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Internalized Ableism

Today my roommate said we needed to clean the house more and I broke down.

She was right, we do. It’s got a nice coating of dust and grime, some recyclables piling up as high as the dishes, and I missed that the downstairs toilet had begun to spawn mould. The issue is I should have been on top of it. That’s what it felt like. I mean I was home all the time, I was upstairs in my (also very messy) room doing nothing but schoolwork or writing or playing Animal Crossing for countless hours. Why couldn’t I just clean up when I saw a mess?

Cue an hour of depression and suicidal thoughts (nothing to warrant calling an ambulance, no worries), followed by a sudden spike in energy and a two hour cleaning binge. My roommates kept telling me I didn’t need to clean up, they weren’t mad at me and we were doing the big clean on Tuesday. Issue was I couldn’t. I couldn’t sit down for longer than 5 minutes without being twitchy and agitated until every bit of energy was out of my systems.

I collapsed at the two hour marker in my (still very messy) room and texted my friends back. Barry I had spoken to before and comforted me, told me I was doing my best. I told my other friend what was going on. I told them that I had I called an ADHD specialist and got an appointment for the 23rd. I told them I wasn’t doing okay and I had realized, in the midst of my whirlwind cleaning binge that I had a lot more issues than I cared to admit. They confirmed it for me, that it wasn’t in my head or anything like that.

And I’ve had these moments before. It’s not the first time I’ve been overwhelmed, and realized just how much is impacting me. It’s been a month since my last 3 diagnoses came in: ADHD-C, Nonverbal Learning Disability, Persistent Depressive Disorder with Major Depressive episodes. In January it’ll be seven years since I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. In February it’ll be a year since my Sensory Processing Disorder self diagnosis is confirmed. It’s not even scratching the surface of the chronic physical illnesses I deal with either: PCOS, Insulin Resistance, Sciatica are all impacting me day to day, whether severely or not.

I am a severely disabled adult woman.

I can deny it and keep bringing up how functional I am, list all my accomplishments academically, but that’s due to a lot of internalized ableism. It’s the thoughts of “I’m fine, I’m overreacting, I can fix this, I’m better than this” and so on and so forth that are ableist. My parents love me unconditionally and I love them but there are things they instilled in me. If I couldn’t do something simple (tie shoes, dig a hole, wash dishes), they weren’t very understanding. I internalized phrases such as “this is fine, this is simple, it’s literally not hard” and now I have breakdowns over forgetting laundry, over missed assignments, over impulsive spending or buying take out again. Those are simple tasks, right? Literally not that hard - but for me yeah it is.

Just because I’m able to hold a conversation, own a pet, put on make up, attend university and find work doesn’t mean I’m not severely affected every day. It doesn’t mean my disabilities “aren’t that bad”. They are and days like today are going to be in the rest of my life. I’m lucky to live in a country that provides me the ability to seek treatment, financial support and accommodations. It’s carried me through the last four years of learning how to be an adult, but I am far from capable of leading a functional life without constantly needing those three things.

Appearances do not equal functionality levels. That’s the message here. Internalized ableism is a real thing, I need to keep working on it and keep trying to find ways around all of mine in order to successfully live on my own.

#ableism #internalized ableism #long post #personal text #feel free to rb #actuallyautistic #actuallyadhd #actuallynvld #actuallyanxious #actuallydepressed #sensory processing disorder #tw ableist language #ableist language #self reflection

What an NVLD mood, am I right?

#nvld #actuallynvld #actuallynld #n v l deal with it #nld #learning disabilities #nvld meme #nvld memes #nvld-memes

Guess who’s going to the CNE (very loud/crowded/colourful) with my brother and his girlfriend who have no understanding of/don’t believe my autism!

Basically I’m screwed

#actuallyautistic #autism spectrum disorder #autistic #autism #neurodivergent #actuallynvld #nvld #aspbergers

More NVLD things.

So I got inspired to write this by reading other posts. To explain a little, I was diagnosed with NVLD when I was in the third grade. But because of the year (I don't remember which) there was less information about it then. So I'm still learning about it myself.

Anyway moving on to why I'm writing this. When I was still in school (Middle and High school but I slowly stopped doing this in high school) I absolutely LOVED to read. I'd read anything I found interesting. No genre left out lol. The problem was I would read in class, even when it wasn't okay to do so. Like in class while the teacher would be talking and things like that. I once had a teacher's assistant take my book away until the end of class.

It's kinda interesting that I was so attached to reading books. Especially because the only thing I read now is fanfictions. I still like books but I just can't focus on an actual book anymore (this could be because of the NVLD but I'm not sure.)

Feel free to repost and tell me what your opinions are and/or if you'd like to add your own experiences with NVLD. I'm at the point where I want to know as much about this disorder as I can, making friends and talking to all of you that also have NVLD will really help me out.

#nvld #actuallynvld #non verbal learning disorder #learning disabilities #learning disorders