Trying to look for a neurodivergent therapist today. Already annoyed with Psychology Today's website, which includes a pullquote on the search page that makes a therapist look like the explicitly wrote something about neurodivergency, but when you go to the main profile page for the therapist, the quote is not there.

What's happening is AI is generating a plausible pull quote from the list of "specialties" the therapist have, which is sometimes just a copy-paste of the index to the DSM.

Just more dishonest shit from the mental health industry.

Edit:

It fucking gets worse: I got the bait & switch from the practice manager. I look up someone because I want to see THAT person, and the practice manager will just act like SHE knows the best person for me to see, and it happens to be the person who has time in their schedule. Fuck that. Then the therapist I wanted to see didn't even take my insurance on top of it, though she was listed, so pretty fraudulent all around. AND THEN the practice manager recommends I just go to the directory of my insurance which is a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME because I've done it and you don't know: a) what the therapists specialty is b) if they are taking new clients c) if they see the public at all or attached to an institutions with a committed population (nursing home, etc.) d) if they are even fucking still practicing--got a call back from a doctor's wife explaining he retired years ago!

So fraud, disrespect, and sending me on a merry goose chase, all from my first attempt to get help. Goddamn the whole fucking profession is so disgustingly and obviously incompetent.

Anyway, found one person who is available and neurodivergent so hopefully that goes well.

The world has seemed quite bleak lately. Everywhere I look on the internet I find more hatred and division and fear. The upcoming US Midterm elections are probably a significant contributor.

So I went back to re-read the Tao te Ching. I'm an atheist and I do not believe in the Tao as a sort of mystical entity, but it's really easy to just ignore those parts. There's a lot of really great wisdom in the verses. The first time I read it, I wondered whether the author may have been an autistic person who added the mystical bits to overcome the double-empathy problem and share their worldview with allistic people.

Multiple doctor's appointments today and then buying a new phone because mine finally did something demonstrably bad, which is "No one can hear me talking into it anymore but I can hear them" which is bad. Mother gave me a budget. A budget I will be almost half under because the thought of a phone as expensive as she said is genuinely terrifying. I don't want to hold that. Scary.

They've taken the trash BUT NOT THE BULK TRASH and that was annoying TOO. I'm flustered today, hello. My name is now flustered. Guy came and threw it on the curb but left before we could tell him they hate taking stuff from that curb so I just moved the car in the hopes they'll take shit because that's their usual excuse, car too close. It's not. I've checked. But fine, car is now like a quarter block away.

But they haven't taken the mattress yet. Buuuut last month they did trash then bulk trash on another pass. Wild, but I'm hoping. I don't wanna call and say "Yo guys get yo shit together and pick this mattress like object up"

I must be calm. I must stay calm.

Edit - They've taken the mattress yaaaay! It's gooooooone. One guy went to grab it, I could hear from the house him go "What the fuck" as he realized it is so floppy. Second guy got out and helped, also said "What the fuck"

I do live in a small town and we make our own bread and tortillas. I'm also lactose intolerant so I learned how to make my own dairy free milk with almonds or cashews. There's definitely small town problems but I love that I'm close to literally millions of acres of national forest and several rivers.