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This article can also be viewed at https://medium.com/non-monetized-together/not-all-autistic-students-hate-being-in-quiet-empty-rooms-e68b95a95f68.

I know that there may be some good intentions among some of the activists who are trying to ban quiet rooms in schools. Which is why I’m writing this article to let them know that some autistic people actually find these rooms helpful.

Quiet rooms are soundproof, empty rooms that are used to help calm autistic students when they have a meltdown. While this concept might sound anxiety-provoking to non-autistics and some autistic people, these rooms can be beneficial to people on the autism spectrum who have to deal with sensory overload.

What is sensory overload? This is a term used to describe when someone receives more sensory information than their mind can process, sending their mind into a panic mode. The autistic population are much more likely to experience this than other people.

Because of this, quiet rooms are sometimes used whenever an autistic student experiences a meltdown. Sensory overload is a specifically neurodivergent experience, so I am worried that it’s being left out of the autism rights narrative for not being relatable enough to neurotypicals.

Not all autistic students find these rooms useful. Some even find it traumatic, as seen in the news article link above. But they work for some of us. I was reminded of this when reading Jim Irion’s article “A Conflict of Sensory Overload Proportions,” where he explains how quiet rooms could help him deal with his sensory overload. Reading this reminded me of when I was in school. These rooms successfully calmed me down too. Both Jim and I are autistic.

I’m not angry at the people who campaign against these rooms. Some of them may have been misled by sources that shut out the voices of people who enjoy the rooms.

Others may know about students who had positive experiences in these rooms but don’t mention them to preserve their political interests. This isn’t their fault, but rather the result of a broken political system motivated by competition, greed, feeling superior, and a lack of empathy. While I understand that this system is a natural consequence of democracy, I designed Nonmonetized Together to be a place where people of all political orientations can avoid those parts of the system.

Now, you finally get the opportunity to have online discussions that focus on understanding each other and creating a better world. This is because Nonmonetized Together functions as a publicly accessible “backstage” to the current political landscape. Here, people can remove themselves from their roles as political figures and critically discuss the world as it really is, instead of following their stage directions.

If you try to use Nonmonetized Together to gain power or bring your political opponents down (like in mainstream “competitive politics”), your efforts WILL be thwarted and you WILL make a fool of yourself. I will redirect your discussion to make it more appropriate for Nonmonetized Together. I know I can push Nonmonetized Together to achieve this goal because I devote myself to religion, not politicians, so I’m not politically motivated the same way others are.

#Autism #MentalHealth #ActuallyAutistic #Psychology #Neurology

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Medium comments:

Reading this reminded me of when I was in school.

Wait till you see my latest finished project, “A Letter From the Future.” No date set yet but it should be either August, September, or October.

A veritable trip down public schooling lane, as the title suggests.

Jim Irion

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these rooms can be beneficial to people on the autism spectrum who have to deal with sensory overload.

Shared on Twitter.

Jim Irion

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I was reminded of this when reading Jim Irion’s article “A Conflict of Sensory Overload Proportions,” where he explains how quiet rooms could help him deal with his sensory overload.

👀

How did you do that? I wasn’t aware that, like Facebook, writers on here could, essentially, tag another writer to which they would receive a notification…

… which, in my case, is a good thing. I was able to see this article. Allow me to go back and read it.

Jim Irion

Start typing @ followed by the person's name. You will see a list of names appear and you click on the name of the person you want to tag.

Kevin the Nonmonetized

If you can gather attention of parents with schoolchildren ages 8-18, on Monday, August 5th, I’ll be having my first test for boost nomination here on Medium.

“A Letter From the Future”

Jim Irion

What do you mean?

Kevin the Nonmonetized

Can you be more specific, please?

Jim Irion

I'm not sure what you're talking about

Kevin the Nonmonetized

I'll be having an article published on August 5th that will be nominated for boosting. I wanted to let you know beforehand in case you wanted to highlight it in some way or somewhere.

“A Letter From the Future”

Jim Irion

Is that a picture of you?

Jim Irion

Sure is.

Kevin the Nonmonetized

Almost didn’t recognize you.

Jim Irion

Rostyslav Savchyn/Unsplash

Have you ever looked back at something you have said or done and realized that it contradicted something else you know about yourself? You may immediately feel compelled to dismiss the contradiction as not meaning anything. Or, you may assume that they both apply to you and that you need to spend some time seeking an explanation for how this is possible.

I feel like people, including me, have an urge to understand ourselves, and believe that having a stable identity is the way to master this. We settle on one set of beliefs, values, and preferences. We only allow this to change if it’s because we’re getting older and moving on from the past. We don’t turn back to who we used to be.

So what do we do when we uncover a discrepancy between our words, thoughts, and/or actions, and we know that it has nothing to do with getting older? We try to create excuses so we can justify it.

But rarely do we consider the simplest explanation: we can’t be ourselves all the time.

How can you maintain consistency through all states of mind? When you are scared, you’re going to perceive more threats than when you feel safe. When you’re exercising, you’re going to be using different parts of your brain than when you’re reading Medium. When you’re alone, you’re going to feel freer than when you’re around others. When you’re speaking in a second language, its distinct grammatical features will cause you to interpret the world differently than when you’re using your first language.

These are just a few examples, but there are many other examples of our minds behaving differently depending on the circumstances. Entering a new state of mind will make you interpret things differently, and this includes interpreting yourself differently.

This doesn’t mean that it’s time to give up on cultivating a consistent understanding of ourselves. Quite the opposite.

Suzanne D Williams/Unsplash

I’m just offering an idea of what it means to harmonize our own identities. It’s not about being true to ourselves. It’s about self-improvement. It’s about drawing a line from where we started (internal discord) to a more stable future personhood.

We can and should work on increasing the stability of our identities. But that’s the thing: we have to work at it. Our natural identity is by definition the one we have when we aren’t working on piecing it together. It’s the non-unified one.

I believe if one accepts that they are naturally inconsistent, they can get a better understanding of who they are as individuals. They would hold themselves accountable for things that they would have previously considered “not something I would have done.” They would open themselves to a wider range of experiences than they would in the past. They would understand that politicians are obviously going to be inconsistent when they’re unscripted.

But it’s an ambitious, somewhat unrealistic standard to obtain.

This article was originally published to Medium on October 13, 2022 (https://medium.com/illumination/lets-be-honest-human-identities-are-naturally-inconsistent-7bd490fb8aad?source=friends_link&sk=09e92b0659ee2b1af36caf5aeb764cc2).

#Philosophy #PhilosophyAndSelf #FindingYourself #IdentityFormation #Psychology

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