“Hey, it’s me, Amazon. I noticed you recently bought a fridge! Here’s five more fridges for you to look at, on case you need to complete your fridge selection!”

Like. Why?!

Maybe start with what you like, as I found it easier to determine. A lot of time, it just meant following my impulses.

The more stressed I felt, the more I wanted to be in bed. And when I was in bed, I realized I preferred the softest blanket on my skin. So I looked for soft textures to touch when I’m stressed and found it helped me regulate a lot.

Maybe this will help you a) be less stressed and b) if soft textures soothe you, rough ones probably stress you. So it can also be a way to discover your stressors in a roundabout way.

I think Chinese and Korean culture share this concept, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more Asian languages who did. Since a daughter joins her husband’s family upon marriage, their children are considered belonging to the other family. I recently learner that apparently there’s a saying in Korean that daughters always leave things at their mother’s house when they get married so they have a reason to come back despite having left the family.

You didn’t do anything wrong, both is fine. Me and most of my autistic friends actually prefer to call ourselves autistic. Figure out what you prefer first and foremost :)

Speak for yourself only, please. It’s s fine if you prefer autistic person, but I and many autistics I know don’t. The bottom line is not to teach someone what’ s best but to inform them that there may be preferences and to listen to the reason there talking to, not to make blanket statements about what’s the right thing.

If you want to convince people it’s up to you to bring the evidence. I’m not doing your work for you.

Besides, there have been studies shoing that autistics among themselves don’t have the same communication breakdown as they do when interacting with neurotypicals. So if Japan was truly an autistic culture it should be easier for autistic people, but it’s not.

Besides, I’m very curious to see how you are going to apply diagnostic criteria for a neurodivergence to a culture. Like, how do you even begin? Is the culture averse to bright lights? Loud sounds? Does the culture go into hyperfocus moments? Does it suffer from PDA?

The only way you could do this is if you were to take stereotypes about how autistic people behave and try to somehow match them to cultural traits.

Link to those studies?

Edit: me being autistic make everything I say useless? Really?

I really admire your ability to mental gymnastics. No matter what anybody says, you always find a way to tell them their opinion doesn’t matter. Must be nice to be so secure in your own superiority that nothing can convince you otherwise.

As an autist who studied Japanese and gave up when I realized I just couldn’t connect with any of the Japanese people I met - even the ones where it was obvious we wanted to be friends - I can assure you the culture is even more impenetrable for autistics. And I don’t have such issues with other autistic people usually, no matter the culture.

Don’t mistake your stereotypes for reality and tell everyone people call you out because of political correctness. You’re just plain old wrong in this.

Here’s the deal: even if she’s missing time in “normal” education, time that would normally be spent in class, it’s not the end of the world. People have flunked out of school to have fun and got their bearing later. She, however, has a good reason not to go right now.

I can tell you that me pushing myself through all the normal milestones has not helped me - you don’t want to see my cv or hear about my experiences with work. It’s just sad. And still, finally, last year, I found my niche.

Allow her to be on her own timeline. Don’t worry about her missing out. Allow her to figure out what fhe needs to be comfortable in life. Once I was able to set boundaries and prioritize being comfortable without constant fighting I was able and willing to compromise sometimes if I consider it important. But the base is unconditional acceptance of my needs. Without that I was in constant self-defense and senf-preservation mode.

At some point I sat crying in my therapists office. The agency for benefits was pushing for results, and I was so frigging overwhelmed. I told my therapist “I wish I could just do nothing for the rest of the year.” He looked me dead in the eye and said: “That can be arranged.” I didn’t think much of it but suddenly there were no appointments. They dragged their feet on paperwork and I could only tell the agency that I can’t get the paperworks, I’m waiting too. They eventually gave up, and I had almost four months where there was nothing to do. I only realized in hindsight what my therapist had done for me, but that break helped me rest and heal a lot, so that we could actually work on things in the new year.

Give her the gift of time and acceptance. Once she feels safe and heard, she is hopefully in a position to take on the challenge of therapy and getting better.

Wild theory: maybe she is unhappy with all the changes and feels like she has no say in anything, and this is the only way how she can get some semblance of agency.

Did she want the school change? Did she have a say in which school she is going to? Do you believe her when she says she can’t do something, even if it doesn’t make sense to hsyou?

I’m asking the last question because for 35 years, it was not enough if I told people something is too much or I didn’t like it. They didn’t feel that way, so obviously I was just being difficult. This pattern of accidental gaslighting fucked me up big time.

I’m still in therapy for that, and I still feel unexplainable resistance to doing some things. Nowadays, with the help of a therapist, I found success in not pushing myself, but instead asking myself why I have this resistance. The key is that I’m willing to drop whatever I’m trying to do.

So maybe stop pushing and trying to convince her, and find ways where life currently is difficult for her and work with her to make it less difficult. If she is burned out, time may be the best cure.

That is so cool! Are there any theories as to why elephants have grown so big when one of the closest relatives is so small?

Fun fact: I had to look up what a shrew is, since I’m not a native speaker. It turns out in my native tongue the name has mouse in it, despite shrews not being mice!

That’s so interesting! I didn’t expect convergent evolution to happen so often, I always thought it was a huge accident when that happens. Are there specific areas where it happens more often or is it combletely random?

Are all reptiles dinosaurs, or did reptiles and dinosaurs have a more distant common ancestor? I often heard things like chickens are the distant cousins of t rex or crocodiles are living dinosaurs. How much truth is there to that?

Yes, please!

Not culturally dense, but absolutely unwilling to consider cultures outside their bubble other than as mere curiosities for entertainment. I stand by that.

Not unable to learn a new layout, but unwilling, because I don’t see the point. Why would I waste time and energy on something that will at most bring me one more shortcut to use? Programming is not about typing speed. If the bottleneck for you is typing speed, your job is very different than anything I’ve seen or heard of.

I have never seen anyone but my computer-illiterate mom use two fingers for ctrl-z, hence I was expressing my bewilderment about that. I’ll probably be able to do that move blind with one hand, and so are all of the people I know who use the computer in a professional setting. The only explanation I had for that was that they have exceptionally small hands so it’s a necessity. If you want to take that as an insult of your hands, be my guest, but I’m done here.

Wtf, who needs two hands for that? Do they have children’s hands?

It’s all a matter of habit - for me all layouts but my native sucks for anything to do on a keyboard. The only thing that sucks is if keybinds are set to shift-/ because / is already shift-7. I haven’t found a replacement for that yet. Forgot which program used that and for what, but I remember it was a bummer. Still wouldn’t spend all that time and energy and slowdown learning a different layout.

There’s lots of programmers on languages that need more keys readily than us keyboard has. Äöüß, just to give an example.

I don’t know, every time I read a post like this I’m kinda speechless. I know lots of Americans and many of them are brillant and open-minded, but then there are posts like this which are completely oblivious that there are reasons for other keyboard layouts.

The reason OP can’t fathom programming on those is that they aren’t used to it. If you grew up with non-us layouts you similarly couldn’t fathom programming on the us layout.

Sometimes I feel like people refuse to even think about acknowledging that there are other experiences than their own. Go out, try out new things, exercise your brain and callenge yourself.

I get where you’re coming from. But if everyone thought your way, adversity will only ever grow.

You need to be upset, and you need to be working to reduce adversity for those who don’t have the resilience it takes. Adversity is like chaos, if you never do anything it will overwhelm even the strongest person.

Your perspective is not wrong (perspectives rarely are), I just think it’s unhelpful for the greater picture. It works for an individual, but it will do nothing for your peers. Instead, it serves to protect those who benefit from other people suffering and being disadvantaged, because if everyone practiced that there would not be enough anger to fuel change. And change is needed.

Anger and frustration is your energy. If you never get angry you’ll never have the incentive to change the world. Your perspective is probably helpful with chronic conditions, because there’s nothing to change about that, but in my opinion it’s wrong to apply it to every situation.

If you find yourself facing human-constructed adversity, like in a society that doesn’t want to do minimal changes that would only slightly inconvenience them but would greatly benefit some of their peers, I think your advice is harmful - because it quells the flames that are needed to fight for a better society.

You’re missing the point here. This is not about making someone feel better about themselves but about making others realize how bad it was to finally spur them into action. Because it’s so much easier to “admire” someone strong than just to do something about the adversity.

I know nothing about you, but if I just read your comment in this context I want to scream at you: You, too, think you’re making a differene by trying to make someone feel good about themselves, but what have you done about easing their suffering? It’s not like it has stopped, it will go on for the rest of our lifes.

You’re just taking the easy way out by giving a pep talk then it’s back to normal.

Now, like I said, I know nothing about you, and maybe this pep talk was from one survivor to another, but I’m just so damn tired to hear the same song and dance over and over. We don’t need pep talks that make the talkers feel good about themselves, we need change. Good change.

Do you have the chance to sit the whole group down together and tank about that?

As in, tell them what you told us - you can’t dm as you normally would and have to keepepulling punches because he keeps endangering the group and you dont want to punish the group for his bad choices. Remind them that you are supposed to have fun too and dming like you’re walking on eggshells is killing yours.

I’m suggesting bringing it up with the whole group because it sounds like you brought it up with the player alone already. Or maybe you have focused too much on how they could play better instevd of how it negatively affects the group. Maybe they need to realize that even if this is fun for them, it’s not for you - and maybe not for the others as well.

IMHO, this is something that should be talked trough with the group. Getting less lenient and not weakening your encounters is risking the wole group’s fun, so it should be discussed with the group.

Enabling choices per se is a good thing, but if you have to rely on someone for life and death who knows how to shoot a gun, owns it, brings it and yet only uses a knife in the gunfight, it’s gonna get you killed. And this should happen. Just make sure everybody knows about this.

Maybe this will spark discussion about why he makes these characters and why he plays them like this. Maybe it can help find something he enjoys. If not, the group is now prepared to die more often and you don’t have to pull punches.

Ahhh, that makes more sense. Yeah, when it comes to food atm I generally listen to my body even though it may be not the healthiest option. My main reasons are 1) that I believe you typically crave the nutrition your body desires and 2) it’s a “pick your battles” situation.

If you try to change everything at once cause you’re fed up and decided your life needs to finally get back on track after an eternity of slacking, you’re setting yourself up to fail. I know, I’ve failed umpteenth times that way 😔

So I decided what area to focus on and in those areas I’m like the first officer who offers commentary to the captain when the captain makes a decision (cause captain is impulsive and often doesn’t even ask for comments before making that decision). I’ve fould a way to “phrase it” that makes the captain consider things I say and sometimes we change course.

Food/weight is not among the areas I’m actively involved in right now cause my energy is just not enough to change my eating habit while fighting my other habits. I’m still trying to keep it within boundaries that I decided on first, so I’ll detail the compromise that I made with myself below. If that bores you, feel free to skip :) Most of it involves reasoning with myself, though, which I also like to frame as compromising with the inner child. I guess I just think of my impulsivity as someone to reason with, and you win some, you loose some?

I work in IT and sit a lot, though, so if I constantly crave chocolate I do question myself if this is just one of the following three:

• being bored. You wouldn’t believe how often I just go open the fridge not out of hunger, but of boredom! I trained myself to always focus on my stomach when I open the fridge door and see if , I’m actively hungry before I decide anything
• I’m so frustrated with something that chocolate/something sweet is needed to regulate my mood
• this is is one of the moments where evolution has trained me to scream “sweet stuff! This is a rare treat! You cannot ignore this gift from the gods!” Because sugar is so rich in energy and that was really important in the stone age where you used a lot.

Being bored and the sweet stuff moments I go, well, this is not a healthy reason to snack, what can I do instead? With frustration I more often than not give in.