u/concernedaboutmetal

I hate that the new norm is that it's okay to lose interest in the things that defined you.

I hate that they think it's okay to lose your sex drive, that hyperactivity is too much for our fine California, that your passions and obsessions perhaps need to be dulled, etc.

No more intense rewards. Purely extrinsic motivation and defaulting to how you were raised.

Nintendo Switch gathering dust in the corner. Musical instruments forgotten about. Forgetting verses of your favorite songs. You no longer laugh at your favorite show. You go to a concert you were looking forward to, and it's just noise to you.

They'll say maybe you're just outgrowing video games, maturing past that angry synth music, or changing since people have to change.

It's apparently more important that after work, you maintain a house, go to a gym or park (controlled, highly public environments for extremely organized movement), etc., then limit the time you spend on screens while practicing etiquette with a partner. Vanilla sex, maybe, if you're still up for that.

Then, on the weekends, it's hanging out with a group of people who define themselves by their gender, and are all the same gender as you. In fact, age, gender, and city might be the only thing you all have in common. Make quiet, polite, controlled conversation with them about people-oriented topics. Look them in the eye. Be mindful of your voice. Sit still. Don't obsess over anything weird.

Let the trivia fall through the cracks of your mind.

Don't skip. You're too old.

Don't walk fast.

Slow down when you talk.

Indoor voices please.

Your brother's doctor says heavy metal music is bad for your heart.

Google Gemini cites random Reddit posts about synthesizers causing hearing damage, even at low volume.

It's good you game less, derive less pleasure from it, and perhaps are worse at it.

Be calm.

Be happy.

Not excited.

Not comfortably blunt.

Happy.

Meh.

Let us keep your hypothalamus in a state of stasis.

Don't go outside for the firework show.

It's too hot and you probably wouldn't enjoy it.

If the drug somehow makes you more excitable, that's mania.

We'll give the same drug to you if you're autistic.

We want you to surrender your worries.

Let people misgender you.

Let the grammar nazis win.

Let Christianity dominate your life.

It's good your fetish is dead.

It's worrying when it comes back.

It's good you're off that machine and in the real world.

Computers are for jobs.

Don't build a 3D printer.

Don't bother trying to reverse engineer things.

No making crazy noises in the DAW.

Be calm.

Use that breathy voice.

Sit still.

It's the real you.

The you you miss is a disease.

You're interchangeable and your passions are fragile lies that keep you from being POLITE.

Mind your manners

Sit still

With your legs together

With less emotion

Less motion

Less intensity

Less tech

You had too much energy

Don't tap your fingers

It's rude

And you don't get to say it's not

So shush.

Take your pill. Lower your dopamine. If this one doesn't work to lower it, here's one that blocks its effects.

You will probably never find your dream partner who's into cool stuff and doesn't play by the rules. We'll take away your ability to want them too.

Comanche Drive is home to beautiful views of the mountains and vineyards, as well as a ton of trash. When you drive on the farm roads around that area, DiGiorgio, Tejon, Rock Pile, etc., you'll see random trash, mattresses, bottles of chemicals, and whatnot. I get it. The dump is expensive.

But when it rains, all that crap will get wet, and sometimes completely immersed as the area is subject to flooding. There's no doubt many chemicals in the junk. Who knows. Microplastics, nail polish remover, chemicals used to treat wood, chemicals in obsolete electronics, lead, asbestos, bug spray, whatever they put in the old Baby Alive dolls. All that chemical soup will end up in the soil.

Where they grow the carrots and other stuff in Arvin.

And now, Kayla from Poughkeepsie, NY will eat our county's famous carrots, and she'll be one of the many twenty- and thirty-something who will end up with colon cancer. You litterbugs hurt her and many others who have other potential compounding factors. There'a a ton of oranges in the area too. She was probably trying to stay healthy by eating more fruits and vegetables! Think of Kayla from New York State! Think of the children and people under 40!

Remember when KORN was played a bit more on alt rock radio? Remember Skrillex' peak? Remember Gwen Stefani's Sweet Escape? Book your colonoscopy, litterbugs.

Whether it's from a psychiatrist or your PCP, considering that simply "refusing necessary medical care" is enough of a reason to call a 5150

If some doctor told me that I needed antipsychotics and I refused, or I continued a lifestyle of obsessions and hyperfixations, or if I skipped in public and had unusual behavior... can my refusal alone be used to force me on meds?

Why isn't this sort of deal a first and fourteenth amendment violation?

Imagine some really cool EDM producer hobbyist being stopped in their tracks, no pun intended, for "erratic behavior," "unhealthy social isolation," and "delusions of grandeur."

I wonder if a lot of cognitive impairment on psych meds is masked with cognitive reserve. Almost like how you can lose a lot of nephrons but still have more-or-less normal kidney functioning.

Also, a lot of skills can be "scaffolded" with language and social norms.

Furthermore, a lot of adults just don't expect to have the same raw cognitive ability or snappiness they had as kids. Many have given up video games, haven't skipped since elementary phys ed, don't play musical instruments, don't wonder much about how their cars or computers work, have no interest in memorizing long lists of stuff, etc. Less out of the box thinking. Less specific drive to do things that are technical. No using your residence for complex projects. No goofiness.

Only a minority of adults' jobs and hobbies really demands as much, so psychiatrists see a lot of "happy people" who don't care, who never had a rich inner world to begin with, who define intelligence by linguistic register alone, and who may still be helped by cognitive reserve.

Or anyone who refuses or goes off psych meds, for any reason, and doesn't judge you for taking them?

Daydreaming can mean anything from worldbuilding, to contemplating philosophy informally, to planning out a project.

Repetitive motion and listening to music, both common self-stimulatory behaviors (stimming), are enshrined as symptoms that make it automatically worse.

Proposed diagnoses and questionnaires also effectively demonize it if you happen to not be social.

Introverts in general spend a lot of time in their heads instead of socializing, and it's not like it's divorced from reality either. If anything, your thoughts are electrochemical, and so are activities like pacing through the house and cleaning things up as you go, doodling, playing a video game, messing around in a DAW, soldering, walking through the neighborhood alone, pogo sticking, and cooking a soup. All of the above are governed by physics, even if they're less governed by social norms.

The proposed treatment plans often include high doses of SSRIs, which many people like, but some others dislike for the blunting of the DMN and emotions.

This seems like a way to basically make schools and workplaces less accommodating to folks on the autism spectrum, with ADHD, etc. who display similar patterns of behavior.

It's also not like this behavior, if you strictly look at world building-focused daydreaming, is any more passive than watching a TV show or reading.

I think "patient wants to change" should be the mandatory criteria. Not "patient isn't social," "patient listens to evil electronic music that QED harms mental health," "patient thinks while still being alert enough to do work despite not making small talk with coworkers," or "patient isn't a good customer at local businesses."

Eli Somer scares me. He should really leave people alone. And certain treatments (such as antipsychotics, antidepressants, and Naltrexone) have been shown to make people less into music. Don't take away the music. This almost sounds like something you'd find in stricter sects of Christianity and Islam.

Will more people be forced to literally take pills that kill rumination to stop this? People forced to quit their favorite music, never pace or stim again, etc., against their will? Or people denied therapy for other areas or evaluations for autism accommodation? Will this be the end of a trend of allowing people, say, at the DMV to use fidget toys?

Furthermore, are we allowed to stim, pace, and mentally plan things (maybe projects we'll do later, or during a stimming period)... if we're just alone? Isn't this going to force people to be social? The criteria also seem to effectively sweep up anyone on the spectrum or with ADHD, and seem to think that social norms are part of reality but not solitude.

Which plastics are most inert?

What about endocrine disrupters? Should we consider the long term risks of using a computer keyboard, game controller, electronic instrument/controller, mouse, etc. on hormones?

What about women? I worry there will be a rise in women swearing off electronics altogether over these potential health scares. Not only is this bad for sales, but also bad for those women who enjoy gaming/production/writing/hacking and those in their lives who may want to play with them.

Can we replace anything elastic (game controller stick grips, grid controllers like the Novation Launchpad and Akai MPC, etc.) with medical-grade silicone? Keep it phthalate and BPA free.

As for housing, what about an organic composite of some kind?

Is every miracle material too good to be true?

Can we make this entire cultural practice safe?

And can scientists explain, without resorting to obvious answers, how we know incidental radiation and intentional RF/microwave radiation are safe? I know that they're not ionizing. But that just proves that if they did cause cancer, it wouldn't be through the same mechanisms as UV-C and above. And UV-A is non-ionizing and widely known to be cancerous.

I'd like to think a loving God would let us play and not pay. Perhaps this is why I'm an atheist.

Imagine if asbestos were safe! Or radium! Imagine if bio women could handle everything a bio man could and hormones had no effect on our biology! Imagine if we could listen to all the loud music we wanted and enjoy drugs with no side effects!

And imagine a world where we just didn't have to worry about miracle materials like plastic, copper, lead, and lithium. Maybe I need a bit of that lithium in my own brain.

I'd like to think that we could make it all safe.

At least without plastic on the surface?

It looked like an unassuming science store, until you went downstairs to see the museum.

Aquariums, a planetarium, a glacier playground, a machine to let you arm wrestle people on the other side of the world that never seemed to work, that puzzle with spinning tops, the infinity mirror room, a plasma ball, a giant bubble wand, someone giving a chemistry or other demonstration, and occasionally, they'd set up a theme. Like the rainforest, or genetics.

I have a theory that if you grew up in Anchorage in the '00s, your microbiome is derived from 20% Imaginarium, 60% H2Oasis, 10% the former discovery zone at the old Northway Mall, and the rest Alaska Club.

Will this bottleneck my games, DAW, and sample libraries if I swap them out? Will a significant amount of traffic occur over the chipset? Would it be worth putting the faster drive on my M1.1 and then reinstalling Windows, or keeping Windows on the drive destined for M3.3? I also worry about latency.

It is my understanding that SSRIs induce

- More tonic serotonin activity, and less phasic. Fewer short, sustained bursts that go away, and a constant background level of extracellular serotonin.

- Less dopamine activity in some patients

- Massive synaptic pruning and loss of activity of the default mode network.

- Weeks or months of "brain remodeling" as the brain essentially has to get used to new ways of doing things, perhaps accompanied by loss of habits, etc.

Mom tells me that she knows people on SSRIs that she says have no problems with sexuality, yet a former psychiatrist did say that low sex drive is a common issue with these medications.

I wonder if different people just have different sexualities. If some have more intense orgasms, while others just lack them entirely and instead think an orgasm is the sensation I call ASMR chills. I wonder if a person with a deep, obsessive interest in certain body parts visually, or in involved role play, will lose it on SSRIs, while a person who sees sex more as a social activity will keep it.

You see many people saying that losing your sex drive is really not a big deal... or even that it's okay to not be excited for a concert or movie.

And others who say they asked for Wellbutrin or Abilify to boost their sex drives when they got a partner... but never just to masturbate.

Yet some people seem to keep their sex drives. Are they on lower doses? Are they faster metabolizers, or still retain a higher amount of dopamine this activity? Or are they taking antipsychotics with their antidepressants? Those never affected my sex drive but stole my love of pop science and electronics.

Are we entering a more sex-negative age?

Your local cardiologist, mostly trained on the aging and sick, might prescribe a period of no exercise to an athlete in their prime to see if their athlete's heart isn't a nearly identical heart defect.

Some newer sports clinics will only use this as a last resort. Instead, they actually examine the heart more, see if the tissue itself is failing, and then send the athletes on their merry way.

That way, they won't have to potentially waste their best years, lose a part of their identity, lose everything they worked for (including that efficient heart!), or alternatively just ignore the doctor without further tests, potentially risking it all.

Forcing people to stim less, etc., just to meet some "normal" baseline has a similar ring to me.

So does putting us on antipsychotics, talking us out of our special interests, alarmist "digital detoxes," misdiagnosing us with bipolar, psychosis, etc. over superficial resemblances to the above, etc.

Some well intentioned family medicine doctor will see a young person who doesn't like conventional socialization, spends a lot of time alone on a handful of activities, etc., and assume something like "depression." They may see a "fidgety" person and assume anxiety or agitation. Then they see a sedated version of them, masking and faking smiles, and assume they enjoy life more. Yet deep down, they may be feeling even more pressure. And the meds (in their case) may simply make them tolerate it more, or lose any impetus that made them them. And instead of stimming, their bodies may feel stiff.

Some well intentioned psychiatrist might see giving up video games as a success. Or even just a footnote. "Aren't you a little old for video games?" "Gaming is a waste of time!" As your Switch 2 gathers dust in the corner, with a little bit of the desire still intact deep down.

Your favorite music starts to sound like noise. "Well, rave culture is unhealthy!" "It's okay, tastes change!" "You hate loud sounds! I never would have thought of you as liking that music!"

You're giving in. Trying to sit still. Faking smiles. Faking eye contact, not to try to make assumptions about the other person's emotions, but because it's expected. Trying to read between lines and follow scripts. Hanging out with people who only have your gender and city in common, while neglecting online forums you were told only indulge an alleged addiction.

You're then told how well you're doing.

You're asked how your grades are. Not whether it's harder to actually do the work. Or anything to do with your hobbies.

Having 1-5 special interests is seen as holding you back.... from being like everyone else.

You have been detrained.

Instead of falling out with people who are incompatible with you, you fall out from yourself and endure the corrections of a professional bully.

Instead of stimming and special interests, say hello to akathesia and tardive dyskinesia, which can look identical to the outsider. "Just rebound psychomotor agitation." And if they do catch it, say hello to Cogentin and Austedo.

Autistic catatonia can happen, but normal autistic behavior can look a lot like catatonia.

Some asshole nurse in an ER who thinks you're not like his autistic kid insists you deserve to be given Ativan because your voice is too loud. You wake up the next day, trying to keep your voice down and can't sustain it. Then he asserts you don't have a naturally loud voice because he assumed the highly effortful quiet, that hurt your throat, was your baseline.

It's almost like over-empathizing. Like assuming a machine "sounds mean" or a hedgehog "looks angry". They think "Medication used to treat extreme emotional states will make a person HAPPY AND CALM and not MAD AND ANXIOUS."

They never think "Medication that wakes up your inhibitory GABA receptors can slow down a person's muscles and makes them feel a bit stiff, which could maybe also make them talk quieter in a way where they have no choice but to hurt their throat." It was like induced dysphonia. And still somewhat effortful. And any kind of motion was almost like trying to work through a cramp!

But hey, I'm not hurting your ears!

Okay, nurse who doesn't seem to understand that it can be difficult to regulate your voice as an autistic person; volume or pitch.

Don't get me started on the fact that "voices in your head" sounds like it should mean "internal monologue" or "imagination," not hallucination. Or "thought about suicide" not meaning literally thinking about how it could be done, with zero desire to actually commit it. A lot of questionnaires for mental health are really easy to take literally, and assume things like isolation and fidgeting are an automatic problem.

And has anyone kept gaming on antipsychotics and even had accepting psychs?