Humans are an incredibly arrogant species. I can’t emphasize that enough.

Genetically modified beagle glows

Beagles are popular with vivisectors. They are small, easily managed, docile, friendly little buggers. Obviously we should screw up their DNA to make them glow green. 

Researchers are hoping for two things:
* Green dogs become commercially successful as trendy pets
* Beagles can be infected with lethal diseases in order to, you know, track their progress green

I would guess they prioritize those two things differently, but hey, I think trendy commodity is more likely to be successful than effectively tracking human diseases in, you know, nonhuman animals.

Besides our arrogance, I presume we think ourselves intelligent. If so, then stop greenifying dogs and start using innovative, state of the art technologies to track and treat disease that doesn’t involve the genetic manipulation of other species. Or other animals, period. Progress means changing archaic beliefs and traditions. Exploiting and abusing nonhumans is archaic - let’s transition to other means sooner, not later.

And when you’re living with something that most people just don’t understand, and you regularly read or hear things that either minimize and discount your experiences, or paint them as grossly abnormal to the point that your very existence seems aberrant, it’s easy to feel chronically confused, fearful, lonely, desperate, and ashamed. I certainly did. And I thought if I could just get other people to understand I wouldn’t feel so bad.  My thinking was faulty for two primary reasons:

1. I needed people to understand Dissociative Identity Disorder because I didn’t understand it myself. When your definition of your own disorder is wrapped up in mythology and outright falsehoods, when you believe that your illness is aberrant, acceptance from others seems awfully attractive. My limited and distorted knowledge of DID, in other words, was the very thing creating my need for other people to understand it.
2. Deep down, I didn’t want to be accepted in spite of my abnormalities. I thought having Dissociative Identity Disorder meant I was one of the most broken members of society, a tragic anomaly, a pitiable mess of a person who could only fit in if other, less broken people graciously chose to see past my abnormalities and love me anyway. And though I was craving understanding, as long as it looked like that it didn’t feel particularly good…

A funny thing happened when I began to understand that dissociation isn’t inherently abnormal, and acquainted myself with the wide range of human experiences that fall under the heading “normal dissociation” … I discovered that Dissociative Identity Disorder isn’t the bizarre condition I thought it was, and my need for others to understand it subsequently abated.

While I don’t have DID, this kind of thing also applies to lots of other kinds of human variation, IME—falling under the neurodiversity umbrella and otherwise.

Sometimes trying to explain things to other people can help you see gaps in your own understanding and make some connections you might not have noticed otherwise. Plus, if you are having problems at least in part due to a history of invalidation and gaslighting—purposeful, or just not from having your needs understood—it can feel very important to get some validation/reassurance from other people. That may be a step toward understanding and accepting yourself, or it may distract you from it—or both at different times.

In some cases, you may feel obliged to explain yourself and your “weirdness”, which can be based in just not feeling like it’s/you’re OK. (Especially when a lot of other people are ready and willing to tell you that there is something bad wrong with you.) Developing a better understanding of what’s really going on can help you feel secure enough in yourself not to need to explain/justify so much.

This kind of fits in with Inferiority and its own kind of informed consent. 

cobracunt:

esmeweatherwax:

pocketfullofpoesy:

esmeweatherwax:

hupsoonheng:

invertebrateparty:

pileofmonkeys:

redqueenxlt:

msavignon:

Leash your children or at the very least, take some time to teach dog etiquette. If your child is old enough to sneak up behind, and launch herself at, my dog while screeching GOOD DOG, then your child is old enough to be told to not do that to unfamiliar dogs. Yes, yuppie dad, I saw you standing there watching the whole incident and do nothing.

P.S. My dogs are better than your kids. Cheaper and more loyal, too.

MOST dogs will bite if they feel attacked.  If you don’t know the dog approach rules to teach your children here they are:

1. always ask the owners permission, if the owner is not around leave the dog alone

2. when permitted approach slowly speak calmly with a friendly tone 

3. stop about three feet away and extend your hand slowly with palm up

4. wait for the dog to make the come and sniff you move, speak gently don’t force it; some dogs are shy some will just not be interested in you at that moment, some will greet so enthusiastically you can be knocked down by enthusiasm

5. never ever presume that a tale wag means the dog is friendly, sometimes it is a sign of dog agitation or nervousness

6. If a dog pulls his mouth back and shows front teeth and canines, that is NOT A SMILE! In dog language that means “don’t come any closer or I will bite you.  A dog smile is a relaxed open mouth usually with a tongue out

7. Don’t forget to thank the owner for letting you say hello, dogs and owners don’t owe you anything, you are asking a favor it is not your privilege. 

• JUST BECAUSE MY DOG IS SMALL DOES NOT MEAN YOUR CHILD CAN TOUCH HIM/HER.
• It’s irrelevant if your children “love dogs,” or “just want to pet the puppy.” One of my dogs was severely mishandled by small children (it’s why he was rehomed to us from his last owner who rescued him from the pound). He will freak the fuck out at a small person running full-speed towards him.
• If I tell your child, “Sorry (s)he’s shy,” or “(S)he doesn’t want to play,” this is my way of giving you, the parent, WHO SHOULD BE PAYING ATTENTION, a verbal cue that your child should not be near my dog. I’m trying to be nice about it, because I’m not a complete asshole, but YOUR CHILD CANNOT HAVE EVERYTHING (S)HE WANTS. Including touching my dog.
• If your child is rough or obnoxious with my dog, and my dog bites your child, it’s still somehow my fault, even if I’ve told you or your offspring that my dog is not available for playtime. Repeatedly. So, yes, I am going to err on the side of being a jerk so as not to put myself in that position. Yes, they’re up-to-date on their shots, and one of them only has a couple of teeth left, but I’m not taking chances.

Honestly, it’s easier just never to take them out where they might run into kids. On the very rare occasion that a child is in my house, their parents have already strictly instructed that child as to how to behave around dogs. Because my friends are not complete assholes.

As a lifelong dog owner, I want to add a couple things to this (applicable to both children and adults, as is the above):

1. Even if other people are petting a dog, DO NOT assume you can pet it, too. You still have to ask.

2. When you’re putting your hand out - palm up! - to let the dog sniff, ABSOLUTELY DO NOT  RAISE YOUR HAND OVER THE DOG’S HEAD. Extend your hand at the dog’s nose level or just below, whether that is eight or thirty inches off the ground.

3. If there is no owner around (for example, if a dog is tied up outside a cafe or something), don’t even think about it, no matter how friendly the dog appears. Really. IGNORE THE DOG.

4. Do not assume that just because you’ve petted a dog before that you can do it again. Dogs behave differently in different environments, and your neighbor’s dog that is easygoing and totally non-aggressive in your neighbor’s house may not be when out for a walk in the park.

5. Never, ever, ever “play” with a dog you don’t know very, very, very well. Strange dogs should only be petted gently. Not roughed up, teased, grabbed at, etc.

6. Do not assume anything about a dog’s temperament based on its size OR breed. Never, ever, ever. Lab? Pitbull? Yorkie? Shiba Inu? Doesn’t matter.

And, uh, not a dog-owner, but as someone who’s entered many, many dog-having apartments: Kneeling works wonders, especially with small, nervous/territorial dogs. My best friend used to have a chihuahua who would follow newcomers while barking in fear/anger, and if she hadn’t seen you in a long enough time you’d be defaulted back to newcomer. I discovered that kneeling down to her level calmed her down quick. This also worked on the big, young barky golden retriever that moved into my building this year, and his owner thought I must be “good with dogs” to squat down for his comfort’s sake. 

As an aside, if you bring your kids to any place with cats, you better teach them cat etiquette too. Because in the case of cats, the law doesn’t give a shit if Snowball gives your toddler five across the face, and neither will I if your child was terrorizing my cat with the duster or trying to point a laser in her eye. (I’ve experienced both from the same kid and I now hide all possible cat-torture devices when the little monster is over.) 

Co-fucking signed. Also, PLEASE learn some basic dog body language if you’re going to let your child run up to strange dogs willy-nilly. A dog crouching down with bum stuck in the air is a play-bow, not an attack position. A tail straight up in the air stiffly waving is NOT a friendly posture, it’s dominance. Which can turn to aggression if the child does not back the fuck off. Non-humans are not toys to entertain your sprogs.

This is all so important.  Also people have no awareness that dogs have body language—just because one of my babies is jowly and big, people tend to freak out when he play-bows, and he’s never done more than nip a little when roughhousing.  Sweet as sugar, and then people run up to the neighbor’s dachshund who a territorial, protective little dog. 

I think people get bit more often by smaller dogs because they’re perceived as little living stuffed animals—as someone who’s owned several miniature dachshunds, I can confirm that they will BITE YOU if you run up to them and grab them, adult or child.

Haha, as someone who has handled manys a mini dachshund, they WILL bite you if you don’t respect their space. Feisty little dudes. I love the long haired ones.

To people of Beeville: When I tell you my dog has a history of biting people and is very specific as to how he is approached, I am not trying to make you feel bad. He is extremely skittish for a large dog and has been yelled at/teased by neighbour children and as such will take ages to smell you down and inspect you and make sure you are 100% safe and dog-approved to be near me. He is highly protective of me; if you try to get near me without his approval, he will attack you. I’m not saying this shit for my health, I’m saying it so you don’t pull a lawsuit on my ass and the police can and will possess my dog and have him put down (which then, if that happens, don’t be surprised if I shoot you the ojo any time you’re near me.)

Excellent commentary. Our dog tends to be nervous in even slightly crowded public places. He’s never nipped at anyone so far—is actually the least aggressive dog I have ever known—but I would not rule that reaction out if someone gets sufficiently pushy about touching Nervous Dog. And if Nervous Staffie bites you, you are going to know it. :( When you run up and start petting on a dog, and it keeps trying to ignore you and move away, holding its tail down…you may get bitten. Even if you don’t, you are making the poor dog very uncomfortable, and anybody deserves more respect than that.

Disabled people in the UK have been under constant attack lately. Whether it’s the vast and wide-ranging benefit cuts; Birmingham city council refusing care to people with substantial needs, which has since been ruled unlawful; cuts in Access to Work, ironically when we are being told we should all be getting jobs; or the impending closure of the Independent Living Fund, the hits feel like they are coming from every direction.

But I read about a case a few days ago, Court tells disabled woman: just wet yourself, and it showed me just how government cuts are affecting real people. It is not an ‘austerity measure’, nor is it ‘small government’, it is an affront to a woman’s dignity and human rights, and we should all be utterly outraged.

Elaine McDonald has just lost a Supreme Court fight for her local council to allow her to continue to have overnight care. Funding was withdrawn by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for the overnight care that Ms McDonald needs to assist her with going to the toilet during the night, and the council instead gave her some incontinence pads, stating that this was cheaper.

The depressing truth is that the council and courts rated costs over human dignity, and Ms McDonald could be the first victim of many.

Elaine McDonald is not incontinent! And she, quite rightly, objects to being asked to lie in bed for 12 hours at a time (since her care has been cut), in her own waste. . .

And it seems that she is not the only person being challenged on their use of a toilet to save money. According to The Scotsman, “disabled residents at a supported-housing complex have been told to train themselves to go to the toilet at fixed times to fit in with a strict new rota”. Is this where the infamous Big Society comes in? You can run libraries, or you can assist disabled people to go to the toilet. Because after all, those who should be providing those services will not bother.

sanityscraps:

im-ceo-bitch:

Questioning Autism Speaks

aspergersissues:

This is exactly my reasoning.

FUCK Autism Speaks.

Unpopular opinion coming up.

There are many people with autism who cannot speak—literally. My younger sister, at ten years old, is among them. She’s the perfect victim for anyone who would want to abuse her because she can’t tell anyone if someone hurts her. She also has zero concept of danger and frequently puts herself in harm’s way without realizing it.

My sister is not the only autistic person who acts like that, I’m sure. That’s why I think that if a cure could be created, it should be available. However, forcing it on people? That’s obviously not right. I’m autistic myself, and I wouldn’t want a “cure.” But I certainly would want it for my sister, just so she can at least tell us, “I love you.” There is also genius in everyone, but how will we be able to know what that genius is if someone cannot even express themselves?

Bolding added. This pretty well illustrates the point of how frequently it’s assumed that the wants and needs of family members are more important than the wants and needs of autistic people.

There are many ways a nonverbal person can let you know that they care about you, and express themselves in general—if the people around the nonverbal person are placing value on nonverbal methods of communication, enough to learn to interpret it. Even among people who do speak, nonverbal communication is supposed to make up the majority of what they’re actually getting across.

This is not meant to be personal at all (none of these comments are, actually), but just fits into a theme that crops up a lot: what if the person starts speaking and doesn’t say they love their family members? What if their relatives don’t like what they do have to say verbally? It’s easy to develop odd expectations and project all kinds of things onto someone if you don’t think they’re communicating in meaningful ways already.

Another theme: the vulnerability to abuse one, which frequently verges on victim blaming. The huge problem there is not that a potential victim can’t tell other people about the abuse, but that we are living in a society where disabled people—and children in general—are seen as prey and frequently abused (including in treatment settings, as that page points out). Even when they can talk about it.

From another source:

• Available international research indicates that disabled children across the range of impairments are at significantly greater risk of all forms of abuse than non-disabled children.

• From an analysis of over 40,000 children in an American city Sullivan and Knutson (2000) found that disabled children were 3.4 times more likely to be abused or neglected. They were 3.8 times more likely to be neglected; 3.8 times more likely to be physically abused; 3.1 times more likely to be sexually abused and 3.9 more likely to be emotionally abused. Overall, 31% of the total disabled children in this research had been abused.

Insisting that someone cannot communicate in any meaningful way is emotionally abusive, in itself. Organizations such as Autism Speaks are promoting abusive attitudes.

Again, none of these observations are meant to apply to anyone’s personal situation in particular.