Journal of Writing Assessment

This interlude examines the paradoxical nature of trust and accessibility in academic spaces through the author's dual perspective as both an AuDHD PhD student and Teaching Fellow. Through autotheoretical reflection on a particularly challenging semester complicated by medication side effects and anxiety, the author explores how institutional power dynamics create an uneven landscape of trust: while tenured professors can extend implicit trust to struggling students, precarious teaching fellows often feel constrained by institutional pressures and mentorship that emphasizes skepticism over accommodation. This tension reveals how institutional structures of distrust can impede the implementation of disability-conscious pedagogies, even when individual instructors are committed to accessibility.