I’ve mentioned this before in other threads that seek a women-centric Lemmy option, but there was at least one secret community on Reddit like that. Invitees’ post histories were vetted before an invite was sent, both to find women specifically, but also to prevent trolls.

I don’t know exactly how they did it, all I know is that I got an invite one day and found the most open, comforting community I’d ever seen online. It was a place where we could talk about anything from silly stories that made us smile, to complaining about specific issues with bras, all without fear of trolls hijacking the thread, or turning an ordinary thing for us into something sexual.

I miss it.

It’s called “being an ally,” and it’s far more productive than faking outrage and borderline-doxxing people we disagree with.

What an ugly pin design. Luckily, I got a better one:

I’m cool with a book being in French. I have a Spanish language etymological dictionary, too. I kind of collect etymology sources, actually - I’ve got another etymology book of the English language, and even one of Persian.

Which is why your link is going right into my Favorites list. ❤️

an etymology book I have

Name, please. Inquiring word nerds must know more.

Kameldýr

Camel + animal? I wonder, does the element “kamel” resembles any other, non-animal words? (I studied Icelandic a bit as a teen, but it’s been a long time since then.)

When search engines started putting lists of videos in response to every query, I fumed. Trying to find a solution to the game issue you’re having? Here, scan through this 10 minute video and hope you come across the part that discusses your specific issue! Oh, it didn’t actually talk about the thing you need? Lol well at least you watched some ads.

I think next time I have a game issue, I’ll be asking about it here on Lemmy. Yeah, the audience isn’t as big as on Reddit, but we’ll never know the depth of the knowledge fellow Lemmings have to offer if we never ask.

Life as an introvert, with introverted friends.

As long as they can identifying that “we win” is the same as “I win,” that’s fine. I’d invite them to join us for cooperative games.

Legit, I think this is why board games are a great activity when getting to know new people. Most people don’t want to play with someone ultra competitive, who’ll either gloat when they win, or flip the board when they lose. If someone’s willing to behave that way over a game, imagine how they’d be over something that’s actually important.

he willingly reads more than most adults I know.

I love this. Not just for the obvious (“kid likes reading”) but because we live in a society of “TL;DR” and it never made much sense to me. Even with ADHD, I prefer long-form messages and social media that doesn’t have a character limit. The rise of “TL;DR” seems to be mainstream, which likely means neurotypicals… it’s really ironic, isn’t it? Those who supposedly have “normal” attention spans can’t bother to read through more than a paragraph sometimes. Yet, those of us who supposedly have an “attention deficit” will pour over articles, books, Wikipedia pages, and more for hours or days on end. We clearly have the capacity to pay attention, even if much of the modern world sucks at grabbing and maintaining it.

Be careful with that phrase. Being glad for aspects of one’s disability seems to trigger some folks, and the response can be hit or miss. Some days, you mention a thing you’re glad that your ADHD gives you, and people dog-pile you for daring to find a silver lining in your own life.

I get where they’re coming from, since there are a lot of folks out there that don’t understand what ADHD is. But they forget that there’s a world of difference between someone without ADHD dismissing struggles by claiming someone has “superpowers,” and someone with ADHD who chooses to celebrate their unique strengths.

Sorry, tangent. I’m just trying to look out for you because I’ve seen the Lemmy community jump on people for less.

I’d like to note that users here are adults, a lot of whom didn’t get ADHD support as children. Some of us weren’t diagnosed until adulthood. Others of us were diagnosed, but had parents who “don’t believe in” insert-scientific-fact-here. Many of us are behind in life now due to a lack of support during crucial years. These memes aren’t an end-all, be-all of ADHD, but a way for all of us to find humor in our predicaments.

As someone who had parents in denial, I hope it brings you comfort to know that acknowledging and supporting your child is giving him a huge leg-up compared to many of us here. You won’t mislabel your kid as “lazy” and burden him with poor self-esteem about it, the way many of us were treated. Add in the benefits of tech, like having programmable timers, alarms, and reminders, and your kid already has tons more support than many of us did growing up.

You’re doing good, Mom/Dad/Parent. You’re providing your kid with the what he needs to do better than the generation before him. That is progress, and that is awesome.

“Thingy,” “that thing,” “thingamabob,” and “whatchacallit” are all valid ways that myself, my friends, and my family refer to items. Sometimes there’s an adjective or relative descriptor used to clarify, like “that spiky thing,” or “the blue thingy next to the TV.”

Do you also sometimes go through the alphabet when trying to find a word? Usually if I can figure out what sound/letter starts the word I’m looking for, I can find the rest of it.

You make a lot of important points. I’d like to also add that those same communities actively discourage critical thinking.

We all enter the world without knowing how it works. We spend our early childhood learning the rules of reality, sometimes testing them. Consider an infant in a high chair that repeatedly drops their spoon - will the spoon fall to the ground again? Is this a consistent thing? What if it just hovers in the air this time? Gotta drop it again and find out.

Our brains not only build a set of “rules” about how the world works, but our imaginations help us fill in what we don’t know. Like how having scared feelings at night can be interpreted by children as a monster hiding in the corner. They don’t know the world with any sort of certainty, but their emotions are strong, so of course the existence of a monster makes sense.

Now imagine that nobody ever told you that monsters aren’t real. Imagine, instead, that the adults around you reinforced such fears, by using words like “demons” or “devils” to describe the creature you should be afraid of. These same adults can’t answer the “Why?” questions that kids have, except to say “God did it.” Natural scientists get blocked from information that can help them accurately understand the world.

But it goes beyond simply maintaining ignorance. When kids are raised to sustain their magical thinking past the point where it is developmentally appropriate, they never acquire the mental scaffolding upon which reasoning is built. The logical way to connect concept A to concept B is obvious to you or me, but doesn’t stand out for them. Why? Because magical thinking is a free-for-all. Such kids are actively taught to misunderstand reality. If there are no rules to making things make sense, or if everything is some invisible creature’s “mysterious plan,” then what you or I would call a “logical conclusion” becomes just one of many, equally-valid possibilities.

Okay, but who is “calling everyone (they) disagree with nazis”? Look at the comment. The initial post is simply “Fuck Nazis.” It’s not calling anyone anything.

That’s why it works as bait. It’s not calling out any individuals in particular, so why would someone get offended by it? Simplest reason would be that they felt personally called out, because deep down some part of them identifies with that word.

I’ve seen a disc golf course be integrated into a local park, without any damage to nature. If only more sports could be this eco-friendly.

The downvotes prove your point. This topic needs more discussion, but most of the times when women bring this up, their comments get downvoted to hell. It’s quite a “gotcha” for someone to ask to see “examples” when most of the examples we’ve come across or created will be buried or have since been deleted.

Alternative question - for those that don’t believe this is an issue, when is the last time you came across a post on Lemmy that is specifically for/about women or women’s issues (especially one posted from a woman’s perspective)? Or even better, go ahead and make such a post. Watch how fast the downvotes come.

I expect this comment to be downvoted the same way as the parent comment was, the same way that past posts I’ve made and read about women’s issues have been downvoted on Lemmy. If men want this place to be inclusive for women, they have to do their part to support us - not downvoting our concerns, simply because they don’t experience the same issues, is the absolute bare minimum. Otherwise, why would we keep posting/commenting about our issues when doing so invites a downvote cascade?

you should absolutely rely on friends or family for help.

Aw, I wish. There are two types of people in my family. The first type is people who also have ADHD (unmedicated, at that) and/or autism. The second type is people who believe the first type are jUsT bEiNg LaZy.

There is no in-between.

I agree with applying healthy skepticism to any and all stories. At the same time, I can’t blame a recent Reddit refugee for not fully trusting Lemmy yet. They don’t know the environment here. It makes sense for someone to be apprehensive about repeating a thing that just got them banned somewhere else.

But I hope OP feels comfortable enough here to share their story some day.