#Accommodation Solutions

[psychoticallytrans]

There are three main models of disability that are in common use. The moral model, the medical model, and the social model.

You may not have heard of the moral model before, but if you are disabled, you have felt the impact of it. The moral model is disability as a failure of character. It sources the problem of disability in the character of the disabled person. It's the people who insist that if you just tried harder, were better, had a better attitude, that you would no longer be disabled. It is a model that is used by ableists in order to conceptualize of disability as a failing of the individual. An extreme example of this mindset are the Christian Scientists, who believe that all illnesses and disabilities should be healed by the grace of their god and that if you are not healed, something is wrong with you. It is the the most cruel of the models, and the least successful at assisting disabled people.

The medical model is the model used by the medical establishment and by those who put their stock in medical authority. It sources the problem of disability in the body. It measures disability against a theoretical average person, and seeks to make disabled people match that average person more closely. This model works very well for disabled people with disabilities that can be measured, have a potential treatment plan, and want their disability gone. It does not work very well for people who do not match all three criteria. If they match the first and second but not the third, then strict adherents of the medical model often fall back on the moral model, stating that they are stupid, lazy, or selfish for not being interested in being cured. This also often happens if treatment fails to improve the condition of the disabled person.

The social model is a newer model, largely designed by disability activists and scholars and often defined in opposition to the medical model. It sources the problem of disability in the interaction between the disabled person and their physical and social environment. It argues that the solution of disability is to change the environment so that impairments are no longer an issue. This model works very well for disabled people who consider their disability not to be an issue when fully accommodated. It does not work well for people who consider their disability an inherent impairment and/or desire a cure. Strict adherents of the social model often fall back on the moral model when considering these people, stating that they are short-sighted or that they worship the medical model. These are the people who state things such as that depression would not exist in a world without capitalism.

When a disabled person fails to behave as expected by the model a person has of disability, the moral model is almost always the fallback position, because many people cannot conceive of why someone would disagree with them other than a lack of good character. This is a problem, because the moral model proposes no solution but to ignore or abuse the disabled person until they behave as expected.

Another notable interaction is that adherents of the medical model can often be persuaded to support the more traditional parts of the social model, such as providing large text resources to people with impaired vision, so long as there is empirical research backing it. However, they rarely support more radical arguments that challenge how we define disability and how society should be structured or restructured.

All three models have major failure points. The moral model fails every disabled person it is applied to. The medical and social models both fail different disabled people when adhered to strictly. The best approach at the moment seems to be hybridizing the social and medical models, so that they cover each other's weak points and fit the needs of the widest spectrum of disabled people. The main barrier to this is that they are often defined in opposition to each other.

[writing-with-olive]

ADHD task completing tip

okay so growing up i was usually told "do the hard thing first and then you get to do the fun thing." and generally that's reasonable.... if you've got decent executive function. but for those of us who don't, this is a thing i've been using to get through school/work/general human functioning. It's still using hard thing/fun thing, but it interweaves them WAY more

first step: find something that sparks some dopamine quickly. i usually use short-timer online chess or mobile games. if you pick scrolling social media or something that doesn't have a clear endpoint, make sure you have an easy way to set a timer. On apple phones, there's a timer setting that says "stop playing" instead of playing a sound. I love this because it'll take you to your lock screen so you can't accidentally dismiss the timer and keep going. Do NOT make this movement or taking care of bodily functions; eating/hydrating/going to the bathroom/moving around are things you can and should do when your body tells you. take care of ya self

second step: look at your task and break it up TINY. If you have to write a paper, don't break it up by paragraph. break it up into something like fifty words. Cleaning a room: ten items put away. Close reading: 1 page. Really you want something that if your executive functioning was playing nice you could do in 1-4 minutes. I recommend NOT saying "work for x minutes" however, since that's a really quick way to sit there watching the clock. You wanna tie progress to completion not time spent.

third step: estimate how many levels/games/etc of your dopamine source it takes to last 1-5 minutes. Ideally you will already have a sense of this. I'd advise not "testing it out right now" and procrastinating that way.

fourth step: get to work. every time you complete a tiny task, you can do one unit of the dopamine thing. If you get some momentum, you can stack rewards, so if your tiny task was 50 words for one mobile game level, 150 words straight would be three levels. If you are having a really hard time getting going, you can start with 1-3 units of your dopamine thing to kinda jumpstart the process, just decide how many you're doing first so you don't lose hours to it.

note that this ONLY WORKS if you don't ignore your timer/level cutoff. The idea is to get dopamine levels up and use that to power through the next tiny task.

[faithfromanewperspective]

don't know how to say this in a nice way but. the food recalls we're having? the shortages of (and high prices) of eggs due to bird flu? they're not JUST because of lax regulations under trump though they are. they're also because animal agriculture when done intensively is fraught with risk and because we literally don't have the space to sustain ourselves like this. and some of us are so privileged by the fact that this global clusterfuck of a food system we have is designed to feed the western empire that they don't realise how bad it is

I know going vegan or even eating less meat is not possible for many people but i am BEGGING you to please, let's all collectively get our heads out of our asses and realise for one more time that just because individual behaviour does very little it doesn't mean that there isn't a LOT of collective action and systemic change that needs to happen. because nutritious food from plants should be cheap and easy to access but it isn't! because animal products, despite taking a lot more resources to get to the point of consumption are heavily subsidised. because our whole food system is based on competition rather than making sure everyone gets enough to survive, starting with the most vulnerable who aren't going to have as many options as the rest of us.

[softshuji]

The idea of someone actually loving me, being excited to see me, spend time with me ,speak to me, thinking I'm pretty or smart and nice and not because they need something from me or they think I can provide something for them is so unfathomable to me that even if someone does love me I don't think I could ever believe it's because it's me and they really care for me and not cos they see something in me that doesn't really exist or a solution to their problems or something to use till the next person that provides what I can comes along.

[adelaidedrubman]

also i think i am having a bad allergic reaction to the mold in my office. there’s mold in my office btw

[badgertablet]

happy mother’s day to the Real mom of undertale: papyrus

[multi-lefaiye]

sometimes you have a trigger that cannot be reasonably and easily accommodated for, because it would require the people around you to police themselves to an extent that is not healthy for them to do.

that doesn't make your triggers and your trauma any less real or valid or *deserving* of accommodations, but deserving does not necessarily always mean that those accommodations are possible.

sometimes the best way to handle your triggers is to recognize what triggers you and do what you have to do to handle them when they come up. find coping mechanisms that work for you, and as much as you're able to, be open with the people in your life about it. even if they can't make sure you never have to interact with something that may trigger you, they can be a support system for you to ensure you'll survive the blows as they come.

it's not always possible to avoid what triggers you and it's not always possible for others to do that for you. (to be clear: i'm not at all saying people should *seek out* content that they *know* will trigger them or that they shouldn't remove themselves from situations that are triggering when they have the ability to do so, but that sometimes it's not that easy.)

(disclaimer: this is not psychological advice and i'm not saying this applies to everyone.)

[taintedlxve]

Generally the most I ask of anyone is if they WANT to interact but are having trouble figuring out how they hit me up. We can discuss desires and general vibes of where we want a thread to go and I can take it from there.

[heartshaped-lou]

dropping afhf23 info too late is not very man of the people of you, louis. tell us now?????

[hopefulqueer]

what do u do when it's week 10 of ur 3rd to last college term and ur so sick that u dont know if u'll be able to do literally anything for the foreseeable future. if ur so unbearably fatigued that standing up to get food or take the dog outside or go to the bathroom leaves u exhausted for like an hour and by then u have to get up again to do something else, and thinking is impossible and frequently typing takes too much energy and also u don't know when u'll feel better so it's not like asking for an extension will do shit bc there's only 2 weeks left of the whole term and not finishing something on time means at this point it will never get done

i'm tired*

*drastic understatement for ironic effect

[faithfromanewperspective]

idk how to explain it but a rage-driven desire to change the world coupled with the anticipation of finally dealing with something weighing on me for a long time and the relief that something can be done about that thing but also. racing thoughts and being unable to not act Right Now or say no to any of the ideas I have on how this can be done, while also having a breakthrough and processing a bunch of things that have happened to me and how they impacted me all of a sudden—that’s not normal ‘period is about to hit’ behaviour/experience is it?

[pocket-deer-boy]

no no you see. the closets and drawers aren't just storage. Like yes they are to store things? but it's also to put things and simply forget that they exist. No i- no i can't just put it in the drawer and remember to put it there every single time i take it out that's not- no i know you think it's messy but i literally can't fucking function when everything is in drawers and cabinets i will just forget they exists and it's mentally exhausting to take mental note of where everything is all the time. Yes this is why i've had random papers splayed out over my desk for two years. no i'm not going to fix that it's not a problem. No it's not a problem TO ME. It doesn't concern you because it's not your room.

[brood-me-daddy]

I had a one on one with my lead at work today and the topic of managing NDs/disabled people came up. He was like I've been trying to be more accommodating and I'm halfway through that article you sent (I sent it months ago) but nobody sees that I'm trying and you have to share more info about your needs (I've already shared more than I should have).

Me: I'm sorry, but no. Putting that on the person with the disability isn't fair. You have to make the effort to learn more and put in the work because there are plenty of resources out there now. If you're saying you've been trying and I'm telling you I haven't noticed and have seen absolutely no changes than you have to try harder. Like, if you saw a person in a wheelchair would you make them build their own ramp to a door?

Him: well no but at the same time that person would ask for help.

Me: so you're saying if you saw this person in their wheelchair you wouldn't automatically think oh I bet that person needs a ramp to get to the door?

Him: well... No.

Me: well that's a problem. Do better.

[nerdie-faerie]

I fucking hate sending emails where I'm trying to find out information because I feel like I have to be super specific with my questions in order to get what I need - and this is dependant on me knowing everything I need to ask about - only to still not be given the answers I need

[autisticchangeling]

I love that the disability Community exists, but sometimes when I see debates about what counts as disabled versus just an impairment versus whatever...

I wish there could just be a community I could join for people with -whatever- that wouldn't cause me to constantly have to question and prove that I'm really disabled and "I promise I'm not too happy to count as oppressed" and whatever. I don't know, I just sometimes want to be able to share community in the ways the disability community does without having to watch the debates about who really counts and always worrying I'm next.

If there was something for all the people who aren't "struggling enough" to belong in the disability community, I would join it just for the relief from the hypervigilance