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How to Self-Study DBT (or Anything Else!)
DBT, or Dialectical Behavior Therapy, is a set of skills ordinarily taught to people with Borderline Personality Disorder or other similar emotion regulation problems. If your emotions rule your life, DBT is for you!
DBT is usually taught through an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), but many people find this hard to access for a variety of reasons. Maybe you work full time, or maybe your insurance won’t cover it. Either way, there are significant reasons why people who can’t access a formal training program may want to self-study DBT.
A note: I am not the expert on self-studying DBT. I am still in the process myself, and often forget to apply skills when I need them. However, this is what I’ve learned about self-studying DBT, and self-studying in general, so far!
Here’s some basic tips on how to self-study DBT:
Get clear on your goals and motivations.
Experts say that it’s important to set goals for self-study. Your goal is probably to learn how to apply DBT skills in your daily life— that’s pretty clear.
In my opinion, motivations are more important for this one. Maybe you feel motivated to learn DBT skills by thinking about all the times you yelled at your spouse when you were frustrated. Maybe you want to be happier and less moody.
Write these down somewhere so you can keep them in mind when studying gets tough!
Learn how you learn best.
Everyone has a different learning style. Some people prefer learning via video, while others like to read. Almost everyone learns quite well by practicing skills themselves and being allowed to make, and account for, mistakes. Reflect on your learning style and what has worked for you in the past (or take a quiz online!) and then remember to apply your learning style throughout your learning journey.
Read about the skills, one at a time.
Reading about the individual skills in the DBT repertoire may provide a helpful introduction, regardless of your learning style. Dbtselfhelp.com and dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com are both helpful if you’re looking to read about DBT.
Next, watch videos.
Once you’ve zoomed in on the skill you’re going to learn today or this week, watch some YouTube videos on the subject. While there didn’t used to be a ton of DBT video content, there is now! Videos might have helpful asides and tangents that you might not get from a straight-forward reading, and learning from different sources can provide different points of view that you may not have thought of.
Get the workbook.
The DBT workbook, also known as the Green Book, is super great for learning DBT, especially if your learning style is more experiential. The Green Book takes you through activities that will help you learn and apply DBT skills, while also making them personal to YOU.
Get the DBT card deck.
This is another purchase that may help you significantly when it comes to learning DBT skills. Made by the same people as the Green Book, this set of 52 cards can help you nail down your knowledge. Every day (or week!), shuffle the deck and draw a card. This is your DBT skill to focus on. I find the cards helpful because not only can they provide insight that you hadn’t thought of (like applying a certain skill to a certain situation that may not be intuitive) but they help you cut down on the overwhelm of trying to remember and apply so many skills at the same time. One day, one skill. That’s it.
If you can’t get the official DBT cards, you could make your own! These could be similar to the original deck, with one skill per card that you draw when you need help, or they could be like flashcards.
Find a group to discuss DBT concepts with.
If there are other people in your life who want to learn DBT, make a DBT study group and learn together! The DBT self help subreddit might help if there’s no one in your life who is also interested in DBT.
Explain DBT to trusted loved ones as you go.
You may not be able to find someone who wants to learn alongside you, but explaining what you’ve learned to someone you trust to listen can be very helpful! Allow them to ask questions to really test your knowledge.
Quiz yourself.
Quizzing yourself is a classic learning method that really holds up. This method requires you to recall information as you learn it, encouraging the routes in your brain to form in useful ways.
You can use physical flashcards or digital flashcard resources like the Anki app. The Anki app has the advantage of automatically practicing with “spaced repetition,” which is a method that helps you cement your learning by practicing trickier questions over the course of your learning journey.
Journal about your progress.
It’s important to reflect on your learning journey, both for deeper understanding of the subjects you’re learning about, and because it can help you remember what you’ve learned.
This could be digital or on paper.
Ask yourself questions like:
-What did I learn today?
-How do I feel about what I learned?
-What does this new information remind me of?
-What questions do I have for future research?
-How did I apply what I learned today?
-How can I apply what I learned today in the future?
-How did I apply what I’ve learned so far on my learning journey?
Try to remain consistent in your efforts.
If you watch 12 hours of DBT videos in one day, you probably won’t retain any information. Likewise, if you don’t practice for weeks, you might lose any progress you’ve already made. You may want to schedule self-directed “class” time every week, or simply plan out what you’re going to study for the next month or so.
Good luck studying!
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Just Show Up
If you struggle with anxiety, overwhelm, or just plain feeling like a failure, I have a mantra for you that’s been really helping me out lately:
Just show up.
My biggest problem has always been depression. I’ve had to acknowledge that I am disabled by my mental health problems, and for an honor-roll student, that was often a struggle to accept.
In college, I used to skip class almost every day because the whole process was so overwhelming to my depressed and anxious brain: I had to get dressed in something clean (even though I never had the energy to do laundry), walk the 45 minutes to school, sit in class for up to three hours, PLUS pay attention, take notes, participate in discussion, and end up with an A at the end of the semester.
I didn’t realize that I was being a perfectionist, and life would have been a lot easier for me if I had Just Shown Up. By staying home because of my depression and anxiety, I wasn’t giving myself the chance to meet any of the expectations I had saddled myself with. I was so stressed out about being a “bad” or average student that I stopped being a student at all.
The Just Show Up philosophy isn’t the same as lowering your standards. You’re not suddenly off the hook for all your responsibilities. Instead, this is a mantra that will help you stay realistic and grounded. By Just Showing Up, you’re giving yourself the opportunity to grow and do your best without enforcing any of the guilt, overwhelm, or anxiety that comes along with expecting perfection at all times. Don’t think too far ahead. Just put on your shoes and Show Up.
The great thing about Just Show Up is that once you do, you will often find yourself doing quite well anyways– it’s something that you were capable of all along, but were too keyed up (or otherwise symptomatic) to envision. If you really can’t do a particular task, then at least you did something just by showing up. Think of all your activities like an hourly job: if you’re there, you get paid, even if you’re not always meeting your too-high expectations. People can’t be “on” all the time, and the Just Show Up philosophy recognizes that without letting bad behavior slide. In other words, nobody’s perfect.
Often, when I would apply Just Show Up and go to my college classes– sometimes in my pajamas– I would find that I was interested enough in the material to pay attention and take some notes. I was passionate enough about the topics to participate in the discussion. At the very least, I didn’t get points off my grade for another absence. Sure, I spent some time doodling due to attention span issues, but for the most part, I had succeeded just as well as the other students. I had minimized the task in my head from a mountain to a molehill. I didn’t overwhelm myself. I did exactly what I was capable of at that moment.
If you’re having trouble getting something done, Just Show Up. You don’t have to be employee of the month. You don’t have to be valedictorian. Just Show Up.
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Self-Love for Dissociation
I realized recently that for me the answer to my chronic dissociation is NOT traditional grounding activities, but rather working on maintaining an attitude of self-love– and it has been really successful!
(While some may criticize my thought process as being overly medical, I conceptualize my new realization as Unconditional Positive Regard For The Self. Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) is a therapy concept pioneered by humanist psychologist Carl Rogers in the middle of the twentieth century. It basically means having an attitude of acceptance and caring towards your therapy clients no matter what. This does NOT mean approving of all their actions, but rather holding them in high esteem regardless of what they’re going through. I find this conceptualization to be more specific and actionable, but you can just call it self-love if you want!)
For some background, I have dissociated severely, 99% of the time, since a depersonalization-based mental breakdown at age 14. Part of the reason for this is that existing in my body feels bad. It’s hard to describe, but it’s like a visceral sense of sickness, including achiness and fatigue. (I have wavered back and forth on whether this is a chronic physical illness or more psychological in nature, but it’s such a vague complaint that I never know how to describe it to a doctor. Plus, the fact that I’ve found a psychological approach to be helpful means that it’s probably my brain!)
Grounding exercises don’t work for me because they end up just shocking my system into further dissociation. This has always been true and it made me feel hopeless about my symptoms because 5-4-3-2-1 and holding ice cubes (etc) are regarded as the ONLY solution for dissociation.
Instead, maintaining a loving attitude towards myself during daily life (independent of any particular self-care activities) is really helping! It’s hard to describe what this means exactly— I just kind of maintain an attitude of pleasant openness to myself. Even though self-caring actions and thoughts almost always come as a result, the basic concept doesn’t involve anything besides the attitude.
This approach of maintaining self-love makes it way more pleasant to be in my body, so I don’t dissociate nearly as much! Try it if you like!
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How to Help Someone With Self Harm
The common mental health problem of self-harm is often dramatized and sensationalized to the point where people aren’t sure what to even think about it. Therefore, many people deal with the self-harm of others in a way that’s not constructive for anyone involved.
If someone has come to you about their self-harm, the following is a guide on how to handle it as a friend or family member. You can do more than you may think!
First, some points:
- If someone talks to you about their self-harm, or shows you the results, try not to express disgust. It may be a natural response, especially if you’re squeamish about gore, but many people who self-harm already feel awful about their bodies and/or their self-harm problem. Don’t give them another reason to feel ashamed. If you’re truly freaked out by what you’re seeing, excuse yourself, shake it off as best you can, and then come back and deal with the situation.
- Related: don’t guilt trip. Making someone feel even worse about something they did is not a sure-fire way to prevent it in the future, especially when it comes to a distress-related behavior like self-harm.
- Self-harm is actually not closely linked to suicide. This means that self-harm, no matter how severe, is usually distinct from a suicide attempt. Don’t panic, and don’t automatically assume that the other person is suicidal.
- Self-harm is a sign of ineffective coping strategies, but it’s actually not really a problem in itself. It’s a self-regulatory symptom of a larger problem. To put it another way, no one self harms without a pressing reason. Most people react to self-harm by trying to police the behavior and/or telling someone why they shouldn’t self-harm. Instead, it’s more effective to deal with the reasons that someone self-harms. It will go away on its own with proper mental health treatment/recovery.
Here’s a concrete guide on how to deal with someone else’s self-harm:
- Your first step should be assessing the need for medical attention. If they haven’t already shown you, ask to see what they did so you can try to tell what they need physically. You may need to take them to the emergency room, or you may just need some Neosporin.
- Then, try to deal with the reason(s) they self-harmed. People self-harm for many reasons, but it’s generally a way of calming down in the face of extreme stress. Maybe they do it to punish themselves or to feel less numb, but it has actual chemical benefits. Self-harm calms the nervous system by releasing feel-good endorphins. It’s not just senseless self-violence, as much as it may seem that way to someone who hasn’t personally experienced the problem. So see what you can do for them. Shift the attention from the self-harm behavior and discuss what made them do it in the first place. Maybe they got a bad grade on a test and need a tutor to get back on track. Maybe they need to express themselves about being sexually assaulted. If they’ve come to you with their self-harm, they trust you, so see what practical steps you can take to help them.
- If you feel it is necessary, see what you can do to help them with their self-harm problem in general. This is a good opportunity to see if they need any concrete help in their recovery. For example, they may need rides to therapy appointments or they may want you to take their self-harm tools away from them.
- If someone comes to you for help avoiding imminent self-harm, congratulate them (because it’s hard to reach out for help with a behavior that is often shamed!) and then provide some constructive distractions. Remember that everyone has a fundamental need for connection in the face of negative emotions, and do something WITH them. Go get ice cream, watch a movie together, or even just stay on the phone with them. (Distraction is a good fallback strategy, but don’t forget that if they would rather talk about what’s on their mind, you should let them. Engage with them about their feelings in an empowering way and you can do a lot of good!)
The above would be the ideal situation, in which everything went smoothly and in the best interests of the person who self-harmed. However, if you’re reading this, it’s very likely that you already had your initial reaction and something different happened. What do you do next?
If you handled someone’s admission of self-harm badly, go back to them and apologize. We can’t deal openly with mental health problems and their stigma by avoiding the topic.
Once you’ve apologized, then go back and use the guide above for taking next steps.
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Why You Should NOT Freelance as a Writer
Lots of people, upon finding out that I freelanced as a writer for about four years, ask how to make it work for them. I usually tell them it’s a terrible idea and that they should steer clear.
Yes, I will not lie, I had a bad time as a freelancer. Part of this, of course, was battling mental illness, but I think the stress and lack of structure really didn’t help.
I primarily used the site Upwork, which has the benefit of handling the money aspect for you so you don’t have to chase your clients down to get them to pay you. However, the site also has many downsides, which I will address below.
Here are some reasons you should NOT freelance:
The pay is not good.
Unless you are unusually savvy, you will start out with clients who want you to work for CHEAP. This is especially true if you decide to use Upwork, which markets itself to entrepreneurs who aren’t looking for experts.
Also, many clients will pay by the project rather than by the hour. This doesn’t sound so bad until you realize you’ll need to do your own research, adding time to your project. Even when you’re given what seems like a fair wage, there are often unforeseen hiccups that can extend a project’s time commitment, and you will not get reimbursed for those.
Getting out of this low-pay rut requires a significant amount of luck OR enough savings to be able to be discerning from the get-go.
You often don’t get to decide what you write about.
If you use Upwork, you will be applying to jobs where your clients already know what they want. While you may be able to nail down an area of expertise, your topics will usually be decided for you. (You will probably still have to do your own research.)
If you would prefer to write an article about something you care about and then sell it, you will probably make more money per article but sell them less frequently.
Income is not consistent.
Even if you’re making pretty good money, you will have highs and lows. This can make it hard to budget and save.
Likewise, time commitment is not consistent.
Sometimes, a client will need something urgently, or you will get more clients, and your workload will be huge. Other times, you will be ready to work, but have nothing available to work on. This feast or famine can be really stressful.
You constantly have to be selling yourself and looking for new jobs.
If you don’t like job hunting, freelancing is not for you. You must be constantly on the look out for new clients and new opportunities, and many people find this draining.
There are no worker protections or benefits.
Worker protections and benefits have been hard-won in the last two centuries, and when you freelance, you get none of them. With freelancing, there is no minimum wage. There is no healthcare. There is no Paid Time Off.
It’s hard to work alone.
When you go to a physical workplace, you will almost always have coworkers that share in the camaraderie of the grind.
I often use a strategy called body doubling, but that doesn’t happen in freelancing unless you MAKE it happen by teaming up with other people with similar work.
You have to motivate yourself because there’s no structure.
When you freelance, you don’t have a boss or a teacher to make sure you’re working steadily— or at all. You get up in the morning and YOU have to make the decision to sit down to work. This can be really tough. Often, freelancers struggle with procrastination.
If you are REALLY good at waking up at the same time every day and sitting down to work at the same time every day, you will probably have an easier time than I did. My schedule was all over the place, and I was just as likely to be working at 2am as at 2pm. I had absolutely no structure to my life, and my mental health definitely suffered for it.
You will OWE taxes come tax season.
When you work a regular job as an employee, taxes are automatically taken out of your paycheck, and you get a large portion back when you do your taxes each year. As a freelancer, you would have to keep track of your money and save your own taxes, to then pay the government what they are owed. It’s not fun.
It’s hard to relax when your home is your workplace.
Unless you have an extra bedroom whose door you can shut, you’re going to be looking at and worrying about your work even in your “off” hours. Trying to sleep in the same room as my desk really stressed me out.
Reasons you SHOULD freelance:
You’re totally serious about a career in copyediting and you like internet marketing.
If you are 100% dedicated to a marketing and/or copyediting career, then freelancing might be your cup of tea.
It’s not the same skillset as any creative writing you may have done, even for publication. The fundamental aspects of copyediting are different and have different goals. You may often be asked to dabble in social media and/or graphic design. If that sounds like fun, I think you should seriously consider a freelance writing career!
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On Distraction and Ableism
There’s an attitude– and it’s a subtle one– that mentally ill people are doing something wrong. Even among otherwise understanding professionals and loved ones, there’s an idea that if mentally ill people would just learn to think correctly, like everyone else, they wouldn’t be mentally ill anymore.
This idea has its basis in the benefits of skills training. Of course, practicing self-care skills, good habits, and programs like DBT can lead to more resilience. I’m not arguing that there’s nothing that mentally ill people can do to improve. The issue is that people who aren’t mentally ill think that the same things will work for everyone.
The example I’ve encountered recently is the matter of distraction. Neurotypical professionals recommend this highly as a temporary strategy for halting a spiral, not understanding that sometimes it’s impossible. For mentally ill people, our feelings don’t necessarily have anything to do with our external circumstances– for neurotypicals, they usually do. Therefore, a spiral can continue even if our external circumstances are removed from the original trigger. When you’re mentally ill, your feelings are deeper and last much longer.
I know this because I am now (more or less) properly medicated. Things work now that didn’t before, because my chemicals are on a more even keel. I was amazed to find that now, I don’t have crises that last for weeks because of a thought that I had. Instead, my feelings are reactions to my environment and nothing more. While sometimes a bad mood can last a few hours or something can make me deeply uncomfortable, it lifts within a day or two. This was not true, and not possible, before my brain was more straightened out.
My emetophobia was triggered twice in one day recently, and because of all the work I’ve done managing my brain and stabilizing my chemicals, distraction finally worked for the first time. I gently redirected my focus and felt much calmer. I was amazed at how easy it was. Of course, it wasn’t that I had never tried distraction before, or had been doing it ineffectively– the difference was that my brain chemicals were much more cooperative than they had been.
I find this is often the case with breathing techniques and meditation as well. Obviously they work for some mentally ill people, but if they don’t, it’s not because someone is doing something wrong or not trying. It’s just not the right technique, or it’s not effective enough. I want every other mentally ill person to know that if your brain isn’t working like you want it to, it isn’t your fault. It isn’t a personal failing. While there are actions you can take to heal yourself, it’s not a matter of willing yourself into health.
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How To Start Writing Poetry
You want to write poetry, but you don’t know where to start.
There are two components to the art of poetry, the writing part and the reading part. The writing part is the part where you actually DO it. The reading part is how you get better. We’ll cover both here.
For the record, I have been through a lot of formal education in the art of both reading and writing poetry, so I know a thing or two about how it is taught. I don’t agree with absolutely everything that was part of my training, but also there were some good takeaways, which I will impart to you here for free!
I. WRITING POETRY
A. Some Notes on Permission
My first point here is that you do NOT need anyone’s permission to start writing poetry. You do not need to get a degree or even take a class. You do not need to Google it. You do not even need MY permission.
Secondly, your poetry does not have to be for anyone else. It doesn’t have to be “good,” it doesn’t have to be “publishable.” What matters is that you had fun and expressed yourself. (Yes, there can definitely be a type of satisfaction in getting really good at a craft and sharing your art, but that’s not what we’re talking about today.)
Really, you don’t need me at all.
However, I CAN help you get started. You will probably have an easier time and put less pressure on yourself if you don’t expect your poems to spring fully-formed from your brain. Instead, there is a trick for first drafts called Freewriting.
B. Freewriting
Freewriting is a little bit like dreaming. You set pen to paper (yes, usually analog writing is recommended) and you write literally anything that comes to mind. Yup, anything. It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be good or profound or true or anything else in particular. Don’t edit or cross anything out. Being fully uninhibited during the freewriting process takes practice, and it’s something I’m still working on myself, but I recommend giving it a try anyway and seeing what happens.
After you’ve filled a page or two, take a break and let your work breathe for a few minutes. Get up and do something else. When you come back to it, reread what you’ve written and highlight or underline what’s interesting. Maybe you made up a weird turn of phrase that you like, or you really nailed how you feel in a certain situation.
After you’ve selected the most interesting parts of your freewriting session, you can use the lines and phrases like fridge magnets to construct a poem. Don’t be shy: throw out or fill in absolutely anything you want.
Revise as much or as little as you want. Sometimes it feels great to get the accuracy that comes with editing, while other times it can feel stifling. Read it out loud to yourself if you want. Do exactly what you want to do at all times in your poetry journey. It’s YOURS.
II. READING POETRY
If you want to get better at poetry and expand your capabilities, I highly recommend reading poetry. Luckily, this is not as intimidating as it might sound.
In my personal opinion, it can be important to read more modern poets, from the last 70 years or so. For one thing, their work is often more accessible. For another thing, there is more diversity in the demographics of the writers and their subject matter. Thirdly, if you’re super serious about writing to publish, it will show you current trends in the poetry world.
A. How To Read Poetry
What is the best WAY to read poetry? There isn’t one. Focus on getting as many words into your brain as possible at first— you can analyze later as your instincts get honed into skills. Soon you will notice meter and slant rhymes and all that other stuff, but for now you can just read for enjoyment.
You may want to try reading your favorites out loud to hear how things sound. This may add another layer to what you already liked about the poem!
You may also want to buy your poetry books so you can write notes or highlight in them.
B. Reading Suggestions: Where To Start
(I had fun with these suggestions, but that doesn’t mean these aren’t good places to start!)
If you’re queer and you’re not shy about the sexual, read Allen Ginsburg.
If you like nature and Abraham Lincoln, read Walt Whitman.
If you care about Black Power, read Nikki Giovanni.
If you’d like something accessible and easily digested, read Rupi Kaur.
If you love nature and enjoy feeling at peace, read Mary Oliver.
If you’re sad and feeling kind of feral, read Sylvia Plath.
If you like rhymes, read Robert Frost.
(Everyone should read Joy Harjo.)
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Review: The PTSD Workbook by Mary Beth Williams
The PTSD Workbook by Mary Beth Williams (second edition) is an interactive journey through trauma recovery backed up by science and personal wisdom. It largely conforms to other works about trauma I have read, especially Judith Herman’s ideas about the three phases of trauma recovery.
I was super excited to dive in and do all of the activities. However, the workbook quickly lost my trust, though I continued to read through it in the hopes of gleaning some sort of wisdom. This is a very good workbook that I believe could help many people– with one small revision.
On page 25, there is an exercise about “My Trauma-Related Beliefs.” Readers are invited to think and write about the subconscious beliefs that trauma has given them and explore how true they are. The first example is “I believe I am a victim and that my troubles are the fault of others.” Readers are invited to think about whether that belief has determined their course of action in the past, with the assumption that they will work on revising it once they have had it pointed out. In this example, it’s a failure of personal responsibility to say that all of your troubles are someone else’s fault, even if people never deserve to be traumatized.
The second example is where I have an issue. The belief reads: “I believe that I can’t do things– that I am physically or emotionally incapable of doing them.” To give Williams the benefit of the doubt, I can see how learned helplessness could be a real problem that some people have and need to learn how to deal with. However, it continues in parentheses: “By the way, be aware that ‘I can’t’ generally means ‘I won’t’ or ‘I don’t want to.’ ‘I can’t‘ is really a statement of refusal.”
What?!
Psychological disabilities are real, just like physical ones. If someone can’t walk, they can’t walk. If someone can’t grocery shop, for example, they can’t grocery shop.
Let’s take the grocery shopping example further. Obviously, the person in question with a psychological disability (like PTSD) COULD go through the physical motions of going to the grocery store. Some people in wheelchairs CAN walk. However, the health consequences associated with completing that action will often make it not worth it. A wheelchair user, who can walk under very specific circumstances and/or for short times, would still suffer if you took their wheelchair away. They may be in severe pain or fall and injure themselves. Likewise, someone who “can’t” go to the grocery store may know that they will have a panic attack or exhaust themselves if they do, which are both examples of significant suffering that makes the activity not worthwhile. Just because they are technically capable of doing something that someone without a disability could do, it doesn’t mean that it would be good or healthy for them to do it.
You may have heard of “spoons,” or “spoon theory.” It’s not a metaphor that I love, since I prefer more common-sense units like “batteries,” but it’s worth mentioning since it’s spawned an entire subculture. “Spoons” are the measurement of energy or ability a physically or psychologically disabled person has. While they’re not usually easily measurable in exact numbers, a “spoonie” who uses the spoon theory to talk about their illness may start out the day with a finite number of “spoons.” Each activity, depending on how challenging it is to complete, depletes (or sometimes replenishes) spoons. For example, taking a shower might be lots of spoons for someone, while a healthy person would barely notice the amount of energy it takes. A spoonie who is completely exhausted and needs to rest is said to be “out of spoons.” Pushing past this limit, while sometimes possible, tends to result in longer recovery times and lots of suffering.
Part of the implication in the workbook was that people often decide they “can’t” do things just because they don’t want to do them. I can understand why people feel this to be true. There are a few reasons for this.
One, people with disabilities often have to choose carefully what activities have room in their lives due to limited ability or spoons. They may prioritize beloved hobbies or time with family and friends over, for example, doing the dishes, because they can’t do both. This can look like they’re making excuses because they don’t want to do something. In reality, they are trying to take care of themselves by making sure their lives include meaningful activities.
Secondly, unpleasant activities often take more spoons just BECAUSE they are unpleasant. It’s like feeling sleepy during and/or after a boring meeting– the properties of the event or activity make it harder to deal with. It’s not laziness or oppositionality or babying ourselves– it’s a genuine result of symptoms that everyone with a disability understands, but those who don’t have one might not.
When dealing with disabled people (either others or yourself) please understand that disability really does mean that there are some things a person can’t do.
Note: there is a lot of ableism surrounding physical disabilities as well as psychological ones. It just isn’t true that physical disabilities are as widely understood as many psychological disability activists believe. I don’t mean to imply that anything else is the case through my comparisons, but I do feel that often physical disabilities are easier for people to imagine and empathize with than psychological ones.
Write Mind 