An Accessible Life

Amythest Schaber / @neurowonderful  / informational videos about autism (ask an autistic)

invisible I / chronic illness and autism informational videos + vlogs (including sensory DIYS and hauls) 

princessaspien / autism videos and music vlogs

minty frills / fashion and autism videos 

megan Rhiannon / @baby-gloom /  vlogs, autism, journalling and university 

Ashton Daniel / ND experiences, stim toys, vlogs + trans resources

how to ADHD / adhd resources and informational videos + stim toys

Barry Aldridge  / doctor who / special interests

IndieAndie / music, autism and vlogs 

bonus video with cool auties 

Hannah Riedel

Kayce’s Weird (warning: content may be triggering)

Nathan Selove

Morgan C

ZombieGhostGirl

Kamikaze Kitten

AspieComic

Just a Skinny Boy

Kye Talks

Baby Robot

Aspergers from the Inside

I made this for my own use, because I needed to track my energy levels, but other people might find it helpful.

It might need some changes to be useful to more people, so if anyone can think of improvements I could make, let me know!

Also, I’m having trouble typing an image description on my phone so if someone could help out with that I’d be grateful.

@spoonhacks

no one fucking tells you this so here it is:

when signing out forms to apply for disability / filling out a form for diagnosis

you’re supposed to fill it out as you on your worst days

like, I filled out forms that said I could do most things usually

like, my doctor added in the conditions like “yeah, they can feed themselves when not stressed” “they can do this when not stressed”

but how I should have filled it out was more like

“some days I can’t feed myself” “some days I can’t leave the house”

My doctor didn’t even know this, but I talked to someone who had worked with people with both developmental and intellectual disabilities for a number of years, and she told me to write down how it is for your bad days

this should be a thing they tell you, but it isn’t

Echolalia, monotone voices, stuttered speech, slurred speech, labored breathing between words and sentences, mechanical AAC voices,  AAC or sign users who consider those to be their voices, selectively mute voices, disorganized speech, speech with vocal tics, speech considered to be of “inappropriate volume”, speech with vocal stims, all disabled voices and the ways they present

So the Spoon Theory is a fundamental metaphor used often in the chronic pain/chronic illness communities to explain to non-spoonies why life is harder for them. It’s super useful and we use that all the time. But it has a corollary.  You know the phrase, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” right? Well, Fork Theory is that one has a Fork Limit, that is, you can probably cope okay with one fork stuck in you, maybe two or three, but at some point you will lose your shit if one more fork happens.  A fork could range from being hungry or having to pee to getting a new bill or a new diagnosis of illness. There are lots of different sizes of forks, and volume vs. quantity means that the fork limit is not absolute. I might be able to deal with 20 tiny little escargot fork annoyances, such as a hangnail or slightly suboptimal pants, but not even one “you poked my trigger on purpose because you think it’s fun to see me melt down” pitchfork.

my friend: so what’d you name your cane?

this is my dashboard on desktop (they have a really convenient, easy to use app, too!)

What habitica does is it turns your daily tasks, your habits that you want to form, and your to do list into an rpg game. You level up, gain experience, and play the game just by marking things as done on your to do list. You can put literally anything in there, too. whenever i have a big project i’ve gotta do, I put every step, down to the letter, in habitica (which is a fucking superb way to xp farm while still staying organized).

The game is super fun because if you’re like me, and you work best with a rewards-based system, you’re literally in heaven. Everything you do gets you points, and bonus stuff, and helps you unlock parts of the game.

Escalators and electric toothbrushes are perfect examples of things that many able-bodied people assume exist for their own convenience, and this post is a perfect example of that unconscious assumption.

An escalator that has broken down is still perfectly functional, right? 

Well, sure–if you could have used the stairs to begin with. 

But for people like me, for whom the escalator was not a convenience but a mobility device, a broken down escalator is not functional. 

An electric toothbrush might seem like something that could be just as easily used turned off as turned on, but for someone with Parkinson’s, or any other number of nerve, coordination, or grip issues, the function of the electric toothbrush is a necessary feature, and without it, the task at hand becomes far more arduous (or even impossible). 

I’m not angry or trying to point out why this post is “bad” or “wrong”–I’m simply trying to point out that people who assume every time or energy-saving invention was created as a means to help able-bodied people be lazier should consider re-examining those assumptions. It might help you become more compassionate toward your disabled friends and family, or at least more aware of the struggles we face daily.