noelleian:

slumberinggirl:

mahoganydesk:

rainbowloliofjustice:

samael-d-h:

amarretto-cowboy:

I’ll never forget the last in person conversation I had with with a woman I was on and off with for years because whenever there was an issue, she would just stop talking to me for months at a clip.

At one point she straight up blocked me and bragged to mutual friends about it. Friends went to me and told me to move on and that it’s her loss. Her and I didn’t talk for 2 years. In that time, I moved on to the point of getting married. Soon after I got married, she popped in to see if I was single still and lost her shit when she found out I had gotten hitched.

She tried to convince me to get a divorce and called me and idiot for getting married in the first place.

The best part… When she asked why I didn’t wait for her to “come around”. I told her she gave me no choice but to move on when she blocked me.

This was her answer: well a block is only temporary. You should have just waited for it to end then hit me up!

Yeah…. I’m so glad I didn’t.

fuck those people who play these games

People who play these games should be kneecapped

My dad nearly fell into this trap. He was engaged to a woman who would go silent for a while after an argument. Dad finally told her, “Either you’re by my side or you’re not. I’m not playing these high school games anymore. If you love me, talk to me. Otherwise, we’re done.”

He ended up marrying another woman who never played games with him and helped his better side come out.

This advise can go for anyone out there: if your SO is doing this shit, tell them to cut it out or you’re leaving. And follow through on that threat.

Get you a significant other who has good communication skills and will resolve problems together like a fucking adult

I’m a woman and I used to date a guy who did that kind of petty shit. Yeah, he turned out to be extremely abusive. Don’t date/marry any woman, or man who pulls that kind of shit. It’s not worth it.

It’s one thing if someone needs a cool-off period. But they should communicate that much – “I need to be alone / have some space for a little while, we can talk about this later but I’m too upset to have this discussion civilly right now” is not the same thing as refusing to talk to you for extended periods whenever they get mad. Everyone needs a time-out sometimes, knowing your limits and calling a break before you snap is part of the Adult Communication Skills set.

But yeah, don’t stay with someone who plays petty games.

thathumanwiththecatears:

kuroba101:

sweet-and-tender:

lesbiandana:

hello! I don’t know if anyone has already made a post about this before, but I just stumbled upon this app made specifically for when you’ve gone into a nonverbal anxiety attack!!!

it was made by Jeroen De Busser who is an autistic computer science student.

the app is really easy to use! all you do is open it and hand your phone to someone you need to communicate with during an attack but physically cannot, and it shows this cool little alert for the person to read, and then it takes them to an easy to use chat (that looks a lot like texting! except both of you are communicating using the same device).

the alert message is completely customizable and you can have it say whatever you need!

the app is called Emergency Chat and it’s available in the Apple Store and google play store.

I highly recommend it to anyone who might need it 🙂

OH MY GOD?!?!?? BOOST

That’s so bootiful!

thank you so much for this because i never know what to do when i cant talk to people and they just start trying to ask me questions and its really hard to force myself to say i cant talk and stuff. im definately getting this right now

BOOST!

Source: lycheejo

deathlygristly:

I have been avoiding calling my doctor’s office to schedule a physical out of social anxiety, but I know it’s getting close to time for one. I was planning to do it on my birthday, since it’s a weekday and I’m off work.

I just got a text from the doctor’s office telling me to schedule it and giving me a link to click or a phone number to call. If I click the link and that results in me being able to schedule it without having to call a stranger, I will get down on my knees and thank the universe.

Seriously, more places need to let you schedule things through texts or online. I’m not the only person out here with horrible anxiety about calling strangers on the phone.

Seriously though. Besides for deaf/HOH/APD people. Plenty of reasons voice calls might not be accessible.

(Including combo deals. My hearing and auditory processing make voice calls a really miserable experience most of the time now, so of course I get nervous whenever there’s no more accessible choice. Especially considering how crappy too many people on the other end will act when you’re obviously struggling and need to ask for repeats/hear something wrong.)

Can rarely make myself do that unless it’s an emergency situation anymore. And patients/customers should not be placed in that situation, when they’re basically having to work at not implementing any more accessible communication options by now.

Apparently needed to rant some, but definitely wishing you luck dealing with the doctor’s office!

Random Reminiscing Ramblings: Speaking of speech

An old post from elmindreda, which gave me some major “aha!” moments when I first ran across it.

(No, any of a variety of problems with speech is not necessarily coming from Purposely Being Difficult, and/or Worrying Psych Symptoms. Shocking idea 😒)

With the state of my health sucking a lot of energy, I’ve been running into increasing troubles with communicative speech for a while now. I was reminded to hunt this down again, and thought I might as well share it.

It’s very common to divide autistic people into a ‘speaking’ and a ‘non-speaking’ group, and also to assume that the ability to speak implies the ability to communicate with speech. Those people who do so quite naturally place me into the ‘speaking’ group, since I’m most of the time able to produce understandable words, almost always strung together into sentences.

However, there’s a large grey area between being fully able to use speech to communicate and not having access to language at all, and it’s not linear either…

Since I haven’t seen a lot of descriptions of what it’s actually like to lose speech, or to be able to speak but not be able to use that ability to communicate (and those I’ve seen always seem to be missing things), I will attempt to describe some of the different ways I experience those things. Just keep in mind that there are a lot of other possible ways, too.

Random Reminiscing Ramblings: Speaking of speech

supernini235:

firstgirlwonder:

kedreeva:

thats-tea:

i like where this person is going with this, but it’s also wrong.

cats aren’t mimicking human infant cries when they meow. Why would they do that? How would they even know if they’ve never met a human infant? You know when cats meow that doesn’t involve humans? To their babies. Their kittens mewl and they meow back, until the kittens can open their eyes and learn the non-vocal and sub-vocal cat language cues.

Cats don’t meow to us because they’re trying to manipulate us into thinking they’re our babies. Cats meow to us because they suspect that we’re just big, bumbling babies that Need Some Extra Help Communicating.

You know when many cats, including my own, stop meowing at humans? When you learn what non-vocal language cues they recognize, and use those to communicate instead. One of the cues best known by humans is the slow-blink of warmth and respect.

I’m glad I found this, because this is probably why my cat talks to me as much as she does.

She used to be a mother, before she came home with me. So it makes hella sense.

When I go outside, she watches through the window and makes a little ‘meep’ sound when I walk back in, or longer mews, probably asking where I’ve been. She also likes to alert me after she jumps on me, with a meow.

One of her non verbal things is getting behind me then putting her claws in my back to make me sit back so she can lay on me.

The only time my cat meows at me is when he’s either excited to see me, or when he’s trying to get my attention from another room. Where as he screams constantly at everyone else because they don’t understand what he wants

More demonstration of the whole “communication can avoid trouble” point.

One of the things that prompted the little talk was the fact that he’s been going around with his phone out of battery a lot lately, and didn’t make any move to put it on charge when I reminded him this evening. That’s a recent change.

Without my directly mentioning that, he assured me that it had absolutely nothing to do with me personally. Which yeah, I had been concerned that he was sick of the frequent requests to pick up stuff that I couldn’t get out to buy, and that sort of thing.

Apparently not. Everything (including “the whole Internet”, in his words) has been too much, to the point of his at least half-deliberately avoiding it by not keeping his phone charged.

And spending basically all his time at home gaming and very little messing around online, now that I think of it.

I mean, I could tell that he was acting more stressed lately. But, I had no idea it was to that point, because he hasn’t been talking about it at all. Probably also not wanting to worry me, though he didn’t explicitly say that. It was obviously uncomfortable enough to talk about at all, though I’m glad he finally did say something about it. Understandable, the way things have been going, but not a good situation at all.

Like I said, we’re both pretty bad about that. And the fucked-up stoicism act is rarely helpful to anyone 😱

I’m still kind of shaky, but glad I went ahead and brought up something that had been bothering me for a while before Mr. C went to sleep.

On most levels, I know communication is good and can actually help avoid a bunch of problems. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy, especially with enough ingrained training to keep your mouth shut to avoid conflict. Difficult subjects really don’t make it easier. Both of us can be pretty bad about that, and for similar reasons AFAICT.

I also have some extra (carefully instilled) scrupulosity issues around the idea of Causing Problems For Other People. Including by mentioning existing ones 😳

Anyway, he didn’t act like a jerk about any of it. He was listening, and obviously did care how I felt. (Not that I really expected otherwise, but yeah. PTSD.) And I’m feeling better about what was bothering me in the first place. Which was also heavily wrapped up in some of the same scrupulosity BS, since that is apparently just the way I roll 🙄

That is indeed kinda how respectful discussions in a relationship are supposed to work. But, even after this many years? I am still pleasantly surprised on some level when they do.

Intent

jumpingjacktrash:

amysubmits:

cynicaldom:

When communicating to someone about a sensitive topic, I’ve found it’s helpful to explain why you want to talk about it. If you say you’re worried, or hurt, or just needed to get it off your chest, it can help the other person not get defensive and then more completely process what you’re saying.

Many relationships die by a thousand little cuts. Little problems that on their surface are penny-ante. But the real offense, the hurt, is unresolved. And the little hurts pile up and the resentment builds until things fall apart.

It’s very easy for people to read a bad intent when you’re communicating a problem. Sometimes it’s a natural defense mechanism, if you think someone is just being shitty then you don’t have to really hear them. But it can just as often simply be an incorrect assumption. Communicating your intent can stop that from happening and help the conversation come to a more fruitful resolution.

But if you break it down, your intent is not just a lubricant to keep the conversation productive. Your intent is the point of the conversation. More often than not the problems we have with each other are not the real issue, it’s how those problems make us feel. When you communicate your intent, you’re fully explaining the issue that needs to be resolved.

“I’ve been missing you, could you skip your TV show tonight so we can play a video game together?” works better than “You don’t give me enough attention.” or “you watch too much TV.”

Or “I suspect it’s just my anxiety, but I’m worried that you’re angry with me because you’ve been kind of quiet.” is better than just “Why are you so distant?”

For years I worried that we couldn’t discuss problems because it would cause a fight. That was how the world I lived in as a kid worked. Having a partner who is open to hearing you is huge, but choice of wording helps even when you have a partner who wants to hear you.

very good advice. it really helps when you give the other person something actionable. a request, a suggestion, an offer to brainstorm. don’t complain; troubleshoot.

you don’t have to be emotionless or conciliatory. it’s ok to express anger. just be mature about it, and respect the other person. don’t go on a power trip, don’t leverage your legitimate gripes to make them grovel. keep your eyes on the prize. if you don’t know what the prize is, the next step is to tell them so and invite them to help you figure it out, not to moan until they miraculously do the right thing at random. even when you’re super upset you can still apply these skills.

wrong: “this place is a damn landfill because nobody but me does any housework!”

right: “there is some serious housekeeping fail going on around here. it’s kinda driving me bugfuck. i want to sit down and take a look at how we do the housework, because how we’re doing it right now sucks.”

see how the second one doesn’t blame? blame’s not important. responsibility is important, but that has to be worked out calmly or it’s not going to be functional. the first person is picking a fight; the second person is trying to solve a problem. you’ll notice they’re not smoothing ruffled feathers or acting apologetic, they’re clearly quite annoyed. but they’re aiming their anger at the situation, not the person.

even if they are angry with their housemate, working those feelings out is beyond the scope of the conversation. trying to combine venting with chore planning is, imo, the number one cause of screaming kitchen fights on planet earth.

Paper Mail Still Matters to People Behind Bars

moorbey:

Paper Mail Still Matters to People Behind Bars

By Victoria Law

Pennsylvania’s prisons have started digitizing letters to prisoners chargin

Mail call on Thursday, Sept. 13, was different from any other in Sheena King’s 26 years behind bars. As usual, the unit officer came to her door. But instead of handing her an envelope with a letter inside, he handed her four photocopied pages stapled together. “The first page is a copy of the front of…

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