Posts Tagged ‘advocacy’

20
Jul
2020

All for the misdeeds of a comparative few.

categories: MMORPGs, personal; word count: 450 words

I’m still getting used to the idea of having amber sunglasses (80% sunglass, amber-tinted) that I can put on, and have been figuring out when the best times are to wear them, especially when I’m indoors. Figuring out when to wear them when I’m outside has been a lot simpler, especially when it’s not dark outside. And as much as I know that they’re not going to be some kind of miracle “catch-all” for my migraines, having something useful like this in the tool box isn’t going to hurt, especially when I have a neurologist hell bent on not adhering to my last neurologist’s plan of care for me when, at the very least, I was prescribed one thing that actually helped, especially at more than one dose (Fioricet). When I see my neurologist for my second visit with her, I’m going to ask if I can be put on an anti-depressant as a maintenance medication since those have some efficacy in reducing migraine frequency and mitigating migraine severity, and the olanzapine that she has me continuing to single-dose for severe migraines does seem to be helping a bit. If she’ll replace the lisinopril that she currently has me trialing with that, I would be happier than I am now, because that medication has had me gain some weight as a result of moving up to the dose that she wants me to take, and I’ve been told that having that come about as a result… isn’t exactly the best (it’s worth changing meds).

I’m also still bothered that you can’t have your Homunculus auto-attack for you in Ragnarok Online now, even if you’re obviously not away from the computer letting it have a free-for-all, which has been against Gravity rules since the start of time when they were even introduced. This incapacitates the alchemist(/geneticist/creator) class beyond making them a glorified swordsman without the specialized skills or just someone who can make and throw potions and Vend. As I’ve mentioned, this punishes everyone who played and enjoyed playing the class for the misdeeds of a comparative few who were eventually going to get banned anyway, because no one who ever afkmists ever really does so long enough not to get caught.

I also found out that Ragnarok Online 2 was essentially cancelled for not being popular (or maybe lucrative?) enough, although it’s still available as a game… I guess it’s just not going to be updated beyond a certain point. I did download it off of Steam for nostalgia’s sake, although forced-WASD has never been and will never be my type of gameplay, and I do intend on giving it a brief whirl when the kids are in bed sleeping…

17
Jul
2020

Why even bother ordering online if you, well, can’t?

categories: personal; word count: 200 words

Good news: You can add your EBT card to Amazon so that they can bill from it.
(Well, in my state, you now can, at least. So that’s exactly what I did.)
Bad news: Amazon is so picky about what can actually be billed to your EBT card.
In which case, why bother even using your EBT card to buy from Amazon? Seriously?

Case in point, I thought I would buy myself some chicken chow mein, which happens to be one of my favorite foods. Ironically, I could buy the rice noodles with it. That would bill my EBT card no problem. But the thing that would not bill my EBT card… was the chicken chow mein itself. No retailer that I could find on Amazon would actually bill my EBT card for the chicken chow mein. It almost seems to be an exercise in futility to find actual retailers that will bill your EBT card for the foods that you want to buy. I’m sure that is the whole point.

“Make it so difficult for them to use their card that they won’t actually want to use EBT.”
“This is how we will make them want to get jobs!”

05
Jul
2020

Before I completely forget to make a post on it…

categories: personal; word count: 411 words

My thoughts on ABA (“applied behavioral analysis”) for autistic children, in a nutshell:
· causes C-PTSD and PTSD in many autistic adults who were… exposed to this as children
· Pavlovian dog training, or the equivalent thereof, for autistic children
· what you try to do because you want a neurotypical child and not the autistic child before you
· what parents need to stop inflicting on their children in the way of “aspiring for a neurotypical child”
· the literal end goal of this is to “have a child that is indistinguishable from their neurotypical peers”
· “planned avoidance” is abuse and I don’t care what anyone neurotypical has to say about this
· some clinicians strike the hands of a child when they stim, “even gently”, to get them to stop
· “taking away an autistic child’s special interest to force them to comply” is literally abusing them
· forces compliance without teaching the autistic child why you even want them to comply in the first place

I think I’ve made my thoughts on how ABA is frequently (“almost always”) practiced clear enough.

Love your child for who they are. Aspire to help them be the best version of themselves that they can be.

Don’t aspire to have a neurotypical child, or a child “indistinguishable from neurotypical peers”, when you have a lovely autistic child before you. No matter who they are (did I say that functioning labels are bad?), they will catch on to the fact that you don’t think that they are good enough if you don’t think that they are.

Parents of autistic children focus so much on “curing” their autistic children, “making their children (not) autistic” that in doing so, they very frequently break the autistic child that they have before them. Like I said up above, there is a difference between wanting the child before you to be the best version of themselves that they can be, and to be a completely different child — not at all the actual child that you have before you. I’ll eventually get into functioning labels and how damaging they are over the course of another post, because that would take up a complete post in and of itself to dissect the… rightful problems that are with them, and then they wrap themselves up in being “martyrs to the cause” for their children’s struggles as well.

The question that I want to end with: why is all of this okay to do to autistic children? Only autistic children?

26
Jun
2020

A stopped clock is right twice a day, right?

categories: personal; word count: 180 words

It may have taken our state governor forever to authorize this, but… now SNAP recipients are allowed to use SNAP for curbside pickup with certain retailers, and now they can even order online with two large retailers if they get SNAP anywhere in the state. And it may have been authorized as a direct result of the pandemic, but I am still appreciative of the fact that it was even done. Up until recently, this was never even an option, and only select (mainly Democratic-led) states permitted one, maybe both, things to be done with SNAP funds. But at the end of the day, barring the whole “a stopped clock is still right twice a day” clause, I still have absolutely no respect for my state governor — or the President that we still sadly have, for that matter.

Respect is earned, not given. I don’t have to respect people who have not earned it. I will not be “made” to.

In other news, I may utilize this and begin ordering at least some of our groceries online. That would help…

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