Well-said here.
I would rather be seen than loved… or more preferably both, but still.
Oh my god this makes PERFECT sense. My parents are exactly in the ‘I love you’ corner, based largely on religion and familial affection, but they do not SEE me from the getgo. I’m not even saying in the sense of ‘they don’t get me’ or something, they just can’t see it even when I pour that all out for them. Being an ML in a centrist family is AGONIZING, especially with ADHD and ASD. Very vague understandings of even how to understand basic facts about ADHD are the best I get from them, and it’s the usual ‘get a planner’ shit.
I’ve spent YEARS wishing so much more for just one person to live with that is in alignment and understanding, someone that actually cares and wants to hear when I’m ranting for them 5000th time about the genocide in Palestine or will cry with me after hearing Abu Baker Abed’s interview back in late 2024 where the stories he told in Palestine even made the Palestinian hosts of Electronic Intifada cry on camera. This video almost made me cry for a minute honestly, it made me think too long about how isolating it is being so completely out of place even in some places that have neurodivergent friend groups because there’s no alignment, or understanding, or SEEING anything or anyone truly.
Being an ML in a centrist family is AGONIZING, especially with ADHD and ASD.
Yeah, same here with my own family, which I’m stuck in.
Very vague understandings of even how to understand basic facts about ADHD are the best I get from them, and it’s the usual ‘get a planner’ shit.
Same for me. Being AuDHD is tough, mainly in the ADHD part. As for Autism, “ASD” isn’t a disorder for me; I believe Autistics are a community and culture, not just a neuro-type.
Say, have you listened to the Autistic Culture podcast? It’s great, though with liberal politics, and the two people who created it eventually split over disagreements, but it’s great nonetheless, at least the first three seasons.
Read this and see if the “nation” or “culture” or “community” idea in Marxism-Leninism does or doesn’t apply to us Autistic folk! I think it does, after giving it loads of thought.
Anyway, what you have isn’t a disorder; you’re just in a society ruled by neurotypicals and capitalism that doesn’t accommodate you. We accommodate neurotypicals every day; not the other way around. Maybe ADHD has its problems (due to executive functioning tasks and carrying them out), but it also comes with creativity. If you need ADHD meds to function, then that’s fine; nothing wrong with medication despite what RFK, Jr. says. We all need food to survive anyway. Lots of neurotypicals have bodily or even mental disabilities at times in their lives; so do us neurodivergent.
On another note, I’m trying to transition to being my gender, but I dare not do it under my family’s roof and am trying to get out of here.
I’ve spent YEARS wishing so much more for just one person to live with that is in alignment and understanding, someone that actually cares and wants to hear when I’m ranting for them 5000th time about the genocide in Palestine or will cry with me after hearing Abu Baker Abed’s interview back in late 2024 where the stories he told in Palestine even made the Palestinian hosts of Electronic Intifada cry on camera. This video almost made me cry for a minute honestly, it made me think too long about how isolating it is being so completely out of place even in some places that have neurodivergent friend groups because there’s no alignment, or understanding, or SEEING anything or anyone truly.
My issue is that I also live in a red state under Glenn Youngkin so ranting about Palestine falls on deaf ears.
Omg I was in Virginia not even six months ago, my family moved to Germany from Hampton!
But, in all seriousness, I really haven’t explored the ASD side of myself since most of my struggles come from ADHD, but I honestly would love to look more into it, since the connections from neurodivergency to the whole question of ‘secondary’ contradictions is getting kinda important. The amount of right-wing MLs that just dismiss queer rights, feminism, neurodivergent interests, etc. as ‘secondary contradictions’ is astonishing, since it’s SORT OF secondary but only in the sense that it’s connected to the core problem of imperialism rather than BEING it. That’s used as an excuse so often, ive heard them go from calling it secondary to unimportant within literal minutes, which is why I very much try to be careful around guys who say nothing about the connected features to empire and its tactics besides just endless siege and settler colonialism.
Oh, definitely agree with the “connected features” to imperialism, btw
Rightwing “MLs” like the ACP or MAGA coms, yeah, but even “leftwing MLs” too, I’ve seen. They dismiss queerness and neurodivergency as well.
Also, there is a good Marxist book, though not written by a Marxist-Leninist, called “Empire of Normativity.”
Talks about Autism and neurodivergency from a Marxist perspective and does NOT fall for anti-psychiatry stuff (though it incorporates some observations from it):
The similarities between ultras and right-wing MLs need to be studied honestly, a better understanding of that shit could do SO much for the whole understanding of socialism, not to mention everything it’s connected to, in a rather diamat fashion.
Yeah, I agree there’s a connection between the two or at least similarities more than not.
Anyway, I hope the resources I gave you are helpful!
Holy shit this makes way too much sense. I simply don’t feel seen most of the time. It’s like those that are close to me just refuse to acknowledge me, even when it is clearly not their intention, and that sucks. It makes sense now why I always struggled with “I love you” and even with calling people friends, because these things mean different things to me and whenever I’m put into a position where I have to say these things it almost always feel weird, except in a few cases when I mean it and it feels natural.
Eyyup
If someone says they love you, but you don’t trust that they know you, then how do you know they’re not loving a mirage in their head rather than you?
This comes very close to Hegel’s dialectics of intersubjectivity, where one develops a sense of self through a process of mutual recognition with others.
Perhaps I should read Hegel.
HAHAHAHA! MARX BE LIKE, “I READ HEGEL SO NOBODY ELSE EVER HAS TO!”
You made this yourself?
The meme format already exists, I just threw in the screenshot.
OH LOL
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
This felt like a mini-epiphany for me. Although being unconditionally loved has an appeal to it, I’ve always personally perfered when people bond with me on the basis of my ideas rather then on another concept.
Being able to convince someone, or find others who’ve come to similiar conclusions, makes my connection to them feel significantly more meaningful.
I’m also a bit of a stubborn person, so when I get into a conversations about a topic I care about, and through person I’m interacting with won’t choose to comprehend the reasoning for my claim and engage with it, it genuinely makes me upset.
Nuerodivergence is a topic I’m always learning more about, and every new insight I get about my own brain, or how it interacts with soceity, is fascinating.
I personally am much more comfortable when people’s love for me is conditional. I like to know that it is based on real aspects of who I am, and thus would not be guaranteed to stay if those things changed in a way the other person was not happy with. If love is truly “unconditional,” if there is no change in myself that would make you revoke it, then do you really love me, or do you love the abstracted idea of me?
Frankly, at times, even the “unconditional love” seems conditional to me and doesn’t really value me.
