writerwithld

[writerwithld]

If someone doesn’t “seem” disabled to you, maybe it’s because they’ve been forced to develop a huge and complex system of coping mechanisms in order to try and survive in an ableist world. It’s probably that.

[writerwithld]

The difference between high-functioning autism and low functioning is that high-functioning means your deficits are ignored, and low-functioning means your assets are ignored.

Laura Tisoncik (via youneedacat)

[writerwithld]

Nearly everyone with ADHD answers an emphatic yes to the question: “Have you always been more sensitive than others to rejection, teasing, criticism, or your own perception that you have failed or fallen short?” This is the definition of a condition called rejection-sensitive dysphoria. When I ask ADHDers to elaborate on it, they say: “I’m always tense. I can never relax. I can’t just sit there and watch a TV program with the rest of the family. I can’t turn my brain and body off to go to sleep at night. Because I’m sensitive to my perception that other people disapprove of me, I am fearful in personal interactions.” They are describing the inner experience of being hyperactive or hyper-aroused. Remember that most kids after age 14 don’t show much overt hyperactivity, but it’s still present internally, if you ask them about it. The emotional response to the perception of failure is catastrophic for those with the condition. The term “dysphoria” means “difficult to bear,” and most people with ADHD report that they “can hardly stand it.” They are not wimps; disapproval hurts them much more than it hurts neurotypical people. If emotional pain is internalized, a person may experience depression and loss of self-esteem in the short term. If emotions are externalized, pain can be expressed as rage at the person or situation that wounded them. In the long term, there are two personality outcomes. The person with ADHD becomes a people pleaser, always making sure that friends, acquaintances, and family approve of him. After years of constant vigilance, the ADHD person becomes a chameleon who has lost track of what she wants for her own life. Others find that the pain of failure is so bad that they refuse to try anything unless they are assured of a quick, easy, and complete success. Taking a chance is too big an emotional risk. Their lives remain stunted and limited. For many years, rejection-sensitive dysphoria has been the hallmark of what has been called atypical depression. The reason that it was not called “typical” depression is that it is not depression at all but the ADHD nervous system’s instantaneous response to the trigger of rejection.

"Devastated by Disapproval" - William Dodson, M.D., ADDitude Magazine (via yarizakuras)

[writerwithld]

INTELLIGENCE IS NOT MEASURED IN YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF MATH

[writerwithld]

You have to stop believing that you need other people’s permission to be okay with yourself. That however you do or don’t align with what other people value determines your worth. That however the world does or doesn’t show you kindness is a direct reflection of how much you deserve it. You have to be kind to yourself. Even, and probably most especially, when it seems least deserved.

Brianna Wiest, You Have To Be Kindest To Yourself When It Seems Least Deserved (via larmoyante)

[writerwithld]

Do not talk about an obviously disabled person in front of them as if they can’t hear or understand you.

Do not talk to a disabled person’s companion instead of them.

Ask permission before touching people, or their wheelchairs/other equipment. Even if you want to help.

Ask disabled people...

[writerwithld]

Casual ableism thinks that people who don’t make eye contact can’t be trusted.

[writerwithld]

A PSA:

Overestimating people isn’t inspiring. Telling them they can do things that they can’t do isn’t kind. It’s stressful. Even if you don’t mean for it to happen, they’ll feel bad that they can’t live up to your beliefs, because they feel like they should be able to. Trust people to know their limits, please.

[writerwithld]

Being told "you don't speak like you have a learning disability" makes me not want to tell people about my disabilities ever.

[writerwithld]

Social progress is making disabling conditions easier to live with just as medical progress is eliminating them. There is something tragic about this confluence, like those operas in which the hero realizes he loves the heroine just as she expires.

Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon, p. 21 (via butterfliesinthevineyard)

[writerwithld]

There are days when I scold myself for what should have been, what I could have done—rather than focusing on what I did do right, what I have done right, and what I will continue to do right in the future. There are days when I am stuck in a fierce battle against my past, days...

[writerwithld]

If you call portraying the lives of disabled characters as anything short of crappy, unfufilled, and full of suffering “romanticization” I want nothing to do with you.

[writerwithld]

welp

[writerwithld]

(warnings for: eugenics, mentions of abuse and murder, lots of capslock)

HEY!

Something happened recently. You may have heard of it. You may not have heard of it. You may not know why it’s important. But it is.

GOOGLE is now partnered with an organization called...

[writerwithld]

-“ADD” by Randall Munroe from xkcd

When I saw a link on the interwebs to an xkcd webcomic about ADD I cringed, thinking it was going to be some ill-informed jokes about overdiagnosis or medication. I shouldn’t have worried. This is perfect.

So apparently one of my favorite artists also has ADHD? 

[writerwithld]

What is it like to be a child, facing the future? What happens when you cannot find any adult who reminds you of yourself doing something you want to do? How do you find your way from what you are to what you want to be? How many children blaze trails along well-trod paths, oblivious to the work done by those who came before? How many cannot even begin to imagine the trails? What happens when you cannot find any adult who reminds you of yourself at all? I have heard variation upon variation on this story: a disabled child comes to believe that he will grow up to be non-disabled, or never grow up at all. After all, as he looks around, there are no adults like himself. How many children never even realize they must imagine the trails? What happens when no-one around you can imagine a future for you that they think minimally acceptable? What happens when no-one believes that the trails can even be imagined at all?

Cal Montgomery, “What Do You Want To Be?” (via youneedacat)

[writerwithld]

NTs call us entitled for asking for even the most basic accommodations but then they turn around and expect us to change every aspect of ourselves that makes them even the slightest bit uncomfortable