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[ghostofagoat]

[ghostofagoat]

I don't know what stage of my disability I hate more. The stage where I can't do anything and I'm too tired/in pain to feel anything about it. Or the stage where I shouldn't do anything because I'm healing and I feel "fine" but I have to live exactly the same way or I damage myself.

I feel like a fraud. Within myself I feel like I could do anything I used to do because my body isn't screaming at me. I feel like i could go for a 4 hour walk or ice skate all day. But actually if I go outside or try to cook for myself I will fall over and I will do myself damage but I feel fine.

[ghostofagoat]

it would be so cool if able bodied people could get it through their heads that i dont just get a little tired or hurt a little bit when i do things.

“we need to start doing xyz —” i cant “but it needs to get done” i still cant “but —” cant :)

[ghostofagoat]

Story of my life 🙄😅

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[ghostofagoat]

I dont know why I'm such a coward. I can't stand up for myself unless I'm angry.

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I'm in hospital right now. I hate it. I need to sleep. I don't know what's going on. My call button is broken or they are ignoring it⁰

I want to go home

[ghostofagoat]

Y'all want to know what thought is fucking with me today?

Parrots can learn the concept of questions. I don't know about the claim that chimpanzees that were taught sign language never learned to ask questions, or the theory that it simply wouldn't occur to them that the human handlers might know things that they personally do not, or that whatever information they have might be worth knowing. But I don't even remember where I read that, and at best it's an anecdote of an anecdote, but anyway, parrots.

The exact complexity of natural parrot communication in the wild is beyond human understanding for the time being, but you can catch glimpses of how complex it is by looking at how much they learn to pick up from human speech. Sure, they figure out that this sound means this object, animal, person, or other thing. Human says "peanut" and presents a peanut, so the sound "peanut" means peanut. Yes. But if you make the same sound with a rising intonation, you are inquiring about the possibility of a peanut.

A bird that's asking "peanut?" knows there is no peanut physically present in the current situation, but hypothetically, there could be a peanut. The human knows whether there will be a peanut. The bird knows that making this specific human sound with this specific intonation is a way of requesting for this information, and a polite way of informing the human that a peanut is desired.

"I get a peanut?" is a polite spoken request. There is no peanut here, but there could be a peanut. The bird knows that the human knows this. But without the rising intonation of a question, the statement "I get a peanut." is a firm implied threat. There is no peanut here, but there better fucking be one soon. The bird knows that the human knows this.

[ghostofagoat]

Being disabled is so weird sometimes. Recently I've caught myself missing doing house chores.

I remember how, before I was 12yo, I used to love washing/deep cleaning my mom's rugs (we had like some 3-5 rugs of varying sizes growing up). I hated doing the dishes, but I was always game to deep clean the bathroom. I didn't like mopping the floor inside, but I would gladly take time scrubbing the outside patio (which was big)...

Nowadays even sweeping the floors of my tiny studio apartment tires me out so much and makes me feel like all my bones are breaking, all my muscles are tearing apart, my joints scream.

I think things like "I should clean this or that" and honestly I can practically see how my energy is going to be all spent before I finish and how it will punish my body. That I end up giving up before even starting, because I know I won't finish and it will just frustate me more.

Sometimes I think can't remember what was like to live without pain, because my fibro started at age 12, so I've lived more years with it then without. But then it comes to me in things like missing being able to do and even enjoy chores. I used to LOVE doing some of those things I listed. Anything to do with my hands and maybe involving lots of water was a joy to do. I used to also like helping my dad with construction work, or moving furniture, any job that was deemed "boy/man job" actually, since even before knowing I was trans.

Nowadays it's hard for me to enjoy going out to a park to sit down with a book to enjoy nature (because that means some amount of walking and then sitting in the ground which isn't really gentle on my joints/muscles), let alone enjoy doing physical labour.

I'm going to turn 28 this year and I feel I've lost so much due to physical disability. I've never got to, and probably never will, experience so much that my peers have and it just leaves with this feeling of loss and grief over 'what could have beens'.

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I feel so lost. I want to get better with all sorts of things, my mood my physical health, my mental health, my eating habit, I want to learn, I want to read, I want to go outside and socialise.

But I don't I don't know how to do any of it. The first step is the hardest step, because I'm in a mirror maze filled with knives. If I stay where I am I'm safe, not better but safe.

If I step wrong, and there are a thousand wrong choices to every right choice. Then I get really badly hurt. Not just a papercut, I could bleed out or lose a limb. I'll probably just be hurt making the journey that much more dangerous, not dead. But its still more than I can risk?

I'm already so broken. So fragile I feel like a soft breeze will shatter me. So I don't step. But I want to. I know everyone has mazes of thier own to navigate and the people who do best just go straight ahead. But so do those who die. I know that it's too much to ask to be safe navigating this. I know I have to make mistakes to get better. I don't mind some glass shards in my feet. It will suck but I can take them out . Bind my feet and heal. But if I step into bigger shards and lose to much blood its game over. And I'm not ready for that. I want to live. But to live I have to risk it all in a game of blind chance heavily rigged against me.

When ever I see characters stuck in a terrible situation I'm always screaming inside "go take your chance!" "Be free!" " you hate where you are so what ever happens will be better" then I look at my own self paralysed by the thought of pain. Of hurting myself more. Of hurting the ones I love. And I think "oh. That why you can't take that step without somone to show you the way. Or the breaking point when life is so unbearable where you are that anything is better.

I think that maybe I should find a cause that I don't mind dying for. Breaking my body, or mind, or both for. If there was a single thing I could think of where I would make more of a difference than a fly against the windshield of a car. I would. I'd regret those I leave behind but hope that I left them a slightly better world. The big things are too big, yes every little helps but it needs clever capable people to find chinks in its armour not a useless martyr. The small things are too hard. They never used to be. A small kindness was easy, a returned cart, a thoughtful gesture, now its too hard I can't go out and I have to rely on so many people to do the smallest of things me doing anything creates more problems than it helps. A thimble of water thrown on a fire, means asking the people near me to stop putting out their own fires and reach into mine so I can use the thimble. Too much to ask of other for the little good it does.

I know everything I'm struggling with interplays, I make one better the rest all get a little easier. But also I make one worse and they all get harder. And I can barely cope with what I have right now.

You might think that all this would be solved with a guide, some therapy, a safety net. And you would be right. But to get that help that I need. I need to take those first steps. And right now I have too much to loose if I step wrong. But if I get to that point of not caring so much will I have the strength left to step? Or will I just let myself fall?

[ghostofagoat]

Forced to learn how tumblr works because quotev has officially killed itself ☹️ (please tell me terms and stuff i should know) (and explain it like youre talking to your mom about your favorite media)

[ghostofagoat]

Whgskl. Okay.

PSA to all you fantasy writers because I have just had a truly frustrating twenty minutes talking to someone about this: it’s okay to put mobility aids in your novel and have them just be ordinary.

Like. Super okay.

I don’t give a shit if it’s high fantasy, low fantasy or somewhere between the lovechild of Tolkein meets My Immortal. It’s okay to use mobility devices in your narrative. It’s okay to use the word “wheelchair”. You don’t have to remake the fucking wheel. It’s already been done for you.

And no, it doesn’t detract from the “realism” of your fictional universe in which you get to set the standard for realism. Please don’t try to use that as a reason for not using these things.

There is no reason to lock the disabled people in your narrative into towers because “that’s the way it was”, least of all in your novel about dragons and mermaids and other made up creatures. There is no historical realism here. You are in charge. You get to decide what that means.

Also:

“Depiction of Chinese philosopher Confucius in a wheelchair, dating to ca. 1680. The artist may have been thinking of methods of transport common in his own day.”

“The earliest records of wheeled furniture are an inscription found on a stone slate in China and a child’s bed depicted in a frieze on a Greek vase, both dating between the 6th and 5th century BCE.[2][3][4][5]The first records of wheeled seats being used for transporting disabled people date to three centuries later in China; the Chinese used early wheelbarrows to move people as well as heavy objects. A distinction between the two functions was not made for another several hundred years, around 525 CE, when images of wheeled chairs made specifically to carry people begin to occur in Chinese art.[5]”

“In 1655, Stephan Farffler, a 22 year old paraplegic watchmaker, built the world’s first self-propelling chair on a three-wheel chassis using a system of cranks and cogwheels.[6][3] However, the device had an appearance of a hand bike more than a wheelchair since the design included hand cranks mounted at the front wheel.[2]

The invalid carriage or Bath chair brought the technology into more common use from around 1760.[7]

In 1887, wheelchairs (“rolling chairs”) were introduced to Atlantic City so invalid tourists could rent them to enjoy the Boardwalk. Soon, many healthy tourists also rented the decorated “rolling chairs” and servants to push them as a show of decadence and treatment they could never experience at home.[8]

In 1933 Harry C. Jennings, Sr. and his disabled friend Herbert Everest, both mechanical engineers, invented the first lightweight, steel, folding, portable wheelchair.[9] Everest had previously broken his back in a mining accident. Everest and Jennings saw the business potential of the invention and went on to become the first mass-market manufacturers of wheelchairs. Their “X-brace” design is still in common use, albeit with updated materials and other improvements. The X-brace idea came to Harry from the men’s folding “camp chairs / stools”, rotated 90 degrees, that Harry and Herbert used in the outdoors and at the mines.[citation needed]

“But Joy, how do I describe this contraption in a fantasy setting that wont make it seem out of place?”

“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince FancyPants McElferson propelled forwards using his arms to direct the motion of the chair.”

“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince EvenFancierPants McElferson used to get about, pushed along by one of his companions or one of his many attending servants.”

“But it’s a high realm magical fantas—”

“It was a floating chair, the hum of magical energy keeping it off the ground casting a faint glow against the cobblestones as {CHARACTER} guided it round with expert ease, gliding back and forth.”

“But it’s a stempunk nov—”

“Unlike other wheelchairs he’d seen before, this one appeared to be self propelling, powered by the gasket of steam at the back, and directed by the use of a rudder like toggle in the front.”

Give. Disabled. Characters. In. Fantasy. Novels. Mobility. Aids.

If you can spend 60 pages telling me the history of your world in innate detail down to the formation of how magical rocks were formed, you can god damn write three lines in passing about a wheelchair.

Signed, your editor who doesn’t have time for this ableist fantasy realm shit.

[ghostofagoat]

rb to relieve the back pain of the person u reblogged this from

[ghostofagoat]

I really really needed this today. I hope you don't need it, but if you do here it is

disabled people are worth whatever cost or resources is needed to keep them alive. disabled people are worth it even if they don't live long. they're worth it even if they will need extra support and resources for every day of their life. they're worth it even if they spend all they life indoors. none of it is wasted. none of it is in vain. time, effort, money, resources spent on a life are not wasted. these things have served their purpose. the joy of someone's existence is not undermined by not lasting forever. there's no meaningful point, some threshold where you can say "okay this is enough. after that it's not worth it." it's always worth it.

[ghostofagoat]

everyone living in EU - please support the citizens initiative for safe and accessible abortion!!

[ghostofagoat]

I'm furious, seething, filled to the brim with marvolent rage, at the life I've lost. I'm exhausted beyond measure, drained of my hope and zest for life, I've expended everything my soul has to give, pushing myself past limits that no one else even had. I've chopped all the parts of myself that were in the way, off trying to make myself more palatablemore wothy to be helped. I've waited so long and so often I don't know how to do anything else. I've tolerated every delay every dismissal. I've squandered my last dregs of vitality jumping through hoops I knew wouldn't work. I've clawed myself up mountains of indifference screaming for help till my voice gave out and I collapsed inwards with nothing to show for my efforts. If I had spent a fraction of the energy and effort I wasted on trying to get help on living my life to the fullest I would be so much happier.

Now I'm an empty husk of a person with nothing left to give, with only vague hints of my personality and sense of self left I realise I should have spent my life on making myself happy instead of trying to " get better" or be listened to. I'm going to to my best to spend my energy on thriving instead of surviving and if that means I survive a for a much shorter time. I don't care at least I lived before I died.