BC CULTURE
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

How to help the #autistic people in your life get through Christmas - a practical thread of advice.

Please read and share!

(This is based on my own experiences of being autistic)

#autism #christmas

 1. Give #autistic people an easy escape route they know they can take without judgement - knowing you can dash off to recharge without being questioned can help so much!
2. Don't play Christmas music really loudly around the house. No one needs that anyway but if you must, make it not too intrusive as it can be difficult for #autistic people to handle. Christmas music is *so* 'busy'!
3. Don't expect clear and unambiguous response to Christmas presents when opened. Many #autistic people struggle to show the appropriate emotional reaction, and are also terrified of making you feel bad. We show appreciation in our own way.
4. Don't forget #autistic friends and relatives may not be as excited about meeting up with family members as you are. There is likely a lot of anxiety there, especially this year. Be mindful of this and don't force it.
5. Make sure at least one room is quiet and non-decorated as a kind of cool-off room from all the noise, social stuff and colour of Christmas. All that can be an #autistic person's sensory nightmare.
6. Let your #autistic kids (and adults) play with their new stuff as soon as possible. They may have been obsessing over it for months and telling them they can't open their lego til after dinner is bloody cruel...
7. Don't make social interactions, like games, singalongs or whatever, compulsory for your #autistic friends. We may well join in but being compelled to is really unpleasant and can cause meltdown.
8. If a meltdown does occur, and sadly it is pretty likely as Christmas is bloody intense, let #autistic folks escape without fuss or comment. Do not criticise them fof their meltdown. Do be kind and supportive on their return.
9. Let your #autistic friends and relatives bring their favourite new little toy to the dinner table with them, to fiddle with and to help ground them. Honestly, this helps so so much. I like to have a LEGO minifigure.
10. Talk to your #autistic friends and relatives about their big interests, especially if their gifts are linked to them. I expect to tslk to The Child about Pokemon a *lot* on Friday.
11. If you're in a lockdown area and you're not seeing extended family, allow the #autistic one in you'd life to make the most of this opportunity and do not make them feel bad for enjoying the relative lack of stress.
12. Do ask #autistic friends and relatives to help with dinner, but with clear, unambiguous instructions. Honestly - make it really clear what we should do - don't leave it to us to do on our initiative...
13. If you have #autistic relatives alone at Christmas, message them. Only ring them if they're OK with phone calls. But do say hello!
14. Don't force your #autistic friends and relatives to wear strange things at Christmas, like thick woolly jumpers or paper crowns. Nothing makes me more unhappy than wearing an ill-fitting paper crown that my scalp will not recognise as a friend. Hate them.
15. Don't make an #autistic or #ADHD person sit through a film 'just because' it's Christmas. please.
16. DO NOT moan at me on this thread that #autistic people just want excuses to not do stuff. That's a cruel and intensely mean spirited take.
17. Make sure #autistic friends and relatives know where all your amenities are. Nothing is worse than visiting a house snd being too scared to find the toilet,or not knowing where the towels are.
18. Recognise that not all of these tips will be applicable as there's a lot of variety in the autistic population!
If you appreciate my stuff and advocacy, such as it is, I really do appreciate a bit of financial support, especially these days. Thank you

https://t.co/qonxXX3C91
19. Many #autistic people don't actually like surprises - sometimes the best bet is to be open about what you're doing/gifting.
20. You may have to let an #autistic friend or relative follow their normal routine on Christmas day, even if it doesn't fit perfectly with your expectation if what Christmas day should be like. Don't be stubborn.
21. If you have a 'running order' of the day, share it with your #autistic guests - they will really appreciate the heads up. Give warning of changes to new activities.
22. Enforced fun of any kind is pretty grim but in my experience #autistic folk are very resistant to it. Avoid.
23. Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
24. And so is Iron Man 3 (in fact its the only thing that film has going for it).
25. Don't make #autistic people feel bad if they've forgotten to wrap a present or something like that. Executive dysfunction is a big deal!
26. #autistic people may find photographs difficult, as we believe they steal our souls. Only joking, we autistic folk don't have souls.

But seriously, the forces jollity or need to smile if you're flat-affect can be very unpleasant.
27. If an #autistic person makes an ill advised joke over Christmas Dinner, take it in good faith - don't assume they're trying to offend. See above tweet.
28. Don't force an #autistic friend or relative to eat unfamiliar food 'just because its Christmas'.

ie Christmas pudding, nuts, Stilton, etc

More from Pete 'stay' Wharmby 'the fireplace'

Pete 'stay' Wharmby 'the fireplace'
Pete 'stay' Wharmby 't...
@commaficionado
Why do #autistic students get excluded so frequently from school?

Some thoughts, based on my own experiences. If we have an understanding of the 'why', it's easier to address the results.

Please read and share! /1

Autistic students often find themselves being punished more than average at school. Frequently this can escalate to temporary exclusion and similar 'punishments'. Are autistic students generally just more naughty? Of course not. So what's the deal? /2

Everything about the fundamentals of a school day is designed around neurotypical children. Most school day elements are also very old, and have been around since long before people became more 'autism aware'. /3

What we see as the core experience of doing subjects for around an hour, before moving to the next subject, between the ages of 5 and 18 dates back *decades*. So where do autistic students fit in? /4

Well, they don't. Students with an autistic or ADHD neurotype quite simply do not slot into this structure. The only way they can is by essentially squashing their own needs in order to fit in with the majority. If they can't do this? That's where the 'punishments' come in. /5
SCHOOL
Pete Wharmby
Pete Wharmby
@commaficionado
Once again I'm reminded that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The recent push by a large number of autistic people to 'own' their diagnosis and try to raise acceptance and dispel harmful myths has kicked up a minority of autistic people to fight against this.

This may seem bizarre - who fights against improved acceptance? - but actually has clear roots in the ongoing culture war the West seems engaged in. The identity positive autistic movement, of which I am a part, is viewed by some as another manifestation of 'wokeness'.

This is the right-wing definition of 'wokeness', of course - ie a modern equivalent of the pejorative take on political correctness, but it's definitely at the core of this 'neurorealist' movement - the idea the autistic community is being hijacked by 'woke lefties'.

They believe that the push for acceptance of neurodiversity and rejection of the medicalisation of autism is misguided and drawing attention away from those autistic people who, in their view, need more help and intervention.

The trouble is, this view is pretty much baseless. Firstly, there is little evidence that autistic advocates who push for acceptance are in any way harming autistic people who require more help and support. Second, the view effectively silences those of us who are able to share.
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Pete Wharmby
Pete Wharmby
@commaficionado
Autistic behaviours that are generally discriminated against, despite being harmless and just how we are.

A thread🧵

1. Stimming - repetitive physical movement to help regulate our stress levels. They feel nice and are really helpful but people seem to hate to see it. #autism

2. No eye contact. We generally find this too intimate and intense, and will avoid. It can even cause pain if forced. But people don't trust us even though we inform them we're autistic. #autism

3. Sitting in 'odd' positions. We're often very bendable - remember Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a common comorbidity - and loads of feel more comfortable in slightly contorted positions. People always comment 'you can't be comfy like that'.

Yes. Yes I can. #autism

4. Stammering when excited. We can get so passionate about some subjects that we struggle to get the words out as they all get caught in the annoying bottleneck of actually having to leave our mouths. But it irritates people, makes them assume we're somehow lesser. #autism
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Pete Wharmby
Pete Wharmby
@commaficionado
Autism and meltdowns - what are they and how can you help?

A thread. Please read and share widely. As always, based on my own experiences.

#autism #autistic #Meltdown

Autistic people are stressed. *Very* stressed. Take it from me - our existence is generally peppered with moments of calm on a backdrop of continual tension and intense stress. The reasons for this are complex. /2

Our senses are often way too sensitive, meaning we live assaulted by intense sensory input - sound, vision, smell, touch and so forth. This means our base level stress is always much higher than most folks. /3

We are also usually struggling to make sense of social communication in a way neurotypical people don't need to worry about. Often we have to put actual brainwork into every interaction, as nothing seems to come naturally to us. Even with friends or loved ones. /4

So our glass of stress is very frequently filled to the absolute brim, and it doesn't take very much for us to spill over into a kind of 'post-stress' state, and I guess that's what we call meltdown. /5 #autistic
FOR LATER READ
Pete Wharmby
Pete Wharmby
@commaficionado
Things You Need to Know About Autism - a thread for sharing.

I try to raise awareness, understanding and acceptance of #autistic people. Have a read and hopefully it will help.

#thread #autism

1. Autism has always existed, as far as we can tell. Any increase in the number of autistic people is due to better diagnosis and growing population. There are historic figures who display many autistic traits, such as Isaac Newton. #autism

2. Autism is not an illness or disease. It cannot be caught, nor does it appear to spontaneously happen. You are born autistic and you will die autistic - it is not 'curable'. #autism

3. Autistic people do not lack empathy, nor are we emotionless robots. We often struggle to communicate emotion, and we can have alexithymia, making identification of emotions hard, though. #autism

4. Autism affects the entire demographic - doesn't matter your gender, sexuality, age, class, skin colour, culture. Autism is a human condition. #autism
AUTISM

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Today we start the last book of #AdamSmith's #WealthOfNations.

Allons-y!

#WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets


Book Five of #WealthOfNations is all about the duties of the sovereign and how to pay for them. In this first part of chapter 1, we’re talking about the cost of defense. (V.i.a) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets


The sovereign's duty to protect the country can only be done through military force, but how you get the money to pay for that military varies according to time, place, and circumstance. (V.i.a.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

In a hunter/gatherer society, everyone is always already a warrior, and since there isn’t really a sovereign or nation, no expense is required to maintain defense. Much the same is true of shepherding cultures. (V.i.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Armies of hunters are limited in size to a few hundred men (as they have to sustain themselves through the available game). Shepherds can muster larger forces because they bring their sustenance in the form of flocks. (V.i.a.3–5) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
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Beth Moore
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Oh man, I loved my Bible reading this morning. It was Exodus 28 where God gave Moses the instructions for the priestly apparel Aaron & his sons were to wear. The attention to the minutest detail confirms what we can still count on today: everything God prescribed had purpose.

Whether or not they understood it, whether or not we understand it, God is not haphazard. Nothing is for nothing. For me, one of the most marvelous parts of Bible study is how often he does tie things together for us, connecting the dots, connecting the testaments, the covenants.

I’ll just offer 1 example from Ex 28. V.3 says “You are to instruct all the skilled artisans, whom I’ve filled with a spirit of wisdom (isn’t that fantastic?), to make Aaron’s garments for consecrating him to serve Me as priest.” The turban was an important piece of the apparel.

Something I find particularly fascinating is that the skilled artisans were to make a pure gold nameplate to fasten onto the very front of the priest’s turban. It was to have 4 words engraved on it -all caps in our Bibles- “HOLY TO THE LORD. “It is always to be on his forehead.”

Imagine how a conversation would change if we were talking to a person while staring at those four words on his or her forehead. Ok, fast forward to the New Testament where the Holy Spirit says through Peter that we who are in Christ are part of a “royal priesthood.” (2 Pet 2:9)
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Many readers have asked me "why do so many pulp covers feature women in ripped red blouses standing in swamps while a man fights off an unusual animal attack?"

The answer is artist Will Hulsey...


Will Hulsey was the undisputed king of the animal attack pulp cover. You name it, he'd paint it attacking you in a pool of stagnant water.


Very little is known about Will Hulsey, but he worked on a number of men's pulp magazines in the 1950s and early 1960s including Man's Life, True Men, Guilty, Trapped and Peril.


Their audience was ex-GIs: during WWII the US Council of Books in Wartime had given away over 122 million books to American servicemen to read; this led to a post-war surge in paperback and magazine sales amongst these newly enthusiastic readers.


As a result the 1950s saw a raft of men's pulp magazines being published to tap into this market - almost 200 different titles!
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David Roberts
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The more I think about the Bruce Springsteen Jeep ad, the more disgusted I get. It's allegedly a call for unity, but it is drenched in a very particular culture's iconography: a Christian church (that superimposes the cross on the US flag), farms, rural living, "the middle" ...

... it's all so white. This is the "America" of nationalist fairy tales: rural land, settled by self-reliant white farmers & good Christians. It's all trucks & dust & manual labor & squinting at the horizon while wiping sweat from your brow. This is the kind of "unity" ...

... designed to comfort (or at least not threaten) white people. It says, "let's unify by joining together to reaffirm America's mythical self-conception, despite the real-world violence & repression it has always entailed."

If I'm, I dunno, a latino housekeeper in Vegas or black Uber driver in Sacramento, what's in the commercial for me? What does this kind of "unity" promise me? What can I find in "the (mythical) middle"? Nothing. It's not for me.

If America ever does come together in some kind of social solidarity again (which looks pretty doubtful), it's not going to be around the myths & iconography of 20th century hegemonic white culture in the US. It's going to be around something NEW -- new stories, new icons.
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on a very basic level it is astounding to me that seemingly half the country is hooked on the adventures of The Vision & Scarlet Witch, whose last series together was a precise contemporary of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, and which was quarter box fodder for decades

in hindsight, of course, the idea of framing a superhero story as a suburban dramedy seems novel and fresh to people, but that’s only because other people spent literally three and a half decades sleeping on it


now, of course, many new fans who look into the history of the matter might wonder why such a seemingly popular and fecund direction for these two characters was permanently shelved in the late 80s, what set of factors could possibly have -


they were able to put back some of what was broken - in time - but they never were able to get back to the marriage, and by the time the characters had new status quos in the early 90s the company had moved away from those kinds of genre experiments, and the rift became permanent

the Vision was a humorless drip for years, doing much the same schtick as Data during the precise years ST:TNG was airing

and as a consequence of those stories Wanda permanently became the poster child of women who cannot handle their power because of female inconstancy ...
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Beneath the Bhairava, in the lower level are installed the Ashta Bhairavas, SapthaRishis in the form of stones, and Saptha Kannis in the form of brass lamps. Thereare a number of little blue and white lights in the ceiling that is shaped like a dome.. 3/n


which give an ethereal atmosphere when switched on. The steps representthe twelve signs of the zodiac and when one steps over them to reach thesanctum sanctorum all the doshas pertaining to the horoscope are cleared onceand for all..4/n


The Sthala Vriksham ”Peepal Tree” which is grown on a pedestal, a trident which is considered as Bhairavi, Pancha Mukha Anjaneya, Prathyankara Devi, Subramanya, Rudra Vinayaga, Vaishnavi Devi, Naga Rudra, Eswara, Vana Durga etc. 5/5

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#Thread
An interesting story of Kamala Devi hazarika for all Sanatanis...🙏

A Xtian missionary was sent to Assam for the promotion of religion. His name was Cruz. He came across to one the boys from an influential family in Assam to teach him English.
@noconversion

Cont 👇


The p@stor slowly began to study the house and he learned that the boy's grandmother was the most influential person in the house. So he thought 'Corrupting the grandmother's mind can make the whole family Xtian as well as the whole village.

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The p@stor began to tell Grandma the stories of how J€$u$ cured leprosy of lepers, how He gave sight to the blind, etc..But after listening to him, the strong Sanatani grandmother said. A stone turned into a living woman (Ahalya) for our Rama when he touched the stone.

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She spoke of Rama setu where stones floated in sea just by writing his name on the stones and that they are still floating today.
The p@stor continued his efforts but all his tricks went in vain.

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One day he had brought a cake from the church and he thought of offering it to grandmother but he was doubtful that she would eat it. But contrary to his expectation, she took the cake and ate it.

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Hindu Media Wiki
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Speech Delay is most common in children nowadays

In ancient times, our grandparents used to follow typical natural way of caring the needs of a child. All they used were more of natural products than chemical based for the growth of child.


One of major step followed was to feed Gurbach Jadd/ Vasa Kommu/ Acorus Calamus for initiating good speech ability in a child. This stem was needed to babies on Tuesdays and Sundays in mother's milk.

Vasa is feed to baby after the 1st bath on 12th day in week. Weekly only thrice it is fed and named as :

Budhwar - Budhi Vasa
Mangalwar - Vaak Vasa
Ravi Vaar - Aayush Vasa

This stem is burnt and rubbed against the grinding stone in mother's milk or warm water to get a paste


The procedure to make it is in the link

https://t.co/uo4sGp7mUm

It should not be given daily to the child. Other main benefits are

1. It clears the phlegm in child's throat caused due to continuous milk intake. It clears the tracts and breathing is effortless.
2. Digestion

For children who haven't got their speech and is delayed than usual should feed this vasa on these days in week atleast for 6months. Don't get carried away with this dialogue
"Some gain speech little late"
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