#ableism rant

[calameowri]

"who would ever use that" "wow, you dont let your wheelchair stop you!" "wtf is thick water" "you have an old lady cane" "imagine being so lazy" "cant someone just lift you?" "you ask for too much" "it looks better with stairs tho" "have you tried essential oils" "we should ban straws!" "but you look fine?" "we dont need masks anymore" "learning sign so i can have a secret language" "i scraped my knee, haha im a cripple" "let me push your wheelchair" "youre just differently abled" "pre-cut vegetables? no one learns home skills now!" "that milkshake is diabetes in a cup" "lol you live with your parents at 25?" "try losing some weight" does it ever end DOES IT EVER END

[neurospicyyy]

• Fidgeting and stuttering do NOT always indicate that someone is nervous.

• Avoiding eye contact does NOT always mean someone is lying.

• Having a hard time focusing does NOT always mean someone is lazy.

• Carrying around a stuffed animal or blanket does NOT make someone childish.

• Poor motor skills is NOT a direct indication of intelligence.

Not everyone fits into your box. Deal with it.

[nondivisable]

disabled people are allowed to have hobbies that clash with our disabilities by the way

I'm allowed to like journaling even if my hand tremors make it so I can't do something as "pretty" as an abled bodied person

I'm allowed to like crocheting even if it's bad for my joints and it takes me double the time it would take someone else to finish a project

and yes I'm trying to switch to knitting which is lighter on the hands, but even that - even fucking using my phone - makes my finger hurts

I'm allowed to complain about it, just like you - specially if you're abled - are not allowed to tell me off about it

it's so hard for us to find joy, you're not allowed to police the small things that help

[imkrisyoung]

Can we please stop putting down autistic, ADHD, and other neurodivergent people whose traits are considered 'cringe', 'dorky', 'weird' or something else considered to be socially unacceptable?

We get enough shit from neurotypical people—we don't need to throw each other under the bus too.

"But they're making us look bad!"

I. Don't. Care. It's wrong to put each other on hierarchies. Simple.

[creativelyabsentminded]

Man my school district only allowing 8 parent excused absences per year and making people get doctors notes after that limit is exceeded is ableist as fuck.

Like not everyone can afford to go to the doctor you ignoramus.

[stressedjester]

"How come disabled people are always complaining about their disabilities even if their blog isn't about being disabled" I dunno it's almost like. It's something that effects us every day and some of us just need to vent to feel better about the mass amounts of pain we're in because not everyone can just grin and bear it

[pastacrylic]

Can leftists please PLEASE PLEASE stop using phrases like "haha look at this right winger havin a schizo meltdown 🤪🤪🤪" all the fucking time?? Would that be too hard to ask for???

[neuroticboyfriend]

can people please stop being weird (rude) about my teeth on my "its never too late to start brushing your teeth, i hadnt brushed my teeth in 10 years and im getting better at doing it" post.

you dont need to fucking go "HOW DO YOU STILL HAVE TEETH??" or "I could NEVER let my teeth rot." you can just keep that to your fucking self. please stop treating me like a freak. learn to be normal about disabled people and hygiene ♡♡♡

[euniexenoblade]

"too autistic to know what sex is" just plays into the infantalization autistic people have to deal with all the time. Autistic people aren't perfect innocent children, autistic people are fucking human and humans fuck sometimes. An adult is an adult even if said adult is autistic. Stop being pieces of shit.

[chronic-cane]

Abled people need to stop only caring about disabled people when they think someone's faking a disability. Like, doing that is worse than not caring at all a lot of the time.

No, I don't care if someone possibly has a parking placard they don't need, most abled people will park in those spots without one and they're fined less for it. I don't care if someone doesn't need extra test time, what are they going to do, finish early?

If you know that disabled people need to fight for resources then how about you put your effort into giving us more instead of acting like you care by ripping us apart with distrust for one another! No matter what abled people want to argue with me about this even though I've been neurodivergent and had a deformity since birth and have had diagnosed osteoarthritis since I was 19.

Shut up! If you want to do any of us a favor, shut up! God!

[thebibliosphere]

Whenever I get a particularly nasty message, I always check to see if they're following me first. Nine times out of ten, they're not. But they're also, unfortunately, the same people who feel entitled to send me multiple messages in a row, most of them heavily steeped in the language of moralization and purity.

Like whenever I talk about painkillers or pain management, I always get a handful of well-meaning people who are maybe new to my blog or are just young, asking me if I've tried diet/exercise/meditation, etc.

Sometimes I'll respond to them. Other times I'll just ignore them because I get those kinds of messages so often it's like white noise, and maybe part of me hopes if they stick around on my blog, they'll learn it through exposure via my incessant bitching.

When you see me responding to someone offering that kind of advice, it's either because I'm at my fucking limit or because I'm hoping it's a teachable moment and an otherwise seemingly nice person might unlearn some harmful biases.

The people who don't follow me are not interested in any kind of conversation on the subject. They do, however, feel the most qualified to tell me, someone they didn't know existed until one of my posts crossed their dash, how to manage my life, everything I'm doing wrong, and why I'm a bad person.

And for them, my disability is proof that I am a bad person because they view health as a moral issue.

If you're sick, it's because you don't exercise enough, don't eat the right foods, don't pray enough, don't do enough. They genuinely believe that if they say and do all the right things, like a Good Person, they'll never get sick.

It's their security blanket against the harsh reality that anyone is one bad day away from disability. One faulty gene, one bad infection, one bad accident away from a life-long diagnosis. And if they do get sick, it's a test. A challenge to be overcome with Willpower as they learn the True Meaning of Life.

It can never just be a simple fact of life that sickness happens. That disability exists without a moral reason.

And it's suffocating.

Day in, day out. Folks who don't know me from fucking Eve telling me I'm being punished. Not always as outright as that. They don't always use that word. But sometimes I appreciate it when they do because at least then they're being honest. They're not couching it in the softer language of leftist circles. Not hiding it behind concern.

Because the truth is, there are just as many folks who think they're liberal and enlightened who'd be happy if disabled people just stopped existing. They don't like thinking about us because it makes them think about themselves. About their own fragility and mortality, and they hate that. They hate that there's something they can't control with their thoughts and actions. That they can't moralize their way out of.

Honestly, it's a relief when people are just cunts about it because I can hit the block button, safe in the knowledge that they were never the kind of person who would see me as a person. But when it's some 20yo kid with their pronouns, orientation, and "ACAB" in their profile spouting the same kind of moralization, sometimes even with the language of eugenics, it feels like such a betrayal. Like a loss.

And perhaps if I wasn't multiply disabled, I'd have the energy to pull them back. To tell them why they're wrong and hope like hell they realize what they're doing is harmful. But then, if I wasn't disabled, they wouldn't be messaging me, so I wouldn't be dealing with it.

I wouldn't be expected to use my existence as a teachable moment to spoon-feed them compassion. But I am, and I do. When I can. Not always with the grace that's warranted. Not always with the thought and compassion I ought to. (And I don't; I acknowledge that. I'm prone to anger and off-the-cuff remarks that are hurtful too. Though I try to keep most of it to myself or save it for therapy.)

Basically, if you've made it this far through the TED talk, don't be fucking cunts to disabled people. Don't tell chronically ill people to try yoga. Don't moralize pain relief. Suffering is not noble.

You need to kill the cop and the priest in your head telling you otherwise.

And also if you're the nice people sending me nice messages. Thank you. It helps cushion all of *gestures* this.

[nondivisable]

IM SO MAD AT THE SHAME SOCIETY PLACES ON DYNAMIC DISABILITIES

yes, I was walking unaided yesterday; yes, I am using forearm crutches today

yes, I was using forearm crutches but left them behind to go to the bathroom yesterday; yes, I need to use them even to walk two steps today

yes, I went up the stairs unaided yesterday; yes, I needed my crutches to go up to the stairs today; yes, tomorrow I might need to scooch upstairs on my ass because I won't be able to walk them

yes, I walked unaided to the car to get my crutches out of the car in the morning; yes, I will use them to go on a walk in the afternoon

DISABILITY CAN BE DYNAMIC, MOST PEOPLE ARENT ON A FIXED POINT OF SUPPORT NEEDS AND MOBILITY, WE'LL HAVE GOOD AND BAD DAYS AND I DONT NEED TO EXPLAIN MYSELF TO YOU

[transformedyt]

I wish more abled people understood the concept of A Good Day.

Like, sometimes, some disabled people aren’t in as much pain as they usually are.

Sometimes, i CAN walk without a limp. But i have to limp outside anyway or I’ll be accused of “faking it” if someone notices.

Like… it can fluctuate! Assuming it can’t is like being mad that it’s sunny one day and rainy the next and accusing the weather of being “attention seeking” or some shit! Fuck! Stop harassing disabled people for having a good day and wanting to make the most of it!

[sleepy-frog-lady]

I actually hate posts like this so much.

I found this on Reddit, and all the comments were totally onboard with it because Reddit is hell, actually.

It just bothers me so much cuz like, why do we assume “e-girls and blue haired people” can’t also have autism/adhd/ocd/etc ? I’ve certainly met people who would fall into these categories and have disabilities. In fact I don’t even think they’re particularly rare??? There’s a real undercurrent of misogyny and arguably transphobia in the framing of “e girls and blue hair people” as being vapid, shallow people who blindly follow trends without consideration for those it affects.

There’s also the implication that the only real, valid disabled people are those who are professionally diagnosed and constantly miserable. There’s no consideration for those who are, for any number of reasons, unwilling or unable to get diagnosed. Nor is there any acknowledgement that people with disabilities may sometimes want to joke or poke fun about aspects of their own condition.

There’s just a lot going on in this post and I don’t like any of it. Rant over

[a-knight-in-shining-rainbows]

had an interaction a few days ago that i’m still thinking about. I was talking to two students about the Day of Silence protest coming up that friday, and both of them seemed interested but needed more information. Both of these students were disabled with relatively high support needs for communication, processing, and learning. At least one was intellectually disabled.

I explained the basic premise of Day of Silence, and one of the students asked me to repeat myself, explain again. I did this several times, and she was engaged with me, even if she wasn’t processing yet she clearly wanted to know more and was interested in what i was saying. Her para-educator then came over and said it wasn’t worth trying to explain anything to her because she wouldn’t understand.

The para-educator’s intentions were good, she wanted to save me time and believed i may not have known this student was disabled. But to say that, in front of the student, as though she couldn’t hear the comment, is rude at best and downright hostile at worst. Furthermore, to be in a position in which you are the one in charge of helping this person navigate the world, and to believe they only deserve information that you think they can digest, is such an awful way to view someone you are supposed to help. This student was asking me questions, she was listening, and honestly - who cares if in the end she didn’t understand? just because we don’t end up understanding something doesn’t mean we can’t engage with it.

Intellectually disabled individuals and disabled individuals in general are not infants, they’re not incapable of learning or connecting with others. Yes, they may need extra help, and yes, some topics may be too complex for them to tackle, but let the individual decide that for themselves.

TLDR: The person who was supposed to be helping an intellectually disabled student navigate the world decided for that student what they could understand. In doing so, she projected her beliefs about the students abilities and overshadowed the student’s ability to define her own boundaries. Intellectually disabled people deserve the autonomy to decide for themselves what they want to engage with at a given time, not told they are too dumb to understand.

[neuroticboyfriend]

not that people who've been to the ward are immune from being pro-psych, but if you've never been to a psych ward*, i sincerely don't want to hear about how psychiatry/psychology is good because you've had such a good experience with X provider, or X medication saved your life. *i also don't want to hear about how the forced treatment was what you needed or how the ward you went to let you have your cellphone etc. etc. i genuinely do not want to hear it.

like. the first hospitalization traumatized me so bad, i became dangerously delusional, was re-hospitalized, and sent to state. when they transferred me, i was strapped down into a gurney at all points on my body, *head and neck included*, and loaded onto an ambulance. my parents lost most of their parental rights; i was a ward of the state and had near zero rights. when i got there, they made me choose if, "if necessary," if i wanted to be wrangled down and forcibly injected with a sedative... or wrangled down and locked in a padded room all by myself (but at least i had a choice, right?). i signed consents and paperwork that i did not fucking understand. then i was told i'd be locked inside for 2 straight weeks (which yes, they followed through with). the psych ward was remote, nothing but barbed fences and trees around us. cant even see the sun through the heavily tinted windows. that was the *start* of the stay. i'm sure you can imagine nothing good came after.

so like. if you walk out of a place like that thinking it was good for you, then i can only imagine how traumatized you are and i hope you heal someday. but if you've never faced the destruction of your autonomy like that and go around being like "oh this is good actually" then shut the ever living fuck up.