#reality of disability

[iamamythologicalcreature]

Can I be real for a second?

I’ve gone back and forth in my head about whether or not to post about this very real side of me online or not. There’s nothing shameful about being disabled, but I don’t want to be known as my disability, either. I don’t want that to be my identity.

But I’m hoping to post some of my writing tomorrow for Six Sentence Sunday. Post something I’ve written, albeit just a small bit, online where anyone can see it. It will be the first time I’ve done so since the car accident three years ago. And the truth is, the terrible truth is, my writing is what hurts the most.

Stories have always been a part of my life. They have always been my motivation, why I slogged through everything else - my reason for existing. I wrote novels and hoped to publish, and I fell in love with the writing community and made it my home. I volunteered and organized events. I created an extremely successful and fulfilling teen writing club where I taught creative writing. I was in love with stories, and writing them. I have never not been in love with stories.

(Before I was a writer I was an artist. I’m not going to go into that part of my life in detail, but it was just as heavily affected.)

At the beginning of 2020 I was in a car accident. The driver at fault was pulling out of a bar parking lot in the middle of the day. Make of that what you will. The accident he caused left me with more than a few issues, but for this post I’m focusing on the vision impairment.

Because of COVID, I wasn’t able to seek any diagnosis or treatment until June. I didn’t even begin physical therapy until August. Due to a myriad of issues and unfortunate reasons, I couldn’t complete my treatment. That meant a year and a half of work and struggle went down the drain.

This continues to affect me in many ways. Sometimes it’s things that you might expect - I can’t read Tumblr, or books, most days. Some limitations are less obvious, like how I’m afraid to ask questions (e.g. “what kind of car did Fiona drive?”) because the resources to find the answers myself are out there. Why don’t I just google it? Or reference that amazing spreadsheet someone did? Why am I asking other people to do the work for me? Am I just lazy?

People don’t mean to judge (and I’m sure there are plenty who don’t). But my issues aren’t apparent, so they won’t know unless I take the time to explain it. Able-eyed people should be able to find these simple answers. Just look in the book.

So I don’t ask. Or I apologize a lot for asking. Because it’s just too hard to explain why I need such basic help. (And sadly, some people still don’t believe me and treat me as thought I’m making excuses.)

I lost most of my friends simply for being unable to chat online, particularly during lockdown. I kept three people in my life - the three people willing to break with their comfort zones and talk to me on the phone instead of via text or chat. Those people probably saved my life. I know everyone went through isolation issues in 2020. But I went through them unable to even use a computer or read a book.

Since I’m typing this, you can guess that I’ve recovered somewhat, or made some accommodations that help. Yes. I have. Both of those. But I still have more bad days than good. Typing too long, or playing a phone game, surfing Tumblr - anything done for too long can break my eyes and send me back into total isolation for days.

I was a really good writer. I would regularly write 10-20k every weekend, and I wrote well. I wrote great stuff. (Rough drafts are always rough drafts, but I felt good about what I wrote.) I would sink into a character and go for hours.

Here’s the part that’s relevant to me now: I can’t do that anymore. I can’t write for hours, I can’t take the time to slip into character. I’m doing really well if I can pound out a speedy 1k in 30 minutes and have it not break my eyes. (It usually breaks my eyes.)

If you’re a writer, though - or any kind of creative - you know that the need doesn’t just go away.

(I have tried to record notes on my phone, but I just cannot dictate writing fiction. Only my fingers know how to speak well, and in character. And no, I’m not going to learn braille. It would not be helpful.)

So I’m going to try to write. It’s going to suck, because the things I did to write well before are things I can’t do anymore. I will cry. And then I will wait a week or however long it takes for my eyes to chill the fuck out, and I’ll try again.

(I’ve also started treatment again, just this month. I have to start at square one again, which means it will get worse before it gets better. It will take time, and money - lots of both. Like years. But I can’t give up.)

Anyway. This is why I chose the Simon Snow fandom to try again, for the first time in forever. Because that’s the story, and those are the characters, and these are the people. I know it. So. Hi.

[whoselabelisitanyway]

I had plans to go walking with a couple people I have tried to maintain a friendship with since the car accident.

I ended up having to play stupid call back games with the pharmacy and my doctor because medicaid up and decided they wouldn't cover the meds they've been covering for over a year. (Totally blindsided.)

It made me very late. I was disinvited from the walk.

Bonus, pharmacy was out of second option meds. And I blew one of my last doses on this evening thinking I would need to be social and functioning.

I want to cry.

People only see me as the reason I'm late, or can't make an event, or whatever else is in my way. They don't understand what is going on behind the curtain. If I try to explain, I think they believe I'm making excuses. This person didn't even bother responding to my apology text.

I don't want this life. I didn't choose it. I need friends who see how hard I'm trying and not just me "making things hard for everyone else." I mean, I get it. I require a lot of extra effort. I know that - I live with myself every minute of every damn day. Of course I know that.

But I still need people. And love. And acceptance. I don't know how to find any of it.

[crimeronan]

CDC finally fuckin' recommended the new COVID boosters for everyone in the US. letting my american followers who don't check the news know because i've been turned away for wanting to get an extra booster & now won't be anymore & it's Lovely. most americans are not going to get these and are going to grumble about them, which sucks as far as spread goes - but DOES mean u can schedule with ur local pharmacy sooner rather than later. please do so. ur immunocompromised friends and ur own body will thank u.

[transfaguette]

I'm telling you you guys have to stop buying into the propaganda about disability fakers. EVEN if fakers exist to the extent that it is a massive problem, disabled people still should be given proper support. If governments and other organizations fail to deliver that it does not matter what their excuse is; they have still failed disabled people and that is unacceptable. If their solution to so-called fakers is one that harms disabled people then they have not actually solved anything, but it sure as hell is a convenient scapegoat.

It also CANNOT be overstated that many people with legitimate needs are and will continue to be labeled as fakers, a sentence which is hurtful at best and deadly at worst.

[prussianbluevelvet]

Still seeing feminists in 2023 claiming that ‘emasculation isn’t real’ and it’s still baffling me.

How can you look at the lived realities of Asian and Jewish men and think “yeah these men totally aren’t emasculated and viewed as lesser males or less masculine than white men and it’s totally not dehumanising or racist or anything 😌” like. Racism against MOC doesn’t always look like portraying them as aggressive or dangerous, it can also look like viewing certain types of minority men as ‘failed’ men and ‘lacking real manhood’ as a dehumanising tactic. Myths about Jewish men previously portrayed them as having periods and being ‘basically women’. Asian men are fetishised and stripped of their manhood frequently by K-pop stans and people online who don’t realise that masculinity and gender roles look slightly different in non-western cultures.

Also… trans men. Who are FORCEFULLY emasculated and feminised against their will, by genocidal bigoted conservatives, and sometimes even somewhat by other queer people telling them to ‘tone down’ their non-toxic masculinity to avoid making others uncomfortable, making themselves dysphoric and detached from their gender identities to remain palatable.

What about disabled men? Are they not also viewed as failing to achieve proper manhood? Are they not also emasculated and viewed as ‘un-male’ or ‘less male’?

Minority men absolutely can and do experience emasculation. And it’s not ‘toxic’ or misogynistic to bring it up. Feminists who care about POC in particular should not be pretending otherwise.

[nothorses]

I saw your tags on the post about trick or treaters not speaking and I am v interested in hearing more of your thoughts on the concept of “developmental delays”! I‘ve seen the idea that disability is a construct, but I’m not as familiar with the idea that development is also a construct. You have really great takes as an educator and someone who like, actually GETS how kids work, so I am interested in your thoughts!

I also know that posting on this subject might be poking the bear, so it is 1000% cool if you would rather not comment 💜 Tysm!

Oh I'm happy to talk about it! I love talking about this stuff, thank you for asking me to 💙

This isn't exactly new ground; there's been plenty of research into and writing on the subject, and deconstructing "development" as a static concept was, ironically, a huge part of my most recent development class.

The idea is that our understanding of "benchmarks" of development, which informs the larger concept of development as a whole, is heavily rooted in the assumption that Western culture is The Standard. We prioritize walking, talking, reading, and writing, which means we cultivate these skills in our children from a young age, which means they develop those skills more quickly than they do others.

To use one of my favorite examples from Rogoff, 2003, Orienting Concepts and Ways of Understanding the Cultural Nature of Human Development:

Although U.S. middle-class adults often do not trust children below about age 5 with knives, among the Efe of the Democratic Republic of Congo, infants routinely use machetes safely (Wilkie, personal communication, 1989). Likewise, Fore (New Guinea) infants handle knives and fire safely by the time they are able to walk (Sorenson, 1979). Aka parents of Central Africa teach 8- to 10-month-old infants how to throw small spears and use small pointed digging sticks and miniature axes with sharp metal blades: "Training for autonomy begins in infancy. Infants are allowed to crawl or walk to whatever they want in camp and allowed to use knives, machetes, digging sticks, and clay pots around camp. Only if an infant begins to crawl into a fire or hits another child do parents or others interfere with the infant’s activity. It was not unusual, for instance, to see an eight month old with a six-inch knife chopping the branch frame of its family’s house. By three or four years of age children can cook themselves a meal on the fire, and by ten years of age Aka children know enough subsistence skills to live in the forest alone if need be. (Hewlett, 1991, p. 34)" (pg. 5)

In the US we would view "letting an 8-month-old handle a knife" as a sign of severe neglect, but the emphasis here is placed on the fact that these children are taught to do these things safely. They don't learn out of necessity, or stumble into knives when nobody is watching; they learn with care, support, and safety in mind, just like children here learn. It makes me wonder if Aka parents would view our children's lack of basic survival skills with the same concern and disdain as USAmerican parents would view their children's inability to read.

Do we disallow our children from handling knives because it is objectively, fundamentally unsafe for a child of that age to do so- because even teaching them is developmentally impossible- or is that just a cultural assumption?

What other cultural assumptions do we have about child development?

Which ties in neatly with various social-based models of disability, particularly learning and, of course, developmental disabilities. If your culture doesn't value the things you are good at, and you happen to struggle with the things it does value, what kinds of assumptions is it likely to make about you? How will it pathologize you? What happens to that culture if it understands those values to be arbitrary, in order to accommodate your unique existence?

[llutik]

i think it's not my place to speak but the way johnnys disability was treated at the end of steel ball run feels wrong

he can walk a bit... as a treat <3 (the entirety of steel ball run is his physiotherapy)

[theultimaterealitysurfer]

╭╯୨୧ Introduction Post ୨୧╰╮

✦ Hello my fellow shifters, people, and creatures. My name is Newt and/or Cosmo and/or Mars. Welcome to my reality shifting blog. My main blog is @sebcosmothetransguy. ✦

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

୨୧ A Little Bit About Me ୨୧

★ I use He/It/Xe/Ne/They/Love pronouns + any/all neopronouns

★ I’m a GenderFluid GenderFlux Non-Binary TransGuy

★ I’m AroAce, Aromantic and Myrsexual (Neuroasexual, Nebulasexual, Merosexual, and Placiosexual)

★ My attraction labels are Homoalterous, Omniqueerplatonic, Panexteramo, Pansensual, and Panaesthetic

★ I’m ambiamorous (with no preference)

★ I am taken by the love of my life, @ghoulishdarcy (He/It/They)

★ I am neurodivergent, have self-diagnosed depression (MDD), anxiety (GAD), social anxiety, OCD, and possibly have PMDD and/or PME, and some form of PTSD

★ Current Hyperfixation(s): Neurodivergency, Reality Shifting, and Psychology

★ Special Interest(s): Wings Of Fire; Harry Potter; Dragons

★ I am a minor

★ I am Agnostic, but I respect others’ religions and I love hearing interesting facts about them/love learning about them

★ I am Otherhearted with a fictionhearttype and a dragonhearttype

★ I am a retired maladaptive daydreamer

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

୨୧ My DRs ୨୧

★ Alexander DR (a DR for an OC) - an original DR

★ Better CR DR - an original (not so original) DR

★ Cat DR - an original DR

★ Childhood DR - an original (not so original) DR

★ CMW DR - an original DR

★ CR S/O DR - an original DR

★ Drarry Reincarnation DR

★ Empyrean (Fourth Wing, Iron Flame) DR

★ Fame DR - an original (not so original) DR

★ Forbidden Gay Lovers DR - an original DR

★ Fox DR - an original DR

★ Golden Trio DR

★ Greek Gods DR

★ HTTYD DR

★ Magical Forest DR - an original DR

★ Magic Treehouse DR

★ Maleficent DR

★ Marauders DR

★ Merman DR - an original (not so original) DR

★ Narnia DR

★ Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom DR

★ Twilight DR

★ Vampire DR - an original (not so original) DR

★ Waiting Room DR - an original DR

★ Wings Of Fire DR

★ Writer DR - original DR

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

୨୧ Completed Dr Scripts ୨୧

★ Cat DR Script

★ Empyrean DR Script

★ FGL DR Script

★ Fox DR Script

★ Golden Trio DR Script

★ Magical Forest DR Script

★ Maleficent DR Script

★ Marauders DR Script

★ Merman DR Script

★ Narnia DR Script

★ TotK DR Script

★ Waiting Room DR Script

★ Wings Of Fire DR Script

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

୨୧ About My Blog ୨୧

✧ I will be posting about my shifting experiences, my DRs, my random shifting-related thoughts, personal methods, my scripts, and other things. Sometimes will post about random things or reblog random things, but not too often! ✧

✧ Asks are very welcome !!! You can rant about your DRs, ask questions, or anything else like that !!! :) ✧

✧ I also take drawing requests and mood board requests (for your DR, DR self, etc., anything shifting related)! :] ✧

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

୨୧ Other Things ୨୧

✧ I would love some reality shifter friends !! ✧

✧ This is a safe place for LGBTQIA+ (xenogenders, neurogenders, and neopronoun users too of course!), POC, disabled people, neurodivergents, mentally ill, pds (those with personality disorders; npd, bpd, aspd, hpd, and the rest of y’all!!!) those who are struggling, systems (endos welcome!), alterhumans, otherkin, therians, furries, age regressors, pet regressors, and of course, my fellow shifters (permashifters, respawners, and those who shift to realities where they’re different races included)! ✧

✧ I’m new to shiftblr, but I’ve been on and off attempting to shift since around 2020 or 2021 (if I’m remembering correctly). ✧

✧ My tags: cosmoposts, cosmoreblogs, cosmorants, cosmoscripts, cosmodaydreams, marsposts, marsreblogs, marsrambles, etc. ✧

✧ HAVE shifted once! ✧

✧ I will edit this whenever something changes. :) ✧

✧ My DNI list is in my description, so if you’re any of those, back off respectfully please. If I’m following you by accident and you’re in my DNI list, please feel free to stop following me or block me, or I will do the same. Also, I will block if you make me uncomfy. ✧

✧ Here is a link to more info about my queer labels: ✧

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

✧ My user boxes (credits to original creators!!!) ✧

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

[evanoxvt]

The struggles of disabled people without support at home.

I've been away from home for over a week. I have next to no expectations put on me here, but I still have my weekly physical therapy and both myself and Town Crier to take care of.

TC eats 3x a day and obviously, I need food too. My grandparents are cooking about one meal a day at a nearly consistent time, so I'm eating at least once a day consistently. At home, I was lucky if I ate a single meal a day.

I (sometimes) help with setting the table, which consists of paperplates, paper napkins, silverware, and glass cups. Since both me and my cousin help with this, I'm usually not doing any heavy lifting at all.

I spend part of the day downstairs and 'randomly' will go upstairs to lay down for awhile. Usually, after my mid day break upstairs, I bring my laptop downstairs and play some games until dinner and end there or resume playing until the end of the night.

No one critiques my daily routine. No one asks me to do more than I can. Everyone appreciates when I help out.

I was having trouble walking and standing yesterday because I did far too much the day prior, but because I spent the entire day resting I was able to contribute to cooking dinner and I cooked the pasta roni (~10 mins of intermittent standing required). I was able to play games and rest afterward without being yelled at for not doing more, and was even thanked for helping cook a portion of the dinner.

I have a funny sad thing to say about this: Somehow by being asked to do nothing, I've found I can do so much more than when I'm asked to do a tiny bit.

The shittiest part of this story, as random small bits put together as it is, is that I am more disabled when I'm asked to be functional, and less disabled when I can go at my own pace or back out if need be. At home I get asked to do things like empty the dishwasher (which is tons of light to heavy objects, Ina short period of time), vacuum (which is alot of heat, standing, walking, arm movement, a eight on my arm, back movement and back bending, navigation, balance, etc), cleaning things like the bathroom (which required detailed work for some parts plus moving all the things needed so they don't get in the way or touch the chemicals). I could go on and on and on but the point will get muddled if I write the entire list and every problem on every "basic chore" because the truth is that I need alot of breaks, a long period of time, and the option to back out of all of these things to be successful at it without seriously hurting myself. If I do too much today, it will affect me for multiple days. If I do too much for an entire week it will affect me for a month or more, etc. I sometimes feel really good like I did on Friday and accidentally over do it and need to be able to back down from most things for a period of time afterwards.

I normally can't make a box of pasta roni AND move anything heavy (like my laptop) on the same day at home because I'm always expected and forced to do so much more. I usually can't make cookies on days like today where I need to spend multiple hours at a time lying down in between short bursts of sitting or activity, but today I could because there's nothing else I have to do so spending potentially all of my energy is okay. Resting afterwards is okay. No one is upset because less than an hour after making cookies I had to lay down and still am. NO ONE said it's not okay. However if I go home cookies are a luxury therefore the logic goes that "if you can bake some cookies, you can do some dishes too". At home I wouldn't be able to make the cookies because it opens up the idea I'm able to do a ton of chores. I'm not okay right now, that's why I'm resting.

I feel like I'm ranting in circles at this point... but honestly I don't get why most people will see me do one "simple" (for them) thing and assume I'm okay to do things even they don't want to do because it takes up alot of energy... I really don't get it. My health sucks, it goes up and down all day long, all week long, and yet people want to pretend I'm making it up if I can do literally a single thing normal people can...

I hope my fellow disabled friends and people I haven't met yet find themselves in better social situations than me because this isn't okay in any way.

[iamamythologicalcreature]

My eyes aren't working very well, today. I hate that I'm missing a ton of WIP Wednesday posts. But it's still happening.

[wheelie-sick]

"I can't stop playing video games I'm so paralyzed" vs my mouth and face are slowly paralyzing themselves because my immune system won't stop attacking my cranial nerves. I gag and choke on everything I swallow including my own saliva- this is dangerous. I drool, both in my sleep and when I'm awake. I slur my speech which makes people think I am drunk. I have strabismus.

[disabled-queer-culture-is]

Disabled culture is getting really upset at how little people on this website seem to care about people with OCD. Like, reblog bait all you want but dont tie morality and shit to it. Dont make it a ‘ill know if you dont reblog this!’ or ‘i dont trust you if you ignore this’ or ‘reblog to save a life’ or whatever, cause that wont make a person WANT to reblog it more, itll just fucking stress people out, which is made WORSE if any of said people have OCD (like myself)

Am I making ANY sense?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! I really hate that too. I don’t even have OCD and those sorts of posts still have had a horrible affect on my ability to engage with anything of that kind, politics especially, even when it is something I find important to talk about. I cannot imagine how awful it can get with OCD or similar disorders added to the mix.

For anyone who needs to hear it: the sort of person that you are is not determined by what you don’t reblog. You do not need to interact with anything or anyone to prove you’re not an evil person. If people start bringing morality into it, it is alright to block them! Take care of and protect yourselves!

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

it's annoying as hell to have my disability blog blocked by like 75% of radical disability tumblr because i don't believe in the anti-scientific concept of mind-body dualism, specifically because my specific disability outright disproves it entirely as my "mental" and "physical" symptoms are one and the same (and make me almost entirely incapable of existing in public, and therefore broadly unable to build friendships and support networks offline). good job building community for isolated housebound disabled people who need it, y'all. 10/10.

[sleepy-writes-stuff]

DP X DC WRITING PROMPT #14

(Had this idea on the brain as soon as I woke up this morning. This prompt is basically going off of the idea that the ghost zone is the dimension that connects all dimensions.)

(#) = Notes at the end of post

✦

Living in Technicolor

When Danny gets zapped by the portal and brought back half alive, his vision is forever changed. He doesn't know what caused it, just that ever since the accident, his sight has been split into three different perspectives.

1. His home dimension

2. The ghost zone/invisible spectrum

3. Another dimension entirely

He had originally been able to peer into more than three perspectives directly after his accident, but that resulted in his brain more or less short-circuiting from all the extra information and putting him in a week long coma. Still, even with the decreased load, the amount of information that's being filtered through his eyes and into his brain from three different plains of existence leaves him legally blind in his original reality and needing the help of either a cane or his service dog, Cujo.(1 & 2)

It isn't until his powers start appearing that he learns something interesting. If he concentrates enough, he can shift/manifest his own existence into whichever perspective he's focusing on the most when he transforms, singling his vision down to one perspective for the duration. He has to be careful though, otherwise he could get stuck in-between, which scrambles his vision to an even more nauseating degree. That or he could cause himself to blackout just from the amount of stress it puts on his mind.

He's basically his own dimension hopping portal though.

The only thing is, he never hopped over to the other dimension that seemed to exist alongside his own and the Ghost Zone, content to just travel between his dimension and the Infinite Realms. That doesn't mean he wasn't interested in it or didn't take a more concentrated peek into it from time to time though. Cause let's be honest. A world full of superheroes defending the Earth from a multitude of threats? He'd be lying if he said he didn't use the opportunity to observe and learn from a few of the professionals when it came to his own defending of the ghostly variety.

It isn't until long after he becomes the Ghost King that he is approached by Clockwork, the Ghost of Time. He reveals he knows of Danny's ability to peer into the multiverse like the time ghost can, although greatly limited in comparison. He offers to make Danny his apprentice and to teach him what it means to see through the veil into different universes and timelines, and perhaps increase the amount of perspectives he can handle at once now that his power has increased exponentially. He is King of the Infinite Realms after all. He needs to properly oversee his domain and everything connected to it if he wants to be a good monarch. However, the only way to increase the number of perspectives he can handle is by experiencing each one first hand.

The first step? Shifting into the dimension he has yet to visit, the one he's been peering into and learning so much from over the years.

✦

Notes:

(1) Here, Danny gets Cujo before he becomes a security dog/a ghost.

(2) He eventually creates some specially designed glasses with color changing lenses that help him filter out the extra perspectives when he's older, but they're far from perfect. Red for home reality, Green for the Ghost Zone, and Blue for DC Universe/other universes.

ALSO, while this is technically a dp x dc crossover prompt, I wanted to keep it pretty open for any other crossover ideas. There's infinite possibilities here and I'd love to see what people come up with!

[uncanny-tranny]

Guy who gets More Evil after getting a mobility aid and the aid is Working (he now has more energy and less pain and is a Threat to the tri-state area)

[emlynphoenix]

Only 19 states have the Seizure Safe School Act. Out of 50 states only 19 have mandated seizure first aid requirements.

Epilepsy is the 4th most common neurological disorder. It is treated as if it is rare causing the feeling of loneliness, and being misunderstood. Students and faculty alike cause some of this by not taking the disability seriously. We need to bring this to an end. All 50 states should be on board.

Anyone with a brain can have a seizure 💜