I have decided to do a masters degree for some fucking reason. Due to these godforsaken circumstances, I am going to be a student again.
Now, based on my experience being an undergrad with my Brain and Misc Issues, I knew that my hubris in pursuing YET MORE EDUCATION would result in having to write a lot of stressful emails, while dealing with a stressful situation.
So, to help myself cope in advance, I’ve decided to write drafts of these emails in advance, so that it’s less agonisingly painful to deal with this shit when it comes up.
And you can use them too!
under the cut, I have some draft emails for when you need to tell your lecturers:
I’m going to miss a lecture.
I have missed a lecture
I will be turning in an assignment late
I have missed a deadline
I have had a personal crisis which impacts my studies.
SEND AT START OF SEMESTER: explaining that you fidget/stim without using the word stim.
This is a wonderful resource! Like you, OP, I decided to do the school thing again after finishing the bachelors, and I hope you experience all the success you deserve!
I’d like to add on to this post with a list of accommodations that many universities have for neurodivergent undergrads and grad students. I went into my grad program not even knowing accommodations were available to us. Thought this list might be useful to others…
Jean And Jorts: the extended metaphor for workplace accommodations nobody asked for
“I really don’t have the will to structure this as a properly argued piece because it’s mostly a joke extended well past breaking point, so I’m just going to headline the comparisons and add some pictures of my own very silly orange boy as an incentive to keep reading.”
Note to self: no really, it’s actually good. remember how you liked it the first time?
You might not want to hear this but people with anger issues and/or violent impulses need social accommodations. And no by accommodation I don’t mean walking on eggshells around them, actual accommodations for people with these issues comes down to giving them a space away from what’s triggering them to process their emotions and calm themselves down same as what kind of accommodations people who get sensory overload or just any kind of overwhelmed. There is no moral value to having anger issues or violent impulses, people with them are deserving of accommodation the same as everyone else.
I had severe anger issues growing up, and the only way I was ever taught to deal with them was deep breathing. For some reason, deep breathing just triggers me to get angrier. But it’s the only coping skill I ever got taught for it. Here’s a few better ones.
Go and exercise. Get all of that energy out and away from the people you love.
Get a hang of when you’re winding up to a rage and learn to tell people that you need to step away. I will warn you that the first time that someone refuses to let you go once you learn this skill will spook the hell out of you if you don’t have a backup skill, so figure out ahead of time what you’re gonna do if they won’t let you leave.
Learn to set boundaries. One of the best things I ever did for my anger issues was tell people that I can’t deal with people stealing food off my plate. Second best was when I’m mad, telling people not to touch me. I spook easily when I’m already angry.
Get a pack of pencils and if nothing is working, break one. Sometimes you really do need to break something in order to feel better, and pencils are cheap.
Don’t cook with a knife when you’re mad. If you get too much adrenaline, the knife can slip and hurt you.
If you have anger issues that pop up without any seeming reason and frighten you, I would strongly recommend going over the situation and over your mental health. If there’s anything consistent with a mental health condition or with something particular happening to trigger it, seek to eliminate the trigger or treat the issue. Depression, anxiety, trauma, you name it, it can probably present as anger issues under the right circumstances.
Some quick notes for people without anger issues that want to help someone who has anger issues:
Fear transmutes into anger really, really well if someone’s fear response is “fight”. One of my guesses for why so many men have anger issues is that we’re told we’re not men if we have any other response to fear. However, this issue is far from exclusive to men.
Don’t box people in when you’re arguing with them or soothing them. If someone is backed up against a wall and upset, then getting closer to them without permission is a bad call for your safety and for their soothing, because that removes the ability to get away from you. Ask before getting close. This goes double if someone is injured or otherwise vulnerable.
Teaching angry people that are distressed about being angry the pencil trick on the spot is really easy and works more often than you can think.
Respect people’s requests and boundaries. A lot of people think that some of the boundaries I set up are silly or that once we’re pals, they can ignore them. No, because a lot of my boundaries are related to trauma, and crossing them will trigger me and bring up my anger.
All of this goes for children with anger issues as well. I was a child with anger issues, and a lot of disrespect for my boundaries and needs was because my anger was dismissed because I was a child. Respect children’s anger.
Walking on eggshells is not and will never be a good way to treat anger issues. Recognizing that people with anger issues deserve to have their boundaries respected and to be treated like human beings is.
An end note: Anger issues are not the same thing as being abusive, because emotions are not abusive. Someone with anger issues can become abusive if they take them out on people, but so can someone with suicidal thoughts who takes them out on people. The issue is targeting another person in order to feel better, not having a mental health issue.
An end note for people with anger issues: It really can get better. You can find coping skills and perhaps meds that help cool you down and settle you. You can find people that will accept that doing that one weird thing spooks the fuck out of you, and will let you leave if you’re scaring yourself. You can gain control of yourself without shutting down emotionally. It’s achievable.
When to wear headphones: when listening to music or podcasts or videos or whatever in public. Its literally so fucking rude to force other people to listen to whatever you’re watching/listening to, oh my god.
When NOT to wear headphones: when you’re driving a car. This seems silly but no, for real. You NEED to be able to hear things going on outside your vehicle. If youre playing music through your car speakers, even if its loud, you will HEAR IT when someone crashes into someone else, or when your car suddenly starts making a strange or alarming sound, or when an ambulance or firetruck siren is coming closer and closer to you. If youre wearing headphones, you won’t hear any of that. They’ll block all external sound, and that is, genuinely, a hazard on multiple levels.
Watched a great talk today about web/technology accessibility, and the speaker pointed out that yes, accessibility is important for people with permanent disabilities, and we should definitely care about that. But also accessibility helps EVERYBODY, because everybody will, at some point in their lives, find themselves in situations that accessible technology can help with. Here are permanent, temporary, and situational disabilities that accessible technology can help with:
Remember that whether something is disabling or not depends on the situation, the environment, the technology, etc. We’re ALL disabled at some point. It is important to support permanently disabled people, but it is also important to remember that accessibility helps us all!
I’ll just mention the irony quickly and do this:
[ID: A table of types of disability. Columns are labeled Permanent, Temporary, and Situational, in that order. Each example has an abstract human figure to represent the disability.
Touch: One Arm, Arm Injury, New Parent (holding a child in their arm)
See: Blind, Cataracts, Distracted Driver
Hear: Deaf, Ear Infection, Bartender (surrounded by noise)
Speak: Non-verbal, Laryngitis, Heavy Accent (wielding a sword, shield, and viking helmet)
Churchyard Inn - B&B Uniontown, Washington Formerly the convent for the Benedictine sisters affiliated with the St. Boniface Church. Lovely accommodations, delicious food, and gracious hosts.
So my coworker (lab mate?) is partially deaf and was given a sign language interpreter by the university (so he doesn’t pay for anything) and also got one at his new job, which is really cool.
I didn’t realize just how hard sign language interpreters work until I started interacting with his interpreter.
Any time I need a Zoom call from my coworker to get him to explain some machine learning stuff to me, his interpreter joins the Zoom call.
During 2 hour lab meetings, he has 2 interpreters that constantly switch so they don’t get tired, and when there’s only one, we have to take a break in the middle so she can rest.
Both his interpreters spent a lot of time reading complex scientific journal articles in machine learning in order to agree on what language to use during the lab meetings.
We went out for a lab lunch and everyone ordered all this delicious food…and the interpreter couldn’t eat anything, because she had to work (my coworker said it’s part of their job but still!).
She would constantly ask me what the group on the other side of the table was talking about so she could keep my coworker “in the loop” of the “office chatter” instead of only interpreting when someone spoke directly to him.
Having to struggle with words from other languages (I’m bilingual and when I mixed in some Urdu words, the interpreter asked me to translate so she could sign them). Also having to interpret conversations where everyone is interrupting each other.
Just…it’s such an important job and I didn’t realize how much work goes into it. Sign language interpreters are amazing and really do their part to not only “translate” for deaf people, but to make them feel included in all of the conversation.
You might not want to hear this but people with anger issues and/or violent impulses need social accommodations. And no by accommodation I don’t mean walking on eggshells around them, actual accommodations for people with these issues comes down to giving them a space away from what’s triggering them to process their emotions and calm themselves down same as what kind of accommodations people who get sensory overload or just any kind of overwhelmed. There is no moral value to having anger issues or violent impulses, people with them are deserving of accommodation the same as everyone else.
Autistic adulting is when, after working at a job for TWO YEARS, and fighting for accommodations for TWO YEARS, you are…still fighting.
I am so exhausted. Of course, Auditory Processing Disorder isn’t a “simple” disability to understand. Being entirely Deaf is “simple”. You can’t hear. Anything, at all, ever. Okay, they understand that.
But APD? When I can hear, but only sometimes and under certain conditions, and not under other conditions? Suddenly, everyone’s too stupid to understand. Nobody “believes” me, even though I have FUCKING MEDICAL DOCUMENTATION. Even though I have GOVERNMENT APPROVED REASONALBE ACCOMODATIONS for it. Even though I’ve gone to the UNION over it, gotten some extremely high-up people involved to tell my manager “you have to do these accommodations for this employee”.
Even then, when she’s told she MUST do my accomodations, she still doesn’t care to learn what those accommodations ARE. Or when I might need them. Or why I need them.
And frankly, she doesn’t really have to? Just treat me the same as a Deaf person, then! Then just ALWAYS communicate with me in non-auditory ways! You don’t HAVE to understand the nuances of APD- just be like “Snazzy can’t hear” in your head, and act accordingly! That would be FINE!
But instead, they schecule Skype voice meetings, no matter how many times I’ve explained that sound over a computer is SHIT and I can’t hear over Skype meetings, PERIOD. “But you can hear over the phone”. YES! That’s a DIFFERENT LEVEL OF SOUND QUALITY! Phones are very good at carrying sound, so yes, I can hear over the phone, but not over the Skype, that is NOT THAT HARD TO COMPREHEND.
It also doesn’t MATTER, because I can get captions over the phone, but NOT over Skype, because the captioners don’t have access to our internal Skype so they can’t log in. So I can’t get captions, so you can’t do Skype meetings when I need to attend! Period!
I’VE BEEN SCREAMING THIS FOR TWO YEARS.
I’m exhausted. I’m crying. All I want is to be able to attend the meeting about the PROGRAM THAT I WROTE. You can’t have the meeting without me, because I’m the person with all the information on this particular subject! It’s useless to you to have a meeting where I can’t participate!
You might not want to hear this but people with anger issues and/or violent impulses need social accommodations. And no by accommodation I don’t mean walking on eggshells around them, actual accommodations for people with these issues comes down to giving them a space away from what’s triggering them to process their emotions and calm themselves down same as what kind of accommodations people who get sensory overload or just any kind of overwhelmed. There is no moral value to having anger issues or violent impulses, people with them are deserving of accommodation the same as everyone else.
I had severe anger issues growing up, and the only way I was ever taught to deal with them was deep breathing. For some reason, deep breathing just triggers me to get angrier. But it’s the only coping skill I ever got taught for it. Here’s a few better ones.
Go and exercise. Get all of that energy out and away from the people you love.
Get a hang of when you’re winding up to a rage and learn to tell people that you need to step away. I will warn you that the first time that someone refuses to let you go once you learn this skill will spook the hell out of you if you don’t have a backup skill, so figure out ahead of time what you’re gonna do if they won’t let you leave.
Learn to set boundaries. One of the best things I ever did for my anger issues was tell people that I can’t deal with people stealing food off my plate. Second best was when I’m mad, telling people not to touch me. I spook easily when I’m already angry.
Get a pack of pencils and if nothing is working, break one. Sometimes you really do need to break something in order to feel better, and pencils are cheap.
Don’t cook with a knife when you’re mad. If you get too much adrenaline, the knife can slip and hurt you.
If you have anger issues that pop up without any seeming reason and frighten you, I would strongly recommend going over the situation and over your mental health. If there’s anything consistent with a mental health condition or with something particular happening to trigger it, seek to eliminate the trigger or treat the issue. Depression, anxiety, trauma, you name it, it can probably present as anger issues under the right circumstances.
Some quick notes for people without anger issues that want to help someone who has anger issues:
Fear transmutes into anger really, really well if someone’s fear response is “fight”. One of my guesses for why so many men have anger issues is that we’re told we’re not men if we have any other response to fear. However, this issue is far from exclusive to men.
Don’t box people in when you’re arguing with them or soothing them. If someone is backed up against a wall and upset, then getting closer to them without permission is a bad call for your safety and for their soothing, because that removes the ability to get away from you. Ask before getting close. This goes double if someone is injured or otherwise vulnerable.
Teaching angry people that are distressed about being angry the pencil trick on the spot is really easy and works more often than you can think.
Respect people’s requests and boundaries. A lot of people think that some of the boundaries I set up are silly or that once we’re pals, they can ignore them. No, because a lot of my boundaries are related to trauma, and crossing them will trigger me and bring up my anger.
All of this goes for children with anger issues as well. I was a child with anger issues, and a lot of disrespect for my boundaries and needs was because my anger was dismissed because I was a child. Respect children’s anger.
Walking on eggshells is not and will never be a good way to treat anger issues. Recognizing that people with anger issues deserve to have their boundaries respected and to be treated like human beings is.
An end note: Anger issues are not the same thing as being abusive, because emotions are not abusive. Someone with anger issues can become abusive if they take them out on people, but so can someone with suicidal thoughts who takes them out on people. The issue is targeting another person in order to feel better, not having a mental health issue.
An end note for people with anger issues: It really can get better. You can find coping skills and perhaps meds that help cool you down and settle you. You can find people that will accept that doing that one weird thing spooks the fuck out of you, and will let you leave if you’re scaring yourself. You can gain control of yourself without shutting down emotionally. It’s achievable.
Yes! I have quite a few of each in my bed (Mostly stuffed animals.) My main one is an elephant, named Mr. Elephant. (I think I got the idea to name him that from Stephanie’s “Mr. Bear” from Full House, which I watched a lot as a kid, around the time I got my elephant.)
Accessibility success of the day :) stuffed animals can help
Being a spoonie doesn’t mean you should force yourself to spend all the time and energy you’ve got on tasks that feel like work. You deserve to take breaks, take care of yourself and have fun just like everyone else. You may not have as many as others but you deserve to enjoy the spoons you’ve got.
Universal design is a principle wherein you find the thing that the largest number of people possible can access, and then use that. The classic example of this is a ramp (vs. stairs or a curb), because pretty much anybody, no matter what tools they use or don’t use to move around, can get up a ramp, whereas stairs and curbs are barriers to people who use wheels to get around.
The great thing about universal design is that while it is often initially made for people with particular disabilities, it often turns out to be a better design for lots of people for lots of reasons! Like curb cuts, they are great if you have a stroller or a rolly suitcase or a bike or a wheelchair. Or text-to-speech software, designed for people with visual impairments or reading disabilities but turned out to be a lifesaver for me when I was writing my thesis and needed to read like 3000 articles a day but also wanted to be able to clean my house and cook food.
Universal design is the default for everyonebecause disabled people shouldn’t have to be constantly asking for special accommodation and finding the special button that will make something work for them, that’s exhausting and othering. The world should just be designed to allow you to live your life in it, you know, like it is for nondisabled (and otherwise non-oppressed) people.
I’m not visually impaired and I don’t personally know anyone I could ask. As soon as I see a visually impaired person be like “hey this doesn’t actually help” I will be against the #newblue. But until then…stop whining. No, this doesn’t in any way fix the nsfw-pocalypse or the pornbots or nazis or other issues on the site. Maybe it’s a little bit of a “problem one…NO” situation. But like, it’s fine. It might actually help some folks.
Your eyes are NOT “bleeding.” You won’t even notice the difference in three days.
Personally, I like it. It reminds me of the color the sky turns over the Hudson on warm evenings in July. I miss July.
Let’s talk about the social positives of mobility aids!
I think a big fear of a lot of fellow spoonies and otherwise disabled folks is that if they begin using a mobility aid, the social negatives will outweigh the positives- for example, we fear we will be stared at, insulted, talked about. We fear we will be acused of faking, or turned into a spectacle. We fear strangers may assume the worst of us, or treat our disabilities as a conversation starter. But while these things do happen, there are a lot of social positives to using a mobility aid (meaning, positives unrelated to the mediation of your disability).
Here are my favorite things that happen when I’m out with my cane!
- I live in NYC, and I take public transport everywhere since I can’t walk very far. When I use a cane on the subway, nine times out of ten someone will offer me a seat! Whether this comes in the form of directly asking if I’d like to sit or subtly getting up so I can sit down, there is often space made to accommodate me on the subway.
- I don’t feel judged for using the elevator, even if I’m just going up one floor. Often, in the busiest buildings, people will roll their eyes if I press the next floor up. When I have my cane or crutches, I feel like I don’t need to justify or explain myself.
- This one is a little self indulgent, but ever since I painted my cane and personalised it, people staring doesn’t bother me as much- in fact, I like getting the attention because I’m proud of my art!
- I don’t need to justify the accommodations I ask for- a visible mobility aid can serve to create a more complete answer when dealing with more bigoted and ableist individuals…
- People take me more seriously when I’m having a flare up in public. If I need a break, if I need to sit in the middle of a store or be given extra help to get somewhere private, if I’m feeling sick and need fast access to a locked bathroom, if I need to hold on to someone, even a complete stranger, my issues are immediately taken seriously.
- People don’t assume I’m lazy for walking slow, or taking an elevator, or taking the subway just one stop. It’s a nice relief.
Obviously I understand a lot of these shouldn’t be issues for those WITHOUT mobility aids- people shouldnt assume ability, and judging someone for their body function is awful. I’m not saying mobility aid users are better than anyone. I’m just pointing out the positive social aspects of using one, as all I tend to see here are people upset about the annoying parts of having a cane, crutches, etc.
Edit: please please PLEASE feel free to add your own mobility aid positivity!!
I used to work in retail and knowing customers they’d choose the black basket and still ask for help
yeah but the point is to know who’s open to being approached by you, not who’s gonna need to approach you to ask a question.
^^^ lots of people hate being approached unexpectedly, but that doesn’t mean they’re magically never gonna have a question
This idea is fantastic! I wish they had it everywhere.
I’m autistic & struggle a lot with people coming up to me out of the blue in a shop for a few reasons.
1. I’m there to shop & don’t have a preplanned script in my head for what to say in those moments. I get anxious that I will reply in an annoyed tone of voice & upset them. It’s a social thing I’ve never figured out how to perform correctly and it scares me. I am however capable of asking for help if I need it, or willing to spend longer looking if I can’t deal with social interaction right that moment.
2. Shops are incredibly busy places. Not just in terms of people, but in terms of sensory information as a whole. There’s the products, the display shelves, the lights (usually ones which flicker somewhat which is painful), the noise of any refrigeration units & lighted units (the lights buzz), there’s seeing the other people, hearing the other people talk, walk, breathe, etc, their clothes rustling even. Then there is the shop radio playing something I most likely do not like, with the tannoy over the top when staff announcements need to be made. The sound of the tills & money changing hands & receipts being printed. Amongst all that cacophony, I’m then trying to focus on my shopping list. I may even be looking confused because I’ve just read the words of the song on my shopping list & not the thing I was after. I may look lost as I’m busy letting my brain take in the surroundings & figuring out which bits to try to focus on. Someone coming up to me disrupts that whole process of trying to acclimatise. It’s a bit like if you were slowly dipping your feet into a cold pool & walking your way in slowly, then someone just pushes you straight in - it’s overwhelming!
3. One of the ways I cope with all the above is to listen to my own music through earbuds with my earmuffs on top to block out some of the sound. This means it can startle me even more than it would if I was without them, but they’re very much required for me to even be there in the first place. To talk to the person I have to remove myself from my protective environment I created & am more likely to then suffer sensory overload as a result. That often results in several days of not being able to do anything much other than lie in bed whilst I recover. All because I had to interact with someone unexpectedly.
I can work or study from bed sometimes but otherwise I pretty fully relate to this. Inability to hold a conversation is no joke. I think I hit that point a bit earlier in the scale than most because my auditory processing is absolute shit.
when signing out forms to apply for disability / filling out a form for diagnosis
you’re supposed to fill it out as you on your worst days
like, I filled out forms that said I could do most things usually
like, my doctor added in the conditions like “yeah, they can feed themselves when not stressed” “they can do this when not stressed”
but how I should have filled it out was more like
“some days I can’t feed myself” “some days I can’t leave the house”
My doctor didn’t even know this, but I talked to someone who had worked with people with both developmental and intellectual disabilities for a number of years, and she told me to write down how it is for your bad days
this should be a thing they tell you, but it isn’t
part of the reason I didn’t get my autism diagnosis as soon as I should have is because I filled out forms wrong!
This also goes for filling out forms for disabled parking rights. I’ve been rejected multiple times for a pass cause I didn’t find this out till recently.
Wow
Also you’re generally supposed to fill it out as you are without help.
That throws me too. Because the more help I get, the more capable I get. It’s easy to forget what happens when the help falls away even partially let alone completely.
So the Spoon Theory is a fundamental metaphor used often in the chronic pain/chronic illness communities to explain to non-spoonies why life is harder for them. It’s super useful and we use that all the time.
But it has a corollary.
You know the phrase, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” right?
Well, Fork Theory is that one has a Fork Limit, that is, you can probably cope okay with one fork stuck in you, maybe two or three, but at some point you will lose your shit if one more fork happens.
A fork could range from being hungry or having to pee to getting a new bill or a new diagnosis of illness. There are lots of different sizes of forks, and volume vs. quantity means that the fork limit is not absolute. I might be able to deal with 20 tiny little escargot fork annoyances, such as a hangnail or slightly suboptimal pants, but not even one “you poked my trigger on purpose because you think it’s fun to see me melt down” pitchfork.
This is super relevant for neurodivergent folk. Like, you might be able to deal with your feet being cold or a tag, but not both. Hubby describes the situation as “It may seem weird that I just get up and leave the conversation to go to the bathroom, but you just dumped a new financial burden on me and I already had to pee, and going to the bathroom is the fork I can get rid of the fastest.”
I like this and also I like the low key point that you may be able to cope with bigger forks by finding little ones you can remove quickly. A combination of time, focus, and reduction to small stressors that can allow you to focus on the larger stressor in a constructive way.
This is great accessibility advice. Focusing not only on having a reduced resource of energy to start with, but also on which events are particularly bad energy thieves.
An electric toothbrush and an escalator are two things that can stop working and still accomplish their original goal.
Ah, wonderful! This post can help me illustrate something I’ve been trying to articulate for awhile: the concept of benign or unintentional abelism.
Escalators and electric toothbrushes are perfect examples of things that many able-bodied people assume exist for their own convenience, and this post is a perfect example of that unconscious assumption.
An escalator that has broken down is still perfectly functional, right?
Well, sure–if you could have used the stairs to begin with.
But for people like me, for whom the escalator was not a convenience but a mobility device, a broken down escalator is not functional.
An electric toothbrush might seem like something that could be just as easily used turned off as turned on, but for someone with Parkinson’s, or any other number of nerve, coordination, or grip issues, the function of the electric toothbrush is a necessary feature, and without it, the task at hand becomes far more arduous (or even impossible).
I’m not angry or trying to point out why this post is “bad” or “wrong”–I’m simply trying to point out that people who assume every time or energy-saving invention was created as a means to help able-bodied people be lazier should consider re-examining those assumptions. It might help you become more compassionate toward your disabled friends and family, or at least more aware of the struggles we face daily.
I’ve had plenty of folks ask for examples of abelism and I am terrible at coming up with them on the spot, so here you go. This is a great one: assuming every modern convenience is only a convenience for everyone, when for some, it is, in fact, a necessity.
This is a great explanation of how inaccessibility is maintained through unintentional ableism.
I really can’t grasp the concept of telling someone about a problem if you don’t want help fixing it. I mean I guess I get it if it’s something that can’t be fixed and you just want to vent like if someone close to you died or something, but if you tell me about a problem why would you not want help with solutions????? What else am I supposed to say???
I’ll ask “Do you want advice, or do you just need to get this off your chest to a listening ear? I’m cool with either.”
Good things to say when someone only needs to vent are things like:
“Wow, that really sucks!” “Really? Dang, I’m sorry that happened to you.” “OMG, that was crappy of them to do / say.” “Geez, I totally don’t blame you for feeling (emotion) about that.”
I want to comment on this because for the longest time I didn’t understanding the concept of talking to other people for emotional, rather than practical support. This led me to see people as negative, irrational or needy when they told me about things but didn’t seem to want me to offer solutions.
The thing I realized was that my understanding, empathy or validation might in itself be the solution for the other person. They may be in a space where they are really unsure about the validity of their own experience and they need my help with that.
You may not understand why they need what they need exactly, but you don’t need to understand it in order to respect it. If you’re not in a space in your own life where you rely on other people for validation that’s ok, but that’s not a reason to dismiss the people who do. Their need to feel seen or heard is not unusual or wrong.
If, like me, you’re pretty bad at this kind of conversation, here are some pointers:
1. Ask, without judgment, whether they are after emotional support or solutions. 2. Validate that you heard them - this can be as simple as saying “yeah that makes sense” regularly. 2. Validate their experience by for instance repeating back what you understand of the situation they are describing. Try hard to see it from their perspective, but feel free to add your own insight, as long as you are not offering solutions (”you are thinking too much about this” or other statements which tell them they need to process things the same way you would do not count not insight).
If in doubt ask the person you’re preparing to give emotional support to beforehand what they find helpful in this kind of situation.
Here we will focus on accessible feminine clothing items.
Let’s start with bras. It’s no secret that many spoonies really struggle with bras. Many even give up bras as they find that they aren’t worth the hassle. So here are some alternate options that help with getting them on and/or comfort.
Front fastening bras:
Front fastening bras are much easier to get on and fasten for most. These are especially good for people with limited arm motion range. I have seen them use the traditional hook fastening as well as instead using a zipper.
Comfort bras:
The name says it all really. There are different types of comfort bras to suit your needs. Remember that you can buy a lot of different styles and designs that can look cute and/or sexy. A comfortable bra does not equal an ugly bra.
Wide shoulder straps disperse the weight of your breasts over a larger area, reducing pain. Wider straps also prevent the strap from digging into the skin.
No underwire. Underwires can be painful so it would suit may spoonies to avoid them. Instead look for alternatives. Without an underwire, the area under the breasts will be larger in order to give you support. Without the wire, it often looks like a band that goes all the way around your ribs. Thicker bands usually provide more support without compromising comfort (although this isn’t always the case 100%)
No fastening at all. Many comfort bras stay in place with the use of straps and elastic rather than wires and fastenings. These can take many forms but a simple and comfortable example looks similar to a tank top (but one that doesn’t cover your belly).
Padding or no padding? Either is an option!
Bralettes:
Bralettes are basically bras without any metal (and often padding too). They are considered very comfortable but not very supportive for people who really need it. They’re getting quite popular now and can have much more detail than regular bras which I know some spoonies would like. They are somewhat considered socially acceptable to be visible or even used as a loungewear top which is good for spoonies who struggle with heat. Thanksto bouquetchildotn for reminding me of this. I was actually wearing just a bralette as I wrote this and thought that would remind me to include it :’)
Skirts: Skirts are good for anyone who struggles to reach their lower legs/feet. They are easier to place your feet into than trousers, and when you go to the toilet you can lift a skirt which saves you reaching for your ankles.
Dresses, jumpsuits, and playsuits: These things are great for many of us. They are a whole outfit in one. There are all sorts of types and fits. A loose/flowy fit is super easy to put on and doesn’t need to have any tight or constricting areas. You can have a thin fabric that keeps you super cool in the summer, and you can get thicker options for when the weather is cold.
Do you think I’ve missed something? Let me know!
~Amber
Accessibility success of the day. Finding the right clothing for your needs can mean a lot. As an autistic, I especially find I sometimes need tighter and other times looser but always soft clothing. As for help with overheating, I own a cheap cooling vest for hot days. Lastly, invest in a good pair of comfortable shoes!
I’m a college student that takes three separate essay-based subjects and my first set of proper exams are in just two days. I’ve always struggled with handwriting and have been frequently marked down in my assessments because they can’t read my work.
I know that this is because I can’t hold a pen correctly; whenever I try hold it how I’m ‘supposed’ to it doesn’t feel right at all. It feels incredibly wrong sensory-wise and stresses me out after even a minute. I’m autistic so I’m no stranger to sensory issues, but this will literally cause me to fail if I they can’t read my essays (or if I can’t read my notes because I have to do everything on paper). Physically writing in general stresses me out and my school won’t help me.
Does anyone have any advice on how to try overcome a sensory issue like this? Please please add anything you know. I’ve been struggling a lot with my autism recently and I have zero support. My education feels like hell. If you have anything to say, please tell me how I can deal with this.
In addition to this, I’ve developed a tic and I don’t know why. I’m unaware if this is a symptom of autism or not. I’ve gotten anxious tics before and have had habits of reactively throwing things before but this is different. I’m worried people will think I’m faking or mocking people with disabilities. I don’t want to disrupt anyone in the exam hall either.
Please, if there is anyone with any insight or advice please say in the notes, tags or dms.
Thank you everyone for the advice. I’ll try my best to ask to take a test or see a doctor so I can use a computer. Thank you for the support.
Yeah, the computer is a good idea! There are also grips you can put on a pen that might make it easier to hold. One occupational therapist I know hands them out like candy haha. They’re made in a variety of shapes and thicknesses so you might want to try a few different ones, if you decide to check ‘em out.
Like these! I know they look a little funky (well, personally I think they’re fun). My patients who have trouble holding writing utensils, either from sensory or physical/fine motor issues, have found these helpful. It might be too late for the exams you mentioned but I figured I’d put this out there anyway.
