I halted all medical treatments for Attention Deficit Disorder in the year 2000 when I was sixteen years old. My grades had never shown any improvement, and each drug seemed to come with a worse side effect than the last. When I was on Luvox, I couldn’t sleep or have an orgasm for weeks at a time. When I was on Desipramine, I started hating all my friends, hating my favorite foods, and hating the movies I knew I loved. Both my mother and my psychiatrist tried to convince me that this new, miserable version of myself was the real one; that I was seeing the world more clearly as it is and should continue. I was sleeping 16 hours a day. I ended up having to leave home and go live with my dad in order to escape that situation.
I finished up high school at an alternative school, graduated just barely on time, and limped through a few semesters of community college. After a while, I picked up and went to crash with a friend in Seattle, waiting tables, giving Tarot card readings, and reading copious Richard Matheson books. It could have been an OK life, and it was for a while. I got into an abusive relationship, and then got out of it. I got into another abusive relationship. I quit waiting tables and went to work in a hipster cinema, the kind where the building is a hundred years old and everyone does their homework on the clock. I slowly allowed myself the idea of going back to school.
As an older and more mature person, I did better this time. I turned in more assignments. I found classes I was really talented in. I actually got a few As, and I didn’t feel tempted to try any medications. I took fewer classes at a time and gave myself enough fun while still pulling in good grades.
But when I came to San Francisco to finish up my undergrad degree, I wasn’t in the safe, comfortable situation I was back in Seattle. The cinema location I transferred to closed unexpectedly within weeks of my arrival. The cost of housing was high and rising, and I bounced from job to job between bouncing from apartment to apartment. During a particularly bad bout of homelessness, I went to see a counselor at the student services office at my university, and as part of my intake paperwork, checked yes on a box indicating that I had a learning disorder.
I had to admit to the nice lady that I had no idea what she was talking about when she asked me about accommodations. When I was growing up, ADD treatments meant drugs, or witch-doctory homeopathic shit, or nothing. Most of my teachers didn’t even believe ADD was a real medical condition, so the idea of actually asking a teacher for accommodations was pretty foreign. A nice lady about ten years my junior showed me how to use a smartpen, which uses a digital recording device to sync your notes with audio of your classes. She noticed an excited look on my face when she showed me the Kurtzweil 3000, which is a reading support device that highlights the words on the page while reading the text out loud to you. Sure wish I’d had that the semester I took Fossil Humans Practicum.
It took me over a year to get access to a mental health professional who would sign the appropriate documents giving me the right to use the technological accommodations. When I was using them I started to wonder if this is closer to what a normal person feels like when they attend a class or study something difficult. I can take care of my responsibilities within a reasonable period of time now. It doesn’t take me six hours to finish reading a single medical study or chapter of a math textbook. I don’t have to just write off 30 percent of every lecture I attend knowing I will never remember it all. I slowly edged my GPA up above 3.0, and then higher.
The big scary socialist state pays for my disability accommodations. I get provided with software downloads, document files, recording hardware paired with special notebooks that make it work. This is what the Americans with Disabilities Act means to me. I get the support and accommodations I need to work my ass off efficiently and produce intelligent writing and research. I can actually take a full load of classes without crashing and burning, and I don’t need 30 lbs of junk food to occupy myself and sit still well enough to finish all my work in a timely manner. I can go to work and go to school and don’t have to worry that I will run out of time for everything.
This is what it means to be an engaged citizen of society. I do really good work at my job, and I produce really good knowledge at school. We all live in a web of interdependence. I hope my representatives—especially Congresswoman Jackie Speier—will consider this when crafting legislation regarding disabilities in the future. I’m referring not just to “The ADA Education and Reform Act” at the moment, but to every issue that comes up over the next three to seven years while we face the current presidency. I have strong political involvement and I will support candidates who support me.
About the Creator
KJ Thomas
I'm chasing after whatever this whole thing is building to. You can talk back to me here: https://agnostic.com/member/KJThomas and my profile artwork was made by my good friend Tabitha: https://www.instagram.com/tabithaslander/
Rivers of Death
Rivers bring water the element essential to all life on Earth but wherever rivers flow they also bring death surprise attacks Savage kills and brutal fights every day is a battle for survival on these rivers of [Applause] death I'm under the African Sun Staying Alive is hot thirsty work and among the ranks of animals jostling to get a drink lurk Killers waiting to strike but while Lions may be fearsome and the huge Nile crocodiles ruthless Predators one of the continent's deadliest River Killers is mostly vegetarian renowned wallowers spending up to 16 hours a day lounging in the water hippos could be mistaken for relaxed creatures and yet the river horse as their name translates from ancient Greek can be a very angry pony indeed with tusks up to a foot and a half long hippos are literally armed to the teeth and a charging bull Hipp can impact with the weight force of a pickup truck what's more hippos May brutally defend their territory an Impala has been chased into a muddy Watering Hole by a lion it's stuck but for fortunately for the stricken analou the lion is reluctant to follow it into the Meer unfortunately it finds itself in the domain of a hippo ill disposed to uninvited guests the hippo's not stealing the watching Lion's meal she's most likely just aggressively defending her calf and the Impala pays the ultimate price for crossing a doting mother hippos are thought to kill more people each year than the rest of Africa's most dangerous animals combined and during mating season their ruthless aggression is directed at other hippos two bulls square up the pod's dominant male and a Challenger at stake the Riverbanks Prime mating territory and a Herm of females the dominant male puts on an aggressive display posturing to show he will not yield but the interloper Demands a fight finally the dominant male is Victorious the Conqueror celebrates with a dung shower marking the border of the territory he has successfully defended while the vanquished suffers more than just the agony of defeat his back is carved open and by Sunset the crocodiles are watching closely they'd be unlikely to take on a bull in rude Health but now they Circle an expectation the hippo breathes his last the price of insurrection is life his Hulk will not go to waste the crocodiles move in swiftly to Feast on the corpse for these voracious Predators it's a considerable meal but one dead hippo is a mere snack compared with the annual Feast provided by a particular African river each year the serengetti vast grass Plains filled to the Horizon with grazing animals taking part in one of Nature's greatest spectacles around 1 and2 million wilder beast join 700,000 other herbivores on the Great Migration around 1 in six of these migrants will die before completing the 500 M circuit many are outrun and taken down down by Africa's formidable array of Savannah carnivores their Journey coming to a Grizzly end but one of the deadliest single obstacles the vast herds must Traverse is the mara River after 3 months on the move the wilderbeast are exhausted and emaciated all that separates them from the Fresh pastures of the msai mara is the width of the river and a whole bunch of huge ravit Nile crocodiles despite the chilling threat posed by these powerful Predators some of the herd are either oblivious to the danger or so thirsty they dare to take a drink anyway for an unlucky few it will be their last and these witless victims merely wet the Croc's appetite the true Feast begins when the first of the herd Braves the river in the crush and Chaos of the crossing the 16t Crocs grabs scores of victims when 1,600 lb of musc futile the marus Crocs survive on meager rations for most of the year so take full advantage of the great migrations time of Plenty they Gorge themselves eating up to half their body weight in one sitting and with so many different species crossing the river the banquet is as varied as it is Bountiful but not all Africa's Crocs have such an easy meal ticket on the banks of this Kenyon River a Croc has got too close to a pack of feeding Lions a move it's about to regret it's a fierce attack but the Crocs skin is covered in bony armor plating eventually the Lion's Uninvited Guest Retreats having taught the Crocs and dinner manners the big cats return to the carcass the Amazon is a giant of a river and and conceal some monstrous Predators which kill with a crush and in a bloody frenzy draining a lowland Basin of close to 3 million square miles around 1/5 of the water that runs off the earth's surface is carried by the Amazon this giant of a river is renowned for its oversized residence both prey and Predator around 4 ft long and and weighing as much as an adult human capibara are the world's largest rodent they're
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