Defending your disabled boundaries.

[jesse_the_k]

CaptainAwkward.com is still reliably useful. The most recent advice responds to someone who's been treated for ADHD as an adult, and is getting skeptical, disbelieving responses from someone she thought was a good friend.:

begin quote When disclosing to someone who is generally a positive force in my life, I personally have found it helpful to translate initial “But I wouldn’t have guessed that you have _________” or “You don’t seem like someone with _________” or “You are much too young/smart/pretty/good at things to be _____________” reactions as:

“I am trying to hard to reconcile my mostly positive impression of you with the highly negative, stigmatized (perhaps scary) perception I have of people with __________. Since I am trying to resolve this cognitive dissonance in your favor, I’m going with wishful thinking and denial.”

Yep, many people react as if denying the possibility that your brain could work differently from other people’s is a compliment to you. Because that’s how scary/negative/skewed/narrow/ableist their imagination is about people who have (whatever you have).

Then you get the people who are immediate experts on your condition because of a thing they read one time, the people who want to immediately fix everything, the people who wring their hands and want you to comfort them about the issue that you are having, the diet and healthy lifestyle police who want to figure out how getting this was all your fault for not doing everything “correctly,” the blowhard who wants everyone to be so tough they don’t need medication…a rogues’ gallery of helpiness.

Once I can parse/translate their reaction as being about them and not really being about me at all, it doesn’t feel better, but it reminds me that I’m not the one making it weird by seeking health care for a health thing. quote ends

CA goes on to provide twenty-four ways to handle intrusive, boundary-pushing, stigma-painting inquiries. They'd work equally well for friends and family, and make very educational and gratifying reading.

Comments

[davidgillon]

“I’m glad your cousin’s wife’s pet monkey was able to beat _______ with diet, exercise, and ritual poo-flinging, but my doctor and I have it under control for now, thanks.”

That's utterly awesome!

[jesse_the_k]

Ain't it?

Captain Awkward (and the Awkward Army) are a valuable resource. I've think of them as "how to deal when life flings poo at you," whether it's dysfunctional families, mean bosses or co-workers, impairment, racism, lousy landlords et cetera.

(It's particularly amusing to me that Capt Awkward herself is a screenwriter, which of course, since the movies are all about human drama.)

[davidgillon]

And it's only just occurred to me I'm probably going to run into more of this now I have the chair. {sigh}

[capri0mni]

now I have the chair. {sigh}

In that case, let me counter the "Oh, no -- Poor You!"s with a preemptive:

"Woo-Hoo! New wheels, man! Awesome!"

...Seriously: congratulations. I hope it makes the rest of your life so much easier, and you can have more fun doing what you do.

[davidgillon]

Thanks! (Though I could have hoped for something better than the clunky monster I've got for the moment).

Fortunately most of my friends have sensible attitudes to chairs, it's the ones who don't see me very often who are going to be interesting, that and the inevitable strangers.

And yes, it's already making things easier.

[jesse_the_k]

Warning! Alert! Inevitable stranger off the port bow!

Yeah, you have now leveled up into a differently stigmatized category. There's something about crutch users where the normates mostly read them as temporary (and they're finally issuing crutches as nice as yours in my town for short-term applications).

You'll quickly learn that most normates only know four wheelchair jokes, so you'll have plenty of time to come up with snappy replies.

When accessible transportation fails me I can get by for a short time with a walker and standard seating. Oh! The double-takes I get then. "Wow, you're so much better! Congrats on the hard work!" and my response is, "No actually I prefer to use my chair, this is evidence of transportation system failure."

[capri0mni]

The normates in your town know four wheelchair jokes? They sound so much more sophisticated than the ones around here. The only joke I've heard is the "Got a license?" one.

[jesse_the_k]

That plus
2. I am going to give you a speeding ticket
3. Those are nice wheels, I wish I could go that fast
4. (Not really a joke, but they think it is) How far can you go on a charge?

4 is okay, because I'm a machine geek, and I'm happy to discuss battery optimization

[capri0mni]

And you get the added entertainment of watching their eyes glaze over when you actually answer them ;-)

As for the others, I have an answer in my head, that I've never actually used, because I'm always hit with the "joke" as I'm in the middle of doing something else, and it requires engaging these yahoos. But, in my daydreams, the normates ask this just as we're getting on the elevator, and there'd be no escape for them (bwa-ha)!

But in my daydreams, I turn to them, and it would go something like this:

Me: You know that saying: 'It's funny,'cause it's true?'
TAB: Yeah...
Me: So do you really think that's true?
TAB: ...Wut?
Me: You think I need legal documents to leave my house?
TAB: ...Um...
Me: You think I'm a threat?
TAB: Oh! It's my floor *Scurries off*

[capri0mni]

Well, when you get a chair that fits, that will be an occasion to par-tay!

And yes, it's already making things easier.

*nods slowly* You know, it turns out these machines were invented for a reason.

Who'd a'thunk it? ;-)

[capri0mni]

The problem with being a wheelchair user is that when people see you, you're generally sitting down.

The problem with generally sitting down is that punchlines on tee-shirts get lost under the seat belt.

'Cause Captain Awkward's closing line: ... and that your friends stop acting like buttheads soon

Inspired the following tee-shirt idea:

"I'd call you a 'butthead.' But I can trust my butt to support me when I need it."

[jesse_the_k]

Brilliant! Now we need a way to impress this message across the shoulders, with the punchline just above the nipples.

[capri0mni]

Hee! glad you like it

Indeed. It would be relatively easy to do it by hand, but every print-on-demand tee-shirt place I've seen (zazzle, cafepress, threadless) only starts printing the design an inch or two above the nipples...

Although, I now remember that zazzle also does trucker hats. And mugs...

(and I could also edit it down to be even punchier)

[shehasathree]

I thought that part of the post was particularly awesome, too. Also particularly relevant for me in my relationship with my mother, who has not met a diagnosis I have that she didn't doubt/question/proclaim that I can't have, etc. Which is why I (mostly) stopped telling her several diagnoses and years back, but I did feel the need to share my ASD and EDS diagnoses, and they went about as well as expected. (Maybe a bit better than expected, but there were still multiple demands to "explain why you think you have this").

[jesse_the_k]

Ugh. I so wanted my family to believe that I was an adult, and had it sorted. Sympathy to you.

[staranise]

I have a friend who has ASD and grew up an enormous Tolkien nerd, who realizes in hindsight that she never realized guys were ever trying to "challenge her nerd cred" because from her perspective they asked her about Tolkien, she saw the opportunity to dump all her Tolkien knowledge on them, and they walked away looking dazed and she thought they had nerded successfully! I feel like I've done the ADHD version of this with LW2: Anyone who made the least bit of an enquiring noise about my diagnosis got told, cheerfully and at length, about misdiagnosis and gender and inattentive factors and yeah, it's all a paradigm change, cool right? and it didn't occur to me that they were doubting me. :P

[shehasathree]

This tends to happen to anyone who tells me I don't look autistic, etc. except my mother; she gets the nope rocket instead because I am DONE justifying myself to her. (I keep wondering if I might be ADHD as well as autistic but I don't think I satisfy the "from childhood" requirement, but then maybe I do, because holy hyperfocus and daydreaming, Batman! And also I never made a pass through the living room between he ages of about 6-12 without leaping or cartwheeling or vaulting over an armchair). I wonder if Modafanil has any effect on ADHD type concentration/executive function issues? I might get to try that soon. Not sure I could get anyone to prescribe me stimulants even if I do fulfill the criteria for narcolepsy (other allowed use in Australia). Which is a real pain in the bum bc there's lots of anecdotal evidence from the top EDS physicians that eg Ritalin works well for eds type fatigue as well.

[jesse_the_k]

"Nope rocket" is my new favorite term. Now I have to find a bunch of thoughtless folks to hang up it with so i can wittily tell them off. No, wait ...

[jesse_the_k]

How can someone doubt you when you' re so cheerfully covered them with shiny data?

[shehasathree]

*g*