Uncategorized – Page 35 – Real Social Skills

A method for understanding confusing lectures

August 24, 2013June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

Some teachers have a disorganized lecture style that’s difficult to follow.

One reason this can happen is if there’s like 5 things they want to talk about, but they don’t do it in an organized way. Like they keep moving from one topic to another, then back again.

For instance, in a class on vegetables, a teacher might talk about carrots, onions, peppers, celery, and for some reason, cows. They might jump around from one topic to another, saying things about each as they’re reminded of them.

It can help to use a computer to take notes, make topic headings, and add to each topic as it is raised.

So it could look like this, in the hypothetical class about vegetables:

Teacher says: Carrots grow in the ground. Onions grow in the ground. Onions are delicious when you caramelize them. They’re good with steaks. So are peppers, even though they don’t grow in the ground. The other thing about carrots is that they are orange, and they are sweet and have more sugar than you’d think a vegetable would have. Cows like to eat vegetables. Celery needs to be washed before you eat it. So do carrots. Cows can eat vegetables without washing them.

Carrots:

Grow in the ground
Orange
Sweet
have more sugar than you’d think
Need to be washed before you eat them

Onions

grow in the ground
delicious when you caramelize them
good with steaks

Peppers

Good with steaks
Don’t grow in the ground

Cows:

Like to eat vegetables
Don’t need to wash vegetables first

Celery

Needs to be washed before you eat it

You can do this with Word files, but I’ve found that it’s easier with outlining software. (I use OmniOutliner). The advantage to outlining software is that it’s really easy to drag things around if you change your mind about which topic they go in. You can also collapse topic headings when the topic seems to be over, then reopen them if it comes up again.

If you think more visually, a diagraming program might work well for you. Idea Sketch works reasonably well on iPad. This works well for following lectures, but notes taken this way can be harder to use later than more conventional notes. It’s also difficult to share notes taken in this format.

Where slurs come from

August 22, 2013June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

Slurs have power because of how they’re used and what it evokes when someone says them. Not because groups have decided to be offended by them. Target groups don’t give slurs power; the weight of historical and current use gives them power.

Words mean things.

The n-word is a slur because it has always been used to say that black people aren’t really human and to incite violence. That is what that word means when it’s said by someone who isn’t black. You can’t say that word as a nonblack person without invoking that meaning to some extent or other, even if you don’t mean to. That’s not a meaning black people give the word. That’s a meaning that white people created.

Likewise the r-word, especially in noun form. (It’s not always a slur in adjective form, but it always evokes the slur a bit, so it’s better to use a different word if you can). It’s a slur because what it means is someone who isn’t really a whole person because their brain doesn’t work right. That’s not a meaning folks with disabilities are imagining in order to feel offended, and it’s not a meaning they can get away from by deciding not to be offended.

Calling someone a slur means something. It’s a threat. And an implied threat to other people in that group.

Other people can feel how they want about it, but how they feel won’t erase the fact that someone saying a slur is making a threat. Feelings don’t erase violence and threats of violence.

Getting past “I’m not being abusive!!!” and getting perspective on how you’re treating people

August 20, 2013June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

re: ‘I’m not being abusive!’ – I’m concerned I’ve done this in the past because I grew up around someone very verbally/emotionally abusive and am trying to work through those behaviors. I feel like I flag myself sometimes that way to check in with others, but get the feeling this is a really bad way of dealing with things. Any advice on what I can do in these situations when I’m very worried I *am* being abusive and want help to stop?

I think there’s a couple of things:

First of all, recognize the difference between asking for feedback and asking for reassurance:

Trying to find out whether something is wrong is one thing.
Trying to get someone to reassure you that nothing is wrong is a different thing.
It’s important to be open to the possibility that something is actually wrong.
If you’re not open to that possibility, then don’t ask.
Because pressuring someone to tell you that everything is ok makes things worse
Work on learning how to be open to the possibility that things are wrong
And ask in a way that makes it clear you actually want to know.
Eg, don’t say things like this: “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?” “Nothing’s wrong, is it?”
Things like this are better: “I feel like something might be bothering you. Is something wrong?”, “Did I mess something up? I feel like I might have.”

Don’t rely too much on people you might be hurting to teach you how to act right:

It’s important to listen
But it’s also important not to make them responsible for your actions
You are responsible for learning how to treat people well. People you might be hurting are not responsible for teaching you how to stop.

Get outside perspective of some sort:

Outside perspective is important because it is a way to get feedback without putting pressure on people you might be hurting to tell you things are ok
It’s also an important way to protect yourself against gaslighting. People who worry that they might be abusers are particularly susceptible to gaslighting. Some gaslighters prey on this worry really aggressively.
It’s important to care about treating people well. It’s also important to care about protecting yourself and being treated well.
It’s also a way to learn things that no one involved knows
Outside perspective is important for other reasons I’m having trouble articulating
For some people, therapy is a helpful way to get outside perspective. Therapy is not for everyone, and it can be actively harmful for some people, but it works really well for people it works for
For some people, it helps to talk things over with friends outside the situation
Reading fiction and watching TV can also be helpful
So can reading blogs and books that are explicitly about interpersonal dynamics, although unfortunately there are not many good ones.

Any of y’all have other suggestions?

Being allowed to do hard things

August 19, 2013June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

Mel Baggs added to the post on “Some things about speech“:

I used to have a really hard time convincing people that sometimes lack of speech wasn’t overload or shutdown (or as psychiatry so inaccurately put it, ~anxiety~ or ~dissociation~), but rather just being myself.

And that far from always being a result of stress, speech caused me stress and lack of speech meant I was less stressed.

I knew the autism expert I saw was no expert when I heard her tell me that if we reduced my anxiety, I wouldn’t have to rely on my keyboard so much. Later on I found out she believed meltdowns and shutdowns were not sensory at all but rather ~off task behavior~, ~manipulation~, and ~tantrums~… And I lost my last shred of respect for her.

Also, even when it *is* the result of stress, that doesn’t necessarily mean that something is *wrong*.

Sometimes it just means that life is happening. Like, when I’m doing hard things, my speech gets worse. When I’m working a lot, I look more conspicuously autistic.

This doesn’t mean I shouldn’t work or study or do hard things. It’s important for us to be allowed to do hard things, and to be allowed to be stressed and have lives. Stress is part of life.

Sometimes people try to put us in bubbles where we don’t ever do anything hard or stressful. And take any autistic sign of stress as an indication that something is wrong. And that things need to be lighter and softer and less substantive.

Those places are not good and they are not understanding or accepting. They are hell on earth.

Some things about speech

August 19, 2013June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

Sometimes people have speech at some times, but not others.

Sometimes people have very fluid fluent speech sometimes, and choppy forced slow speech at other times.

Sometimes when people can’t speak, or have trouble speaking, it’s because something is wrong. Sometimes it’s because they’re stressed, or overloaded, or forgot how because they’re frozen and need help getting unfrozen. Or because they’ve pushed themselves too far and are just too exhausted to function.

But losing speech, or losing fluent speech, is not always like that. Being in a mode where speech is difficult or impossible is not always a sign that something is going wrong. For some people, that’s just a mode they can be in, sometimes.

It can mean they are prioritizing different things, putting more resources into thinking rather than speaking. It can mean they are in a more sensory mode rather than a WORDS WORDS WORDS mode. It can mean they’re interacting, and that it’s about presence and not conversation. Or any number of other things.

To make a somewhat flawed analogy: People don’t usually speak during movies. When people aren’t speaking during movies, it’s not because something is wrong. It’s because they’re doing a different thing.

It’s important to know that both of these things exist. That sometimes lack of speech or difficult speech means something is wrong, but sometimes it means something is right.

Shame is not a cure

August 18, 2013June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

So, here’s the thing.

People with disabilities are taught that we’re just lazy. That eventually, if we care enough, we’ll be cured. That we can shame our way out of being disabled.

This is counterproductive.

If you can accept the way you are, the way your mind works, the way your body works –

You can figure out how to do things in the way that *actually works for you*.

And you can do a lot more, than if you’re stuck in the mindset of thinking that shame will cure you.

Shame doesn’t create abilities. Self-hatred doesn’t create abilities.

Acceptance creates abilities. Understanding and working with your real configuration rather than against it can greatly expand what you can actually do. Even though there are abilities you will never have. There’s a lot you can do, if you understand and accept yourself as you are.

Some thoughts on working for friends

August 15, 2013June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

Working for friends can destroy the friendship really easily. It can work out well, but it is risky. It’s important to not just assume that it will work out fine because you like each other.

An equal friendship is a very different type of relationship than employer-employee. Having both relationships with someone is complicated.

There are three major things I know of that can happen:

The boss uses their position as an employer to pressure their friends into doing things that aren’t work-related, or aren’t within the employee’s actual duties.

eg: getting a friend to plan the office Christmas party and cook all the food
getting a friend to cover lots of shifts that other people flake on

The worker relies on the friendship to get away with things that aren’t normally acceptable from an employee.

eg: stealing stuff from the office
talking down to other workers
bossing around coworkers inappropriately
or having a much better work schedule than everyone else
or showing up late all the time
or, more generally speaking, using friendship to avoid criticism
including taking it personally when the boss-friend says they’re doing something wrong

If you’re working for a friend, or employing a friend, make sure you can handle the different power relationship that goes along with employment. And that you can keep track of which things are work contexts, and which things are friendship contexts.