#abuseculture

RE: https://wandering.shop/@susankayequinn/117349473500717138 I have an extrospective insight, if I may. A "self as a collection of tasks who should subcontract to a machine"... Stepping into a mind who would think such a thing is a positive... I thought, well that makes the human role just an executive functioner, or... An executive... And realized that's what management does... organize and assign tasks. And this is how they see laborers, knowledge workers, and creatives. Machines they subcontract tasks to. And they're the mind that makes the machine work. And they think that's the preferred role. What a terrible worldview to operate under. What a terrible way to exist. They must think they're elevating us to their level. Freeing us from the doldrums of being mere production machines. When in fact it's the opposite for us. Producing for its own sake is the best part. The worst part is producing on behalf of an executive for the purpose of soulless profit that isn't ours. By making us become like them, they think they're *helping*. I consume a lot of horror content, and this is the most chilling thing I've seen all week. (But sir, it's only Monday.) #AbuseCulture

Ok people are misusing the term "cognitive dissonance" again! I meant to do this rant years ago. So here goes. Phrases like, "Boy, MAGA must sure be feeling cognitive dissonance today!" are not only using big words with total ignorance about what they mean, but they're helping promote the kind of ignorance that helps cults retain followers. Manipulation of the natural mental balancing act between cognitive dissonance and consonance is the core of how people get trapped in cults. People stay stuck in MAGA *because* MAGA influencers have created a complicated maze in their followers' minds that wards off THEIR ABILITY TO FEEL the dissonance one normally would when confronted with facts and basic human empathy. Mind control completely subverts the mind's natural process for righting itself in the face of disconfirming information. Events like this assassination (and all its surrounding discourse) have been pre-primed in the MAGA mind to cause them CONSONANCE. Almost anything you say or do to point out what to *you* feels like dissonance, will to them only enforce the reasons they are correct in their worldview. This of why it's so incredibly difficult to get someone out of a cult, and why folks who leave cults find it so difficult to decondition from the cult's influence, even after they stop believing in its core ideology. And why I wrote a book to help people do that. And why one of the first things I explain in Recovering Agency is how cognitive dissonance/consonance theory works, citing Leon Festinger who developed the theory starting in the 1950s. I will explain this theory in the next post... right after breakfast. Because it explains how your mind works to accept and reject beliefs. Knowing this gives you awareness of your own mental processes, and can maybe empower you with Fox-watchin' Uncle Bob, who used to be a guy who cared, way back in '98. 🧵 #AbuseCulture #cults #MAGA #psychology #ReligiousTrauma

currently thinking a lot about how much less disabled I'd probably be if the general attitude in society to people – INCLUDING CHILDREN!!!! CHILDREN ARE PEOPLE!!!! – struggling or being slow or avoiding tasks would be to accomodate them and be patient, rather than to be annoyed or punish them. My earliest memories are of constantly getting chided for being slow. Sometimes it was good-naturedly, sometimes sternly, sometimes I was actually punished (slow at eating? not getting to eat my fill). At no single point did anyone wonder if I just needed more time than others and if this human variance, this diversity, might be tolerable. No, I had to be made to fit into the box, into the schedule. For no reason. Just 'cause. Was I already disabled or chronically ill as a kindergarten-aged child? Was that why I was slower than others, despite trying? It's possible. I don't know how I'd ever find out. But even without pathologising the way I have always been. I needed accommodations. And not getting them trained me to dissociate, to push myself past my limits on a daily basis as the default way to interact with anyone. It was fucking exhausting and everyone told me it wasn't. So I lost touch with my body's signals, distrusted them, actively faught them. A couple decades later my body is breaking down and no longer able to accommodate my rushing and pushing myself. I could compensate as a child, as a teenager. I stopped being able to in my 20s. I could still be part of society by living off benefits instead of having to work. Now, a few days before my 40s birthday, I can't take proper care of myself and can't even dream of participating in society beyond mastodon (and even then it's spotty). I deteriorated in a way that felt imperceptibly slow until it suddenly wasn't. And in hindsight, there was a steady progression. At no point did anyone (except Dion) consider encouraging me to slow down. To listen to my body and its limits. No. They all just assumed I needed to try harder, or that I'd always be miserable and pityable. It's not true though. I have turned the boat around, slowly. I am recovering now and am getting better. Slowly at first, I hope I will look back in a few decades and see as steady an incline from now on, as I had a decline before. Sure, I can't expect to be as spry as a 20yo when I'm 60, 70, 80. But I can be spry for my age. And I will get there by no longer trying so hard. By doing the actually hard work of allowing myself rest. #disability #DisabilityPrideMonth #ChronicIllness #ableism #AbuseCulture #adultism #AutisticBurnout #burnout