#tw learning disability

[vm-sys]

shout out to clumsy people.

shout out to people with coordination issues.

shout out to people with dyspraxia.

shout out to people with apraxia.

shout out to people with muscle weakness.

shout out to people with paresis.

shout out to people with paralysis.

shout out to people with arthritis n/or joint deformities.

shout out to people with chronic pain whose pain makes it hard to control their movements.

shout out to people with chronic fatigue whose fatigue makes them hard to control their movements.

shout out to people with balance issues.

shout out to people with other conditions that make hard to control body n/or movements.

shout out to people who are undiagnosed n struggling with control movements.

it's not your fault. it's not your carelessness. you deserve support n accommodations. you shouldn't be judged or mocked. you deserve respect. your struggles deserve respect.

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

I feel like I can't be the only one who strongly dislikes "lost their battle with" language when talking about someone dying. I feel like it implies weakness in the person who died when the reality is that whether or not you survive most things is ultimately down to random chance. It also pushes the idea that being ready to die and at peace is "surrendering" to the illness or "giving up", when the reality is most of us hope to be at peace when we die.

[autistic-duck]

(Very long post, sorry.)

I had an experience with a college professor last semester that really got me thinking about academics and ableism, specifically in college writing.

A few months ago, my class was having an open discussion, and I brought up an opinion that had been on my mind for a while.

I basically said, "There's a gap between college-level writing and the average person's reading level that we need to fill. Nobody should need to look up words every three seconds to understand a study that could affect their life, so we either need more people to rewrite these studies for the general public to understand, or these studies, in general, should be published with language that isn't so complicated."

My professor responded by saying something like, "Sure, that's a good goal. However, wouldn't a better goal be to raise the average person's reading level so that everyone can understand college-level writing?"

I (in my frantic and confused way) tried to bring up the fact that there are people born at a disadvantage in life. In fact, getting everyone to a perfect college reading level isn't a realistic goal. It certainly isn't for me, and I don't want it to have to be for other people. In fact, the professor who told me this also struggled to understand the chapters we were assigned to read in that class.

Really, it all comes down to this: college-level language is inaccessible.

Even more importantly, many people will never be able to understand most of the huge words thrown around in college writing.

At school, I am constantly told my writing style is "simple" and "easy to understand." This is something my classmates have told me isn't "bad" but just "different." However, I'm still insecure whenever someone mentions it because it is always pointed out. I use a smaller vocabulary, they seem to say, but don't worry. It's just a preferred writing style, they reassure me. They think the simple language is a choice I could stop at any time.

Well, what if it isn't just a "style"? What if I struggle to expand my vocabulary? Learning one new word takes me ages because I need to see it in all kinds of contexts. Even then, oftentimes "context clues" are no help, and I completely misinterpret the meaning of a word for years because it seems like every other native English speaker knew what it meant without needing to say it. A lot of the time I'll read the definition of a new word and instantly forget it after finishing the sentence it was in.

So yeah, I'll say it with pride: Simple words are powerful. Simple words are beautiful. And most importantly, simple words are not inferior in any way to words like "quintessential" or "expedient." (I have no idea what either of those words mean even though I've looked them up plenty of times and used them accurately in essays before.)

Simplicity is why I like shows meant for all ages better than shows meant only for adults. Because in shows that are written with children in mind, there aren't confusing messages you have to spend energy untangling. There aren't unnecessary analogies or feelings that are "implied" but never said. The characters' facial expressions and emotions are easy to read and the moments where I am confused are rare.

Now, this is all coming from an autistic person with low support needs. My reading comprehension score is considered slightly above average, and so is my problem-solving abilities which means I am lucky and I can understand a lot of what I read in college. The main point of this little "essay" was to point out a common conversation I despise hearing in college, the one about simple language and its implied inferiority.

Because guess what? Language is not accessible to everybody. Many of us, even those with high reading comprehension, struggle.

Our goal should never be to make everyone capable of reading college-level books and studies. That is asking for those who need accommodations to accommodate themselves, something I'm sure other disabled people are tired of having to do. Instead, the goal should be making college language more accessible, making knowledge accessible. After all, the reader is only a fragment of the conversation. The writer is the majority of it.

TLDR; Everyone deserves access to language and knowledge that makes sense, and bigger words never mean they are better.

[chronic-cane]

The fact that I'm taking a graduate level course and have a professor use "mental ret*rdation" in their slides infuriates me to no end.

Like, I mean no end. I'm trying my best to anonymously get it addressed within the department so that way the professor could correct it and make an announcement about its correction.

I'm also looking through the required textbook, and uh...

[Alt Text: picture of a man looking down one on one side with a blurred shadow of him looking scared or shocked on the other side. The photo is described as "image of dissociative identity disorder" end image description]

And a lot of calling mental illness madness, insanity, and even "minds of disturbed people."

It was published in 2021. (Sociology of Mental Disorder by William C. Cockerham if anyone wants to give it a shit review with me)

At this point I want the class to turn into a mad studies course. If you want to have that language so fucking badly then give the mic to the people who try to reclaim it. If you can screw up this badly, then start making it up to the ones you've screwed over.

But yeah a lot of my time about this class is pointing out how bad it is.

[wolfmaggot]

Okay, so I'm like, hey lemme go on tiktok again cuz I wanna look at kidcore ideas (the website cuz the app dead boi) and now I'm regretting it because the first thing I see is this

Someone pls lemme know if this is ableist cuz i also have mental and learning disabilities as well as physical ones (im not saying the specific disabilities only because I feel my online safety would be in shambles if I did) and this just seems like uh what

Bro who's running this app anymore :( like I'm not even mad just disappointed

[lupuspluvio]

Small update! I don’t have access to my pc for the rest of August

Been a weird month emotionally. Just learned the age my birth mom was when she had me and passed… 23. I’ll be 23 soon…

On another note I should start my story by October!

[lurkiestvoid]

sure, we can laugh he thinks he's gonna get Greenland somehow, Panama Canal, etc

But also remember that, among many other things in its near thousand pages, Project 2025 specifically outlines and plans for everything up to boots-on-the-ground resource wars even against established allies.

And it maybe puts a bit more stark context to how he's already gunning for this shit before he's even sworn in.

Cheers! 🍻

[northlight14]

Me: I’m mentally disabled and have a learning disability

People: what! No! You’re really smart!

Me:

Me: bitch when the fuck did I say I was dumb?

[collectivelykellen]

One of my school friends is also a survivor. She's almost a decade older than me and is incredibly sweet, thoughtful, and a wonderful listener... and I'm so glad I know her. She walked with me from campus to the clinic because it's very icy and she was worried about me slipping and getting hurt while walking alone, and we ended up talking a bit about just being csa survivors and how isolating of an experience it is, even as an adult who has been out of that abuse for years. She's so insightful and has perspectives that I don't necessarily hold for myself, but it helps me understand my own experiences through a slightly different lense.

I've been feeling awful physically and emotionally, between withdrawing from one of my meds (it's been almost a week since my last full dose and this is day 4 with no dose at all), apparently starting my period, and the general flooding that's been going on for the last week. maybe two weeks, at this point. The point is, I'm a barely functional wreck. Talking with her was incredibly cathartic, and I actually feel more emotionally centered than I have all week. More grounded, and the constant feeling of being on the verge of bursting into tears has quieted, at least for the time being.

I'm so grateful for the other survivors in my life, whether they are able to talk about it or not. I feel safest with these people- and I know being a csa survivor hardly makes a person inherently safe to be around, but when I connect with someone like this, I feel seen in a way I very rarely do. Like the mark I carry from my trauma and desperately try to keep hidden doesn't need to be a mark of shame.

She told me she's in awe of my resiliency, that she thinks I'm a warrior. That she's so very glad she met me and that I understand her on this level.

It's nice to feel close to people, sometimes.

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

me when I wanna see realistic representation of people with learning disabilities be like: ah yes this character who’s illiteracy/dyslexia which is portrayed not only as a joke but as a purely disgusting and gross and less than human trait! is pretty awful actually

People: wdym, all illiterates are disgusting less than human stupid people

me: please don’t ever open your mouth again

[luolite]

STEM father Vs Humanities daughter

(They both have autism)

[mayaswiterblog]

Memory

This poem was originally posted on Wattpad on 11 July 2015.

I never remembered texts Nor I do nowadays and now The pictures, moves, Colours and rooms All of them I remember clear The posters, the films The appearance of my friends But words and songs I cannot recall without fail I may remember the way How the song goes But how the sentence forms I have no clue, And I muss up the words No speech, no talk Only pictures and eyes

[fleetstreetpies]

TW: mental health problems, psychosis, open and graphic discussion of my hallucinations and delusions, mental health meds, mental health med side effects, medical inaction, medical malpractice.

Content under the cut.

Good god it’s happening again. It’s getting REALLY bad again.

I’ve been on a mood stabiliser for about a year now, and I’ve been VERY open with my psychiatrist about a lot of the complications I’ve faced, like needing my dose increased, nausea and headaches from increasing my dosage, persistence of mania, night terrors, delusions, etc. And now the delusions and hallucinations are worse than they were. They’d gotten better for a while but now here I am and good gods, I want it to stop so badly.

I want to not see things and people melting slowly. I want to not perceive that people have been replaced by near identical clones. I want to not perceive that some people are just my mother in elaborate disguise. I’d make it all stop or go away if I could, and when I was a younger man I tried, though when I tried I fully thought that I was God and could control the universe with just my thoughts.

I’ve been trying to talk to my psychiatrist about it. I need to get my mood stabiliser increased, sure, and I know that. But I also desperately need to get on an antipsychotic. And I think she thinks I’m malingering.

Do people actually think that folks with these problems are faking this? Malingering is relatively rare, and by all means, infuriating for all parties. But do the professionals genuinely think that we’re malingering? Because I’d bet (if I had money and were a gambling man) that it’s way harder to fake than you’d think. People who do that whole malingering thing unequivocally baffle me. Antipsychotics are extremely expensive and I cannot believe people would genuinely be willing to buy them and fake it for sympathy. I can’t afford 880 dollars per refill no matter how hard I try because I can barely make rent in a month (at least I get my meds through the school pharmacy where they cost way less).

So what even is the point of some other person faking it? To sell their prescription drugs for a profit on a black market? To gain sympathy? To get some kind of disability benefits?

I just need for my psychiatrist to fucking listen to me for five seconds and to actually fucking help me for once in her goddamn life when all the other doctors or professionals in their white coats and clean blouses and blazers won’t. I need help because they all fucking refuse to help me and my psychiatrist is supposed to help me. They took a vow to “do no harm”, but that vow is useless when their own inaction or bias is the cause of the harm. It’s pointless and futile! Why take a vow when you don’t even listen to the people you swore to help?

Medical inaction is ableism. Medical inaction is malpractice. Medical inaction is to be complicit in the deaths of so many mentally ill people.

Doctors say “do no harm” but they leave the mentally ill to suffer and die because “what if they’re faking it?” That’s a poor excuse to deny people adequate (read: potentially life saving) treatment and healthcare.

Shame on the pharmaceutical industry, shame on doctors, shame on malingerers, and shame on everyone complicit in the ableism, incompetence, inaction, corruption, and denial that kill.

Shame on you.

[owlbloop]

I was made broken

And I will not deny that

-

I was made with a torn manual

With pieces from incompatible sets

And thread where iron bars belonged

Singing my invisible alphabet

-

And everyone knew

When I spoke too much

Too little, too loud, too blunt

When I spoke my language of feathers

-

Owls are famously silent

They have pummels

Special feathers that break up sound

They are famously slow

-

The bird of wisdom is a foolish symbol

Because it might see everything

Might hear everything

But it cannot say anything besides questions

-

It can only ask over and over

Scream, shriek, trill, sing

It can only fly unrelenting

While other birds fly ahead

-

An owl cannot hug you

Cannot understand you

It only has down to thread nests

And talons to tear/hold

-

And I am not even an owl

Because I am wingless

Because I am trapped play a game

That has no end or winning

-

I do not even have the endurance

To fly alongside it

All I can do is listen

And keep my eyes widened

-

I can do complex mathematics

At half the pace a flawless student could

I can offer frosting in the place of touch

I can ask over and over

-

Why the world will begrudge me breathing

Why every shadow moves and scuttles

Why the quiet night holds me where day will not

Why I have to fight to live

-

And I can

I will write

Over and over

Of waves, and feathers, and stars, and wishes

-

In silent bleeding words

And shattered sentences

That mean nothing

But what others say they will

-

Till I have written so many pages

That I have written wings