In which Anonymus Maximus is heretical and talks about God

For the record: I wish this were more eloquent. But I can’t, because my sense of religion isn’t in English.  I don’t believe in god, and I don’t think I ever did.

I get weird when I talk about religion. I get weird when I talk about spirituality. I get weird when I talk about God.

In which Anonymus Maximus talks about a friends project - the Bad Brains Cookbook

So I made a list the other day, noting down how difficult it can be to make a sandwich. [Hi, everyone, btw! That post has pulled a third of my blogs total traffic at this point in time, and I suspect it is Crown of Weeds' fault!]

Now, I have this friend, Inya. She is a quite remarkable woman, and I care for her deeply. She also makes the most delicious cakes, and is, as she has stated, better than I am at sequencing recipes.

She wants to make The Bad Brains Cookbook. Which I think it awesome. Go and read about it! Now!

And in case you didn't, effectively this:

...hyper-sequenced recipes, an attempt at making a collection of recipes in less than 5, 10 and 20 steps, where getting the ingredient counts as a step.  With visual aids and diagraming, with better instructions than vauge sensory ques, at the very least noting how things are supposed to smell and look and sound and taste and feel when done.

Doesn't that sound absolutely amazing?!
And she wants this to be available for free when done. The thing is, though, that there need to be an interest, and people would have to have use for it.
So go tell her! In the comments or something.
Spread the word, cooking instructions for bad brains by bad brains!

Added October 3: The Bad Brains Cookbook is happening! And this is very exciting! Check it out at  badbrainscookbook.blogspot.com!

In which Anonymus Maximus talks about Executive Dysfunction and Food.

The thing about being Clinically Quirky is that it makes life harder than baseline.
It might mean you have no energy, it might mean your memory doesn't necessarily function in a reliable fashion, it means, it means time is confusing and without meaning, it means that you want to do things but can't make yourself start, it means you have difficulties seeing the point of doing things, it means sequencing things is difficult, and too many steps seem to fall in an unorganised pile around you and the thought of sorting it out is just too overwhelming. It means that you don't know where to start. It means that you don't know that a thing needs doing.

Do you guys know how hard it is to make a sandwich?

1.  Realise that you are hungry.
2. Figure out that the soloution to this is to eat.
3.  Disentangle yourself from the current activity.
4. Relocate to location with foodmaking capacity.
5.  Think of something to eat.
6. Decide what to eat.
7.  Think of what is needed to make that thing.
8. Remember all parts that go into it.
9.  Locate bread.
10. Open cupboard - get bread.
11.  Close cupboard.
12. Get cutting board.
13.  Get knife with serrated edge.
14. Cut bread.
15.  Open fridge.
16. Get butter.
17.  Get cheese.
18. Get cucumber.
19.  Close fridge.
20. Get butter knife.
21.  Spread butter on bread slices.
22. Get cheese slicer.
23.  Estimate number of cheese slices required.
24. Slice cheese.
25.  Place cheese on bread.
26. Get quick peeler.
27.  Estimate number of cucumber slices required.
28. Slice cucumber.
29.  Place cucumber on bread.
30. Put lid back on butter.
31.  Put cheese back into its container.
32. Put cucumber into bag.
33.  Open fridge.
34. Put all chilled foodstuffs back.
35.  Close fridge.
36. Open cupboard.
37.  Get plate.
38. Put bread back into cupboard.
39.  Put sandwich onto plate.
40. Store away the dishes.

That is 40 steps. I am by no means saying that it is always this hard, and always translates to all these steps. But on a bad day? On a bad day there are more. The step remeber where the bread goes is in there. The step remember what goes on bread is in there. And this is just for a piece of bread, with some butter, cheese and cucumber on it. The bread isn't even toasted.
Do you realise how hard it can be to make a sandwich?

So when Anonymus Maximus and Partner have the following conversation, Partner think they are being helpful:

AM: "I'm hungry."
P: "Go make a sandwich."

And they are. They are reminding me that the soloution to being hungry is to eat, and that one thing one can eat is a sandwich, which is also a good thing. But it is nowhere near as simple as "go make a sandwich".
And sometimes I think there should be a better way of getting people to understand executive dysfunction than writing out the steps they think are intuitive.
This isn't a problem just for autistic people and the autistic cousin diagnoses. Although ADHD is pretty much defined by executive dysfunction, and SPD seems related to executive dysfunction on top of making it difficult to feel hunger, it also concerns depression, OCD, any form of disordered eating, heck, even migraines. Most forms of badbrains, if we're honest.

Lastly: The way I self-accomodate this problem is to make these lists. The ones that look absurd, with far too detailed instructions on how to do things. Because I can do them when I have spoons. And I can use them when I don't have spoons, because they tell me exactly what to do, and in what order.

Added August 21: Since posting this, a friend of mine has actually started on a project, The Bad Brains Cookbook, cooking for folks with executive dysfunction issues. Go check it out!

Added October 3: The Bad Brains Cookbook has a blog of it's own! Over at badbrainscookbook.blogspot.com!

In which Anonymus Maximus echo echo echo.

Sometimes, I don't know how to make sense. Sometimes I think thoughts that I cannot communicate, because I do not yet have the words. [It is all shapes and colours and movement. Smells and sounds, strange music and emotive experience that differs from the norm. Case Law is the edge of a deep purple spiders web. Happy is a spinning-spinning-spinning sensation.] And then I need to find something to echo, modify a script. See what happens in the echo chamber.
This is one of those times:


I'm talking about communication tonight. This might take a while, but let me see if I can get my point across.

I have so many metaphors and phrases for communication. For different aspects of communication. For language and concepts and meanings and communication. For words.
I don't word very well. I echo echo echo.
And sometimes I do original speech, and that in itself is an echo.
Echo echo echo.

Speech is the vocalized form of human communication. It is based upon the syntactic combination of lexicals and names that are drawn from very large vocabularies. Speech is also an American composer. Avant-garde, I'm told.
Sometimes language is too much and not enough, all at the same time. I don't word very well. Words are inefficient.
Echo echo echo.

Words are shorthands for concepts. I communicate in concepts. In ideas. In structures. And I rarely use my own words to do it. Echolalia is metalanguage. And this is an echo echo echo. Words are an elaborate metaphor.

Echo echo echo.
Error message: Duplicate comment detected: it looks like you’ve already said that!

Scripts to smooth interactions with a largely allistic world. Scripts to handle those who can't tolerate my communication. Scripts, because why not? What can I get you - fine thank you. There are some stumbles, when people forget their lines, veers off script. If you learn how to prompt them back on, things will work out.
I know, right?!
Echo echo echo.

I am on Tumblr. I wasn't on tumblr, and then I was, and I wasn't because I was a little bit afraid of tumblr, and then I was and I was still a little bit afraid of tumblr, and then I realised that tumblr is really just glorified echolalia and then I wasn't afraid.

Because.
Echo echo echo.

Tell me a joke and make me smile.

Absolutely no decorum, whatsoever.
Echo echo echo.

In which Anonymus Maximus talks about Good Intentions and How They Are Not Enough

1.
  It is not “just a bear”. It is “just a bear that, by buying it, you give money to an organisation that thinks me being born was a mistake, and works to make sure no more people with my type of brain are born and believes people with my type of brain are such tragedies to our families that I am something that is being inflicted upon them and our lives have so little worth that when we come to a hospital in need of lifesustaining procedures that are standard, rather small in comparison to everything else, and reversible we should still consider DYING as a valid, preferable, medical alternative.”

2.
  It is truly a very cute bear. BUT IT GIVES MONEY TO A EUGENICS ORGANISATION THAT SUPPORTS TORTURE-AS-THERAPY.

3.
  Yes, it was very sweet of your mother to get a bear for you. You can think that and like the bear, AND be aware that by buying that bear for you, your mother gave money to an organisation that’d rather you didn’t exist.

4.
  How, exactly, does kids learn about autism by being given a blue teddy bear?

5.
 “They did bad things in the past”? Not six weeks ago, but sure. That’s the past.
I’m sure they’ve tidied up their attitudes and their campaigns and their rhetoric since then.

6.
  Most don’t know that A$ wants autistics to no longer exist.
Most don’t know that they don’t really help.
Most don’t know that the “awareness” they promote is a fear rhetoric that gets people killed.
It’s all well and good to want to do something good. PROBLEM IS THAT A$ IS NOT GOOD. And most don’t know it.

7.
  No. It’s not just a bear.

That bear is a gesture within your family that is truly very sweet, with nothing but good intentions and loving gift giving, mother to daughter.

That bear is ALSO an unfortunate monetary donation to an organisation that doesn’t want you to exist.

It’s not just a bear.
Or maybe it is.

Just a bear.

In which Anonymus Maximus talks some more about what Autistic People Are...

Autistic people are speaking - and it is indeed time to listen.

Autistic people, by defintition, utilises language in a non-standard way, ranging from non-verbal to hyperverbal. Hyperlexia is a symptom of autism, as is echolalia, palalia and extensive scripting.

But autistic people are communicating.
My personal language is highly scripted, and very echolalic. It is also, contrary to popular assumptions about autistic language usage, heavily reliant on extended metaphors. My language is a meta-language, if you will.
Earlier today I wrote a piece about the younger me, and the current me, being a dancer. Autistic people, being dancers. This is of course true in the literal sense. I am a dancer. I dance. And I would say that there are other autistics out there who dance.
But this is also one of my extended metaphors. It concerns movement and knowledge and bodies and thought and interpretation and being in tune with the rythm of your life. About the music of emotion. About communication.
Autistic people are dancers, because autistic people communicate.

Autistic people are dancers, because we move with the rythm of our lives. We might not move like you do. But we are dancers.

Last week we were writing-talking-speaking-communicating about the hatespeech generated by the google search auto-complete algorithm by flashblogging. The community moving as one to make things better. Talking about positive things. How Autistic people should be loved, and should be heard.

Well. We were heard. Google has said they shall fix this.
But we were then erased from the effort by the largest USian charity claiming to be on our side, whilst they tried to take credit. Erased from our own advocacy by people claiming to advocate for us. Autism Speaks tips their hat to Google, and doesn't at all mention the effort of the autistics out there who did the work to make it happen. No mention of Alyssa of YesThatToo, no mention of the flashblog. No mention of the dance of words, the music of emotions, the coordinated movement of people routinely assumed to be silent. We are dancers. We are speaking.

Autistic people are speaking and it is time to listen.
This does not mean allistic family members are speaking about and above their autistic family members and you should listen to them. It means autistic people are speaking and you should listen to them.
Autism Speaks does not speak for me.
I am speaking all on my own.

In which Anonymus Maximus flashblogs about what Autistic People Are...

This is Anonymus Minimus, and she is a dancer.

She will never become a world champion, but that is okay, because she doesn't dance for the competitions and the trophies. She dances because she loves the movement and the rythm and the music and the overall elation of the dance.

When she is dancing her arms are at her sides and her back is straight, she is high on her toes and she crosses her feet. She will never be a world champion, but that is okay.

Because this is Anonymus Minimus and she is a dancer.

 

This is Anonymus Minimus, and she is a dancer.

When she isn't dancing she stays high on her toes and her hands and arms are always moving, flapping, touching her hair, covering her ears. When she isn't dancing she is rocking, reading, signing, humming strange songs to herself.

She doesn't speak much, but her life is filled with music and rythm.

This is Anonymus Minimus, and she is a dancer.

She is also the clumsiest person she knows. She drools and spills and falls and tumbles and can't guage the force she should use when picking things up. She has very little awareness of her own body, her own limbs. But this is okay, because the secret to knowing that you have a body is to forget that it limits you.

This is Anonymus Minimus, and she is autistic.

Somewhere along the line, Anonymus Minimus grows up.

She becomes an adult, a scientist, an activist, an advocate, an educator.

She grows up and becomes an author, an engineer, a mathematician, a physicist.

She grows up and becomes an artist, a musician, a baker and a cook.

She grows up and becomes Anonymus Maximus.

And above it all, she is a dancer.

This is Anonymus Maximus, and she is a dancer.

This is Anonymus Maximus, and she is Autistic.

Autistic people are dancers.

We move to the music and rythm of our lives.

Autistic people are dancers.

 We may not move like you do.

But we are dancers.

In which Anonymus Maximus flashblogs about what Autistic People Should... (part 2)

Autistic people should be heard.
Our voices should be listened to. The things we have to say about our own lives respected.
 Popular discourse around autism is focused on the parent, the sibling, the caretaker, the teacher, the therapist, the doctor, and the actually autistic people are left out.
And when we try to make our voices heard, we are silenced with "you are not like my child" [Obviously not. Your child is a child. I am not.], implying that because we can advocate for ourselves and other autistics we are not autistic enough to know anything about the difficulties of our disability.
You can say that I am wrong, thusly I am not autistic enough, low-functioning enough, to have anything of value to say.

Autistic people should be heard.
The actually autistic people are left out of the conversation about our disability.
It is focused on mice "developing autistic behaviours" as if mice could be autistic. (I'm not actually sure, maybe they can be, but I fail to recognise how behaviours that are considered autistic in humans would be the same behaviours a potentially autistic mouse exhibited.) It is focused on pre-natal testing, to make sure autistic children won't be born. It is focused on the great burden it is for a family to have an autistic family member. It is focused on how eye-contact is so very important and absolutely devastating if it isn't done. It is focused on everything but the actually autistic people, and what we have to say.

Autistic people should be heard.
And not just when we say things you agree with. We should be listened to when we say that you are being ableist, we should be listened to when we say that you are wrong, we should be listened to when we say that you are perpetuating stereotypes, we should be listened to when we say that there is hope, we should be listened to when we say that we don't want cures, we should be listened to when we say that we don't want to be Not Autistic, we should be listened to when we say that passing for allistic isn't a good thing. We should be listened to when we are challenging your beliefs, because we speak from a lived experience.

Autistic people should be heard.
I don't care if your brother is autistic, you are not the authority on the autistic experience.
I don't care if you work with autistic children (sorry, children with autism. Nevermind that the autistic community prefer identity first.), you are not the authority on the autistic experience.
I don't care if you have an autistic classmate, you are not the authority on the autistic experience.
I don't care if you have studied autism in school, you are not the authority on the autistic experience.
I don't care if you used to date an autistic person, you are not the authority on the autistic experience.
I don't care if you are the parent of an autistic child, you are not the authority on the autistic experience.
I don't care if you are studying neuroscience, you are not the authority on the autistic experience.
I don't care if you are otherwise neurodivergent, you are not the authority on the autistic experience, just as I'm not the authority on your divergence.
It turns out that the reliable authorities on the autistic experience are the autistic people themselves.

Autistic people should be heard.

In which Anonymus Maximus flashblogs about what Autistic people should...

Autistic people should get to live.

Autistic people should get to lead their lives without fear of violence.

Google search has really rather unfortunate auto-complete for the partial sentence "Autistic people should", and this is text is a part of a larger organized attempt at not getting told that we should be killed.

Autistic people should get to live.

Autistic people should get to lead their lives without fear of violence.

Here and now, today, if a parent murder their child, it is considered a heinous crime.
Here and now, today, if a parent murder their autistic child, it is considered a tragedy. The poor parent. Of course killing is wrong, but it is such a hardship to have an autistic child. It is understandable that they commited a cold blooded murder. Somehow. And people forget that a person lost their life. A person is dead now. And this is not noteworthy, because the person had a different brain.

Autistic people should get to live.

Autistic people shoud get to lead their lives without fear of violence.

I am a person. I am here, I think, I feel, I do, I dream, I love, I learn. And I want to live. I want to be the best me I can be. I want to be happy. I want to bring happiness to others. And I should get to do that, without having to know that most people want me dead.

Autistic people should get to live.
I should get to live. I, an Autistic person, should get to live.
We are here, and we can hear what you are saying about us. You want -people- to be exterminated. Why?
I should get to live.
Autistic people should get to live.


Autistic people should get to lead their lives without fear of violence.
I should get to lead my life withour fear of violence. I, an Autistic person, should get to lead my life without fear of violence.
I am here. And I am forced to lead my life knowing that people would rather I was dead. I am forced to lead my life knowing that parents would rather their child died than being like me. I am here, and I am forced to lead my life knowing that violence against me would be considered justified, and that the person getting the sympathy if I were to be murdered wouldn't be me. It would be my murderer.
Why?
I should get to lead my life without fear of violence.
Autistic people should get to lead their lives without fear of violence.

Autistic people should. Indeed.

In which Anonymus Maximus talks about Being a Visitor

I’m remembering, because the past few days have been hard and difficult and confusing. They have been overwhelming and noisy. They have been dangerous and draining.
So very draining.

And then I remember.

1. Heartland.
I remember being little, and tilting my head and observing people. And being told to stop doing that, it was unnerving. I moved out of Uncanny Valley.

Only, I never really moved out of Uncanny Valley. It is still my home. I am a wanderer in a foreign country.

Sometimes the culture shock is too much, and then I shut down.

2. Culture shock.
I remember all the times my movement have been deeply offensive to whomever was watching. I remember being told to “stop screaming - I can’t hear the TV” - after having just a second before fallen and cracked my cranium as a result.
Because when you get to stop my other movements, my other behaviours, you stop thinking about why I do what I do. You just assume your preference takes precedence over mine. I am a visitor in a foreign country.

3. When in Rome…
I remember teachers taking my books. Because children should play and run with their classmates [regardless of how mean those classmates are, because teachers never see], not sit on the staircase and read. And because I move differently, because I talk with bigger words than the other kids, this is okay. I need to learn how to make age appropriate connections with my peers.

I am a visitor in a foreign country, and when in Rome…

4. Told to be Roman.
I remember when I stoped stimming where people could see. It was a process.

It was Mother mocking my fingers tapping when having dinner with extended family memebers. It was classmates objecting to being told that they had to include me in those games I was forced to participate in when the teachers took my books because I was weird. It was Teacher forcibly taking my kitch, plastic necklace from my hands, because I should pay attention to the class. It was when Sibling told me, screamed at me, to stop moving your feet at the table. It was every time Father took my bluetack, my thinking putty, my soft eraser, because it was disgusting for him to see me fiddle with it.

I remember stopping to stim where others could see me. Then I stimmed for all that I couldn’t when I was alone. Feeling like I was doing something wrong. Something morally reprehensible.

I am a visitor in a foreign country, and when you leave your culture, you hold onto it even harder than you’d do if you were still at home.

5. Invisibility.
I remember that I never really stopped stimming in public. I just became invisible. Smaller movement, less noise, no props.
I gave myself an entire library of stims, rotating them so to the casual observer there was no stereotypy.

I am a visitor in a foreign country, and I keep breaking the law.

6. Acceptance.
I remember back when, before Partner and I moved in together. Back when we were sure we were in this for the long haul, but acknowledging that we were in the very beginning of said haul, Partner came over to my place. I was working on the computer, and was fiddling with a stimtoy. I heard Partner outside, and scrambled to put the toy away, before opening the door. Not putting down. Putting it away.

I did, and moved to the door. Halfway there I got so angry with myself, very resolutely turned around, stomped over and got my toy, before letting Partner in. Because if Partner was gonna be my partner, they better accept my weird private behaviours, my weird private movements. Partner didn’t even notice the toy.

I am a visitor in a foreign country, and I found a native who is curious about where I am from.

7. Identity.
I remember crying after I saw The Loud Hands Project video. There were people who moved like me.

I am a visitor in a foreign country, and I found the expat community.

8. Civil disobediance.
I remember deciding that, you know what? I don’t care about you. I -like- stimming. It doesn’t hurt anything more than your delicate sensibilities. I will stim when I feel like it.

I am a visitor in a foreign country, and I proudly engage in civil disobediance.

9. Change.
I remember that not all who wanders are lost. Some are, I’m not.

I am a visitor in a foreign country, and I might like it here.