#disability

[radiotrophicfungi]

BLINKIE SET #58 . . . PROUDLY US . . . REDUX!

remember how I wanted to work on redoing some of my older blinkies? here are a bunch of 'em! including a couple of new ones as well. more will come in the future, of course! :-)

[spooksforsammy]

Geniuenly like. So many people claim support disability. But then say something completely untrue

Y’all support autism? So what about when the person has intellectual disability or need help walk talk eat bath use bathroom? Does your support end when you see someone with higher needs?? Someone who actually genuinely won’t survive without support from others n that support is sometimes having other people do everything for them.

Y’all support depression? What about when the person can’t bring themself to get out of bed for days on end? What about when that person goes days weeks months without cleaning self because can’t get up even though need to?

Yall support schizo-spec disorders & psychosis? What about what the person get violent because of their delusions n hallucinations? The ones know are fake but still can’t help but believe in? The ones genuinely believe in their delusions/ hallucinations? What about the ones don’t don’t get violent to self n other because of the disorder? Those that just sit scared about the hallucinations n delusions. The ones that won’t leave their room/ house out of fear of their delusions/ hallucinations?

Y’all support those with physical disabilities? What about the housebound bedbound ones? The ones need gait trainers walkers wheelchairs? What about the ones who full time users? Or the ones that need power chairs to independently move around? What about the ones crying screaming throwing up from their pain?

What about the disabled that always have a horrible attitude because tired of yhr disrespect? Tired of having to explain everything about them to everyone even if personal? Tired being told get over it n just educate others?

The disabled ones tired telling people not use certain terms. Tired of being spoken over n for without being thought about or asked. Tired of hearing their communication isn’t valid for ‘xyz’

Y’all support but act very picky about who deserves support and who’s not worthy of it. It’s not support if you pickin n choosing

[autball]

Expanding a bit on last week's post.

[until-another-one-comes]

https://twitter.com/FaatiTheStreet/status/1780837156631593325?t=P1jxYawEkiVAZ23_dFak5Q&s=19

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-disability-activist-mohammed-abu-kumeil-in-gaza?utm_campaign=p_cp+fundraiser-sidebar&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

[defiantcripple]

Me when my able-bodied friends walk too fast

[verthomme]

Adaptive / Para sports that aren't wheelchair basketball!

Wheelchair rugby: very physical, wheelchairs look like battel bots, very rough and very cool I don't know much about the rules of regular rugby either. Tried it once was not for me but very epic to watch

Adaptive curling: played with a stick that attaches to the curling rock so you can play from a seated or standing position, good for those who can't bend over or who require mobility aids

Wheelchair tenis: played just like normal tennis in a sports wheelchair rackets have shorter handles to be easier to push while holding, difference to the rules being that the ball can bounce twice

Adaptive archery: so many different adaptions from shooting in a wheelchair, using prosthetics, mouth release triggers for those without use or with lim differences in arms

Adaptive skiing/snowboarding: good for those with lower lim differences and mobility issues. Adaptions include using one leg with outriggers to balance and stear (both ski and snowboard) sit ski, where your entire lower body is basically in a ski boot, can be used for blind people as well or those with upper body limitations with an assistant controlling the sit ski. Independent sit ski use outriggers for stearing (think like ski poles with little skis on them)

Adaptive rowing: good for all ability levels as well as blind and visually impaired. So many different adaptions for loading into boats, seating supports, adaptive paddles and auditory cues

Adaptive swiming: this has so many different options, swimming is amazing for you it let's you use you body in different ways then weight bearing and there are a lot of options, different flotation devices that can attach to legs or arms, having someone move your lims for you, having a tap signal when you get close to the edge of the pool, visual cues for time, pool lifts just so many different options for everyone

Biking: standing bikes, two seated bikes so people with vision problems can have someone stearing, electric bikes, electric assist with pedaling, strap in pedals, anti tips, tricycles, hand cycles, different levels of seating support, walking bikes, you can ride behind someone in a bike, lots of university's will have indoor bike tracks so that you can ride on flat low resistance ground

Para hockey: this is my sport, I play competitively so I know a lot more about it. Para hockey (also know as sledge hockey) is played sitting down in something called a sledge. You have two sticks with spikes on the ends in order to propel yourself on the ice. There are a bunch of modifications possible for sleds with high back support with straps for those without core control, for those with upper body limitations there are pushers who attach a push handle to the back of your sled in order to move you around the ice, if you have no grip strength you can tape or otherwise secure you sticks to your arms/prosthetic. Rules for para hockey are the same as for stand up hockey with the exceptions being, periodes are 15 minutes and there is an additional type of penalty called Teeing for purposful front of sled contact to another persons sled without angling. Rules wise in grassroots (basic introductory sledge) anyone can play no matter their ability so abled family and friends can join you. Above the intermediate competitive level however, all players must have an impairment that affects their lower body in a way that means they do not have the capacity to play stand up hockey even at a lower level.

Blind hockey: Blind hockey is played pretty much the same as regular hockey, all players have a severe visual impairment/blindness and it is played with a large hollow puck that jingles so players know where it is

Anyone feel free to add more! There are so many different ways to have fun and be active as a disabled person the first step is just learning that they exist!

[cy-cyborg]

The Untrustworthy Fake: Disability Tropes

[ID: A screenshot of Willy Wonka from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as he limps towards a crowd using a cane. In the picture, he has a brown top hat in his hand, and he's wearing a suit with a purple jacket, multicoloured bow tie and cream coloured pants. Beside him is text that reads: "Disability Tropes, The untrustworthy Fake" /End ID]

Tell me if this sounds familiar: A new character is introduced into a story with some kind of disability - usually visible but not always. Maybe they're a seemingly harmless person in a wheelchair, maybe they're a one-legged beggar on the street, or maybe they're an elderly person with a cane and a slow, heavy limp. But at some point, it's revealed it's all a ruse! The old man with a cane "falls" forward and does a flawless summersault before energetically springing back up to his feet, the wheelchair user gets to their feet as soon as they think the other character's backs are turned, the one legged beggar's crutch is knocked out of his hand, only to have his other leg pop out of his loose-fitting tunic to catch him.

All of these are real examples. Maya and The Three introduces one of it's main protagonists, Ricco, by having him pretend to be missing a leg in order to con people (something that works on the protagonist, at least at first), Buffy The Vampire Slayer had the character Spike, pretend to be in a wheelchair, until the other characters leave and he gets up, revealing it's all a ruse and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory introduces Wonka by having him slowly limp out into the courtyard of the factory, only for his cane to get stuck, causing him to "fall" and jump back up, revealing that he's actually perfectly fine. Virtually every single major crime show in the past few decades has used this trope too, from CSI to The Mentalist, Castle, Law and Order and Monk all having at least one episode featuring it in some way. Even the kids media I grew up with isn't free from it; The Suite Life of Zack & Cody sees Zach faking being dyslexic after meeting someone who actually has the condition in the episode Smarter and Smarter and the SpongeBob SquarePants episode Krabs vs Plankton has Plankton fake needing a wheelchair (among other injuries) after falling in the Krusty Krab as a ploy to sue Mr Krabs and trick the court into giving him the Kraby Patty Formula.

No matter the genre or target audience though, one thing is consistent: this trope is used as a way to show someone is dishonest and not to be trusted. When the trope is used later in the story, it's often meant to be a big reveal, to shock the audience and make them mad that they've been duped, to show the characters and us what this person (usually a villain) is willing to stoop to. Revealing the ruse early on though is very often used to establish how sleazy or even how dangerous a character is and to tell the audience that they shouldn't trust them from the get go. Gene Wilde (The actor who first played Willy Wonka) even said in several interviews that this was his intent for Wonka's character. He even went so far as to tell the director of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that he wouldn't do the film without that scene because of how strongly he felt this trope was needed to lay the foundations for Wonka's questionable intentions and motivations. His exact words are: "...but I wouldn't have done the film if they didn't let me come out walking as a cripple and then getting my cane stuck into a cobble stone, doing a forward somersault and then bouncing up... the director said, well what do you want to do that for? and I said because from that point on, no one will know whether I'm telling the truth or lying."

There's... a lot of problems with this trope, but that quote encapsulates one of the biggest ones. whether intentionally or not, this trope ends up framing a lot of actual disabled people as deceitful, dishonest liars. Now I can already hear you all typing, What?! Cy that's ridiculous! No one is saying real disabled people are untrustworthy or lying about their disabilities, just people who are faking!

but the thing is, the things often used in this trope as "evidence" of someone faking a disability are things real disabled people do. A person standing up from their wheelchair or having scuff-marks on their shoes, like in the episode Miss Red  from The Mentalist isn't a sign they're faking, a lot of wheelchair users can stand and even walk! They're called ambulatory wheelchair users, and they might use a wheelchair because they can't walk far, they might not feel safe walking on all terrains, they might have unstable joints that makes standing for too long risky, they might have a heart condition like POTS that has a bigger impact when they stand up or any number of other reasons. Also even non-ambulatory wheelchair users will still have scuff marks from things like transferring and bumping into things (rather hilariously, even TV Tropes calls this episode out as being "BS" in it's listing for this trope, which it refers to as Obfuscating Disability). A blind beggar flinching or getting scared when you pull a gun on them isn't a sign they're faking their blindness like it is in Red Dead Redemption 2. Plenty of blind people can still see a little bit, it might only be a general sense of light and darkness, it might be exceptionally blurry or just the fuzzy outlines of shapes, or they might only be able to see something directly in front of them, all of which might still be enough to cue the person into what's happening in a situation like that. Even if it's not, the sound of you pulling your gun out or other people nearby freaking out and making noise probably would tip them off. A person needing a cane or similar mobility aid sometimes, but being able to go without briefly or do even "big movements" like Wonka's rolling somersault, doesn't mean they don't need it at all. Just like with wheelchairs, there's a lot of disabilities that require canes and similar aids some days, and not others. Some disabilities even allow people those big, often straining movements on occasion, or allow them to move without the aid for short periods of time, but not for long. Some people's disability's might even require a mobility aid like a cane as a backup, just in case something goes wrong, but that still means you need to carry it around with you, and unless it can fold down, it's easier to just use it.

Disability is a spectrum, and a lot of disabilities vary in severity and what is required of the people who have them day to day. This trope, however, helps to perpetuate the idea that someone who does any of these things (and many others) is faking, which can actively make the lives of disabled people harder and can even put them in very real danger, physically, mentally and even financially.

Just ask any ambulatory wheelchair user about how many times they've been yelled at for using accommodations they need, like disabled toilets or parking spaces. How many times they've been accused of faking and even filmed without their consent because they stood up in public, even if it was to do something like get their wheelchair unstuck or as simple as them standing to briefly reach something on a high shelf. I've caught multiple people filming me before, so have my friends and family, and it's honestly scary not knowing where those images have ended up. This doesn't just impact the person either, a friend of mine was filmed while standing up to get his daughter (who was about 4 at the time) out of the car. He was lucky to have stumbled across the video a few days later on facebook and contacted the group admins where it was posted to get it taken down, but had he not stumbled across it by chance, pictures with his home address and his car's number plate, his child's face and his face all visible would have just been floating around, all because a woman saw him stand briefly to pick up his daughter.

Many people don't stop at just saying a nasty comment or taking a photo though, a lot of people, when they suspect people are faking, will get violent. I have many friends who have been pushed, slapped in the face, spat on or had their mobility devices kicked out from under them. I've even been in a few situations myself where, had I not had people with me, I think the situation would have turned violent.

There's even been cases where those photos and videos I've mentioned before have been used against real disabled people and they've been reported to their country's welfare system as committing disability fraud. While cases like this are usually resolved *relatively* quickly, in many parts of the world, their payment will be halted while the investigation is in process, meaning they may be without any income at all because of someone else's ignorance. If you're already struggling to make ends meet (which, if you're only living off one of those payments, you probably will be), a few weeks without pay can mean the difference between having a home and being on the streets.

Not to mention that when there's so many stories about people faking a disability in the media, especially when the character is doing it to get some kind of "advantage", such as getting accommodations or some kind of disability benefit, it perpetuates the idea that people are rorting the systems put in place to help disabled people. If this idea becomes prevalent enough, the people in charge start making it harder for the people who need them to access those systems, which more often than not results in disabled people not even being able to access the very systems that are supposed to be helping them. A very, very common example of this is in education where accommodations for things like learning disabilities require you to jump through a ridiculous number of hoops, especially at higher levels, only to have some teachers and professors refuse to adhere to the adaptations anyway because they're convinced the student (and usually disabled students as a whole) is faking.

Yes, the "untrustworthy faker" is a fictional trope, and yes, it does occasionally happen in real life, but not as often as media (including things like news outlets) would have you believe. However, when the media we consume is priming people to look for signs that a disabled person is faking, it has a real impact on real disabled people's lives. "Fake-claiming" is a massive problem for people in pretty much all parts of the disabled community, and it ranges from being just annoying (e.g. such as people spamming and fake-claiming blind people online with "if you were really blind, how do you see the screen" comments) to the more serious cases I mentioned above. It's for this reason a lot of folks in the disabled community ask that people leave this trope out of their works.

[questionmarklive]

No one talks about the unique hell of being disabled and aroace and no one understanding what it means to be either

[c-h-pictures]

Tumblr, I'm curious.

I know this doesn't work, but can we at least try to reblog for sample size?

[matchakuracat]

"You're so lucky! I wish I could just stay at home all day instead of going to school or working"

I have to go to school/work just as much as anyone else does, the difference is that I physically can't. Not having the same choice as abled people does not make me lucky. Staying at home because I can't go to school or work does not mean I get to do whatever I want. Staying at home every day without being able to do anything is not fun. Not being able to do anything but lay down in bed or on the couch gets boring really fast. That's not even taking the chronic pain I endure into account.

Being chronically ill is not being lazy. It's not a choice, or something anyone would choose. It's a disability.

[neuroticboyfriend]

some disabled & neurodivergent side of tumblr safety & etiquette:

dont: dump negativity on positivity posts. if you dont relate to a post, it's either not aimed at you, or you're not ready for its message (and thats ok!)

do: make your own posts expressing how you feel; your feelings still matter and your blog is just the place to express them.

dont: speak over people with different experiences than yours, or speak on things you don't know about.

do: have an open mind and educate yourself on things you don't know much about - uplift the voices of people with direct experience.

dont: send unprompted vent or advice asks to blogs that dont have that as a stated purpose.

do: check out a blog to see if they take vent/advice asks; if you dont see anything, ask if you can vent/seek advice first - or add a disclaimer at the start of your asks, with TW.

dont: engage with triggering content. dont post your triggers publicly either, my lord.

do: engage with content that helps you express, process, and cope with your health. take breaks when you need them, too.

dont: treat bloggers like celebrities or like they owe you a response.

do: treat bloggers like regular people; respect boundaries.

dont: demonize ANY condition. including paraphilic disorders, sexual/moral OCD, personality disorders, addiction, or factitious disorders

remember: we're all dealing with our own stuff, and we're all in this together. if anyone acts as if this isnt true, they're probably not in a good place themself.

(feel free to add on!)

[cistematicchaos]

rest in piss gregory house. you woulda loved solving random strangers' medical mysteries on tumblr.

[doyouknowthisdisabledcharacter]

Do You Know This Disabled Character?

Lenore Vandernacht is a wheelchair user and also uses a cane.

[cripple-punk-dad]

Something something the holy eroticism of shaping my body into a divine image of my own choosing etc etc grapes not wine, wheat not bread, bla bla bla it's called a treasure trail for a reason.

[ghoul-butch]

every time you imply butches need to be physically strong you owe one of us disabled butches $20

i carry a big metal stick if you don't wanna pay up btw

[defiantcripple]

Going to start wearing a sign that says "I don't yield to ableds" as I refuse to move for the people trying to get on through the accessible bus entrance/exit before I've gotten off.

Be disabled. Take up space. Demand your accommodations. Make them wait, make them move, and don't feel sorry about it.