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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.

“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.

“Can everybody hear me?”

December 11, 2016June 9, 2021 Real Social Skills

Presenters often open by asking “Can everybody hear me?” or “Can everyone hear me without the microphone?”

This isn’t a very effective way to find out if everyone can hear you. It feels like asking, but it isn’t really — because it doesn’t usually give people the opportunity to say no.

If you want to know if everyone can hear you, this way of asking works better:

First, ask if everyone can hear you. This will get the attention of the people who can.
Next, ask everyone “Can the person next to you hear me?”
Wait 7 seconds for people to ask each other
Next, say, “Raise your hand if you or someone near you needs me to talk louder or use the microphone.”
Wait at least 7 seconds before moving on.
(7 seconds feels really long as a presenter. It helps to literally count silently to yourself).

Asking this way solves two problems:

It makes it easier for people to hear the question:

If someone can’t hear you well, they may not hear “Can everybody hear me?”
This can give you the misleading impression that everyone can hear you.
When you ask, “Can everybody hear me?” the people who can, tend to respond “yes” immediately
The people who *can’t* hear you well, often don’t hear the question.
Or they may not understand what you’ve said until you’ve already moved on.
But they probably *can* hear people who are close to them talking to them directly.
Asking “can the person next to you hear me?” makes it more likely that people who can’t hear you will understand the question.

It makes it easier for people to respond to the question:

Saying “Can everybody hear me?” or “Can everyone hear me without the microphone?” *feels* like asking, but often it really isn’t.
The problem is that asking that way doesn’t give people an obvious socially acceptable way to respond.
So in order for people to say “I can’t hear you” or “I need you to use the microphone”, they have to interrupt you.
Which feels like a conflict, and most people don’t want to go into a presentation and immediately have a conflict with the presenter.
It also makes them have to identify themselves as having an inconvenient impairment in front of the whole group.
That’s uncomfortable on a number of levels, and may be actively frightening.
Not everyone is going to be willing or able to interrupt you or take risks.
Even when people are willing, it’s still anxiety provoking in a way that’s likely to make your presentation less comfortable and effective
Giving people a clear way to respond gets you better information, and helps you to build a better rapport with your audience
(And doing it in the specific way I suggest makes it possible for people to let you know they can’t hear you without having to interrupt you, identify themselves to you, or identify themselves to the whole group.)

Short version: If you’re giving a presentation, asking “Can everyone hear me?” probably won’t result in people who can’t hear you telling you so. Scroll up for more detailed information about a more effective approach and why it works better.