Day: November 1, 2017

Some other extremely unhelpful assumptions can also come up around eating disorders and abuse besides just not making useful connections to what else has been going on in a person’s life, as discussed some in that last reblog.

I really do hope that’s become less common, but when I was younger there was a tendency for some professionals to work off the idea that an ED very likely indicated a history of highly specific types of abuse. Which too often got used in ways that were in reality abusive af. Too often overlooking other abuse, besides taking focus away from the ED and very possibly substituting for any effective treatment there. (Ask me how I know, yeah.)

Basically, whatever the details may be? There are so many ways to fuck up and do people more harm if you approach a situation with assumptions that you already know everything you need to about How Things Inevitably Work, and therefore what must be happening in this particular case. That applies multiple times over if you are a trained professional who is supposed to be helping people. Arrogance as a substitute for listening can do so much harm, especially when you are in a position of power like that.

not-a-single-fuck:

comcastkills:

I wish there was more discussion on how eating disorders in children can be a result of abuse. My parents thought I was just anorexic because I hated my body, but it turned out I just wanted some sort of control over the chaos in my home, and a way to draw attention to my suffering.

One of the issues with eating disorders is that it actually very often results from abuse, exactly for the reason you named. With how dieting is seen as this act of self control and discipline, it’s very easy for individuals craving that to resort to abusing exercise or weight loss. Chemically, under-eating and over eating relieve anxiety, as do other self harming behaviors so really, it should be seen as a symptom of a bigger problem, cause that’s what it is, but the popular view of eating disorders is as being an isolated result of poor self image on women caused by the media and peer pressure.

Probably after Karen Carpenter’s anorexia related death– which started the public interest in eating disorders, there came an association with the media and the female image, which definitely contributes, but they’ve tried to isolate eating disorders as stemming only from self image, when really? these cultural factors are more of a “push” than a source and do more to dictate what kind of self harming behavior someone might exhibit rather than being the cause of it.

It’s extremely common for individuals to have eating disorders fueled by religious beliefs ala Catherine of Siena who saw fasting as purifying (which of course many religious believe), it’s common for victims of CSA to exhibit it in order to feel control over their own bodies, or for it to come from people with OCD… 

What I’m getting to is that this view of eating disorders as being something solely associated with women suffering from poor self image is simply detrimental as it rarely offers consideration for other possibilities and even more harmful, ignores that there’s always a core problem. You can’t treat eating disorders without treating what caused them.

kramergate:

kramergate:

I’m the normie

imagine – REALLY imagine that there’s someone on the fringes of your friend group who’s kinda glommed onto you because you’re too nice to tell him he’s weird and to fuck off, so you let him follow you around and you invite him to stuff because it seems to make him happy and because no one else really likes him so you feel bad and even though he’s annoying and condescending sometimes you make him feel like he’s your friend, and then he adds you on Facebook and you see this and know it is about you

Source: beetledrink

Tonight is looking to be fun. It’s around 3:30 in the afternoon, and some geniuses up the street are already out there setting off bottle rockets! 😬

(At least we don’t have a panicking dog to accommodate now, but Max pretty much got me trained to dread fireworks. Also, at least Diwali celebrations should be well over, instead of overlapping with the run-up to Bonfire Night this year.)

About rocking

realsocialskills:

Among other things: Rocking is body language. Rocking is emotions. 

There is a slow happy!rock. And an anxiety!rock. And anger. And affection. And any number of others. And they are not the same.

And it is possible to look and understand. It is possible to learn how to read rocking, to know what it’s showing.

This is body language. Meaning shown on a body.

They tell us that we do not have body language, that we have a flat affect. And then they try to make this true; they try to flatten us and stop us from moving and showing emotional body language.

But we aren’t flat. We have body language. And rocking is part of it. (And any number of other movements. Not just rocking. But rocking is on my mind.)

I can’t tell you how to read it. Not much. Not yet. I’m trying to figure out some of the words for that. It is hard to describe body language in words, even body language that is socially valued enough that a lot of people have tried. All the more so this.

What I can tell you is that autistic movement is meaningful. Not mysterious. Not ethereal. Not in-another-world. Meaningful, present, and possible to understand.

(Not simple. Communication between people is never simple, and never formulaic. Meaningful. Complicated.)

Keep that in mind. The first step to understanding is knowing that there is something to understand.