I’m trying to find an article about an internal memo that was circulated at some Silicon Valley company a couple years ago talking about how easy it is in the tech world to exploit autistic people because they’ll work twice as hard in tech-based jobs for half the pay of their NT counterparts, and no matter what string of words I punch in, all the search results are about how the “progressive culture” of Silicon Valley is leading the way in providing jobs for autistic people, and that is, like, Black Mirror levels of terrifying
I still haven’t found this article, but have talked to tons of people who also read it and can’t find it either lol
Boosting in case anyone knows? I too, remember reading it
The wellbeing ideology is a symptom of a broader political disease. The rigors of both work and worklessness, the colonization of every public space by private money, the precarity of daily living, and the growing impossibility of building any sort of community maroon each of us in our lonely struggle to survive. We are supposed to believe that we can only work to improve our lives on that same individual level. Chris Maisano concludes that while “the appeal of individualistic and therapeutic approaches to the problems of our time is not difficult to apprehend … it is only through the creation of solidarities that rebuild confidence in our collective capacity to change the world that their grip can be broken.”
The isolating ideology of wellness works against this sort of social change in two important ways. First, it persuades all us that if we are sick, sad, and exhausted, the problem isn’t one of economics. There is no structural imbalance, according to this view—there is only individual maladaption, requiring an individual response. The lexis of abuse and gas-lighting is appropriate here: if you are miserable or angry because your life is a constant struggle against privation or prejudice, the problem is always and only with you. Society is not mad, or messed up: you are.
— Life-Hacks Of The Poor And Aimless, Laurie Penny
My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.
I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”
I searched and searched for the post this graphic was from, and the OP deactivated, but I kept the graphic, because my BFF does the same thing, uses her imagination to come up with the worst pain she can imagine and pegs her “10″ there, and so is like, well, I’m conscious, so this must be a 5, and then the doctors don’t take her seriously. (And she then does things like driving herself to the hospital while in the process of giving birth. Probably should have called an ambulance for that one!)
So I found this and sent it to her. Because this is what they want to know: how badly is this pain affecting you? Not on a scale of “nothing” to “how I’d imagine it’d feel if bears were eating my still-living guts while I was on fire”.
I hate reposting stuff, but I’ll never find that post again and OP is deactivated, so, here’s a repost. I can delete this later, i just wanted to get it to you and I can’t embed images in a chat or an ask.
This is possibly why it took several weeks to diagnose my fractured spine.
Pain Scale transcription:
10 – I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain. I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.
9 – My pain is all that I can think about. I can barely move or talk because of my pain.
8 – My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.
7 – I am in pain all the time. It keeps me from doing most activities.
6 – I think about my pain all of the time. I give up many activities because of my pain.
5 – I think about my pain most of the time. I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.
4 – I am constantly aware of my pain but can continue most activities.
3 – My pain bothers me but I can ignore it most of the time.
2 – I have a low level of pain. I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.
1 – My pain is hardly noticeable.
0 – I have no pain.
It’s also really important to get this kind of scale to people who have chronic pain, because chronic pain drastically lowers your perception of how “bad” any kind of pain actually is, and yet something like this pain scale is extremely user friendly.
For example, if someone asked me how much pain I’m in at any given time, I’d say hardly any, and yet I’m apparently at a chronic 2.5, and it only goes up from there depending on the day.
I haven’t been below a 5 on this scale for 4 years
Here’s the fatigue scale
One: if you feel inhibited about describing your real pain level according to what the scale says due to fear of being perceived as whining and fussing, try benchmarking what you’re thinking of as a “10” right out loud. some years ago I had a bowel obstruction, which is a Dilaudid in the ER and emergency surgery thing; since then there have been one or two lesser bad times in the ER and I was like “well, if the time i had the bowel obstruction was a 10, then right now is a 6 or 7,” and it was like magic. they got all serious and kind and visibly recalibrated their hot takes.
Two: this is the first time I’ve ever come across the fatigue scale and ??? I spend ~95% of my non-work life at 4 to 7? 7 is most weeknights, 5 is at least half of most weekends, 4 is a good normal day. what. what. what even is this. if the pain scale drives pain med selection and dosing, what does this drive.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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