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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Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!
You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!
You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!
You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!
Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!
Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!
So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.
Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!
Better accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues should suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.
Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.
Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*
Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...
Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.
Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.
Better not get confident.
Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)
Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people
- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties
- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations
- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you
- you might start loving the effect you have on a room
- you might enjoy conversations more
- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently
- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations
- you might stop apologizing so much.
- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.
Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!
Why, it would be carnage!!
In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things!
- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.
- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.
- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.
- You might know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.
You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.
So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to take to cut your awkward self some slack for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.
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bee , could you talk about your stella / hansen family in general head canons... i saw it in your tags once on ao3 and now im curious
It’s like 3 am so apologies if this isn’t coherent or is just a scattered mess. Also most of these are not very happy sorry
- Stella n Bryce’s relationship with their mom was. Rocky for a long while. She was kinda one of those folks who just wasn’t really cut out to be a parent. She didn’t dislike em, not by a long shot, but it took her a long time to deal w her issues enough to really be a proper parent to them, in a meaningful way.
- the three of them did eventually reach an ok place though. There was still a definitive distance, but when bryce was like a sophomore in high school or so they started reconciling a bit
- I maintain my old headcannons that the extended hansen family is Big. He has like a billion cousins but he hasn’t seen the majority of them in years. I do think he tries to reconnect with some of them at least like wayyy after one is over tho.
- bradley is like. A family friend on stellas side. She was closest with him but eventually he grew into almost a second sibling to bryce after a while
- they lived in the suburbs outside hartford. Can’t be bothered to look up where specifically so just pick the absolute most middle ground neighborhood possible
- stella absolutely taught him how to drive and she did so approximately fifteen minutes before his drivers test
- at some point bryce became the one in the house who cooked, mostly cause he was the only one who was particularly good at it. For a brief period of time, probably when he was like a senior, the three of them would sorta bond over it as he tried to teach stella n his mom how to not suck at it.
- at one point in that process, not long before stella died, his mom gave him a couple of old family recipes, scribbled on napkins and receipt backs and the like. This was the most solid ground they’d ever had up to that point. He still has them. He refuses to make any of them.
- stella died like three days after he graduated high school, give or take. If I wanna get really specific, and also kinda mean, she died durning a graduation party someone was throwing for him and a couple other kids on the block who’d also graduated. Total freak accident
- To say it put a damper on his relationship with his mom is putting it mildly. About a week after stellas death, Bryce and his mom has a really really nasty fight, both about her death and just about eachother. Lot of poorly-aired grievances and not-so-nice things were said, resulting in both bryce storming out of his own volition and his mom in effect kicking him out. He went south to crash with Bradley for a while, who was (and still is) living around bridgeport. He and his mom haven’t spoken since.
- he was thinking of going to community college. That didn’t happen.
- probably should’ve mentioned this up too but there’s no dad in the picture really. He vanished for one reason or another before bryce was even born rip
- his mom. Is aware of what happen on the smokestack. And she feels. Some sorta way about it I’m sure.
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sonic the hedgehog tumblr dashboard simulator
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💠 extremegayr Follow
got held up in traffic today cause some noob couldnt drive the fucking loop-de-loop. lmfao fucking coward
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ok but robotnik's kind of a dilf tho
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he's literally a war criminal can we NOT do this tumblr
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@wispgender dont u literally simp for nominatus like who is one to talk
🌫 wispgender Follow
NOMINATUS ISN'T REAL????
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that you know of
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what
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saw sonic the hedgehog irl once. he showed up at my village, released 30 feral pickys in the town hall, paid the ice cream vendor roughly a thousand rings for a single chili dog, told me not to waste my life worrying about the little things, and then caused a fucking tornado
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ok and??? you're not special
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THIS WAS A PERSONAL POST GO AWAAAAY
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sucks that sticks the badger hates all technology you know she would do NUMBERS on here
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☸️ r0u3e Follow
being an islander be like "are those the kind of eggsplosions i should worry about or the kind of eggsplosions that are gonna repair our crops, fix the economy, and bring my dead grandma back to life"
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being a continenter be like "oh great what primordial diety has risen from the grave to block traffic and fight a 15yo today"
🥭 chao-official
being a chao be like "chao chao chao chao chao"
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you said it my mans
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hold on if sonic the hedgehog is jewish then how is he santa claus
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dont question him
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hey guys real question are human/mobian relationships problematic
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op is about to start the anthro church schism of the fifteenth year all over again
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ok but in all seriousness did your mom never teach you that part of history
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someone doesn't know about the united federations public school system
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what the fuck is a public school
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are we gonna talk about op's chaos radiation fetish
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OP'S WHAT NOW
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ok but am i the only one who thinks that the public school system would be a good idea if handled right? like i know it's traditional to learn from your parents and then experience the world on our own from the ages of 7-13 but like combining all our knowledge and learning together doesnt seem like a bad idea
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bitch that's what the internet is for
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yeah where else am i gonna learn to make infinite chaos emeralds
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"infinite chaos emeralds" that's called the phantom ruby
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everybody on this site has brain damage
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yeah. from the radiation
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caught this today
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if anything happens to this blog i genuinely hope eggman blows us all up as punishment
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Hey guys! Sorry to do this again but rent's a little tight this month :( If we've ever solved a case for you guys or made you guys smile, please consider sending a ko-fi our way! we just need a few rings to get through the month <3
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do we ever talk about that time the sky turned blood-red and shadow the hedgehog's demon dad descended from on high to murder us all and we only barely survived
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shadow fixed it it's fine
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yeah that was like twelve apocalypses ago move on
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kinda wanted to bang black doom tbh
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THE DEVIL???? FROM THE BIBLE????
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yeah. move over gayboy i'm boutta be shadow's new dad
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starting a conspiracy that time hasnt moved since 2006
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why the fuck was i shadowbanned after posting this
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tfw you finally save up enough rings for ice cream and you go outside and get hit by swatbot pieces and the rings just go fuckin everywhere
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so did y'all see that genesis wave or was it just me
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the virgin tweeter "if you use a bad word in the same tweet as the word 'cream' you get obliterated off the site" vs this chad site of "i want to put knuckles back in a microwave"
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BACK????
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ok posting my first fanart to this site pls be nice! <3
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why does tails look like he's always about to say "it fucken WIMDY"
🦊 miles-prower-official
Hello, @emeraldfwuitgummy!
I actually quote that image on a constant basis! Sonic thinks it's hilarious every time. He's quite the fan of memes, and it's nice to get a laugh out of him!
Formally,
Dr. Miles "Tails" Prower, PHD
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SO WAS ANYONE GOING TO TELL ME THAT TAILS WAS ON THIS FUCKING SITE OR--
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do. do you not know he created tailblr. dude it's in the name lmao
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he
WHAT
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didn't eggman invent this site???
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THE EGG ABANDONED SCRAMBLR IN ITS TIME OF NEED AND THE FOX RAISED US FROM THE ASHES. YOU WILL NOT DISRESPECT HIM
🦊 miles-prower-official
Hello, @milfwisp and @veganswatbot!
Very good question! This site was Eggman's until I ate his bones. Thank you for engaging! :D
Formally,
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YOU
WHAT
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what's not clicking
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