#borderline intellectual disability

[zebulontheplanet]

A lot of people like to think that people with intellectual disabilities shouldn’t know about adult topics. Or that all of us aren’t able to consent, or that we shouldnt be allowed to be involved with adult topics, events, situations.

So here’s your reminder that yes, people with intellectual disabilities can consent. We can drink alcohol. We can talk about adult topics. We can do all these things.

I would also like to remind people that even though some of us can do these things, there are also some of us with intellectual disabilities who can’t. And that’s ok.

[anonpositivityforu]

People with intellectual disabilities and cognitive disabilities and anything like those, you are so awesome!

Even if you can't learn new things or take care of yourself or be online without help or be "good" at things that people say you should be good at like creative stuff or reading or writing or anything else.

You are awesome and deserve to be treated nicely just because you exist in this world, even if other people make you feel bad about stuff.

[s1yeye]

people with ID can be sexually active

people with ID can use substance

people with ID can self harm

we not all little kid innocent. can do "mature" things, can do things you don't like or find dangerous. we not child baby need be save and protect. we live real lives, we real person, we can do taboo thing even if have ID

[angelichallows]

Is it normal among those with intellectual disabilities (as I have a mild one) to skip lines and then click the wrong option in polls on Tumblr without reading the context of said poll until it was too late?

'Cause I did that twice in two different polls for the same fandom here on Tumblr not long after each other and now I feel like I failed my blorbos in that fandom.

EDIT: so, I was just informed by my sister that they do it too, and they don't have an intellectual disability like I do, so it might just be an autism thing (we're both autistic).

[rythen]

You know what?

Happy disability month to everyone that hates their disability.

Everyone that wants to be cured. Everyone that's tired of being told of how their disability can be beneficial or a superpower. Everyone that feels broken because of their disability.

And especially happy disability month to people who don't feel pride because of their disability and don't feel like this month is for them because of it.

You are seen. You matter.

[cogbreath]

i think some of you should reconsider about reclaiming the r slur. genuinely. like idk for me its the fact that theres a disconnect between the groups of ppl who would have been medically described as such when that term was in usage (referring to intellectual disability. this term was never medically used to refer to autism. or adhd. or any *developmental* disability. this is usa term usage btw. i know uk terms different. ) vs the people who are reclaiming it. maybe there is some overlap but i have yet to see much of it. i get that many disabled ppl regardless of diagnosis have been abused with this term often but...i dunno. especially because imho, i have yet to see anyone who says they reclaim this term ever use it in a way that would be something you could call "taking back" the word. or in an empowering way. really imho many cases seem like just still an insult way or negative way. even when referring to self. you know. especially considering we had a whole public campaign to discourage casual usage of that word. i guess everyone has a different opinion about who can use it but honestly i wish people were more careful and consider more about maybe why they want to reclaim it and if you do reclaim it really think about how you're using it and if its actually something you are doing for empowerment. because if you arent imho you arent doing anything new different from the negative slur context useage of it. really the opinion is that those who have the most 'right' to reclaim it is people with intellectual disability and/or borderline intellectual functioning ........ i personally agree that its for the better to probably not if you do not have that. do you understand what i mean. ..? im not trying to like attack anyone really but just saying this as food for thought , yeah?

[it-is-only-a-novel]

Neurodivergent: a list

A list of those who are included under the "neurodivergent" label.

Applied Neurodiversity

Dyscalculia

Dysgraphia

Dyslexia

Dysnomia

Dyspraxia

Dissociative disorders

Depersonalization-derealization disorder (DpDr)

Dissociative amnesia

Dissociative identity disorder (DID)

Other specified dissociative disorder (OSDD)

Unspecified dissociative disorder

Eating disorders:

Anorexia nervosa

Avoidant restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)

Binge-eating disorder

Bullimia nervosa

Pica

Mental illnesses:

Anxiety

Delusional disorder

Depression

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD)

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Personality Disorders:

Cluster A:

Paranoid personality disorder

Schizoid personality disorder

Schizotypal personality disorder

Cluster B:

Antisocial personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD)

Histrionic personality disorder (HPD)

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)

Cluster C:

Avoidant personality disorder

Dependent personality disorder

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

Other:

Personality change due to another medical condition

Personality disorder not otherwise specified (PD-NOS)

personality disorder trait specified (PD-TS)

Tic disorder

Chronic motor or vocal tic disorder

Tourette syndrome

Transient tic disorder

other

Acquired Brain Injuries (ABI)

Angelmans Syndrome

Auditory processing disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Body integrity identity disorder (BIID)

Bipolar disorder

Depersonalization-derealization disorder (DPDR)

Down syndrome

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD)

Fragile X syndrome

Hyperlexia

Intellectual disability

Irlen Syndrome

Meares-Irlen Syndrome

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

Obsessive love disorder (OLD)

Pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections (PANDAS)

Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS)

Prosopagnosia

Savant Syndrome

Schizophrenia

Synesthesia

Williams Syndrome/Williams Beuren Syndrome

This is by no means a full list.

If you: see that I'm missing something, or

want me to rephrase something, or

have a resource to share, or

have a suggestion for organizing the list

please let me know in the comments/rebloggs.

I'm autistic and I love making lists. I also hope it may help spread awareness about neurodivergent people!

I am not an expert. But I do believe that we should be careful to include people in the neurodivergent umbrella. We are stronger together.

Updated: 9/2/24

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

my issue with right now AAC advocacy, nonspeaking (autistic) advocacy (from individual advocate, to organization like communication first and assistive ware) (mainly outside tumblr), can all be summarize by their one phrase:

“presume competence.”

“wait, what wrong with that? isn’t it good? don’t they follow that?”

half yes. idea is good, hope everyone follow it, must: all disabled people should be give tool & help to learn, all diagnoses, all amount of struggle.

yes, “even” that person diagnose with severe autism & profound ID, who never speak or look like show sign of understand any language, who scream and make noise and run away all time, who give self & other many injury and broke bone and concussion.

but. me problem not with idea. have problem with, use two big complicate word as basic key important idea for movement: a movement for those who hard speech & communication.

this group, naturally mean have many people (more than “average” amount), who hard communicate, hard communicate big words, hard remember big words, hard understand big words.

“then just change name or explain idea, why say it summarize problem with entire movement?”

on tumblr, AAC user community, semi- & nonverbal/nonspeaking community, see lot people who not just struggle with mouth say word, but also with communicate hard. although less, and most borderline or mild, but do have a few people with ID who talk about ID. people with many layer disability, more affected. in fact, in some corner, we loud & seen here in community.

but. outside tumblr—like twitter, where majority AAC & nonspeaking advocacy get most hear, often influence even new AAC apps and AAC company and non profit and (US) law and (US) government groups. but also different organizations, and real life. so basically, people with bigger real life influence. this opposite.

it many life-long nonspeaking autistics with severe motor apraxia, who brain body disconnect cause mouth not able move make noise in way brain want. often diagnose with severe ID back when not able communicate, but now able full communicate, now realize have high IQ, use long sentence, complicate grammar, big words, who can “write right.” many who not be teach communicate or read, but able learn how read write, by self.

—who not speak because motor struggle, but “mind intact” (their word not mine), no fundamental expressive receptive language understand issue (edit: outsude not mouth speak), no intellectual cognitive issue?

they nonspeaking. they AAC user, or speller. yes, they deserve be in community. must be heard. people must realize this form of nonspeaking possible and many people like this. AAC nonspeaking community without them is still leave out people.

but. right now problem is: both them and allies, treat this form nonspeaking as only way be nonspeaking. all nonspeaking people like this. and what this group want (like be call nonspeaking and nonverbal wrong), need apply to all people who not able speak, because they seen as entirety nonspeaking community.

“all nonspeaking (autistic) people like this”—many times imply by never ever mention other “not speak” experience, but sometime even direct say (paraphrase). where my “not speak” friends who have expressive receptive language issues, who trouble communicate even with AAC, who don’t understand other and self communicate at all, who “mind not intact” (whatever that means), who ID not misdiagnose but is actual severe profound ID, who can’t learn AAC can’t ever functional communicate ever?

what about people who “not speak” not just because “motor but everything else fine,” but “motor AND expressive receptive language AND/OR intellectual”? people who don’t have all your abilities?

we not remembered. we not exist. we not talk about.

and this “ignore,” can be see in all area of their advocacy and movement.

the policing “no severe no functioning labels no levels no nonverbal ever they all bad no excuse”: all my friends who call own self by any of that been direct attack harmed many many times by people who say this, so no, there no “personal identify okay” exception. this silence us. anytime we mention how we dare call self, all what we actual say ignored, actual message ignored, and become argue over terms call us ableist, and lock us out block us crowd attack us harrass us—us with communication issues who words hard first place, and who often have big emotional regulate struggle.

harass us lock us out enough. of course we silent, of course we no longer write in community. of course “community” no have us, no one see us. no one know we exist.

the big words. complicate sentences. complicate ideas. everything confuse. overwhelm even parents without intellectual & communication struggles who want learn to help child. not to mention us, who “not speak” include receptive language issues and intellectual disability.

write enough big words. write enough complicate stuff. write enough confuse hard follow stuff. of course we who can’t understand that get frustrate. and stop read. stop be in community.

have ability write professional enough, write approximate closest to nondisabled people enough. not have ID. all advantages that make people listen you more, take you more seriously. but this advantage, or fact this even is advantage that some not have, they not recognize.

whether mean to or not. became “am nonspeaking and proud, but at least have high IQ mind intact and can write ‘normal,’ so still have worth still deserve listen to because still have those redeeming abilities.” —what about those us who don’t?

“what that do with term ‘presume competence’?”

presume competence key idea, root of movement & advocacy.

presume competence, big words, not everyone who struggle speak can say/speak/write/communicate these two words. not all can remember. not all understand. some, will never ever able communicate or understand these two exact words ever in life, even with best support most help.

key slogan of movement, inaccessible to group of people you claim advocate for. same group people you also ignore pretend not exist erase in your advocacy.

this how deep this exclusion and inaccessibility issue run in nonspeaking advocacy.

down to its roots.

[this about nonspeaking movement (especially outside tumblr) and people who do this exclusion + inaccessibility. this not say term nonspeaking bad or all individual nonspeaking person bad.]

[visible-schizo-spectrum]

yk smn interesting. a popular argument of transandrophobia is that transmasculine ppl r autistic girls who don’t know better (yet in the mental illness world, transmascs r usually respected as men but seen as faking autism. interesting. will make a post ab this later)

i was dxed w autism at 3. i was dxed w autistic disorder back when aspergers still existed. I do not have a level of autism bcs when i was dxed, all autism dxes were what we would dx as level 2 or 3 now.

schizophrenia is the only thing that has stood in the way for me to get gender affirming care. i had to have my gender dysphoria confirmed multiple times just in case it was delusional somehow, but then after that i was allowed to start hormones. i will be getting surgery next year.

no one has ever argued against me that my autism means i can’t transition. even my borderline intellectual disability has only rarely came up and the solution was just that my mom (who is my caregiver) helps me understand medical things and what doctors are saying (which she has been doing my entire life).

all this to say that this is a transandrophobic talking point. it is not exclusive to transmascs like predatory accusations isn’t exclusive to transfems but it is v much applied primarily to transmascs bcs it makes them seem like mentally incapable child-like girls who can’t make medical decisions.

ppl ask for unique examples of transmasculine transphobia well there u go. if ur transfem and read this and go “but that happens to me” then think ab how many transmisogynistic things happen to transmascs.

[zebulontheplanet]

I’m not smart. I never have been. I’ve never been the gifted kid type of person, I’ve never been the kid who was able to keep up with their peers.

I couldn’t read chapter books until 8th grade. I still can’t do pre-algebra. I struggle with remembering dates, and important historical events. I don’t know the presidents and important figures in history.

I’m not smart. This is the reality for me as someone with an intellectual disability and multiple learning disabilities. It isn’t bad that I’m not smart.

I’m not “smart in other ways” I’m not that. I’m just not smart, and I’m ok with that. I’m ok with being not smart. Or dumb. Or stupid. Or whatever you wanna call me. I’m ok with not knowing things. I’m ok with being behind my peers. I’m ok with it.

Stop trying to lump me into this group of people who are “smart in other ways” cause thats not ok for me. Some people just aren’t smart, and that’s ok.

[ditzydoodiary]

what really makes me mad is when people make fun of obviously disabled people who type with spelling/grammatical errors in comments or posts.

they could have an intellectual disability, a developmental disability, a physical disability, etc etc. i started using AAC to communicate just a couple of days ago, and typing on that thing can be HARD. theres often not a whole lot you can do to make fully cohesive sentences, and thats fine, just don't be mean to people about it. you just dont know their situation, so making fun of them is not only asshole-ish but borderline ableist if the person writing the comment/post has any obvious indication that they are disabled.

if someone's account is all about their disability, then that is likely the reason for their grammatical errors. especially if the person themselves says that the reason for said grammatical errors is because of their disability. that just makes you an asshole. full stop.

[lem0nademouth]

i think the hardest pill for leftists/progressives/liberals/whatever you want to call yourself to swallow is that it’s not that simple. it’s not that easy.

i was the victim of a violent crime, and i personally do not want my perpetrator to go to prison. i do not think it will serve to protect anyone in the future or help me heal from what happened. but that’s my own feeling about my own experience. i do not get to dictate what other victims and their loved ones feel is justice for them. i support transformative and restorative justice as an option, but it can’t be the only one.

i work with young kids (2mo-7yrs) and try to keep up to date on discussions about child development to make sure i’m aware of what behavior is considered age appropriate. i ended up following a mom on tiktok who has been sharing her story about her son (who remains anonymous) and his progressive diagnoses of ODD, conduct disorder, and eventually antisocial personality disorder. he has threatened to kill his family, physically assaulted and severely harmed his family and neighbors, damaged private and public property, and has been arrested on several felony charges before his sixteenth birthday. this mom is distraught. he has no known history of trauma or adverse childhood experiences, was raised in a stable household where all his needs were met. he tried to kill one of the kids at the psychiatric hospital he was placed in, eventually leading to the state taking custody of him because it wasn’t safe for his family to be around him. not every person with his diagnoses is like him. but he is. and there needs to be a solution for him and his family.

my cousin was born to parents who were on a host of illicit drugs throughout the pregnancy and her early life, leading to her and her brother being placed in foster care. they were adopted by my aunt and it was revealed that my cousin has an intellectual disability called borderline intellectual functioning because her brain couldn’t develop properly in utero. fast forward to now, she’s in her early 20s and my aunt is raising the baby she had after being impregnated by her abusive boyfriend (we tried to get her to leave, called the police, my uncle nearly killed the guy) because she literally does not have the ability to raise a baby. she cannot process the complex thoughts you need to take care of a baby - her brain literally can’t do it. so now my aunt and uncle are raising their grandchild while caring for their daughter, who will never be able to live independently. was it ethical for that child to be born? i don’t know! i don’t even know if it was ethical for my cousins to be born! but i know it’s not as easy as “everyone should be able to have kids whenever they want and if you say otherwise its eugenics”.

people aren’t political issues. they’re people. and pretending like you have the answer to every problem doesn’t make you better or more in control; it makes you disillusioned. it’s not that easy. it never has been.

[s1yeye]

any other trans person with ID or brain damage or other disorder impair ability think struggle with accident misgender self after transition? kuru struggle sometimes keep call self him he his when not a him not a boy not man male. kuru it/its kuru thing only but is issue keep use him sometimes especially when symptom act up

is uncomfortablr make kuru frustrate upset sometime

[nonspeakers-r-us]

About Me

Hello! My name is Biehtár, and I am a fully Nonspeaking Autistic person from birth. My Instagram is @nonspeakers.r.us and that's where I mainly post! I am new to Tumblr, I'm still learning my way around. About me (Autism Related): -Nonspeaking, full time AAC user -Level 3, High Support Needs -Borderline Intellectual Disability -Diagnosed at age 3 -Visibly Autistic

About me (non-Autism related): -I am Indigenous (mixed Sámi and Inupiaq) and grew up with both of my cultures -I am Visually Impaired -I love Star Wars, exotic pet care (animals that aren't dogs and cats), and jazz theory!! -I love love reptiles and birds -I am a jazz and sometimes classical contrabassist and pianist -I speak Swedish, Finnish, Northern Sámi, Inupiaq, and English! Things to Know: -I use support needs terms, and occasionally the term "low functioning" to describe myself ONLY and nobody else. -I prefer "Nonspeaking" rather than "Nonverbal" when referring to me -I do NOT reclaim the r-slur, but I do not take place in slur discourse either. -I am very new to Tumblr. I am still figuring my way around.

Happy to meet everyone!

[spiritmoodboards]

Moodboard for Natsuki (DDLC) positivity/confusion/pink/autistic/borderline intellectual disability themes Requested by an anon!! Hope you like how this looks~

We're closed for now, thank you~