Tomorrow there’s a social media campaign against the “Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act”. It was proposed by Represesentative Tim Murphy in response to the Sandy Hook shooting, and apparently the UCC shooting has prompted more interest in it. What it would do, if it becomes law, is reduce privacy protections on healthcare records relating to mental health, make it easier to force people into psychiatric treatment they don’t want, and move government funding away from community support programs and towards institutionalization.

So tomorrow I’m going to indulge my desire to rant about this stuff a little more. For now, I’m going to bed.

My brain has an autopilot setting. I think most people’s brains do.

It’s what lets us get ready in the morning when we’re half-asleep, without putting our clothes on backwards or using our toothbrushes on our hair (usually). It’s what takes us along the same route to work every morning, even when we’re paying more attention to the radio than to the road. There’s probably a technical term for this, and I might even have been taught it in a psychology class once, but I can’t remember, so I’m calling it “autopilot”.

I depend on my autopilot a lot. My conscious mind can be pretty awesome, but it can also be pretty slow to react when something unexpected happens, and pretty easily distracted. I depend on my autopilot not just once in a while when I’m very tired, but every day. To keep from getting lost. To turn off the lights. To turn off the stove. To bring my keys with me (and to lock the door). To cook dinner. To reply when people call my name. To do my job. Every day.

Because I depend on it so much, it fails me pretty often, too. Not by disappearing entirely, but by putting me on the wrong pre-planned track. I drive to the wrong place. I get out ingredients for a different meal than I intended to make. I reply to the person trying to get my attention, but get their name wrong, or use a greeting that doesn’t make sense.
So, I depend on my autopilot all the time, but I don’t really trust it.

This means I also don’t completely trust my memory of what I’ve done. If I’m not paying close attention to what I’m doing, I can easily do something wrong on autopilot and not realize what I’ve done.

I depend on my autopilot constantly, and I am constantly double-checking and second-guessing it. I love all the things it lets me do, and I hate that it causes me so much stress. I love being careful and capable and precise, and I hate that I can’t trust myself.

Realization of the day

I underestimated the traumatizing potential of arguments, in general, not just ones about topics that clearly relate to your real life.

Someone I follow on Tumblr was talking about a really horrible-sounding experience they had, where someone argue-harrassed them about evolution/creationism. Which is a fairly abstract and impersonal issue, but when someone pushes you into discussing it and then does everything they can to avoid having an actual honest discussion with you… I have felt that way a lot, I realize, and it can be pretty awful.

I’ve felt like that a lot in classroom discussions, mostly, which is kind of weird to think about but there it is.

In theory, I totally want to be a part of this conversation about accessibility at fan conventions. In practice, I have absolutely nothing to contribute. Because the idea of making other people be quiet when a situation is too loud for me, instead of either dealing with it or leaving, is just completely outside what I normally think about.

Like, “there should be quiet break rooms” = yes, definitely, this is a useful idea, I would use them.

The idea that party rooms could be quieter = ?????

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I did learn that one of my local-ish conventions tapes its costume competition and other big events, and makes them available to watch on the TVs in the hotel rooms. With closed captioning, even. That’s pretty cool.

I’m re-reading The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley. I’ve read it twice before, but both were a long time ago with a long time in between them. I knew I remembered a fair amount of the plot, but I keep coming across individual lines that are suddenly completely familiar. I didn’t know I still had this stuff in my head.

They’ll cover your– dare I call them– darns.

a third-rate healer’s potion like kenet

those wretched small stones

I believe we go in company after all, though the company chooses to be silent.

The God who Climbs

Yes, I am letting my own experience color my answer, which is what experience is for.

Another thing that bothers me

About what I was talking about in the previous post, and in general:

When people deal with being belittled/hurt/told they are wrong, by deciding that they are The Best, they are Always Right and everything about them is Awesome, and the people who hurt them are small and silly and bad and Always Wrong.

That scares me.

I choose that phrase specifically.

I’m not saying it’s necessarily bad to think that way, or that I think they’re bad people for doing it.

It scares me. It makes me feel like something is badly wrong.

Even if I think they were right about the original issue and didn’t deserve what was said to them.