🫀🧠✊ About Us: A Feisty Group of Disabled People

AR 

HI 

StimpunksStimpunk combines “stimming” + “punk” to evoke open and proud stimming, resistance to neurotypicalization, and the DIY culture of punk, disabled, and neurodivergent communities. Instead of hiding our stims, we is a communityWhat I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community.Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-First-Person-Stories-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B082ZQBL98/ https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-Adapted-Young-Adults-ebook/dp/B08VFT4R9T/ affair. We’re AutisticAutistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline.  If, ADHDADHD or what I prefer to call Kinetic Cognitive Style (KCS) is another good example. (Nick Walker coined this alternative term.) The name ADHD implies that Kinetics like me have, OCD, PTSDPeople who enter services are frequently society’s most vulnerable—people who have experienced extensive trauma, adversity, abuse, and oppression throughout their lives. At the same time, I struggle with the word, Tourette’s, schizophrenic, bipolarI call it burning these days because that’s what it feels like: like there’s an idea inside me burning its way out. But when I was younger, I called it, apraxic, dyslexicDyslexia is a genetic, brain-based characteristic that results in difficulty connecting the sounds of spoken language to written words. It can result in errors in reading or spelling as well, dyspraxic, dyscalculic, non-speaking, and more. We’ve collectively experienced rare diseases, organ transplants, various cancers, many surgeries and therapies, and lots of ableismA system that places value on people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normality, intelligence, excellence, desirability, and productivity. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in anti-Blackness, and SpEdThe word “special” is used to sugar-coat segregation and societal exclusion – and its continued use in our language, education systems, media etc serves to maintain those increasingly antiquated “special”. We’ve experienced #MedicalAbleism, #MedicalMisogyny, #MedicalRacism, #MedicalTrauma, and #MedicalGaslighting. We understand chronicChronic illness is a pretty big umbrella, and it would be impossible to list them all. Some of them are triggered by an injury like a car accident, or something pain, chronic illness, and the #NEISvoid “No End In Sight Void”. We know what it’s like to be disabledThe label "disabled" means so much to me. It means I have community. It means I have rights. It means I can be proud. It means I can affirm myself and differentOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals in our systems. We know what it is like to live with barriers and what it means to not fit in and have to forge our own community. Disabled and neurodivergentNeurodivergent, sometimes abbreviated as ND, means having a mind that functions in ways which diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of “normal.”NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodivergent is quite people are always edge cases, and edge cases are stress cases. We can help you design for the edgesFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at, because we live at the edges. We are the canariesAutistic man Freestone Wilson suggested in the 1990s that autistic people are functioning as the “miners’ canaries” of civilisation. When the air in the mine is poisoned we do not. We are “the fish that must fight the current to swim upstream.“

Have you ever taken flack from the bullies on attack
Cause you're different

They laugh and call you names
But that ain't no badge of shame
Just cause you're different

People gonna stare, you unsettle them and scare ’em
Cause we're different

Walking down the street
When you pass they
Take a peek
There's something different

Live your life outside the box
Blow off all the empty talk
They focus on the things you're not
Just walk your walk

And roll your roll

I wanna see a feisty group of disabled people around the world…if you don’t respect yourself and if you don’t demand what you believe in for yourself, you’re not gonna get it.

Judith Heumann

Ryan Boren (he/they)

Ryan is a former WordPress lead developer who retired from tech in 2021 after 15 years at Automattic, the distributed company he helped start. He finished his time at Automattic working on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team and helping create and run the Neurodiversity Employee Resource Group. Building a community, a company, a platform, and an ERG was an intense ride full of mistakes and learning that Ryan distills into Stimpunks.

Inna Boren (she/her)

Inna went from big tech project manager to family case worker. Her skills managing software and hardware teams are now used to manage teams of doctors, careCare work makes all other work possible. Putting care—not just care work, but care—at the center of our economy, our politics, is to orient ourselves around our interdependence. Care is workers, and educators. She’s our motive force as we “fight the current to swim upstream.”

Ronan Boren (he/him)

Ronan loves music, particularly The Beatles. He writes the lyrics for Josephmooon, a distributed musical collaboration.

Chase Boren (he/him)

Chase is a fantasy, history, and social studies buff who is probably readingThere are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading.The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child's Confidence and Love of Learning Most schools and right now.

Chelsea Adams (she/her)

Chelsea served as a combat medic in the United States Army for 6 years. After leaving the army in 2014 she went back to school with the goal of getting her nursing degree. During this time she worked on the oncology floor of St. Davids South Austin. She decided to go in a different direction career wise and currently is pursuing non profit work. Her goal is to continue her passion of helping people.

Becky Hicks (she/her)

Becky Hicks is an Art Director at HM Advertising. She has almost 30 years experience in advertising, designing for print, web and styling and directing photo shoots. In her free time she runs the Algiers Point Free lil Pantry and entertains her pet pig, Coco Chanel.

Coco’s Setlist

Kristina Brooke Daniele (she/her)

Kristina Brooke Daniele is a Black, queerBeing queer means constantly questioning what's considered "normal" and why that norm gets privileged over other ways of being. It means criticizing who sets these norms and recognizing the privilege, neurodivergent homeschooling mom, educator, wife, and author of two books, (Civil Rights Then and Now and i wandered, lost: poems). Kristina has worked as an educator in some capacity for over 15 years- first as a classroom teacher, then as a homeschooling teacher, and currently, as an education consultant. She is passionate about collaborative projects centering on creating and maintaining safe-spaces for those who have for too long been pushed aside. During her time at Automattic, Kristina spearheaded the creation of the Employee Resource Group, Cocoamattic for Black employees at the company.

Jasmine Slater (she/her)

Jasmine is a 35 year old mother of 2 boys. She was a server for 16 years before the pandemic. She has always been very passionate about helping others & knows that is her purposeSelf-determination Theory (SDT) is... — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and here in this life. She is a creative that has bipolar disorder & Neuropathy. She enjoys writing, painting & making others smile. While attending ISU years ago, she had a blog on international events that detailed human rights atrocities.

Cayden Ward (he/him)

Cayden is an 11 year old student. He is very kindhearted and passionate about the well-being of others. He loves to make other people feel equal & not alone. He goes above & beyond by making care packages for others with Caring With Cayden. His desire to put forth philanthropist efforts in the community will hopefully inspire others to do the same.

Adriel Jeremiah Wool (he/him)

Adriel Jeremiah is an computer programmer with a deep background in origami and folding.

This artwork is an extension of a world view involving folding; often involving higher dimensional spaces.

Many of these designs contain the mathematical magic of the transcendental numbers of nature, and all of them are the extension of the provisions of space itself; to be both physically folded, and conceptually folded, circularily (sic) and across many levels of expression.

Daniel Zayas (he/him)

Daniel Zayas is an FAU alumni with a degree in Economics, who’s interests include permaculture and mycology. He has worked with the American Cancer Society and Live Like Bella non-profit organizations, along with experience in residential and agricultural construction. His experience demonstrates his qualities of being a hard worker with a big heart.

Brandi Cerna (she/her)

Brandi Cerna served as a public-school educator for 9 years and is currently enrolled in a full-time nursing program. She will graduate in April 2023 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Brandi desires to provide quality care and help people feel valued.

Heike Blakley (she/her)

Heike Blakley is a self-taught, emerging artist working with a wide array of mediums such as acrylic, oil, watercolor, pencil, charcoal, pastel, mixed media, pen & ink.

Also specializing in resin art, jewelry making, woodwork, clay sculptures, fabric art and poetry.

Using her creativity as a form of learning and for meditative purposes, she is determined to, “absorb as much “collective knowledge,” as she is able to grasp in one lifetime and effectively communicate understanding through art.”

Heike gains inspiration through spirituality, the conscious/ subconscious mind, studying esoteric natures of the universe, her interactions with others, the environment as well as understanding herself.

Combining surrealism, figure, abstract, textured, fine and visual art, she describes her process as “eclectic art”.

Kyle Duce (he/him)

Raised between the San Juan Mountains of Colorado and a small farming community in Wisconsin, Kyle gained an appreciation of the land, wildlife and the beauty of nature.  Kyle grew up as a 3rd generation artist, his grandfather was an oil painter and his mother ran a stained glass business out of their home in Wisconsin.  There was no shortage of art projects, outdoor activities, hunting, fishing, camping and gardening.  Post college, Kyle traveled and moved back to Colorado, Seattle and now Austin.  He has been living in downtown cities since college.  The clash of these two timelines reflects the duality expression in most of his work. This duality can also be seen through his passion for the skate, snow, music, tattoo and architecture world.

Kyle Duce’s work ties in these elements to showcase his broad range of skill sets from landscape, sculpture, music inspired live painting, taxidermy, and lowbrow styles.  Kyle’s main goal is to evoke emotion when looking deeper into his paintings.  Finding that balance between the serenity of the outdoors and the fast-paced gritty city living. 

What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.

Our friends at Randimals have a saying,

We agree.

Many years ago, a friend dubbed Ryan “Bearmouse”, intuiting a part of his neurodivergent spiky profileThere is consensus regarding some neurodevelopmental conditions being classed as neurominorities, with a ‘spiky profile’ of executive functions difficulties juxtaposed against neurocognitive strengths as a defining characteristic. Neurominorities, Spiky Profiles,.

There is consensus regarding some neurodevelopmental conditions being classed as neurominoritiesThere is consensus regarding some neurodevelopmental conditions being classed as neurominorities, with a 'spiky profile' of executive functions difficulties juxtaposed against neurocognitive strengths as a defining characteristic.Neurodiversity at work: a, with a ‘spiky profile’ of executive functions difficulties juxtaposed against neurocognitive strengths as a defining characteristic.

Neurominorities, Spiky Profiles, and the Biopsychosocial Model at Work

Inna decided on Bunnybadger and Chelsea decided on Pandillo. Their Randimals also hint at their neurodivergent profiles.

Image credit: StimpunkStimpunk combines “stimming” + “punk” to evoke open and proud stimming, resistance to neurotypicalization, and the DIY culture of punk, disabled, and neurodivergent communities. Instead of hiding our stims, we Becky Hicks

Our Randimals capture our exposure anxietyExposure anxiety (EA) is a condition identified by Donna Williams in which the child or adult feels acutely self-conscious; it leads to a persistent and overwhelming fear of interaction.Exposure anxiety, social anxiety, rejection sensitive dysphoriaRejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life. It may also, emotional sunburn, very grand emotionsJustice, equality, fairness, mercy, longsuffering, Work, Passion, knowledge, and above all else, Truth. Those are my primary emotions.Very Grand Emotions: How Autistics and Neurotypicals Experience Emotions Differently » NeuroClastic https://youtu.be/uPRa6G2a48E, sense of justice, and other neurodivergent traits.

Read about Randimals, spiky profilesThere is consensus regarding some neurodevelopmental conditions being classed as neurominorities, with a ‘spiky profile’ of executive functions difficulties juxtaposed against neurocognitive strengths as a defining characteristic. Neurominorities, Spiky Profiles,, learning terroir, neurological pluralismANI launched its online list, ANI-L, in 1994. Like a specialized ecological niche, ANI-L had acted as an incubator for Autistic culture, accelerating its evolution. In 1996, a computer programmer and Weird PrideBe proud of what you are.We’re weird, and we’re glad we are.Weird Pride Promo 2021 https://twitter.com/MxOolong/status/1499306544449662977?s=20&t=XYCmQe4y50Kl7ZpwjY4S5w https://twitter.com/MxOolong/status/1499306546693607427?s=20&t=XYCmQe4y50Kl7ZpwjY4S5w What and who are you?You don't fit in here.Randimals Book 👏 Let's be on our “Different” page.

Our divergent bodymindsBodymind: A term used to challenge the idea the body and mind are experienced separately (Descartes). Written in various ways, Bodymind or Body-mind, this usage foregrounds the understanding that experiences aren’t all that’s different about us. We’re different than most autismAutistic ways of being are human neurological variants that can not be understood without the social model of disability.If you are wondering whether you are Autistic, spend time amongst Autistic people, online and offline.  If and disability organizations because we are led by autistic and disabled people. We use different language, different framingWhen we successfully reframe public discourse, we change the way the public sees the world. We change what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required, and have little patience for respectabilityRespectability politics didn’t save me then, and they won’t save our community or movement now or in the future either. Our movement, however, needs nothing of respectability politics. Accepting —.

Respectability politicsRespectability politics didn’t save me then, and they won’t save our community or movement now or in the future either. Our movement, however, needs nothing of respectability politics. Accepting — didn’t save me then, and they won’t save our community or movement now or in the future either.

Our movement, however, needs nothing of respectability politics. Accepting — conceding, surrendering, submitting to — that will only erode our movement until it crumbles entirely. Respectability politics is what’s gotten us into reliance on foundations and nonprofits, and elected officials and bureaucrats, and policies and programs that only benefit the most privilegedTo not have conversations because they make you uncomfortable is the definition of privilege. Your comfort is not at the center of this discussion.Brené Brown Power can be understood as and resourced members of our communitiesWhat I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community.Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-First-Person-Stories-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B082ZQBL98/ https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-Adapted-Young-Adults-ebook/dp/B08VFT4R9T/ at the direct expense of the most marginalizedFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at. Radical, militant anger — and radical, militant hope, and radical, wild dreams, and radical, active love — that’s what’ll get us past the death machines of ableism and capitalism and white supremacy and laws and institutions working overtime to kill us.

Autistic Hoya — A blog by Lydia X. Z. Brown: The neurodiversity movements needs its shoes off, and fists up.

We’re a Feisty Group of Disabled People

That girl thinks she's the queen of the neighborhood
She's got the hottest trike in town
That girl, she holds her head up so high
I think I wanna be her best friend, yeah

Rebel girl, rebel girl

I wanna see a feisty group of disabled people around the world…if you don’t respect yourself and if you don’t demand what you believe in for yourself, you’re not gonna get it.

Judith Heumann

We’re a NeurodiVenture

We are a NeurodiVenture and a Teal organization running on the advice processAlmost all Teal organizations use, in one form or another, what an early practitioner (AES) called the “advice process.” It comes in many forms, but the essence is consistent: any, psychological safetyPsychological safety is a condition in which you feel (1) included, (2) safe to learn, (3) safe to contribute, and (4) safe to challenge the status quo—all without fear of, self-determination theorySelf-determination Theory (SDT) is... — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and, the prosocialThe eight prosocial design principles provide guidance for dealing with people who regularly ignore relevant advice (or consistently refuse to seek or give advice) and therefore regularly cause downstream problems framework, mutual trustAutists conceptualise the world in terms of trusted relationships with unique people.The beauty of collaboration at human scale The Autistic way of developing trust is based on experienced domain-specific competence., collaborative niche constructionPositive Niche Construction--practice of differentiating instruction for the neurodiverse brainNeurodiversity in the Classroom Positive niche construction is a strengths-based approach to educating students with disabilities.  Reimagining Inclusion with Positive Niche, and open sourceOne model that successfully harnesses the power and commitment of talent and engages that talent in an ongoing way over time is open source. The term “open source” is traditionally. We do it in a trauma and neurodiversity informed way using polyvagal theory and the neuroscience of community.

NeurodiVentureNeurodiVenture : an inclusive non-hierarchical organisation operated by neurodivergent people that provides a safe and nurturing environment for divergent thinking, creativity, exploration, and collaborative niche construction.NeurodiVentures | Autistic Collaboration NeurodiVentures create safe spaces for groups : an inclusive non-hierarchicalThe belief in the existence and relevance of social hierarchies must be suspended.The Beauty of Collaboration at Human Scale: Timeless patterns of human limitations The extent to which a community organisation operated by neurodivergent people that provides a safe and nurturing environment for divergent thinking, creativity, exploration, and collaborative niche construction.

NeurodiVerse : human scale cultures created by neurodiversityNeurodiversity is the diversity of human minds, the infinite variation in neurocognitive functioning within our species.NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodiversity is a biological fact. It’s not a perspective, an approach, a within the human species

NeurodiVentures | Autistic Collaboration

The Polyvagal Theory discovered by Dr. Stephen Porges is a working model of the autonomic nervous system which connects safety and social connection with health, well being, and recovery.

The Vagus Nerve & Chronic Illness — Trauma Geek

We Do The Truly Essential Work

We aspire to do the “truly essential work”.

What Lorde and other black feminists … realized was that the more dehumanized groups a person belongs to, the more their experience forces them to understand about the way society is structured: what and who it takes for granted, the truths about itself it chooses to ignore, who is doing the truly essential work.

Letters To My Weird Sisters: On Autism and Feminism

We are both shamed and guilted for asking for “handouts”, and yet we’re also expected to beg.

And that is why the vast majority of philanthropical resources continue to go to the same well-resourced, established organizations that are largely not accountable to directly impacted communities and to the people who have the most to lose, whereas organizations that are doing work on the front lines directly from community are infinitely less likely to be able to access even a fraction of the same funding pools and even in the space, especially in the space of disability philanthropy.

Lydia X.Z. Brown Powerfully Addresses Philanthropy’s Ableist Practices

The David Prize claims that the submission process “should take no more than 30 minutes. Yes, 30 minutes.” At first glance, the application seems straightforward: ten questions, with a maximum of 280-1,500 characters per answer. But it is a process that will disproportionately impact many chronically unwell and racialized individuals, as well as non cis men, who will recontextualize their ideas to appeal to a billionaire philanthropist. Alex and I spent roughly 80 hours over the course of two weeks to complete the written application. This sort of request for proposals, Alex pointed out, creates temporal lotteries, in which the buy-in isn’t money, but time.

Philanthropic Gentrification. How The David Prize turns activists… | by Liz Jackson | Medium

We Find Our People

Got called an alienI believe all persons with Autism need the opportunity to become friends with other Autistic people. Without this contact we feel alien to this world. We feel lonely. Feeling like for bein' myself
I ain't got the patience to be someone else

--hope for the underrated youth by yungblud

How can we cultivate spaces where everyone has that soaring sense of inclusion, where we can have difficult and meaningful conversations?

Because everyone deserves the shelter and embrace of cripSome people with disabilities call themselves “crips.” “Crip” used to be a mean word for disabled. It is short for “cripple.” But some disabled people call themselves “crips” on purpose. space, to find their people and set down roots in a place they can call home.

“The Beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People” by s.e. smith in “Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the 21st Century“

Access intimacyAccess intimacy is that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else “gets” your access needs. The kind of eerie comfort that your disabled self feels with someone on a is also the intimacy I feel with many other disabled and sick people who have an automatic understanding of access needs out of our shared similar lived experience of the many different ways ableism manifests in our lives. Together, we share a kind of access intimacy that is ground-level, with no need for explanations. Instantly, we can hold the weight, emotion, logistics, isolation, trauma, fear, anxiety and pain of access. I don’t have to justify and we are able to start from a place of steel vulnerability.

Access Intimacy: The Missing Link | Leaving Evidence

We Rebuild What You Destroy

We can take turns taking the reins
Lean on each other when we need some extra strength
We’ll never caveFuturist David Thornburg identifies three archetypal learning spaces— the campfire, cave, and watering hole—that schools can use as physical spaces and virtual spaces for student and adult learning (bit.ly/YvRuWC)Australia’s Campfires, or we’ll never waver
And we’ll always become braver and braver

We’ll dance like nobody’s there
Wе’ll dance without any cares
We’ll talk 'bout problеms we share
We’ll talk 'bout things that ain’t fair
We’ll sing 'bout things we don’t know
We’ll sing to people and show
What it means to be young and growing up

--Growing Up by The Linda Lindas