#MERDs

[permanently-sprained-ankle]

If you unironically support the use of the term “MERD” not only do I want you to not interact, I want you to [redacted so I don’t loose my account]

[yellowyarn]

cw, breif mention of self injuries stimming

if your a cr*pple punk whos wants to keep mentally disabled people out your spaces i want you to know that mental disabilities affect people physically too.

i want you to look me in the eyes while im catatonic and cant move anything but my eyes, while i cry over how much my had hurts from writing, while my head feels like its being split open or while im screaming and banging my head into a concrete wall because everything hurts so much and tell me im not disabled enough to talk about my physical symptoms.

i get that you want your own space to talk about your physical disabilities but why can't a mentally disabled person whose physical symptoms stop them from living their life also be a part of that?

[phoenixonwheels]

The ~discourse~ around the term cripple punk is so wild to me bcs from what I've seen the people arguing that it includes mental illnesses/disabilities are mentally ill people who are ALSO physically disabled explaining from experience that not only are mental illnesses oftentimes disabling in exactly the same way physical disabilities are, but that trying to draw a hard line between "physical" and "mental" conditions is reductive and unhelpful in terms of actually accommodating us and understanding our conditions, especially given that both have so much overlap that it's hard to distinguish what's coming from where in the first place. Like when I'm having a bad enough depressive episode I feel real, physical pain in my chest that's so bad I can hardly stand up, and the accommodations that help me when my hEDS or POTs is making it hard to stand help when it's the depression instead. And yet I'm supposed to believe these two things are completely different, 100% of the time, no exceptions?? Plus like, idk every time I see people argue that mental conditions are somehow different from physical ones it just reminds me of how often doctors will brush aside the physical symptoms of my mental illnesses bcs they're "all in my head" despite how much I'm clearly suffering. For me so much of learning to live with stuff like my bipolar and adhd is unlearning the idea that my brain is like, a separate entity from my body, and accepting that the physical stuff I'm feeling shouldn't be dismissed just bcs it's caused by my brain and not like, my POTs or hEDS. For so often I've seen positivity posts talking about how mental conditions do physically affect people and understanding and accepting that is important, it's wild to see a group that should be on top of that sort of thing fumble it so badly.

And god, so much of the world is already against disabled people, getting mad that the "wrong" disabled people are using the term cripple punk while society does everything in its power to make life impossible for us feels like we're just doing their work for them. We should stand united in our very much shared struggle instead of desperately trying to shove everyone in separate boxes and make sure they stay there, insisting that we have nothing in common and could never share a community. We have everything in common and we need to stand together, now more than ever.

All of this! And also it’s clearly never occurred to them that a huge percentage of the medical gaslighting we’ve all experienced is having doctors blow off our physical disabilities and illnesses by claiming we’re mentally ill. Gee hmm I wonder why that is? Could it be that mental illnesses and disabilities are even more discriminated against than physical illnesses and disabilities? And if we all fight together for respect and rights for people with all types of disabilities and disorders we all benefit?

This shit is absolutely wild to me. And it leads to things like people yelling at me - an actual wheelchair user who is currently mostly bedbound - that I hate cripples and am somehow trying to “steal cripple privilege” and insert myself undeservingly into “cripple spaces” because I refuse to join them in their bigotry against mentally ill and mentally disabled people.

MERDs are to the Cripple Punk and disability rights movements what TERFs are to feminism and the queer rights movement. They’re dragging us back decades.

*MERD: mental-exclusionary radical disabled

[headpainmigraine]

I think that now trying to paint people who are insistent that cripplepunk is indeed "by the physically disabled, for the physically disabled" as 'Cops' is just further torpedo'ing that argument.

First you try and paint us as TERFS, who are transphobic bigots, who say that transwomen aren't women and transmen are confused girls, with 'mentally exclusive radical disableds' like...

First of all, this is clearly just an attempt to find an acronym as close to 'TERF' as possible to make us sound like the same thing, which isn't true.

The end result being you've shoved words together that don't actually make sense... 'mentally exclusive' sounds like a thought experiment. Or that you're referring to 'radical disableds' of your imagination. Like a disabled blorbo? Crip-OC?

Also, 'disableds'? Kinda gross. Not a good look. Same kind of dehumanising factor as 'Blacks'.

Isn't cripplepunk a radical movement in itself? Living unapologetically, loudly, aggressively physically disabled while rejecting infantalisation and inspiration porn; sounds radical to me in the current world disabled people live in.

Again, cripplepunks aren't saying that if you aren't physically disabled, then you aren't disabled. We're just trying to maintain that space created for us, for US.

'Cripplepunk' isn't a synonym for 'disabled'

'MERD' is just a convenient shorthand for you so you don't have to keep explaining it, while also subtly associating us with TERFs, subsequently devaluing our arguments and delegitimising our stance.

It's a non-thing.

And now you're saying we're Cops?

Another inflammatory descriptor with the assumption of corruption and the abuse of power, bullying and crushing peaceful protest, where the knee-jerk reaction is mistrust and unease, come on.

What's next, the Klan? Nazis of the disability community?

All of this because you think people without physical disabilities should be allowed into a space created exclusively for people with physical disabilities?

Yeah yeah, mental illness is in the brain, the brain is a physical object, etc, etc, that doesn't mean all mental health issues and neurodivergencies ate physical disabilities

And I know that you know that.

This is grabbing at straws to get into what you see as a cool club, for some reason.

I'm not going to start claiming allodynia or dysautonomia or migraines are mental illnesses because they're caused by fucked up signals going to your brain, so therefore they're mental conditions.

It's semantics and splitting hairs; everyone knows what our community means when someone says they have a physical disability, or a mental disability, or are neurodivergent. These arguments are just like MERD - a non-thing. Functionally useless in this discussion.

[sillymcrandom]

merd is such a stupid fucking term but the idea of “radical disableds” or whatever sounds rad as hell

[brokenfoxproductions]

Me: MERDs are fascist gatekeepers who literally discriminate against their own community and they don't deserve to call themselves punk or pretend that they actually have any positive motivations at all.

MERDs: you're just a disgusting tranny! You just hate disabled people! You're never going to be really disabled because you don't have my exact diagnosis! I hope you get raped! I hope you get murdered! I would murder anyone who disagrees with me! People who aren't disabled in the same way I am don't deserve to be alive!

Me: ....you could literally try to not prove my point.

[gum-iie]

centuries wept away

[skulsakz]

merde magazine photographed by michele arabito, 2023

[arctic-hands]

I keep saying this in reblogs to other posts but I'm going to say this in an original post now because holy shit

You cannot carbon copy paste queer discourse into other non-queer facets of life. Physically disabled people are not equivalent to terfs or "exclusionary" just because the cripplepunk community is for physically disabled people. This isn't any more exclusionary than a white person such as myself not being allowed to say a racial slur. Life doesn't work like that holy shit

[hedgehog-moss]

Les Parisiens, ces dieux de la com’...

[kb11rd]

hoffstrahm or whatever. weewoo

[phoenixonwheels]

When exclusionists try to take over your community you have a few options:

Join them.

Pretend it’s not happening.

Fight them.

Leave the community and let them have it.

Personally I choose to fight. Y’all will have to make your own decisions based on your energy levels, abilities and personal belief systems.

[headpainmigraine]

"MERD" isn't a thing. It doesn't make sense.

TERFs say 'transwomen aren't really women'

Cripplepunks aren't saying 'mental illness isn't a disability'

We're saying 'cripplepunk is a space for people with a physical disability'

And 'if you're nd or have a mental health condition but DON'T have a physical disability, this isn't the right space for you.'

Please populate 'neuropunk' and 'madpunk', please.

I'd love to see more activity in those tags than people trying to push a triangle into a square hole because 'we're all shapes'

Yeah, that's true, but you aren't a square!

[ilfascinodelvago]

L'educazione delle masse è stata assunta dalla televisione. E la televisione è dovunque nelle mani dei privati, cioè del Potere. Dunque agisce nel loro interesse, e contro l'interesse degli spettatori, cioè delle masse. Solo che il suo funzionamento è assai più pervasivo, più potente, più subdolo: l'educazione si realizza manipolando. E la manipolazione avviene in forme accattivanti, divertenti, solleticanti, tendenti al massimo ascolto. Così siamo stati “educati". Dunque il problema all'ordine del giorno è mettere a fuoco una verità elementare. È la tv a plasmare gli individui e a definire lo stato psicologico, intellettuale, morale di un popolo intero. In quanto tale, essa non dovrebbe essere né al servizio dei pochi, né fuori dal controllo democratico dei molti. In una società “debole”, cioè con un livello civile ridotto o elementare, la tv ha effetti più devastanti. Cento trasmissioni sono devastanti per lo stato intellettuale e morale di un intero paese. Hanno prodotto lo spettacolo necessario per stemperare gli obiettivi di trasformazione sociale; per oscurare, marginalizzare, ridicolizzare la critica al sistema; per produrre il rumore di fondo sufficiente a impedire l’ascolto di altre voci. Penso che per fare la televisione bisogna avere la patente. Perché l'informazione è un diritto e non può essere subordinata al mercato; perché la cultura è un patrimonio comune; perché l'educazione è un dovere.

P.P. Pasolini

[musicktoplayinthedark]

My albums selction for the next week:

Throbbing Gristle – At The Factory, Manchester

Like Weeds - Self Sabotage

Ecoute La Merde - Ecoute La Merde

Kill The Thrill – Dig

Dive - Grinding Walls

Bleed - Womb

Coagulant - burial cult

Arbre – I

Carbon Sink - Climatic Paragon

Curse All Kings – Inversion

[skulsakz]

merde magazine photographed by michele arabito, 2023