Sarah knows a lot about friendships the same way David Attenborough knows a lot about animal social hierarchies, but with fewer cameras and less funding
There was a girl in my high school who avoided interactions with everyone as much as possible, and for a long time I thought it was because she was concerned about being rejected. But later, I learned: she understood what friendships were really like and what our classmates were really like, and was concerned about being accepted.
Re: Yesterday’s comments and my cathartic wall of text, I’m REALLY REALLY sorry to those of you I triggered, and thank you all SO MUCH for your patience as I work out ways of processing and telling about my trauma that are more approachable and digestible to myself and others.
😞😞😞
I am just so grateful to still be part of this diverse, wonderful community that comes close as ever to understanding me, the fucked up weirdo I am (not that I think that’s a bad thing, I like a lot of things that are weird and fucked, like this comic, and Bravest Warriors)
Re: Today’s Strip, This is just one of the things I really love about Dina, how she’s willing to learn about the world and the people in it, even when it’s sometimes frustrating and confusing, even when she comes across ugly realities such as Joyce’s and Becky’s abuse and sexual hangups, among other things.
I feel really appalled and really sad that systematic racism stopped her from getting something she desired to help her in school, and/or even life in general.
But at the same time, I find cold, bitter-sweet comfort in knowing that, having not been diagnosed from such a young age, she was spared the horrible experiences, the legally-justified TORTURE, the insidious traps she could have fallen into if she got that official label. 😖
I don’t know if at all the comic will explore the dark side of the autism label, but if it does one day, however it’s addressed through the story, that Dina won’t be hurt!!!!
I empathize with what you went through, Wellerman, but my perspective is based on the fact that I wasn’t even diagnosable until I was 31, and most psychologists were still unwilling to even consider diagnosing an adult with autism until I was around 50. The horrible experiences and insidious traps were still there, though – corporate America is a horror show for those who can’t conform, who don’t understand office politics and who don’t even understand what they don’t understand (because everyone assumed you were “normal” and never needed to be told about social interactions).
Basically, what I’m saying here is that diagnosis or no, the rest of the world knows we’re weird and reacts badly. At least if you have the papers you can demand accommodation or threaten them with the ADA.
It’s really rough for us out there like you said, and just so you have complete understanding, it’s different if you get the label as a child like I did. It puts you at the mercy of school teachers and “professionals” who are often unsupervised, protected by the most impenetrable Kafka-esque systems.
Re: reacting badly to being “weird”, even if I could have learned to hide that, the “autism” label to those teachers, “professionals” and students was just a dead-give-away to me being “weird”, in addition to a million other hurtful assumptions and horrible treatment that they don’t dish out to just ANY “weird” kid.
Wierd is wonderfully. But so is normal. If people weren’t so wrapped up in trying to be normal and of part normative Societital constructs or if they didn’t preach that normal was best. then you wouldn’t have people hiding their non normatively. People’s fear of being weird, actually bloats the perception of the numbers of normative populous. That’s why it’s hard to understand that people with red hair are as common as intersex disorders. Because we don’t look at intersex disorders or phenotype everybody. We can see hair and there’s even cultural Trends towards different hair colors being preferable and getting her hair dyed to match those trends. But natural redheads are as common as most genetic variants of human or many forms of disorders.
If we called being a redhead a disorder it wouldn’t make sense either.
I completely understand that. I got diagnosed in 2020 at age 45. We’re pursuing diagnosis for my son, who will be 17 this month. I know why my childhood sucked so badly now, and I feel vindicated.
Weller, in spirit of trying to help you a bit with this, I’ll tell you two things that helped me cope with, and learn to live with my ’tism.
First: Finding a proper psychiatrist who understood me and gave me some bran pills that helped me manage the cocktail of weird shit in my brain. IT turned me into a zombie for a week or two when I first started taking them, but they really helped blunt the worst of the ’tism and learn how to interact with the normies. Once I learned how to do it, I used that as a baseline to establish a pattern to interact with them that I could keep for when I was off the meds. Eventually, like any other learned skill, it becomes mostly automatic. Of course, society changes, and we can’t adapt as fast as everyone else, but that’s what practice is for.
Second: Aging helps. A lot. Maybe a mixture of experience and the changing of brain biochemistry, but I’ve managed to get better at interacting with normies thanks to aging, and while I don’t have as many spoons for interacting with people, experience has helped me be a lot more granular with them. IE, I chipped my 5 spoons into 50 chunks of spoon I can accomodate better.
given as how autism is sortof a variable cocktail condition, with many unique house mixes, it’s maybe a case of targeting meds at a specific symptom, and if the rest of the brain/body system shakes out ok, it’s easier to function. it’s medication that is treating autism, but not ‘meds for autism’ as such.
tbf, most meds work like this. ibuprofen doesn’t treat menstrual cramping, it treats the associated inflammation. sometimes you can point medication at the lynchpin of a condition and slice through the whole gordian knot, but only sometimes.
Huh, just found out through a little research that Risperidone (which I do take to help the effectiveness of my Fluoxetine) does help treat irritability connected to autism
Guess that is what was meant by medicating Autism (also guess this explains why I’ve been less pissy lately)
I can attest to the fact that my autistic son gets very agitated and angry, and Risperidone is what he takes to help him stay calm.
I’m not sure it’s not partly a placebo effect, because he calms down fast after he takes it, and I sometimes wonder if it could really work that fast. But I’ve never taken it myself, so I can’t tell, and he can’t say.
—-> BTW I still don’t AT ALL at all feel comfy with people here calling me “autistic”, at least not yet.
And that’s what I’m getting at here, the struggle.
It’s like…. some part of me wants to call myself “autistic”, but I’m just so SCARED of being vulnerable. 😭
I just want a way to say it without saying “autism”, that’s equally valid and noticed.
I want a way to say it that ONLY keeps all the good parts, like people being able to read it fast, like how they can read something like “homoromantic bisexual gender-fluid” and instantly know that specific aspect about someone with very little reading, like being able to have this sense of community and relating to people who share some but not all experiences, a sense of powers, acknowledgement that I have to live differently,
that also keeps out all the bad parts, like something that if I say it, won’t make people out there subject me to condescending compassion, make hurtful assumptions, lump me in with those destined for mental deterioration and a cognitive fate worse than death, something that won’t make them infantilize me, something that won’t make people and employers use me as a token in their next pity party. something that won’t make people assume or think any part of me that I pride myself in is not really my own but down to some alleged, undue influence on my brain.
Like, it would really sadden me if I tried to make a name for myself out there in the world of science, invention, video games, creative work, etc., and if word got out I was “autistic”, and people would only pay attention to what I do because of the “autism” part, and it’s like, “oh, NOW you’re interested. Nice to know you only read what I write out of pity and that obligatory good deed you have to do so you don’t feel guilty for indulging in worldly pleasures and privilege and sugary foods and shit.
Also, that last part, about parts of myself that I KNOW are my own, my personality — I absolutely HATE it when people out there say things like “autistic people are more likely to be into STEM as a result of autism”.
Whether I ever call my neurodivergence “autism”, it should be known that my passion in STEM is NOT a biproduct of my neurodivergence. It’s a part of myself that I LOVE and that is my own, nothing to do with my neurodivergence.
And the people who think they can tell me otherwise because of the latest pop-psych pseudo-science brain bullshit peddled by greedy media corporations can all eat a double-decker ghost-pepper manure battery acid sandwich, just HATE the assumptions, you know?
I sure hope that’s palatable to the overwhelming majority of readers, but if it isn’t for whoever is reading this at the moment, I’m really sorry that I made you feel bad, however I made you feel bad.
I’m still learning, we’re ALL learning, and I love learning from all of you here, very grateful to have found this comic and it’s community.
Hopefully now with a clearer picture of my struggle, you might be able to think of ways you can help.
Thank you for taking the time to listen, really means the world to me.
also, i haven’t put up music as i almost always do here for a few days now, so…..
To be honest, a lot of what you’re saying here is why I’ve been reluctant to chase up my own diagnosis. I know I need to talk to a professional about my problems with sensory overload and anxiety, plus a few things that may be indicators for adhd if I’m really honest with myself, but I am worried for what it means for my work life. But the thing is that I’ve been called weird, talked down to and infantilised to some extent all my life without ever really knowing why. If I’m going to be treated that way anyway, maybe knowing the reason might be helpful and could grant me the help I need to properly address some of this stuff? Even if it’s just knowing that I am indeed neurodivergent and that’s the reason people aren’t really understanding what I’m trying to communicate? Does that make sense?
I absolutely HATE it when people out there say things like “autistic people are more likely to be into STEM as a result of autism”
And you have every right to!
For one, though ““autistic people are more likely to be into STEM” may of may not be statistically true (and with the way we diagnose it, I highly doubt that statistic would be scientifically relevant), it is important for everyone to understand that statistics mean nothing to an individual.
And then, the even more problematic part: “as a result of autism” is completely irrelevant to that statistic. We have no way (as of today) to know whether there is any link.
I wonder, have you tried meditation? I think that’s helped me a lot, kinda both understanding my own workings better, and also rely much less on other people’s opinions on me. Or maybe that second part is a good portion of ‘running out of fucks to give’ that just happened over time, I’m not sure…
Eeeh, I have no clue if my random tidbits are in any way helpful. You just remind me of past me in some aspects, so my first impulse is sharing stuff I came across and found helpful. If it annoys you I’ll stop ^^
No worries, thank you for the effort, I appreciate it. 🥲
But for me this struggle is like…. how do I put this? Maybe a helpful analogue….
I like being gender-fluid. I love it. I flow through and get the best of so many gender-worlds, genders that don’t even have names yet!
I can feel more fem fem one day and more femslick the next, genderless the on another, and so on and so on.
I like how there exists a word for this way I am, how people in an instant can read that word and know I can flow through all kinds of genders with no way to tell which one I might be next, no assuming it, that word makes it so easy to see so many other people out there who are also like this, people who also feel they shouldn’t be tied down to any one pre-existing gender category, having a word that just helps us connect, that validates us!
But “genderfluid” as a word did not always exist. As much as I am very grateful for having this widely recognized, valid word for this part of myself on this day and age, it makes me feel also very sad for the genderfluid individuals who existed before it.
What was it like for genderfluid individuals like me in the past before “gender-fluid” became a valid thing? How did it feel to be forced to shove yourself into a category that just didn’t fit you, just to be recognized? It must have been awful, just not having a word to validate an important part of yourself, not being able to find others like this.
I’m just so grateful that I have this word to express this part of myself and connect with others on it today, also one for how I’m sexually fluid, yay!!!
Same for my neurodivergence. I can feel like the various combinations that “”autism”” could mean one day, “ADHD” the next, neurodivergences that don’t have names yet!
But like, where’s the word for that? What’s a thing I could say with a compound word where this is a valid, recognized way of being, one that I and others like me could connect on?
How we self-identiy is important and valid. I may proudly identify as “autistic,” and loathe “person with autism,” but I strongly support others’ right to identify differently.
Thank you too for trying to help, much appreciated, too.
But sorry, no, still feels like a target on my back, and really doesn’t help that Autism Speaks and greedy media corporations pretty much own that, too. *sigh* 😔
Also “everyone is on the spectrum to some degree”, so…. 😟
So too much tangled in with condescending “compassion”, you know?
I do. The “everyone is on the spectrum to some degree” is just so aggravating, along with the supposed complement “Oh, you don’t act autistic at all!” That one is practically “You are a credit to your people.”
Like, the think I wanna highlight here is, “autism” the way it is used by people out there, in that “you don’t act autistic” and the “autism” here, might not be different words, but they might as well be.
And this is by no means exclusive to neurodivergence, either. You take a person from Harrison, Arkansas and one from Santa Cruz, California, and both say “freedom” or “peace” or “social order”.
They may not be using different words, but they mean different things. It’s like they’re both technically speaking “English”, yes, but they might as well be different languages.
And interestingly enough, many MANY languages around the world, languages spoken by nations next to each other, especially in places like Western Europe (just off the top of my head) use a lot of the same words and grammar but INSIST on calling each other different languages because of key political differences, very important differences.
Really interesting how humans and communication work like that, and very much worth noting on a multi-cultural frontier.
Now, if I notice something really important about human communication like that, am I suddenly more or less “”autistic”” or “”neurodivergent””?
If you can recognize the fundamental obstacles to answering that question, you are already shattering the grand illusion that keeps the powerful in power.
Hopefully you know now. And knowing is half the battle.
If you’re up for advice butting in, I do have a couple recommendations:
One’s comparatively easy, or at least short-term: Try and recognize when you need to bow out of the comments for the day or the rest of a scene. Doesn’t have to be because it’s touching a sore spot, sometimes I just drop because I know I’ll get involved all day if I don’t stop here, or because I can tell I’m getting too riled up about something trivial and need a cooldown period. (Do not overthink the ethics of Secret College Dorm Iguanas.) There’s also some weeks where I know I shouldn’t comment even if the subject’s innocuous because I KNOW I’m too emotionally worked up from IRL stuff to not spiral if I do post. (And sometimes I just don’t have anything to say. At least as frequent! But since I do use this comments section semi-socially I try and keep an eye on myself.) Figuring out the line is tricky, especially since it changes and some days I AM game to spend all day in DoA mode or suddenly have way less mental wherewithal than I thought, and I’ve definitely screwed up before, but it’s a learning process. Goal is to catch yourself sooner the second time, and sooner still the third. And then maybe on the fourth you don’t catch it until way later, but hey, it happens to the best of us. Try again with the fifth.
Longer term and requires putting yourself out there, but still doable so long as you have internet and privacy: I also think it’s probably worth looking into broader neurodivergent communities, for the ‘I wish I could call myself autistic without being so afraid’ aspect you mentioned downthread and general support. Unfortunately, medically-sanctioned child abuse is not unheard of in ‘treatments’ for autism. But that means there are other people who’ve come out the other side, and there are spaces specifically for talking about that kind of trauma. Plus, it tends to be restorative just finding a space where other people are on your same wavelength and comfortable with themselves. I know Reddit has some dedicated subreddits on the topic that are likely good resources, and if you check the right tags you can find communities of actual neurodivergent and autistic people on most of the other major social media sites. (Actually Autistic has cross-platform appeal, and I suspect Actually ADHD would exist by now as well. CripTheVote on Twitter is a more general disability activism tag and explicitly political – and US-based unless I’m HUGELY mistaken, general note – but it might give you an idea of people to follow. Neurodivergent or related words will get you better hits than ‘autism’ or ‘ADHD’ on their own but I can’t speak to that for sure. The other ones I know of off the top of my head at 2 AM are for physical disability and chronic illness, so not necessarily where I’d recommend for pure neurodivergence stuff.) One of the reasons I attend Disability Day of Mourning is that, as horrible as the reason behind it is, I still take some strength in being at a vigil and being able to grieve collectively with people who I know Get It in a space where I feel no pressure to mask (in the metaphorical sense. Still masking in the physical COVID sense. Plus no one can see your facial expression in one, win.) And I also attend less traumatic events which are more straightforwardly restorative. You don’t realize how freeing it is to not have to clap until you’re in a room where the norm is Jazz Hands of Acknowledgement instead, or where people are casually bringing stim toys or you can play a low-thought game while you talk. All of which occur in physical space, but I wouldn’t keep hanging out around here if I DIDN’T have other people who also like the Long Wordy Comment style to bounce off of.
If you have access and opportunity it also DEFINITELY sounds like something a trauma-informed, neurodiversity-positive therapist would benefit, but that’s a big if which is why I list it last. Money, proximity, the ability to do so in a safe environment, actually finding one with those specialties who you also click with… tricky to say the least, especially when the trauma INCLUDES past therapy. But if you can find that unicorn of a therapist, it really sounds like something you’d benefit from as well. Note for the future if nothing else.
It’s probably, you know, her one valid defense mechanism she was able to use, for her whole life, to take power away from her constant abuse and mistreatment? I bet her Mom was the same way. You can’t fight back, you can say what you mean, because other peoples’ emotions and the social cohesion naturally trump your wants and needs, in every situation, as a Good Christian Woman. But, you can bury your venting, and your own fishing for your needs to be heard, in layers of irascible snark, if you’re not too direct about it.
Imagine that everything you think and feel might get you punished. So, you pretend to think and feel different things, publicly. And, just to make sure, you exaggerate. You clown around, act over the top. And, you’ve done it all you life.
Then, you don’t have to hide. But you’ve spent so long clowning, and making misdirecting jokes, you don’t know how to not do it. The sass has become a part of Becky.
It can get a little hateful. Especially a few recent burns on Dorothy that cut more than their performative rivalry warrants. I still remember her stating Dorothy had no personality and could afford to be a bit more selfish just to make herself more interesting, while also doubling down on how unapologetic she was in her own characters flaws. That was harsh.
Yes, agree, Becky is due to learn a lesson herself. Joyce has been hit upside the head with a lot of lessons just recently and it would be nice to see some sympathy for her. I can see why Joyce is afraid to give Becky more ammunition to hit her in a very new, tender spot but I hope Becky would have a realization that’s she’s been using her Joyce as both a life-preserver and a punching bag.
Joyce needs to put up boundaries. Backy can be a good friend and often is. She just goes too far a lot of the time without realizing it. She needs to tone it way down but probably don’t get that unless joyce tells her how it makes her actually feel but she just bottles everything up and pretends its fine.
I think it’s helpful to remember that Becky’s internal experience, though not existing in the same particularly neuroses as Joyce, is absolutely benchmarked to her own constantly-looming internal sense of “everything about me is irreparably wrong, and everything I’ve ever experienced has come with the constant subtext of my eventual, eternal damnation.” Her fucking dad tried to kidnap her at gunpoint, for fuck’s sake. Every time she even hears herself think or feel anything, she hears that internalized harsh criticism, which comes naturally from her kind of extended, endless systemic trauma.
What I’m saying is, her practical concept for how harsh a criticism can be, is pretty out-of-whack with normies. Every expectation which has ever been foisted upon her, by others or by herself, carries that innate subtext of “you are completely, utterly wrong, and it’s your fault, and your responsibility to fix.” It’s no wonder she can’t get that exactly right, when she comes at criticism, itself, from the perspective of ingrained self-hatred. Her flippantness is supposed to soften the blow, but she seriously over-estimates how softened any given blow can get, because she’s used to huge amounts of persistent emotional abuse being treated as completely normal social interactions, and crucially, ones which her inadequacy is naturally and rightfully responsible for her to be receiving.
Becky also is aware that she’s been know to overstep her performative rivalry role and needs to ‘get her likability quotient back up’.
I think she’s lucky that Dorothy is a relative pushover, because most of Becky’s best relationships are with people that don’t really fight back hard – Joyce, Dorothy, Dina.
But also, I suspect, disarming Becky’s gauge for knowing when she’s going too far. If she’s actually doing it performatively as a friendly rivalry, I’d expect her to be watching for signs of pushback or of actual hurt from it to know when to dial back. Since she doesn’t get them, at least in a form she recognizes, it must all be fine and she can keep doing it.
But yeah, very definitely a coping mechanism for all her long term trauma. It’s a problem, but it’s a long way from “hateful”.
I mean, she wasn’t really making fun of Becky specifically. I know there’s been debate on whether she was specifically making fun of herself (that is, the person she used to be) or of Christians/Christianity in general, but honestly I don’t think anyone would be interpreting it as an insult to Becky in particular if she hadn’t entered the room at the worst possible time.
It’s mostly the way joyce stood her ground that turned it into more outright hatefulness. It probably started as venting about herself but once becky began questioning about what it meant it quickly turned to joyce being fairly inconsiderate towards anyone with religious beliefs, becky included and it only spiraled from there.
Becky barged in and decided to make Joyce’s crisis of faith all about herself, and quite frankly, all Joyce really did was respond in kind. It didn’t need to be about Becky, or Becky’s mom, or Becky’s faith, but Becky is the one who decided it needed to be about all of those things, so that’s what it became.
She wasn’t directly insulting Becky though, even if she was working through issues where she might have directly confronted Becky if she had more confidence in her own eloquence.
OOooooh. I wonder if Joyce “making fun of Becky”, indirectly, has anything to do with Becky constantly teasing her and a part of Joyce not really liking it? Hm.
I do really like the current arc of “Joyce is actually a little burned out on being everyone’s cute little joke”. It actually reminds me a lot of my issues with Dina-style representation–Joyce is an in-universe “quaint autistic” whose habits are seen as funny and charming, but not necessarily respected as those of a normal human being.
Hm, if you don’t mind, I would like clarification on one point: when you use Dina as an example of this kind of representation, does this mistreatment have to remain uninterrogated by the narrative for it to count, or no? The reason I ask is that just about every instance I can recall of her being infantilized by other characters for her autistic traits is *immediately* called out: Sarah angrily comes to her defense when Raidah assumes she’s mentally challenged, Dina angrily calls out her friends for saying that it was weird for Becky to like her because she “looks and acts like she’s 12,” and both Becky and Dina call out Robin for describing her as “That frightening dinosaur child.” If this trope is meant to describe narratives where such harmful views *aren’t* examined, then I’m not sure Dina qualifies despite being named as the prime example of said trope. I may well have misinterpreted some aspect of your argument, though.
When you say Sarah “angrily comes to her defense”, are you referring to her beating Raidah to a bloody pulp with the mannequin arm? That’s a little more than coming to somebody’s defense, innit?
Maybe I’m being a little sensitive about the arm thing because my bio-father died in a horrific freak mannequin accident when I were only a wee lass, but yeah the heart thing was a bit much even for the tougher among us. And after poor Raidah offered to buy everyone ice cream and all.
Oh, I actually think the NARRATIVE treats Dina that way. I can’t remember the last time she’s been allowed to just be a flawed person and not some sort of idealized autistic savant.
I’d say she was making fun of everyone “dumb” enough to believe in all of that, her own past self first among them.
(her motive being equal parts “scoring points with her cool new friend” and lashing out at who she used to be and those she blames for making her that way.)
Yeah, it wasn’t Dina getting mad at Joyce specifically, it was Dina getting mad at a system that puts her at a disadvantage through no fault of her own and Joyce was ‘Exhibit A’.
Like I said yesterday, her words and implied emphasis made her dialogue come across more pointed than she probably intended.
Well I was right about her keeping it a secret from Becky and now Dina is in a weird spot. She is not only keeping the secret of her and Becky fucking away from Joyce but now she also has to keep the secret of Joyce’s potential diagnosis.
Unfortunately, she’s not used to so much social interaction, and so keeping two separate secrets causes her to get her wires crossed and become confused.
Dina: Joyce and I fucked.
Becky: WHAT?!?!
Dina: Shoot, I messed up. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that or that you may be autistic.
I feel that isn’t giving Dina enough credit, I’m sure she will be able to keep it a secret until things are super tense. Thus we will see just how bad it can be.
I think she’s gonna be keeping it a secret…up until Becky scheming to “fix” Joyce’s atheism comes out. Dina is probably going to shock everybody, including herself, with how hard she goes in on Becky over that, Becky is going to say something genuinely dumb and hurtful and infantilizing to Dina without meaning to, and Joyce will probably have to patch that up.
It kinda feels like we skipped a moment. I guess Dina was moreso mad at the world for letting others luck into what she’d struggled for than at Joyce for being the hapless soul fate chose to enact its cruel machinations, or something. Although I’m certainly glad they’re not fighting lol
It makes sense, though I do agree that it feels like skipping a moment in at least Dina changing her expression. But I guess that’s part of the medium, only so much panel space.
I think there’s an inherent difference between the 2. In one case, Dina and Becky are telling as many people as they can except Joyce in order to share the Good News of their fucking. In the other, Joyce is struggling to process what could be a huge revelation about herself and the way she’s acted all her life, and she’s shared it with about 4 people who she’s looking to for support. There’s parallels from a broad view but they’re also very very different.
There’s no parallels though. Joyce is only singling out Becky to not tell here because that’s the one person in their close gourp that doesn’t already know, she’s not rushing to tell everyone else.
Actually, on the bright side, it could mean that when they inevitably DO learn each others’ secrets, their own guilt over keeping a secret from the other will prevent them from getting to mad at the other one for keep a secret from them, out of fear of looking hypocritical. One of the things I’ve been anticipating is Joyce getting really offended by Becky’s secret-keeping, but she’s way less likely to react that way if she’s keeping a secret of her own from Becky.
So now Dina is keeping a secret for Becky and a secret from Becky while also keeping a secret for Joyce and a secret from Joyce. Is this now technically a threesome?
Remember a few hours ago when I said this seemed more like a brief outburst of frustration and got told my mother loves on the Welsh countryside picking berries for a living?
Remember a few years ago when autocorrect had the slightest modicum of chill and wouldn’t “fix” extremely common words in ways that made no sense, long after you typed them correctly?
No, I only ever remember everyone cursing autocorrect from the moment it was invented. Maybe if it went away people would spend an extra minute or two thinking about their posts, and not say some really dumb things?
(ha ha ha ha ha no, it didn’t stop them before, but a man can dream)
I disable autocorrect. I use automatic substitutions to automatically fix my most common typos, and as an autocomplete for long, common phrases and Unicode emotes.
Kinda need it on for my phone, on account of the very small keyboard and inconsistent screen alignment. It’s only a problem when it forgets that the word “live” exists or something like that. It’s an accessibility tool.
I have 4th degree Atheism. Incurable unfortunately…Many professionals have tried to introduce religion to my body but my body just sorta rejects them. It’s left me in a state of disbelief.
i’m just more agnostic b/c of indifference/not caring since i haven’t had to deal with religious relatives or others beliefs trying to convert me but i could totally imagine that some minor deities could choose to reveal themselves and a handful would still just go on living their lives instead of automatically making shrines for them or so (would be quite interesting as celeb gossips if there was scandals of them dating normal humans but modern demon stuff like world of darkness/vtm is more fun in theory and prolly more chaotic irl compared to D&D campaigns lol)
I was diagnosed with atheism at a young age, probably between 7 and 9. A teacher got mad that I wanted to bring a certain book about wizards in to read during quiet time because [religious bullshit] and I said “Ms. Teacher, God’s not real, he’s in a book.” and she shriveled into fish dust.
On that topic, I feel like Atheism is a weird thing cuz whenever I talk to atheists they always have like…a super shitty story or a bad relationship with religion and I’m like. “Oh, I just uh…stopped believing. Y’know that journey song, “Don’t stop believing.” Well I didn’t do that.”
It’s weird to like say but like…I feel different because my divorce from religion wasn’t because of a negative experience or disagreeing with their stances or morals or whatever. I just…said one day “hm…I find all of this really hard to believe.”
Yeah, the level of vitriol that people have towards religion frequently has something to do with what religion has done to them or people they care about. And of course the people who have the strongest feelings about it are going to pipe up about it the loudest. So people who have shitty breakups with religion or feel like it lied to them are going to be more likely to have experiences worth talking about associated with their atheism.
Yeah, my first conversation (or at least the first I can remember) about atheism was actually very chill. We were, like, ten, and it was basically my friend trying (and, to my kid self, succeeding) to have a sophisticated conversation or whatever. Though also, after saying that she was an atheist, she said I was Christian because I believed in god, which wasn’t actually accurate. But again, ten.
I feel like most of the conversations around the subject I’ve had since then have been less chill (many for decent reason).
Oh, oh, but I am reminded of my dad’s story of why he stopped believing in the teachings of the church– basically, he was a young teenager, and the preacher said rock’n’roll was the music of the devil. And my dad was like, “Yeah, I’m done here.”
My experience was closer to this, neither of my parents were super religious and we went to an Episcopalian church, which was pretty mild. I went from believing to believing it was good to believe to uncertainty to being fairly certain that it was all made up.
I also found that the whole thing doesn’t make any sense once you get outside, it’s all built on only itself and has all the structural integrity of wet tissue paper.
You aren’t alone. My boyfriend has the typical atheist story of religion treating him poorly, but I just eventually realized that I never really believed in any of it. I had a very areligious upbringing too, which helped in making a clean transition into being an actual atheist.
My boyfriend and I get along really well, but sometimes it gets a bit awkward when the topic of religion comes up because he slants pretty “religious people are bad” in his atheism, while I have more of a “let people believe what they wish as long as they aren’t hurting anyone” stance. I get where he’s coming from, though.
“let people believe what they wish as long as they aren’t hurting anyone”I have a similar policy, but also accept that other people have a different definition of “not hurting anyone”.
For example, the mere existence of Church is taking funds away from other (less discriminatory?) organizations, which can be argued as “hurting people”.
You are definitely correct! I’m hopeful we’ll eventually reach a point where that won’t be the case, but that likely won’t be in my lifetime unfortunately.
I’m like Dorothy, raised atheist (or non-religious and finding atheism as the graceful default), and yeah, I don’t have the impulse to go and complain about religion that atheists escaping conservative religious background do.
OTOH that’s kind of a live and let live situation, especially with most of my friends being atheist or some variety of godless. On actual exposure to Creationists and other unpleasantness, I can turn militant atheist too.
MY experience with religion was great. The sect was even tolerant of *women*! And their right to their own body! (gasp!) I moved away from religion after travelling the world, observing, and participating in conflicts with religious foundations. I realized everyone was equally convinced of their correctness, and not one of them had a scrap of proof. Their religions *enabled* atrocities in their god’s name. I no longer wanted any part of religion.
Personally I don’t like telling people I “may” have ADHD cuz if I find out I don’t, then I’m a liar. Personally for me there’s been a weird comfort in the idea I maybe ND cuz that would finally explain a lot of my issues in life. But I also worry that I’m…too gleeful at the idea and I WANT this to be the case too much. So in order to temper my own expectations I try to avoid using language that implies I know for a fact that I have ADHD or the like.
Very similar in my case but with autism! I’m 85% sure I have it, but I don’t know for sure so I don’t want to act like I do. Having an official diagnosis, one way or another, would be very helpful.
Yeah, i just don’t like how difficult it is to express your relationship to labels like “ADHD” and “Austim”, i don’t AT ALL like the all-or-nothing package deal nature of how these are spoken of, at least in English
Hmmm…. OH! 😮 💡
Say, for those of you in the comments section who are fluent in other languages, I am really curious….
What does the word “autism” look like in non-Western languages?
Are there any words for it that came about separately from the Western concept?
How does their etymology look?
Are there any that drop implications that it’s a “disorder”, and instead presented as another valid way of living that doesn’t need to be “corrected”?
In Hebrew it’s… autism, but spelled with Hebrew letters.
Autism is such a specific, complex concept that I don’t think you’ll find an ancient word that gives you all of what Autism is, without just being a borrowed word for the DSM diagnosis.
That said, old-timey stories of changelings are a dead ringer for late-onset Autism, explained by having your toddler replaced by a mythical fae creature.
Whatever changelings are called in Gaelic, maybe try that.
Neurodivergents have more likely than not has existed as long as Homo sapiens have, including “autistics”, the many kinds of neurodivergents referred to by that.
I know there existed and still exist communities in the world that have made words for them.
I know out of those, there were at least a few in the past or today where they were treated humanely, and had those ways of living accepted.
I just need to know what those communities are/were.
Like, if cultures across the world, past and present, non-Western ones, indigenous tribes, had meaningful, palatable words and comfy places for gender-fluid individuals like myself, and were/are accepted in those societies, surely they had those words, those comfy places for the many different kinds of neurodivergents too! We might even be able to learn from their example!
Just thinking about it makes me SO HOPEFUL, SO HAPPY. 😭😭😭😭
I think most ND folk are pretty chill with self-diagnosis because of all the structural blockades in the way of getting a diagnosis (it’s expensive/gender and race biases/out of date doctors/differences in how it presents etc). Even if you “try for a diagnosis” and it misses, it doesn’t necessarily make you a liar. There’s also nothing wrong with identifying with traits of ADHD/Autism and not claiming the identity, too.
I’m the former: not formally DXed (cos it’s expensive) although confirmed by psychs and currently medicated. Definitely AuDHD, though. My sister is the latter, recognising that she has many of the traits but does not label herself because she has enough going on, and like Joyce has CPTSD type stuff muddying the water.
tl;dr However you choose to identify yourself is chill and the ND community would largely support you either way. <3
I recall you saying the other day about avoiding looking into it due to cost/not having insurance. I was recently diagnosed ADHD at 34, also have never had health insurance as an adult due to costs (usually the combo of crazy high student loan payments making me need to make a minimum amount of money to pay them + cost of living that left me never legally qualifying for subsidies.) After a discord friend of mine had used an online service to get a diagnosis + script (they used “Cerebral” which was available to them in California,) I sought out a similar service (“Circle Medical” for me, which was available in NJ.) It cost me a few hundred dollars the first few months (needing to have 2 video appointments / month initially,) and now costs me about $150 a month for a monthly check-in + cost of the adderall I get prescribed.
All that being said, I still wonder whether I really am ADHD or not – the service is very…brief and mostly about prescribing medication, I don’t have any sort of longform therapy or talk sessions to go along with it. The service I think somewhat feeds into people’s confirmation bias. I certainly think taking adderall has been helpful for me, at the least it help me cut down on my coffee/weed intake by about 90%, and has me feeling a bit more level throughout the day. These days I’m trying to hustle with the energy I have (doing a lot of Doordash) so I can finally feel financially secure enough to get health insurance and eventually therapy through that. I suspect that I might be some kind of ASD beyond ADHD, but it’s all just me in my head, so it’s hard to really know.
Anyway, since self-identifying ADHD through the diagnosis through this service, I’ve also had other ADHD folks give me the “yeah, that’s ADHD” in response to sharing various experiences.
I mean I’m gonna say being able to take Adderall at all and have that just *mellow you out* is a. PRETTY strong indicator that you Have It. To my knowledge Adderall is one of those meds that like. If you’re neurotypical, you will respond very differently. Adderall is a controlled substance in the US specifically because neurotypical folks use it to get high?
So yknow. If you take something that might get other people high, but it just makes you……feel normal, and reduces the need to self-medicate via other means, uh. You probably have the same or similar brain chemical deficiency as us more “credibly” diagnosed folks?
Another good think to look for as an indicator is to take all of people’s experiences with ADHD that you hear about, all of the various symptoms, take a long hard look at them……and then apply them to your parents, and see what sticks. (If they’re your bio parents). Because ADHD is HIGHLY genetic, so if you have it, the chances are more than likely one or both of your parents also have it.
Yeah, the “how Adderall affects me” was a factor in me eventually seeking the service/diagnosis. I had a few past experiences of taking Adderall (single doses) in years past where I had felt mostly that it had made me “feel normal” and made me feel like my thinking was more straightforward. Then not too long ago, I was underemployed and had a lot of free time – I had lots of goals/aspirations for various things (I do writing, music, illustration, and other arts oriented things,) and I found myself just completely unable to focus & initiate tasks, which was highly frustrating, knowing “I’ll likely not have this much free time again once I have to start working more.” Led me down a rabbit hole of learning about things like executive function and the like. At the same time, I had discovered that the pseudoephedrine I had been taking for allergy migraines was having an unintended side-effect of helping me get things done in the morning. Looking into that, I found that it more or less operates as a stimulant, and that there is some crossover in what PE and Adderall do for your brain. For about 10 days, I took 120mg extended release PE once daily, and felt like I had the best/most productive 10 days I had had in a long time. Knowing it wasn’t really wise or sustainable to take near max-dose PE every day, I used that as the pushing factor to pull the trigger on seeking out an affordable online service to get an Adderall scrip. It’s been a few months and I’m starting to forget how it felt like to not be on Adderall XR every day (as implied by my username, which somewhat communicates a degree of my experience in general / relation to memory.) It’s been helpful for sure, but obviously hasn’t been a “magic pill that fixes every issue I have instantly.” (Not that I expected it to be.)
I suspect my mother might have some degree of ADHD, though I don’t think she would agree with that herself, but I see it in how she operates and communicates. Right now, one of her old friends has been crashing at her house in her living room, who has ADHD and has been on Adderall for many years. When I told my Mom about the diagnosis, she was surprised because she has her way of thinking about me (“but you’re so smart and capable, I thought you were very good at focusing?”) Her friend who has ADHD has different sorts of symptoms/experiences than me, is more scattered/disabled by her symptoms in every day life where she struggles to do basic things without medication. It made me see that my Mom primarily associates ADHD with her & her symptoms, and therefore wouldn’t see me or herself in the same way. Funny enough, my mom is a pharmacy tech. I don’t really know much about my father or his medical history (he passed years ago & we weren’t very close,) but I have always suspected that he was ASD, significantly more so than my mother.
This, yeah. When I was given Ritalin as a kid, the doc said “she’s almost definitely got ADD, but we’ll know for sure if this brings her down to earth without making her bounce off the walls.”
And lo and behold….. xD yeah our brains do weird things with stimulants.
I got put on that stuff when I was in middle school. When I wasn’t just “high tired” loopy, It felt like my brain was redlining in first gear. All that happened was I got yelled at for “not engaging” instead of “not paying attention”.
That lasted a couple weeks, then I refused to take it anymore.
I mean, you’re not a liar for saying you may have ADHD. That is entirely true. If you said “I definitely do” before getting it confirmed, that’s a lie, but likewise if you said “I definitely don’t”, then that’s also a lie. “May” is the only true thing you can say about it.
Eh, I definitely have ADHD, but I cannot “confirm” it in a medical professional way cause I’m Ukrainian and we don’t exactly have the infrastructure for that.
(What mental health professionals we do have, I trust less than I trust Wikipedia, and yes that’s as condemning as it sounds)
I guess if you want to be particularly precise the correct phrasing is “the probability I have ADHD is exceedingly high” or “the probability I don’t have ADHD is negligible”, but… it’s funcitonally the same.
My position is that except in extreme cases, it isn’t worth bothering with diagnoses. Holding up “autism” or “ADHD” as an excuse for anti-social behavior isn’t accepted as an excuse. You can just tell people “I know I can be a bit difficult, thank you for putting up with my bullshit while I work through it” No medical diagnosis necessary.
I may be an extreme case, but I’ve found the existence of a label that other people know about to be exceedingly helpful in explaining that, like… what happens to me is a THING. People tend to be distrustful of stuff that feels NEW, what they had never heard about before, what they just don’t have a model for in their worldview. But if you start the conversation with “so you know there’s this thing called attention deficit disorder” they plug in their “oh yeah neurodivergence / mental illness / psychiatric stuff actually exists irl and isn’t just an insult punchline” world understanding module and can actually parse what you’re saying about your experiences/abilities in proper context.
Like, in most contexts you tell people “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you” and they think you are ignoring them on purpose, but you tell people “I’m sorry, my brain is buggy, I didn’t hear you” and you get a very different emotional context.
Depends on the person obviously, you ARE rendering yourself vulnerable to a lot of bullshit by making it be a THING, but, yeah. Lots of cases where it’s helpful.
That’s rather pessimistic, honestly. It’s just simply not fair to lump in all varieties of difficulties that might be caused by neurodivergence into ‘anti-social behavior’, and having to live your life constantly needing to apologize and be inherently ashamed of the way your brain naturally functions in a way which you can’t control. Because you are disabled. It’s not an ‘excuse’.
Yeah and I find that in a lot of situations it’s more practical to just describe specific symptoms anyway, e.g. “I’m really bad at multi-tasking, let’s find” or “I fidget a lot during lectures but it doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention, don’t let it bother you.” Labels like “ADHD” are so general and have such weird depictions in pop culture that using them can, weirdly enough, actually backfire by making people assume things about you that aren’t true at all, so in the interest of clear communication I often avoid them. It’s a pain in the ass, but that’s just the way it is these days…
Secrets on secrets on secrets. Wonder what other secrets people will end up keeping. Maybe they’ll amass enough secrets to explode in a secret-splosion!
Yeah, that adjustment from ‘this is a fun friend thing because I’m so weird hahaha’ to ‘actually this is just how my brain is and it’s not bad or wrong and I’d like to not be made fun of about it’ can lead to some… growing pains.
Makes me wonder how Joyce would react to knowing Dorothy has started joining Becky in teasing her about her eating habits. Hopefully Sarah’s blunt response is a wakeup call for Dorothy, lately it seems she’s been so busy trying to get Becky to like her she hasn’t noticed she’s starting to copy Becky’s less endearing traits.
It feels inevitable that Joyce and Becky are going to permanently go their separate ways. Not a bad thing and not even in a one person is better or worse than the other. You just grow apart from people during college, especially during freshman year. You get new cliques, go to different classes do different intermuruals and before you know it you’re just two different people who knew each other once.
Becky certainly seems to think this will happen, which is why she’s so possessive and overbearing, which make Joyce seek other people, thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy.
Oh also phew, good, Dina isn’t allowing any residual anger from Joyce’s robot comments cloud her judgement of the situation. I was worried some of that would bleed over
…I’m on the spectrum myself, it’s happened a few times with me until I calm down later then go, “…Crap I’m an idiot”
I thought we established in a previous arc that making fun of, teasing, or doing impressions of your friends was Illegal, Actually, in the judicial sense. The plot for this comments section is all over the place, we need to stop hiring so many different writers.
not saying he should be, but if walky was real he’d prolly insult the wrong person at some point and end up dealing with consequences, i was kinda blunt as a teen, not necessarily in an intentionally rude way but i wouldn’t have held it against anyone if i had been slapped once for shit i blurted out
Yeah, I think if Becky finds out (or more realistically, WHEN,) she’d be mortified. We know from the way she and Dina interact that Becky’s totally capable of having a wholly supportive relationship with someone who’s neurodivergent. Becky’s just used to Joyce’s quirks being Joyce’s Quirks, and her being the funny one to deflect away from anything she doesn’t want to call attention to, and so she figures this is a totally fine dynamic and has no idea Joyce has been bottling up the fact that she’s maybe not totally comfortable with her food habits being so restrictive and doesn’t want to be teased about it. (And I’ll note, Becky’s not the only one who does some ribbing on that particular front, which is the one we KNOW Joyce is insecure about. Dorothy, though, seems to have helped Joyce find at least one option to branch out into that’s different but Acceptably Non-Touching, though I’m not sure if she actively suggested it or anything. Tag trawl’s giving me nothing but I KNOW there was a strip where Dorothy’s like ‘I’m getting this but you don’t have to’ and Joyce says ‘actually this looks like it’d be fine’ or something when they’re eating on-campus.)
I think Joyce also probably WOULDN’T be okay with their relationship cutting all Becky Teasing (again, while I could forget something I don’t think she’s shown herself to be insecure about aspects that aren’t the food problem, or at least the one that is is because that specific special interest failed her, not that she gets special interests at all) and Becky would almost certainly do that because again, mortified.
Oof, the reality that Joyce fears Becky bullying her hurts, been there.
Sucks especially when you’re trying to be cool and nice to the friend group and no one seems to value how much it hurts cause “it’s not their intention”.
Hopefully Dorothy will maybe notice this element of the dynamic and support Joyce in at least calling Becky out if she does.
Outside of me feeling all vulnerable on autistic strips, I’m hoping Joyce and Dina can hang more, cause I genuinely feel like there could be a really good friendship there.
Me too, but I hope it’s made clear that it wouldn’t be because of some “autism buddies” thing, because you know, hurtful assumptions.
BTW I’m really sorry about my behavior towards you in the comments section yesterday,
I know how much the autism label you have gives you pride and joy, and I love that.
As someone who lives to bring people sugar and tea and rum, I could never live with myself if I grew to take happy things away from innocent people!
😔😔😔
At the same time, it’s like…. I want to be able to call myself “autistic”, without being so afraid. I want to be able to have this sense of connection and community with others on this level, re:neurodivergence, our brains, our superpowers, our struggles. I don’t want to feel so left out just because my stripes don’t quite fit under three neat little syllables.
I don’t mean to offend you or make you feel bad in any way from that, and really sorry in advance if I do. I just want to be understood.
You seem like a really nice person, Florence, and I don’t want you to feel bad.
Thank you for writing about yourself here, reading about the neat, happy things going on in your life is one of the things that helps me get through the days, very grateful for it.
Hey, your going through your own journey and your relationship to words is not wrong. Ultimately we are in the same neurodivergent community that understand how the judgment of the mind and all within impact our lives.
It’s all growing pains in a way. I’m trying to always be as good as I can. I don’t want anyone around here to feel like my presence is some kind of bad and makes them feel awful. I worry if I get too lost in the sauce of my own takes I’ll be alienating others like some have.
I guess I’m always feeling hesitation with disagreeing openly cause I fear conflict but that’s something I gotta work on and isn’t on anyone else.
I’ll also say I appreciate that we’re all having these dialogues about autism cause honestly feels like it doesn’t exist anywhere else online, even twitter.
And I like hearing about your experiences too wellerman, I think it’s good to understand these differences with the labels. I think I’ll always have a pride in autism due to many years of particulars, but your labels are ones you can find pride in, whatever they are.
🥲 Awe…. thank you Florence, so relieved to know that you have no hard feelings, so glad we can find common ground like this. 🥲🥲
re: worry about alienating people and always trying to be good as possible, believe me, you’re not alone. I almost always try to make an effort to diffuse things around here with alternate points of engagement and ice breakers with tasty food and music ’cause let’s face it — this comic can come across some things that can lead to real shit storms, and I don’t want people to feel left out of here just because they don’t want to engage in things that could get them triggered, and as important as discussion about hard issues like this can be, it’s nice and even arguably essential to have a little break, you know?
Speaking of which, yeah a real shame these kinds of honest as hell discussions about “autism” in particular don’t exist anywhere else. Which kind of relates to why I always put in in parentheses like that. Even when they do talk about it elsewhere, the “autism” they mean is overloaded with nearly impenetrable baggage that makes it impossible to speak for ourselves, of our experiences.
Re: Galaxy of Genders, fucking LOVE that!!!! 🤩🤩🤩 🌌🌌🌌
I mean, a genderfluid alien parasite myself (she / they), I like that exploration too, especially of fem fem places.
I get the best of a lot of gender worlds really, plus others from genders that don’t even have names yet!
I’m a gender space-time traveler, a shape-shifting alien hopping from world to world, form after form, trying on new ones, discovering new ones I like, like shopping malls on alien planets!!!!
I like being fluid like that, genderfluid, sexual-orientation fluid, fluid with the neurodivergent worlds….
I would really love to see them develop a friendship, one based on common traits, and ideally separate from their connection through Becky (which connection is really just…a huge and never-ending source of conflict, primarily for Dina, I think). They have a terrible history, and Joyce has been an ass to Dina a lot, but they have so much in common that there’s real bonding opportunities in the vein of “so how does it feel to—oh. You too?”
Yea, and I think Dina more than a lot of people could allow Joyce to in a way reinvent herself which she seems to want. Plus I feel like Joyce needs a friend who will allow her to be honest, and might allow Dina to be honest too. Dina did just say something negative in the previous strip and Joyce is still chill, maybe Joyce would allow Dina space to be less of the “soft bean” she’s expected to be.
I’m hoping Dorothy will start calling Becky out too, lately she’s been trying so hard to win Becky’s friendship she doesnt seem to take Joyce’s feelings into consideration as much. Also hoping Joyce calls them both out for treating her like a child, shes forgiving but her just friends think not saying anything means nothings wrong.
Thisssssss. Dorothy has been prioritizing winning over Becky above being a supportive friend to Joyce, even/especially when Becky and Joyce have been in conflict, recently.
And you know, that’s…a choice, and one she’s entitled to make. But also—why, Dorothy? There’s been an occasional vibe of “making sure the campsite is neater when she leaves then when she got there” where she wants to make sure Joyce has her other best friend firmly there for her when Dorothy departs for Yale. Unfortunately, it feels like it’s been quite awhile since Dorothy has been able to meet Joyce emotionally where she is, or recognize who she is, at this point in their respective journeys, so Dorothy’s attempts at preventative social care just seem….fruitless. Maybe a little misguided. Deluded, if I’m being extra-cranky.
Well, Dorothy did the same with Walky when they were dating. She was buying nice clothes for him even when she was thinking their relationship was just ‘for fun’.
Dorothy is, for all practical purposes, already the well-meaning but out-of-touch politician she aspires to be. That’s why she isn’t actually successful in persuading people to go along with her frequently-good ideas; she doesn’t actually have people skills, she has problem-solving skills, and she tackles social situations in precisely that “well-meaning but out-of-touch politician” mindset.
So, her cocksure attitude about all the problems she was “managing adequately” in her social circle, should be challenged pretty soon, as those issues grow and change into issues which are different than what Dorothy initially perceived, and beg her to change her solutions; but, she has no internal framework for altering her solutions to problems as those problems evolve beyond her initial understanding, which she is treating as concrete. She may be an old soul of a matronly healer at heart, but she’s also, like, 20, and she is nowhere near as skilled or knowledgeable as she tends to believe she is. The fact that even people around her who are not necessarily her friends, have commented on this about her in canon, implies to me that it’s a real problem we’ll see come to a head for her, at one point or another.
This for sure. In a very real sense, Dorothy would be better serving herself and her ideal future if she backed off the I Will Get The Best GPA a bit and did more socializing. Pick up the soft skills: reading people, connecting with people, establishing and developing even shallow or brief relationships.
I mean, Or she could work in a call center for a year or two. The good ones explicitly teach those things. (Or at least, the one I worked in did.)
It seems more like the dynamic is Joyce’s avoids telling personal things because she fears Becky picking on her, and Becky seems to be projecting how she would react onto Joyce (thinking joyce will laugh at her). I don’t want to blame Becky entirely but it does seem like nobody calling her out ever is the root of alot of their friendships strain.
They’re the most constant positive in each other’s lives that they both feel would be devastating to lose. Or even just, the emotional risk analysis doesn’t fall out well. I get it- the Best result is Good, but the Worst result feels So much more likely, and the sting of that emotional cost is still pretty recent from the atheist thing.
Or, Joyce and Becky are, historically, best friends, but their situation has gotten really fucking complicated lately and they’re walking on eggshells around each other.
From what little we’ve seen? Yeah. Becky did poke fun at Joyce’s insecurities when they were younger, but never to the degree that she did since coming to IU. And Becky WAS a good friend to Joyce – she picked out sausage on her pizza, and even Sarah inferred that Becky was the reason Joyce was remotely well-adjusted enough to come to IU.
Becky’s not been a GREAT friend lately, but she’s been a GOOD friend to Joyce for most of their lives.
Agreed, as of recently she has really taken joyces friendship for granted and has been putting a strain on it for months. I can understand that after going through so many stressfull things she might not be fully there as a friend, but shes outright been just mean or mocking her for really silly things since coming back and its not fair to joyce either.
The comment section seems to be taking Sarah’s word on this, but I’m not sure I agree with her assessment. Historically, the thing that tests Joyce and Becky’s friendship the most is change. Joyce just started building bridges with her oldest friend after a huge fight. Maybe she’s not so eager to test their strength by dropping a new personal discovery on them. Becky might be thinking the same thing, tbh.
Becky DOES make fun of Joyce. She leans on anxiety buttons she knows Joyce has specifically so she gets ‘awesome Joyce faces’ which is basically whatever face Joyce makes as she completely freezes up. She mocks Joyce’s food neuroses on a few different levels.
Sarah is correct: Becky makes fun of Joyce, and primarily things that might well just be how Joyce’s brain works. She’s also correct that it’s not entirely mean-spirited, but… well, Becky’s got a goodly amount of mean-spirited in her ‘I’m a goof so anything and everything is A-OK, you should be able to take a joke’ as a whole. The only character who gets 0% mean directed at her is Dina. Everyone else gets a higher or lower degree. (In my views: Dorothy highest, pretty much anyone masculine-presenting next, Joyce after that, the rest of the world after that, Dina on the floor at 0% mean.)
I also recently came to the realization that the “awesome Joyce faces” and freezing are probably mini-shutdowns from overwhelming emotion, which uh… makes it even more crappy
Yeah. The comment section seems to be Wholly Condemning Becky’s teasing Joyce about food stuff, for example, but so far I haven’t seen anyone mention her quietly picking the sausage off of Joyce’s pizza or offering to get her some plain chicken fingers or whatever it was to comfort her (granted she couldn’t afford them herself, but reminding Joyce they exist and can be readily obtained does, in my mind, ultimately serve the same overall purpose). Like, yes Becky makes fun of Joyce’s issues, and Joyce is probably less okay with that than she lets on, but I do think (1) Becky does actually care about making sure Joyce has what she needs and Joyce knows this, and (2) would lay off if Joyce told her that being teased was pissing her off or actually hurtful.
And that last part is important. Joyce is growing and changing. The old dynamic she had with Becky is no longer viable and is becoming a pain point, but it WASN’T always. Expecting Becky to just realize she’s being a crappy friend now and that Joyce needs non-jokesy support is…not reasonable, especially considering the fact that (as you pointed out!) change really seems to be the biggest source of stress for both of them. SO MUCH is changing, and that’s scary, and I can’t blame Joyce for wanting to hold onto familiarity a little longer in the face of a relationship that already seems to be cracking.
Am I saying their friendship is perfect and not dysfunctional and super-duper healthy? No. But I am saying it’s changing, and I’m frustrated with how many commentors seem to expect the characters to have the same perspective that we do as external observers. And I agree with your assessment.
Well yeah. All of this is true. But in order for Becky to be able to know that this is not okay and not working, JOYCE also needs to know that it is not okay and not working anymore. Joyce needs to be able to recognize that Becky making her uncomfortable isn’t just her own fault for not having thick enough skin or whatever, she needs to actually put the fault on Becky.
And that’s all anybody is doing. It’s pointing out that their dynamic is unbalanced, and that maybe, the way Becky acts isn’t acceptable anymore and needs to change. Heck, maybe even entertain the idea that it was never acceptable, actually, and that Joyce has had her perception of what is and is not acceptable totally warped by feeling compelled to believe that it ever was acceptable in the first place. (Warped by various factors of her upbringing, not just Becky, who isn’t even necessarily to blame and who also has had her perception similarly warped, but nonetheless this particular aspect of it is re-enforcing of that warped worldview and needs to be addressed.) Only by discussing and acknowledging that is moving towards that change even possible.
Just wanna chime in and say that this comment and dalniente‘s that it’s replying to are both nicely nuanced observations on a complex subject, and I really appreciated reading them both.
feels like it’d be impossible to have a ‘wholesome’ friendship as adults w/o a little bit of ribbing/teasing but hopefully ppl would respect boundaries if ppl are politely asked to stop mocking a specific thing, after that i wouldn’t rly blame them if someone cuts out a friend over certain issues or straight up gets into fist fights together
It is currently (or has recently been) deteriorating a branch of my friend group, and it’s really sad to see. I mean, there are other things going on to, but it feels like it started with ribbing/teasing that one person didn’t like. They tried to set a boundary, but it wasn’t respected. Unfortunately, these people lived in the same house, so they couldn’t exactly just step back at that point, and now things are… :/
It is difficult when good-natured ribbing slowly creeps into just being kinda mean territory and boundaries either aren’t established well or setting them throws the whole friendship dynamic in whack.
I think the last couple years especially have strained more than a few relationships to the point where the same good-natured jokes just don’t land as well anymore.
So we have: 1) Dina and Joyce keeping from Becky that the Joyce has been identified as probably autistic (and probably that Dina is likely autistic as well), 2) Dina and Becky keeping from Joyce that they’ve had sex, and 3) Joyce and Becky seemingly keeping the Faith-Off and its fallout from Dina.
Dina knows Joyce is ex-Christian. Becky has spoken about it to her openly, and also about her desire and attempts to re-convert Joyce. Dina does not, as far as we know, care about either of those things. (I mean, maybe she does have feelings about them and the comic hasn’t chosen to explore them, but she does know, and her reaction thus has been been “nothing”.)
“symptoms”, almost makes it sound like it’s a disease or something. 😟
Don’t blame ya, but neurodivergence, “autism” or not, isn’t functioning “incorrectly”, just functioning different, and I think the way we talk about the components that occur with or without each other should reflect that.
It’s more like “stripes”, I’d like that much better.
Also thank you for being here Rose, ❤️ Did ya see my response to you yesterday? 😉
makes me wonder if becky has any potential diagnoses herself, being through religious trauma probably does mess with any preexisting conditions. well, not that she has to have any personality disorders to explain her behavior but i wouldn’t be surprised if some of her actions was intensified/exaggerated b/c of repression/making up for lost time
I mean, she almost certainly has issues from long term childhood abuse, not just religious trauma. I don’t think we’ve seen any signs she has any preexisting conditions, but as you say they could just be lost under the trauma.
We could see signs for Joyce, but she wasn’t abused – at least not in nearly so obvious a way.
“online test for adult autism”, plug in characters. For me Becky got 8, Walky 10 (he blindly answered C to everything), Sarah 11, Dorothy 13 (she was falsely modest on a few), Joyce 14 (I wasn’t sure which extreme she’d mark on a few so I fudged with a middle answer), Drax the Destroyer 15, Dina 25. Scale 0..30. It would be good for someone else to repeat the experiment, perhaps with a different survey.
Not going back into that argument: Let’s say to a much lesser degree than Becky. Who was also spanked, but had the whole other level of Ross to deal with.
While I figured Dina’s anger was probably just a gut reaction and not reaaaally aimed at Joyce herself, I am so glad that its not aimed at Joyce, She’s been through enough lately without people being mad at her for something she had no control over.
But Sarah’s assesment is kinda right. Becky does make fun of Joyce often enough. I don’t think there’s true malice behind it, but that kinda thing, can put a strain on friendships too when it seems to happen too often, even if both assume theyre in on it.
Plus to be fair, Becky has been extra snippy and biting towards Joyce over the atheism thing so I can see WHY she might be worried she might use it as fuel.
I like to think thats one thing Becky WOULDN’T mock her over, but Becky is an agent of chaos and I have been wrong about her before.
But on the plus side, if she does use it as fuel I feel that will be the straw that breaks the camels back and people will finally call becky out on her shit.
I love Becky, she’s a great character that I do love, but her behaviour towards others has been kinda shitty and selfish for a while.
Yeah. I mean she backed down (slightly) with Dorothy, but only after she pushed it too far — she didn’t realise she was close to the line until she saw Dorothy’s reaction.
…okay, I was about to post a joke here, but seriously? Even if Dina had been ESL – I really have to ask – the way she’s been depicted thus far… I mean, I could believe that she hadn’t ever been referred for a diagnosis as autistic, but I really can’t believe that she had to fight for it. Okay, you can say white privilege, but I’m gonna need receipts. Just, anyone, as obviously autistic as Dina, written off for that reason.
(The white male idiot says white-male-autistically.)
A large, noisy percentage of humans blatantly suck, seemingly for the sake of it. A few extra years at a fancy school won’t ever remedy this, and arrogant pricks will absolutely flood any given profession, no exceptions.
As a fairly privileged (non-white) male from a relatively affluent family, I too find it hard to process, but… this IS a world where they used to use different criteria of “intelligence” when determining whether Black football players had suffered brain injuries in the course of their career when compared to white players. So if it did/does occur, I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised.
I actually know someone who got undiagnosed whenever she went to the doctor with her Asian parent and rediagnosed whenever she went with her white parent. Which is technically different from Dina’s situation but if anything more blatant.
I have a friend who is multiracial who runs into the issue of people believing they’re autistic in winter (when their skin lightens and they’re white passing) and disbelief in summer (when their tan combines with their bone structure to make them not white passing).
I’m a cis white female and medical sciences predominately focused on white Cis men for so long it took me over a decade to get diagnosed for a semi-common immune disorder that just more frequently presents in male POC and type 2 bipolar with “rapid cycles- the latter of which started showing over 15 years ago and is also fairly obvious if you know anything about my sleep/productivity cycle but it was also chocked up to different things. I had a russian friend who was bilingual from the start but the teacher thought she made up a word that was actually in the English dictionary and when she showed the teacher she got detention for being argumentative… so I can see it easily.
Oh! And often I have to bring my husband with me to the doctors because to this day and even with my medical history, doctors often don’t believe my diagnosis but if HE backs me up the appointment is quicker and I can just get on with my life with maintainer medications that have worked for the last 3 years…
I can envision a storyline where Dina is like “Wait. Becky is MAKING FUN of Joyce? For things that may be due to autism??” and basically becomes the first person to really call Becky out on her bullshit. I’d like for that to happen.
I don’t think the concern is Becky mocking Joyce for being autistic, I think the concern is that Becky might feel bad if she realizes she was mocking autistic traits.
I’m sorry for Joyce, but Sarah is right. Becky is a good friend, but she has not a good sense of humour, at least with Joyce. With Dina she was always extra sweet and careful. I wonder if Dina will envy this aspect of Joyce and Becky’s relationship or not. She sire seems surprised by this information. Also, I now kinda hope that everyone I the comic will share a secret with Dina telling her to not say that to someone in particular. Is Dina knowing that Joe like Joyce or not? I don’t remember right now. But…
Ok so Dina, who isn’t diagnosed but apparently *tried really hard to be* and dx or not seems to be well aware that she is, in fact, autistic, was just told her girlfriend makes fun of Joyce for autistic stuff.
I cannot see this going badly at all. /s
Also I guess it wasn’t actually Joyce Dina was mad at about the half hour thing. Which I kind of figured but it’s nice to know.
Did she say she never got diagnosed? I got the impression she was frustrated by years wasted getting a fairly obvious diagnosis, but I assumed she eventually got one.
I recall prior statements that Dina hadn’t been diagnosed with anything, but 1) that Word of Willis not in-text, and 2) there was the winter break so she could have finally succeeded then even if Word of Willis had been accurate at the time?
I mean, she doesn’t actually say she didn’t, but she’s also never said that she did either. There’s no indication in yesterday’s strip that she eventually succeeded.
The point is that Becky didn’t KNOW she was making fun of autistic traits, she thought it was just friendly banter. Knowing that Joyce is autistic might make Becky feel she had inadvertently crossed a line.
Since the spring semester started comic time, Sarah has been the healthiest person in Joyce’s social life. She let’s Joyce make her own decision. Has her back where it matters, and calls her out and cuts the bullshit where it’s needed. I have a feeling when this all shakes out its likely Joyce’s social circle will significantly change. And her possibly being Autistic may cause some unwelcome shifts in Becky/Dina’s relationship.
Okay, seems like Dina is not directing anger at Joyce, that is good. While I admit to not being her biggest fan, I do still like the character well enough and would be annoyed with her if that blew up into a bigger thing.
I love Sarah being perceptive enough to articulate the feeling Joyce can’t word, and I also love a good example of the difficulty autistic people often have articulating big emotions.
Like Joyce is, despite being very extroverted and expressive and good at masking, in some ways more affected by autism symptoms than the more stereotypical Dina. Dina is usually quite able to articulate and identify her own feelings, but Joyce usually isn’t in real time. Joyce is actually pretty similar to me in that her ability to word emotions is usually delayed while she processes them and figures them out. But at the same time she feels her emotions and reacts to them in real time without being able to word them, so both she and others can end up misunderstanding why she’s doing things (see also Joyce’s angry atheist routine).
Like people thinking she was holding on to creationism because of stubbornness and “just being Joyce” and loyalty to her church when she was actually a creationist because with her tendency to black and white thinking means if she starts questioning one part of what she’s been taught as objective fact she has to question everything. Like gay people was something she could fit in to her existing world view because the Bible is impossible not to contradict on moral issues because it’s self inconsistent, so when her view changed she could build a Biblical interpretation that fit her new views, but when it comes to something just plain not consistent with the Bible – in that case biblical literalism falls apart. And since biblical literalism was core to her upbringing, if she has to question that she has to question everything because it’s all connected. And then everything she was raised to believe is a goddamn lie. It was anxiety of the enormity of the implications that motivate her resistance to evolution more than anything else, but most people (even Becky) thought it was just Joyce being a fundie.
The autistic spectrum being, well, a spectrum, means that indeed, it manifests in different ways.
While it looks like Dina has trouble parsing non verbal communication, Joyce seems to be able to do that just fine, but cannot identify her emotions as well as Dina, let alone process them as well as most neurotypical people.
Well, folks who don’t have an element of alexithymia to their autism like I do can. I don’t get the impression Dina has that to a degree but I do get that read off Joyce.
Difficulty with emotional control is also part of impaired executive function. Most autistic people will have some level of impaired executive function, but emotional control is only one part of that and not everyone is going to have difficulties on that exact part of executive function.
I am wondering if you replied to the wrong person in error? I do not see where I mentioned body language beyond Joyce being expressive and good at masking and do not see how one could get an implication of universality of body language from my comment?
Did I accidentally reply to a comment? Meant to reply to a post. If so, my bad.
(Also I haven’t read all the comments because there’s a lot and also because this storyline touches on things fraught for me so I have limited spoons for comment engagement, so my bad if I’m touching on something someone else already said)
Like I may be projecting here, but genuinely I feel that Joyce’s angry atheist routine isn’t because she’s genuinely disdainful of all religion, it’s a trauma response to realizing she was raised in a cult and breaking free of the cult mindset. She doesn’t attack Sarah or Ethan for their faith, but she does get pissed at Becky. Why?
I think it’s because Joyce sees the religion she was raised in as an abusive garbage system that is, to her, synonymous with her mom, John and Toedad. To her, when Becky insists there’s worth in it Joyce hears an enabler of the abuse she lived and sees her strong, smart funny friend justifying the beliefs that led the religious school to kick Becky out, lead her to be shunned for not abandoning her best friend, and lead her best friend’s dad to kidnap her at gunpoint.
Joyce’s relationship with her former religion is all wrapped up in trauma and abuse, and she is legitimately triggered by Becky insisting she should keep the faith.
Meanwhile Becky’s deep faith is her source of comfort and seeing Joyce reject her faith feels like yet another rejection of HER and yet another demand that she cut off parts of herself for others’ comfort, this time from the one person she trusts to be there no matter what. It’s no wonder Becky is reacting by doubling down on the religious pressure. Even though I don’t think she’s in the right here.
Which is why I think the rift between Joyce and Becky is only going to get worse unless Becky accepts Joyce’s atheism isn’t a rejection of Becky.
You’ve done a very well done job of providing a summary of this. I applaud this cause everytime I tried it was a goddamn novel length break down of the Becky/Joyce dynamic. I agree with you on this though.
I agree with all of this. Also, just to point out as an addition to what you said….Joyce didn’t go to Becky and start crapping on her faith. She actually did her best to hide her atheism from her friend when the anniversary of her mom’s death came around and Becky needed her to engage with the concept of Heaven and the idea that Becky would see her mom again. Which is, I can guarantee, an extremely difficult and painful thing to do even if you DON’T hate lying as much as Joyce does and DON’T have the fraught history with that faith that Joyce does.
Becky hearing Joyce venting her frustration and taking it personally was deeply unfair, AND it probably did not help Joyce’s feeling that her old church still has its hooks in Becky in a terrible horrible no-good very bad way. Like you said, Joyce’s relationship with her former religion is wrapped up in trauma and abuse… and that interaction did NOT help matters.
So yeah, I really don’t see their relationship improving until they’re able to accept each other’s very different levels of faith, either.
As someone who went through a similar life trajectory as Joyce (except for the religious fundamentalism – the cult like group I was raised in wasn’t religious and my parents are an atheist and a lapsed Presbyterian, respectively so I has a pretty secular upbringing. But hard right wing conservatism, authoritarian physically and emotionally abusive environment, and fucked up views in disability, gender and sexuality we had in spades) I agree with you totally.
It’s actually a source of a rift between my siblings and I. I have similar associations with rural lifestyle as Joyce does with religion & my sibs are all about that Instagram worthy #HomesteadLife . Several of them view my rejection of the rural lifestyle and avowed committment never to live in a place where I can’t disappear into a crowd again a rejection of them, but like. To me, a rural environment where everyone knows everyone is just suffocating because if you’re the local weirdo everyone knows everyone means rumors about you make their way round town 5x over, getting weirder each time, before you’re even aware they exist. Which is usually when someone’s yelling at you for something 98% made up.
So like I also anticipate I have a real good idea for why “Jordan is too Jordan” to be around the community. I think I know EXACTLY why.
Well, hyperbole. Not exactly why, but I do have a very good idea.
(Oh the rural gossip mill shenanigans stories I could tell! There was the time me going for a jog to train for basketball somehow became I was on the run from the cops because I had vandalized a store, there was the time the prepubescent grow out before you grow up growth pattern meant I was pregnant at 12, there was the time speaking my knee became I was faking for painkillers and a drug dealer, the time sleeping in class because I had depression because I was getting bullied and having total strangers maliciously ruin my reputation for amusement meant I was on drugs… I could go on. All because I was the town weirdo and therefore an easy target and anyone would believe anything about me).
I’m sure suburbia has its own issues and also that there are benefits to the rural lifestyle. My sister insists she has the most supportive community ever. But like many environments, if you’re in the in group it’s great. And if you’re not, it’s awful.
That is absolutely BATSHIT, and I say this as someone with a lifetime of lingering trauma from a childhood as a social pariah. Like, my experiences were not good, but I have never witnessed THAT level of rumormongering.
Each time I see a image Willis already put on a preview on his Twitter or Instagran, I feel like I reached a milestone. Like today.
Do you feel like it, too?
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ironic that SARAH is schooling Joyce about friendships
Sarah knows a lot about friendships the same way David Attenborough knows a lot about animal social hierarchies, but with fewer cameras and less funding
Sir David got a GCMG in the Jubilee honours list!
I’m hoping she might be unintentionally schooling Dorothy too. Joyce’s eating habits are something she joked with Becky about not too long ago.
Sarah knows a lot about friendship dynamics which is why she avoids them
This.
There was a girl in my high school who avoided interactions with everyone as much as possible, and for a long time I thought it was because she was concerned about being rejected. But later, I learned: she understood what friendships were really like and what our classmates were really like, and was concerned about being accepted.
Isn’t “making fun of your friends in a way that isn’t ENTIRELY mean-spirited, but maybe it is a little” kind of Sarah’s precise area of expertise?
Also this.
Re: Yesterday’s comments and my cathartic wall of text, I’m REALLY REALLY sorry to those of you I triggered, and thank you all SO MUCH for your patience as I work out ways of processing and telling about my trauma that are more approachable and digestible to myself and others.
😞😞😞
I am just so grateful to still be part of this diverse, wonderful community that comes close as ever to understanding me, the fucked up weirdo I am (not that I think that’s a bad thing, I like a lot of things that are weird and fucked, like this comic, and Bravest Warriors)
Re: Today’s Strip, This is just one of the things I really love about Dina, how she’s willing to learn about the world and the people in it, even when it’s sometimes frustrating and confusing, even when she comes across ugly realities such as Joyce’s and Becky’s abuse and sexual hangups, among other things.
I feel really appalled and really sad that systematic racism stopped her from getting something she desired to help her in school, and/or even life in general.
But at the same time, I find cold, bitter-sweet comfort in knowing that, having not been diagnosed from such a young age, she was spared the horrible experiences, the legally-justified TORTURE, the insidious traps she could have fallen into if she got that official label. 😖
I don’t know if at all the comic will explore the dark side of the autism label, but if it does one day, however it’s addressed through the story, that Dina won’t be hurt!!!!
😭😭😭
I empathize with what you went through, Wellerman, but my perspective is based on the fact that I wasn’t even diagnosable until I was 31, and most psychologists were still unwilling to even consider diagnosing an adult with autism until I was around 50. The horrible experiences and insidious traps were still there, though – corporate America is a horror show for those who can’t conform, who don’t understand office politics and who don’t even understand what they don’t understand (because everyone assumed you were “normal” and never needed to be told about social interactions).
Basically, what I’m saying here is that diagnosis or no, the rest of the world knows we’re weird and reacts badly. At least if you have the papers you can demand accommodation or threaten them with the ADA.
Thank you for sharing, very much appreciated.
It’s really rough for us out there like you said, and just so you have complete understanding, it’s different if you get the label as a child like I did. It puts you at the mercy of school teachers and “professionals” who are often unsupervised, protected by the most impenetrable Kafka-esque systems.
Re: reacting badly to being “weird”, even if I could have learned to hide that, the “autism” label to those teachers, “professionals” and students was just a dead-give-away to me being “weird”, in addition to a million other hurtful assumptions and horrible treatment that they don’t dish out to just ANY “weird” kid.
Wierd is wonderfully. But so is normal. If people weren’t so wrapped up in trying to be normal and of part normative Societital constructs or if they didn’t preach that normal was best. then you wouldn’t have people hiding their non normatively. People’s fear of being weird, actually bloats the perception of the numbers of normative populous. That’s why it’s hard to understand that people with red hair are as common as intersex disorders. Because we don’t look at intersex disorders or phenotype everybody. We can see hair and there’s even cultural Trends towards different hair colors being preferable and getting her hair dyed to match those trends. But natural redheads are as common as most genetic variants of human or many forms of disorders.
If we called being a redhead a disorder it wouldn’t make sense either.
I completely understand that. I got diagnosed in 2020 at age 45. We’re pursuing diagnosis for my son, who will be 17 this month. I know why my childhood sucked so badly now, and I feel vindicated.
Weller, in spirit of trying to help you a bit with this, I’ll tell you two things that helped me cope with, and learn to live with my ’tism.
First: Finding a proper psychiatrist who understood me and gave me some bran pills that helped me manage the cocktail of weird shit in my brain. IT turned me into a zombie for a week or two when I first started taking them, but they really helped blunt the worst of the ’tism and learn how to interact with the normies. Once I learned how to do it, I used that as a baseline to establish a pattern to interact with them that I could keep for when I was off the meds. Eventually, like any other learned skill, it becomes mostly automatic. Of course, society changes, and we can’t adapt as fast as everyone else, but that’s what practice is for.
Second: Aging helps. A lot. Maybe a mixture of experience and the changing of brain biochemistry, but I’ve managed to get better at interacting with normies thanks to aging, and while I don’t have as many spoons for interacting with people, experience has helped me be a lot more granular with them. IE, I chipped my 5 spoons into 50 chunks of spoon I can accomodate better.
I have never heard of meds for Autism. Autism is often comorbid with a lot of stuff that can be medicated, however
So I’m kind of staring at this all, “Meds… For Autism?”
given as how autism is sortof a variable cocktail condition, with many unique house mixes, it’s maybe a case of targeting meds at a specific symptom, and if the rest of the brain/body system shakes out ok, it’s easier to function. it’s medication that is treating autism, but not ‘meds for autism’ as such.
tbf, most meds work like this. ibuprofen doesn’t treat menstrual cramping, it treats the associated inflammation. sometimes you can point medication at the lynchpin of a condition and slice through the whole gordian knot, but only sometimes.
Huh, just found out through a little research that Risperidone (which I do take to help the effectiveness of my Fluoxetine) does help treat irritability connected to autism
Guess that is what was meant by medicating Autism (also guess this explains why I’ve been less pissy lately)
I can attest to the fact that my autistic son gets very agitated and angry, and Risperidone is what he takes to help him stay calm.
I’m not sure it’s not partly a placebo effect, because he calms down fast after he takes it, and I sometimes wonder if it could really work that fast. But I’ve never taken it myself, so I can’t tell, and he can’t say.
I’ve seen the effects with a relative with dementia. She wasn’t aware it was in her tea but it does calm her very quickly.
I really thank you for that, Mr D.
—-> BTW I still don’t AT ALL at all feel comfy with people here calling me “autistic”, at least not yet.
And that’s what I’m getting at here, the struggle.
It’s like…. some part of me wants to call myself “autistic”, but I’m just so SCARED of being vulnerable. 😭
I just want a way to say it without saying “autism”, that’s equally valid and noticed.
I want a way to say it that ONLY keeps all the good parts, like people being able to read it fast, like how they can read something like “homoromantic bisexual gender-fluid” and instantly know that specific aspect about someone with very little reading, like being able to have this sense of community and relating to people who share some but not all experiences, a sense of powers, acknowledgement that I have to live differently,
that also keeps out all the bad parts, like something that if I say it, won’t make people out there subject me to condescending compassion, make hurtful assumptions, lump me in with those destined for mental deterioration and a cognitive fate worse than death, something that won’t make them infantilize me, something that won’t make people and employers use me as a token in their next pity party. something that won’t make people assume or think any part of me that I pride myself in is not really my own but down to some alleged, undue influence on my brain.
Like, it would really sadden me if I tried to make a name for myself out there in the world of science, invention, video games, creative work, etc., and if word got out I was “autistic”, and people would only pay attention to what I do because of the “autism” part, and it’s like, “oh, NOW you’re interested. Nice to know you only read what I write out of pity and that obligatory good deed you have to do so you don’t feel guilty for indulging in worldly pleasures and privilege and sugary foods and shit.
Also, that last part, about parts of myself that I KNOW are my own, my personality — I absolutely HATE it when people out there say things like “autistic people are more likely to be into STEM as a result of autism”.
Whether I ever call my neurodivergence “autism”, it should be known that my passion in STEM is NOT a biproduct of my neurodivergence. It’s a part of myself that I LOVE and that is my own, nothing to do with my neurodivergence.
And the people who think they can tell me otherwise because of the latest pop-psych pseudo-science brain bullshit peddled by greedy media corporations can all eat a double-decker ghost-pepper manure battery acid sandwich, just HATE the assumptions, you know?
I sure hope that’s palatable to the overwhelming majority of readers, but if it isn’t for whoever is reading this at the moment, I’m really sorry that I made you feel bad, however I made you feel bad.
I’m still learning, we’re ALL learning, and I love learning from all of you here, very grateful to have found this comic and it’s community.
Hopefully now with a clearer picture of my struggle, you might be able to think of ways you can help.
Thank you for taking the time to listen, really means the world to me.
also, i haven’t put up music as i almost always do here for a few days now, so…..
*plays “Creeping Shadows” from Bleach Best Songs CD on hacked muzak*
To be honest, a lot of what you’re saying here is why I’ve been reluctant to chase up my own diagnosis. I know I need to talk to a professional about my problems with sensory overload and anxiety, plus a few things that may be indicators for adhd if I’m really honest with myself, but I am worried for what it means for my work life. But the thing is that I’ve been called weird, talked down to and infantilised to some extent all my life without ever really knowing why. If I’m going to be treated that way anyway, maybe knowing the reason might be helpful and could grant me the help I need to properly address some of this stuff? Even if it’s just knowing that I am indeed neurodivergent and that’s the reason people aren’t really understanding what I’m trying to communicate? Does that make sense?
I absolutely HATE it when people out there say things like “autistic people are more likely to be into STEM as a result of autism”
And you have every right to!
For one, though ““autistic people are more likely to be into STEM” may of may not be statistically true (and with the way we diagnose it, I highly doubt that statistic would be scientifically relevant), it is important for everyone to understand that statistics mean nothing to an individual.
And then, the even more problematic part: “as a result of autism” is completely irrelevant to that statistic. We have no way (as of today) to know whether there is any link.
I wonder, have you tried meditation? I think that’s helped me a lot, kinda both understanding my own workings better, and also rely much less on other people’s opinions on me. Or maybe that second part is a good portion of ‘running out of fucks to give’ that just happened over time, I’m not sure…
Eeeh, I have no clue if my random tidbits are in any way helpful. You just remind me of past me in some aspects, so my first impulse is sharing stuff I came across and found helpful. If it annoys you I’ll stop ^^
No worries, thank you for the effort, I appreciate it. 🥲
But for me this struggle is like…. how do I put this? Maybe a helpful analogue….
I like being gender-fluid. I love it. I flow through and get the best of so many gender-worlds, genders that don’t even have names yet!
I can feel more fem fem one day and more femslick the next, genderless the on another, and so on and so on.
I like how there exists a word for this way I am, how people in an instant can read that word and know I can flow through all kinds of genders with no way to tell which one I might be next, no assuming it, that word makes it so easy to see so many other people out there who are also like this, people who also feel they shouldn’t be tied down to any one pre-existing gender category, having a word that just helps us connect, that validates us!
But “genderfluid” as a word did not always exist. As much as I am very grateful for having this widely recognized, valid word for this part of myself on this day and age, it makes me feel also very sad for the genderfluid individuals who existed before it.
What was it like for genderfluid individuals like me in the past before “gender-fluid” became a valid thing? How did it feel to be forced to shove yourself into a category that just didn’t fit you, just to be recognized? It must have been awful, just not having a word to validate an important part of yourself, not being able to find others like this.
I’m just so grateful that I have this word to express this part of myself and connect with others on it today, also one for how I’m sexually fluid, yay!!!
Same for my neurodivergence. I can feel like the various combinations that “”autism”” could mean one day, “ADHD” the next, neurodivergences that don’t have names yet!
But like, where’s the word for that? What’s a thing I could say with a compound word where this is a valid, recognized way of being, one that I and others like me could connect on?
How we self-identiy is important and valid. I may proudly identify as “autistic,” and loathe “person with autism,” but I strongly support others’ right to identify differently.
How does “on the spectrum” feel to you?
Thank you too for trying to help, much appreciated, too.
But sorry, no, still feels like a target on my back, and really doesn’t help that Autism Speaks and greedy media corporations pretty much own that, too. *sigh* 😔
Also “everyone is on the spectrum to some degree”, so…. 😟
So too much tangled in with condescending “compassion”, you know?
I do. The “everyone is on the spectrum to some degree” is just so aggravating, along with the supposed complement “Oh, you don’t act autistic at all!” That one is practically “You are a credit to your people.”
OMG Right?!?!?!
Like, the think I wanna highlight here is, “autism” the way it is used by people out there, in that “you don’t act autistic” and the “autism” here, might not be different words, but they might as well be.
And this is by no means exclusive to neurodivergence, either. You take a person from Harrison, Arkansas and one from Santa Cruz, California, and both say “freedom” or “peace” or “social order”.
They may not be using different words, but they mean different things. It’s like they’re both technically speaking “English”, yes, but they might as well be different languages.
And interestingly enough, many MANY languages around the world, languages spoken by nations next to each other, especially in places like Western Europe (just off the top of my head) use a lot of the same words and grammar but INSIST on calling each other different languages because of key political differences, very important differences.
Really interesting how humans and communication work like that, and very much worth noting on a multi-cultural frontier.
Now, if I notice something really important about human communication like that, am I suddenly more or less “”autistic”” or “”neurodivergent””?
If you can recognize the fundamental obstacles to answering that question, you are already shattering the grand illusion that keeps the powerful in power.
Hopefully you know now. And knowing is half the battle.
I usually self identify as a Sperg.
If you’re up for advice butting in, I do have a couple recommendations:
One’s comparatively easy, or at least short-term: Try and recognize when you need to bow out of the comments for the day or the rest of a scene. Doesn’t have to be because it’s touching a sore spot, sometimes I just drop because I know I’ll get involved all day if I don’t stop here, or because I can tell I’m getting too riled up about something trivial and need a cooldown period. (Do not overthink the ethics of Secret College Dorm Iguanas.) There’s also some weeks where I know I shouldn’t comment even if the subject’s innocuous because I KNOW I’m too emotionally worked up from IRL stuff to not spiral if I do post. (And sometimes I just don’t have anything to say. At least as frequent! But since I do use this comments section semi-socially I try and keep an eye on myself.) Figuring out the line is tricky, especially since it changes and some days I AM game to spend all day in DoA mode or suddenly have way less mental wherewithal than I thought, and I’ve definitely screwed up before, but it’s a learning process. Goal is to catch yourself sooner the second time, and sooner still the third. And then maybe on the fourth you don’t catch it until way later, but hey, it happens to the best of us. Try again with the fifth.
Longer term and requires putting yourself out there, but still doable so long as you have internet and privacy: I also think it’s probably worth looking into broader neurodivergent communities, for the ‘I wish I could call myself autistic without being so afraid’ aspect you mentioned downthread and general support. Unfortunately, medically-sanctioned child abuse is not unheard of in ‘treatments’ for autism. But that means there are other people who’ve come out the other side, and there are spaces specifically for talking about that kind of trauma. Plus, it tends to be restorative just finding a space where other people are on your same wavelength and comfortable with themselves. I know Reddit has some dedicated subreddits on the topic that are likely good resources, and if you check the right tags you can find communities of actual neurodivergent and autistic people on most of the other major social media sites. (Actually Autistic has cross-platform appeal, and I suspect Actually ADHD would exist by now as well. CripTheVote on Twitter is a more general disability activism tag and explicitly political – and US-based unless I’m HUGELY mistaken, general note – but it might give you an idea of people to follow. Neurodivergent or related words will get you better hits than ‘autism’ or ‘ADHD’ on their own but I can’t speak to that for sure. The other ones I know of off the top of my head at 2 AM are for physical disability and chronic illness, so not necessarily where I’d recommend for pure neurodivergence stuff.) One of the reasons I attend Disability Day of Mourning is that, as horrible as the reason behind it is, I still take some strength in being at a vigil and being able to grieve collectively with people who I know Get It in a space where I feel no pressure to mask (in the metaphorical sense. Still masking in the physical COVID sense. Plus no one can see your facial expression in one, win.) And I also attend less traumatic events which are more straightforwardly restorative. You don’t realize how freeing it is to not have to clap until you’re in a room where the norm is Jazz Hands of Acknowledgement instead, or where people are casually bringing stim toys or you can play a low-thought game while you talk. All of which occur in physical space, but I wouldn’t keep hanging out around here if I DIDN’T have other people who also like the Long Wordy Comment style to bounce off of.
If you have access and opportunity it also DEFINITELY sounds like something a trauma-informed, neurodiversity-positive therapist would benefit, but that’s a big if which is why I list it last. Money, proximity, the ability to do so in a safe environment, actually finding one with those specialties who you also click with… tricky to say the least, especially when the trauma INCLUDES past therapy. But if you can find that unicorn of a therapist, it really sounds like something you’d benefit from as well. Note for the future if nothing else.
Oh Sarah knows mean-spirited. Of course I still love her.
When is Dina going to realize how hateful Becky is to Joyce and Dorothy?
And actually I love these matching awkward secrets.
Hateful isn’t the word I’d use, I don’t think there’s any malice there.
It’s passive aggression, usually done with an “I’m just joking” tone.
It’s probably, you know, her one valid defense mechanism she was able to use, for her whole life, to take power away from her constant abuse and mistreatment? I bet her Mom was the same way. You can’t fight back, you can say what you mean, because other peoples’ emotions and the social cohesion naturally trump your wants and needs, in every situation, as a Good Christian Woman. But, you can bury your venting, and your own fishing for your needs to be heard, in layers of irascible snark, if you’re not too direct about it.
Yeah, it’s more…
Imagine that everything you think and feel might get you punished. So, you pretend to think and feel different things, publicly. And, just to make sure, you exaggerate. You clown around, act over the top. And, you’ve done it all you life.
Then, you don’t have to hide. But you’ve spent so long clowning, and making misdirecting jokes, you don’t know how to not do it. The sass has become a part of Becky.
It can get a little hateful. Especially a few recent burns on Dorothy that cut more than their performative rivalry warrants. I still remember her stating Dorothy had no personality and could afford to be a bit more selfish just to make herself more interesting, while also doubling down on how unapologetic she was in her own characters flaws. That was harsh.
Yes, agree, Becky is due to learn a lesson herself. Joyce has been hit upside the head with a lot of lessons just recently and it would be nice to see some sympathy for her. I can see why Joyce is afraid to give Becky more ammunition to hit her in a very new, tender spot but I hope Becky would have a realization that’s she’s been using her Joyce as both a life-preserver and a punching bag.
Joyce needs to put up boundaries. Backy can be a good friend and often is. She just goes too far a lot of the time without realizing it. She needs to tone it way down but probably don’t get that unless joyce tells her how it makes her actually feel but she just bottles everything up and pretends its fine.
“both a life-preserver and a punching bag” is a very apt metaphor for this kind of toxic friend dynamic. Nicely done.
I think it’s helpful to remember that Becky’s internal experience, though not existing in the same particularly neuroses as Joyce, is absolutely benchmarked to her own constantly-looming internal sense of “everything about me is irreparably wrong, and everything I’ve ever experienced has come with the constant subtext of my eventual, eternal damnation.” Her fucking dad tried to kidnap her at gunpoint, for fuck’s sake. Every time she even hears herself think or feel anything, she hears that internalized harsh criticism, which comes naturally from her kind of extended, endless systemic trauma.
What I’m saying is, her practical concept for how harsh a criticism can be, is pretty out-of-whack with normies. Every expectation which has ever been foisted upon her, by others or by herself, carries that innate subtext of “you are completely, utterly wrong, and it’s your fault, and your responsibility to fix.” It’s no wonder she can’t get that exactly right, when she comes at criticism, itself, from the perspective of ingrained self-hatred. Her flippantness is supposed to soften the blow, but she seriously over-estimates how softened any given blow can get, because she’s used to huge amounts of persistent emotional abuse being treated as completely normal social interactions, and crucially, ones which her inadequacy is naturally and rightfully responsible for her to be receiving.
Becky also is aware that she’s been know to overstep her performative rivalry role and needs to ‘get her likability quotient back up’.
I think she’s lucky that Dorothy is a relative pushover, because most of Becky’s best relationships are with people that don’t really fight back hard – Joyce, Dorothy, Dina.
Tbf, dorothy fights back by being nicebsck, completely disarming her from ammunition to use.
That is a fair point, Becky mostly copes by being defensive and snarky, similar to Walky. Or Carla. Or Jennifer. Or Malaya.
There’s a lot of them in this comic, that’s all.
But also, I suspect, disarming Becky’s gauge for knowing when she’s going too far. If she’s actually doing it performatively as a friendly rivalry, I’d expect her to be watching for signs of pushback or of actual hurt from it to know when to dial back. Since she doesn’t get them, at least in a form she recognizes, it must all be fine and she can keep doing it.
But yeah, very definitely a coping mechanism for all her long term trauma. It’s a problem, but it’s a long way from “hateful”.
Becky makes fun of Joyce, Joyce makes fun of Becky, is that really their relationship? I think that’s a bit pessimistic but this is a Sarah take.
Has… Joyce ever made fun of Becky?
Technically, she did so when making fun of religion with Liz.
I mean, she wasn’t really making fun of Becky specifically. I know there’s been debate on whether she was specifically making fun of herself (that is, the person she used to be) or of Christians/Christianity in general, but honestly I don’t think anyone would be interpreting it as an insult to Becky in particular if she hadn’t entered the room at the worst possible time.
It’s mostly the way joyce stood her ground that turned it into more outright hatefulness. It probably started as venting about herself but once becky began questioning about what it meant it quickly turned to joyce being fairly inconsiderate towards anyone with religious beliefs, becky included and it only spiraled from there.
Becky barged in and decided to make Joyce’s crisis of faith all about herself, and quite frankly, all Joyce really did was respond in kind. It didn’t need to be about Becky, or Becky’s mom, or Becky’s faith, but Becky is the one who decided it needed to be about all of those things, so that’s what it became.
Oh this again. No, Becky violated her privacy and threw a tantrum because she heard things that were not meant for her ears.
Joyce needs better friends in general, but Becky is by far the worst.
Joyce was attacking a strawman of the kind of person she used to be, and inadvertently cast a wide net Becky got caught in.
(Becky was only there because she tracked Joyce down and Kramered into a conversation she wasn’t part of, but still…)
Yeah pretty much
Depending on who you ask she was making fun of Becky during the incident where she was outed as an Atheist
She wasn’t directly insulting Becky though, even if she was working through issues where she might have directly confronted Becky if she had more confidence in her own eloquence.
OOooooh. I wonder if Joyce “making fun of Becky”, indirectly, has anything to do with Becky constantly teasing her and a part of Joyce not really liking it? Hm.
I do really like the current arc of “Joyce is actually a little burned out on being everyone’s cute little joke”. It actually reminds me a lot of my issues with Dina-style representation–Joyce is an in-universe “quaint autistic” whose habits are seen as funny and charming, but not necessarily respected as those of a normal human being.
Hm, if you don’t mind, I would like clarification on one point: when you use Dina as an example of this kind of representation, does this mistreatment have to remain uninterrogated by the narrative for it to count, or no? The reason I ask is that just about every instance I can recall of her being infantilized by other characters for her autistic traits is *immediately* called out: Sarah angrily comes to her defense when Raidah assumes she’s mentally challenged, Dina angrily calls out her friends for saying that it was weird for Becky to like her because she “looks and acts like she’s 12,” and both Becky and Dina call out Robin for describing her as “That frightening dinosaur child.” If this trope is meant to describe narratives where such harmful views *aren’t* examined, then I’m not sure Dina qualifies despite being named as the prime example of said trope. I may well have misinterpreted some aspect of your argument, though.
When you say Sarah “angrily comes to her defense”, are you referring to her beating Raidah to a bloody pulp with the mannequin arm? That’s a little more than coming to somebody’s defense, innit?
Dunno, it looks like proportionated response to me. Extracting her heart and eating it, on the other hand…
Maybe I’m being a little sensitive about the arm thing because my bio-father died in a horrific freak mannequin accident when I were only a wee lass, but yeah the heart thing was a bit much even for the tougher among us. And after poor Raidah offered to buy everyone ice cream and all.
Oh, I actually think the NARRATIVE treats Dina that way. I can’t remember the last time she’s been allowed to just be a flawed person and not some sort of idealized autistic savant.
I’d say she was making fun of everyone “dumb” enough to believe in all of that, her own past self first among them.
(her motive being equal parts “scoring points with her cool new friend” and lashing out at who she used to be and those she blames for making her that way.)
Oh, WHEW, yesterday’s tension diffused.
Now we can start some brand-new tension today. And then again 24 hours from now. And every night after that.
Or we can just dredge up past tension and argue about who’s the monster in the Joyce/Becky fight.
To paraphrase Repercussions of Evil, “No, comments section, you are the monsters.”
And then the comments were zombies.
Yeah, it wasn’t Dina getting mad at Joyce specifically, it was Dina getting mad at a system that puts her at a disadvantage through no fault of her own and Joyce was ‘Exhibit A’.
Like I said yesterday, her words and implied emphasis made her dialogue come across more pointed than she probably intended.
Sarah: Becky makes fun of you and is a bad friend, you stupid dumbass.
Also Sarah: What? I never claimed to be a good friend.
Sarah is a big sister, she’s never claimed to be a friend.
I read Sarah’s comment more like an explanation to Dina: “Becky may feel bad about her pranks with hindsight”.
Well I was right about her keeping it a secret from Becky and now Dina is in a weird spot. She is not only keeping the secret of her and Becky fucking away from Joyce but now she also has to keep the secret of Joyce’s potential diagnosis.
Must be fun being Dina sometimes. :V
Unfortunately, she’s not used to so much social interaction, and so keeping two separate secrets causes her to get her wires crossed and become confused.
Dina: Joyce and I fucked.
Becky: WHAT?!?!
Dina: Shoot, I messed up. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that or that you may be autistic.
I feel that isn’t giving Dina enough credit, I’m sure she will be able to keep it a secret until things are super tense. Thus we will see just how bad it can be.
I think she’s gonna be keeping it a secret…up until Becky scheming to “fix” Joyce’s atheism comes out. Dina is probably going to shock everybody, including herself, with how hard she goes in on Becky over that, Becky is going to say something genuinely dumb and hurtful and infantilizing to Dina without meaning to, and Joyce will probably have to patch that up.
And then Becky will be out of the way for the true OTP, Dina and Ruth. You’re on to someone here.
I hate how plausible this is.
Dina: “It came up during that meeting about your birth control…”
Becky: “WHY WOULD I NEED BIRTH CONTROL?! WHAT IS GOING ONNNNNN”
It kinda feels like we skipped a moment. I guess Dina was moreso mad at the world for letting others luck into what she’d struggled for than at Joyce for being the hapless soul fate chose to enact its cruel machinations, or something. Although I’m certainly glad they’re not fighting lol
It makes sense, though I do agree that it feels like skipping a moment in at least Dina changing her expression. But I guess that’s part of the medium, only so much panel space.
Yeah agreed! I envisioned a much worse outcome
I wish they had at least a panel of cooldown, though. As it stands, this just feels like one more negative interaction the two have had.
I see it like Joyce managed to not take it personally and changed the subject to deflect Dina’s justifiable anger.
But yes I too was thinking out possible replies and this was not one, lol.
Now Joyce is getting in on this “let’s keep secrets from only one person specifically”
I’m sure like with Becky this will go perfectly fine and not blow up in her face in any way
(To head off the inevitable replies yes I know both are perfectly entitled to keep both things secret I’m just nothing the parallels here)
I think there’s an inherent difference between the 2. In one case, Dina and Becky are telling as many people as they can except Joyce in order to share the Good News of their fucking. In the other, Joyce is struggling to process what could be a huge revelation about herself and the way she’s acted all her life, and she’s shared it with about 4 people who she’s looking to for support. There’s parallels from a broad view but they’re also very very different.
Exactly, Joyce wishing to keep it private vs Becky going out of her way to tell everyone Joyce and only Joyce can’t be told.
Noting*
Stupid autocorrect changing the word I type
There’s no parallels though. Joyce is only singling out Becky to not tell here because that’s the one person in their close gourp that doesn’t already know, she’s not rushing to tell everyone else.
Two situations don’t have to be exactly the same to have parallels though
Actually, on the bright side, it could mean that when they inevitably DO learn each others’ secrets, their own guilt over keeping a secret from the other will prevent them from getting to mad at the other one for keep a secret from them, out of fear of looking hypocritical. One of the things I’ve been anticipating is Joyce getting really offended by Becky’s secret-keeping, but she’s way less likely to react that way if she’s keeping a secret of her own from Becky.
Oh good, the political science class is a eerie black abyss. Nice to know somethings never change.
robin’s hair
Love you Sarah. You do good as surrogate big sis sometimes.
This is still going pretty well, which makes me happy but also nervous.
So now Dina is keeping a secret for Becky and a secret from Becky while also keeping a secret for Joyce and a secret from Joyce. Is this now technically a threesome?
Maybe the plot to a Three’s Company episdoe.
Except Joyce has to pretend she isn’t straight to avoid getting kicked out of the apartment?
Haha seriously, how bizzaro world was that plot?
Panel 1: The face of current and continuous fury.
Panel 5: Sarah brings the heat.
Guess everyone up in arms about Dina’s anger last strip should’ve just waited a day, huh?
(we will never learn, mostly because there’s too many of us)
I mean, her anger at the system would be justified, it’s not a bad talking point.
Wait? Preposterous! I want to be angry at fictional characters and the commenters who may or may not support them now!
Remember a few hours ago when I said this seemed more like a brief outburst of frustration and got told my mother loves on the Welsh countryside picking berries for a living?
You know, I woke up later than usual yesterday, saw the comment count already and thought, “I can skip a day,” but
It was a very civil, productive conversation all ’round.
Remember a few years ago when autocorrect had the slightest modicum of chill and wouldn’t “fix” extremely common words in ways that made no sense, long after you typed them correctly?
No, I only ever remember everyone cursing autocorrect from the moment it was invented. Maybe if it went away people would spend an extra minute or two thinking about their posts, and not say some really dumb things?
(ha ha ha ha ha no, it didn’t stop them before, but a man can dream)
I disable autocorrect. I use automatic substitutions to automatically fix my most common typos, and as an autocomplete for long, common phrases and Unicode emotes.
Own your tpyos, people!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Kinda need it on for my phone, on account of the very small keyboard and inconsistent screen alignment. It’s only a problem when it forgets that the word “live” exists or something like that. It’s an accessibility tool.
The DoA comment section swear autocorrect is an amazing joy and definitely a feature more than a bug.
Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Your mother sounds pretty cool. The Welsh countryside is gorgeous, and it is berry picking season.
I refuse! I am here to REACT
“Everything Becky makes fun of, Joyce could eventually be diagnosed for.”
…can a person get diagnosed with atheism?
I have 4th degree Atheism. Incurable unfortunately…Many professionals have tried to introduce religion to my body but my body just sorta rejects them. It’s left me in a state of disbelief.
i’m just more agnostic b/c of indifference/not caring since i haven’t had to deal with religious relatives or others beliefs trying to convert me but i could totally imagine that some minor deities could choose to reveal themselves and a handful would still just go on living their lives instead of automatically making shrines for them or so (would be quite interesting as celeb gossips if there was scandals of them dating normal humans but modern demon stuff like world of darkness/vtm is more fun in theory and prolly more chaotic irl compared to D&D campaigns lol)
I was diagnosed with atheism at a young age, probably between 7 and 9. A teacher got mad that I wanted to bring a certain book about wizards in to read during quiet time because [religious bullshit] and I said “Ms. Teacher, God’s not real, he’s in a book.” and she shriveled into fish dust.
Just so you and Yotomoe both know, I actually lol’d at this bit. Good one, both of you.
On that topic, I feel like Atheism is a weird thing cuz whenever I talk to atheists they always have like…a super shitty story or a bad relationship with religion and I’m like. “Oh, I just uh…stopped believing. Y’know that journey song, “Don’t stop believing.” Well I didn’t do that.”
It’s weird to like say but like…I feel different because my divorce from religion wasn’t because of a negative experience or disagreeing with their stances or morals or whatever. I just…said one day “hm…I find all of this really hard to believe.”
Yeah, the level of vitriol that people have towards religion frequently has something to do with what religion has done to them or people they care about. And of course the people who have the strongest feelings about it are going to pipe up about it the loudest. So people who have shitty breakups with religion or feel like it lied to them are going to be more likely to have experiences worth talking about associated with their atheism.
Yeah, my first conversation (or at least the first I can remember) about atheism was actually very chill. We were, like, ten, and it was basically my friend trying (and, to my kid self, succeeding) to have a sophisticated conversation or whatever. Though also, after saying that she was an atheist, she said I was Christian because I believed in god, which wasn’t actually accurate. But again, ten.
I feel like most of the conversations around the subject I’ve had since then have been less chill (many for decent reason).
Oh, oh, but I am reminded of my dad’s story of why he stopped believing in the teachings of the church– basically, he was a young teenager, and the preacher said rock’n’roll was the music of the devil. And my dad was like, “Yeah, I’m done here.”
My experience was closer to this, neither of my parents were super religious and we went to an Episcopalian church, which was pretty mild. I went from believing to believing it was good to believe to uncertainty to being fairly certain that it was all made up.
I also found that the whole thing doesn’t make any sense once you get outside, it’s all built on only itself and has all the structural integrity of wet tissue paper.
You aren’t alone. My boyfriend has the typical atheist story of religion treating him poorly, but I just eventually realized that I never really believed in any of it. I had a very areligious upbringing too, which helped in making a clean transition into being an actual atheist.
My boyfriend and I get along really well, but sometimes it gets a bit awkward when the topic of religion comes up because he slants pretty “religious people are bad” in his atheism, while I have more of a “let people believe what they wish as long as they aren’t hurting anyone” stance. I get where he’s coming from, though.
“let people believe what they wish as long as they aren’t hurting anyone”I have a similar policy, but also accept that other people have a different definition of “not hurting anyone”.
For example, the mere existence of Church is taking funds away from other (less discriminatory?) organizations, which can be argued as “hurting people”.
You are definitely correct! I’m hopeful we’ll eventually reach a point where that won’t be the case, but that likely won’t be in my lifetime unfortunately.
I’m like Dorothy, raised atheist (or non-religious and finding atheism as the graceful default), and yeah, I don’t have the impulse to go and complain about religion that atheists escaping conservative religious background do.
OTOH that’s kind of a live and let live situation, especially with most of my friends being atheist or some variety of godless. On actual exposure to Creationists and other unpleasantness, I can turn militant atheist too.
Same. Raised areligious, settled into atheism. I’ve only been to masses at weddings and funerals, and holidays are secular gift exchanges.
My beef with religion is when it’s used as an excuse to oppress people who aren’t part of the “in” group.
“My religion says I can’t do that”? Sure, cool. You do you.
“My religion says you can’t do that”? Get bent.
MY experience with religion was great. The sect was even tolerant of *women*! And their right to their own body! (gasp!) I moved away from religion after travelling the world, observing, and participating in conflicts with religious foundations. I realized everyone was equally convinced of their correctness, and not one of them had a scrap of proof. Their religions *enabled* atrocities in their god’s name. I no longer wanted any part of religion.
Yes. And in some places, convicted of it.
Keep in mind that the original usage of the word was as an insult to other Christians.
And then it got applied to Spinoza and the resultant herem basically killed him.
Personally I don’t like telling people I “may” have ADHD cuz if I find out I don’t, then I’m a liar. Personally for me there’s been a weird comfort in the idea I maybe ND cuz that would finally explain a lot of my issues in life. But I also worry that I’m…too gleeful at the idea and I WANT this to be the case too much. So in order to temper my own expectations I try to avoid using language that implies I know for a fact that I have ADHD or the like.
Yoooooooooo, same hat.
Very similar in my case but with autism! I’m 85% sure I have it, but I don’t know for sure so I don’t want to act like I do. Having an official diagnosis, one way or another, would be very helpful.
I have an official diagnosis and still feel this way somehow
Yeah, i just don’t like how difficult it is to express your relationship to labels like “ADHD” and “Austim”, i don’t AT ALL like the all-or-nothing package deal nature of how these are spoken of, at least in English
Hmmm…. OH! 😮 💡
Say, for those of you in the comments section who are fluent in other languages, I am really curious….
What does the word “autism” look like in non-Western languages?
Are there any words for it that came about separately from the Western concept?
How does their etymology look?
Are there any that drop implications that it’s a “disorder”, and instead presented as another valid way of living that doesn’t need to be “corrected”?
In Hebrew it’s… autism, but spelled with Hebrew letters.
Autism is such a specific, complex concept that I don’t think you’ll find an ancient word that gives you all of what Autism is, without just being a borrowed word for the DSM diagnosis.
That said, old-timey stories of changelings are a dead ringer for late-onset Autism, explained by having your toddler replaced by a mythical fae creature.
Whatever changelings are called in Gaelic, maybe try that.
Neurodivergents have more likely than not has existed as long as Homo sapiens have, including “autistics”, the many kinds of neurodivergents referred to by that.
I know there existed and still exist communities in the world that have made words for them.
I know out of those, there were at least a few in the past or today where they were treated humanely, and had those ways of living accepted.
I just need to know what those communities are/were.
Like, if cultures across the world, past and present, non-Western ones, indigenous tribes, had meaningful, palatable words and comfy places for gender-fluid individuals like myself, and were/are accepted in those societies, surely they had those words, those comfy places for the many different kinds of neurodivergents too! We might even be able to learn from their example!
Just thinking about it makes me SO HOPEFUL, SO HAPPY. 😭😭😭😭
According to foclóir.ie, the Gaelic word is iarlais. Not a speaker, so I won’t make any assumptions on pronunciation.
I think most ND folk are pretty chill with self-diagnosis because of all the structural blockades in the way of getting a diagnosis (it’s expensive/gender and race biases/out of date doctors/differences in how it presents etc). Even if you “try for a diagnosis” and it misses, it doesn’t necessarily make you a liar. There’s also nothing wrong with identifying with traits of ADHD/Autism and not claiming the identity, too.
I’m the former: not formally DXed (cos it’s expensive) although confirmed by psychs and currently medicated. Definitely AuDHD, though. My sister is the latter, recognising that she has many of the traits but does not label herself because she has enough going on, and like Joyce has CPTSD type stuff muddying the water.
tl;dr However you choose to identify yourself is chill and the ND community would largely support you either way. <3
I recall you saying the other day about avoiding looking into it due to cost/not having insurance. I was recently diagnosed ADHD at 34, also have never had health insurance as an adult due to costs (usually the combo of crazy high student loan payments making me need to make a minimum amount of money to pay them + cost of living that left me never legally qualifying for subsidies.) After a discord friend of mine had used an online service to get a diagnosis + script (they used “Cerebral” which was available to them in California,) I sought out a similar service (“Circle Medical” for me, which was available in NJ.) It cost me a few hundred dollars the first few months (needing to have 2 video appointments / month initially,) and now costs me about $150 a month for a monthly check-in + cost of the adderall I get prescribed.
All that being said, I still wonder whether I really am ADHD or not – the service is very…brief and mostly about prescribing medication, I don’t have any sort of longform therapy or talk sessions to go along with it. The service I think somewhat feeds into people’s confirmation bias. I certainly think taking adderall has been helpful for me, at the least it help me cut down on my coffee/weed intake by about 90%, and has me feeling a bit more level throughout the day. These days I’m trying to hustle with the energy I have (doing a lot of Doordash) so I can finally feel financially secure enough to get health insurance and eventually therapy through that. I suspect that I might be some kind of ASD beyond ADHD, but it’s all just me in my head, so it’s hard to really know.
Anyway, since self-identifying ADHD through the diagnosis through this service, I’ve also had other ADHD folks give me the “yeah, that’s ADHD” in response to sharing various experiences.
I mean I’m gonna say being able to take Adderall at all and have that just *mellow you out* is a. PRETTY strong indicator that you Have It. To my knowledge Adderall is one of those meds that like. If you’re neurotypical, you will respond very differently. Adderall is a controlled substance in the US specifically because neurotypical folks use it to get high?
So yknow. If you take something that might get other people high, but it just makes you……feel normal, and reduces the need to self-medicate via other means, uh. You probably have the same or similar brain chemical deficiency as us more “credibly” diagnosed folks?
Another good think to look for as an indicator is to take all of people’s experiences with ADHD that you hear about, all of the various symptoms, take a long hard look at them……and then apply them to your parents, and see what sticks. (If they’re your bio parents). Because ADHD is HIGHLY genetic, so if you have it, the chances are more than likely one or both of your parents also have it.
Yeah, the “how Adderall affects me” was a factor in me eventually seeking the service/diagnosis. I had a few past experiences of taking Adderall (single doses) in years past where I had felt mostly that it had made me “feel normal” and made me feel like my thinking was more straightforward. Then not too long ago, I was underemployed and had a lot of free time – I had lots of goals/aspirations for various things (I do writing, music, illustration, and other arts oriented things,) and I found myself just completely unable to focus & initiate tasks, which was highly frustrating, knowing “I’ll likely not have this much free time again once I have to start working more.” Led me down a rabbit hole of learning about things like executive function and the like. At the same time, I had discovered that the pseudoephedrine I had been taking for allergy migraines was having an unintended side-effect of helping me get things done in the morning. Looking into that, I found that it more or less operates as a stimulant, and that there is some crossover in what PE and Adderall do for your brain. For about 10 days, I took 120mg extended release PE once daily, and felt like I had the best/most productive 10 days I had had in a long time. Knowing it wasn’t really wise or sustainable to take near max-dose PE every day, I used that as the pushing factor to pull the trigger on seeking out an affordable online service to get an Adderall scrip. It’s been a few months and I’m starting to forget how it felt like to not be on Adderall XR every day (as implied by my username, which somewhat communicates a degree of my experience in general / relation to memory.) It’s been helpful for sure, but obviously hasn’t been a “magic pill that fixes every issue I have instantly.” (Not that I expected it to be.)
I suspect my mother might have some degree of ADHD, though I don’t think she would agree with that herself, but I see it in how she operates and communicates. Right now, one of her old friends has been crashing at her house in her living room, who has ADHD and has been on Adderall for many years. When I told my Mom about the diagnosis, she was surprised because she has her way of thinking about me (“but you’re so smart and capable, I thought you were very good at focusing?”) Her friend who has ADHD has different sorts of symptoms/experiences than me, is more scattered/disabled by her symptoms in every day life where she struggles to do basic things without medication. It made me see that my Mom primarily associates ADHD with her & her symptoms, and therefore wouldn’t see me or herself in the same way. Funny enough, my mom is a pharmacy tech. I don’t really know much about my father or his medical history (he passed years ago & we weren’t very close,) but I have always suspected that he was ASD, significantly more so than my mother.
This, yeah. When I was given Ritalin as a kid, the doc said “she’s almost definitely got ADD, but we’ll know for sure if this brings her down to earth without making her bounce off the walls.”
And lo and behold….. xD yeah our brains do weird things with stimulants.
I got put on that stuff when I was in middle school. When I wasn’t just “high tired” loopy, It felt like my brain was redlining in first gear. All that happened was I got yelled at for “not engaging” instead of “not paying attention”.
That lasted a couple weeks, then I refused to take it anymore.
I mean, you’re not a liar for saying you may have ADHD. That is entirely true. If you said “I definitely do” before getting it confirmed, that’s a lie, but likewise if you said “I definitely don’t”, then that’s also a lie. “May” is the only true thing you can say about it.
Yes, I am autistic.
Eh, I definitely have ADHD, but I cannot “confirm” it in a medical professional way cause I’m Ukrainian and we don’t exactly have the infrastructure for that.
(What mental health professionals we do have, I trust less than I trust Wikipedia, and yes that’s as condemning as it sounds)
I guess if you want to be particularly precise the correct phrasing is “the probability I have ADHD is exceedingly high” or “the probability I don’t have ADHD is negligible”, but… it’s funcitonally the same.
My position is that except in extreme cases, it isn’t worth bothering with diagnoses. Holding up “autism” or “ADHD” as an excuse for anti-social behavior isn’t accepted as an excuse. You can just tell people “I know I can be a bit difficult, thank you for putting up with my bullshit while I work through it” No medical diagnosis necessary.
I may be an extreme case, but I’ve found the existence of a label that other people know about to be exceedingly helpful in explaining that, like… what happens to me is a THING. People tend to be distrustful of stuff that feels NEW, what they had never heard about before, what they just don’t have a model for in their worldview. But if you start the conversation with “so you know there’s this thing called attention deficit disorder” they plug in their “oh yeah neurodivergence / mental illness / psychiatric stuff actually exists irl and isn’t just an insult punchline” world understanding module and can actually parse what you’re saying about your experiences/abilities in proper context.
Like, in most contexts you tell people “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you” and they think you are ignoring them on purpose, but you tell people “I’m sorry, my brain is buggy, I didn’t hear you” and you get a very different emotional context.
Depends on the person obviously, you ARE rendering yourself vulnerable to a lot of bullshit by making it be a THING, but, yeah. Lots of cases where it’s helpful.
That’s rather pessimistic, honestly. It’s just simply not fair to lump in all varieties of difficulties that might be caused by neurodivergence into ‘anti-social behavior’, and having to live your life constantly needing to apologize and be inherently ashamed of the way your brain naturally functions in a way which you can’t control. Because you are disabled. It’s not an ‘excuse’.
Yeah and I find that in a lot of situations it’s more practical to just describe specific symptoms anyway, e.g. “I’m really bad at multi-tasking, let’s find” or “I fidget a lot during lectures but it doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention, don’t let it bother you.” Labels like “ADHD” are so general and have such weird depictions in pop culture that using them can, weirdly enough, actually backfire by making people assume things about you that aren’t true at all, so in the interest of clear communication I often avoid them. It’s a pain in the ass, but that’s just the way it is these days…
Secrets on secrets on secrets. Wonder what other secrets people will end up keeping. Maybe they’ll amass enough secrets to explode in a secret-splosion!
Yeah, that adjustment from ‘this is a fun friend thing because I’m so weird hahaha’ to ‘actually this is just how my brain is and it’s not bad or wrong and I’d like to not be made fun of about it’ can lead to some… growing pains.
Makes me wonder how Joyce would react to knowing Dorothy has started joining Becky in teasing her about her eating habits. Hopefully Sarah’s blunt response is a wakeup call for Dorothy, lately it seems she’s been so busy trying to get Becky to like her she hasn’t noticed she’s starting to copy Becky’s less endearing traits.
It feels inevitable that Joyce and Becky are going to permanently go their separate ways. Not a bad thing and not even in a one person is better or worse than the other. You just grow apart from people during college, especially during freshman year. You get new cliques, go to different classes do different intermuruals and before you know it you’re just two different people who knew each other once.
Becky certainly seems to think this will happen, which is why she’s so possessive and overbearing, which make Joyce seek other people, thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy.
…Holy heck thank you Sarah for calling that out
Oh also phew, good, Dina isn’t allowing any residual anger from Joyce’s robot comments cloud her judgement of the situation. I was worried some of that would bleed over
…I’m on the spectrum myself, it’s happened a few times with me until I calm down later then go, “…Crap I’m an idiot”
Oh thank god, I can finally stop worrying about spilling Dina’s reaction in this strip.
Anyway – making fun of your friends is fine as long as you know your friend’s lines and don’t overstep them.
I thought we established in a previous arc that making fun of, teasing, or doing impressions of your friends was Illegal, Actually, in the judicial sense. The plot for this comments section is all over the place, we need to stop hiring so many different writers.
not saying he should be, but if walky was real he’d prolly insult the wrong person at some point and end up dealing with consequences, i was kinda blunt as a teen, not necessarily in an intentionally rude way but i wouldn’t have held it against anyone if i had been slapped once for shit i blurted out
Yeah, I think if Becky finds out (or more realistically, WHEN,) she’d be mortified. We know from the way she and Dina interact that Becky’s totally capable of having a wholly supportive relationship with someone who’s neurodivergent. Becky’s just used to Joyce’s quirks being Joyce’s Quirks, and her being the funny one to deflect away from anything she doesn’t want to call attention to, and so she figures this is a totally fine dynamic and has no idea Joyce has been bottling up the fact that she’s maybe not totally comfortable with her food habits being so restrictive and doesn’t want to be teased about it. (And I’ll note, Becky’s not the only one who does some ribbing on that particular front, which is the one we KNOW Joyce is insecure about. Dorothy, though, seems to have helped Joyce find at least one option to branch out into that’s different but Acceptably Non-Touching, though I’m not sure if she actively suggested it or anything. Tag trawl’s giving me nothing but I KNOW there was a strip where Dorothy’s like ‘I’m getting this but you don’t have to’ and Joyce says ‘actually this looks like it’d be fine’ or something when they’re eating on-campus.)
I think Joyce also probably WOULDN’T be okay with their relationship cutting all Becky Teasing (again, while I could forget something I don’t think she’s shown herself to be insecure about aspects that aren’t the food problem, or at least the one that is is because that specific special interest failed her, not that she gets special interests at all) and Becky would almost certainly do that because again, mortified.
Oof, the reality that Joyce fears Becky bullying her hurts, been there.
Sucks especially when you’re trying to be cool and nice to the friend group and no one seems to value how much it hurts cause “it’s not their intention”.
Hopefully Dorothy will maybe notice this element of the dynamic and support Joyce in at least calling Becky out if she does.
Outside of me feeling all vulnerable on autistic strips, I’m hoping Joyce and Dina can hang more, cause I genuinely feel like there could be a really good friendship there.
Me too, but I hope it’s made clear that it wouldn’t be because of some “autism buddies” thing, because you know, hurtful assumptions.
BTW I’m really sorry about my behavior towards you in the comments section yesterday,
I know how much the autism label you have gives you pride and joy, and I love that.
As someone who lives to bring people sugar and tea and rum, I could never live with myself if I grew to take happy things away from innocent people!
😔😔😔
At the same time, it’s like…. I want to be able to call myself “autistic”, without being so afraid. I want to be able to have this sense of connection and community with others on this level, re:neurodivergence, our brains, our superpowers, our struggles. I don’t want to feel so left out just because my stripes don’t quite fit under three neat little syllables.
I don’t mean to offend you or make you feel bad in any way from that, and really sorry in advance if I do. I just want to be understood.
You seem like a really nice person, Florence, and I don’t want you to feel bad.
Thank you for writing about yourself here, reading about the neat, happy things going on in your life is one of the things that helps me get through the days, very grateful for it.
🥹🥹🥹
Hey, your going through your own journey and your relationship to words is not wrong. Ultimately we are in the same neurodivergent community that understand how the judgment of the mind and all within impact our lives.
It’s all growing pains in a way. I’m trying to always be as good as I can. I don’t want anyone around here to feel like my presence is some kind of bad and makes them feel awful. I worry if I get too lost in the sauce of my own takes I’ll be alienating others like some have.
I guess I’m always feeling hesitation with disagreeing openly cause I fear conflict but that’s something I gotta work on and isn’t on anyone else.
I’ll also say I appreciate that we’re all having these dialogues about autism cause honestly feels like it doesn’t exist anywhere else online, even twitter.
And I like hearing about your experiences too wellerman, I think it’s good to understand these differences with the labels. I think I’ll always have a pride in autism due to many years of particulars, but your labels are ones you can find pride in, whatever they are.
💜
If anyone wants to socials outside of these comments this is my twitter
@genderhitchiker
Oh and sorry David Willis, I’m trying not to give you too much of a hassle with dramatics 😊
Good twitter handle.
Realising as I types it that it’s bad spelling 🤦🏻♀️
It is my gender vines though, travelling through the galaxy of genders but mainly existing around the women places
😌😌😌😌
🥲 Awe…. thank you Florence, so relieved to know that you have no hard feelings, so glad we can find common ground like this. 🥲🥲
re: worry about alienating people and always trying to be good as possible, believe me, you’re not alone. I almost always try to make an effort to diffuse things around here with alternate points of engagement and ice breakers with tasty food and music ’cause let’s face it — this comic can come across some things that can lead to real shit storms, and I don’t want people to feel left out of here just because they don’t want to engage in things that could get them triggered, and as important as discussion about hard issues like this can be, it’s nice and even arguably essential to have a little break, you know?
Speaking of which, yeah a real shame these kinds of honest as hell discussions about “autism” in particular don’t exist anywhere else. Which kind of relates to why I always put in in parentheses like that. Even when they do talk about it elsewhere, the “autism” they mean is overloaded with nearly impenetrable baggage that makes it impossible to speak for ourselves, of our experiences.
Re: Galaxy of Genders, fucking LOVE that!!!! 🤩🤩🤩 🌌🌌🌌
I mean, a genderfluid alien parasite myself (she / they), I like that exploration too, especially of fem fem places.
I get the best of a lot of gender worlds really, plus others from genders that don’t even have names yet!
I’m a gender space-time traveler, a shape-shifting alien hopping from world to world, form after form, trying on new ones, discovering new ones I like, like shopping malls on alien planets!!!!
I like being fluid like that, genderfluid, sexual-orientation fluid, fluid with the neurodivergent worlds….
….hmmm…. neuro-fluid
I really wish I could make that a thing
aaaand there’s another mega-paragraph. 😅😅😅
also, more music ’cause I’m long due to share some, hope you like it 😊😊😊
*plays “Alien Spring” on hacked muzak*
I would really love to see them develop a friendship, one based on common traits, and ideally separate from their connection through Becky (which connection is really just…a huge and never-ending source of conflict, primarily for Dina, I think). They have a terrible history, and Joyce has been an ass to Dina a lot, but they have so much in common that there’s real bonding opportunities in the vein of “so how does it feel to—oh. You too?”
Yea, and I think Dina more than a lot of people could allow Joyce to in a way reinvent herself which she seems to want. Plus I feel like Joyce needs a friend who will allow her to be honest, and might allow Dina to be honest too. Dina did just say something negative in the previous strip and Joyce is still chill, maybe Joyce would allow Dina space to be less of the “soft bean” she’s expected to be.
I’m hoping Dorothy will start calling Becky out too, lately she’s been trying so hard to win Becky’s friendship she doesnt seem to take Joyce’s feelings into consideration as much. Also hoping Joyce calls them both out for treating her like a child, shes forgiving but her just friends think not saying anything means nothings wrong.
Thisssssss. Dorothy has been prioritizing winning over Becky above being a supportive friend to Joyce, even/especially when Becky and Joyce have been in conflict, recently.
And you know, that’s…a choice, and one she’s entitled to make. But also—why, Dorothy? There’s been an occasional vibe of “making sure the campsite is neater when she leaves then when she got there” where she wants to make sure Joyce has her other best friend firmly there for her when Dorothy departs for Yale. Unfortunately, it feels like it’s been quite awhile since Dorothy has been able to meet Joyce emotionally where she is, or recognize who she is, at this point in their respective journeys, so Dorothy’s attempts at preventative social care just seem….fruitless. Maybe a little misguided. Deluded, if I’m being extra-cranky.
Well, Dorothy did the same with Walky when they were dating. She was buying nice clothes for him even when she was thinking their relationship was just ‘for fun’.
Dorothy is, for all practical purposes, already the well-meaning but out-of-touch politician she aspires to be. That’s why she isn’t actually successful in persuading people to go along with her frequently-good ideas; she doesn’t actually have people skills, she has problem-solving skills, and she tackles social situations in precisely that “well-meaning but out-of-touch politician” mindset.
So, her cocksure attitude about all the problems she was “managing adequately” in her social circle, should be challenged pretty soon, as those issues grow and change into issues which are different than what Dorothy initially perceived, and beg her to change her solutions; but, she has no internal framework for altering her solutions to problems as those problems evolve beyond her initial understanding, which she is treating as concrete. She may be an old soul of a matronly healer at heart, but she’s also, like, 20, and she is nowhere near as skilled or knowledgeable as she tends to believe she is. The fact that even people around her who are not necessarily her friends, have commented on this about her in canon, implies to me that it’s a real problem we’ll see come to a head for her, at one point or another.
This for sure. In a very real sense, Dorothy would be better serving herself and her ideal future if she backed off the I Will Get The Best GPA a bit and did more socializing. Pick up the soft skills: reading people, connecting with people, establishing and developing even shallow or brief relationships.
I mean, Or she could work in a call center for a year or two. The good ones explicitly teach those things. (Or at least, the one I worked in did.)
Dorothy does volunteer at a soup kitchen, though I don’t know how good she’s at socializing over there or if it’s just another checkbox on her resume.
She also canvassed for Robin’s opponent, so plenty of opportunity to talk to a bunch of people there.
I don’t think anyone’s ever helped campaign for Manley, did they? The closest might be Roz but even then I don’t think she took an actual active role.
Pretty sure it was mentioned – we didn’t actually see her do it on screen though.
Yeah, when Becky asked for her help with Robin, she said ‘I’m canvassing for her opponent, why would I do that?”
So basically, Joyce and becky are best friends who both keep every important development from each other until they have no choice but to tell.
It seems more like the dynamic is Joyce’s avoids telling personal things because she fears Becky picking on her, and Becky seems to be projecting how she would react onto Joyce (thinking joyce will laugh at her). I don’t want to blame Becky entirely but it does seem like nobody calling her out ever is the root of alot of their friendships strain.
They’re the most constant positive in each other’s lives that they both feel would be devastating to lose. Or even just, the emotional risk analysis doesn’t fall out well. I get it- the Best result is Good, but the Worst result feels So much more likely, and the sting of that emotional cost is still pretty recent from the atheist thing.
Makes you pretty risk averse.
Or, Joyce and Becky are, historically, best friends, but their situation has gotten really fucking complicated lately and they’re walking on eggshells around each other.
“also, have we mentioned that Joyce is a picky eater”
So we resolve this with the Becky and Dorothy telling each other their recently formed secret so they both can be even.
Oh boy, is the story finally going to examine how Becky has been an awful friend to Joyce for months now for real?
only months?
From what little we’ve seen? Yeah. Becky did poke fun at Joyce’s insecurities when they were younger, but never to the degree that she did since coming to IU. And Becky WAS a good friend to Joyce – she picked out sausage on her pizza, and even Sarah inferred that Becky was the reason Joyce was remotely well-adjusted enough to come to IU.
Becky’s not been a GREAT friend lately, but she’s been a GOOD friend to Joyce for most of their lives.
Agreed, as of recently she has really taken joyces friendship for granted and has been putting a strain on it for months. I can understand that after going through so many stressfull things she might not be fully there as a friend, but shes outright been just mean or mocking her for really silly things since coming back and its not fair to joyce either.
Comic-time months.
Yeah, this. I think some people tend to forget that stuff that we read years ago only took place over the span of a few months in-universe.
Joyce, my blorbo, my darling, light of my life, Becky considers making fun of you *an essential part of her self-care routine.*
OOF. Oh, this.
100% this
Yup!
The comment section seems to be taking Sarah’s word on this, but I’m not sure I agree with her assessment. Historically, the thing that tests Joyce and Becky’s friendship the most is change. Joyce just started building bridges with her oldest friend after a huge fight. Maybe she’s not so eager to test their strength by dropping a new personal discovery on them. Becky might be thinking the same thing, tbh.
Yeah, that also makes sense.
This would have more weight if Becky hadn’t immediately set fire to those bridges, with gusto.
Becky DOES make fun of Joyce. She leans on anxiety buttons she knows Joyce has specifically so she gets ‘awesome Joyce faces’ which is basically whatever face Joyce makes as she completely freezes up. She mocks Joyce’s food neuroses on a few different levels.
Sarah is correct: Becky makes fun of Joyce, and primarily things that might well just be how Joyce’s brain works. She’s also correct that it’s not entirely mean-spirited, but… well, Becky’s got a goodly amount of mean-spirited in her ‘I’m a goof so anything and everything is A-OK, you should be able to take a joke’ as a whole. The only character who gets 0% mean directed at her is Dina. Everyone else gets a higher or lower degree. (In my views: Dorothy highest, pretty much anyone masculine-presenting next, Joyce after that, the rest of the world after that, Dina on the floor at 0% mean.)
I also recently came to the realization that the “awesome Joyce faces” and freezing are probably mini-shutdowns from overwhelming emotion, which uh… makes it even more crappy
Yeah. The comment section seems to be Wholly Condemning Becky’s teasing Joyce about food stuff, for example, but so far I haven’t seen anyone mention her quietly picking the sausage off of Joyce’s pizza or offering to get her some plain chicken fingers or whatever it was to comfort her (granted she couldn’t afford them herself, but reminding Joyce they exist and can be readily obtained does, in my mind, ultimately serve the same overall purpose). Like, yes Becky makes fun of Joyce’s issues, and Joyce is probably less okay with that than she lets on, but I do think (1) Becky does actually care about making sure Joyce has what she needs and Joyce knows this, and (2) would lay off if Joyce told her that being teased was pissing her off or actually hurtful.
And that last part is important. Joyce is growing and changing. The old dynamic she had with Becky is no longer viable and is becoming a pain point, but it WASN’T always. Expecting Becky to just realize she’s being a crappy friend now and that Joyce needs non-jokesy support is…not reasonable, especially considering the fact that (as you pointed out!) change really seems to be the biggest source of stress for both of them. SO MUCH is changing, and that’s scary, and I can’t blame Joyce for wanting to hold onto familiarity a little longer in the face of a relationship that already seems to be cracking.
Am I saying their friendship is perfect and not dysfunctional and super-duper healthy? No. But I am saying it’s changing, and I’m frustrated with how many commentors seem to expect the characters to have the same perspective that we do as external observers. And I agree with your assessment.
Well yeah. All of this is true. But in order for Becky to be able to know that this is not okay and not working, JOYCE also needs to know that it is not okay and not working anymore. Joyce needs to be able to recognize that Becky making her uncomfortable isn’t just her own fault for not having thick enough skin or whatever, she needs to actually put the fault on Becky.
And that’s all anybody is doing. It’s pointing out that their dynamic is unbalanced, and that maybe, the way Becky acts isn’t acceptable anymore and needs to change. Heck, maybe even entertain the idea that it was never acceptable, actually, and that Joyce has had her perception of what is and is not acceptable totally warped by feeling compelled to believe that it ever was acceptable in the first place. (Warped by various factors of her upbringing, not just Becky, who isn’t even necessarily to blame and who also has had her perception similarly warped, but nonetheless this particular aspect of it is re-enforcing of that warped worldview and needs to be addressed.) Only by discussing and acknowledging that is moving towards that change even possible.
Just wanna chime in and say that this comment and dalniente‘s that it’s replying to are both nicely nuanced observations on a complex subject, and I really appreciated reading them both.
feels like it’d be impossible to have a ‘wholesome’ friendship as adults w/o a little bit of ribbing/teasing but hopefully ppl would respect boundaries if ppl are politely asked to stop mocking a specific thing, after that i wouldn’t rly blame them if someone cuts out a friend over certain issues or straight up gets into fist fights together
It is currently (or has recently been) deteriorating a branch of my friend group, and it’s really sad to see. I mean, there are other things going on to, but it feels like it started with ribbing/teasing that one person didn’t like. They tried to set a boundary, but it wasn’t respected. Unfortunately, these people lived in the same house, so they couldn’t exactly just step back at that point, and now things are… :/
It is difficult when good-natured ribbing slowly creeps into just being kinda mean territory and boundaries either aren’t established well or setting them throws the whole friendship dynamic in whack.
I think the last couple years especially have strained more than a few relationships to the point where the same good-natured jokes just don’t land as well anymore.
It’s possible to have ribbing/teasing without being mean, and that’s where Becky fails.
So we have: 1) Dina and Joyce keeping from Becky that the Joyce has been identified as probably autistic (and probably that Dina is likely autistic as well), 2) Dina and Becky keeping from Joyce that they’ve had sex, and 3) Joyce and Becky seemingly keeping the Faith-Off and its fallout from Dina.
This will be fun to watch implode.
Don’t forget Dorothy is keeping the Yale acceptance letter in her back pocket.
Not literally, as we’ve established her pants don’t have actual pockets. #stopfakepockets
Thank you for reminding me, I actually had forgotten about that!
Now we just need Dina to have her own secret that will rule them all.
Dina has gotten bored of dinosaurs and is now into vampires.
Dina knows Joyce is ex-Christian. Becky has spoken about it to her openly, and also about her desire and attempts to re-convert Joyce. Dina does not, as far as we know, care about either of those things. (I mean, maybe she does have feelings about them and the comic hasn’t chosen to explore them, but she does know, and her reaction thus has been been “nothing”.)
She has not directly shared any of that with Dina on screen
You might be thinking of the conversation she had with Lucy when they were leaving church
Can’t wait for them to walk into the room and just blurt out.
“I HAD SEX”
“I’M AUTISTIC”
queue awkward silence.
*cue, not queue. I don’t want to be that guy, but I’m totally lying, I love being that guy.
Maybe the entire line being silent was the point.
well; I was on hold on this phone for 3 hours this morning.
So maybe my phone is just auto-correcting to what it feels is more appropriate.
I once told someone (politely) on an all company chat it was “gamut” not “gambit”.
And then they have autistic sex
We all know the only possible finale is the classic yelling bird line, “AND THEN THEY ALL FUCKED.”
I mean, when your symptoms match up right, autistic sex is pretty fucking great.
😏 Memorisation of effective methods and repetitive hand motions ahoy. ‘Nuff said.
Reminded of the Dina/Joe strip where Dina describes her potential methodology 🥵 oh my
“symptoms”, almost makes it sound like it’s a disease or something. 😟
Don’t blame ya, but neurodivergence, “autism” or not, isn’t functioning “incorrectly”, just functioning different, and I think the way we talk about the components that occur with or without each other should reflect that.
It’s more like “stripes”, I’d like that much better.
Also thank you for being here Rose, ❤️ Did ya see my response to you yesterday? 😉
😊 *wanna get cuddly feelings back*
Sarah is enjoying this revelation a little bit too much.
makes me wonder if becky has any potential diagnoses herself, being through religious trauma probably does mess with any preexisting conditions. well, not that she has to have any personality disorders to explain her behavior but i wouldn’t be surprised if some of her actions was intensified/exaggerated b/c of repression/making up for lost time
I mean, she almost certainly has issues from long term childhood abuse, not just religious trauma. I don’t think we’ve seen any signs she has any preexisting conditions, but as you say they could just be lost under the trauma.
We could see signs for Joyce, but she wasn’t abused – at least not in nearly so obvious a way.
“online test for adult autism”, plug in characters. For me Becky got 8, Walky 10 (he blindly answered C to everything), Sarah 11, Dorothy 13 (she was falsely modest on a few), Joyce 14 (I wasn’t sure which extreme she’d mark on a few so I fudged with a middle answer), Drax the Destroyer 15, Dina 25. Scale 0..30. It would be good for someone else to repeat the experiment, perhaps with a different survey.
Joyce was explicitly abused. We learned about that in the whole bit where she called Dina a robot.
Not going back into that argument: Let’s say to a much lesser degree than Becky. Who was also spanked, but had the whole other level of Ross to deal with.
I mean I think probably most people going through everything she did with her mom’s suicide and then her dad’s horrifying actions would have PTSD
I have no idea why this is showing my real photo but I’m freaking out! I tried changing it and it can’t! Can this be deleted please??
Oh good it changed… crisis averted ｡:ﾟ(;´∩`;)ﾟ:｡
Hahaha, fuck.
Secrets that people have been keeping from each other:
Everyone to Joyce about Becky/Dina sex.
Current group to Becky about Joyce’s referral.
Dorothy to everyone about Yale acceptance.
Amber to… maybe everyone? about hacking Walky’s grades up.
Walky to his parents about his deteriorating grades.
There’s probably more somewhere, I dunno.
Sal to herself that she loves Danny
Joe to everyone but Amber that he’s crushing super hard on Joyce.
While I figured Dina’s anger was probably just a gut reaction and not reaaaally aimed at Joyce herself, I am so glad that its not aimed at Joyce, She’s been through enough lately without people being mad at her for something she had no control over.
But Sarah’s assesment is kinda right. Becky does make fun of Joyce often enough. I don’t think there’s true malice behind it, but that kinda thing, can put a strain on friendships too when it seems to happen too often, even if both assume theyre in on it.
Plus to be fair, Becky has been extra snippy and biting towards Joyce over the atheism thing so I can see WHY she might be worried she might use it as fuel.
I like to think thats one thing Becky WOULDN’T mock her over, but Becky is an agent of chaos and I have been wrong about her before.
But on the plus side, if she does use it as fuel I feel that will be the straw that breaks the camels back and people will finally call becky out on her shit.
I love Becky, she’s a great character that I do love, but her behaviour towards others has been kinda shitty and selfish for a while.
Yeah. I mean she backed down (slightly) with Dorothy, but only after she pushed it too far — she didn’t realise she was close to the line until she saw Dorothy’s reaction.
I’ve only recently been diagnosed with Autism, coded for almost 10 years.
I’m 41.
Going back to grade school…I tolerated bullying until it made me overstimulate and cry. I thought people who bullied me less were my friends.
It’s a lot as you get older and realize this fact – especially as you start seeing when you were overstimulated before.
Cry-baby? Nah, overstimulated child and teenager.
I think that last panel is Sarah coming off a lot harsher than intended.
As in, harsher than David intended.
I hope I’m wrong! But… yeesh, yeah, if this were an IRL situation, I’d be telling Sarah to go fuck herself with a rusty, barbed pole.
She has other preferred instruments for that, instruments that have sentimental value for her.
Her grandmother gave them to her.
I wouldn’t be telling her to go fuck herself with a rusty, barbed pole for her enjoyment or health, ya know :P.
Becky and Joyce REALLY need to talk.
There are too many things they are currently tiptoeing around.
got her ass lmao
“Dina, can you please promise me to not tell Sarah about it, too ? She’s mean”
…okay, I was about to post a joke here, but seriously? Even if Dina had been ESL – I really have to ask – the way she’s been depicted thus far… I mean, I could believe that she hadn’t ever been referred for a diagnosis as autistic, but I really can’t believe that she had to fight for it. Okay, you can say white privilege, but I’m gonna need receipts. Just, anyone, as obviously autistic as Dina, written off for that reason.
(The white male idiot says white-male-autistically.)
A large, noisy percentage of humans blatantly suck, seemingly for the sake of it. A few extra years at a fancy school won’t ever remedy this, and arrogant pricks will absolutely flood any given profession, no exceptions.
As a fairly privileged (non-white) male from a relatively affluent family, I too find it hard to process, but… this IS a world where they used to use different criteria of “intelligence” when determining whether Black football players had suffered brain injuries in the course of their career when compared to white players. So if it did/does occur, I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised.
What the actual F?
I actually know someone who got undiagnosed whenever she went to the doctor with her Asian parent and rediagnosed whenever she went with her white parent. Which is technically different from Dina’s situation but if anything more blatant.
I have a friend who is multiracial who runs into the issue of people believing they’re autistic in winter (when their skin lightens and they’re white passing) and disbelief in summer (when their tan combines with their bone structure to make them not white passing).
I’d heard of seasonal depression, but “seasonal autism” is a new one. Have those doctors written papers about their new amazing discovery?
I’m a cis white female and medical sciences predominately focused on white Cis men for so long it took me over a decade to get diagnosed for a semi-common immune disorder that just more frequently presents in male POC and type 2 bipolar with “rapid cycles- the latter of which started showing over 15 years ago and is also fairly obvious if you know anything about my sleep/productivity cycle but it was also chocked up to different things. I had a russian friend who was bilingual from the start but the teacher thought she made up a word that was actually in the English dictionary and when she showed the teacher she got detention for being argumentative… so I can see it easily.
Oh! And often I have to bring my husband with me to the doctors because to this day and even with my medical history, doctors often don’t believe my diagnosis but if HE backs me up the appointment is quicker and I can just get on with my life with maintainer medications that have worked for the last 3 years…
Well keep in mind this is fictional, and unrealistic things can happen for the sake of furthering the story.
“unrealistic” sounds about white…..
I can envision a storyline where Dina is like “Wait. Becky is MAKING FUN of Joyce? For things that may be due to autism??” and basically becomes the first person to really call Becky out on her bullshit. I’d like for that to happen.
Seconded.
Yes yes yes.
Thirded and fourthed.
You JUST SAID that she was going to be made fun of by Becky
I smell hypocrisy
I don’t think the concern is Becky mocking Joyce for being autistic, I think the concern is that Becky might feel bad if she realizes she was mocking autistic traits.
I’m sorry for Joyce, but Sarah is right. Becky is a good friend, but she has not a good sense of humour, at least with Joyce. With Dina she was always extra sweet and careful. I wonder if Dina will envy this aspect of Joyce and Becky’s relationship or not. She sire seems surprised by this information. Also, I now kinda hope that everyone I the comic will share a secret with Dina telling her to not say that to someone in particular. Is Dina knowing that Joe like Joyce or not? I don’t remember right now. But…
Becky struggles to tell the difference between mean and funny sometimes.
Ok so Dina, who isn’t diagnosed but apparently *tried really hard to be* and dx or not seems to be well aware that she is, in fact, autistic, was just told her girlfriend makes fun of Joyce for autistic stuff.
I cannot see this going badly at all. /s
Also I guess it wasn’t actually Joyce Dina was mad at about the half hour thing. Which I kind of figured but it’s nice to know.
Did she say she never got diagnosed? I got the impression she was frustrated by years wasted getting a fairly obvious diagnosis, but I assumed she eventually got one.
I recall prior statements that Dina hadn’t been diagnosed with anything, but 1) that Word of Willis not in-text, and 2) there was the winter break so she could have finally succeeded then even if Word of Willis had been accurate at the time?
I mean, she doesn’t actually say she didn’t, but she’s also never said that she did either. There’s no indication in yesterday’s strip that she eventually succeeded.
Schroedina’s diagnosys
The point is that Becky didn’t KNOW she was making fun of autistic traits, she thought it was just friendly banter. Knowing that Joyce is autistic might make Becky feel she had inadvertently crossed a line.
Since the spring semester started comic time, Sarah has been the healthiest person in Joyce’s social life. She let’s Joyce make her own decision. Has her back where it matters, and calls her out and cuts the bullshit where it’s needed. I have a feeling when this all shakes out its likely Joyce’s social circle will significantly change. And her possibly being Autistic may cause some unwelcome shifts in Becky/Dina’s relationship.
Okay, seems like Dina is not directing anger at Joyce, that is good. While I admit to not being her biggest fan, I do still like the character well enough and would be annoyed with her if that blew up into a bigger thing.
I love Sarah being perceptive enough to articulate the feeling Joyce can’t word, and I also love a good example of the difficulty autistic people often have articulating big emotions.
Like Joyce is, despite being very extroverted and expressive and good at masking, in some ways more affected by autism symptoms than the more stereotypical Dina. Dina is usually quite able to articulate and identify her own feelings, but Joyce usually isn’t in real time. Joyce is actually pretty similar to me in that her ability to word emotions is usually delayed while she processes them and figures them out. But at the same time she feels her emotions and reacts to them in real time without being able to word them, so both she and others can end up misunderstanding why she’s doing things (see also Joyce’s angry atheist routine).
Like people thinking she was holding on to creationism because of stubbornness and “just being Joyce” and loyalty to her church when she was actually a creationist because with her tendency to black and white thinking means if she starts questioning one part of what she’s been taught as objective fact she has to question everything. Like gay people was something she could fit in to her existing world view because the Bible is impossible not to contradict on moral issues because it’s self inconsistent, so when her view changed she could build a Biblical interpretation that fit her new views, but when it comes to something just plain not consistent with the Bible – in that case biblical literalism falls apart. And since biblical literalism was core to her upbringing, if she has to question that she has to question everything because it’s all connected. And then everything she was raised to believe is a goddamn lie. It was anxiety of the enormity of the implications that motivate her resistance to evolution more than anything else, but most people (even Becky) thought it was just Joyce being a fundie.
The autistic spectrum being, well, a spectrum, means that indeed, it manifests in different ways.
While it looks like Dina has trouble parsing non verbal communication, Joyce seems to be able to do that just fine, but cannot identify her emotions as well as Dina, let alone process them as well as most neurotypical people.
Implying neurotypical people can process their emotions any better than us normals.
Well, folks who don’t have an element of alexithymia to their autism like I do can. I don’t get the impression Dina has that to a degree but I do get that read off Joyce.
(like I know #notallautistics are bad at emotions but this autistic? Definitely. 😛
Hmmmm….. #notallautistics….
OK, lemme try at making a thing for twitter, maybe…
#CancelAutismSpeaks
Is this a thing you humans do when you want to spread an idea for the intent of making the world a better place?
Difficulty with emotional control is also part of impaired executive function. Most autistic people will have some level of impaired executive function, but emotional control is only one part of that and not everyone is going to have difficulties on that exact part of executive function.
Well, just to be fair, human body language is not really as “universal” as you think. I think. Especially not on a multicultural frontier.
I am wondering if you replied to the wrong person in error? I do not see where I mentioned body language beyond Joyce being expressive and good at masking and do not see how one could get an implication of universality of body language from my comment?
They were referring to Asmodai’s comment which is further up thsi chain.
Ahhhhhhh, than you!
Did I accidentally reply to a comment? Meant to reply to a post. If so, my bad.
(Also I haven’t read all the comments because there’s a lot and also because this storyline touches on things fraught for me so I have limited spoons for comment engagement, so my bad if I’m touching on something someone else already said)
Smug Sarah is the best Sarah.
Like I may be projecting here, but genuinely I feel that Joyce’s angry atheist routine isn’t because she’s genuinely disdainful of all religion, it’s a trauma response to realizing she was raised in a cult and breaking free of the cult mindset. She doesn’t attack Sarah or Ethan for their faith, but she does get pissed at Becky. Why?
I think it’s because Joyce sees the religion she was raised in as an abusive garbage system that is, to her, synonymous with her mom, John and Toedad. To her, when Becky insists there’s worth in it Joyce hears an enabler of the abuse she lived and sees her strong, smart funny friend justifying the beliefs that led the religious school to kick Becky out, lead her to be shunned for not abandoning her best friend, and lead her best friend’s dad to kidnap her at gunpoint.
Joyce’s relationship with her former religion is all wrapped up in trauma and abuse, and she is legitimately triggered by Becky insisting she should keep the faith.
Meanwhile Becky’s deep faith is her source of comfort and seeing Joyce reject her faith feels like yet another rejection of HER and yet another demand that she cut off parts of herself for others’ comfort, this time from the one person she trusts to be there no matter what. It’s no wonder Becky is reacting by doubling down on the religious pressure. Even though I don’t think she’s in the right here.
Which is why I think the rift between Joyce and Becky is only going to get worse unless Becky accepts Joyce’s atheism isn’t a rejection of Becky.
Adding on, I think Joyce only got mad at Becky for getting mad at HER.
Yeah dead on.
You’ve done a very well done job of providing a summary of this. I applaud this cause everytime I tried it was a goddamn novel length break down of the Becky/Joyce dynamic. I agree with you on this though.
I agree with all of this. Also, just to point out as an addition to what you said….Joyce didn’t go to Becky and start crapping on her faith. She actually did her best to hide her atheism from her friend when the anniversary of her mom’s death came around and Becky needed her to engage with the concept of Heaven and the idea that Becky would see her mom again. Which is, I can guarantee, an extremely difficult and painful thing to do even if you DON’T hate lying as much as Joyce does and DON’T have the fraught history with that faith that Joyce does.
Becky hearing Joyce venting her frustration and taking it personally was deeply unfair, AND it probably did not help Joyce’s feeling that her old church still has its hooks in Becky in a terrible horrible no-good very bad way. Like you said, Joyce’s relationship with her former religion is wrapped up in trauma and abuse… and that interaction did NOT help matters.
So yeah, I really don’t see their relationship improving until they’re able to accept each other’s very different levels of faith, either.
As someone who went through a similar life trajectory as Joyce (except for the religious fundamentalism – the cult like group I was raised in wasn’t religious and my parents are an atheist and a lapsed Presbyterian, respectively so I has a pretty secular upbringing. But hard right wing conservatism, authoritarian physically and emotionally abusive environment, and fucked up views in disability, gender and sexuality we had in spades) I agree with you totally.
It’s actually a source of a rift between my siblings and I. I have similar associations with rural lifestyle as Joyce does with religion & my sibs are all about that Instagram worthy #HomesteadLife . Several of them view my rejection of the rural lifestyle and avowed committment never to live in a place where I can’t disappear into a crowd again a rejection of them, but like. To me, a rural environment where everyone knows everyone is just suffocating because if you’re the local weirdo everyone knows everyone means rumors about you make their way round town 5x over, getting weirder each time, before you’re even aware they exist. Which is usually when someone’s yelling at you for something 98% made up.
So like I also anticipate I have a real good idea for why “Jordan is too Jordan” to be around the community. I think I know EXACTLY why.
Well, hyperbole. Not exactly why, but I do have a very good idea.
(Oh the rural gossip mill shenanigans stories I could tell! There was the time me going for a jog to train for basketball somehow became I was on the run from the cops because I had vandalized a store, there was the time the prepubescent grow out before you grow up growth pattern meant I was pregnant at 12, there was the time speaking my knee became I was faking for painkillers and a drug dealer, the time sleeping in class because I had depression because I was getting bullied and having total strangers maliciously ruin my reputation for amusement meant I was on drugs… I could go on. All because I was the town weirdo and therefore an easy target and anyone would believe anything about me).
I will never complain about growing up in suburbia again. Sheesh!
I’m sure suburbia has its own issues and also that there are benefits to the rural lifestyle. My sister insists she has the most supportive community ever. But like many environments, if you’re in the in group it’s great. And if you’re not, it’s awful.
Sorry man, that’s all I can say. My sympathies and glad you survived it.
*spraining, not speaking, thanks Autocorrect
That is absolutely BATSHIT, and I say this as someone with a lifetime of lingering trauma from a childhood as a social pariah. Like, my experiences were not good, but I have never witnessed THAT level of rumormongering.
Kinda glad that Dina and Joyce can talk about it normally, though as pointed out the amount of secrets everyone is keeping can’t be good…
Each time I see a image Willis already put on a preview on his Twitter or Instagran, I feel like I reached a milestone. Like today.
Do you feel like it, too?