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Cake day: September 30th, 2023

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  • I have galactorrhea, pumping rooms aren’t a natural maternal family matter, for me, it’s a medical procedure.

    Privacy is a lactating person’s choice, and right. public feeding is a choice that I agree needs to be destigmatised. Personally I’m not comfortable with public pumping, because I see my breast milk as medical not nutritional, so I choose privacy for myself.

    It’s also difficult, it’s stressful, it’s uncomfortable. Having comfort, focus, peace and quiet, it’s important.

    I don’t even have a uterus, so getting my leaky chest out in public is even further from being socially acceptable. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had mastitis because I have not been able to expell in a timely manner. Partly that was because I was embarrassed by my condition and didn’t stand up for myself and my need for access to a pumping room at work, and part of it was because my employers didn’t understand my need for a private room, they pointed out that it’s never been a problem for mothers in our office to whip a tit out when baby was hungry, and/or that my need was different because the reason I I had breast milk at all was different.

    No one gets to expect me to be comfortable with nudity. My breast milk, my choice if I have privacy or not.

    I used to do it in the bathroom because I didn’t have anywhere else, but that was a gamble, do I let myself get an infection because I’m letting my ducts clog, or do I risk an infection by pumping milk in the toilets.


  • DillyDaily@lemmy.worldtoMemes@lemmy.mlZen Z
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    20 days ago

    Accessibility.

    We will never get rid of the analogue clocks from our school, we’re an adult education and alternative model highschool qualifications centre.

    We primarily teach adults with no to low English, adults and teens with disabilities, and adults and teens refered via corrections services.

    There is a significant level of illiteracy within numeracy, and for some of our students, it’s not a failing of the education system, it’s just a fact of life given their specific circumstances (eg, acquired brain injuries are common among our students)

    Some students can learn to tell time on an analogue clock even if they didn’t know before.

    But even my students who will never in their life be able to fully and independently remember and recall their numbers can tell the time with an analogue clock.

    I tell my students “we will take lunch at 12pm, so if you look at the clock and the arms look like this /imitates a clock/ we will go to lunch”

    And now I avoid 40 questions of “when’s lunch?” because you don’t need to tell time to see time with an analogue clock, they can physically watch the hands move, getting closer to the shape they recognise as lunch time.

    And my other students can just read the time, from the clock, and not feel infantalised by having a disability friendly task clock like they’ve done at other centres I work at - they’ve had a digital clock for students who can tell time, and a task clock as the accessible clock. But a well designed face on an analogue clock can do both.

    I myself have time blindness due to a neurological/CRD issue, so analogue clocks, and analogue timers are an accessibility tool for me as well, as the teacher.


  • When I was 8, my 4 year old brother, 40 year old father, and 35 year old uncle whom I lived with all went to get screened for autism after my brother’s pre-school recommended it.

    3/4 of us walked out with autism diagnoses.

    I was given the official psychiatric assessment that I had “learned and developed autistic traits and mannerisms due to growing up in a household with no neurotypical influence” and the advice was that I would grow out of it once I made enough “normal” friends at school.

    My brother started occupational therapy and other programs, and at each one, the practitioner would recommend to my dad that I join too to “help her brother feel safe and comfortable” and I would litteraly participate in the Autism therapy programs with my autistic brother.

    Over my years at school, I picked up official diagnoses for dyscalculia and dyspraxia and that explained a few of the struggles I was having. The autism OT I was already doing covered support for my learning disabilities so nothing except the paperwork changed.

    And sure enough, I made neurotypical friends at school, and a lot of the autistic-like traits I exhibited as a kid were no longer apparent in my behaviour.

    I had a lot of mental health issues as a teenager and young adult. But what millennial isn’t depressed and anxious? I was growing up with 3 autistic men as a teenage girl, I rationalised that my dysfunctional emotional state was justified by my life circumstances. I was a dramatic teen.

    Hearing and visual impairment, and other physical health issues with muscle tone, and struggles to heal due to poor proprioception that got worse in my 30s somehow lead to a re-assesment for autism as an adult.

    Big fucking suprise. I’m autistic. Always have been.

    Sometimes health professionals don’t get the full picture. They’re human.

    My presentation is drastically different from my male family members, and I was parentified by my fathers autism from a young age - I remember being as young as 10 and my dad saw my ability to blend and socialise, he’d send me into stores or get me to make phone calls for him if he was having anxiety over it. This was not something that was discussed at the time of my first assessment.

    My special interest was, and still is, anthropology. I maintain that loving the study of humanity and human culture means I’ve been able to intellectualise my way through social situations that neurotypicals feel their way through on instinct. I suspect I’ve done this from a young age, and that this further muddied the waters for that psychiatrist who assessed me when I was 12.

    If I’d gotten reassessed in my later teens, or early 20s, I’m certain the result of the assessment would have been different then to, even with the same psychiatrist. You get 4 hours with a perfect stranger,just on some random day, and they’re supposed to make an assessment on your entire life?

    We trusted their assessment, which is why I fumbled through life for 20+ years under the assumption I could learn my way out of feeling autistic.

    Trust your healthcare professionals, but remember that they’re human, and second opinions are important, especially if you’re struggling with the treatment plan, or lack thereof, from the first doctor.


  • DillyDaily@lemmy.worldtoADHD memes@lemmy.dbzer0.comCertainty
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    27 days ago

    I completely agree with that perspective.

    Personally I would add to this that for individuals who are unable to mask, and who’s struggle to mask is so to speak, “visible” to others, while they are still subjected to all of the ableiem that comes with being neurodivergent, it’s almost like their inability to mask becomes a punchline for neurotypicals. I think some NTs use the joke as a way of trying to relieve the pressure to mask thinking they’re being accommodating, while still addressing the disabled elephant in the room. The end result is that the person’s lack of masking capacity is mistakenly correlated to their entire set of abilities - people assume they’re incapable of everything. It’s pretty dehumanising and infantalizing, and puts so many limitations on the opportunities available for folk who can’t mask.

    And on the other side of that coin, people who have the ability to mask really well are expected to do it flawlessly 24/7, and failing to do so isn’t a sign that having ADHD can be disabling, no, for people who can mask, not masking 24/7 is apparently a moral failing. Which is not the kind of social expectation you want on someone who’s condition predisposes them to anxiety inducing perfectionism, and leads to this expectation also being internalised.

    Which occurs for both types of people - internalising the expectations. if society treats you as useless, you start to feel useless, until you fall into a pit. if society expects you to always be performing at 110%, you begin to feel like a failure if you output anything less than 109% until you burn out and fall in the same pit.

    (because I don’t think neurotypical people realise that masking is operating at >100%, it’s an additional request on our mind and body, it’s an additional labour, it’s not sustainable long term. There really is the misconception that we can choose to turn it on and off at no personal cost to us.)


  • No but you do say “I’m diabetic” which uses diabetes as sort of identity within the sentence structure.

    Similarly “I’m a cancer survivor” and “I’m a cancer patient” are ways someone with cancer could structure a sentence to give weight to the way cancer and the experiences of cancer fundamentally change this person’s personality and identity.

    While “I am ADHD” isn’t perfect, it’s a very new use of language to try and create an identity form, and it will continue to evolve and sound more natural.

    Personally I still find myself saying “I’m autistic and I have ADHD” in most situations, but if I know I won’t have to explain the term too much, I do prefer “I’m AuDHD”, because it’s an identity first phrase, and it feels as natural as “I’m autistic” or “I’m diabetic”.

    But the difference grammatically between “I’m autistic” and “I’m ADHD” is minimal, yet I agree one sounds fine and the other just sounds stupid. And other than exposure, I can’t place my finger on why.


  • At the end of the day, alcoholism, depression, and obesity, they are unhealthy states of being.

    They are not something people choose, and while there are treatments, it’s not something everyone can control.

    That doesn’t mean we should simply accept this state of being. People living with depression deserve better, people living with alcoholism deserve better than for us to say “it’s out of their control, they can’t help it, so we shouldn’t judge, let them be” when what they need is better support and better treatment options.

    Likewise, obese people deserve better than “eat less, move more, fatty!” but they also deserve more than “all bodies are beautiful, just let us be”

    I say this as someone who was a fat kid, and a fat teen, and a fat adult. I had a BMI of 50 for a most of my life. In my mid 30s, I got it down to 28, and still going.

    So I say all of this is as someone else who was fat, obese, and morbidly obese. Obesity should be viewed the same way we view depression and anxiety, though depression and anxiety also need some better PR.

    Being obese may not not always be a choice, but the the ultimate end goal of how we view obesity as a state of being is to find ways we can all manage our weight. Because obesity is not healthy, for those who can’t easily control their weight, life sucks, they are patients in need of treatment, not morally failing people, but also not “perfect plus sized activists who are healthy at every size”

    Because while bodies and sizes vary and we can do healthy things at every size. Obesity is inherently unhealthy. Obviously being bullied won’t solve anything, but neither will society politely ignoring how hard it is to live a full life while suffering from obesity.

    Being black isn’t an inherent health issue. It genuinely is just a different state of being. 99% of problems unique to black people are social issues, not medical issues… So the comparison between obesity and substance abuse issues is more helpful than trying to compare being obese to being BIPOC.



  • Yup, thyroid, adrenals, and gonads have been checked, both with blood work and untrasound.

    I have dysautonomia due to a brain stem herniation, and temperature regulation is effected by that, but it’s just been so weird that the way this symptom effects me was decades of not feeling the cold, then suddenly now I’m not feeling the heat.

    I know which one I’d choose if I got to pick… and it’s the one where I don’t need to go to a wound nurse for frost nip in February.


  • I was a year round shorts guy, genuinely didn’t feel the cold. Last year I suddenly became a year round thermal stockings, skivee, thermal gloves, jumper and woollen pants guy.

    I can’t get warm. It’s like I’m catching up on 30+ years of never feeling the cold by feeling the cold all the time.






  • The female condom has two rigid rings, one in the sealed end that sits under the cervix, and one at the open end.

    The ring at the open end is designed to hold the condom open and give the penetrating partner a nice big safe target to make sure the penis/toy/whatever goes inside the condom and not accidentally between the condom and the vaginal wall. This ring also provides some minor protection to parts of the vulva due to its size.

    The internal ring is much smaller by comparison, and is not that much larger than a diva cup. The internal ring of a female condom is a similar size to a “soft cup” menstrual cup, it’s a little bit smaller than a contraceptive diaphragm.


  • Yeah, nah, Tamworth. We have our own branches of country music down here mate.

    Blak Country is a seriously cool branch to explore if you’re curious about how Australia has interpreted US country music into a localised sub-genre. Swap your mouth organs for a gum leaf and add some yidaki riffs for extra bass.



  • Maybe, I imagine it’s much harder to have an auto shut off timer when you also need to mechanically close the gas valves. But I think it could just be the price point, the one at my current unit is an electric built in, but it’s also just a reminder timer. Not sure what brand it is, all the paint on the front has long since worn away (it was installed in 1998 according to the REA) - so I also don’t quite know what temperature I’m cooking at. (when I moved in I put a probe thermometer in there and spent about 4 hours playing with the temperature dial and marking it with nail polish so I could at least have a vague idea of what temperature I was setting the oven to)


  • I’m awaiting assessment, but there’s a strong chance I have both autism and ADHD (my brother and father are both autistic, I was never assessed because it wasn’t as obvious growing up as a girl that I struggled with similar things, but it’s hard to know without an assessment because my ADHD was undiagnosed for so long so there’s a lot of overlapping symptoms from all the maladaptive coping mechanisms I’ve developed)

    I know poor hunger signals are a big part of autism too, so maybe I’ve got a double whammy 🤷‍♀️

    But it also sounds like your sensitive to hunger signals the same way I’m sensitive to fatigue/drowsiness signals, so it sounds like the same underlying interception issue, just two different outcomes of that attempt to listen to our bodies.



  • The timer on my oven might as well just be glued on the front after the fact. It’s just a little clockwork twist timer with no connection to overall the mechanism of the oven at all.

    I’ve never used an oven that automatically turns off after the timer buzzes. That sounds luxurious!

    (and honestly, sounds like a super helpful OT tool/accommodation for me to be more independent/safe when cooking, so I know what to look for in a new oven… Not that I get a choice of oven as a renter, you get what you get)