#visibly impaired?

[cistematicchaos]

Photosensitivity, or lightsensitivity, is such a wildly underdiscussed disability in my opinion ngl. Like, maybe just because it's one of the one's that's fucked my life over so repeatedly but there's so little you can do about it. Do you know how many websites and shit don't have dark mode? Do you know how much it sucks when you turn down the brightness and its still way too fucking bright for you? Do you know how hard it is for everything to constantly be too bright, even indoors? Or how shitty it is for so many shows/movies/games/websites to be inaccessible because, again, they're too bright? And its so hard to get doctors to listen to you about it too!

Like. 💀 Do you know how many times I've heard "just where sunglasses" in my life? Too many, motherfuckers. Way. Too. Many.

[themaveriqueagenda]

happy world sight day to blind maveriques!

[spontaneousglitterbees]

so im working on an ask rn and started doing some drawings but its taking longer than anticipated so i might (?) pare down what i first thought of and come back to it

[delusionsofspace]

Hey can people stop doing that weird fucking underwater overlay on screenshots? Please? My screenreader can't read screenshots with filters and half of yall who do it don't provide alt text either. Like what's up with that trend actually I genuinely don't understand???

[werewiire]

what programs/apps/sites let you upload an epub file and convert it to TTS?

i have trouble reading nowadays and would find a TTS audiobook more accessible

[bunny-bunny-boing-boing]

i don’t know how much distress tolerance and radical acceptance i’ve got left in me

[beansprean]

You can see now that this was all written well before s5 lmao.

My Familiar’s Ghost part 64

Masterpost

See new pages on Patreon!

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1a. Close up on Nandor newly dressed in his leather buckled tunic and fur stole as he pops his head into Guillermo's room beneath the stairs. With a polite but cautious expression, he calls out, 'Guillermo?' 1b. Zoom out to full body, Nandor standing in the entry in the background and twiddling his hands together. Guillermo, redressed in a cardigan and chinos, is kneeling on the ground in front of his bed, fumbling around with something beneath it. The nightstand behind him is cleared out, lamp on top unplugged, and a cardboard box filled with random crap sits on the bed. Nandor glances around at this with sudden anxiety and asks, 'You are...moving?' Guillermo replies instantly, 'Just upstairs! I'm a vampire now, so I should get my own room, right?' Nandor responds woodenly, 'Oh. Yes. That is the protocol.' 1c. Repeat, wider shot. We can now see Guillermo's desk against the left wall, cleared off but for a plastic milk crate with a small lamp, the Nandor and Guillermo dolls, and the glitter portrait nestled carefully inside. Nandor notices them and leans over to get a closer look, a pleased little smile crossing his face. In the foreground, Guillermo sits up slightly and holds up an empty box of band aids, squinting inside of it with a frown. He says, 'Also it turns out I do still need glasses. No idea where they ended up, but I have an old pair in here somewhere. I think.'

2a. Bust of Nandor as he straightens and turns his head back toward Guillermo, brow furrowed. He asks, 'You mean...your vision has been impaired this entire time?' Offscreen, Guillermo replies 'Oh yeah, I can barely see my own nose right now.' 2b. Repeat. A dazed look comes over Nandor's face, gaze aimed at the ground, unfocused. His cheeks flush with color and he fidgets, flustered, as memories of their fight in Panera flash behind his head: Guillermo throwing stakes at him and missing by a hair, blocking his sneak attack, charging at him with a growl. Nandor thinks to himself, impressed and more than a little turned on, '...Wow...' Offscreen, Guillermo crows, 'Aha! Here they are!'

3a. Medium shot of Guillermo from behind, Nandor's POV, as he stands up from his kneel and places a pair of glasses on his face. He says, 'Oh, wow, that's so much better.' Behind him, the countless tally marks on the wall are still visible, but the drawings and photos and mask have been taken down, leaving it strangely bare. 3b. Close up of Guillermo from Nandor's POV as he turns to face him, the background blooming into peach bokeh lights. Guillermo smiles a little cautiously, fangs on full display, hand hovering around the rim of the glasses as they slip down his nose. The glasses are oval shaped and wire rimmed - the glasses he wore when he first became a familiar. When they first met over 13 years ago. He looks up at Nandor over the lenses and asks, 'It's not too different, right?' 3b. Reverse shot of Nandor on the same peachy background, staring at Guillermo with wide eyes, lips pressed together. He says nothing for a moment as, behind him, memories of Guillermo from their first meeting flash past warmly. 3d. Waist up of them both in profile, the background of the room beneath the stairs fading back in. We can now see a second box on Guillermo's bed - a large Top Ramen box - full of the items that were once tacked on the wall. A few notebooks are scattered on the mattress along with an open glasses case. In the foreground, Nandor takes a step closer to Guillermo with a fond smile and reaches out one finger to push the glasses back up his nose. Nandor says, 'They are not very flattering, but I like them.' Guillermo goes cross-eyed watching his hand, grinning bit confusedly, and replies 'Ohhhkay.' /end ID

[jihyoruri]

❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ 𓍢 LESSERAFIM AND THEIR HOT HEADED MEMBER lesserafim x reader

★yn’s best live moments 1M views

↳ warnings: yn from paparazzi and this fic, idol au, yn being a short (for the plot) hot head, yn is the second youngest member

➩ CLIP #1 PLAYING… 📼

yn adjusted her glasses as she read the comments of the live, she tilted her head at some of her fans comments because it screamed stupidity but she’s trying her best not to say anything since chaewon has been on her a lot lately.

yunjin has been the one answering the questions and entertaining the fans but all yn could think about was how she shouldn’t even be here, the older girl crashed yn’s live when yn wouldn’t answer her comments on the live.

“ahhh, you’re so cute with your glasses, you’re always wearing contacts I forgot you even need them.” yunjin squeals leaning into yn who visibly flinches at the contact but yunjin just laughs because she’s so used to it, “my cutie.”

“nah bro,” yn says scratching her arm, she looked away from yunjin who’s mouth drops in offence, “nothing about me being visually impaired is cute.”

“I can never win with her guys.”

➩ CLIP #2 PLAYING… 📼

yn wraps her white zip up sweater tightly around her as she sat beside her window the grey skies from the rain coming into veiw, she adjusts her glasses and she yawns and rubs her face.

“let me put on some music,” she says reaching over to her side table that has a bunch of cds, she shows a bunch of wave to earth cds to the camera before placing one in her vintage cd player.

the soft music plays and she brings her totoro plush to her chest closing her eyes, “this is nice.” she says softly, this is probably the first time the fans have ever seen the hot head so calm, but hey, she is in the comfort of her room.

“yn!” the voice of eunchae fills the room as yn’s door burst open.

yn’s eyes are still closed as she visibly tenses and fans laugh at the way her fists clench practically strangling her plushie as eunchae makes her way into the frame of the camera.

➩ CLIP #3 PLAYING… 📼

yn holds the camera in her hands as she laughs when she sees eunchae fall trying to climb up the slide at the park that the girls decided to stop by.

“did you guys see that?” she laughs, but fans are just in awe that this is what brings the hot headed member joy.

sakura comes up behind the younger girl and adjusts the hat that she made for her on her head, tightening the scarf around yn’s neck as well, “I didn’t see you put in your eye contacts, where are your glasses?” she asks.

“I forgot it.” yn says simply before letting out another laugh when she see yunjin fall next, she leans into sakura who wraps her arms warmly around the shorter girl, “this is what’s making you happy?” the older girl laughs before looking at the camera that yn’s holding and waving.

“they’re just such idiots,” yn says before letting out another laugh when she sees chaewon fall.

➩ CLIP #4 PLAYING… 📼

“chaewon unnie is with me this live because she said i missed behaved last one.” yn exposes leaning towards the camera as chaewon’s face pales.

“that’s not true.” the older girl laughs nervously, nudging yn who just looks at her blankly.

“I just wanted to spend time with this cutie.” chaewon says pinching yn’s cheeks who cringes and tries to slap the older girls hand away.

“ew, stop.”

➩ CLIP #5 PLAYING… 📼

“shopping in japan.” yunjin says to the live as her, yn, sakura and kazuha walk the streets of shibuya.

the girls get to the crosswalk and yunjin turns the camera towards yn and sakura who holds yn’s arm when they cross.

her and kazuha giggle at the sight, “ah, you’re so cute yn.” she says teasingly, knowing the fact that the younger letting sakura hold her hand as they cross would embarrass her on camera.

yunjin and kazuha’s mouth drops when all yn’s does is being her hand that’s not occupied behind her giving them the middle finger still looking ahead.

★☆ I was bored so I wrote this

[chronicbeans]

Human Illustrator Wally x Reader

Yippee! Fluffy AU!

TW: None owo

🐻You work at a daycare as a child care worker. The daycare you work at, which is called Apple Castle Learning Center, has a reputation for taking in children with disabilities and being very accessible to them. Due to it being very difficult for a lot of parents to find daycares that have room for disabled children, the majority of the kids that go to Apple Castle Learning Center have some form of disability. Despite the amount of people who use the daycare, however, there is still a pretty low budget. As a recreational assistant at the daycare, you have to find a good way to entertain all of these lovely children in a way that is accessible to as many of them as possible.

🐻 The best thing you have found, so far, is storytime! You have all the kids gather in a circle as you read to them. To make sure that no child is left out, you make sure to show everyone a close up view of the pages so the hard of hearing children can see the pictures and pass around some toy so that the children with visibility issues can have a reference as to the visuals. Is there a cute bear on the page? Hand them a teddy bear! Is there a caterpillar that runs a store? Pass around a caterpillar toy! It may not be much, but it is the best thing you can do for such a wide array of children and such a low budget. You also make sure to give verbal descriptions of the visuals, both to keep the visually impaired children included and to teach the children new words.

🐻 The majority of the children's most favorite books seem to be one's illustrated by some man named Wally Darling. You aren't that well in the loop on who is famous in the illustration industry, but your boss, Mr. Abbott, keeps telling you that he is pretty famous. Apparently, a lot of children love his illustrations, and he has a pretty wide array of styles. Some of his books look like the pictures were drawn by children, themselves, with cute smiley faces and puppy dogs. Others will have very detailed pictures of animals. He tends to illustrate for books aimed at children in preschool all through elementary.

🐻 So when you learn that Mr. Darling is going to be visiting a library in town, you just have to go. He's, apparently, going to be signing books and everything! You feel like, since the kids love his books so much, getting one of the books signed will make them very happy. Some of the children have been expressing, recently, that they can tell that they are different than other kids and it makes them feel bad. Especially the ones who go to school. It might help them feel a bit better if the kids know that he cares for them! After all, he seems like a very loving guy, from what Mr. Abbott has said... Though, you haven't met the guy yourself, so you just have to hope.

🐻 Once the day arrives, you make sure to try to get there early. Thankfully, Mr. Abbott understood what you were trying to do and let you take the day off to get there quickly. Even though you arrived about an hour early, it is still very crowded with parents and their children who are waiting to see him arrive.

🐻 A few people recognize you and your uniform, just a little pin with the daycare logo and a small apron where you hold crayons, and talk to you until he arrives. To your shock, when you see his car pull in, it's not that fancy looking. It looks like any old car on the street. If it weren't for children screaming in excitement at his arrival, you wouldn't have noticed.

🐻 Then comes the stampede of little kids sprinting to see him, followed by their parents running to grab them, shouting "Timmy, calm down!" "Don't rush!" "Say you're sorry, you know it is wrong to push people!" You are frozen still from surprise. You never would've expected little kids to be this excited about some random guy who draws pictures. Well, not some RANDOM guy... it's just kinda like... they have never seen him, before? Just his pictures. Most of the books the daycare owns don't even have a picture of him in the back of the book.

🐻 You see him come out of the car, a small child that had managed to avoid the hands of his parents hanging from his arm like it is a branch. You would expect him to be upset that some random kid just grabbed him, but no. He has a large grin on his face, as if it was the best thing that could've happened today. He then holds the child, handing him to his parents as he says "I am so happy you all came early! Please, settle down, though! This is a library, after all!" He then chuckles, watching as all the children turn to each other, placing their fingers on their lips as they let out loud "SHHHHHHHHH"'s.

🐻 It takes a while for him to get everything set up, but it is amazing to watch. You feel very weird just watching him from time to time, burying your face in a book to try to hide it. He's just so... weird? Like, not "weird" as in bad, but "weird" as in enjoyably eccentric. You can't take your eyes off of him. If he were on a children's show as a host, you could see it making millions. He also isn't that bad looking, either. He's kinda cute-

🐻"Do you need something?" Your face lights up when he says that, realizing that he has noticed you. You point to yourself, just to be sure. He grins, pointing at you as he says "Of course, you. I noticed you staring quite a while ago. I don't mind, I know I sound strange."

🐻 You panic, standing up and walking over to him as you clarify "No! No, it isn't that! I work with a lot of kids who have a flat affect in their voice. I don't find it weird at all! I just umm... I thought you might need help! You seem to be setting a lot up!"

🐻 His eyes widen, before he smiles "Oh, you didn't mean- Wait, really? You work with kids that sound like me? Where do you work?" You point to your pin "I work at the Apple Castle Learning Center. It's a daycare, with a lot of the kids there having varying levels of disability. From physical disabilities, like a missing limb, blindness, or deafness, to more neurological ones like autism, down syndrome or ADHD. I actually came here to get a book signed for the daycare. I thought that-"

🐻 His face lights up, looking at the book in your hands. He quickly snatches it, causing you to let out a slight gasp from shock. He looks around, almost like he is trying to hide something, before quickly signing it. He then takes out a small slip of paper, writing something on it and slipping it into the book. He hands it back to you, whispering "Here. You get to have a signature early. I always like to show support for places willing to care for kids, no matter the differences they have. I know that if I made you wait for the line, you would be lost and waiting for hours. Now, go on! Show those kids the book! I want you to see how happy you made them from going out of your way to get a signature from me!"

🐻 You can practically feel yourself tearing up from joy! You shake his hand, saying "Thank you so much! You are so kind! I'll be sure to let them know what you said, too!" You then sprint out to your car, making sure to be quick to get to the daycare as fast as possible.

🐻 As you sit in the driver's seat, catching your breath, before opening up the book to look at the signature. In your joy, you forgot that he slipped a paper in there, as it drops to the floor. Picking it up, to your surprise, you see a phone number. There is a little note on the side, saying "Call me! I'd be happy to visit the daycare!" with a little, smiling winky face drawn next to it.

🐻 You feel your face grow red, again. He gave you his number? Yes, it is probably just to visit the daycare, but it is still shocking, nontheless. You like, JUST met him, after all. You smile, putting the paper in your pocket, as you head over to the daycare.

[llamagoddessofficial]

What if servant!MC worked herself too hard? Impaired with at least tiredness and sore muscles, and at worst a broken or sprained limb? How would the kind lords react?

Sans: Depends on the severity of it. If she's just sore, or seems more tired than usual, he'll lure her into resting by pretending he needs her to do something for him. It's notoriously hard to pry Mc from her work. But Sans is sly- he convinces her she's still working, still doing something for him, he talks her into sitting down with a book she needs to 'check for errors'. Eventually she snaps back to her senses an hour later and realises she's just been tricked into sitting by the fire in his room and reading a novel.

If it's a bit more serious, he gets more hands-on. Sans is deceptively strong and he will gladly combine his aptitude at manipulation with a bit of manhandling. Mc has the 'just shut up and get it done' mindset so deeply ingrained after so long that she'll work herself into slightly feverish stupors... he distracts her with pretty words while he physically leads her away somewhere he can keep a better eye on her.

Red: Unlike a lot of men his rank, Red isn't afraid of getting his hands dirty. He knows that it's incredibly difficult to talk her out of work, so if she is visibly struggling, he'll just help out with whatever she's doing. She always appreciates the extra hands and strength. Red's presence is also just good for the Soul; he's witty, he's a big flirt, he halves the load while making it twice as fun. Whatever limb she's injured barely hurts by the time the jobs are done, she's too distracted giggling.

He's not quite as subtle or graceful as Sans, in his methods. But when it comes down to it, Red is probably the only one out of the three who could genuinely talk her into taking a break. Mc often feels like Red is the one who best understands the reality of being a servant- Sans is nice but he's kinda uptight, Skull is far too rich to ever get it. Red's as down-to-Earth as a nobleman could be. And if Red is expressing genuine concern, dropping his persona for a second...

... Maybe she does need to just rest for a while.

Skull: He doesn't have time for subtlety. When it's clear she's pushing herself, he gives her a 'gentle' warning.

He looms over her, covering her entire body with his shadow, with a face like he's about to eat her. He softly murmurs that if she doesn't stop working so hard... there will be consequences.

... It's a pretty clear message. But if she still refuses to stop? He literally just steals her.

He doesn't care what she's doing, what task she's in the middle of, who's in the room or how important what she's doing is. He gave her a warning. He'll grab her right in the middle of a task, throw her over his shoulder, and (ignoring her protests) carry her off to his chambers. There's a big comfy chair covered in blankets with her name on it... and if there's one thing you can say about Skull, it's that when he's determined, he's like a machine. She won't be going anywhere. Her protests don't matter.

Wife will stay and wife will rest. He warned her. She doesn't get a choice anymore.

[the-delta-quadrant]

if the only reason you're considering medical diagnosis or legal recognition of your disability is to feel less like a fraud, don't do it.

it's not worth the effort nor does it actually work.

i got my autism diagnosis so i could get PIP. i got registered sight impaired so i could get PIP as well as some other accommodations. i got my ADHD diagnosis because i wanted to try meds.

i got my PIP and the benefits. i found out i can't go on ADHD meds.

for a few months, a side effect of getting diagnosed/registered was feeling validated and more confident in these disabilities.

that did not last.

every now and then i still wonder if i'm making my autism sound worse than it is, if it's really autism at all, if i just accidentally lied to the assessor because i wanted to be autistic. same with my ADHD.

with my vision, my eye conditions are an undeniable, visible fact. and yet i still feel like i'm making myself out to be more disabled than i am. i still think "i can read normal print, large print is just more comfortable, so i'm not really that disabled". i still think "i actually can see lots of things around me, so i can't really be that disabled".

i still feel like a fraud for using large text, magnification, a symbol cane, stim toys, a sunflower lanyard, not reading physical books etc.

i still feel like a fraud despite having 30 pages of diagnostic paperwork and certificate of visual impairment in my drawer. especially with my vision because no other vision impaired person's vision seems to be like mine at all. i am alone.

so yeah, if the only reason you want to get diagnosed is for confidence in your disability, it's not worth it. the doubts will come back anyway.

[featheredferal]

happy disability pride month to all disabled otherkins & therians out there!

i love you psychically disabled nonhumans, mentally disabled nonhumans, psychotic nonhumans, autistic nonhumans, blind and visually impaired nonhumans, nonhumans who use disability aids, non-speaking or semi-speaking nonhumans, visibly disabled nonhumans, chronically ill nonhumans, nonhumans with ptsd or c-ptsd, nonhumans apart of did/osdd systems, nonhumans who feel their disability affirms their kintype in some way, etc etc. i love all of u <333

[lets-try-some-writing]

It’s all fun and games until one of the kids actually gets sick (just a cold or the flu, nothing too crazy) and the bots have to learn about the joys of human illnesses

Hazmat suit time.

Illness on Cybertron generally tends to be pretty quiet. Its often software issues or does not present itself outwardly unless its serious. Their version of a common cold is a software issue that can cause a mech to overheat if they aren't paying attention. Things such as the flu would present as cognitive impairment or an inability to transform. In short, a good number of Cybertron's ailments do not appear on the frame unless one is really looking.

The only illnesses that appear in such a drastic manner are the lethal ones.

As such, when the kids came in with colds, or in Jack's case, the flu- well, the team did not handle it well. They couldn't be sure it wasn't able to transfer across species, and not to mention, their contaminated fluids could damage other humans or equipment. Seeing the children's state quickly got Ratchet to pull out his emergency quarantine equipment.

Ratchet, Arcee, and Bumblebee got themselves dressed helm to pede in hazmat suites, fitted with masks and everything. The bigger mechs in the room where fitted with tarps held in place with rope. Their faces were covered similarly, leaving only their optics visible. Terrifying? Perhaps. But required? Absolute according to Ratchet.

The children were examined as much as possible and Ratchet promptly separated the three from one another. Miko was put into her own pen filled with blankets, food, and water. Bulkhead was set to watch her and let Ratchet know if her temperature shifted too much. Rafael and Jack were treated the same and put in separate units with their guardians watching over them. Optimus served as a constant watchdog and went from unit to unit to assess the children personally and reassure them. Ratchet meanwhile kept constant tabs on their states as he frantically tried to call June and Fowler.

The children did try to tell the team that they were fine, but at most they got pitying looks and assurances that they were going to be fine. The team genuinely feared the kids could die, but none said a word as they worked in silence. When June and Fowler arrived, both were given gas masks and gloves. Only then were they carefully allowed to see the children from a distance. The team weren't taking chances.

Only after Ratchet explained the symptoms did June go from worried to amused. The whole team got to stand around feeling dumb as June told them that the kids were going to be fine. They just needed to go home and rest. All that effort and looking like penguins had been for nothing. Ratchet will die on the hill that he was right to react so drastically. The team disagree and occasionally mock him for it.

[wheelie-sick]

this is going to be a long post, it's kinda just me writing all my raw unfiltered thoughts on ABA therapy as someone who actually went through it

-> TW for ABA therapy, child abuse, suicide <-

I was functionally diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 but it wasn't until I was 13 that I was actually formally evaluated for it and given an official diagnosis. I was behind in social skills and developmental skills

[ID: "was also described as a sensory seeker. She does not currently have any friends and has struggled to make and maintain peer relationships throughout her childhood. Difficulties with social skills were initially noted when she was in preschool (years before the onset of clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and"]

[ID: "Social functions: [blank]'s mother also completed a questionnaire rating her social responsiveness. Her responses on the SRS-2 indicated that [blank] is demonstrating severe deficits in the areas of Social Communication (reciprocal social interaction and nonverbal and verbal communication), Social Motivation (motivation to engage in social-interpersonal behavior) and Social Awareness (perceiving social cues) and moderate deficits in the areas of Social Cognition (understanding social cues). Severe Repetitive and Restrictive Behaviors (stereotypical behaviors or highly restricted interests) were also reported. The total T-score on the SRS-2 indicates severe deficiencies in reciprocal behavior that are likely to result in interference in everyday social interaction"]

[ID: "%ile) are mildly impaired, while her social skills are moderately impaired (2nd %ile). By domain, demonstrates mildly to moderately impaired abilities in six adaptive skills areas, including self care (9th %ile), communication (5th %ile), home living (5th %ile), self-direction (2nd %ile), social (2nd %ile), and leisure (1st %ile)"]

and ultimately all this ended up with the number one recommendation after my autism evaluation being for ABA therapy.

[ID: "Recommendations: Based on the above results, the following recommendations are made for [blank] and her family.

1. ABA therapy: [blank] May benefit from an intensive treatment program to foster cognitive and communication skills, improve independence and adaptive functioning, and help manage interfering behaviors (i.e home-based, 1:1 instruction, task analysis, etc.) Most private and community programs are based on principals of operant conditioning and taught in home with 1:1 instruction"]

*I'm getting misgendered here. my pronouns are he/him

"operant conditioning"-- like a dog 🐕🐕. woof woof.

my mom didn't know any better so she put me in ABA therapy with the Center for Autism and Related Disorders. she regrets this. I regret this more.

my autism evaluation was cruel, it dissected all my flaws as if I was a bug under a microscope in a highschool laboratory. my evaluation was passed around to ABA therapists, a line of high schoolers peering through the microscope examining the most vulnerable parts of me.

and I choose the highschool analogy quite deliberately. most of the ABA therapists at my center were recent highschool graduates with no degree and little training. they knew nothing about autism and had no qualifications. you need more certificates to become a professional dog trainer than to become a professional human trainer.

"operant conditioning"

and I wish I could say it was just a poor choice of words but ABA therapy was dog training for children. my dad used to call me an "it" and somehow I felt less dehumanized by that than the entire experience I had in ABA therapy.

I was the oldest person at my center (I did not receive in home therapy) with the next oldest being approximately 3 years younger than me. at the time I felt babied. I was surrounded by 5 year olds and I was treated as if I was not just a 5 year old but an autistic 5 year old and anyone who has been a visibly autistic 5 year old knows what that feels like. I had escaped being an autistic child and now I was being treated like one again. The head of the program tried to console me by telling me adults received their services too.

[ID: "Following the principles of applied behavior analysis, CARD has developed a treatment approach for children and adolescents with"]

this was the first lie they told me. CARD does not work with adults.

I was not allowed the privileges of being a 13 year old. because I was an autistic 13 year old and therefore I was the equivalent of a 5 year old. I was in psychotherapy at the same time and I had grown very accustomed to some level of freedom in therapy. I was allowed to use the bathroom independently. in ABA therapy I was not allowed to use the bathroom independently. I tried once, me and my therapist were on an "outing" to the grocery store and I told my therapist I was going to the bathroom and walked off and I got a very stern talking to about how I needed to "stop eloping" and if I didn't stop it would "become a behavior"

eloping became a common theme used to control me and squeeze money out of my parents.

out of everything I hated in my life, including severe physical abuse at home (which they did not report), I hated ABA therapy the most. I would repeatedly make serious threats of suicide to try to get out of ABA. no one cared. everyone thought I was being dramatic but there were times I wrote out suicide notes and ABA was among the reasons I listed. ABA made me feel hopeless, depressed, revolting, disgusting, inferior, and less than human. between ABA, my home life, and my social life I had never felt so hated and it was boiling through my skin. I acted out, I was bullying people, I was behaving recklessly, I was starting fights, and all this only made the oppressive force of ABA crack down on me harder. I was a cat hissing in the corner begging to be left alone and ABA brought a net to try to tame me further. every time I scratched back it was listed as a reason I needed to be there.

I was "disruptive" and "rebellious" and "uncooperative" and "resistant to treatment" and no one could figure out why I was "regressing" despite me shouting the answer. I was screaming and no one was willing to hear me

I hated myself and my autism. my autism diagnosis made me want to die. I didn't feel freed by it or understood I felt ashamed and disgusted. I felt incompetent and like I had failed. I was ashamed to be at ABA, it was my biggest secret. I'd lie to my friends about why I couldn't hang out and I'd lie to people in public about who the woman I was with was and I'd lie about all of it to try to cover up my most shameful secret.

ABA therapy did nothing but foster this. In ABA therapy I was mocked for being autistic and what was happening only clicked when a young kid, maybe only 4 or 5, was flapping his hands and a therapist took out her phone and recorded him. we were circus animals. it was all an entertaining show to them while they poked and prodded at us with metaphorical hot irons to make us dance. the first time a therapist laughed at me for rocking back and forth I wanted to throw up. I almost did. it was systematic bullying of children I was forced to watch and experience.

my point is: the last place on earth I wanted to be was the ABA center.

so of course I tried to leave. my mom would bring me McDonald's and I'd beg, sobbing real tears, to leave early because only she could sign me out. every time I'd go to meet her I'd be marked as "eloping" and my hotel stay in hell would get extended.

my natural response to a stressful environment (leaving) was pathologized. I was eloping this way and that way and never once did I actually, truly elope. that word was a weapon used against me. they used my "elopement" to justify extending my stay to my parents. they ate it right up.

they argued I needed to stay there because I was making friends. this was true, I'm great at getting along with children it's part of why I want to go into pediatrics, but I had also made real friends with people my age at my highschool. ABA was getting in the way. I wanted to spend time with my friends outside of school but ABA took up all my time from the minute I left school to 6pm and all day on weekends. I was doing a full time job's worth of hours. I complained about how I was missing out on spending time with my real friends (as in, over the age of 7) and I was met with almost no wiggle room in my schedule. I was allowed to pre-plan time to spend with friends but every time my friend group wanted to do something spontaneously? I had to say no, and I had to lie about why. my friends would share stories about driving around town with 2 people in the group stuffed in the trunk, of hanging out in the woods together, of taking part in ordinary highschool activities as ordinary high schoolers and it made me cry because I was not an ordinary highschooler and I was not allowed to participate in ordinary highschool activities. I was one of those weird, unpleasant, socially awkward autistic people instead. eventually, they just stopped inviting me. I was forced into the out group by ABA.

I'll never get that back. I'll never get a chance to be a normal highschooler ever again.

when I did have time available to hang out with people I never had the energy to. at the time I was living with an undiagnosed physical disability and I was begging to see a doctor but no one would believe that it wasn't just anxiety. the people who believed me least of all were the people at the center.

I was constantly told I was trying to get out of therapy by "feigning" very real pain and fatigue. I tried to explain spoon theory, and that I had limited spoons, and in response they made a task for me to name things to "regenerate spoons" that's not how it works. I wasn't the only physically disabled person there. there was a wheelchair user who was constantly forced to stand for periods of time despite being in agony doing it. he wasn't allowed rewards until he did it.

rewards were used to train us like dog treats are used with dogs. sometimes the treats were fun! I'd get to cook, play Mario kart, and go on outings. other times the treats were "using the correct name and pronouns for me." I'd constantly be threatened with deadnaming and misgendering if I was being "noncompliant."

misgendering because of my autism was a theme in my life. my neuropsych evaluation report misgendered me. my parents misgendered me. the staff at ABA misgendered me. at one point the head of the program suggested that my "gender confusion" was because of my autism. my abusive father latched onto this and still claims that the reason I'm "confused" about my gender is because the evil transgenders tricked me into thinking I'm one of them because I'm autistic and therefore easily impressionable.

the two therapists I had were nice because I refused to work with the others. they weren't on a power trip and both eventually left because they realized the harm the organization was doing. other therapists were not so kind. other therapists were on a power trip, because in their mind lording over autistic 5 year olds (and autistic 14 year olds) makes them powerful and strong. occasionally I'd get stuck with one of the other therapists when my usual therapists were out. they would talk to me in a baby voice. they would make fun of me for rocking back and forth, for not making eye contact, for talking about Skyrim "too much" and generally just for being autistic.

I never really knew what I was supposed to be doing, just that I was doing it wrong. the therapists there rarely actually told me what my tasks were they'd just mark yes or no on them, judging me for something I wasn't aware of. I was never actually supposed to graduate, I was never supposed to get out, if they wanted me to succeed they would have taught and explained what was happening but I was intentionally left in the dark.

I continued threatening suicide to get out. no one took me seriously. I was seriously considering it. there's no happy conclusion where someone finally realized it was all wrong, or I figured out how to be allistic and graduated, or I felt more comfortable there. I only got out when covid struck and shut the center down. it's gone now, replaced by a family advice center. I hope their advice for autistic children is to never put them in ABA.

there is no grander message here just suffering. I'm sorry if you were expecting some sort of great point at the end of this. there's not one. it happened, I wish it didn't, and I hope no one else experiences what I did ever again.

okay to reblog

[echofromtheabyss]

So, if you want to understand the history of ND stuff in any useful kind of way you have to know that we talked about these things differently. Gen Xrs have a different generational experience and Boomers' is different still.

Prior to the 80s, NDs were really not a thing. The optic was almost entirely in terms of learning disability and intellectual impairment in the 70s.

ADHD - not autism - is really the first we see of anything resembling the modern ND consciousness, as "autistic" was a label reserved for children presenting with severe disability or at minimum, delay.

Autism in the 70s and 80s and before was not culturally adjacent to ADHD or giftedness, it was adjacent to conditions of severe intellectual impairment.

It's possible to be an 80s ADHD labeled autistic who gets good interventions *because lots of how ADHD was understood at the time, got absorbed by autism later.*

This is basically my story as a matter of fact, a lot of helpful support I got early was via the ADHD pipeline, and so ADHD *is* my "recognized early enough to get meaningful self understanding and meaningful support* narrative, which is a big reason I was ABLE to shrug off autism as a label for about 15 years, until the changing autism stereotypes caught up with me.

ADHD and early issues with visible LD etc are WHY I didn't end up in the "normal until hospitalized" optic that some autistics I knew ended up in, if they had *only* been seen as gifted. I was very aware of my stuff very early even if it was called something else and even if it will be called something else in the future, and it shaped my social choices, my career choices, etc.

Also there was the optic to Boomers and older that you really could just be a "normal" person or even a high performing "genius" who was just "a little slow as a kid." (There are many historical figures this actually applies to. "A little slow as a kid" may just be within a *normal* range of child development.) This is actually part of where many Boomers are coming from when they think a certain degree of autism is just normal.

Early labels in adults (whom we would now understand as high masking ASD-1) were more personal history than identity.

To Boomers and older, you were "mentally well" until you presented "mentally ill." There really wasn't anything like being ND as we presently understand. Also, the *very same optics* that got boys seen as gifted, invested lots of time and support into, etc, got girls into the clinical pipeline early. The real dx discrepancy between girls and boys in my generation and older is the degree to which cis het white rich boys were just allowed to not be anything at all while girls were immediately tagged as mentally ill or developmentally disabled with the very same presentation, even within the same family. My grandmother who was a victim of this, and heavily and deeply abused from early childhood, is the sister of my physicist uncle who was on the Manhattan Project and was odd but successful, had a wife and family, never labeled anything at all.

Lots of people we now see as autistic were just considered normal gifted people who then had a "nervous breakdown" after high school/entering the adult world.

It was possible to be totally ego-syntonic as an odd person until diagnosis, if you were in the 80s gifted pipeline, because if you were in a social set that was actually ALLOWED to be intelligent let alone gifted in the first place (i.e., an upper middle class person, with more weirdness optic allowed for boys) you likely weren't going to be diagnosed with ANYTHING unless you were Weird with a Capital W.

That I had any kind of optic besides just being Gifted is *because* despite high IQ, I was a poor academic performer, and *couldn't* mask well inside a school setting.

These are people without even that optic.

They literally were just seen as gifted, and it was assumed that - of course - highly gifted people were a little weird. Gifted optic in school meant access to a whole different social and academic pipeline consisting hugely of other people we would now understand as ND, so it's actually possible to come out of that being totally ego-syntonic, and never ever even seek diagnosis until something breaks.

If you're like my ex husband who ended up just going away to sea for years, and then becoming a programmer in a basement at a university, you might never get diagnosed with anything, especially if you never see yourself as the problem in any of your interpersonal interactions, and that was a FAR more common optic with gifted white Gen X and Jones ASD-1 boys than early dx was.

The thing for my generation isnt the degree to which boys were diagnosed over girls... quite the opposite, it's the degree to which smart white rich boys were just *allowed* to be odd and given tons of concessions *without* being labeled ANYTHING, because of the degree to which the culture saw that boy was probably a future curer of cancer or a future astronaut.

A chunk of the "NT [more likely, high masking autist] woman miserably married to ASD man" narrative on those websites like FAAAS is actually referring to men who don't have any diagnostic label whatsoever and don't understand themselves as the problem, if you actually read the stories.

Those guys don't get diagnosed until something actually breaks - like, their wife hauls them into couples counseling, or they have finally exhausted their supply of good will (many social compensations of gifted children stop working past one's 20s and that's actually when my dx happened too).

Interpersonal problems weren't enough for dx unless they actually bothered a person enough to seek help. Something has to break. You don't end up with a diagnosis because you're happy and adjusted, no matter how odd you are.

Please ask Boomers about nervous breakdowns because half the time this is referring to what we now understand as autistic burnout.

[birdofmay]

Whenever I see the discourse about disability stalls I'm like "You guys didn't have your physical disability all your life and it shows" because I've been using the disability stall all my life and therefore have seen people entering or coming out of it all my life. It's not a philosophical question for me, it's just a normal fact. I KNOW who uses the disability stall.

I know that it's different when you have a progressive disability or suddenly became physically disabled/impaired as a teen or adult and were told "This is for wheelchair users" all your life and then later learned "Alright, it's also ok for cane users" and then at some point "Well, some people need a hook for their stoma, they're allowed too." You have to constantly adjust your "worldview" about for whom disability stalls are made then.

But whenever I need to pee and someone with no visible disability aids and no carer leaves the bathroom, we just nod in passing and that's it.

And if there's a long queue, those with incontinence who need to change so that they don't stay wet for a long time are let go first. Or those who let us know that it's really very urgent for whatever reason. No questions asked.

When I first realised that this is a real discourse on here I was so confused because I wasn't aware that people who weren't "significantly" disabled all their life have different opinions on that. It's as if you've been crossing the street when the light is green all your life, and suddenly people argue that this light is only for people in green clothes because the "man" is green. And then they say that alright, it's also ok for others as long as you have the shape of the "green man", i.e. don't wear skirts. And later they agree that animals are ok too, as long as they accompany a human.

And you just look at them, absolutely confused, because you learned that it's for those who want to cross the street safely, nothing more nothing less.

Maybe it started because some of us were complaining about people who can use a normal toilet misusing the disability stall. But that doesn't mean "Leave if your disability isn't obvious", it means "Stop occupying the only toilet we can use for your lunch break."

If you can't use a normal toilet, or if the normal toilets are inaccessible/use up too many spoons/are unsafe, use the disability stall. But please use it only for things it's made for.

That's it. That's really it. If you're blind and the public toilets are inaccessible, use the disability stall; especially if you can't hear your white cane in crowded public toilets. The sinks usually have sensors, so you don't have to touch too much dirt or accidentally get water all over you. Use the handrails for orientation and balance. You have access to the complete roll of toilet paper, not just one or two strips. You won't accidentally scratch your hand on dispensers.

As long as you only use it for things it's made for, use the disability stall. Just make sure that people who may need it more can go first. How? Just ask.