Real Social Skills – Page 5 – Real Social Skills

If reading the news is dragging you down into despair

March 17, 2017June 9, 2021 Real Social Skills

There is a lot of awful news right now. In times like these, it’s important to have strategies for avoiding despair.

One strategy I’ve seen discussed a lot is limiting your exposure to the news. For instance, some people have decided not to read the news at night. This can be a really good strategy for some people — but it doesn’t work well for everyone.

If you keep telling yourself “I should really read the news less”, then reading the news constantly anyway, it may be that you need a different strategy.

For some people, the way to avoid despair involves reading the news *more*, not less. When the headlines are horrifying, it can make it seems like the world is made of horrors. It can take a lot more digging to find out that it is possible to fight the horrors. It can take a lot more digging to learn that some things are good, and that progress is still possible.

For instance, if you’re reading a terrifying news article about vote suppression in the South, find out which organizations are fighting for voting rights. Learn the stories of people who have fought for their right to vote and won. Learn specifics about the battles being fought now, and the people who are fighting them. Knowing this kind of context can help, a lot.

More generally: When you find that despair-inducing news is dragging you down, seek out context that goes beyond the horrors. The horrors are real, and so is everything else.

If all the stories you read are about horrifying policies, opposition can seem imaginary. Make sure you read enough about the opposition to understand that it’s real.

Similarly, wins are as real as losses. If all the stories you read are about losing, winning will seem imaginary. Make sure you also read enough about wins to understand that winning is a real thing.

(It also helps to take partial victories or near-victories seriously.)

Short version: When you’re reading a lot of news and feeling a lot of despair, sometimes the solution is to read the news less — and sometimes the solution is to read *more* of the news. When you only read stories about evil, good can seem imaginary. If you also seek out stories about people who fight evil, and about wins as well as losses, it can make it much more clear that goodness exists. For some people, that is the best strategy for avoiding despair in times when a lot of the news is horrifying.

Lacking social skills vs using social skills to hurt people

February 27, 2017June 9, 2021 Real Social Skills

When someone is a jerk, they’re often pejoratively referred to as “lacking social skills”.

But being a jerk and having bad social skills are different problems. Learning stronger social skills won’t necessarily make someone a better person.

Jerks often have exceptionally strong social skills. Jerks use their social skills to hurt people effectively (and to get away with it.) Sometimes this involves performing stereotypes of social awkwardness — and being very careful to pick targets they can get away with hurting. If someone is hurting people on purpose because they want to, teaching them social skills won’t usually help. They have to change their values and decide to stop hurting people.

People who are jerks and want to stop being jerks may also need to learn new skills for interacting with people. But if someone is intentionally mean, lacking skills isn’t the primary problem.

At the same time, sometimes when people are hurting others, the problem *is* weak social skills. Some social mistakes can be really harmful. (Eg: Standing too close, not understanding privacy, not understanding the difference between different types of physical contact, not understanding which kinds of questions are considered sexual, saying slurs without realizing they’re slurs, etc.) When people are hurting others by accident, learning social skills can be really helpful.

Being a jerk is a different problem than having weak social skills, and it’s important to take the difference seriously. When someone is making social mistakes out of ignorance, the solution is often education and support. When someone is a jerk and wants to learn to be better, the solution often involves education and support. (A caveat here — the people who they’re hurting should *not* be expected to be the ones providing this support.)

When someone is hurting others on purpose because they want to, often the only solution is to deprive them of opportunities to hurt others. (Eg: by banning them from events or suspending their professional license or voting them out of office.). Teaching an intentionally cruel person social skills will not help, and can actually make the problem worse.

Short version: It’s obnoxious to use “bad social skills” as a way to insult jerks. Being a jerk is a different problem from having weak social skills. People with good intentions and weak social skills need nonjudgemental help. (From the community or a service provider; generally not from the people they’re inadvertently hurting.) When someone is intentionally mean, teaching them social skills isn’t likely to help — and being nonjudgemental is likely to make matters worse.

On trauma aftermaths that don’t advance the plot

February 26, 2017June 9, 2021 Real Social Skills

The way TV shows trauma can lead people to expect every reference to trauma to be a plot point. This can be isolating to people coping with the aftermaths of trauma. Sometimes people treat us as stories rather than as people. Sometimes, instead of listening to us, they put a lot of pressure on us to advance the plot they’re expecting.

On TV, triggers tend to be full audiovisual flashbacks that add something to the story. You see a vivid window into the character’s past, and something changes. On TV, trauma aftermaths are usually fascinating. Real life trauma aftermaths are sometimes interesting, but also tend to be very boring to live with.

On TV, triggers tend to create insight. In real life, they’re often boring intrusions interfering with the things you’d rather be thinking about. Sometimes knowing darn well where they come from doesn’t make them go away. Sometimes it’s more like: Seriously? This again?

On TV, when trauma is mentioned, it’s usually a dramatic plot point that happens in a moment. In real life, trauma aftermaths are a mundane day-to-day reality that people live with. They’re a fact of life — and not necessarily the most important one at all times. People who have experienced trauma do other things too. They’re important, but not the one and only defining characteristic of who someone is. And things that happened stay important even when you’re ok. Recovery is not a reset. Mentioning the past doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in crisis.

On TV, when a character mentions trauma, or gets triggered in front of someone, it’s usually a dramatic moment. It changes their life, or their relationship with another character, or explains their backstory, or something. In real life, being triggered isn’t always a story, and telling isn’t always a turning point. Sometimes it’s just mentioning something that happened to be relevant. Sometimes it’s just a mundane instance of something that happens from time to time.

Most people can’t have a dramatic transformative experience every time it turns out that their trauma matters. Transformative experiences and moments of revelation exist, but they’re not the end all and be all of trauma aftermaths. Life goes on, and other things matter too. And understanding what a reaction means and where it came from doesn’t always make it go away. Sometimes, it takes longer and has more to do with skill-building than introspection. Sometimes it doesn’t go away.

On a day to day level, it’s often better to be matter-of-fact about aftermaths. It can be exhausting when people see you as a story and expect you to advance the plot whenever they notice some effect of trauma. Pressure to perform narratives about healing doesn’t often help people to make their lives better. Effect support involves respecting someone as a complex human, including the boring parts.

The aftermath of trauma is a day-to-day reality. It affects a lot of things, large and small. It can be things like being too tired to focus well in class because nightmares kept waking you up every night this week. TV wants that to be a dramatic moment where the character faces their past and gets better. In real life, it’s often a day where you just do your best to try and learn algebra anyway. Because survivors do things besides be traumatized and think about trauma. Sometimes it’s not a story. Sometimes it’s just getting through another day as well as possible.

A lot of triggers are things like being unable to concentrate on anything interesting because some kinds of background noises make you feel too unsafe to pay attention to anything else. For the zillionth time. Even though you know rationally that they’re not dangerous. Even though you know where they come from, and have processed it over and over. Even if you’ve made a lot of progress in dealing with them, even if they’re no longer bothersome all the time. For most people, recovery involves a lot more than insight. The backstory might be interesting, but being tired and unable to concentrate is boring.

Triggers can also mean having to leave an event and walk home by yourself while other people are having fun, because it turns out that it hurts too much to be around pies and cakes. Or having trouble finding anything interesting to read that isn’t intolerably triggering. Or having trouble interacting with new people because you’re too scared or there are too many minefields. Or being so hypervigilant that it’s hard to focus on anything. No matter how interesting the backstory is, feeling disconnected and missing out on things you wanted to enjoy is usually boring.

When others want to see your trauma as a story, their expectations sometimes expand to fill all available space. Sometimes they seem to want everything to be therapy, or want everything to be about trauma and recovery.

When others want every reference to trauma to be the opening to a transformative experience, it can be really hard to talk about accommodations. For instance, it gets hard to say things like:

“I’m really tired because of nightmares” or
“I would love to go to that event, but I might need to leave because of the ways in which that kind of thing can be triggering” or
“I’m glad I came, but I can’t handle this right now” or
“I’m freaking out now, but I’ll be ok in a few minutes” or
“I need to step out — can you text me when they stop playing this movie?”

It can also be hard to mention relevant experiences. There are a lot of reasons to mention experiences other than wanting to process, eg:

“Actually, I have experience dealing with that agency”
“That’s not what happens when people go to the police, in my experience, what happens when you need to make a police report is…”
“Please keep in mind that this isn’t hypothetical for me, and may not be for others in the room as well.”

Or any number of other things.

When people are expecting a certain kind of story, they sometimes look past the actual person. And when everyone is looking past you in search of a story, it can be very hard to make connections.

It helps to realize that no matter what others think, your story belongs to you. You don’t have to play out other people’s narrative expectations. It’s ok if your story isn’t what others want it to be. It’s ok not to be interesting. It’s ok to have trauma reactions that don’t advance the plot. And there are people who understand that, and even more people who can learn to understand that.

It’s possible to live a good life in the aftermath of trauma. It’s possible to relearn how to be interested in things. It’s possible to build space you can function in, and to build up your ability to function in more spaces. It’s often possible to get over triggers. All of this can take a lot of time and work, and can be a slow process. It doesn’t always make for a good story, and it doesn’t always play out the way others would like it to. And, it’s your own personal private business. Other people’s concern or curiosity does not obligate you to share details.

Survivors and victims have the right to be boring. We have the right to deal with trauma aftermaths in a matter-of-fact way, without indulging other people’s desires for plot twists. We have the right to own our own stories, and to keep things private. We have the right to have things in our lives that are not therapy; we have the right to needed accommodations without detailing what happened and what recovery looks like. Neither traumatic experiences nor trauma aftermaths erase our humanity.

We are not stories, and we have no obligation to advance an expected plot. We are people, and we have the right to be treated as people. Our lives, and our stories, are our own.

“Have fun” should not be a rule

February 17, 2017June 9, 2021 Real Social Skills

A lot of summer camps, youth groups, and other activities have a “have fun” rule.

The implied message is usually: This is a fun place. If you’re not having fun, you’re doing something wrong. Fix your attitude and have fun doing the fun activities.

Sometimes “have fun” rules are explicit. Sometimes they’re more implicit, and come in forms like: making people sing a song every day about how much they love camp, announcements about “we’re all having so much fun!”, or whatever else.

The problem with this is: nothing is fun for everyone. People have the right to feel how they feel about things. It’s really degrading to tell an unhappy person that they should just feel some other way.

“Have fun” rules are especially problematic for many disabled people.

Because — most programs are not fully accessible, even when they think they are. Most of us expect to encounter activities that are inaccessible in ways that make participation impossible — or that make them no fun.

And often, initially fun activities are ruined when someone treats you in a degrading way or says something awful about disability.

Being left out when everyone else is having fun is bad enough. When there’s a “have fun” rule, it’s even worse. Not only are you hurt by the exclusion, you’re told that you’re violating the rules by being hurt and unhappy.

“Have fun” rules make it really hard to solve these problems, because they make it risky to admit that you’re not having a good time.

“Have fun” rules make problems harder to solve, even when the problem has a straightforward solution. All the more so when the problem is complicated. (Or only has a partial solution.)

“Have fun” rules actually make things a lot less fun.

Recognizing uniqueness is not a substitute for thinking about disability

January 27, 2017June 9, 2021 Real Social Skills

Teachers who are really good at teaching typically developing kids sometimes have trouble understanding the significance of disability. I’ve heard a lot of things like “all kids are unique” and “I always individualize my approach for every kid” and “I don’t see the need to label any kids as disabled, it’s just a matter of finding what works for them”.

This sounds positive, but it can be a disaster for kids with disabilities.

We talk a lot about uniqueness, but a lot of effective teaching depends on understanding ways in which kids are similar to each other. Developmentally appropriate practice means understanding how kids the same age are similar to each other — then being flexible in ways that recognize kids’ unique humanity. We develop a sense of what the range of difference is for kids of a particular age.

Kids with disabilities are more different than that, and we need to take those differences seriously. Disability matters, and practices based on typical developmental milestones don’t account for it.

For instance:

Developmental milestones tell us:

Two year olds don’t have the motor skills to support handwriting.
Early education helps two year olds develop the motor skills that will eventually support handwriting.
Ten year olds do have the motor skills to support handwriting.
If they’ve had appropriate education, ten year olds should be able to write.

Developmental milestones don’t tell us:

How to teach ten year olds who don’t have the fine motor skills to support handwriting.
What early literacy and pre-writing instruction looks like for young children who are unlikely to develop the motor skills needed to support handwriting

It’s also important to understand the difference between unusual and unique. Disability means having unusual differences. But not every difference is unique. Some differences are shared by other people with disabilities. Those shared differences are important.

We need to understand the disability-related similarities. Part of that is having the right words to describe them. Calling disabilities by their right names isn’t about labeling, it’s about breaking isolation and making important things speakable.

For instance:

Braille:

Braille exists because blind people need it to exist
The differences between sighted people and blind people are a reason that braille needs to exist.
(And a reason that Braille is better than raised print).
The similarities between many blind people are a reason that braille *can* exist as a standard way of accessing literacy.
If each blind person was completely unique, there would be no way to create a reading and writing system that would work for large numbers of blind people.

Some other examples:

Wheelchairs.
Ramps.
Large print.
Cars with hand controls and/or wheelchair lifts.
Text-to-speech communication devices.
VoiceOver and other screen reading software.
Signed languages.
Medications that manage symptoms.
Supportive seating.
The ADA, Section 504, IDEA and other disability rights laws.

People with disabilities are unique, and not interchangeable with each other. Similarly, kids the same age are unique, and not interchangeable with each other. Both the similarities and differences are important.

Short version: Sometimes progressive educators are uncomfortable with the concept of disability, and want to instead just see every kid’s uniqueness. That doesn’t work, because disability means having unusual differences — and because the differences aren’t unique; they’re shared with many other disabled people. Recognizing uniqueness isn’t enough — we also need to understand and accommodate disability.

Picking humanities paper topics

January 17, 2017September 12, 2024 Real Social Skills

Picking a good topic for college papers in humanities classes can be challenging. It’s particularly hard if the subject of the class is new to you, and/or if you’re not used to choosing your own topics.

Good topics usually have all of these attributes:

You find the topic interesting.
The topic is relevant to the class.
Enough material is available that you’ll be able to find sources.
The topic is small/specific enough that you’ll be able to write about it in the amount of time you have.
The teacher knows enough about the topic to be able to help you if you get stuck.

One way to find topics that probably fit into all of those categories is to use the class syllabus:

Look through the syllabus of the class.
Find the reading that is most interesting to you.
When you do that reading, notice what you’re curious or confused about.
Is there something that doesn’t make sense?
Is there something that makes a surprising amount of sense?
Or something that you’d like to know more about?
Or something that raises a question?
Once you’ve found something you want to know about, write down your question.
Then look at the footnotes in the reading.
Go look up the sources the reading cites.
It can also help to check out the book that the reading came from, or to look up other things by the author.

This usually works well because:

If the reading has a citation related to your question, that means there’s material on it.
If your topic is related to the reading, your teacher will probably be at least somewhat familiar with it.
If you’re raising a question about the reading, it’s more likely that you’ll be able to finish the paper in the amount of time you have.
If the topic is coming out of a question you had while reading, you’re more likely to find it interesting while you write.
Writing about something closely related to the reading can also help you to review material and prepare for the final exam.

Short version: Picking a paper topic in humanities classes can be hard. Using the readings and the syllabus to find topics can make it easier. Scroll up for some specifics about how to do that.

Thinking about whether a request is likely to be welcome

January 4, 2017June 9, 2021 Real Social Skills

There are things it’s considered rude to ask for. Sometimes it’s also considered rude to say no to some rude requests. Sometimes it’s considered rude to even show annoyance or reluctance.

This means that you can’t always tell from someone’s reactions what they are and aren’t ok with. So it’s important to think about it, and make a good guess about how someone is likely to feel before you ask them.

Sometimes you will make mistakes about this. That’s ok. Everyone makes these mistakes sometimes.

There are no hard and fast rules about what it’s polite to ask for and what it’s polite to say no to. It depends a lot on your particular subculture, and your particular relationship with the person you’re asking.

Some things to consider:

Think about how intrusive the favor is likely to be. Are you asking someone for their time? For something that will reduce their privacy? For something that could be risky, painful, or embarrassing to them? For resources? How are they likely to feel about that?

How hard or easy is it for them to say no? (That tends to depend on the power dynamics involved, and/or how close you are with someone.)

Have they indicated willingness to do that kind of favor? (Eg: if you’re looking for people to stay with, it’s rude to ask random strangers on the street. It’s not rude to make requests on couch surfing sites or to ask a conference that has offered to arrange home hospitality for help finding a host.)

Reciprocity is important. It’s often rude to ask a friend to do something for you that you wouldn’t do for them. (Eg: if you wouldn’t let a friend stay with you, it may be rude to ask to stay with them.)

Reciprocity doesn’t have to be doing the exact same thing. But it does usually mean being willing to help your friends in comparably significant ways. (Eg: if you’re never willing to do significantly inconvenient things for a friend, it’s probably rude to ask to stay with them.)

It’s important to acknowledge favors. Saying thank you to someone who does you a favor makes it much more likely that they’ll feel good about it rather than resentful. Even if you’re sure that they know how you feel, saying thank you is usually important.

This isn’t an exhaustive list. There are a lot of potential factors in whether or not requests for favors are likely to be welcome. No one knows all of them. You don’t need to know all of them. The important thing is to think about it seriously and make your best guesses.

Taking pills when it’s difficult to do so

December 22, 2016June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

arrowhearts said to realsocialskills:
I was wondering if you knew of any tips or resources for taking (pill-based) medications daily when for a variety of reasons (anxiety, forgetfulness, bad taste, fear, etc) it is difficult to do so? Also thank you so much for the time and thought you have put into this blog! It has been very useful and informative to me!

realsocialskills said:

There are some potentially useful reminder/tracking apps for iOS, Android, and Apple Watch:

Mango Health, which is gamification-based and offers rewards/badges for taking your pills every day. (It’s not very flexible.) It also has notifications and reminders.
(If you like gamification, HabitRPG may also be helpful).
Medisafe, which is in no way gamified and isn’t trying to make you have fun or like anything. It’s just an app that tracks medications, gives reminders, and has a few other features.

Getting help remembering from someone else:

Some people find it helpful to have someone remind them to take pills.
Or ask them whether they’ve taken a pill.
Or to bring them the pills.
(Both medication apps allow you to link another person to your pill-taking records, if you want to.)
This can also backfire, and isn’t the right option for everyone.
(One way it can backfire is that if you ask people for help remembering, they may think that it’s their job to *make* you take it, whether you want to or not.)
(Needing help with the logistics of pill-taking doesn’t mean that you need someone else to take over your medical decisions, but a lot of people think it does).
Some people also find that their anxiety skyrockets when others pay attention to their pill-taking.
Sometimes this is less of a problem if it’s mutual (where you remind someone about their pills, and they remind you about yours.)

Help can also be more occasional:

Some people need occasional help figuring out the logistics, or overcoming anxiety or other barriers. It can help to have people you can ask for occasional help, along the lines of:
“I need to take my pill, but I need to eat before I can take it, and I have no food. Can you help me figure out how to eat?”
“I can’t make myself take my pill, can you tell me to go do it?”
“Can you remind me that it’s ok to take pills and that I’m not being lazy or something?”
“I’m having trouble with the pharmacy’s online refill system, do you know how it works?”
tl;dr: Needing help doesn’t mean needing others to take over, and it doesn’t necessarily mean needing supervision or ongoing daily assistance.

If the problem is that the pills taste disgusting or are hard to swallow:

Sometimes this is a problem that goes away over time.
Sometimes if you keep tasting a particular taste regularly, it become less disgusting.
Similarly, many people who initially find swallowing pills difficult find it much easier as they get more practice.
You can also put the pill in a spoon of something like applesauce, yogurt, or pudding. That can mean that you taste and feel the pudding and not the pill, which can make swallowing easier for some people.
Some people find it helpful to chase pills with a liquid they like.
(A caveat about that:
If the taste/sensation makes you feel sick to your stomach or like you’re going to throw up, it may not be a good idea to drink/eat something you really like right after.
Because you can end up associating that feeling with the thing you like, and then develop an aversion to that too.
But if the nasty-tasty pills *don’t* make you feel sick, washing the taste away with something you do like can work really well.)

If the problem is irrational or mostly-irrational anxiety:

Reminding yourself that the anxiety is irrational can help.
Reminding yourself what the pill does and why you want to take it can also help.
And once you get used to taking the pills regularly, the anxiety may go away.
Some people find it helpful to think things like “This is scary, but I can do it, and it won’t always be this scary.”
One reason that taking pills can be scary is that it can be an unpleasant reminder that you need the pills.
If that’s a barrier, it might help to remind yourself that you need the pills whether you take them or not.
Or you might know that it causes side effects you hate.
It also might help to complain about this to yourself, along the lines of “I really !#$!$# hate having to take this pill”.
(Having to take pills can suck, and it’s ok to have feelings about it.)

If the issue is reluctance or reservations about the pills:

I’m somewhat uneasy about mentioning this, because logistical difficulty is often dismissed as unwillingness to take pills.
That said — sometimes the problem really is that someone is trying to force themself to take pills that they don’t really want to take.
Everything is harder when you don’t want to do it.
There are all kinds of reasons that people might not want to take medication. (Some good reasons, some bad reasons).
Eg: Some people feel ashamed of needing medication, or feel like they should be able to somehow will themselves to not need it.
Eg: Sometimes the side effects really suck. Sometimes side effects mean that a given treatment needs to be reconsidered.
Eg: Sometimes people take pills that don’t seem to be working, and that can be demoralizing.
Eg: Sometimes people are misdiagnosed, and prescribed medication that isn’t appropriate, (or suspect that they were misdiagnosed).
Eg: Sometimes things that seem like a good idea in the doctor’s office don’t seem like a good idea in day-to-day life.
Eg: Sometimes when people have been taking a pill for a while, they forget what it was like without the pill — but keep noticing the side effects. This can make it hard to feel that the pill is still worthwhile.
Eg: Sometimes people come under intense pressure from others to believe that a particular pill will fix things. This can get complicated if the pill isn’t actually the right solution.
(And there are any number of other reasons).
Sometimes the solution to this is changing your attitude towards your medication, and sometimes the solution to this is changing your treatment plan. (And sometimes it’s a combination of both).
So it might be worth asking yourself: How do you feel about taking this medication, Is this a pill you want to take?
Why are you taking it? Why was it prescribed? Do you agree with the reasons?
Are you having side effects that suck? Are you questioning whether the side effects are worth it?
Is there another option you want to consider, or does this seem like the best choice for now?
If you really are reluctant, err on the side of taking that seriously. You may have a good reason, and it may lead to needed changes.
If you think about it and decide that your reluctance is irrational, that can also be very helpful.
Either way, if the problem is reluctance, thinking through things and getting to a point where you feel confident that you’re making the right choice can help a lot.
*All that said*, it’s important to remember that taking pills can be hard for all kinds of different reasons.
Some reasons it can be hard to take pills have absolutely nothing to do with how you feel about them.
Wanting to take pills doesn’t always make it possible to take pills.

Sometimes pills are easier to take if you associate them with an action you do every day rather than with a time. Eg:

If “take nighttime pill at 11pm” doesn’t work, “take nighttime pill when I brush my teeth” might.
If “take morning pill at 8am” doesn’t work, “take morning pill after I eat breakfast” or “take morning pill when I get into my car/bus to go to work/school” might work.
Or “I’ll take my pills when my kids come home from school and I’ve given them theirs”.

Sometimes changing where/how your pills are stored can make a big difference, for instance:

Keeping pills in the medicine cabinet can make it easier to take them when you brush your teeth
Keeping pills next to your bed can make it easier to take them when you get up and/or when you go to bed
If you frequently forget to take your medication, keeping some in your purse/ backpack/etc can make it easier to take it once you realize you forgot.
If you need to take medication when you eat, keeping the pills near your food might help.
Some people find pill sorters really helpful. They’re clear box-things with a box for each day, and at the beginning of each week you put a week’s worth of pills in them. This can also be a way to tell whether you’ve taken a given dose or not.
Sometimes you can get pills packed in blister packs, with a compartment for each day.
(Birth controls are usually packed this way, and some pharmacies can pack any kind of pill this way).

If part of the issue is privacy:

Sometimes not wanting other people to know can complicate taking medication.
This is a common issue for birth control pills — and there are cases you can get for birth control packs that look like little makeup cases. (So you could keep it in your purse and it would just look like you have makeup).
(If you’re in a situation in which it’s unsafe for others to know that you’re using contraception, birth control pills may not be the best option. An IUD or Depo-Provera shots might be better. Planned Parenthood can help you consider options.).
Similarly, it might help to keep pill bottles inside little containers that don’t look like pill things (eg: Claire’s has coin purses that are a good size for this).
Or to get a lockable toolbox and keep the key on your keychain.
Or to keep pills in your gym back if you have one — most people are going to assume there are gross sweaty clothes in there and be reluctant to look.
If you’re in college and don’t want your roommate to know about your pills, it might work to keep your pills with your shower stuff, and take them when you shower.
Or to keep pills in your backpack, go to the bathroom after class, and then take the pills there

If part of the issue is that they’re hard to afford:

If you’re taking a name-brand drug, look online for a coupon. A lot of companies offer them.
If you’re taking something insurance isn’t covering, GoodRx can often save you a LOT of money. (It tells you about coupons, and shows you which pharmacy near you has the lowest price.)

“What do you want for Christmas?”

December 21, 2016June 9, 2021 Real Social Skills

Anonymous said to realsocialskills:
What with Christmas coming and being autistic, I’ve been specifically asked what I want for Christmas by a relative and I’ve no idea how to say ‘I would like X please’ without sounding rude or demanding!

realsocialskills said:

One option might be to create an Amazon wishlist. (Or a wishlist on some other platform). Then you can say “I actually have a wishlist, would you like the link?” or just email them the link if the initial ask was in an email.

That way it doesn’t seem like you’re demanding a particular thing:

It’s important to some people to pick the gift themselves.
Some people like to buy some kinds of things but not other kinds of things.
(eg: Some people might not want to buy political books they disagree with, or might have an aversion to pink things, or whatever).
Or might have ideas about what Good Gifts are.
(Eg: Some people might think that stuff you need and would buy anyway isn’t a good gift.).
A wish list lets them decide which kind of thing they want to buy.
It also gives them information about your tastes and what kinds of things you like…
…which lets them pick a thing that’s not on your list, based on what they think you’d like.
(For whatever reason, some people are more comfortable giving gifts that are their own idea).
Giving people options makes it more likely that one will be comfortable for them.

It also would be good to put things on the list that cost different amounts of money because:

People usually have an amount in mind that they want to spend.
But for whatever reason, it’s considered rude to talk about how much gifts cost.
So, unfortunately, “How much were you thinking of spending?” is a rude question.
But if you put things on your list that cost different amounts of money, then you don’t have to talk about that.
They can just look at the list and spend the amount of money they want to spend.

Short version: Sometimes people ask what kind of present you want, and it can be awkward to answer directly. Wish lists can help, especially if you put things on the list that cost different amounts of money. Amazon wish lists work pretty well for this.