#internalized ableism is a hell of a drug

[brightlotusmoon]

I am a movement disorders neurologist and have long been passionate about the psychological and social toll that conditions such as dysphonias have on my patients.

Kennedy says his condition began in 1996, when he was 42.

In North America, an estimated 50,000 people have spasmodic dysphonia. The condition involves the involuntary pulling of the muscles that open and close the vocal folds, causing the voice to sound strained and strangled, at times with a breathy quality. About 30% to 60% of people with the condition also experience vocal tremor, which can alter the sound of the voice.

Typically, a neurologist may suspect the disorder by identifying characteristic voice breaks when the patients is speaking. The diagnosis is confirmed with the help of an ear, nose and throat specialist who can insert a small scope into the larynx, examine the vocal folds and rule out any other abnormalities.

Because the disorder is not well known to the public, many patients experience a delay in diagnosis and may be misdiagnosed with gastric reflux or allergies.

The most common type of spasmodic dysphonia is called adductor dysphonia, which accounts for 80% of cases. It is characterized by a strained or strangled voice quality with abrupt breaks on vowels due to the vocal folds being hyperadducted, or abnormally closed.

In contrast, a form of the condition called abductor dysphonia causes a breathy voice with breaks on consonants due to uncontrolled abduction – meaning coming apart of the vocal folds.

[brightlotusmoon]

Hi. I was born with cerebral palsy. I don't suffer. I've never suffered. My life has been pretty amazing.

I'm sorry you find my body horrifying. I'm not a victim, though.

hayao miyazaki on ableism re: AI depicting “zombie”-like movements:

presenter:

miyazaki:

the last part usually gets quoted out of context as a meme or to paint miyazaki as an unreasonable grump but he was speaking against the ableist usage of disabled people’s movements for shock value & evoking ‘grotesquery.’

[arisveah]

every time my life works like an abled persons, i feel like such a fraud bro. like, who am i to complain about loose joints when all my shit is in? who am i to complain about face blindness when everyone in the room has a different haircut? what am i doing, calling myself autistic- i just got that social cue perfectly fine! who cares if this is all after a good nights sleep and well thought out planning for the rest of the day with the help of the people in the room, all who are aware of my difficulties differentiating faces and eachothers haircuts? am i not having problems with my joints or my blood pressure because im wearing compression socks and sitting down? irrelevant.

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

The Homeless Post

Hey, guys. I've been working up the nerve to post this for a while. I'm putting most of it under a cut but I'll give the TLDR up here:

We are going to be homeless for an unspecified amount of time due to some legal issues - whole separate post. We will be living out of the car and a tent, so essentially long-term camping. We need some gear and other assorted items. Here is our wishlist.

Signal boosting is appreciated for obvious reasons.

I have a Paypal.me and a Ko-Fi; the Ko-Fi has a store that will soon have stuff available on it, and a subscription model. I also have Chime, Paypal, and Cashapp, all with the cashtag NovasPrime. At a later date I may set up a gofundme but I don't really want to right now, because guilt and self-internalized ableism is a helluva drug.

On to the story.

So, we were told (mid-December) that we needed to be out by the end of February, from the place we were living in, or eviction would be filed. I don't want an eviction on my record, so I started the process of working towards that goal.

I quickly realized that there was an Issue, and the Issue was that we simply cannot get into any of the low-income housing because… Raven has a felony "failure to comply" warrant in Oregon.

We were surprised, because we thought they were in compliance, but it turns out… No. No, they were not. The records of their attending therapy and anger management were not being sent to the place. On top of that, I discovered that they had ordered Raven to do community service, and even though they were helping with lots of causes and orgs down here, it doesn't count.

Why, you may ask? Well, for one, it wasn't being documented. Not a huge issue, it can be. But also…. They wanted Raven to do THEIR community service.

Which they wanted to charge $40 a day for.

Raven is a disabled veteran. They are limited in the type of volunteer work they can do, but also? They can't afford $40 a day for 30 days. Who the hell can? Why would that be a thing?

After a couple of phone calls, I realized we just needed to go to Oregon. So I began planning for THAT. Our roomie was still adamant about the end of February, so I started planning. We got a storage unit and started sorting shit, and packing it, and slowly transferring it to the storage unit.

And then Shit happened, as it does. The car started overheating. It has also come due for an oil change. It needs a transmission flush, too. And new brakes. Some of this I can do myself, but some of it I can't. I have a friend who could help me do most or all of it, but he's on house arrest until March 25th (he is in recovery now, but drunk driving is a bad thing, guys. Don't do it). He said he'll help after he gets off, which is awesome of him, but like. That's still about a week away (as of right now, because he works) before I can even get the overheating taken care of, let alone the rest.

In the midst of all of this, I was also trying to figure out a timeline... and realized I couldn't, because we had no idea how long we were going to be in Oregon. I have a few friends scattered throughout the state, but I wasn't counting on being able to stay with anyone. We have three cats and two people. What to do?

A friend of mine agreed to watch two of the cats for me for as long as it takes. She has her own house and cats of her own. So, until the car started overheating, we brought the two girl cats over once a week to get used to the place and meet her cats.

But we weren't packing fast enough. Winter is a rough time for both of us because of our disabilities; the weather makes it painful to move. We also had to sort through 20 years of assorted shit; at one point I had a life that hadn't fallen fully apart, so I kept everything. Plus, I had all of my dad's shit that I inherited. I've finally accepted that I can part with most of the useless stuff, but some of it I can't bear to. TLDR: our stuff is mostly still at the old place.

I was able to work out a deal with the friend who's taking care of our cats, to crash at her house for a month. WE and the CATS were out of the old place by March 1, but our shit wasn't, and we've had issues packing it up and moving it. Luckily, old roomie has agreed to just tack an extra month of rent onto what I owe him (to be paid back when we get back from the debacle in Oregon) so we're slowly moving things to storage. I'm just constantly filling the car with water to keep it from overheating and praying that the engine can take it.

However, here's the thing. The Big Thing.

We're technically homeless now, and we'll be Real Homeless as of April 1. The car cannot currently make it to Oregon (honestly? I'd rather buy a cheap minivan or SUV, and leave the car here with my kid, but I simply don't have the money, even though there's a ton of them for sale around here in good shape).

We're going to have to rough it for a while. Raven can get a pass to camp for free at all Nevada State Parks for $30 a year, so we're getting that on payday, and we have a decent tent and sleeping bag (singular, but it'll do). I have some assorted camping gear, even. But there's a lot we do need to just….fix our shit and be able to get to Oregon. Oregon has one of these as well, and it allows 10 days of camping per month. It's free and we've already applied for it. California has one too, but you have to apply in-person if you're not a CA resident. So that'll happen in a bit.

But we are gonna need… help. Raven gets VA disability. $2200ish a month. Sounds like a lot right? It's not. It's really not.

Between car insurance, gas, fixing the car, general car maintenance, phone bills, food (we qualify for a whopping $26 a month in SNAP benefits), things we have to buy to fulfill our end of bargains here, and the camping gear we DON'T have, next month is looking pretty awful.

While Raven is in jail, they get no benefits. I'm also disabled, but juuuust disabled enough on paper that I can't get disability (as you can guess, this is going to be even harder now in the Trump administration, so I'm just working on geting documentation of my disabilities so that when he's gone I can apply). I can't hold down more than really really part-time work because of pain and mental health issues, even though I have been desperately trying to find one. So I'm going to have to survive off of doordash, most likely.

If Raven's jail time isn't going to be that long, it's not that big a deal.

They could be in jail for up to six months.

So, why this post?

One, to explain that my posting will be very sporadic and frenzied when I do. More than usual, anyway.

Two, because I'm going to need your help. There are several ways to help.

Encouraging notes! Currently we have a PO Box, listed above. When we go to Oregon, if we're going to be there for more than a week or so, I'm getting another PO Box and getting mail forwarded from that one to the Oregon one. Digital notes are nice too. I just really like postcards, little cards, letters, etc. Pictures of cool shit where you live. Whatever. Something to keep my spirits up. Anything.

I have set up a wishlist, as seen above. I know, we don't like Amazon, but I don't know where else to do a wishlist that doesn't like. Give out a home address. Since I'm having this stuff shipped to a friend's house, I really don't want to do that. Once I'm in OR, I'll find out where I can have things shipped. PO Boxes are hit-and-miss with Amazon.

As noted above, I am accepting donations and I have a Ko-Fi store and subscriptions. I am working on getting things put onto the Ko-Fi store on a pay-what-you-can model; anything from short fiction to Am Adult instruction sheets to 3D designs, whatever I can manage at any given time. Raven will also be doing drawings and such. I'm also working on making things available to anyone who chooses to subscribe!

Signal boosting this post. I need as many people to see it as possible, not just for monetary benefit, but so I can find people in Oregon maybe willing to let me and my one cat crash on their couch or pitch the tent in their back yard. I'm also going to be documenting all of this and getting documentation on the case in the first place, because Raven shouldn't have even been arrested. So I need people to see this so that word gets out about this kind of thing. Oregon needs to change some shit.

Thanks for reading. I'll have updates as I can.

[another-punk-trans-woman]

ah ok! best of luck with the cane :)

and if you do end up needing a crutch later, there’s nothing wrong with using one! internalized ableism is a hell of drug, I still have hesitations about even using my knee braces sometimes. but for what it’s worth, I regret the days when I didn’t wear the braces/use the crutch/take the pain meds/etc way more than the days I did. hope things work out for you <3

Thanks ^.^

Yeah it's a hell of a thing. I don't even know how I *functioned* without my brace lol. One of these days I'll manage to convince the doctor's to give me decent fuckin pain killers 🙃

(I have an AMAZING story about trying to get decent painkillers holy shit. Lemme tell ya, you show up in a battle jacket ONE TIME and all of a suddenly, you're not a respectable young professional. You're a delinquent and an addict)

Same to you, anon, take care!

[athetos]

Called in to work because I got maybe 2 hours sleep last night and had a killer migraine and I feel a bit better now after napping but also a bit guilty due to internalized ableism even though I’m chronically ill and man capitalism is one hell of a fucking drug that worms it’s way into your brain. Ugh.

[brightlotusmoon]

Internalized ableism is a hell of a drug.

im so fucking serious when i say that no one is crueler to visibly disabled people than girlies with blue wolfcuts and sharp eyeliner wearing hundred dollar sweaters from shein.

[brightlotusmoon]

[fatmasc]

Hm. Having to come 2 terms w this fact that I am disabled

[youritalianbookpal]

Ten Questions Book Review - A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

What is it? Story of the life of a group of friends: Jude, JB, Malcolm, Willem. It will mostly follow the mysterious Jude, though. You'll be glad about it but also completely heartbroken.

Who should read it and why? Read this only after reading the trigger warnings somewhere. I didn't and I was fine (Yanagihara has a talent for writing the most excruciating things in a beautiful way), but there's a lot of heavy themes in here. A lot of darkness. This book is beautiful, but I don't think I'll ever tell someone to read it.

Which genre(s) is it? Contemporary novel.

What is the setting? Most of the plot is set in New York, though the characters do travel around the world a lot, and there's several flashbacks in other parts of the US. The book spans for some 50 years, but there are no clear references of when the story happens (at least that I can tell of). I think it's very important not to have clear references of the time passing through the happenings in the world, but only through what happens in the lives of Willem, Jude, JB, and Malcolm.

How are the characters? To tell you that I loved the four protagonists, Andy, and Harold is an understatement. I have so many feelings about all of them, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to put all of them to paper. There is no way that Jude will not always be in my heart. And all the people he holds in his heart will be in my heart too. It's just too difficult for me to think of the right words to speak about this. This is how good the characters are. So good they make you speechless.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the novel? Don't ask me about weaknesses, I don't want to find them. This book is too good. It's also long as hell and I'm sure that people who hated it can point out exactly what is wrong with this novel, but I can't. I loved every single one of the 816 pages, even the ones specifically designed to beak my heart in tiny little pieces.

Did I cry and/or laugh? I cried so much. Just. So much. I had to stop so many times. I CRIED ON THE TRAIN FOR THIS BOOK AND I'D DO IT AGAIN. And it also has some funny parts. Sometimes, someone will say something funny while your heart is breaking in two and you laugh and you don't even know why you're laughing. Well, that's how I laughed reading this.

Who shouldn’t read the book? There are way too many trigger warnings here, so I'll just say the ones I can think of, but please find a complete list somewhere: self-harm and suicide, child abuse and rape, car accidents, abusive relationships, child prostitution, grief, eating disorders, drug abuse, ableism and internalized ableism, child death, chronic illnesses.

Any random comment? No comments, just so many things to say about everyone and no words to say it because I'm traumatized and speechless. Loved this though.

Which quote stuck with me?

Finding a single quote for this book was incredibly hard. It is a testament to Yanagihara's writing how hard it was. But I decided to go with this one:

All the most terrifying Ifs involve people. All the good ones do as well.

[brightlotusmoon]

"I just took this miracle cure, you should try it, I bet it works on cerebral palsy too."

I went through this in the 90s, being called a Star Child and Indigo Child and Crystal Child

And sure, it affirmed that I was always a cryptid, but it was also deeply obnoxious and condescending in the way of "putting you on a pedestal as a warning disguised as praise" that the X-Men dealt with.

Laziness is just the burning muscle fatigue that I wish I could transfer to the ableists.

Anyway, a big go fuck yourself to the disabled people who sit on a pedestal and throw rocks at their disabled peers for things like "being lazy", "wallowing", "not trying", "being a complainer", "being vague about their disability"

[sydmarch]

it's actually soooo sad to look back on just how damn long after realizing there was no denying I had sensory processing disorder I clung to "well allistic people can have spd too!" like girl you're a whole autism. internalized ableism is a hell of a drug

[brightlotusmoon]

Repeat to self: I have worth. I am useful to society. Being disabled enough to need Social Security Disability Insurance is not wrong and never will be. I am extremely capable of being creative and productive. Even if I weren't, it doesn't matter. Everyone has inherent worth.

(yes, I want to make money with my writing, yes I'm looking into available avenues, no I'm not very productive right now and that really bothers me and I need motivation.)

[aqueeraphale]

Me at age 12, playing Pokemon Black And White for the Nintendo DS: man, N is such a nuanced and relatable character! he's one of my favorites!

Me at age 15, playing Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire for the Nintendo 3DS: wow, how did I never notice how many autistic things are woven into the worldbuilding of Pokemon! eye contact is considered aggressive, having an identity based around an interest or hobby is not only accepted but encouraged, loud lights and noises cause physical pain....

Me at age 18, playing Pokemon Sun and Moon for the Nintendo 3DS: well, N Harmonia very obviously has PTSD or CPTSD from the way he was raised, and the fact that he reads autistic in an already autisic-coded world is really something worth noting.

Me now, playing Pokemon Sword and Shield for the Nintendo Switch and having my annual "am I faking it" crisis, thinking about all this:

[brightlotusmoon]

As soon as @evilsoup talked about separate cultures merging with general culture, the red flags popped up like dandelions. I've heard that exact phrasing from folks who were paraphrasing eugenicists without realizing. I really really really hope they do talk a long deep look at themselves because they are exactly like the people who politely told me why I should be dead.

Once again begging anti-theists to realize that to get to a world without religion you’d have to commit cultural genocide. So maybe you shouldn’t push for that

[marvelbang]

This Lonely Night (The Marvel Noir) by Alistra, art by Harishe

This Lonely Night (The Marvel Noir) (40269 words) by Alistra

Chapters: 6/6

Fandom: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Earth-65

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Yelena Belova, James "Bucky" Barnes & Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes & Frank Castle, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts & Steve Rogers, Clint Barton & Kate Bishop, Frank Castle & Peter Parker, Background relationships - Relationship

Characters: Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes, Peter Parker, Frank Castle, Steve Rogers, Pepper Potts, Yelena Belova, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Kate Bishop, Matt Murdock, Many Marvel Cameos, Wilson Fisk, Tracksuit Mafia (Marvel)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Noir, Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, minor homophobic language, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Racism, Period Typical Attitudes, 1940s, Alternate Universe - 1940s, References to Drugs, Vomiting, Gun Violence, Sex Work, Ableism, Period Typical use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Character Death, Queer History, Speakeasies, Families of Choice, Post-War, World War II, War Trauma, genre-typical fisticuffs, Gay Bar, Blind Character, Background Relationships, Not Relationship-Centric, Father-Son Relationship, Big Bang Challenge, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Embedded Images, Art, Digital Art

Summary:

[Image descriptions for embedded art in alt text]

The year is 1949.

While all those bright-eyed and able-bodied men were fighting abroad, organized crime has been running Hell's Kitchen and it isn't planning on letting go of its power, now that World War II has ended.

When a drug that was originally designed to keep soldiers alert starts showing up in the city, Steve Rogers hires Hawkeye Investigations to find out who is threatening the community he's vowed to protect -- more specifically the illegal queer, interracial speakeasy he's been secretly running.

Following the trail of crime into the darkest parts of Hell's Kitchen, a rag-tag band of war-traumatised individuals learns that in civilian life, the lines between good and bad are often blurred. Yet while death and despair are never far, neither are love and hope.

Art post by Harishe: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/marvel_bang_2021/works/35830639