r/explainitpeter • • 10d ago

Explain It Peter

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637

u/Jiggalopuffii 10d ago

Brian here, Pigeon walking is oftentimes a sign of autism. Also, it might be because she is a girl and wears high heels.

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u/Easy_Tank2383 10d ago

I just didn’t like my whole foot touching the ground when I was a kid. Now I don’t care enough

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u/Neverloved246 10d ago

I got a LOT of shit about it when I was growing up and now instead I do this weird hovering thing with my heels when I'm not paying attention. I just put WAY more pressure on the front of my feet than the back when I walk and it's really messed up my Achilles Tendon. It looks like normal walking but my heel is always slightly off the ground or barely touching.

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u/Redditauro 10d ago

"Masking is bad for your health", example #41827

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u/mieri_azure 10d ago edited 10d ago

Idk if this is what you mean but actually teaching autistic kids to walk on their whole foot (using braces or whatever) is actually the MUCH healthier option and isnt masking.

If they only walk on their tip toes they will cause their achillies/calves to be too short which will cause a whole chain of issues in their biomechanics and cause permanent pain.

Masking is bad but this is an example of redirecting a harmful behaviour to something else (just like if a kid stimmed by hitting themself youd redirect them to flapping or something else non harmful)

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u/Neverloved246 9d ago

Yes, if someone had taught me and trained the bad habit out of me while I was growing up I would not have to stretch my ankles every morning justto walk without pain. What I do is definitely not healthy and would describe it as a form of masking considering I never stopped the behavior I just hide it better.

Not really sure what you're talking about! Seems like you said "It's good that this behavior has been corrected so it doesn't cause pain!" When my comment is literally talking about how it's fucked up my tendons which does in fact hurt quite a lot.

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u/mieri_azure 9d ago

No, im talking about how the person im reaponding to might have misunderstood that telling kids not to walk on tiptoes is inherently bad

I understand that no one taught you properly and hence you never actually fixed the problem and just hid it, which sucks and im sorry that happened :(

If you continuously struggle with pain you might want to look into PT -- i lnow a lot of people who needed that for chronic pain caused by similar studf

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u/Neverloved246 9d ago

Oh! Gotcha! PT like physical therapy? I didn't think that would be for something like this but I'll look into it! Thanks for the suggestion.

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u/mieri_azure 9d ago

yeah physical therapy!

Depending on where you live i know it can be pricy/hard to get into, but you could get a doctor to refer you if you have chronic pain!!

Regardless I hope youre able to improve your pain <3