3. 2026-01-27 / index
Good evening, probably (or not!). I spent most of my own afternoon glancing at publicly available resources to do with mental health and the workplace, and for the most part I was disappointed and frustrated how little materially substantial stuff any of it included. The only thing I didn't feel so let down by was this mandated report I think on mental health in public sector jobs in Canada (I've lost the link) and maybe if I'd dug more into its citations, I'd have gotten further, but the couple links I checked under literature review were... well, they had their merit. But they weren't what I was looking for.
I felt like I was unsure what I was looking for, actually, but I stepped away to cool off, dug around some more, found even less of use, and eventually I got that impulsive "what if I did find it?" image. Some YouTube series like Crash Course does, not as high production but definitely as oriented on treating subjects holistically (markedly unlike what you get if you fail in a school environment). Something any expert in their own experience could make, but probably no one was making.
Then I absentmindedly clicked some more links from the Dragon's Roost's general index on plurality and came to "The Alterhuman Archive's Plural Collection". I clicked an article randomly there, read enough to tell it was in "I"-perspective, spaced out. And of course, it's then it hits me. Any expert in their own experience can, and websites are where they do.
I think I'm violating a guardrail to include this passage I already wrote earlier today, here, but it's okay because it serves another guardrail which is more important right now: "just write the darn thing".
[This article] was a pretty good thing on plurality mostly targeted at teammates and supervisors (I skipped the part for systems themselves), and had a section with suggestions on - ofc, in a workplace - accommodating ppl w/ CPTSD in specific
The bullet list for that section was one item long
So I sketched an alternate list.
Things that make Whisper comfortable
- not getting singled out as the cPTSD headmate
- quiet sensory spaces (when doing work privately / solo)
- allowance for her to be quiet, or to suddenly be quiet
- trust and patience that assigned tasks are being taken seriously when there is little direct or immediate feedback
- clear and direct instruction, tasks with well-defined scopes—the presumption that this is necessary and helpful, the presumption that she may not ask for clarification and may be utterly avoidant if you give her a task that's been laid out frankly stupid
- listening when she speaks, asking specific questions in an effort for clarity when you are confused by what she says: asking as a way of listening, not being shy to admit "I don't understand what you're saying but I'm still trying"
- control over your own emotional expression. levelling your voice, not speaking loudly. avoiding an excessive degree of any emotional extreme: a continuous stretch of mega serious, a continuous stretch of mega un-serious. readiness to step aside and communicate with her one-on-one in a more grounded or neutral fashion, even if that means temporarily mellowing whatever 'loudness' is appropriate or natural in the broader moment.
Obviously I did single her out as "the cPTSD headmate" and I refrained from apologizing for it... I've employed the excuse that it's an exercise for both of us: I write about this (at all), she is the subject this time around (on her own).
Debatable whether she even was the subject, though. It's "stuff that makes her comfortable," but implicitly also: "stuff I want to do to make her comfortable." It was really weird writing this and wondering if I was just impressing a caricature of my idea of her, not so much her herself, and my items immediately becoming way longer, more thoughtful, more detailed. Like I'd sort of from the start felt I was looking for...
Her herself, in all her nuance - no, not all of it. But the nuance I notice. The stuff that rubs off on me. The way she tilts her head and I think, oh, I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing the wrong thing. I couldn't have realized on my own. But I'm doing it. I am. The way she gets something done, something big done, or a lot of small things done, and I have to realize for myself that I am partially to blame - to credit. The way that she tells me only in how she carries herself, carries herself, carries herself around me. She never spells anything out. I have to notice. I always have to notice.
Funny that my ability to write any of this shatters with a moment's interruption, right? But it's not just of a moment. Quote sec. <blockquote>, things no.2: "quiet sensory spaces". And no.3: "allowance for her to be quiet, or to suddenly be quiet". There are no hard feelings. Sensory input changes, so does capabilities, we take it slow, we take it slow.
Things I might have written on, but didn't: