Dissociatedbi - This Blog Is My Therapist's Idea

Hey, able-bodied folks, if a disabled person is complaining about something being unfair/inaccessible because of our disabilities, you know you don't have to explain to us why that unfairness/inaccessibility a thing, right? Chances are we know it is the way it is. It's still unfair and we still want to talk about it.

I saw a video by an amputee warning other disabled people not to go to Thorpe Park in England, as they paid full price to enter, but were only allowed on 3 rides due to their amputation. This is something I also experienced when I went to the Gold Coast (mostly at Movie World, Wet n' Wild and, to a lesser extent, Dreamworld) and at Lunar Park in Sydney. There were also several others in the comments talking about similar experiences elsewhere.

But among these comments were dozens of people saying, "it's for health and safety reasons! The ride won't be able to hold you in!" And like... yeah, we know why. It doesn't make it any less unfair that we pay the same as you for a fraction of the experience. It doesn't make it feel any less shitty when you scrimp and save to do something like go to a theme park only to have to sit on the side line and watch your friends/family have fun without you. It doesn't make it any less scummy that there's very little warning that this will be the case (most of the time) until you arrive. It doesn't make it any less frustrating that so many recreational and fun activities don't even consider the possibility that disabled people would want to join in.

It's not just this video. It happens a lot. Any time someone complains about inaccessibility, there's always someone there trying to explain why the inaccessibility is there.

A resteraunt or shop isn't accessible? "Have you considered the person just didn't know/didn't have the money to fix it/were renting and weren't allowed to fix it?"

You called to see if some place was accessible, were told it was but when you arrive, it's not? "Have you considered the person didnt actually know/ thought it was and just made a mistake?"

You complain that a device/item/furniture item you bought isn't usable because of your disability despite there being no indication this would be the case before you bought it/no way to further verify it before hand? "Have you considered that disabled people make up such a small minority of their buyers they just didn't realise?"

Yeah, we know. Every single one. We considered it. a lot more than you did, i promise. We know why. We know sometimes mistakes happen, people don't think to consider us, there could be health and safety reasons for the lack of access, that people just don't know, and that it's not usually maliciousness or intentional ableism. I promise, we know all of it. We still need to talk about it though, so things can get better.

Skills you shouldn’t have to learn to survive yet child abuse forces you to:

moving around without making any noise

moving around the place without turning on the light

locking/unlocking doors in complete darkness

staying stoic in the face of screaming, threats, and violence

pretense of being calm even if in deep panic

perfect pretense of being fine even in the middle of breakdown

silent crying, crying without making any noise or even tears

doing physical work while crying or injured and not stopping

sensing when someone is angry or stressed because now they’re a danger to you

comforting and calming people down in desperate attemt to lower the amount of danger you’re in

recognizing a person by their footsteps, or a car by the noise it makes when turning to a stop

turning all injustices and anger inwards and making it into self hatred

hiding scars and injuries

expertly making excuses for marks or scars on yourself

dissociating in a second if there’s danger of new trauma

repressing mountains of trauma

surviving emotionally completely on your own

R.M. Rilke, The Man Watching // Euripides, An Oresteia (trans. Anne Carson) // Oscar Wilde // Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life // @bitsbyt3s // Mary MacLane, "January 20", The Story of Mary MacLane // Trista Mateer // see 4 // @kafk-a // Olivia Laing, "Loneliness: coping with the gap where friends used to be"

And I didn’t talk to him ever again

When you're a kid and people do bad stuff to you or you witness bad things being done, you're encouraged to 'tell someone' and 'not keep it secret' and it's almost like we're responsible for making it known and making it stop, you know, if we don't do it nobody will.

But then when we do talk to the person we think is going to believe it + who has the means to stop it, and we get shut down and silenced, this person,, is not responsible for anything at all? They've just been given this valuable information that took us so much courage to open up about and the responsibility, at this point, should be 100% off of our shoulders because we did it, we Told Someone, it should get resolved now, but no? We get victim blamed and told we're making it up or even worse, that we need to shut up about it to keep the 'peace', and the person who does this to us is somehow clear of all responsibility, despite aiding the abusers blatantly??

I don't care anymore, if we told someone we did our part, and the rest is now on that person's shoulders, or maybe, MAYBE on the abuser's shoulders, because they're the ones committing crimes in the first place and it's literally 0% our fault this monster is out there. We are not responsible for protecting the world from the abusers, especially when we tell on them and you all shut us up and punish us for exposing their crimes.

abused kids daydreaming: but what if there was a situation where I got hurt... and someone cared and comforted me? what then??

abused kids: oh no I'm selfish and stupid for imagining this! How could I think my pain would matter enough for someone to comfort me, I need to get over myself and start living in the real life! Comfort doesn't exist and if I'm not tough I'm not going to make it!