...ngl, the fact that ADD and ADHD got condensed into ADHD when the hyperactivity specifically is part of the reason so many girls were simply not diagnosed drives me up the wall.

It's not that the whole name isn't bullshit, because it is. It describes the way people outside of our experience perceive us, as opposed to the difficulties that are part of our lived experience. Even from an outside standpoint, it's recognizable that "deficit" is not always the issue with our attention... but that's beside the point.

When psychiatrists noticed that ADD and ADHD were basically the same thing... they chose to favor the typical male presentation in the literal naming of the condition, and in doing so condemned a generation of girls (and other afab people) to suffer through being told they're so smart, they just don't apply themselves enough, that it's a personal failing they can't regularly turn in homework, that they're lazy for waiting until the last minute to work on an assignment... because those girls weren't hyperactive. Those girls just kind of drifted off and daydreamed in classes. Those girls doodled or wrote stories all through their school years, and functioned measurably worse when a teacher noticed they were doing that and tried to stop them. Those girls are now so many of my adult friends who are now being diagnosed with ADHD as adults, because the hyperactive part of the diagnosis almost solely applies to children (CHILDREN, when, I might note, this is a lifelong condition) who are socialized male.

We need a whole other name for the condition, because attention deficit is not our problem at all. But my god, the hyperactivity part actually ruined my life for so many years, because I had no way to explain to my dad why it physically hurt me to be bored, why I had to read or write or doodle in class in order to keep my focus, why I excelled in tests but failed at homework so my grades sucked because of that. No one even considered I might have ADHD, all through my childhood, but earlier this year I had the opportunity to go through all my grade school reports, and they could not be MORE CLEARLY talking about a child with ADHD. "Pleasure to have in class", "assignments not complete", "does not pay attention in class", "Birdie is a highly intelligent child with specific and unique needs" (I would LOVE more follow-up on that one, from third grade, do not have it). But I was a quiet and reserved child, so obviously I couldn't have ADHD.

I'm legitimately angry about it in retrospect. I went off my Adderall for a couple months recently, as an adult who only started taking Adderall as an adult, and it completely fucked up my ability to function. For years I was just out there as a teenager struggling through high school and college entirely unmedicated because as a child I was too withdrawn to be diagnosed. Fucking wild and also infuriating.

"suffer through being told they're so smart, they just don't apply themselves enough, that it's a personal failing they can't regularly turn in homework, that they're lazy for waiting until the last minute to work on an assignment... because those girls weren't hyperactive. Those girls just kind of drifted off and daydreamed in classes. Those girls doodled or wrote stories all through their school years, and functioned measurably worse when a teacher noticed they were doing that and tried to stop them"

"it physically hurt me to be bored, why I had to read or write or doodle in class in order to keep my focus, why I excelled in tests but failed at homework"

Wait is this not normal...I thought everyone related to this...I'm gonna go question everything in the corner see y'all later

Yeah friend, that's apparently not normal (I also had to figure this out, so trust I am not judging you) and is in fact a classic presentation of someone with ADHD who was socialized as a girl (I don't know if you personally were, there are obviously variations, but "boy ADHD" - aka the loud disruptive kind - tends to be diagnosed more and faster than "girl ADHD" - the quiet dissociative daydreaming kind-, whatever your actual gender and presentation.) You should maybe talk to your doctor. (Note: it's real hard to get meds right now, I'm still fighting with my pharmacy every fucking month for weeks at a time, but a diagnosis and knowing what you're dealing with can still help even if you can't get medication.)

i rember when i was in high school, hearing a teacher say “lebron james is rich, the guy who hands him his paycheck is wealthy”, and i think that that’s a really simple illustration of wealth and class that a lot of young leftists these days do not understand

i see a lot of young leftists these days thinking that “having a lot of money = oppressor”, which shows a fundamental misunderstanding in how social classes and the dynamics of power in society work, and as a result they go after actors, athletes, even youtubers, but the thing is most actors, athletes, and youtubers don’t actually own capital. actors don’t own disney or warner bros or 20th century fox, athletes don’t own their stadiums or sponsorship companies, and youtubers certainly don’t own youtube or advertising companies that sponsor youtube channels

many highly successful actors, athletes, and youtubers DO start their own businesses once they’ve amassed enough wealth, but it has to be understood that the large majority acquire their wealth through paychecks given to them, rather than through owning the means of production, and it’s the owning of capital that really determines who runs society and who doesn’t, because it’s those who own the means of production who gets to decide the affluence or poverty of those who don’t

What the fuck is this??????????

Folks: you CANNOT censor trigger tags. When you block a tag, it doesn't block other "spellings" of it. Writing it as "r@pe" or "r4p3" means that someone who has "tw rape" as a blocked tag will still see that post because you didn't wanna say the word rape. You are hurting people. Do not censor words, because people do not have those filtered out.

And honestly if you can't even write the word rape to protect other people then you probably aren't old/mature enough to be on this website.

This right here, if you want to consor something post a tw but stop censoring the words! it defeats the purpose of someone being able to block the content. 

Saw this on r/LGBT and figured my aspec followers would enjoy.

Are you sad that June is over and you don't have a pride month anymore? Fear not, friends! There's a different pride month just beginning!

lgballt

I just saw a story on AO3 tagged "pet p!ay"

TIK TOK MUST BE STOPPED BEFORE IT DESTROYS LANGUAGE

Ok, unless something's going on I'm not aware of (extremely likely), I gotta point out the term "Pet Play" is significantly older than Tik Tok, or most of its userbase for that matter.

Yeah, I'm not mad about using the term "pet play". That's a perfectly fine term. I'm mad because they didn't use that term: they used "pet p!ay", a censored version

Oh. Oh gawd I missed that. Objection withdrawn, that is objectively terrible.

To anybody who is new to posting on ao3, if you’re using a tag you have to use the correct spelling of that tag. People aren’t going to type in every version of a censored word to hide or look for your content 

For everyone new to tumblr, the same rule applies to tumblr too.

You cannot censor your tags! Censored tags cannot be block or filtered. Censoring tags HARMS your audience, it does not protect them

Y’all I read a lot of scripts. And the one note I give over and over and over and over to the point that I can pretty much copy and paste it from one review to another…. let your characters lie. Let them omit, stumble, and circumvent. Allow them to be completely unable to express what they’re feeling. Make them unable to admit a truth. Let them sit in silence because they can’t think of anything clever to say! Let them say the exact wrong thing!

Dee Rees talks about it in her BAFTA lecture (which you should ABSOLUTELY WATCH): that what your character actually says should be three degrees of separation away from what they mean to say.

I read script after script after script where characters articulate their needs, desires, and objectives with perfect accuracy off the cuff 24/7 and there is not one single human person on this planet who is actually able to do that. This is the #1 thing that’s going to make your script sound stilted and the #1 thing that’s going to make shit difficult on your actors. Let them shut up, and let them lie.

reblog if you wear glasses. too many mutuals don't know they have glasses wearers in their midsts

Quick reminder that July is disability pride month. Not “gay wrath month”.

When ableism is a massive issue in the queer community and most pride events aren’t accessible maybe y’all should. Idk. Try a bit fucking harder to educate urselves this July.