{"id":10117,"date":"2021-07-01T02:11:54","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T16:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=10117"},"modified":"2022-07-02T14:25:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-02T04:25:53","slug":"letters-june-september-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/01\/letters-june-september-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanks for the &#8216;therapy&#8217;, Australian Rationalist"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mp_wrapper\">\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-excerpt\">\n    <p>Dear Editor,\nI am a new reader of your magazine. Reading it shone an unforgiving light on a niggling feeling in my gut, which would rear its well intended, but confusing, head during discussions about serious issues. Try my passionate and stuttering best, I couldn't express opinions in a manner that could ever have been seriously considered. Simply put, I couldn't 'get' the language to explain my thoughts from my brain, out of my mouth. The verbal process feels like digging through peanut butter with one of those stick-to-the-wall hand toys.\nThe stigma of having ADHD and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) made me think I didn't have a right to an opinion, as intelligent discussion takes rationality, remembering facts and appropriate language use if it is to be considered acceptable. Neither BPD nor ADHD are known for those qualities. If I can write an essay on something, I can hit it out of the figurative ball park, but verbal discussion? Yikes.\nVerbal discussion can't be avoided in my friend group, where a quiet game of dungeons and dragons can evolve into a dice hurling debate over increasingly specific issues quicker than one can say 'roll initiative'. More to the point, verbal discussion should never be avoided under the banner of 'disability', 'triggers', 'politically incorrect opinion' or the new cringe call of something being 'cancelled'.\nMy response to constantly coming out of discussions as a citation-crisped, peer-review roasted pulp intellectually using a dictio...<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-message\">\n    <hr style=\"width: 100%;max-width: 1000px !important;height: 5px;border-width: 0;color: red;background-color: red\" \/>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\">\n<h3><em>You're part way through this article. Want to keep reading?<\/em><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Only members of the Rationalist Society of Australia can read our Premium articles.\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n<h3 style=\"height: 20px\"><span style=\"color: #c83200\"><em><a style=\"color: #c83200\" href=\"https:\/\/rationalist.com.au\/membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Become a member today.<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Already a member? Log in below.<\/em><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-login-form-wrap\">\n            \n<div class=\"mp_wrapper mp_login_form\">\n                  <!-- mp-login-form-start -->     <form name=\"mepr_loginform\" id=\"mepr_loginform\" class=\"mepr-form\" action=\"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/login\/\" method=\"post\">\n            <div class=\"mp-form-row mepr_username\">\n        <div class=\"mp-form-label\">\n                              <label for=\"user_login\">Username<\/label>\n        <\/div>\n        <input type=\"text\" name=\"log\" id=\"user_login\" value=\"\" \/>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"mp-form-row mepr_password\">\n        <div class=\"mp-form-label\">\n          <label for=\"user_pass\">Password<\/label>\n          <div class=\"mp-hide-pw\">\n            <input type=\"password\" name=\"pwd\" id=\"user_pass\" value=\"\" \/>\n            <button type=\"button\" class=\"button mp-hide-pw hide-if-no-js\" data-toggle=\"0\" aria-label=\"Show password\">\n              <span class=\"dashicons dashicons-visibility\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/span>\n            <\/button>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n            <div>\n        <label><input name=\"rememberme\" type=\"checkbox\" id=\"rememberme\" value=\"forever\" \/> Remember Me<\/label>\n      <\/div>\n      <div class=\"mp-spacer\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n      <div class=\"submit\">\n        <input type=\"submit\" name=\"wp-submit\" id=\"wp-submit\" class=\"button-primary mepr-share-button \" value=\"Log In\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"redirect_to\" value=\"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10117\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"mepr_process_login_form\" value=\"true\" \/>\n        <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"mepr_is_login_page\" value=\"false\" \/>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/form>\n    <div class=\"mp-spacer\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n    <div class=\"mepr-login-actions\">\n        <a\n          href=\"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/login\/?action=forgot_password\"\n          title=\"Click here to reset your password\"\n        >\n          Forgot Password        <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n\n      \n    <!-- mp-login-form-end --> \n  <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Editor, I am a new reader of your magazine. Reading it shone an unforgiving light on a niggling feeling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":444,"featured_media":10482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[75],"coauthors":[114],"class_list":["post-10117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","tag-premium"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10117"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10528,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10117\/revisions\/10528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10117"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=10117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}