social skills – Page 20 – Real Social Skills

Electricity is an access issue (short version)

January 15, 2015June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A lot of people with disabilities need reliable access to electricity. If you don’t make electricity continuously available at your event, your event is not accessible.

Some people need electricity in order to breathe. Some people need electricity to be able to move across a room. Some people need electricity for life sustaining medical treatments. Some people need electricity to communicate.

All of these people, and anyone else with an access need for electricity, should be welcome at your event. They can be, if you make proper plans and make sure that electricity will be reliably available.

(For further details, see this post.)

Clarifying ambiguous questions

January 14, 2015June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

hollywoodontap asked:

I have trouble answering questions if the asker has not given me specific details. I feel like I can’t give them what they want unless I’m told precisely what it is they’re looking for. I tend to ask questions in return before getting to an answer.

realsocialskills said:

It’s ok to need details. If asking clarifying questions is working for you, I’d keep doing that. The important thing is to communicate effectively.

Some thoughts on ways to make clarifying questions work:

There are a couple ways to ask in a general way that work for some people:

“I need more words”.
“I’m confused; can you rephrase?“
“That’s kind of abstract – can you be more specific?”

It can sometimes help to be more specific yourself, and offer options. Someone asking a question they think is easily understood might not know how to clarify.

Eg:

Jane: What do you think of the foo?
You: In what sense? Are you asking if I like it personally, or if I think it’s marketable? Or something else?

or:

Joel: What’s Applied Foo 101 like? Should I take it?
You: Are you asking about how hard it is, or how interesting it is, or something else?

Another possibility: Guess and then ask if you got it right:

eg:

Yosef: Did the thing happen?
You: The football game?

or:

Erica: Where are the things?
You: The supplies?

Sometimes it is better to make your best guess, then answer the question you think they’re asking:

Eg:

Susan: How about that foo?
You: Do you mean the sales statistics? If so, they’re way up this week.

or:

Thomas: Did you do the thing?
You: Do you mean my entry in the bad poetry contest. If so, I submitted that today. I’m excited for my chances this year. It was a truly terrible poem.

Short version: It’s ok to need to ask clarifying questions when someone asks you something, even if you need more details than most people need. The important thing is to communicate clearly.

Electricity is an accessibility issue

January 13, 2015June 10, 2021 Real Social Skills

When you’re planning an event, conference, venue, retreat center, house of worship, community center, or similar, it’s important to keep in mind that many people need reliable access to electricity in order to be able to participate. A choice to build or use a venue without reliable electricity is a choice to exclude people with disabilities.

Access to electricity is always important, but it’s especially important for overnight events or multi-day conferences. Many people with disabilities absolutely depend on electricity to be able to participate in events.

Here are some people you’re excluding if you choose or build a venue without reliable electricity:

People who use electric wheelchairs or mobility scooters:

Power chairs do not have infinite battery power
They have large batteries that have to be charged overnight
Charging them takes a lot of power
Minimalist electricity isn’t enough. Having a generator available for a few hours in the evening will not make a conference without electricity accessible to people who need to charge large batteries
If people can’t charge their chairs at your event, then you’re excluding power chair users.

High-tech AAC (alternative and augmentative communication) users:

Not everyone can talk.
Some people who can talk can’t reliably use speech to communicate
Many people use high-tech speech-generating devices to communicate
(For example, some people use apps such as Speak For Yourself on an iPad, or a dedicated device such as a DynaVox)
High-tech AAC devices only work if they are charged
The batteries aren’t infinite. Devices need to be charged overnight and some may also need to be charged during the day.
If your venue doesn’t have reliable electricity, people who need to keep their communication devices charged can’t participate
A choice to hold an event in a venue without reliable electricity is a choice to exclude people with communication disabilities who use speech generating devices to communicate

People who use ventilators and other breathing equipment:

Everyone needs to breathe
Not everyone can breathe adequately on their own
Some people need ventilators, bipaps, or other breathing equipment
People who use breathing equipment also do things besides sit at home and breathe, like go to conferences or other events you might be planning
People need to breathe while they do things like go to your event, which means they probably need to be able to plug in their machines
Machines can run off of batteries, but no battery has infinite power. Reliable access to electricity is important. No one should have to worry about where their next breath is coming from because they can’t find an electrical outlet.
If your venue doesn’t have reliable electricity, people who need machines to breathe can’t safely participate in your events
If you choose to hold your event in a location without reliable electricity, you’re choosing to exclude people with disabilities who need breathing support

People who need powered medical equipment:

Some people with chronic conditions need to do regular nebulizer treatments in order to keep their lungs functioning
Some people who eat through feeding tubes need powered infusion pumps to eat safely
Some people need to sleep with a CPAP in order to breathe at night
Some people use powered dialysis systems at night
If your venue doesn’t have reliable electricity, people who need powered medical equipment can’t safely participate.
If you choose to hold your event in a location without reliable electricity, you’re choosing to exclude people with disabilities or chronic conditions who rely on powered medical equipment

Medication:

Some people rely on medication that needs to be refrigerated.
If you hold a conference in a venue with no electricity and no refrigeration, they can’t safely participate.
A choice to hold an event in a venue without electricity is a choice to exclude people who need medication which must be refrigerated.

Some specific considerations in making sure electricity is available:

There need to be available outlets in people’s rooms and in the public areas where events are happening
Make sure the outlets are available and in good working order
(A broken outlet will not charge someone’s wheelchair)
Neither will a two-prong outlet. Make sure three-prong outlets are available.
If the available outlets aren’t at the tables (or whatever other space) you’re using, make sure you have a three-prong extension cord that reaches them
An outlet on the other side of the room is better than nothing, but it’s still a barrier to full participation. Extension cords can often solve that problem.
(In any case, a long, three-pronged extension cord is a good thing to keep in your supply kit for events; there are a lot of situations in which they are useful)
If you can, arrange the room so that the outlets are near the tables you’ll be using (this is also helpful to people who need to charge computers and phones).

Short version: Electricity is an accessibility issue. Having an event (and especially a conference) in a venue without reliable electricity excludes people with disabilities whose adaptive equipment requires electrical power.

If you don’t have a date for prom

January 11, 2015June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

How to cope with not having a date at prom? Everyone else has someone to go with but I don’t even have anyone to ask out. I feel that I will just stand in a corner while my friends and class mates will have their own company.

realsocialskills said:

I’m sorry you’re having to deal with that.

I think that you’re probably not as alone as you feel. Dating is hard, and it can be especially hard when you are young. Finding people to ask out doesn’t always happen on a schedule, even if seasonal events like prom mean you’re surrounded with messages that tell you that it should. It doesn’t always work out that way, though. It’s not just you. It’s that this stuff isn’t easy and the reality isn’t like the cultural mythology.

It’s also worth realizing that it’s ok if you don’t want to date, or if you don’t want to date yet. Some people aren’t ever interested in dating. Some people are eventually interested in dating, but aren’t ready in high school. Some people need some time to mature before they’re ready to date. Some people don’t have so much of an emotional or social peer group in high school, and so don’t meet anyone they want to date. Some people have a sexual orientation or gender that is stigmatized in their high school in a way that makes dating exhausting to even consider. Some people are still figuring out their sexuality or gender and don’t want to date while they’re struggling with it.

All of those things are common, and normal. So are any number of other reasons you might not want to date. If you don’t want to date, or don’t want to date now, that’s completely fine. I don’t know whether or not you want to date now; only you know that. It’s worth realizing that either answer is fine, and that it’s also ok if you’re not sure.

You’re probably not the only one at your school who doesn’t have a date for prom. Unless your school is tiny, there are almost certainly several other people at your school who don’t have dates either. You’re definitely not the only one in your state, and there will be any number of people online during prom who didn’t have dates either. When the culture tells you that you should have a date, not having one can feel like a failure, but it’s not. All it means is that you don’t have a date. It doesn’t reflect poorly on you. These things happen.

There are some options for how you might deal with this:

You don’t have to go to prom if you don’t want to:

Prom doesn’t have to be important
Nothing awful will happen if you don’t go
If you think you won’t enjoy it without a date, it’s completely ok to do something else instead
If you decide not to go to prom, it might be a good idea to plan what you’re going to do instead
That will raise the chances of enjoying the night rather than dwelling on the fact that you’re not at prom
(Eg: You could go to a movie, make a cake, have a party with friends or family who aren’t prom-aged, go to a concert, check out a store, etc)

Asking your friends to set you up with someone:

If you have friends who you trust, it might be worth asking if there’s anyone they can set you up with for prom
There’s a good chance that they will know someone
Going to prom with someone doesn’t have to mean that you’re dating them
Or that you’re particularly into them
It can just mean that you’re both going to an event together and attempting to enjoy the event and one another’s company
(It’s not such a good idea to do this if you don’t have friends you trust; some people use this situation as a way to be cruel)

Going without a date and enjoying the other aspects:

Some people go to prom without a date
You probably won’t be the only one
People don’t spend the entire night glued to their dates
(especially since a lot of people go with people they’re not actually dating in order to have someone to go with)
Going without a date doesn’t mean that you’ll spend the evening alone
If you have friends you like who enjoy your company, they’ll still be your friends at prom, and you’ll still get to spend time with them
If you want to do the rituals like dressing up and taking pictures and eating the fancy food and celebrating the end of school, you can enjoy all of those aspects of the event even without a date

Have an escape plan and distractions:

If you have a phone, bring it
You can use your phone as a distraction if the night is miserable
You can also use it to take breaks
If you get overwhelmed and upset, you might be able to take a break, distract yourself with a phone game or Tumblr, then go back in and enjoy things
It’s also ok if you need to leave. You don’t have to stay if it turns out the evening is miserable
If you have the option of driving yourself, or otherwise having access to transportation you control, do it that way
If you know that you can leave if you need to, it can also make it more likely that you will enjoy it and not feel trapped

Go to or throw an after party:

Prom often isn’t just about the official part; it can also be about parties that happen afterwards
If you like parties, you’ll probably enjoy them even if you don’t have a date
And you don’t necessarily have to go to prom to go to a party
And even if you go and hate the actual prom part, you can decide that the party is the main part and enjoy that
You also might be able to throw a party after, if you have friends who would be interested in going.

Short version: If you don’t have a date for prom, you are not alone. You might feel like the only one, but it’s actually fairly common. You have options for what to do on prom night. Scroll up for concrete suggestions.

Backup communication methods

January 10, 2015June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

I find it very difficult to communicate myself verbally sometimes, to the point where I get frustrated and actually cry. It’s like, I can’t find the right words quick enough and it all comes out in jumbles. How can I improve my social skills when it comes to speaking?

realsocialskills said:

I think I’m going to write a few posts about this, because there are a lot of things that can help. But in this post, I’m going to talk about backup methods of communication:

For many people for whom speech is unreliable, having another method of communication to fall back on is gamechanging:

Speech isn’t the most important thing
Knowing that you will be able to communicate is the important thing
If fear and frustration is a reason that speech becomes difficult for you, knowing that you will definitely be able to communicate might in itself improve your ability to speak

Having a backup method doesn’t mean you have to use it all the time:

You might get stuck at one point in a conversation, type a bit, then resume speaking

Some possible backups:

Pen and paper:

If handwriting is reliable for you, it might help to carry around a pen and paper
That can allow you to write instead of speaking
Or to write a few words to unstick yourself
The advantages of this is that it’s cheap, low-tech, and readily available
(And most people have used paper to pass notes in a situation where they didn’t want to speak, eg: in a class, so it might not even look that odd)
You can also use this to draw diagrams or drawings illustrating a point. (even if it’s not a point that’s usually illustrated that way.) Having a non-words-based way of explaining things can help a lot.

An iPad (even without any special apps):

If you have an iPad, it might be worth making a point of carrying it with you all the time
You can take an iPad out relatively quickly and type on it just in the Notes app
(I do this)
You can even do text-to-speech this way. If you go to the general settings, then accessibility options, you can turn on text to speech. There are voices for a lot of languages; not just English.

You can also use iPads, paper, and computers as a stealth form of communication support:

If you pretend you’re taking notes, people generally won’t question it
You can then type out many of your responses before you say them
That can separate the process of figuring out what to say from the physical act of saying it
That can make speech far more possible for some people
(I do this more or less constantly in classes, seminars, discussion groups and certain kinds of meetings).

An iPad with decided communication apps:

There are a lot of dedicated communication apps for iPads (most of the good ones are expensive).
If part of your problem is that you lose words or forget the kinds of things that it’s possible to say, a communication app might help
Proloquo2Go has a lot of flexibility and good symbol support. If you have trouble with words and need symbols to remind you, it might be a good option.
You can make dedicated pages for situation in which you tend to have trouble communicating.
Making the pages also might in itself help you to map out things you can say in various situations, even if you aren’t able to use them directly.
Speak4Yourself isn’t very flexible at all, but it has icons arranged in a way that’s well thought-out. It’s designed to work with muscle memory, having the words in the same place all the time so that your hands remember where you are. If you sometimes need help even with simple words and don’t need specialized pages, it might be a very cognitively user-friendly option.
Proloquo4Text is a text-based AAC app. It can store phrases in categories to access quickly, and has very high-quality word prediction. You can also make the display text very large if you’d rather show your screen than use a computer voice.

Short version: If you have trouble with speech and get overloaded, it’s a good idea to have a backup communication method. Scroll up for some concrete suggestions.

People with disabilities are not professional development objects

January 7, 2015June 10, 2021 Real Social Skills

Some people, often disability professionals, interact with disabled folks in creepy ways.

Here’s one way this plays out:

Person with a disability: I am going to bake a fancy cake. I am going to the fancy cake store to get ingredients. I hope they have the sugared roses in.
Disability professional who happens to be in the store: Oh wow, a real live disabled person with the exciting disability widget I’ve been reading about in the Journal of Professional Development In Supporting Widget Use!
Disability professional: Hey, you have an Exciting Widget. What kind of widget is it? Is it model 8A series 27? Do you have widget syndrome? I’ve heard that the New Widget is particularly good for people with widget syndrome. Has that been your experience?
Person with a disability: …

Other things of this nature:

“It’s so nice to see that you’re choosing to use the Exciting Widget and be independent.“
“Have you ever considered getting a dog instead of using the Exciting Widget?”
“Do you find that the Exciting Widget allows you to use a wider range of toilets?“
“Are you allowed to use the Exciting Widget at work?”
“Did you find the rehab difficult? I know it’s been hard for some of my clients.”

In effect, the disability professional is thinking something like this:

Being really fascinated with disability
Assuming that all people with disabilities are just as fascinated as they are, and:
That they are endlessly interested in talking about disability and equipment and therapy
Or that they’re living classroom models
And then treating them as though being visibly disabled in public constitutes permission to ask invasive personal questions and initiate detailed conversation about disability

It’s not ok because:

Decisions about adaptive equipment and mobility are intensely personal and private
It’s not ok to ask random strangers intimate questions about their bodies
Being disabled in public just means that someone is living their life
Being visibly disabled in public doesn’t mean someone is endlessly fascinated with disability, or that they’re remotely interested in discussing disability and equipment and therapy with you.
The world is not your classroom. It’s the world, and the people in it have agendas of their own. It’s not ok to treat them as objects for your professional development
People with disabilities should be able to live their lives without being asked inappropriately intimate questions by strangers

Some concrete examples:

People with disabilities are just living their lives. A person with a disability doesn’t owe it to anyone, including professionals, to participate in their disability fandom.

For instance:

Wheelchair users are using wheelchairs to get around. Their wheelchairs are not an invitation for you to participate in the wheelchair fandom and discuss wheelchairs, disability, treatments, or your professional development with them.
Blind people are not an opportunity to participate in the cane fandom, the O&M fandom, or to discuss your opinions about the relative merits of canes and dogs
All of those things require consent, and being disabled in public does not constitute consent.

And particularly if you are a professional:

It’s important to keep in mind that being a disability professional is a choice, and having a disability isn’t
And for professionals, equipment conversations are a form of talking shop; for most people with disabilities they are intimate and personal.
People with disabilities are not necessarily interested in using their personal lives as fodder for your shop talk
If you see someone with a disability in a public place, all you know is that they have a disability. That doesn’t imply anything about their interests or their willingness to answer invasive personal questions.
And more generally: as a professional, you have a responsibility to be rigorously ethical in the way you interact with people with disabilities
If you’re being invasive and asking inappropriately intimate questions of random disabled strangers in public, you’re probably doing a lot of even more inappropriate things with clients
People with disabilities who depend on you for services might not be in a good position to assert boundaries; it is your responsibility to avoid putting them in that position and rigorously respect boundaries on your own initiative
You can’t simply rely on your professional culture to teach you appropriate boundaries; there are too many professionals who don’t have this skill.
You have to actively seek out boundaries education on your own initiative
One professional who is really good at this is Dave Hingsburger. He wrote a good introduction called Power Tools. It explains a lot of practical things about power, disability, and boundaries in practical concrete ways.

Short version: People with disabilities are not education objects. Don’t ask people with disabilities invasive personal questions about their bodies or adaptive equipment choices. If you’re a disability professional who does this, it’s important to stop doing that and to learn more about boundaries.

When people with legitimate grievances express them in ableist ways

January 5, 2015June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

Content note: This post is about effective ways to contradict ableist statements. It talks about contexts in which doing so might not be a good idea. It also talks about people using social justice language in mean and unjustified ways. Proceed with caution.

A reader asked:

Sometimes people mess up and people get mad about it, they yell about it but also gross things- like this guy is a creep, and they say gross stuff, like “he lives in his parents’ basement” or calling them autistic in a bad way.

A lot of the time, if you bring up how that’s wrong, they accuse you of defending them and their bad actions. What do you do when people are being mean about stuff when mad at people who have done awful things and they think you’re defending them if you say anything?

realsocialskills said:

That gets complicated.

Sometimes I think it’s a matter of picking the right time. Like, if someone just got hit on by a creep in a threatening way and they’re freaking out, it’s probably not the best time to explain to them that some of the way they’re thinking about creepiness is ableist. When someone is freaking out in the immediate aftermath of an incident. You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) validate the ableist aspects of what they’re saying, but it’s probably not a good time to actively contradict it either. When people are actively freaking out, all they are likely to hear is support or contradiction.

After the point where they’re so afraid that the most important thing is supporting them passes, it’s ok and good to contradict ableism. It’s ok to do this even if they’re mad and ranting or upset. Being upset is not always an emergency.

I think the best way to contradict it is to make it explicit that you agree that the guy is creepy and unacceptable, and that what you’re objecting to is the comparison, for instance:

“I’m autistic and I don’t appreciate being compared to creeps like that guy.”
“I have a lot of autistic friends, and it really hurts them when everyone compares them to creeps like that.”
“Hey, can we not conflate poor and creepy? That just lets rich charismatic creepy dudes off the hook.”
“I’m not comfortable with the direction this is taking – it seems like we’re starting to mock guys for being disabled or poor instead of talking about how creepy they’re being. Let’s talk about creepiness?”
“Autism really isn’t the issue here; it’s the creepy and awful things that guy does.”

Another factor: People will probably get mad at you. No matter how well you phrase this, no matter how considerate and respectful you are, people you contradict will probably get mad at you at least some of the time. People don’t like to be told that they’re doing things wrong, and they especially don’t like to be told that they’re wronging someone they’re justified in complaining about. If you contradict people who are complaining about real injustice, they’re likely to get mad at you even if what you are saying is entirely correct. That doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong, but it can be emotionally very difficult to handle.

It’s likely that, at least some of the time, people will come down on you really hard in social justice terms.

People will probably tell you that you don’t care about female victims, that you have internalized misogyny, that you’re a gross man who needs to shut up, that you’re an MRA, that you need to go away and learn feminism 101, or other similar things. That might be very hard to bear, especially if you are scrupulous about trying to avoid oppressive speech. It doesn’t mean that you are wrong, though. Sometimes people will yell at you in social justice terms and be wrong. It’s important to learn how to figure out what you think even when people are yelling at you that you’re being oppressive. If you want to do the work of pointing out the ableism in some reactions to creepy dudes, it’s really important to work on having perspective in the face of other people’s anger.

It’s also important to pay attention to what you are and aren’t up for. You don’t have to challenge every piece of ableism you ever see. It’s not ok to validate that kind of ableism; it’s not ok to reblog it uncritically; it’s not ok to agree with or participate in it. But it’s perfectly ok to not always proactively contradict it. You matter, and that kind of work is draining.

When joking teasing is a trigger

January 3, 2015June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

Having grown up with abuse, and having been in an abusive relationship after that, I have a lot of trouble dealing with “normal” teasing. I was used to being accused of all kinds of terrible things out of the blue. So if, for example, I accidentally take something that belongs to someone else, and they say, “Haha, you just wanted it for yourself!” I want to cry and beg forgiveness. I’m terrified and I can’t laugh. I feel I can’t ask people not to tease me, but I don’t know how to deal with it.

realsocialskills said:

It’s ok to be bothered by this, and it’s ok to tell your friends not to tease you.

Playful teasing is only friendly if everyone likes it. A lot of people don’t like it, and a lot of people don’t do it. It’s entirely possible to be friends without insulting or teasing one another. If someone teases someone who they know hates it, that’s not a joke anymore, it’s just being mean. It’s not ok to be mean to other people for fun.

It’s ok to say “I don’t like jokes like that; please don’t say things like that to me.” You don’t have to explain in order for it to be ok to tell people to stop teasing you. Continuing to do stuff like that is already a jerk move, even if people don’t know your history. Not liking it is a good enough reason.

It’s also ok if you do want to disclose (and for some people, it might make it more likely that they’ll take it seriously and realize how important it is not to make jokes like that with you). But you don’t have to disclose in order for it to be legitimate to insist that people stop. If you do want to disclose, it’s usually better if it’s not in the heat of the moment, but when you’re relatively calm.

Most people don’t want to say intentionally hurtful things to their friends. Some people realize that some people find playful teasing hurtful, and will readily stop if you tell them you don’t like it. Some people don’t understand that some people don’t like it, and will probably have to be reminded several times before they take it seriously. Some people are mean and will keep saying things like that to you even after you say to stop, and some people might even start saying them more because they think it’s funny that it bothers you. Part of the solution to this might be to make sure you’re hanging out with people who care about treating you well, as much as possible. Having friends who are kind makes life a lot better on a number of levels.

A possible script for disclosing:

“Hey, I know you weren’t intending it but playful teasing and joke insults really scare me. Too many people in my life have accused me of ludicrous things in order to hurt me, so I have trouble telling when it’s a joke and I tend to freak out. Can you please not say things like that to me?”

Another possibility: finding ways to tell whether they mean it or not:

Think about the person you’re with, and what’s likely to be their intention:

How well do you know the person you’re with?
Have you seen them joke insult people before?
Have you seen them actually aggressively accuse people of ludicrous things out of the blue?
If you’ve seen them tease people in a way intended to be friendly and haven’t seen them make horrible baseless accusations out of the blue, they’re probably not trying to hurt you
That doesn’t make it ok, and it doesn’t mean you’re wrong to object
But it does mean that they’re probably not trying to hurt you, and you’re probably not in any danger

Look at body language:

This isn’t possible for some people who get scared in this situation, but it can work for some people
Look at their face: Does it have an angry expression, or do they look happy?
Look at their hands: Are they held in a way that looks angry or violent, or do they look like they’re just socializing?
Think about their tone of voice: Did they sound mad? Was their voice raised? Or are they talking in a tone that seems more friendly?
(Many people have a specific tone of voice that they only use for teasing or joke insults)
Are they looking at you in a way that’s demanding an answer?
If their body language and tone of voice doesn’t seem aggressive, they probably didn’t mean the words they said aggressively either.

Check how other people are reacting:

Do other people seem to notice the offense you’ve supposedly committed, or are they continuing the conversation they were already having?
Does anyone look mad, or do they just look like people socializing?
Have other people in the group stopped what they’re doing to look at you, or are they continuing as they were?
If other people in the group don’t look mad, or don’t look much interested, the teasing was probably meant as a joke rather than a serious insult or accusation

Another possibility: using a standard script to create some distance:

It can help to immediately change the subject when someone says something like that
If they were just joking around, they will likely be receptive to the subject change
Changing the subject can show you that you are safe and not under attack
It can be hard to find words in the moment to change the subject
It might help to memorize some subject-changing scripts and use standard ones every time this happens
Then you won’t have to think of something to say in the moment while you are freaking out
Which scripts are most effective will depend on you and your group
(This post on deflecting fight-pickers has a lot of subject-change scripts.)
You can also change the subject back to what people were talking about before
Eg: “So, you were saying about the cats we’re all here to talk about? What do you think about the fluffy ones? I see your point about their hair getting matted easily, but they’re so pretty and soft.”

Another possibility: asking what they meant:

Sometimes you can defuse fear by asking people whether they mean it
ie: “Do you really think I was just trying to take it for myself?”
This can be awkward, but it can also be effective
Whether or not it’s a good idea depends on your friend groups
Some people might get offended and sarcastically say yes, of course they think that.
If you can’t read sarcasm when you’re scared, this might backfire
But when it works, it can work really well

It would probably also be a good idea to work on having perspective when other people are angry at you. Your friends and people close to you will be angry at you sometimes. That doesn’t always mean that you’re in danger or that they are going to hurt you. It also doesn’t always mean that you have done something wrong. Finding anger more bearable will help you in a lot of aspects of your life, including when people tease you. If anger is less terrifying, teasing will also be less terrifying.

Short version: Teasing is only friendly if everyone likes it. Doing it to people who don’t like it is mean. It’s ok not to want to be teased or insulted, even as a joke. It’s ok to ask people to stop. Some people will take that request seriously and some won’t. (Everyone should, but not everyone does). If teasing scares you because you have trouble telling the difference between real insults and joke insults, there are things you can learn to look for that make it easier to tell the difference. It also helps to learn how to keep perspective in the face of other people’s anger. Scroll up for some more concrete information.

Disability and risk

January 2, 2015June 10, 2021 Real Social Skills

As people with disabilities, we generally have to adopt a different attitude towards risk than nondisabled peers. Most of us have to take more risks than most other people, and that can be very confusing. Sometimes it can feel like being more reckless, when it’s actually just a consequence of having fewer options.

For instance:

Housing:

People with disabilities often have far fewer options for housing than people who aren’t disabled
Accessible housing is limited
(Eg: if you need a flat entrance, that excludes most apartments. If you need to live alone, that excludes most affordable apartments.)
People without disabilities are generally in a much better position to say no to things that seem sketchy or unreasonable.
When there are only three apartments in a city that you can both get into and afford, it’s much harder to say no to the roommate with a loud parrot who wakes you up every night
Or the landlord who wants an unreasonably large deposit, or who want to insist that you go to church with them as a condition of living there, or who obviously have no intention of keeping everything in working order
If things go bad, it can feel like it was your fault and that you should have known better than to get into this situation
Especially if most of your friends wouldn’t ever take that kind of a risk (which is likely to be the case if most of them aren’t disabled or poor)
It might not be your fault though
It might just be that you only had risky options, you had to choose from among them, and you were unlucky this time
That’s in the nature of only having high-risk options: sometimes bad things will happen. It’s not your fault if you’re in that situation.

Similar considerations apply to equipment, travel, employment, and any number of other things. Being disabled (and/or poor) often involves having to take much higher risks than most other people have to take. Sometimes, this will even involve taking life-threatening risks to do things like go to a conference. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re reckless. It can just mean that you’re trying to live your life and that you have things to do that can’t be done completely safely.

Short version: People with disabilities often have to take more risks than people without disabilities. That isn’t a matter of recklessness; it’s a matter of necessity.