Also like...if you ever need to understand what literally all social communication while Autistic is like, just know that I spent about 5 minutes trying to decide whether to describe it as "one piece," "two pieces" or "one piece sliced in two" and I still chose wrong lmao

*my friend has also just explained to me that most people would call one piece of chicken that has been sliced in half "two pieces of chicken," even though that is absolutely wild to me because the relevant quantity in question should really be discrete instances of rot / tissue lesion

Moral of the story, kids?

Say "the chicken in my sandwich is rotten"

Not, apparently, "one piece* of the chicken in my sandwich has a large greyish-green patch and I am unsure whether it's safe to eat."

and because, ironically, we are constantly playing 4d chess trying to ensure we aren't misunderstood.

(Why's that ironic, you ask?

Glad you asked!!!

Because the harder we try to make ourselves understood, the less allistic, non-ADHD people seem to understand us 🥲)

How is that algorithmic ableism, you ask?

Glad you asked!!!

See, those of us who are Autistic or ADHD tend to be...very precise when we describe things.

Both because we tend to process the world in a fundamentally different way than most people,

I’m not familiar with the influencer realm, but I’ve certainly gotten all that from people in the medical system who really fucking ought to know better.

Or, "Why I never ask for help and let people walk all over me except for the times when I do fight back and then l'm a scary mean Autistic who flies off the handle suddenly for no reason but we'll just set that can of worms aside for now, shall we"

We need a chronically ill version of that 90s photocopier meme where you can choose only 2 of good, fast and cheap.

But it's asking for help, not letting people treat you like shit, and managing your energy.

And like no, you've just set chronically ill people a literally impossible math equation.

It just seems to me like there's a whole lot of "internalized ableism" rhetoric aimed at individualizing the responsibility for coping with systemic ableism and specifically the forms of systemic ableism that tend to be weaponized predominantly against invisibly disabled people 🙃

Chronic illness influencers: you have to learn 😌 pacing 😌

Chronic illness influencers: you have to get comfortable 🌈 advocating for yourself 🌈

Average chronically ill person: advocates for themself

Average chronically ill person: puts themself into a flare because they expended too much energy self-advocating

Extremely fucking weird to have your scapula go out and feel like, "oh hey, welcome back you old bastard!"

ngl though i will take the hypermobility pain over the inflammatory pain every. fucking. time.