A Reblog Say To Me, "I Liked This Enough To Share It With Other People I Thought Might Like It" And That

I'm not freaking out you are ospmsvsycundjUctu

Ever since the beggining... It's always been us four

Us four, fighting crime Keeping the city safe, with style

Hi there, enjoy a wip of my Programmed Obsolescence AU. A more grim and angsty look at the Rise series, where now the turtles are vigilantes, April included! ;)

When school is torture…

A comic about autism and “school avoidance”.

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Commence Alt Text:

[PAGE 1]

Title: ‘It’s Not School Avoidance – Trauma, Burnout and PTSD in the Education System’. The first panel shows a woman, her face veiled in shadow and surrounded by a thicket of thorns. She looks alien, with pointed ears and cat-like eyes. The second panel shows her drowning, her hand grasping at the air. The next panel shows ghost-like arms twisting around her. The speech bubbles read: When I was a kid, school was the stuff of nightmares. An intense and overwhelming environment, overstimulating and demanding, and entirely unforgiving. It’s where I learned to mask and how to lie about all manner of things. I faked so many illnesses just so I could have the break I couldn’t ask for. All so that I could somehow stay afloat in a system that did not recognise my needs. Neurotypicals don’t understand just how much school is not designed for people who are not like them. Nor do they understand what it’s like when you have to return to the place that is hurting you, day after day after day.

[Page 2]

The woman lies with her head on a pillow, staring wide-eyed at the reader. Thorns creep around the edges of the frame. The text reads: It’s nearly twenty years later, and I still have the nightmares. Not the same vague dreams about not doing my homework everyone gets, but vivid night terrors that revolve around school and the things it made me feel. I’ve been told it’s a symptom of CPTSD. The second panel shows a dagger with thorns wrapped around it as it is slowly dragged into their midst. The text reads: Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder develops over a series of prolonged traumatic events. A disturbingly high number of autistic adults go on to develop it and can trace the root of their trauma back to the torturous experiences of their school years. So, I guess it’s safe to say I’m not alone. But what’s worse: It’s still happening today.

[Page 3]

A girl is at the centre of the page, tears streaming down her face as scissors cut through her wings. Blood drips down the page. Thorns creep towards her. Another panel shows the woman’s back with the shredded remnants of her own cut wings. The text reads:  Autistic children are being dragged through a grim education system that does not get their needs, quietly suffering. Parents are denied support if their child makes good grades or is quiet in class, because all is well. But the school doesn’t see the tears and fights getting to the gates in the morning. Or the meltdowns/shutdowns as soon as the child gets home. It doesn’t matter what’s happening to their mental health. That a bubbly, happy child who loved to learn has turned into a despondent, empty shell of their former self. Above all else, school emphasises attendance rates. As long as that child is still showing up every day, it’s seen as a success, no matter the cost—and the cost, sadly, is often steep for people like us.

[Page 4]

The girl and the woman are wrapped in a towering mass of thorns. Swords jut from the wounded woman’s chest while she looks down at the girl who reaches for a hand trying to rescue her from her plight. The text reads: “Your child just needs to develop more resilience.” An infamous line that keeps rearing its ugly head. It comes from a place of ignorance, from people who have no idea how resilient these young people already are from living in a world not designed for their neurotype. But what can parents do? They’re witnessing the damage forced classroom time is doing to their children, seeing it destroy them, but feel powerless to help. Keeping them home for recovery results in fines, warnings, and intimidation tactics. Seeing no other way out, some parents are forced to take their child out of school for good, opting for home schooling instead. They report needing years to repair the damage done to their child’s mental health.

[Page 5]

The woman is seen healing the girl’s back. Tiny wings sprout where hers were cut. The text reads: Homeschooling can allow parents to slowly build their children back up, coaxing them back to their former selves. But not everybody has the means to homeschool, and while it should always be a choice, it should never be one forced by desperation. The next panel shows the woman’s own shredded wings. The final one shows her defending her child. Text: This whole thing is excruciating for autistic parents who experienced it all themselves while growing up and know exactly the damage that is being done, yet find themselves unable to protect their child from suffering the same fate. I want to be a parent one day, but the thought of school already fills me with dread. I want my child to benefit from a well-rounded education without paying the steep mental health price I had to pay. It shouldn’t be too much to ask! And yet, I’ve fully prepared myself for the battles I’ll have to fight.

[Page 6]

The page shows the woman twirling the girl around while she holds her hands and the girl flies with her new, full-grown wings. The woman’s wings are still shredded, but she smiles knowing that she was able to help her daughter. The text reads: I want to raise the next generation of autistic people unburdened by school trauma or CPTSD. We need more autistic-friendly options, and lockdown and the pandemic showed that it’s possible!  We need flexible schooling, less classroom time, more opportunities to do schoolwork from home, and low intensity classrooms for children who don’t have parents who can support learning from home. Allow for recovery time and stop penalising low attendance rates! We want the education system to recognise the damage it’s doing to young people and believe parents when they plead for support. There is more than one way to achieve learning outcomes, and we deserve a system that works for us.

I feel like I sometimes overdo it with my digital art, so I did an experiment with a sketch of human!Mikey. I made a detailed color piece, a simplified color piece, and a black and white piece from the same sketch and compared them. I ended up using a new brush that I like way better for the lineart for all 3 of them, too. That worked out very well.

All in all, I think I prefer the black and white drawing the best. I love color and I’m so attached to his orange tips, but at the end of the day, black and white is a more striking look for my artstyle and is WAY easier to produce. 

I think moving forward I’ll stick with black and white for the most part, but I’d love to hear from you guys what you like best!

(ETA: it occurred to me that I can have orange tips and still do a mostly black and white drawing. Doy. So I went back and gave him some.)

these ghosts of ghosts will never exist

but they matter

Hi everyone! It took a while with a lot of back and forth to set up a proper shop, but I'm now open on Ko-fi and I'm selling 3" stickers for MHA, MP100, and ROTTMNT.

These stickers are all ready to go and be shipped, so please if you have some time please check them out! I'm very grateful for all your support. If you have the time, a quick reblog will help spread this along the way!

More items will be added to the shop as we go along :D

I just would like to add, not correct or change any of this:

People with personality disorders, anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc are SOMETIMES ALSO ABUSERS and their mental health definitely plays into their patterns of abuse. I've...unfortunately been on both ends of being abused by a mentally ill person. I'm not proud of how I behaved on one end and and my experiences at the other won't excuse that, ever.

That being said, language is highly important and it IS critical to avoid generalizing terms for oppressed groups like mentally ill and disordered people, so yes to all of the above. Just...remember people are complicated, yeah?

Can I please find a single resource for abusive relationships without there being "narcissistic" in the tile like come on.

The autistic urge to go apeshit at a group of loudmouth rednecks in a small town pizzeria like

*aggressive cut to the Phantom of the Opera vocal solo*

look at this absolutely FANTASTIC saltwater version of my eels. god. what a man. perfection exists and its name is diademichthys lineatus

COULD YOU DENY THIS FACE??! ✨✨✨🧡