Disabled Community Megathread - November 18th, 2024 to November 24th, 2024

Hi Everyone!

As always, we ask that in order to participate in the weekly megathread, one self-identifies as some form of disabled, which is broadly defined in the community sidebar:

"Disability" is an umbrella term which encompasses physical disabilities, emotional/psychiatric disabilities, neurodivergence, intellectual/developmental disabilities, sensory disabilities, invisible disabilities, and more. You do not have to have an official diagnosis to consider yourself disabled.

Alright, with that out of the way, let's talk about COVID-19, specifically the kind that messes with you for long time, possibly forever! <-- (so fun /s)

From the Wikipedia Page on Long COVID:

Long COVID or long-haul COVID is a group of health problems persisting or developing after an initial period of COVID-19 infection. Symptoms can last weeks, months or years and are often debilitating. The World Health Organization defines long COVID as starting three months after the initial COVID-19 infection, but other agencies define it as starting at four weeks after the initial infection.

Long COVID is characterized by a large number of symptoms that sometimes disappear and then reappear. Commonly reported symptoms of long COVID are fatigue, memory problems, shortness of breath, and sleep disorder. Several other symptoms, including headaches, mental health issues, initial loss of smell or taste, muscle weakness, fever, and cognitive dysfunction may also present. Symptoms often get worse after mental or physical effort, a process called post-exertional malaise. There is a large overlap in symptoms with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

The causes of long COVID are not yet fully understood. Hypotheses include lasting damage to organs and blood vessels, problems with blood clotting, neurological dysfunction, persistent virus or a reactivation of latent viruses and autoimmunity. Diagnosis of long COVID is based on (suspected or confirmed) COVID-19 infection or symptoms—and by excluding alternative diagnoses.

As of 2024, the prevalence of long COVID is estimated to be about 6-7% in adults, and about 1% in children. Prevalence is less after vaccination. Risk factors are higher age, female sex, having asthma, and a more severe initial COVID-19 infection. As of 2023, there are no validated effective treatments. Management of long COVID depends on symptoms. Rest is recommended for fatigue and pacing for post-exertional malaise. People with severe symptoms or those who were in intensive care may require care from a team of specialists. Most people with symptoms at 4 weeks recover by 12 weeks. Recovery is slower (or plateaus) for those still ill at 12 weeks. For a subset of people, for instance those meeting the criteria for ME/CFS, symptoms are expected to be lifelong.

Globally, over 400 million people have experienced long COVID.

Mask up, love one another, and stay alive for one more week.

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81 comments

I got on at the delivery job I had applied for a while back finally. I was doing the driving test and even though I've been driving for 25 years, I guess I suck at it and almost failed.
I was doing the driving van inspection but was sort of doing it all in my head and the guy acted like I was staring off into space. Then nerves took over and I proceeded to fuck everything up. At the end, the guy was like "I don't mean to diagnose you but you go-" and then I cut him off and said I'm autistic. It shut him up but also kind of unprofessional. Not even first day and I'm already getting treated like shit for not being a functioning member of society. Feels great.
Maybe never say the phrase ""I don't mean to diagnose you but...", okay? Fuck that guy. I hate normies.
In any case, I start driving on Wednesday. I'm gonna hate it.
- I don't mean to diagnose you but...
  How the hell does someone think saying that is okay?
  
  The motherfucker said it twice. The fucked up think is that he also has a physical disability with his left hand and, I think, his back from how he walks and stands. Like bro, we both trying. I just have enough respect to not drop some ableist ass bullshit comments about it.
  
  I think my rage would be white-hot if I were in your situation. On the other hand, because you shared this story I have my go-to response in the chamber if anyone tries to pull this on me:
  "I don't mean to diagnose you but..."
  "Then don't."
  So I appreciate you sharing because now I'm prepared for it when it happens to me.
  
  I didn't know this about autism, but a lot of us are processing basically a firehose of information all at once, where NTs probably only process a garden hose at best. So I am always processing all information available at all times. What ends up happening is that I guess I can seem "slow" because when I, for example, try to solve a word, logic, or math problem in school, I have to reconstruct all the information into a mental 3D image in my head in order to solve said problem. I mean I'm not in school anymore but this is just the example I came up with. But like I can drive fine, but with all the rules for "driving correctly" I didn't have enough time to build out that mental image so to speak. and had to act on the flight, essentially going into fight, flight, or freeze mode. I'm a "freezer". This is after me processing all of that from my original comment over the span of 3 days.
  This is essentially why I got fired from my last job. I was help desk, as well as a software dev. Can't do both at once, but on top of that, I was expected to solve IT related issues on the fly with very, very little information. Like if I was physically at the site, I could have done it, but imagine getting pulled away from 3 hours of brain coding, just to have to try and solve a scale network issue that is a turn off and on fix, then expect to pick back up where you left off 15 files deep into a feature you are trying to write, while also trying to play catch up on programming fundamentals due to a very lackluster college education.
  But do I tell the guy that? Fuck no. He already thinks there is "something wrong" with me.
  So I appreciate you sharing because now I'm prepared for it when it happens to me.
  I don't know if I will ever be prepared for that kind of shit tbh, I just don't understand why people can't just be respectable to one another without resorting to ableism or bigotry.
  
  The classic top-down thinking vs bottom-up thinking or the details-oriented thinking vs the broad brustrokes thinking. I struggle so much with task switching too. It's like trying to wrench my brain away from one thing and onto another against its will.
  I don't know if I will ever be prepared for that kind of shit tbh, I just don't understand why people can't just be respectable to one another without resorting to ableism or bigotry.
  Agreed. My "secret" is that when I'm in a conversation with you I'm predicting the outcome of your sentence before you've said it to compensate for my poor auditory processing and to give myself an opportunity to formulate a response in a "timely" way. I'm not sure this is something I'd recommend and it's a very mentally strenuous form of (cognitive) masking. But it means that I personally am going to be able to jump in with that sort of response as the upshot of this bizarre masking routine that I've been trained into doing.
  
  Task switching can eat my whole ass, if I am honest. If I'm hyperfocused on something and get pulled away from it, it can literally disorient me lol.
  I try to predict, but I have to prep for it. It's harder with people I can have organic conversations with, but if I'm arguing online with chuds or whatever, it's almost like they just have canned responses most of the time so prediction is pretty easy.

81 comments