My multiple disabilities, some that have been identified and others that are symptoms and syndromes that refuse to give me their name arguing about my needs be like:
Energy-limiting chronic illness: Bruh, we gotta put down that project and lie down.
Autism: That is both my main way of dealing with a hyperfixation related to The Special Interest™ and the only thing I still have from my seven routines that imploded when our laptop broke.
Mental illnesses: It's also one of the solidest ways to keep our emotions regulated.
ELCI: If you don't stop reading that book you got through interlibrary loan and lie the fuck down for the next few hours, we're gonna crash worse. No Special Interest™, no routine, and worst of all we're moving away in May! Lie the fuck down!
Migraine episodes: Maybe I shouldn't have spent so much of Sunday and Monday screaming at you.
Endometriosis: So long as the heating pad and painkillers can be summoned at a moment's notice, I won't try to murder all our internal organs and become the alpha!
ELCI: I'm the alpha and you know it. Lie down.
Insomnia: Hey, stop looking at me! I chilled out last night, we're actually rested!
Malaise (ELCI symptom): I'm still here, baby! That dead laptop has really drained us! Too tired to work on projects, play, or learn, but not tired enough to sleep.
ADHD: (Banshee screech) If I don't get mental stimulation for hours at a time, I will chew off Autism's favorite arm and eat it, shit it out, then eat the shit!
Brain fog (ELCI symptom): Anything you listen to might just slip away on the sea of seeing if maybe we can see, and see, and see…
Autism: Put on something interesting but nonessential.
ADHD: An audiobook?
Hearing Loss: If you don't already know the book it's gonna be fucking exhausting trying to follow it.
ADHD: Drat. The TBR never ends. Some YouTube?
Hearing Loss: Fine. But if the presenter has a high voice, shitty audio quality, or a lot of visuals you'll be too blindfolded to see, 🎶you're gonna have a worse time!🎶 Same for music.
Autism: I like music. Maybe a playlist of songs we already like, we have a few.
Digestive problems: You need to eat.
Everything else: We know.
ELCI: Don't cook anything or we'll crash harder!
Digestive problems: Everything is worse when we don't eat.
ELCI: Except me day-of. Eating and digesting can be… (shudders).
Autism: I say we lie down with YouTube, blot out the world, eat something, then lie down again. Hopefully we can do more of that project tomorrow.
ELCI: (laughs) You flatter yourselves. Fuck no. Chill out tomorrow even more. Don't cook, don't clean, don't even think about the projects we'd rather be doing than lying down with a blindfold. All in favor?
(The other disabilities grumble amongst themselves)
All: Aye.
ELCI: Good. Anything else?
Digestive problems: I have diarrhea. And I'm constipated. At least I think that's what's happening. And if we don't leap up and race to the commode in 2.3 seconds we will poop our pants. And we already know what it's like to poop our pants as an adult, remember?
(Everything else shudders)
ELCI: Fine, but make it quick then we're lying the fuck down.
Me, as soon as I lie down and think about how I can't work and my needs and wants have been pricy lately: Am I a burden?
(All disabilities groan and mutter amongst themselves)
