Travelling today. Airport security at the disabled line told me I can âjust use these next timeâ, gesturing to the regular automated gates.
When I followed the accessible entrance, I found it was routed to come out into the general security area, with the big crowd that goes with it.
It seems the only difference is the wider gate, to fit a wheelchair.
Back at the entrance, I said to security, look I use this line because itâs usually separate. I get anxious in big crowds, and I canât really tolerate it right now.
Security said to me, gesturing towards the hall: âlook we have all these people right now, so we canât have a separate place to keep it separate, because it would slow things downâ
I told them âthatâs why itâs an accommodation. Because itâs not the usualâ. Security acted very put out, but did eventually help me out.
I donât always have the spoons to fight. Many people I know never do. But that doesnât mean they donât have needs.
#InvisibleDisabilities are disabilities. The #sunflowerLanyard I wear isnât for fashion, itâs to make that visible. People donât always have the spoons to stand up.
I donât have to convince you I have a disability. Thereâs more - a lot more - to accessible spaces than physical movement concerns. Your staff should be looking actively for ways to help, not waiting for people to take up a fight they might not be able to.
Iâm ok. Decompressing in the bathroom because they donât have a quiet spot.
In it I talk about the healing powers of creativity and provide practical tips, based on my own experience, for using the creative process for the upkeep of mental wellness and therapy for mental illness.
This could be the connection between Ehlers-Danlos and neurodivergence. (People with EDS, like me, are 7 times as likely to be autistic and 5 times as likely to have ADHD -- also like me.)
Book review #27 for 2024 is Steve Silberman's Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity. A helpful and informative book on the unfolding journey of and...battles with/for, regarding people who interact with their world differently. I found this book to be helpful in understanding the rise of what we today call neurodiversity. ââââ1/2 review. @stevesilberman@books@bookstodon@bookstodon#autism#neurodiversity#books#books2024 #
Very likely. I find it also has a lot to do with environment, like work is the place I go to get stuff done, home is the place I play games and chill. So when it's time to get stuff done at home, the wires get crossed a bit.
ADD/ADHD is an executive function failure related to feedback and itâs relationship to motivation. Normies never experience that on anything approaching a regular basis. As such, trying to explain that to them is like trying to explain what the colour of the number seven smells like. Theyâll be all, âwell, just do it. How hard could it be?â
Theyâll be all, âwell, just do it. How hard could it be?â
Though sometimes thatâs exactly what I need someone to tell me. To the point that I do this with some of my other ADHD friends. âDo it right now. Iâll wait.â
Checked an old work notebook to see if there were any important notes to transfer somewhere else. Suddenly there was a doodle of myself with an infinity symbol on the t-shirt. The page was about a seminar on neurodiversity at the university! The seminar was two years ago so before my self-diagnosis.
As this might be of interest to others (no big insights though), here are my notes (translated from Finnish):
"- ADHD: different regulation of alertness, emotions, and attention (different way to be)
Autism: different social interaction, imagination, and communication (different way to see!)
Neuro minorities:
experience of being different
understanding of hierarchy
thinking outside the box
creativity
empathy
sensory regulation
own role
own pace
special interests
social pressure"
The page ends with a personal note that, in hindsight, I absolutely love:
"sometimes wondered whether I myself am on the spectrum, but then again not..."
Can't help thinking the trans trope "there were no signs" đ
Please stop with the euphemisms. We know what we are, we don't need it explained to us. It is patronising when people try and define our identity for us.
âThe concept of the âmean understandingâ initially took hold because it allowed cognitively enabled people to make sure they had a monopoly on property and the means of production and to begin to frame this as part of a natural hierarchy.â
Robert Chapman, Empire of Normality, 2023, Pluto Press, p. 39, referencing Simon Jarrett, Those They Called Idiots: The Idea of the Disabled Mind from 1700 to the Present Day, Reaktion Books, 2029, pp. 24-71.