#good thoughts
Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love beingyourself.
If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.
If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.
Be the subject, not the object. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. You are experiencing life. Life is not experiencing you.
Thank you this is the first post about self love that hasn’t made me want to throw things
i feel like the infantilisation of autistic people in the eyes of science and psychology really stunts them when it comes to talking about some of the issues that come from being autistic in a world built for nt people. like i dont think ive ever seen substance abuse rates discussed wrt autistics because thats an “adult problem” and the public at large has an image of autistic adults as overgrown kids, despite the fact that almost every other autistic adult ive met has had a history of substance abuse issues at least partly in response to the stress of existing in the world as an autistic person. like if youre constantly beset on all sides by stress and sensory overload of course youre going to gravitate towards drugs and alcohol and things that smooth over those sharp edges, make socialising easier, etc…
That Person
And to be clear no, this is not a “cure” for anxiety. (God, I cried in the process of making this a few times.) It’s that little dose of positivity that’s a kick in the head back to reality, and back to me thinking forward and onward and upward (instead of just blocking out the shit of the world).
(Apologies for the massive break. Promise there WILL be weekly posts from now on and thank you all for your support!)
Post link
When someone helps you & they struggling too, that’s not help, that’s love.
For this study, veterinary hospital records were examined over a 14.5-year period on 1170 intact and neutered (including spaying) German Shepherd Dogs for joint disorders and cancers previously associated with neutering. The diseases were followed through 8 years of age, with the exception of mammary cancer (MC) in females that was followed through 11 years. The cancers followed, apart from mammary, were osteosarcoma, lymphoma, hemangiosarcoma and mast cell tumour.
In intact males, 7% were diagnosed with one or more joint disorders, while in males neutered prior to a year of age, a significantly higher 21% were diagnosed with one or more joint disorders.
In intact females, 5% were diagnosed with one or more joint disorders, while in females neutered prior to a year of age, this measure was significantly increased to 16%. The increased joint disorder incidence mostly associated with early neutering was CCL [cranial cruciate ligament tear].
MC was diagnosed in 4% of intact females compared with less than 1% in females neutered before 1 year. The occurrence of the other cancers followed through 8 years of age was not higher in the neutered than in the intact dogs.
Urinary incontinence, not diagnosed in intact females, was diagnosed in 7% of females neutered before 1 year, a significant difference.
These findings, profiling the increase in joint disorders associated with early neutering, should help guide the timing of neutering for this breed.
Benjamin L. Hart et al, “Neutering of German Shepherd Dogs: Associated Joint Disorders, Cancers and Urinary Incontinence”.Veterinary Medicine and Science (May 2016). Full text is freely available.
This is really interesting stuff and corroborates trends we’ve seen in a variety of dogs.
Not sure exactly why the decision was made to refer to both spaying and neutering as “neutering” but the content of this piece is a good resource.
Actual hot take:
I think maybe a big part of Dracula Daily’s success (and perhaps also the success of all those Netflix reality tv shows like Love Is Blind??) is that media has become so asynchronous. You can never really talk to your friends about any shows because either it’s “Oh, I haven’t seen that but it’s on my list” or “I watched that ages ago, I barely remember it, remind me who [character X] was?” or “STOP TALKING, I’m on Season 2, no spoilers!!”
And it’s kind of upsetting, because we cannot really discuss media anymore the way people were able to when a show was on TV and everyone kind of experienced it together. Synchronous media is an event, it’s fun, everybody can participate! Now we’re drowning in recommendations of what we “should watch”, and the list gets longer and longer, but even when we do get around to a particular show, we almost never properly discuss it with the friend who recommended it and it’s just frustrating.
So yeah. My take is that humans actually kind of really enjoy synchronous media consumption, which has been greatly reduced by streaming, and perhaps Dracula Daily is filling that gap for us right now, you know?
Ever since that scene in the last season of the clone wars where Bo-Katan implies Obi-Wan didnt care enough for Satine, I cant stop thinking that Obi-Wan doesn’t show his emotions in quite a neurotypical fashion. I know a lot of people just automatically assume its “emotion trained out of him by the evil jedi” but even other jedi characters do seem to have more facial and visual cues in their expressions. Obi-Wan’s most clear emotions seems to come out in heightened times of stress (Battle of Theed, Mandalore, Mustafar), and if he can he tries to hide what he can (Turning away from Bo-Katan and everyone else after her accusation). He also has certain mannerisms that he falls back on such as chin stroking and folding his arms underneath his clock. I often feel like his and Anakins missed communication skills come from not Obi-Wan not caring or trying to get Anakin to stop talking about things but that Anakin assumes that Obi-Wan doesn’t want him to talk even when he offers because he’s not portraying the “correct” emotions. Obi-Wan does take the time to check on Anakin and ask how he’s doing and even talks to others about his worry for Anakin, but he also doesn’t push Anakin to tell him. Anakin seems to have a personality where he both pushes and wants to be pushed but Obi-Wan seems to want to wait until Anakin is ready. Unfortunately Anakin most likely is ready, he’s just waiting for answer from a cue that Obi-Wan doesnt see.
Anyways the point is that, I can 100% see Obi-Wan on the autistic spectrum. Adherence to tradition and routine (or at least wants and tries to do so, see his Jedi specific clothing when its not required), self-soothing behavior (folding arms within his cloak, crossing arms), stimming (constant chin/beard stroking plus it was confirmed that Padawan!Obi-Wan chewed on his padawan braid), not following cues (see Anakin bringing up his dreams but not expanding on them, basically waiting for Obi-Wan to pry but Obi-Wan doesnt figure that out), emotions aren’t shown heavily and when they are its almost always in high stress situations, dislikes droids (no reason shown why), and extremely good with animals.
Things have settled down. I don’t know for how long. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Both my parents and in-laws think he’s being selfish. He thinks both families are in hysterics.
At least I got my lobster last weekend, among other things.
Another nice day in heaven in Toodyay; blue skies, some sun, a cold wind.
We were at the Avon Descent, a yearly event to do with kayaks, the Avon river which has filled almost to bursting, thanks to the abundant rains of late, of food festivals and children and tons of cute dogs of every breed and stripe.
I had a thali, which needed to be spicier, but I wasn’t mad at all, it was good to be out and about, with my usual crankiness and anxiety eaten away via the distraction of cute canines, and I even had an artisanal popsicle, despite me assuming that a country town like Toodyay would consider it odd and foreign (some food places had vegan options, I thought). But what made me gladder was the absence of true and nasty arguments.
Oh, and Hellraiser II was finally watched on Blu Ray, despite my mother in law’s criticism of it (it was made in the eighties).
Ah, Doug Bradley is still marvelous. Did you know he’s doing readings of things like Frankenstein on YouTube now for people in isolation?
I’m in Toodyay, the town where both my lovely mother in law and her partner lives. Last night when we came down at around 7pm, it was dead-pleasant for a change. We had decent pizza for dinner, and not something foul like McCains pizza, and I, as always, was welcomed to scab my mother in law’s wine; a dry white (I don’t know what exactly it was, if a Prosecco or not). We played a game of Movie Buff, where weirdly enough, our team won.
This pleasantness, this peace and quiet from my suburb, is what I want. With the only sounds being the wind and the cows and other creatures that tend to come out at night, like the roos.
