Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
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Here's what I'm thinking about on this fine evening: Ketterdam has a HUGE CANAL SYSTEM that runs pretty much through the entire city and I, somehow, completely missed that.
Here's the Ketterdam map, right? We know her. We love her.
BUT, let's zoom in a little:
You can see very clearly here that those thicker, darker colored lines connect distinctly into the harbor, which means that they are ALSO WATER.
So, if a person with a Six of Crows obsession and maybe a little too much time on their hands were to take that map and color it so that all of the water was blue, it would look something like this:
Now, I may just be stupid, but I'd like to believe there is at least one other person who will be as baffled upon seeing this post as I was when I made this realization. It's water!! Canals are a major form of transportation in Ketterdam!! This not only is very interesting to me in regards to Ketterdam’s culture, but it also changed the way I pictured the city in my head. This is life-changing stuff, people.
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JJK OLYMPICS OHHH YOURE A GENIUS
head spinning w sooooooo many athlete aus rn…..
satoru honestly isn’t half as cocky as the media makes him out to be but he could be because you bring up world champion men’s freestyle swim times and it’s his name on the scoreboard ten times before someone else shows up. he’s faster than himself by fifteen seconds all around, he’s earned a bit of cockiness. mentioned in the last post that whenever he’s at a competition and he finishes a race, he looks at the camera and signs a little infinity sign and then blows a kiss to you. some bitter old coach always calls him out on it, and gets him fined for unsportsmanlike conduct, and he’s happy to pay the fees if it means getting a message home to you, but eventually you two come up with a new code; and at his next race, he places gold, turns to the camera, crosses his middle finger over his pointer finger and smiles. when he’s in his post-race interview, he makes sure to explain that he does it for you with the widest smile on his face.
megumi nepotism baby but not in the same sport. toji was a multi gold medalist back in his heyday for shooting, so it’s not really a surprise to anybody that megumi has scary good aim, but he takes to archery instead of shooting. actually the idea of megumi being an emo little kid and throwing rocks at a tree when his dad pissed him off his hilarious, and even funnier is toji watching him, slightly amused and a little scared because megumi is maybe six and hitting the exact same spot every single time. he grows to be very blase about it—it’s more of a release/hobby for him that he happens to be really good at, and well, now good enough to earn a few olympic medals. megumi is not a fan of having his dad ruffle his hair on international television after he’s won, but he supposes it can’t be helped.
i don’t know where to put yuuta…. tennis…. tempting….. him in his little white shorts…. little grunts after he serves…. cries….. a complete 180 in his personality when he’s playing vs doing anything else. so charming and sweet and kinda shy when he’s being interviewed, and the second he steps on the court his eyes are so cold it’s scary…. need him… extremely nerdy about his rackets, and shoes, and clothes, and rambles to you about aerodynamics and posture and torque whenever you ask him to teach you, and you always have to shutup him up with a kiss and remind him that yeah you sort of want to learn to play tennis for him, but mostly you came bc he looks hot doing it. once he got asked in an interview if he ever thinks about you while he’s playing and his response was very concise, “no, never. it would be a big distraction,” and did not realize the implications of his heavily televised words.
also…. not to make this post 40% yuuta but we could pull from canon a bit and make his sport fencing. he doesn’t excel because he’s the strongest, it’s because he’s learned to treat the sword as an extension of himself and a good strategist… also because i like the image of him pulling the helmet/mask off and shaking his hair out………..
don’t even know where to put yuuji…. volleyball? basketball? track and field??? the irony of him easily being the most athletic but canonically does not want to play sports 😭 but i can see him playing a sport because someone scouts him and it turns out to be a way to make steady money to support himself and his grandpa :( by the time he’s qualified and made it to the olympics, wasuke is doing much better (thanks to yuuji having landed some preemptive sponsorships and being able to afford better medical care), but not so well enough that he can travel across the world to watch yuuji play. wasuke tells you that you should travel and be with yuuji, but yuuji is so touched by the idea that you would stay with his grandpa and be by his side when he’s away :(( he wins gold, of course, and he doesn’t even wait until the closing ceremony—which, he’d mentioned in all of his interviews, so nobody can be too upset. he’s on record saying, “i’m excited to play, but i’m even happier to be going home. my girlfriend and my grandpa are watching me and i miss them!” several times— he’s on the first flight home with flowers, and tears in his eyes. puts his gold medal on his grandpa’s neck as a thank you, and spends probably thirty minutes straight hugging you and kissing you and honestly don’t put it past him to propose now that he’s got nike ambassador money
nanami started judo as a way to relieve the stress of his overbearing job, and someone at the gym/training center notices he seems to be a natural despite being a beginner. he starts to draw a crowd, which annoys him at first because the point of judo was discipline and release from having to deal with too many people at his office job, but nanami supposes he can’t be too mad when you introduce yourself as a talent scout and offer him professional training. there’s irony in him accepting your offer, because it was definitely not based in professionalism at all… quitting his job as a salaryman to become a professional athlete in his mid-twenties was not on his bingo chart, but if it means he will have met you, then so be it. you’re with him all the way, through his training, competitions, world championships, qualifiers, all the way until he’s on the podium. you’re the first to congratulate him, but he interjects by telling you he’s quitting. you ask him why—he just won at the olympics for crying out loud, but nanami just shakes his head, puts down his flowers and his medal so his hands are free to hold your face and tell you, “it would be unethical to kiss my manager, so i am quitting.” (later, when everything is said and done, and you two are cuddling, you mention to him that he could just hire a new manager, and not quit his new career, to which he blushes because yeah… that’s probably more rational, but rational was not in his train of thought at the time)
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