D’Anconia, you seem to be dropping into threads just to take little pointless snarky jabs at other posters, without making any substantive contribution. This is the second note I’ve given you today.
This has been persistent behavior on your part for a long time, and is quite jerkish. I am giving you official instructions to refrain from this behavior in GQ in the future. If you have some factual contribution to make you can post it, but knock off the commentary and swipes at other posters. Failure to follow these instructions may result in a warning.
D’Anconia, this is an official warning for being a jerk. This is the second time you’ve popped into the thread just to take a little snarky jab at another poster without making any substantive factual contribution. And this has been habitual behavior on your part for a long time. I’m giving you official instructions to stop this behavior. If you want to contribute factual information to GQ you may do so, but just posting snarky comments or irrelevant questions may result in a warning.
Yup, this seems to be a facet of the nascent movement for limiting unnecessary sensory “background” in public places in general. See also: fragrance-free workplace policies, the “anti-muzak resistance”, etc.
It makes a lot of sense: background music/TV/fragrances/other stimuli are sensory clutter that few or no people really need and that lots of people actively dislike or can’t stand. With the ubiquity of portable individual headphones and screens and an infinite variety of entertainment to consume via individual devices, there’s really no point anymore to having background media in most public places.
I personally have never heard of such a thing, but it sounds like a good idea.
The New York State Fair is going to attempt (next year) to have one day for those on the spectrum. I guess they’re going to not have the flashing lights and usual sounds that a fair would have (like for the the rides and stuff and games).
I don’t know how they can accomplish something like that, but it will be interesting.
A local supermarket (Auckland, NZ) is doing this one afternoon a week. Unfortunately it’s while I’m at work or I’d be happy to go then.
Also not on the spectrum, but find supermarkets visually exhausting; makes sense given every product has been expertly designed to yell at you to buy it.
Have you ever heard a fork scrape against a dinner plate, or chalk against a blackboard, and cringed as the noise seemed to reverberate down your spine? Touched velvet when your hands were chapped and felt your skin crawl? Put food that turned out to be spoiled in your mouth and been so repulsed you had to spit it out? Felt sick to your stomach from a coworker’s cloying perfume? Thought “good god, I need to get out of here” while on a crowded subway platform or at the mall on Christmas Eve? These experiences are all completely within the realm of typical sensory processing. For someone whose neurological system responds differently to sensory stimuli than most (often referred to as sensory processing disorder), these reactions are magnified to a much greater level of intensity and interfere with daily functioning. There are videos you can find on YouTube that attempt to simulate what the experience of an ordinary task like grocery shopping can feel like to someone with sensory processing dysfunction.
Not on the spectrum, either, but I’m all for it. One of the things I like about the store I work at right now is the lack of music. Even good music can get obnoxious if you have to hear it all day.
I have a diagnosis of PTSD from domestic violence, and have it documented I have an issue with being touched without my permission. And that is why I tend to do my grocery shopping at first opening [base commissary] and at midnight [general grocery store] and pretty much everything else I buy online. I rarely go alone, and mrAru walks behind me if there are other people around, or I stop and place my back towards a karel or wall. I have been getting better over the years with a casual brush, but someone walking up and hugging me can get damaged
I’m with you, aruvqan, and a couple smart asses who decided to test my extreme aversion to having my wrists held ended up with some bruises they didn’t expect. I have a lot more control over it than I used to but it’s difficult and if I’m stressed or there are a lot of other things going on I can’t guarantee my ability to control my first impulses.
Not on the spectrum myself but definitely have a lot of issues with sensory processing and becoming overloaded and overstimulated in too-busy environments, especially ones with a lot of chaotic crowd scenes going on. I like shopping Costco when it’s least busy (before the sample drones arrive) because they don’t play music, the lights aren’t overly bright and the large pallet displays are kinda soothing because they’re less busy and crowded. I’d go for the quiet time shopping any day, that sounds really lovely.
I think we’ve all become habituated to the oversaturation of visual and audible stimuli in most human environments and don’t really take into account how much background stress it produces trying to parse out what the hell is going on all around us. There’s a reason why a walk in the forest or on a beach is so sought after by many, it takes our stress levels down a bunch of notches and lowers blood pressure.
You’ve been around long enough to know that comments on moderation belong in ATMB. Further remarks of this kind in GQ will result in a warning. You received a warning not merely because your posts were non-factual, but because they were deliberate pokes at other posters.
Spoons is a term you find a lot in feminist spaces–as in with enough teaspoons you can drain the ocean. It’s a way of saying you only have a little bit of resources to deal with a situation but you’re bringing your little spoons to bear on the problem as you get them. When you have depression/anxiety/mental illness issues that you battle daily sometimes the only fortitude you have comes in an itty bitty spoon.
I can’t speak for aruvqan of course, but “spoons” is often used these days as a metaphor for emotional/cognitive resources available to an individual, particularly in coping with a disability:
Spoon thing is correct, never hung out in ‘feminist spaces’ [that I know of, at least none that talked about teaspoons] I actually have ended today with spoons, mainly because I spent the day curled up in bed with the cat bingeing Time Team and wisting over living somewhere that one could go into the back yard and dig a hole and find archeology. [Of course, if you have something that they will not let you shift to put in a hot tub, that would suck, but the idea is amazing, I could dig a hole to plant a tree and find a bit of Roman pottery, or a Celtic fibular pin … ] THough spoons is not only emotional/cognitive, it can be physical as well.
If you think about it, you could say poker chips, or twizzlers, or anything one could count to represent the oomph it takes to accomplish something. My spoons today were taken up with forcing myself to get out of bed to go up and down stairs to use the bathroom instead of asking the spouse to set up the bedside potty that we used when I was actively doing the chemo and really didn’t have a toothpick, let alone a spoon to make it the 60 feet plus stairs one way to get to a toilet fast enough. <The major disadvantage to the barn currently being used as a dwelling, the bathroom is down one floor from the living space … and I don’t happen to have a stair lift here. >
My local county fair has a “Special Needs Day” the day before it opens to the public, with free admission for people with disabilities and their chaperones.
I was going to post this too! I find grocery shopping (and shopping in general) unpleasant. Too bright, too many choices, can’t find what I need easily (I talked in another thread about supermarkets are designed to keep you searching), too much near subliminal marketing (buying peanut butter, don’t forget the jelly!).
I used to shop at 11 to 12 at night and yes, it’s a much calmer and pleasant experience. And it I timed it right, I could catch the meats and produce being set out for the morning.
Don’t do it anymore because I don’t going out at night if possible, getting bad night vision.
Having an illness that people can see and understand is bad enough, but it’s far worse when it’s invisible and people can’t see anything wrong with you. Then it’s no use even asking for help, or expecting understanding.
People always say that I don’t look ill or depressed. I’ve got ASD, but otherwise there’s nothing physically wrong that doctors can find. I have above-average intelligence, I can speak and interact with people reasonably normally. I can even seem energetic and enthusiastic for short periods. If I withdraw or stop responding, people think I am sulking or being unsociable. They conclude that I am lazy, or useless, or making a fuss about nothing, or trying to sponge off other people or social services. And that hurts intensely, like a knife going through my heart. So now I don’t even try any more to ask for help, or expect anyone to understand, or to believe anything I say.
The reality is that even the most basic things - showering, making a meal, walking somewhere, talking to people, being in a noisy environment - use up ‘spoons’, and I have a very limited supply, which has gone down over the years, and is always on the point of running out. Any advice I get always boils down to ‘try harder’. That’s not much use if I am already trying my utmost just to get through each day somehow. If I don’t post on this board after the end of this month, you’ll know that I’ve finally ‘run out of spoons’.
It might be mine also (see my username), but for entirely different reasons. I got my username because I can play musical spoons to bluegrass, country, Celtic, and other styles of music. I love music, and will play with what I can (I’ve raided a number of pub kitchens for suitable spoons), where I can. Of course, I have about two dozen sets of playing spoons at home, but sometimes. things come up, and you need a pair of spoons. So, I’ll raid the bar’s stock.
But I’ve never heard “spoons” used like aruvqan and others have used it here. I find it an interesting hijack, and I hope that the Mods will allow it to continue.