🎸 A Public Service Announcement… with Guitar

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Punk Rock Show
Image credit: Kyle Duce

This is a public service announcement… with guitar!

Know Your Rights, The Clash
stim punks, Detailed and Intricate, Digital Art, Colorful
stim punks, Detailed and Intricate, Digital Art, Colorful
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You clicked/tapped the little guitar! Welcome to our Easter egg page!

The secret room in Adventure with Warren Robinett's credit
The secret room in Adventure with Warren Robinett‘s credit
Golden Easter egg with mohawk hair. Minimal concept.
Golden Easter egg with mohawk hair. Minimal concept.

We placed songs from our “Chronic Neurodivergent Depressed Queer Punk” and “Pluralism Rocks” playlists throughout stimpunks.org, tying them into our advocacy and research-storytelling. They collectively serve as a Public Service Announcement, with guitar.

Stimpunks combines “stimming” + “punks” 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 bring them to the front.

Everything that was normally supposed to be hidden was brought to the front.

PUNK SUBCULTURE – WIKIPEDIA

🧷 Let’s Go to the Punk Rawk Show

We ain't got no place to go
So let's go to the punk rawk show
Darling take me by the hand
Gonna see a punk rawk band
There's no use in tv shows
Radio or rodeos
I wanna get into the crowd
Wanna hear it play real loud
Ain't' got no money to pay
We'll get in anyway
Doesn't matter I don't care
It feels good so we should share
We're going to the punk rawk show
Show-oh-oh, show-oh-oh, show-oh-oh, show-oh-oh-oh-oh

Punk Rawk Show by MxPx

A power wheelchair using Stimpunk rocks out to The Bobby Lees at an outdoor gig
Video credit: David Castro of Vancerts
Concert poster for Free Fest ATX Day 3, Presented by Vancerts and Stimpunks, Featuring The Bobby Lees and Forty Feet Tall
Stimpunks and Vancerts Present The Bobby Lees and Forty Feet Tall

🤲 The Dream of the Accepting Community

Any time I think I feel at home again
I hit the ground running 'til I'm gone
I've spent the past few months stuck in my own head
Just 'cause I can't connect with anyone

My legs are restless, eyes are heavy, set me free
From this feeling I have learned is discontent
I'm out of gas, I'm out of cash, but now I see
I was never really broken
I was bent

-- Roots

The lyrics referred to the way many people viewed fans of punk rock (who often endured stares, slurs and assaults at the time), but they could just have easily been about people diagnosed with mental illnesses, who are frequently looked down upon as crazy, violent and unintelligent.

A long-standing and influential theory regarding disability is the “social model,” initially advanced by Mike Oliver. The social model argues that “disability” does not reside within individuals, but is actually created by a mismatch between social structures and individual capacities. These structures can include obvious physical barriers (such as stairs, which could make it impossible for people in wheelchairs to enter a school or workplace by themselves), but can also include intolerant social attitudes which make it very difficult for people who don’t act in a manner that is considered “acceptable” to participate socially or avail themselves of community resources.

British human right activist Liz Sayce has specifically extended the social model to explain much of the disability that is experienced by people diagnosed with mental illnesses, and has argued for the establishment of “inclusive communities” to facilitate greater community participation among these individuals.

Punk Rock and the Dream of the Accepting Community | Psychology Today

We found community amidst online genderpunks, neuropunks, and cripplepunks conversant in the social model. That community and connection gave rise to the name of our endeavor, Stimpunks, and our motivation to build “a safe and nurturing environment for divergent thinking” under our umbrella.

Magic happens when you combine collaboration and neurodiversity, because then the result is diversity and creativity rather than groupthink.

NeurodiVenture : 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.

NeurodiVerse human scale cultures created by neurodiversity within the human species

NeurodiVentures | Autistic Collaboration

Here’s some collected listening that covers a gamut of punk and punk-adjacent music on mental health and living in divergent bodyminds. “Everything that was normally supposed to be hidden was brought to the front.” This playlist, in part, seeks to bring to the front.

Content Notes: suicidal ideation, addiction, mania, depression, dysphoria, chronic illness, anxiety, overwhelm, panic, meltdown, masking, burnout, exposure anxiety, rejection sensitive dysphoria, OCD, ADHD, ADD, SPD, bipolar, autism

On Spotify:

On YouTube:

On Apple Music:

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/chronic-neurodivergent-depressed-queer-punk/pl.u-yZyVVjZtYzXDqW

It’s about rejecting pity, inspiration porn, & all other forms of ableism. It rejects the “good cripple” mythos. Cripple Punk is here for the bitter cripple, the uninspirational cripple, the smoking cripple, the drinking cripple, the addict cripple, the cripple who hasn’t “tried everything”. Cripple Punk fights internalized ableism & fully supports those struggling with it. It respects intersections of race, culture, gender, sexual/romantic orientation, size, intersex status, mental illness/neuroatypical status, survivor status, etc. Cripple Punk does not pander to the able bodied.

what are the principles of cripple punk? Are there any rules?

🙏🧠 We Stand Together, We Think Apart

Please complete this simple task
Push the buttons just like we ask
This step first and that step last
Over and over and do it fast
I’m watching everyone, feeling like a simpleton
Why can’t I get it done? I just want to scream and run

I don’t think like you
But I’m the one that’s called abnormal
This construct
Was built by petty tyrants
Am I on the level yet? (Level yet)
How did I do on your little test?
Get my brain to reset (Reset)
'Cause everything you say is static
Do I make a good pet? (Good pet)
Obey the commands or get the back of the hand
'Cause the world wasn’t built for a brain like mine
Change my mind, change my mind, change my mind
This construct
Was built and can be dismantled

We stand together
We think apart
We stand together
We think apart

--Neurodivergent by Rabbit Junk

Until ABA updates its scientific methods, its functions of behavior, and incorporates modern day psychology – including neurology, child development, educational psychology, and other vital research – it cannot be considered to be a safe, effective, or ethical field.

Behaviorism is Dead. How Do We Tell The (Autism) Parents? » NeuroClastic

🛑🕹 Standing in the Way of Control, We Will Live Our Lives

Because we′re standing in the way of control
We will live our lives

-- Standing In the Way of Control

We are marginalized canaries in a social coalmine and Rawlsian barometers of society’s morality. It is deeply subversive to live proudly despite being living embodiments of our culture’s long standing ethical failings.

Our non-compliance is not intended to be rebellious. We simply do not comply with things that harm us. But since a great number of things that harm us are not harmful to most neurotypicals, we are viewed as untamed and in need of straightening up.

One of my favorite anecdotes from Asperger’s thesis is when he asks an autistic boy in his clinic if he believes in God. “I don’t like to say I’m not religious,” the boy replies, “I just don’t have any proof of God.” That anecdote shows an appreciation of autistic non-compliance, which Asperger and his colleagues felt was as much a part of their patients’ autism as the challenges they faced. Asperger even anticipated in the 1970s that autistic adults who “valued their freedom” would object to behaviorist training, and that has turned out to be true.

THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO AUTISM: On Hans Asperger, the Nazis, and Autism: A Conversation Across Neurologies

⚖️ Know Your Rights; These Are Your Rights

You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don't mind a little
Investigation, humiliation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation

Know your rights
These are your rights

-- Know Your Rights

We have worked together for many years, and we made the disability rights movement. The disability rights movement is when disabled people fight back against ableism. We work to change society to be better for disabled people, and fight for our rights as people with disabilities.

Self-advocacy isn’t just speaking up for yourself. It can also mean speaking up for your whole community. The self-advocacy movement is when we all speak up together. The self-advocacy movement is part of the disability rights movement, where people with intellectual and developmental disabilities fight for our rights.

We still have a long way to go, since disabled people still get treated unfairly. We can’t always choose where we live or what help we get. We don’t always have the right to vote. We might not get to choose how we want to spend our money, or have control over who cares for us. But we are still fighting for our rights.

Welcome to the Autistic Community

A motto of the self-advocacy movement is “Nothing About Us, Without Us!”. Lots of people talk about us without letting us talk. We should always be part of the conversation, and be in charge of our lives.

Welcome to the Autistic Community


The Autistic Self Advocacy Network seeks to advance the principles of the disability rights movement with regard to autism. ASAN believes that the goal of autism advocacy should be a world in which autistic people enjoy equal access, rights, and opportunities. We work to empower autistic people across the world to take control of our own lives and the future of our common community, and seek to organize the autistic community to ensure our voices are heard in the national conversation about us. Nothing About Us, Without Us!

Autistic Self Advocacy Network

People with disabilities need to make policies ourselves.
We should get to use our stories to help change the world.
Nothing about us, without us!

SHARING YOUR STORY FOR A POLITICAL PURPOSE

In a perfect world, we would all be guided by the presumption of competence, not just in regard to disability but in all human interaction. But we do not live in a perfect world. In the real world, no matter what skills I acquire—be they social, emotional, physical, or educational—there will be a sizable number of people who will presume me to be incompetent. Brace me for it. Make sure I know my rights. Let me know over and over again that I am so much more than the box some small-minded person wishes to fit me into. Practice with me the interactive tools I need to stand up in the face of those who do not believe in me.

Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network. Sincerely, Your Autistic Child (p. 6). Beacon Press.
Revolution rock
Yeah so, get that cheese grater going
Against the grains
Wearin' me down
Pressure increase
Everybody!

--Revolution Rock by The Clash

🪶 Nobody Gets It; They Say We’re Too Sensitive

Our non-compliance is not intended to be rebellious. We simply do not comply with things that harm us. But since a great number of things that harm us are not harmful to most neurotypicals, we are viewed as untamed and in need of straightening up.

THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO AUTISM: On Hans Asperger, the Nazis, and Autism: A Conversation Across Neurologies
I get overwhelmed so easily
My anxiety creeps inside of me
Makes it hard to breathe
What's come over me
Feels like I'm somebody else
I get overwhelmed so easily
My anxiety keeps me silent
When I try to speak
What's come over me
Feels like I'm somebody else
I get overwhelmed

All of these faces
Who don't know what space is
And crowds are shut down
I'm overstimulated
Nobody gets it
They say I'm too sensitive
I can't listen cause I'm eyeing the exits

--Overwhelmed by Royal & the Serpent
I get overwhelmed so easily
My anxiety
Creeps inside of me
Makes it hard to breathe
What's come over me?
Feels like I'm somebody else

I get over, well, well, well
Would you look at that?
Another person telling me that I should just relax
"Calm down and take it easy everything will be okay"
Yeah, sure 'cause that's what they all say

--Overwhelmed by Ryan Mack

😢 Shave the Pride: Say You’re Sorry

Autism researchers have given autistic people zero reasons to trust them, after over a decade of cure and epidemic and plague language. For some reason being an autism researcher means never having to say you’re sorry.

Sara Luterman
Take a step back, take one step back
Take a step back and shave that pride off
Take a second, open your mind
Take a step back and stop this madness

You say you taste the frozen sorrow
Well we can feel your lack of información
I see the hunger, hate and love
It might not do us any good
It cannot do us any good

Small minds who feed suck the children to dirt
It gives us shivers the way they shed blood
Trying to forget but we can't much longer
The sight of anger breaks small ginger hopes

Take a step back, take one step back
Take a step back and shave that pride off
Take a second, open your mind
Take a step back and stop this madness
Take a step back, take one step back
Take a step back and shave that pride off
Take a second, open your mind
Take a step back and stop this madness
And stop this madness
Stop this madness
The bricks are grown makes this place much colder
It give us shivers the way they shed snow
Trying to forget, but we can′t much longer
The sight of anger breaks small ginger hopes

Old sores permit these scars to scare us senseless
Makes my spine increase with sudden panic
These problems started in our adolescence
The size of your rage drowns my urge for loving

🌈🦄🦓♿️ We Wrote This for the Outcasts

Hey, you ever stop to think that maybe we're all different?
Or that you can't just throw every student into the same system
Just examine resources and where they're placin' em
I'm just saying there's different students out there facing some pain
It's completely unfair to expect that they would behave the same
But go ahead, make it harder for one and watch them play the game
So real shit? I wrote this for the outcasts
What you have to offer is worthwhile, don't ever doubt that

-- Imaginary Numbers by Feral the Earthworm

🫀🧠 Spare Me from the Mold

I make the right mistakes
And I say what I mean

Spare Me From The Mold

--Spare Me From The Mold by Gossip

If we were not threatening to the social order in some way, there would not be therapies designed to control how we move our bodies and communicate.

THINKING PERSON’S GUIDE TO AUTISM: On Hans Asperger, the Nazis, and Autism: A Conversation Across Neurologies

🎶🌈 It Take a Joyful Sound: New Wave, New Phrase, Neurodiversity

“Punks are outcasts from society. So are the Rastas. So they are bound to defend what we defend,” Marley concluded. Shortly thereafter, they began recording the single Punky Reggae Party, and by naming an underground social phenomenon, helped further it.

Culture Clash: Bob Marley, Joe Strummer and the punky reggae party | Reggae | The Guardian
New wave, new phrase
New wave, new craze

It take a joyful sound
To make a world go around
Come with your heart and soul
Come on come and rock your boat
Because it's a punky reggae party
And it's tonight
It's a punky reggae party
And it's alright

Rejected by society
(do re mi fa)
Treated with impunity
(so la te do)
Protected by my dignity
(do re mi fa)
I search for reality
(So La te Do)

--Punky Reggae Party by Bob Marley & The Wailers

New wave, new phrase

New wave, new craze

Neurodiversity

What Neurodiversity Means to Me 

Neurodiversity, to me, means both a fabulous celebration of all kinds of individual minds, and a serious, holistic acknowledgment of the necessity of diversity in order for society to survive, thrive, and innovate. It means identity, belonging, and community. It means I am not broken, not alone, and neither are my siblings standing with me beneath that huge, multi-colored neurodiversity umbrella: we the autistic, the mad, the weirdly-wired, the queer, the crippled, and the labeled with neurodivergent diagnoses like flowers that glorify our beautiful bodies and minds.

Autistic Community and the Neurodiversity Movement: Stories from the Frontline

Neurodiversity is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation.

It take a joyful sound. Reframe.

Human cognitive diversity exists for a reason; our differences are the genius – and the conscience – of our species.

A Thousand Rivers

🎶 The Music of Stimpunks

Here are (almost) all the songs on our website as a YouTube playlist.

Playlist: The Music of Stimpunks

❤️🫀 Translate Your Love Into Action

I wasted my twenties in submission
I thought I was outside the system
I was rolling over for wealth and power
As if they really cared about me
The kids are just getting started
They only just learned how to howl
And most of them throw in the towel
Bout the time that they turn twenty three
You've got the taste for transcendence
That translates your love into action
And participate in the fight now
For a creed you can truly believe

Furman penned the second new single “Evening Prayer” as a “rallying cry” for her fan base. “We music fans go to shows for transcendence; it’s like being called to prayer,” she says. “But as Abraham Heschel said, ‘Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism and falsehood.I want all our fans to become activists. We punk fans have so much energy to give to the fight against injustice, i.e. the abuse of the poor by the rich, i.e. climate change. So this is one to get you in the mood.”

Ezra Furman’s Summer of Pride Mix: Listen | Billboard
It is time for the evening prayer
Time to do justice for the poor
It is time for the evening prayer
Time to do justice for the poor

Tonight you've got fire in your bloodstream
Your frail human heart is still pumping
And make this one night you'll remember
A note you'll deliver by hand
And when you get up in the morning
Let no man return it to sender
Pour gasoline on the embers
Give yourself a physical record
Deliver that fire in the real world
And tell them that E Furman sent ya

Evening Prayer aka Justice by Ezra Furman

Let's organize our lives around love and care
Let's write each other letters and call it prayer
Let's congregate in the place that isn't anywhere
At the temple of broken dreams

--Temple of Broken Dreams by Ezra Furman

☀️ Standing Up for the Rights, Like the True Light!

…punk and reggae are assumed to go together. The chocolate and peanut butter of the music world. But in the late 70’s, the decision to combine them at all—to attempt to create musical solidarity between Britain’s working class whites and the new Caribbean immigrant population—was a revolution in itself.

punk rock and reggae: a love story in 2 acts | AFROPUNK
Reggae music is still here
As the voice of the people everywhere
Whenever there is injustice and tyranny
Reggae music is there
Standing up for the rights, like the true light!

Reggae music gonna make me feel good
Reggae music gonna make me feel alright now
Reggae music gonna make me feel good
Reggae music gonna make me feel alright now
(Reggae, reggae, reggae gonna make me feel good!)
Reggae music gonna make me feel alright now
Reggae music gonna make me feel good
Reggae music gonna make me feel alright now

--Reggae Music by Jimmy Cliff
New wave, new phrase
New wave, new craze

--Punky Reggae Party by Bob Marley & The Wailers

Song recorded by Lee Perry. The alliance of punk rockers and Jamaican immigrants including Rastaman during the rock against racism festival (where punks and reggae bands played together against the British National Front) the Brixton riot’s soundtrack. This is an alternative version alternating dub and vocals.

punky reggae party perry sessions 1977-BOB MARLEY & LEE PERRY
One more, one more, one more, one more

I got one more song I must sing
Ting-a-ling
Freedom ring
I got one more song I must sing
Simple song, so sing along

One more, one more, one more, one more
All we got
One more life to live
One more love to give
One more cliff to climb
One more
It's my time

--One More by Jimmy Cliff

🏗 We Rebuild What You Destroy

BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-hierarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.
BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives.

RIOT GRRRL MANIFESTO
Riot Grrrl Manifesto
We rebuild what you destroy
We Rebuild What You Destroy: The Linda Lindas
We Rebuild What You Destroy: The Linda Lindas
We can take turns taking the reins
Lean on each other when we need some extra strength
We’ll never cave 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

🫀🧠 Keep on Livin’

I would like to honour all the autistic people who survive the care system somehow.
All those who survive extreme ‘therapy’.
All those who are brought to their knees, reading hellish descriptions of their loved people.
And all who did not survive this onslaught.

Ann Memmott PGC🌈 on Twitter

We serve our loved people so we can keep on living through the onslaught.

Look up to the sky, sky, sky
Take back your own tonight
You'll find more than you see
It's time now, now, get ready

This is your time, this is your life and
This is your time, this is your life and
This is your time, this is your life and
This is your time, this is your life and

You gotta keep on (Keep on livin!)
Gotta keep on (Keep on livin!)
You gotta keep on (Keep on livin!)
Gotta keep on (Keep on livin!)
You gotta keep on (Keep on livin!)
Gotta keep on (Keep on livin!)
You gotta keep on (Keep on livin!)
Gotta keep on (Keep on livin!)

-- Keep On Livin'

Further reading,