Joining the ER Toolbox & ELSEY team

Hi, I’m Akiko. I’m excited to join the Easy Read Toolbox team as a new Junior Writer.

I am neurodivergent. I have experienced a lot of challenges that not many people have experienced.

One such example is that I became extremely sensitive to light in my 2nd semester of my Master’s degree. One day, computer, smartphone and tablet screens became too bright for me. I tried to check emails, text to my family, do my university assignments, but I found that I couldn’t read anything on screen. I got sensory overload when I tried to use my digital devices, so I had to take a long break very frequently after looking at a screen for a short time. Grocery shopping also became too challenging for me because some sections were too bright and I couldn’t read price tags or check product qualities.

I had some supportive friends and university staff, but some people didn’t understand my challenges at all. When I had energy, I tried to find somebody with similar experiences or potential solutions to my challenges, but I couldn’t find much information to make my life easier. I felt isolated.

My visual hypersensitivity gradually started recovering over time, fortunately. As I started regaining more and more energy, I became passionate to share my lived experiences and lessons learned from various challenges, including my experience with extreme visual hypersensitivity. It has been always my hope that sharing my experiences would eventually support somebody like past me to feel less isolated or to find potential solutions to get out of their challenges.

Over the past 5 years, I was fortunate that I had the opportunity to live far away from my family. That said, I still identify my independent life skills pretty low. My current dream is to move our of my home country in the near future, so I am keen to develop my life skills and confidence in independent living. On her article, “Passion and Independence”, Meg Sonsbeek says, ‘When living with a disability, completing daily tasks can be daunting. Daily tasks include personal care, cooking meals, cleaning the house, building social skills and transportation.’ Reading this, I thought “Yes, yes! I struggle with most of these tasks!” I felt somewhat pleased to know that I was not alone. The article also reads: “the fact that the majority of the time solutions, or even just information on the subject, are not accessible to those who need it.” I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know how many times I tried to find solutions to my challenges, answers to my questions, and information about daily tasks but it turned out that resources I found weren’t accessible for me or they did not solve my problems.

As you can see, I am still on my journey to develop various life skills. I believe one of the main reasons I am very excited to join the Easy Read Toolbox and the ELSEY Project team is perhaps because the project will help me to develop various skills and confidences in independent living while I pursue my passion to share my lived experiences and lessons learned.

I cannot wait to start creating Easy Read information and other accessible resources for the ELSEY Project and beyond wherever my skills and experiences are called!

Image: created in collaboration with Akiko & Matthew Anderson