#disability services have helped me a bunch with getting accommodations from professors and all that

[horse-breed-a-day]

i got a B on my crime scene investigation final!!

[bagelwithcreamcheeseandham]

Applying for student disability accommodations (an update of this post):

This is a long post. TLDR at the bottom.

As previously mentioned, I have the occasional hip subluxation that prevents me from putting weight on my leg, and terribly heavy and painful periods (dysmenorrhea) that can keep me totally nonfunctional for 1-2 days.

After being home (and pretty sedentary) for 1.5 years, I realised that going back on campus, walking around a lot more, being more active in general, could pose some issues.

I applied for accommodations, but i was nervous about.. idk? Not being able to prove I was in enough pain frequently enough to justify accommodations? And the office denying me any help. And then feeling stupid and whiny because i guess theyre right, my pain must not be that bad, they probably see students who have it so much worse. Accommodations for period cramps?? What was I thinking? Of course they'd laugh me out the zoom meeting.

Well, accommodations approved babeyy!!!

For my hip issue and dysmenorrhea, I got approved for:

AVS (Accessible Van Service)- An accessible van for those with approved access to request a ride to and from anywhere within campus (my school's campus is large).

Flexibility in class attendance- No academic penalty for disability related absence. Must contact professor before absence if possible, or no later than 48 hours after the absense. This doesn't excuse student from work done during class.

Late arrival/early departure- No attendance penalty for late arrival or early departure from class.

The accommodation process will differ between schools, but I want to give a run down of my meeting/experience with student disability office, in case its helpful to anybody.

When I was a incoming freshman, I applied for accommodations for ADHD. This required a doctor's note, high school records of my 504 plan, CollegeBoard records for extended test time, and filling out a long form that asked about how my ADHD affects me, how the 504 plan helped me, and a bunch of other questions, basically amounting to a short essay's worth. I was approved for extended assignment due dates, and extended test time.

I assumed the process for getting any other accommodations would be just as rigourous, but it really wasn't. Maybe because this doesn't deal as much with exams and assignment submission, which universities tend to take very seriously.

I didn't have to fill out a long form this time, but to prepare for the meeting, I just brain dumped a bit in my notes app about my issues/diagnoses, how/when/how often they affect me, what they prevent me from doing, and what accommodations I'm looking for. I tend to freeze up and forget stuff when talking to people, so this was essential for me.

Reading about some peoples' bad experience with school disability offices, and out of fear of my needs not being met, I used very specific language when describing my issues. Not exaggerating, or using overly descriptive language, but definitely not downplaying or sugarcoating anything. I used the terms my doctor used, like "hypermobility", "dysmenorrhea", and explained how it leaves me "unable to walk" or "in severe pain". I talked about diagnoses, about what my rheumatologist said, about my autoimmune condition. I don't know if any of that was necessary at all.

The meeting was pretty casual, only about 15 minutes, and the person I met with was lovely. First she asked me to explain a bit about my issues. Then she asked me how often it occurs. I explained my situation, how I've been dealing with both issues for years but they've worsened over the past year, and that I was worried about not being able to make it to class. That was pretty much all she asked before suggesting the three accommodations she gave me. She asked me if I think those would help, and I really think they will.

All I need to submit in terms of a doctors note is any recording of a diagnosis/doctor visit for these issues, like an after visit summary (actually she only mentioned it for the hip issue, I don't know if I need a seperate one for the dysmenorrhea). This can even be from a patient portal.

After the meeting, I was surprised to see that these accommodations were already approved! Before I submitted the doctor visit info? I'm not complaining.

I feel so relieved that the process was so simple for me, and thankful that my school runs a competent and helpful disability office. If you read this I hope this info can be of some use to you!

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TLDR: I had a meeting with my school's disability office today about getting accommodations for issues I'm afraid may affect my ability to get to class. I was afraid of being denied help for my issues not being "serious" enough. The meeting was quick, helpful, and my accommodations were approved.

Make sure you can explain your disabilities, how they affect you, and have an idea of what you think may help. Expect to be asked to send in some form of "proof" (doctor's note, after visit summary, etc.) at some point for your accommodations to be approved. Don't be afraid to ask for help!

[djnusagi]

I needed a LOT of extra help in school, but once I started actually getting that help I went from “probably gonna flunk out of school entirely” to “actually doing pretty well and getting decent grades.” then I went to our local community college, and my IEP suddenly didn’t matter. I went to disability services and tried to see if there was any way they could help me. because I’m autistic, none of my professors HAD to accommodate my disability in any way, but I could request accommodations. I prepared a series of Manila envelopes with a detailed plan of accommodations based on my IEP along with a bunch of other relevant documentation including proof of diagnosis. I wrote out exactly what I was gonna say to each of my professors, rehearsed it, and memorized it. I spoke to each of my professors after my first class with them. every single one gave a blanket “no” to any accommodations. I only got all the way through delivering my whole spiel with one of them before being cut off. most of them included some quip about how I wasn’t going to get any “special treatment” and I needed to pass each class on my own “just like everybody else”. college was a fucking nightmare. it took me 6 years to complete a 4 year degree. I was disqualified from the program/degree I initially set out working for and wound up with a functionally worthless BA in music. disability services had no way to help me beyond telling me that I could ask nicely for accommodations but that nobody would actually have to accommodate my disability. everybody working in disability services was, in some way, disabled. all of them were neurotypical.

I feel like there’s this growing feeling in popular culture that autism is essentially just “being kind of quirky” rather than “a disability that disables the people who have it.” which isn’t to say I support cure culture or I think autism is bad or evil. ultimately I’m glad that I’m autistic. if I weren’t I wouldn’t be me. but the people around me almost always fail to recognize it as the disabling force that it is and refuse to help me, often other autistic people who’s autism has a different or less severe impact on their life. they’re fine with me being autistic in the abstract, but when I actually start showing symptoms of autism suddenly it’s all treated as a personal failing and I need to be punished and deserve no sympathy or assistance.

[whentherewerebicycles]

hi! i wanted to say i love reading your reflections on teaching, and in general i really look up to/am inspired by your thoughts regarding education and academia. if it's not too much to ask (completely understandable if it is, in that case please disregard!) i would love to get your advice on college related things?

i had pretty significant academic struggles throughout grade school, and ended up dropping out of college after a year. i would've graduated this may, so lately i've been considering going back and finishing my bachelor's. but i've been waffling on this decision because of 1) anxiety about having to drop out again, and 2) some confusion about what i actually want to study. i guess i'm wondering, is it worth it to start from scratch? my struggles were mostly about mental health stuff & difficulty keeping up with coursework—i loved being in the classroom, working with professors, learning from other students. i like being challenged intellectually, but if i have issues with followthrough, is there a way to work on that??? i know these are Big Questions, lol--whether they are answerable or not, cheers and thank you and i hope you are doing well these days. <3

hey! happy to give my thoughts, for what they're worth. you know your situation better than i do so the specifics may or may not be relevant, but i can give some advice just based on seeing lots of students pass through four-year programs!

i've worked with a number of students who took time away from college and came back to finish later. i took a year off myself in the middle of college for mental health reasons, though my school allowed you to take a two-semester leave of absence for any reason (so i always had the safety net of knowing i could come back without having to reapply or start over). in my experience, time away is almost always a good thing. sometimes people just really need that break from the stressors of the college environment! but more importantly, i think people benefit from having a few years' experience living and working in the world.

even though it can be intimidating to come back to college as an older student, i think older students or nontraditional students who took time off and came back tend to underestimate how much more confident and assured in themselves they'll be once they're back in the classroom. working out in the world for a while, even if it's not a job that you especially love or feel is relevant to your long-term goals, tends to help you build more trust in your own ability to get stuff done, manage responsibilities, and be an adult person in the world. in your time away, you've probably grown more than you think, and you may find that some of the things you struggled with at 18 just don't feel as daunting anymore. or they might feel daunting, but you also have more experience talking and working with other people, and you may feel more confident in seeking out & using your college's various academic success resources.

have you considered a two-year college as a possible next step? one of my advisees this year was an adult student who went to college for a year, dropped out, served in the military for four years, came back to do an associate's degree, and decided he liked school enough that he wanted to transfer to our university and finish his degree. (now he's going on to do a phd next fall!!!!) he's one of the most passionate advocates for community colleges i've ever met, and he's stayed actively involved in our local CC community & now mentors recent transfer students at our university. he's talked at length about how CCs are this amazing way for students to explore their interests without having to take on the huge price tag of a four-year degree, within a learning community that's much warmer, more responsive to student needs, and more accepting of the diverse paths that lead people to & through higher education. i wonder if you might consider taking a semester or a year of courses at your local CC, to dip your toes back in and see if you're still feeling energized by the experience.

you might find that some of the courses aren't intellectually challenging enough, but this might also be a wonderful opportunity to create the kind of learning experience you want to have. i was a full-time community college student for a year during my year away from yale, and while i'm sure i was just INSUFFERABLE in many ways, i had a prof in my Western Civ course who was really generous with his time/energy and met with me outside of class to help me figure out how to make the papers into something that i found really exciting and challenging to write. so the class kind of became what i made of it, and i got to read some stuff (dostoevsky!!!) that sent me down all kinds of interesting unexpected rabbitholes. the former CC grad i mentioned above was an extraordinarily bright student who would always go to office hours and ask his profs for more recommended readings, and he ended up becoming a TA for one of his courses and helped them redesign basically their entire intro humanities curriculum as a student advisor. so your CC experience can absolutely be what you make of it. and even if your profs can't give you that kind of support, you could practice doing it for yourself, setting little challenges for yourself either focused on the intellectual aspects ('I'm going to read and cite two scholarly sources in this paper, even though it's not required') or on developing strategies for effectively managing the workload ('I'm going to schedule a writing center appointment on Thurs, so I have to finish this paper two days before the deadline—and then I can devote my weekend study time to practicing for my Spanish test').

CC would be a slightly lower stakes environment for you to try out college again— lower-stakes both in the sense that it's cheaper (so if you decide you don't want to continue, you're not out as much money / don't feel compelled to go on to justify the debt you've taken on) and in the sense that the workload might be more manageable for you as you readjust to academic life and build systems & structures that work for you. as you probably have gathered from this blog, i am a HUGE believer in doing lower-stakes things many times over to build your own confidence and your trust in yourself, and then gradually scaling up the difficulty. by the time you reach the hard thing, you've already built up this strong image of yourself as a person who can handle challenges (and you've also had the chance to identify areas where you struggle & experiment with developing workable solutions).

if a two-year college isn't something you're especially interested in, i think it's definitely possible to start a four-year degree again. if that's the path you choose, i would strongly recommend reaching out to students in some of the degree programs you're tentatively interested in. people are almost always happy to share their ~wisdom~ (see: this ask response, lol) and most people love being asked for their thoughts on the pros and cons of something they know well. so you could get an honest sense from students of what the program is like, what the workload is like, and how useful or engaging people find the required courses for the degree. but also know that it's pretty normal to take courses all over in your first year or two (you have the advantage of having done a freshman year before, so you probably know this!), so you might just want to plan to try out a bunch of different things, with the goal of narrowing your focus by the end of your first year, or midway through your second.

i would also HIGHLY recommend spending lots of time familiarizing yourself with the resources your university has to offer. learn everything you can about the kind of mental health counseling and support they offer to students, and see if there are things you can set up in advance for yourself before you even step foot on campus. for instance, our university offers individual counseling, but they also have free groups that meet every week or two around different topics (coping with stress, students in recovery, etc) that are led by a counselor. check out your university's writing center or peer tutoring centers, too, and set up a standing appointment once a month or once a week or whatever, to bring in something you're working on—so that you know that every week, you're going to talk with someone about what's going well and what you're struggling with in your assignments.

you might also want to look into your university's services for students with disabilities office, as they can help you figure out if you are eligible for various kinds of accommodations or additional support (extra time on exams, notetaking services, recorded lectures, etc). i know you mentioned that you've dealt with academic struggles in grade school, too. if you think it's possible that there may be underlying learning differences that are affecting your academic work, it might be worth seeing if they can help you find lower-cost testing, so you can get a diagnosis that qualifies you for additional accommodations and university support.

many schools, esp large public universities, also have resource centers and mentoring programs for students from specific demographics who may benefit from additional structure and support in their early years of college. my university has a variety of resource centers and programs for students from low-income backgrounds, first-gen students, students who transferred from community college, etc. you don't have to take advantage of ALL of these resources, but proactively establishing a support network long before you need it is a really good way to set yourself up for success. and even just doing the research will probably help you feel more confident in your capacity to 'follow through', since you'll know that you're going into this with your eyes wide open AND with a detailed plan for what to do if you run into some of the same obstacles you encountered the first time around.

speaking of detailed plans: i find it helpful sometimes to do IF-THEN exercises with students when they're stressed about something on the horizon or unsure about whether they can handle some new challenge. IF-THEN is just what it sounds like: 'IF this thing I'm nervous about happens, THEN I'm going to do X, Y, or Z.' what i like about this exercise (i use it with myself too aha) is that it acknowledges that sometimes the thing you're dreading DOES happen. sometimes the professor you emailed for an extension says no. sometimes the TA doesn't understand why you're confused about the assignment. sometimes you don't have time to finish the reading before class. sometimes you overschedule yourself and you have to pull an all-nighter to finish two papers on the same night. scary things, confidence-shaking things, happen all the time, but they are rarely fatal! and there can be something really powerful about acknowledging and naming the thing you're concerned about, and then generating a few next steps you could take, should the thing you're dreading come to pass. i could see you doing something like this as you start thinking about the things that tripped you up last time, or made it difficult for you to balance the workload. if X happens, then what could you try next? giving yourself a few options means that you already have backup plans, too, which can make the whole situation less terrifying. if this happens, i might have to try this, or this, or this, and those things might not be the most fun or the easiest to do or the 'best' thing academically, but they'll get me through this difficult moment mostly in one piece, and once i'm through it i can look back on it and learn from it, or adjust the structures i've built for myself moving forward, to reduce the chance that X happens again.

PHEW!!! sorry this got so long but that is just the RISK YOU TAKE when sending me anons 😅 i hope that some of this is helpful to you, or at least sparks some useful thinking for you, even if it's not all directly applicable to your situation. i would say that if you love learning and find being in the classroom exhilarating, then you should absolutely go back to college! but that doesn't mean you have to go back right away, or that you have to go back and do it exactly the same way you did the first time. there are lots of possible paths to higher ed, and there's no particular rush—college will always be there, if it's something you decide you want now or at some future point in your life. i would also just reiterate again one of the core Themes of This Blog, which is that the brain is NEUROPLASTIC, and that humans have a truly astounding amazing capacity to change, grow, and learn new things (including new ways of getting around old obstacles or working through old challenges). just because you struggled the first time doesn't mean you are doomed to repeat that pattern. if you can spend some time thoughtfully reflecting on what you found most difficult to manage the first time through, you are better equipped to make plans, design new structures for yourself, and build the support networks that will help you thrive in college.

[thelastspeecher]

Hi! So like five months ago I sent you an ask about applying to grad school and you gave me a super amazing answer. And I'm back now because holy shit I got into grad school (CalArts for Creative Writing) and in the last one you said there was a whole 'nothing list of tips if you actually get into grad school? And I got in and I'm curious what the tips are? If there's anything you've learned in the last few months that changed your perspective on grad school? Thank you so much!

First off, congrats!  That’s a big accomplishment!  Grad schools in general are competitive, and big names like CalArts even more so.

So, you want my advice, eh?  Okay.  Let’s do this.

First step is getting organized.  You start in the fall (I’m assuming), so you have plenty of time.  Find out where important locations are on campus, familiarize yourself with the area you’ll be spending most of your time in (I’d focus on figuring out where the closest bathrooms and places to get food are, personally), and invest in a planner.  Keep that planner handy.  Use it.  It’s easier to stay organized if you start the semester that way than it is to try to organize yourself halfway through the semester.  Make a monthly budget.  Decide “I will spend X amount on groceries every time I go shopping”.  Keep track of the money in your bank account (a lot of banks have mobile apps that make this very easy).  Put some of your paycheck into a savings account every time.  You never know when you might need a nest egg.  Stay up to date on your medical needs (prescriptions, flu shots [for the love of god, get a flu shot], dentist appointments, yearly physicals).  You can definitely find resources at your school to help you with some of these tasks.  There is no doubt in my mind that you will be able to find a workshop on keeping a budget or other adult skills.  Attend workshops for new grad students.

Second, look into different support systems for students.  That means student-led organizations, departments that exist to keep the university complying with federal non-discrimination laws, and general resources.  Get a support system set up right away, particularly if you are going to be far from family.

Student-led organizations will be able to help you adjust and provide you a sense of community (particularly if you belong to a minority community).  Other grad students will be able to offer advice faculty or staff might not be able to.  Don’t isolate yourself!  That’s what I’ve been doing and it sucks!  The only reason I haven’t driven myself completely insane is because I have a roommate who happens to be my best friend.  If I could start over, I wouldn’t do what I did and avoid everyone because I was intimidated.  I would stroll into rooms with purpose and confidence that I am the baddest b*tch there.  Confidence gets you far in life, particularly in grad school.

“Departments that exist to keep the university complying with federal non-discrimination laws” is a very wordy way of saying the Title IX office, disability services, offices for students of color (schools typically have different offices for different racial minorities; find out which one is best suited for you), the LGBT resource center, and the like.  If you are part of a demographic minority, find out where you can locate help immediately.  If something goes wrong related to your status as a minority, you need to nip it in the bud RIGHT AWAY.

General resources are things like mental health services, university health services, survivor services, etc etc.  If you have any history of mental health issues or have been in therapy at any point in your life, I recommend jumping into counseling immediately, even if you feel like you don’t need it.  Just talking to a neutral party will help you more than you think.  Most schools offer free counseling for students, too.  If they don’t, then that’s really fucking weird, but they should be able to help you figure out a method for you to adjust smoothly without it being too much of a drain on your wallet.

Third, learn from my mistakes.  Good lord, learn from my mistakes.  I had a disastrous first semester at grad school.  I was overwhelmed, completely out of my depth, and the one thing I thought I was doing right I discovered I was actually completely fucking up.  I entered my second semester on academic probation and probation as a TA.  How do you learn from my mistakes?  A few ways.

The first time you TA (most grad students TA at some point), insist on someone observing you.  The department should automatically observe all TAs, particularly new ones, but it’s possible to slip through the cracks.  That happened to me.  The head TA was too busy to observe TAs my first semester, and I didn’t find out that I was a shitty TA until I was in a meeting with department and university head honchos, who were effectively accusing me of hating my students and hating being a TA and sucking in general.  That’s paraphrasing, and definitely not completely accurate, but that’s how the meeting felt to me.  I got by only because I explained to them “I am autistic, I struggle with new social situations”.  The extenuating circumstances in my situation allowed me to try to TA again, but this time with some accommodations and outside assistance.

Related: If you are disabled, disclose it to the department.  Disclose it to the higher-ups and the professor who will act as your advisor.  You don’t need to disclose it to anyone else, but I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to tell the people you will be working for.  Even if you have amazing coping skills, disclose it.  I’m damn good at pretending to be abled.  But my disabilities still bit me in the ass.  New situations and stress have a tendency of exacerbating symptoms.  You can’t expect everything to go smoothly.  And you can’t expect the department to hold your hand or even recognize what’s going on with you.  I’m the first diagnosed autistic grad student my department has ever had.  They had no clue how to handle that.  You’ll be going into a field that tends to be a bit more liberal than STEM (like my area of study), so you might not run into the issue of “uh we don’t know how to help you, please talk to some people at the office of equity”, but it’s best to find out sooner rather than later.

Related: If you are disabled, get your ass down to the disability services office and get accommodations.  Immediately.  Start the process over the summer.  Larger schools might have a more complicated process to get accommodations than smaller schools, so you need to get the ball rolling right away.  Even if you haven’t felt like you needed accommodations recently, get the ones you had in the past.  Don’t assume you’ll be fine without extra help.

Don’t take too many classes your first semester.  And make sure the ones you do take aren’t all super difficult.  I fucked up my first semester, bc I took three upper-level classes, two of them in chemistry.  Yeah, three doesn’t sound like much.  But when you’re juggling adjusting to grad school, starting up your thesis, and being a TA, three classes is a huge fucking amount of work.  I’d recommend two classes, maybe one of them difficult, the other one sort of medium difficulty.  Of course, you have to talk to your advisor for what works best for you, but I highly HIGHLY recommend starting off with a light class load your first semester.

When things start going south, bc they probably will at some point, don’t just keep your head down and try to force yourself through it.  Talk to the family members you are closest to (I’m very close with my parents, so I talk to them when I’m having issues, but it could be a sibling or an aunt or uncle or cousin).  Talk to friends.  Talk to a counselor (PLEASE get a counselor your first semester).  Talk to your advisor.  Talk to the other grad students in your department.  You should be able to find at least one shoulder to cry on, if not a whole bunch.

I said this before, but don’t isolate yourself.  Please don’t.  It’s easy to avoid people when you’re stressed.  Don’t do that.  Reach out to other grad students in your department.  Make friends.  Go with them to coffee shops.  I wouldn’t recommend starting out by going to bars, bc that can be a slippery slope, and you shouldn’t have friends who only have fun while they’re drinking (that’s not a healthy behavior).   My grad school has a really nasty drinking culture that contributed to my avoidance of other grad students, but hopefully yours doesn’t.  And even if it does, you should be able to find someone who won’t want to always go to the bar.

Fourth, be confident.  I said that before, but like the “don’t isolate” thing, it’s important.  I’ve always been a confident person.  I took a huge blow to my confidence when I started grad school, bc I felt like I was surrounded by people with more experience (which is an objective fact, but doesn’t always have to be a bad thing) and more knowledge and more accomplishments and who had their lives together.  I was intimidated, for one of the first times in my life!  I’ve always been a top-tier person, cream of the crop, A+ honors student, go-getter, award-winner.  But in grad school, literally everyone else is that, too.  And that’s not a bad thing!  Sure, some people might be braggy, but other people will be more humble.  Having all this experience in one location is good, bc it means you have more help.  You have people you can talk to who have connections, who have run into problems you might run into, who can offer a unique perspective on things.  That is SO GOOD.  And if you’re still intimidated, think of it like this: You got there, too.  You’re just as good as the other grad students, otherwise you wouldn’t be there.  You have just as much potential, even if you don’t have as much life experience.  You have something unique to offer to the school.  If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have been accepted.  And it’s not like everyone else actually has it together.  Some people might, but most of the other students will be as lost and nervous as you (esp other first year students).

Fifth, toot your own horn.  It’s related to being confident, but not quite the same.  Talk about your accomplishments.  Tell people what you’ve done.  Try not to come off too braggy, but don’t hide your light under a bushel.  You have to promote yourself if you want to get anywhere.  You’ve already succeeded at it once, since you got into grad school.  Keep it up!  Oh, and don’t be afraid to toot your own horn when someone else is making you feel intimidated.  I was at a thing where one guy kept going on and on about how he’d been to this country, and that country, and tried this wine and that food and yadda yadda yadda.  I got sick of it, so I cocked my head and stopped him in his tracks by asking him if he’d ever been to Kosovo.  He hadn’t.  He’d been to a million places, but there was one that I had him beaten on.  That was a huge confidence booster.  You have your unique experiences.  Share them.  And don’t be afraid to use them to stop a braggart from controlling a conversation.

Sixth, stay healthy.  Mentally and physically.  Walk most places (that’s how I get my exercise), bike, do yoga, jog, whatever.  Get some exercise.  Eat well.  Make your own meals, keep track of whether you’ve had a vegetable today.  See a counselor, vent to friends, write in a journal.  Most schools offer wellness workshops where students can learn how to keep themselves healthy.  Look into that, particularly if you struggle to eat well or keep stress down.

Seventh, take a short break if you need to.  Grad school culture is intense.  People work way too long for way too little recognition.  Stress kills.  Burn out can make you question your path.  Say no to a third side project your advisor wants you to do.  Take a day off, or an afternoon.  Take a long weekend.  Make sure that things won’t fall apart while you’re gone (in my case, I would get lab work done the day before), let your advisor know you won’t be coming in today for health reasons (you can keep it vague), and then spend your day doing anything but work on your thesis.  Don’t give in to stress and burn out.  It will wreck you.

Eighth, enjoy yourself!  Grad school can be hell, but it can also be fun!  You’re here to learn and gain experience and, hopefully, not hate every second of it.  My own grad school experience has been roughly 92% hell and 8% fun, but I wasn’t prepared when I came.  I did the opposite of hit the ground running.  I tripped and skinned my knees and my face and I’m still trying to catch up with everyone else.  Being prepared, reaching out to people who can help you adjust, those things will ensure your grad school experience goes more smoothly than mine.  Just don’t expect everything to go perfectly right off the bat.  It’ll take some time before you feel like you truly can enjoy yourself.

…That ended on a weird note, but I hope it was helpful.

You’ve got this!  Best of luck!

[backinthepaingame]

Things No One Tells You: Migraines, College, and Disability

At first I wanted to write about the tangible fog that lifts when I haven’t had a migraine for two weeks—though that streak broke yesterday. Then I remembered I’ve covered that before.

Instead, I want to focus on something I originally wanted to do with this blog, which is share things I’ve learned from having chronic daily migraines for 24 years.

When I was at the inpatient unit I had some serious flashbacks to much harder times because of two teen girls I met during group activities. One was a home-schooled 16 year old. The other, 19, was on medical leave from Tim Horton’s, where she had forced herself to work 12-hour shifts while heavily medicated. She loved her job but never thought to ask about accommodations for her condition. So, for the past several months she’s been staying in her darkened bedroom attending only to her dogs.

I could relate to both of girls. If either of them choose to go to college, though, I hope they find this blog, because there are a million things nobody ever told me that could’ve made it much easier from the beginning. The piece of advice I have right now: if you’re a migraineur, find your university’s office the deals with students with disabilities, STAT.

It wasn’t till my junior year that I found out my school had one. The only reason I found out was because I was researching an article about college students who had to navigate their campuses with a wheelchair. I was interviewing one disability advocate and asked, by chance, if migraines could be considered a disability. She said they absolutely were. By the time I turned in the article, the semester was over but I was preparing for summer classes and decided to check in with my school’s disability office to see what services—if any—it could offer me.

My academic advisors were apologetic that they hadn't thought of this option sooner. Honestly, though, I seriously lucked out where instructors were concerned. When I was sick, they understood, and very few hassled me.

That being said the disability center was a godsend. I found out I was eligible to have designated notetakers for when I missed class; I could ask for longer deadlines for completing assignments; I could take exams orally instead of written essay tests; I couldn’t be penalized for illness-related absences, and if I couldn’t get everything completed before the end of the semester, professors could submit my grades at a later date.

It might not be obvious to outsiders why these accommodations would be helpful, but anyone who knew me well during the harder patches of college gets it. Not only was I still dealing with some level of pain daily—I was battling the side effect of over a dozen medications. It was at times difficult to tell which was more debilitating—headaches or side effects. I was so forgetful that I would show up to classes I’d been going to for weeks at the wrong time, or the wrong day. In the days before cell phones, I would blank on frequently used phone numbers. I avoided classes that required rote memorization, but remembering even basic material in the time allotted for exams left me scrambling. My meds were so sedating that even when I was in class I dozed off, rendering my notes unreadable. I napped constantly between classes. Pulling all nighters to finish a paper or study for a test is unadvisable for people with chronic pain.

Had I known the disability center existed when I was a freshman, I might have passed econ the first time!

Migraineurs on the whole, at least the ones I know, are a conscientious bunch. We don’t want to cause anyone else extra work, get in their way, or most of all, explain why we can’t do something, whether it’s attending a social event or getting to class.

So at the beginning of every semester, I’d meet with every professor and give them paperwork from the disability center asking for certain accommodations. The paperwork stated that they couldn’t ask me what my condition was or make me explain my symptoms. I was always willing to share, but I can think of a million conditions that would be uncomfortable to discuss with a stranger.

This also taught me another important lesson: it’s OK to ask for help. We all need it and most of us still avoid it.

(On a lighter note, I created a new, sunny writing nook in our condo. Isn’t it cute?)