I don’t get seasonal depression, I just get slightly sleepier and more irritable and mopey when I don’t get any sunlight, but when I said this to my doctor she was like “you should still get a lightbox” and I did and now I have way more energy.
The moral of the story is, if you spend time thinking to yourself “well I don’t actually have [diagnosable problem], I have [milder version that I can just ignore]”, you could instead of just ignoring it get the accommodation for the problem and see if it improves your life. I do not expect to remember this next time I “don’t actually have the real problem”, but maybe eventually I will learn.
We treat accommodations like something that you can only have if you’re really really desperately suffering and cannot function at all without them, but that’s… really really not the case. Or at least it shouldn’t be.
Not to uuuhhh highjack this post, but I have some experience with this. Not only does it corroborate the above but I have found that even you don’t have any need for whatever accommodation that also shouldn’t bar you from getting one if you just…
want it
see years ago my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, and as happens with progressing cancer her mobility was drastically reduced. To help combat this and allow her to retain independence at home Papa (my grandfather) got a shower chair. This is about as self-descriptive as it can get, it is a chair made of metal and plastic that sits in your shower or bathtub. I’m sure those with physical disabilities are already quite familiar with them, for those of you that aren’t just google it.
Eventually my grandmother passed. A couple years after my dad had to stay at Papa’s house for a couple weeks, for his own medical reasons. While there he discovered that Papa had kept the chair. And while Papa was old he was hardly infirm, he didn’t use a cane or have any severe mobility issues. Certainly none that would have affected his ability to stand in the shower. The conversation went more or less as such:
Dad: Why they hell did you keep the shower chair, dad? You don’t need it
Papa: Kevin, you wait until you use it. Then you’ll know why I kept it.
My dad was disbelieving tbh, to him chairs in showers when you don’t need them was a thing that like. Lazy rich people had. wtf could be so great about being able to sit in the shower? Why would an able-bodied person even need to? it’s a fucking shower? wash urself and then get out. Then he used the chair, and according to him it was like he’d had a proper religious revelation. Shortly after his return home (tbh the amount of time it took for him to take a shower sans chair) my dad went out and bought a shower chair.
The ensuing conversation with my mother went as such:
Mom: Kevin why did you buy that? We don’t need it!
Dad: Just use it once, this will change your life.
And it did. After using the chair for the first time my mom straight up wanted to know why they had never thought to get a chair for the shower before. Ever since we have had a chair in the shower.
It has proven itself invaluable.
- Exhausted but covered in grime from yardwork so you HAVE to wash before doing anything else? shower chair
- Don’t have the spoons to stand in the shower? shower chair
- Leg/hip/back injury slowly getting worse over time making standing for long periods a difficult matter? shower chair
- Home from work and just want to shower but your feet are killing you? shower chair
- can’t keep your balance when masturbating in the shower? shower chair
- want to write fic in ur head without your feet starting to hurt because you maybe spent a little too long standing there in spray? shower chair
- disassociating? shower chair
- gotta shave your legs? shower chair
- crying because you’ve now realized how much easier being able to sit down and prop up a leg makes shaving while in the shower? shower chair
I have no current mobility issues, and yet if I had to move house tomorrow a shower chair of my own would be one of the first things I purchase for my own home.
It’s so easy to fall into the trap of “this could make my life easier but do I really need it?” And y’know what maybe you don’t need it. Maybe you don’t need that accommodation, but maybe it would make your life easier anyway. When it comes to things that you keep in your home for personal use does it really matter? Besides there is always the very real chance that buying it now, when you don’t’ need it but can afford it, will save your ass down the line when you suddenly do desperately need it.
Normalize the accommodation so that the stigma behind not using it is eroded.