Let me preface this by saying that millennial and younger speech patterns and slang are freaking weird. Before I became a teenager I never thought that I would say things like “I want to die” and joke about it, but here we all are.
That being said, I do participate in this version of slang where everything’s a hyperbole (as one tumblr post put it, and it’s my favorite way to put it). But I’m trying to clarify (in real life or on my personal facebook, and even in the tags of a stray shitpost that I make) that I am joking.
Like, I’ll say “God, I want Gal Gadot to step all over me”, but I don’t actually mean that so I’ll clarify with “I’m kidding – she’s just so gorgeous” (especially to my parents who don’t understand modern slang, which is okay).
Here’s where the story comes in: A few months back we had a particularly stressful month at work with a special mail-in package club thing that we did (sort of like Lootcrate, but with scrapbooking supplies). We were late, the product was much too detailed so it was taking a lot longer to make, and all that good horrible stuff.
One day in the middle of it I snapped and had a panic attack. Now this is a small company, of only 9 people on average, so of course EVERYBODY knew about it right when it happened. I had to go home for the day and I was glad to have the day off the next day.
A few days later I was back and feeling much better – the crash was gone and I was working again. But the product was still there and we were almost done, but still working on it. We were joking about horrible things that might happen, like pieces being made wrong so we couldn’t assemble it.
I jokingly said “Yeah – if that happens, I’m gonna cry.”
You know… forgetting about the literal panic attack that I had a few days prior. When I got home that’s when I realized “Oh shit – they probably took that literally!! Oh NOOOOOOO-”
The next day I did make sure to clarify that that was a joke.
The purpose of this post was to tell an anecdote of the time that slang clashed with events and that’s why I say “I’m joking” when I participate in it.
(That, and my ASD sometimes makes sarcasm fall flat so I make sure to add “I’m joking” so that people understand that it wasn’t serious)
((Okay. You need to tell someone very seriously about it. It’s not going to be easy, I know, but you need to. Even if it’s not your parents – you can start with a school counselor or your medical doctor. It can help to speak with someone who is trained who has seen this before and can help you A: break the news to your family more easily and B: open doors for treatment and help.
Again, I understand this is difficult and painful. And I hope you understand that when people don’t see what you’re going through, it’s not because they’re ignoring you – they just don’t know how to identify what they could be looking at. Most people don’t, but that doesn’t mean they’re stupid or that you’re not expressing yourself properly – it’s just something they don’t understand.
Does this help at all? I really hope it does – I don’t know your exact situation so I tried to word it in the best way that could apply to you.
Lately I’ve been getting most of my pep talks from Mister Rogers.
Great. Now I’m disappointing Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers is not disappointed in you. He’s proud of you for listening and thinking about what he said, and he hopes it plants a seed where sometimes maybe you notice yourself making an unhealthy choice and recognize it, because that’s the first step towards growth towards your best and healthiest self, which is a journey and a process, not an ideal state of which you are falling short.
The Perfect Scientist 