@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

EmilyMoranBarwick

@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social

In elementary school, my teacher sent a note home saying "Emily asks too many questions.” I’ve yet to correct that behavior. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

#artist #writer #educator #activist #climber #multipotentialite would-be #coder (learnin!) #neurodivergent #ActuallyAutistic #AuDHD (#Autistic with an #ADHD booster pack 🚀) 🌱 #searchable

Despite witnessing some of the worst humanity has to offer, I still have inexplicable faith in the good of people.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Oh Honey...

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr

Dat intro 😂

EmilyMoranBarwick, to climate
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

As a primarily online-based educational #activist focused on areas of #SocialJustice #ClimateJustice, etc, I fear I often sound "whiny" when trying to explain the utter demoralization of digital platforms / social media giants / #Google

After all, isn't the cause more important?

This passage from @pluralistic 's lecture on #enshittification finally put into words what I've been grappling with.

And validates how very vital the fight for an open internet is.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/

#activism

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

I don't know if I have a favorite language, but German is certainly very entertaining!

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr I adore …especially for the reason highlighted in the strip…

Need a word? Shove logical component words together = logical (and often comically long) word.

EmilyMoranBarwick, to ADHD
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

I ate the exact same lunch from kindergarten through high school.

Then I really "mixed it up" in adulthood and would eat the same lunch for 2-5 years before shifting to the "next lunch" phase.

Yet it took till my mid-30s to learn I'm 🙃

...just one of so many things I look back at and think "All the signs were there!"

//

On a related note: I know I'm not alone in having my missed...

...then misdiagnosed as neuroses 🙄


@actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@elizabethveldon Yep!

It’s that hyper-empathy that flies in the face of traditional concepts of people lacking empathy

For me, I also see a connection with my difficulty communicating my interior life. I knew that I had a LOT going on inside that I couldn't communicate

So I never assumed that just because non-human animals couldn’t speak in a way humans could fully understand, didn’t mean they weren’t capable of thought, emotion, or communication.

@actuallyautistic

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

Share your cute adorable face, or don't, just be a lurker!

This my face in the sun, and my poofy hair and my eyes looking at you

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr Surely...

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

When I hear older people say they wish they had the energy they had in their 40's:

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr
When I hear anyone of any age talking about having energy ever…

Also, when I hear people say things like “remember the care-free days of our youth?”

No…no I do not…

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

When someone is explaining to you how they're just introverted, but what they're actually describing is an anxiety disorder and a whole bunch of paranoia:

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr on the "other side" (in some ways)... when you describe at-times-debilitating to someone and they (well-meaningly) respond with things like:

  • "Yeah I worry about things sometimes too"

  • "Try not to worry about it"

😐

EmilyMoranBarwick, to BadInternetBills
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

"Our communities are worth a lot more than the underlying tool used at some point in time. By accepting the confusion, we are destroying our communities. We are selling them, we are transforming them into a simple commercial asset for the makers of the tool we are using, the tool which exploits us"

– @ploum https://ploum.net/2023-07-06-stop-trying-to-make-social-networks-succeed.html

After a decade of trying to "reach everyone" w/my , I find quiet, small-scale connections & changes most profoundly rewarding

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

When people say they did their own research, this is what they mean:

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@RickiTarr
I’ve unfortunately lost count of the times I’ve heard “I did my own research” used for what amounts to going down a toxic algorithmically-fueled YouTube black hole of ever-increasing extremism.

I suppose then “peer reviewed” is the number of likes and unhinged echo-chamber comments?

🎓 Here’s to the graduates of Google University. Oh the places you’ll go…

EmilyMoranBarwick, to Cat
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

For the first time in months, I forced myself to get off the f—ing computer and go for a f—ing walk, where I met this little guy...

If at all possible, go outside sometime...

...your brain may stay in its spiral

...you may not notice any beauty

...but you may just encounter a random in the middle of Amish farmland (who has no respect for it not being ) and be reminded for a moment that life...life is a thing

johncormier, to random
@johncormier@mstdn.ca avatar

A couple of months ago, I read something on here that quite literally changed my life. It sent me on an unexpected journey of self-discovery that continues to this day. When you’re 54, you don’t expect too many surprises about who you are. But when I read a thread on here about being autistic, something just clicked. So I went down the rabbit hole, read a bunch of articles, did some self-evaluations, and came to the inescapable conclusion that I am autistic. #actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@johncormier thank you for sharing your journey! The more people share in the open, the more our voices crowd out the voices talking “about” us

And the more we share, the more people like you can come across a post & see some reflection of the themselves that resonates…& start to understand & validate themselves in a way they never have before

It’s so lovely to hear your journey. Thee world is better for you sharing it with us :)

@actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick, to Writers
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

To all the & who need to hear this as much and as often as I do.

DJDarren, (edited ) to ADHD
@DJDarren@mendeddrum.org avatar

Fellow folks who have a formal diagnosis:

When you received your diagnosis, was it a massive anticlimax?

I ask, because my kid got his yesterday and told me that it felt underwhelming, and I distinctly remember feeling the same way when receiving my own, four years ago.

There wasn’t this great moment of relief, just a calm, almost bored psychiatrist saying “Yes, it sounds like ADHD. Let’s try you on this medication and see how you get on”

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@DJDarren For me, I was diagnosed as & at the same time (in my early 30s by my prompting).

The diagnosis was validating/revolutionary & I spent the next few years better understanding myself through an lens

TBH I kinda ignored the till recently. Like many people, I didn’t understand it.

Now that I’m finally learning about my I realize I’ve been neglecting an entire part of myself.

@actuallyadhd

EmilyMoranBarwick, to Autism
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

"Studies investigating autistic community research priorities indicate a mismatch between what research focuses on and what people want to see researched."

A MILLION times this.

Listen to what people actually want & need.

@actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick, to Luddite
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

"If anything, we should stop using as a facile insult, and use it to invoke a cautionary tale of what can happen when the specter of automation stokes fears of mass joblessness in an uneasy public—a phenomenon already taking root today."

– from @brianmerchant almost 10 years ago. Hits even harder in the "today of today"

https://www.vice.com/en/article/ae379k/luddites-definition-wrong-labor-technophobe

EmilyMoranBarwick, to random
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

"when trying to make some change, we’re apt to notice and calculate all of the risks associated with making that change. We’re much less apt to notice all of the risks of NOT making that change—of persisting on the current path."

A much-needed reminder from @aworkinglibrary that sticking with the "status quo" is also a risk: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/whose-risks-whose-benefits/

EmilyMoranBarwick, to mastodon
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

Maybe a stupid question...

How do you verbally (& quickly) explain how to find your account on to the "uninitiated"?

For centralized social media, you just tell people "I'm @EmilyMoranBarwick on ____"

I know there's @yourhandle but that's a mouthful. And people unfamiliar with Mastodon won't know what to do with that.

Do you just say the direct URL?

(I did try DuckDuckGo-ing this before broadcasting my shameful lack of savvy here)

twan, to actuallyautistic
@twan@mastodon.online avatar

One big advantage of being is, for me, that I'm so used to in my life (heck, life is one big to me), when something happens that NT's perceive as a crisis, I usually don't blink an eye.

"Oh, but you stayed so calm and handled the situation!" – Nope, you're just used to see me on a daily basis in constant crisis mode.

@actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@twan This truly is an superpower!

It can also be a bit absurd…I’m remarkably calm & level-headed in “legitimate” life-threatening crises. But change my schedule suddenly?!?

On a related note…I used to think I was “weak” because everything was so damn hard & intense

Once I learned about my , I realized I’m weathering things every damn day that would break most people. We’re actually strong as hell…we have to be

@actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick, to ADHD
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

When people find out I’m & (well-meaning but problematically) say something like “Don’t worry, you can’t tell!”

I think to myself “You’ve obviously never seen me zoned out at the grocery store w/my over-ear headphones, making clicking noises in my throat & doing god-knows-what kind of hand movements that feel good in the moment”

Y’know…just in my groove 🎶

Fly your flag high wherever you please, my friends⛳️

@actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

To be clear: I wasn’t always comfortable being “ in public”

Like many kids (who didn’t know they were neurodivergent) I quickly learned that the self-regulatory behaviors I naturally did were “not socially acceptable”

So I up like a champ for a good 3+ decades

I “passed” so well I even fooled myself. But the cost of masking takes it’s toll

Now I’m learning to let all the parts of me I’d locked away have their day again :)

@actuallyautistic

Daojoan, to random
@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera 🖤

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@Daojoan Hardest question! Especially the "a" of it...just A book.

Reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn at age 8 was quite impactful.

As was Gorillas in the Mist.

Kid me was also into anything from Charles Darwin, Kurt Vonnegut, Kafka or William Faulkner (weird list).

And Infinite Jest, Star Girl, No Bad Parts...etc

I guess technically anything I read changes my life in some way. It impacts me one way or another.

EmilyMoranBarwick, to ADHD
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

While I sincerely value how my brain so deeply & fully engages with anything I encounter...

...sometimes I REALLY envy the ability to engage with many things simultaneously on a surface level

(Like, for example, be able to stay semi-active on Mastodon while writing a research-intensive article instead of having to ghost out entirely in order to focus 🙃)

Any fellow / folks able to do this?

@actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@Uair
Oh I constantly have a billion things running simultaneously in my brain.

But it seems like the only way for me to stay "fully oriented" to something (whether it be a research paper, the Mastodon community...anything) is for it to be a primary-to-the-point-of-exclusive focus.

I can't seem to successfully shift in and out of many things without then doing ALL those things crappily, rather than one thing well.

It's frustrating.

@actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@MarkRDavid
I guess I could have worded this all better... I absolutely value it when I can hyper-focus.

What I'm struggling with is the fact that I can't seem to do things well or stay properly "oriented" with them without excluding ALL other aspects of my life (which I very much want to have in my life).

It's how I ended up erasing SO much of myself to keep my educational nonprofit going for the last 10 years.

That kind of "flattening" of my life has been devastating.

@actuallyautistic

EmilyMoranBarwick,
@EmilyMoranBarwick@mastodon.social avatar

@MarkRDavid
Ha! I’m currently writing at a cafe. But I’ll do a combo. Yes I’m in public around people, but I also have headphones on playing brown noise :)

@actuallyautistic

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • anitta
  • GTA5RPClips
  • osvaldo12
  • thenastyranch
  • DreamBathrooms
  • khanakhh
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • mdbf
  • love
  • kavyap
  • rosin
  • megavids
  • everett
  • cubers
  • ethstaker
  • Durango
  • ngwrru68w68
  • tacticalgear
  • modclub
  • cisconetworking
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • normalnudes
  • tester
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •