There is a lot of going actually, my ear sensorial issues drive me crazy so i'm just began to use noise cancelling headphones, it's hard to deal with my boiling emotions, and other stuff.
Gonna keep monitoring this thread to share more experiences and read all of your experiences also, greetings!!
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Unfortunately, such is the reality of the world we live in... well, at least from what I've gathered. The exact circumstances vary for each of us depending on location, I get that, but the general concensus seems to be that the style of life nowadays is very... how can I put this? "Anti-neurodiverse", maybe? I'll spare you guys the politics behind it, but stories like these happen far too frequently and serve as the main reason I despise the education system where I live. Sure, schools might have specific counselors or whatever that are hired on to "help" kids, but what kinds of help are being offered? Having people to talk to is great, but that's only one of the two pieces of this puzzle. The other is that most of us, myself included, just want to be understood, or at the very least acknowledged. In a perfect world, neurodiverse behavior habits would not result in the actor of said behavior feeling guilty for performing said actions. It's great to see another new face here, and I look forward to continuing this discussion.
 
I have asperger's. For so many years I felt unincluded and rejected by the society I grew up into. I was raised into a community I failed to adapt to and wasn't able to learn many crucial life skills that are now biting my ass. I'm 23 now, almost 24, and am currently jobless. I'm pursuing a career in web development and am currently doing ruby on rails.

It's certainly a tough road and some shades of impostor syndrome are already showing up. There's also lots of nay-sayers around that keep shouting on how you absolutely need a related degree or else you will fail (or how ruby is outdated). But I've learned a lot of discipline lately and this certainly is the main reason why I've been able to persevere so far. I honestly thought I would give up within the first week, but right now I'm on day 51 and have picked up some basic skills.
 
I have autism spectrum disorder and I'll be screened for ADHD within the next few months. With ASD I've had to do a lot of practice to learn social skills, both online and offline. Even now I still have to follow mental scripts for things like ordering coffee. It's an uphill struggle, but I think it's worth it.

Of course Pokémon is one of my special interests. For 12 years I've played and studied the games religiously. My parents often had to listen to me fact dumping random Pokémon trivia. They probably know more about the franchise than the average person by now lol. I also have hyperfixations on population demographics, game history, animation, and books. I could go on for hours about them. Hyperfixations and special interests are genuinely wonderful. They can keep you engaged and pick you up when you're feeling down.
 
Morkal said:
Kind of a rant more than anything else, but I can't stand how the general social discourse around ADHD is "hurr hurr lack of focus hyperactive nonsense."

There's so much more that goes into it. It's incredibly hard to maintain relationships and friendships because of impulsive decision-making along with emotional dysregulation, which essentially makes you unable to trust your own judgment half the time. In addition, it spirals into depression and a complete lack of motivation for anything. In my case, in particular, I have a severe TBI that affects my frontal and temporal lobes on top of this, so take the issues with impulse control and essentially heighten them 5x. I cannot even begin to tell you how many stupid decisions I made and stupid things I said that I regret because of an overwhelming compulsion that essentially went, "if you don't say this right now, you're gonna die." In all honesty, I only figured out decent coping mechanisms for it over the last two years, before 2020 I was a complete asshole imo. It takes around 15 minutes to look up information to understand a person better, and very few people are willing to do that basic courtesy.
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I agree with this. I think the general public doesn't understand ADHD and only really know it from the surface level. When the topic of ADHD is brought up, I definitely feel like people are quick to generalize it to just someone who can't sit still, always talks when it's not their turn to, and is generally just disruptive when there's just so much more to it in terms of the impulsiveness, the motivation, the hyperactivity... a lot of people don't really realize how unstable it can make you. I wanted to say that you're not alone when it comes to impulsiveness and ADHD causing it and stupid decision making. I lost an important friendship a few months ago because I didn't really think about how to handle things; I still regret it but I've moved on from now and I'm trying to become a better person. Not sure if you've tried it or how it's worked out for you, but I've been trying to take deep breaths when I'm feeling strong emotions so that I make good decisions. But at the end of the day, ADHD does make life tricky as hell. Sometimes, it makes you question your own sanity which is perhaps the most terrifying thing to happen. There's a good reason as to why it goes hand in hand with depression; sometimes it just feels like you aren't being understood which can drive a person insane. The article is super nice by the way, it puts a really different perspective on where depression, anxiety, and simply just not being understood which a lot of people don't get; music is also a great way to express oneself. I really hope you improve with your ADHD regulations, and feel free to talk to me on discord as a fellow ADHD-haver :)
 
Some article links before I get too far into this post:

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/heal...ty-what-it-and-what-does-it-look-across-races

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-021-05316-x

http://journal.nystesol.org/july2014/105chun.pdf

And now onto the post itself

Hey there, everyone. I haven't posted on this thread in a while, but I figured that what I'd like to talk about is best posted here compared to any other thread. Pretty much, what's been going on is that I've been doing some research over the past month or so about how neurodiversity is interpreted in different cultures. I myself live in North America, for example, and the symptoms of diagnoses like autism, O.C.D., A.D.H.D., et cetera aren't seen the same way here as they are in some other places in the world. This much is common knowledge to our community- but recently, I've ran into a pretty big problem.

The long story short is that many of the ideas and concepts I'm interested in are of Eastern origins. The biggest ones of those would be my enjoyment of Nintendo games (and in more recent years, the PlayStation lineup), as well as the fact that a number of my friends have tried (it depends on the series) to get me back into things like anime and manga. In most cases, I wouldn't have issue with supporting these things. I've been a die-hard Pokémon fan since late 2010 and a Mario Kart fan for even longer than that, so why should I be complaining? Well... it's because I know things now about the world that I didn't know when I was younger.

Some might say I'm losing interest in these topics because... well, we all grow up eventually. I believe this to be something more, though. In my search to find new interests, I've discovered that concepts that are either neurodiverse-friendly or neurodiversity inclusive (if it's both, that's even better!) tend to catch my interest quite a bit more these days. It's the little things in my special interests that make them my special interests, after all. But that's just it- I don't know what to make of my special interests pushing neurodiversity to the wayside so much. I'm going to cut off my post here because I don't really know how to talk about this; all I know is that there's something about cultural discrepancies that's really bothering me right now, and I need people to talk to about it. Like you guys.
 
So I was talking with like some teacher and he was like trying to be nice about something (basically I was pacing around class because im asperger) and he was saying how I wasn't in trouble/how it helps me and all that shit and it was the most infuriating shit ever, like I get it, but I don't want people to pity me for something I don't really consider to be a big deal

Anyone else deal with this/know how to defuse something like that?
 
Bug Maniac Aydon said:
So I was talking with like some teacher and he was like trying to be nice about something (basically I was pacing around class because im asperger) and he was saying how I wasn't in trouble/how it helps me and all that shit and it was the most infuriating shit ever, like I get it, but I don't want people to pity me for something I don't really consider to be a big deal

Anyone else deal with this/know how to defuse something like that?
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I'm going to try and make this quick, because I have a class starting in literally five minutes. It's easier said than done to just "not let it get to you". If it is possible, great, but just in case, I'd like to suggest a back-up option. Your teacher from what I can tell isn't saying these kinds of things with the intent of "pitying you". Like you said, it's not that big of a deal. So if it's not something that impacts you too much, why waste time getting stressed out over it? As a growing student, that time could just as easily spent doing other things.
 
bdt2002 said:
Some article links before I get too far into this post:

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/heal...ty-what-it-and-what-does-it-look-across-races

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-021-05316-x

http://journal.nystesol.org/july2014/105chun.pdf

And now onto the post itself

Hey there, everyone. I haven't posted on this thread in a while, but I figured that what I'd like to talk about is best posted here compared to any other thread. Pretty much, what's been going on is that I've been doing some research over the past month or so about how neurodiversity is interpreted in different cultures. I myself live in North America, for example, and the symptoms of diagnoses like autism, O.C.D., A.D.H.D., et cetera aren't seen the same way here as they are in some other places in the world. This much is common knowledge to our community- but recently, I've ran into a pretty big problem.

The long story short is that many of the ideas and concepts I'm interested in are of Eastern origins. The biggest ones of those would be my enjoyment of Nintendo games (and in more recent years, the PlayStation lineup), as well as the fact that a number of my friends have tried (it depends on the series) to get me back into things like anime and manga. In most cases, I wouldn't have issue with supporting these things. I've been a die-hard Pokémon fan since late 2010 and a Mario Kart fan for even longer than that, so why should I be complaining? Well... it's because I know things now about the world that I didn't know when I was younger.

Some might say I'm losing interest in these topics because... well, we all grow up eventually. I believe this to be something more, though. In my search to find new interests, I've discovered that concepts that are either neurodiverse-friendly or neurodiversity inclusive (if it's both, that's even better!) tend to catch my interest quite a bit more these days. It's the little things in my special interests that make them my special interests, after all. But that's just it- I don't know what to make of my special interests pushing neurodiversity to the wayside so much. I'm going to cut off my post here because I don't really know how to talk about this; all I know is that there's something about cultural discrepancies that's really bothering me right now, and I need people to talk to about it. Like you guys.
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it would be helpful to discuss your feelings and find similarities in other experiences if you actually elaborated on what it is you're feeling and why. you mention you liked Nintendo when you were younger but now that you're older and have "learned things" you don't know if you can feel the same way... about Nintendo I assume? and you associate something to do with maturity and how this affects your interests?

what are the cultural discrepancies that are bothering you exactly? we can all do a bunch of hand waving about how if we learn x about y we might change our previously held feelings about y based on x. what is it about eastern culture and mental health that interests you vs. western? i am very eager to hear your answers :)
 
Fishy said:
it would be helpful to discuss your feelings and find similarities in other experiences if you actually elaborated on what it is you're feeling and why. you mention you liked Nintendo when you were younger but now that you're older and have "learned things" you don't know if you can feel the same way... about Nintendo I assume? and you associate something to do with maturity and how this affects your interests?

what are the cultural discrepancies that are bothering you exactly? we can all do a bunch of hand waving about how if we learn x about y we might change our previously held feelings about y based on x. what is it about eastern culture and mental health that interests you vs. western? i am very eager to hear your answers :)
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I'm very glad that there is a person or people who is interested; it's just that I wasn't sure if a lot of what I wanted to say would be... you know, not overly political. I try to be extremely careful with how I say this stuff (it's the Internet, can you blame me?), but there's so much anti-consumerism and outright neglect for the things I want to care about with Nintendo games (and to a lesser extent, the PlayStation family). It's bad enough that eastern media is known for the lack of general diversity across the board, but then they go and pull stunts like surpressing the voices of minority communities, and God forbid they make a jRPG franchise that doesn't s**ualize women. Honestly, aside from the politics, the reason I don't want to list a lot of this is because other people have already done the work for me. Most hardcore Nintendo fans are fed up with several aspects of their business, such as their "very eastern" perspective on game preservation, the downright mockery of the competitive Smash Bros. scene, et cetera.

It's all of these little things that start to bother me more and more as that list grows. I've also found that Sony is equally guilty of a number of these trends and even a few more of their own. Heck, they just recently increased the prices of PS5s "because they can". (Their actual evidence was weaker than a 10-year-old at a weightlifting meet.) There's always been that nostalgic part of me that doesn't want to change/grow up, but the final nail in the coffin was when I started to learn just how differently neurodiversity is seen in other cultures.

This is the part I want to be careful and not sound like a racist about- I have nothing against other nationalities supporting their own cultures, but if it wasn't for being raised in my own, I wouldn't be where I am today. And when a company gets as much crap wrong as Nintendo does, I'd like to hold out hope that they can at least get this part right. Even I don't understand just how touched I would feel if there was, say, a canonically neurodiverse character in one of their games that I could connect with and relate to. But instead, we get toxic eastern capitalist philosophies on top of the lack of personal representation/awareness across the board. It's a lose-lose situation for me.
 
bdt2002 said:
I'm very glad that there is a person or people who is interested; it's just that I wasn't sure if a lot of what I wanted to say would be... you know, not overly political. I try to be extremely careful with how I say this stuff (it's the Internet, can you blame me?), but there's so much anti-consumerism and outright neglect for the things I want to care about with Nintendo games (and to a lesser extent, the PlayStation family). It's bad enough that eastern media is known for the lack of general diversity across the board, but then they go and pull stunts like surpressing the voices of minority communities, and God forbid they make a jRPG franchise that doesn't s**ualize women. Honestly, aside from the politics, the reason I don't want to list a lot of this is because other people have already done the work for me. Most hardcore Nintendo fans are fed up with several aspects of their business, such as their "very eastern" perspective on game preservation, the downright mockery of the competitive Smash Bros. scene, et cetera.

It's all of these little things that start to bother me more and more as that list grows. I've also found that Sony is equally guilty of a number of these trends and even a few more of their own. Heck, they just recently increased the prices of PS5s "because they can". (Their actual evidence was weaker than a 10-year-old at a weightlifting meet.) There's always been that nostalgic part of me that doesn't want to change/grow up, but the final nail in the coffin was when I started to learn just how differently neurodiversity is seen in other cultures.

This is the part I want to be careful and not sound like a racist about- I have nothing against other nationalities supporting their own cultures, but if it wasn't for being raised in my own, I wouldn't be where I am today. And when a company gets as much crap wrong as Nintendo does, I'd like to hold out hope that they can at least get this part right. Even I don't understand just how touched I would feel if there was, say, a canonically neurodiverse character in one of their games that I could connect with and relate to. But instead, we get toxic eastern capitalist philosophies on top of the lack of personal representation/awareness across the board. It's a lose-lose situation for me.
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i guess my main takeaway is that to reconsider your relationship with manga, anime, or Nintendo games in general based on what you have learned about Japanese culture, particularly how they treat mental health—you're either being a bit racist, or just a bit naive about conflating the culture of a country with the people living in the modern day creating your video games, who happen to work for Nintendo, a Japanese company. i'm also sort of torn about the potential naivety of seeking self-representation in a video game based on character personality, only because this metric cannot be applied to every game in a "fair" manner, meaning wanting to apply it to a company like Nintendo might make more sense if they were in the business of creating games based on characters with fleshed out, distinct personalities, rather than small men in overalls or simply snatching characters from other Nintendo franchises and making them fight one another on a stage in the same game. just maybe, you're upset that Japanese culture is lax on mental health care in practical, non-video game related realms, yet you're projecting that frustration onto Nintendo in the form of their game-based character diversity, "confirming" that a lack of neurodiverse Nintendo characters means Japan must definitely hate neurodivergent people.

perhaps you might consider who exactly Nintendo expects to be playing their games in the first place. yes, Japan definitely has issues with sexism, racism, and mental health treatment, but that doesn't mean Nintendo is a bad company and you should enjoy their content any less.
 
Fishy said:
i guess my main takeaway is that to reconsider your relationship with manga, anime, or Nintendo games in general based on what you have learned about Japanese culture, particularly how they treat mental health—you're either being a bit racist, or just a bit naive about conflating the culture of a country with the people living in the modern day creating your video games, who happen to work for Nintendo, a Japanese company. i'm also sort of torn about the potential naivety of seeking self-representation in a video game based on character personality, only because this metric cannot be applied to every game in a "fair" manner, meaning wanting to apply it to a company like Nintendo might make more sense if they were in the business of creating games based on characters with fleshed out, distinct personalities, rather than small men in overalls or simply snatching characters from other Nintendo franchises and making them fight one another on a stage in the same game. just maybe, you're upset that Japanese culture is lax on mental health care in practical, non-video game related realms, yet you're projecting that frustration onto Nintendo in the form of their game-based character diversity, "confirming" that a lack of neurodiverse Nintendo characters means Japan must definitely hate neurodivergent people.

perhaps you might consider who exactly Nintendo expects to be playing their games in the first place. yes, Japan definitely has issues with sexism, racism, and mental health treatment, but that doesn't mean Nintendo is a bad company and you should enjoy their content any less.
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Before I say anything else, I would like to make myself clear about something. I understand that my mindset isn’t in the most fair place right now. I will also admit that every culture has its pros and cons. I think I’m just in a spot right now where I don’t really understand what I want as a consumer- or as a person. It’s just that a lot of what I’m not the biggest fan of usually isn’t as big of an issue (don’t get me wrong, western ideologies definitely get this stuff wrong too) as it is further eastward. In the case of neurodiversity, I have a hard time understanding why it might be wrong for someone to get excited about the idea of representation. I’m perfectly content with where various game, anime/manga, and other kinds of series are at. I’m just saying every little bit helps.

I don’t want to change other people’s cultures. But I would like to think I can help inspire others to seek further information.
 
Fishy said:
you're upset that Japanese culture is lax on mental health care in practical, non-video game related realms, yet you're projecting that frustration onto Nintendo in the form of their game-based character diversity, "confirming" that a lack of neurodiverse Nintendo characters means Japan must definitely hate neurodivergent people.

perhaps you might consider who exactly Nintendo expects to be playing their games in the first place. yes, Japan definitely has issues with sexism, racism, and mental health treatment, but that doesn't mean Nintendo is a bad company and you should enjoy their content any less.
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If it was possible for me to edit a post I’ve already replied on, I wouldn’t be double posting. I want to re-iterate that this isn’t necessarily an issue I have with Nintendo in general. The last thing I want to do is do what I have been doing- providing unnecessary hate towards any given source.
 
This might sound absolutely alien, but despite being neurodiverse, I’ve never really cared about neurodiverse video game characters/ characters from other forms of media or used that to predict whether or not certain cultures like or dislike neurodiverse people. Like just because those types of characters aren’t prevalent in video games/other forms of media doesn’t reflect their view of neurodiverse people. I just wanted to get this off my chest. Feel free to prove me wrong, though.
 
Heavyweapons Mann said:
This might sound absolutely alien, but despite being neurodiverse, I’ve never really cared about neurodiverse video game characters/ characters from other forms of media or used that to predict whether or not certain cultures like or dislike neurodiverse people. Like just because those types of characters aren’t prevalent in video games/other forms of media doesn’t reflect their view of neurodiverse people. I just wanted to get this off my chest. Feel free to prove me wrong, though.
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If I'm being perfectly honest, this opinion is pretty justified. There's inherently nothing wrong with thinking this way. Branching off from the above conversation I was having with other users (that, and I'd like to put said discussion behind us so this thread can move on), neurodiversity representation can actually be a bad thing for the reasons you've mentioned. Let's say we do get some representation, but the way the character(s) is/are presented are, say, way too stereotyped for example. Cultural norms in different parts of the world in tandem with the fear of misinterpreting the neurodiverse label is probably why we don't see this as much as other groups, such as LGBTQiA+ representation for example. In these other examples, you as a content designer are working with one character or a small group of characters with a specific classification, but with neurodiversity you're inevitably working with an entire demographic of people.

The other thing that I've failed to acknowledge until now is that there are definitely companies out there who support these kinds of causes but can't necessarily include representation as much as they might want to for this reason. This next part I'm going to say is doubling as an apology to anyone whom my previous messages in this or other threads have upset in the past week or so- I'm still growing up, and I realize I might not have the level of maturity just yet to understand that a company's moral values are the only thing I should support about whatever they're making. Going back to Nintendo as an example for the last time, they get a lot of stuff wrong, sure, but they also get a lot of stuff right. I've talked more about this in another thread, but for the sake of discussion I've historically compared this to Microsoft. Why Microsoft, you might ask? It's because out of the Big 3 of Gaming, if you will, Microsoft is the only company of western origin. On top of this, Microsoft is a company that has been more consumer-friendly in recent years, as well as being generally more acquitable to their neurodiverse employee population than a company like Nintendo or Sony.

The way my brain perceives this, the decision is pretty easy to make. Should I support the consumer-friendly company that respects my own demographic more, or should I support the company that's slowly becoming less consumer-friendly compared to what we saw the past decade or so that also just so happens to support some of the things that I do not? If I can afford access to either one, why wouldn't I choose Microsoft in this instance? Surely this feels like a no-brainer, right? Well... not quite. As much as I can act all anti-Nintendo, even I can't deny what each of these companies used to act like and the impacts of what they've released. The simpler nature of most Nintendo I.P. games just appeals to me more as a neurodiverse individual who plays the games. I'm sorry that this reply was so long... it's just that there was a lot I needed to answer and apologize for here. It's up to each of you if I can be forgiven or if this is even that big of a deal to begin with.
 
bdt2002 said:
If I'm being perfectly honest, this opinion is pretty justified. There's inherently nothing wrong with thinking this way. Branching off from the above conversation I was having with other users (that, and I'd like to put said discussion behind us so this thread can move on), neurodiversity representation can actually be a bad thing for the reasons you've mentioned. Let's say we do get some representation, but the way the character(s) is/are presented are, say, way too stereotyped for example. Cultural norms in different parts of the world in tandem with the fear of misinterpreting the neurodiverse label is probably why we don't see this as much as other groups, such as LGBTQiA+ representation for example. In these other examples, you as a content designer are working with one character or a small group of characters with a specific classification, but with neurodiversity you're inevitably working with an entire demographic of people.

The other thing that I've failed to acknowledge until now is that there are definitely companies out there who support these kinds of causes but can't necessarily include representation as much as they might want to for this reason. This next part I'm going to say is doubling as an apology to anyone whom my previous messages in this or other threads have upset in the past week or so- I'm still growing up, and I realize I might not have the level of maturity just yet to understand that a company's moral values are the only thing I should support about whatever they're making. Going back to Nintendo as an example for the last time, they get a lot of stuff wrong, sure, but they also get a lot of stuff right. I've talked more about this in another thread, but for the sake of discussion I've historically compared this to Microsoft. Why Microsoft, you might ask? It's because out of the Big 3 of Gaming, if you will, Microsoft is the only company of western origin. On top of this, Microsoft is a company that has been more consumer-friendly in recent years, as well as being generally more acquitable to their neurodiverse employee population than a company like Nintendo or Sony.

The way my brain perceives this, the decision is pretty easy to make. Should I support the consumer-friendly company that respects my own demographic more, or should I support the company that's slowly becoming less consumer-friendly compared to what we saw the past decade or so that also just so happens to support some of the things that I do not? If I can afford access to either one, why wouldn't I choose Microsoft in this instance? Surely this feels like a no-brainer, right? Well... not quite. As much as I can act all anti-Nintendo, even I can't deny what each of these companies used to act like and the impacts of what they've released. The simpler nature of most Nintendo I.P. games just appeals to me more as a neurodiverse individual who plays the games. I'm sorry that this reply was so long... it's just that there was a lot I needed to answer and apologize for here. It's up to each of you if I can be forgiven or if this is even that big of a deal to begin with.
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i think one of the main problems with attempting to align your values with your consumerism is that consumerism isn't a necessity, or even a right. so in that regard, consumerism doesn't really abide by ethics the way say, people feel about the right to housing or sterile drinking water. so ultimately if you dig deep enough into any company, you will likely find that at different junctures, they have exchanged their morals for income. this is basically how capitalism wants us to behave, because seeking a profit is synonymous with finding salvation, somehow. the american dream is no longer about the pursuit of happiness, but the pursuit of six figures

so as a (most likely) poor individual who is attempting to consume some stuff for their own pleasure and satisfaction, it's an exceedingly tall order to weigh your pleasure against the morals of the company who makes the products you are attempting to enjoy. poor people often don't have the luxury of weighing their morals against their consumer-based needs, like if somehow Nestle water was the only clean drinking water you could get in your area. i think so long as your special interests are not actively supporting hate, you shouldn't feel any guilt enjoying them !!
 
I was diagnosed with level 2 autism (alongside some other stuff but that's besides the point) about a week before I turned 14, but I had known something was up since I was about 10 or 11. Growing up I was always the smartest in my classes by a landslide, albeit a bit quirky. Obviously autism doesn't get worse, but around my early teens I went through a lot of problems with life and such, and so many new stressors made my symptoms way more prominent.

I'm surprised it took as long as it did, because even with a stable environment for the first 11 or so years of my life, I was very obviously ND when I look back at it. I think the fact I wasn't the skinny little train-obsessed white kid stereotype is part of why I wasn't diagnosed for so long. It isn't even like I'm super high functioning, as I'm sort of just in the mid-ground.

I turn 20 in a couple months now, and the combination of autism and my physical disabilities has made functioning as a normal adult extremely difficult. I already feel a pretty significant disconnect with my age due to my interests and mannerisms, but I feel it even more so when I stop and think about how I'm jobless and still entirely dependent on someone else and need constant care. I did have a job that I got entirely on my own when I was 16, but I had to quit because my disability made any sort of labor near impossible. I'm afraid that to anyone who isn't in my immediate family, I look like I'm just lazy and need to be babied. Hell, even my sister that I live with thinks I'm not independent enough, but it really is hard to be when you have so many issues, both mental and physical, stacked up on top of each other like that.

I really hate being infantilized because of my autism, but at the same time, I want neurotypical people to realize that I can't function as a "normal" adult without extra support that most people my age wouldn't need. Society really isn't made for the neurodiverse, and the difficulties that come with being neurodivergent can never truly be understood by those who are neurotypical.
 
I have autism and suspect I might have synesthesia. Does anybody else with autism suffer from catatonia. Like you become so aware of your own mind that nothing makes sense and you can’t move your own body? Also, does anyone get sensory overload from thinking? Like I see all my thoughts projected in my mind’s eye in front of me but they easily overwhelm me.
 
Choice Specs Heracross said:
I have autism and suspect I might have synesthesia. Does anybody else with autism suffer from catatonia. Like you become so aware of your own mind that nothing makes sense and you can’t move your own body?
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Bruh, I swear the Earth is just a simulation. I kid you guys not, I was literally just finishing a late paper for school where I mentioned something very similar to this and announced that my follow-up paper to this one was going to be about autism and its correlations with other diagnoses. I'm pretty sure I had gotten the paper turned in just a few hours before you sent this message.

What I've found is that disorders of any kind that exist on a spectrum of their own can achieve what's called "comorbidity", which simply refers to when a person shows the symptoms of multiple possible diagnoses at or within the same time frame. I had written my paper on schizophrenia, but upon learning that a disorder like that also has its own spectrum, I started to think about this more as possible inspiration for the follow-up assignment (we'll be doing that one in November). If you don't mind, here are some definitions that might help you before I go into further detail on my... well, I guess you wouldn't call this an "answer", but you get my point hopefully.

Synesthesia: the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.

Catatonia (in psychiatry): abnormality of movement and behavior arising from a disturbed mental state (typically schizophrenia). It may involve repetitive or purposeless overactivity, or catalepsy, resistance to passive movement, and negativism.

I can't entirely speak on behalf of a large portion of our community since the issues we all face are unique enough, but what I can say is that based on the transference of information between different parts of the human brain via neuron-based electrical pulses, it is definitely possible that people with more severe diagnostic levels of autism spectrum disorder may find their sense of free will "overloaded" in a sense by an imbalanced production of neurons- hence catatonic behaviors providing a case for a possible synesthesia diagnosis. I'm sorry that this was such a long answer, but I hope I was able to help clear things up for you :)

Choice Specs Heracross said:
Also, does anyone get sensory overload from thinking? Like I see all my thoughts projected in my mind’s eye in front of me but they easily overwhelm me.
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Thankfully, I can answer this part of your post much more easily. Feel free to tell me if this is relatable or not, but what I often find happening with my own mind is that I can at least attempt to visualize what I'm thinking incredibly well, whether that be on paper, on a screen, et cetera. The challenge for me, as someone who wants to one day speak in public for the neurodiverse population, is trying to convert my thoughts into words that both neurodiverse and neurotypical people can easily understand. Like most of us, I do hyper-fixate on things from time to time, and when this happens, the rapid influx of thoughts going through my head ends up getting my speech a bit jumbled up, complete with the occasional stutter. Additionally, I've also learned that sensory overload on one or more senses can multiply the adversity of the impact from that of other senses. In simple words, here's an example of what I mean by that. Since I don't like crowds very much (another challenge for a wanna-be motivational speaker), the sight and hearing of the aversive stimulus, that being the crowd of people, overwhelms my senses of sight and hearing at the same time. When it comes time for me to talk with that crowd, then, only three of my five primary senses are currently stable, and that could be made evident in things such as my posture on-stage or my tone of voice, to name a few.
 
Yeah that was a lot to process but I think I got the gist of it. I could be here all day trying to explain my synesthesia. There’s many aspects of it but one of them is that everything has like a “mental weight” to it. Like idk that comment was kinda heavy lol. On the subject of co-morbidity, I also have OCD and Bipolar.
 
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