Latest Posts by theravenflies - Page 3

Once again, leftists are forgetting disability in their activism.

The vast majority seem unable to acknowledge how dangerous a Trump presidency will be for disabled people along with other minorities.

Hi. This isn’t about writing necessarily, but i still want to see what you think of it. :( I just recently gave somebody a free character design as part of an event and the character i’d made was using mobility aids (a cane and a prosthetic leg). I noticed later the owner saying the character wouldn’t need a prosthetic or cane because they’d decided already that the character would have disability negating magic. I am able-bodied. I don’t know this person closely. Is it wrong of me to feel bad? Should i speak up even if it’s not my business and they can do whatever they want with the design?

Hello,

No, it's not wrong of you to feel bad or be upset, that's a shabby thing to do and I would be upset. Maybe direct message them about the change and try to talk it out with them, explain how you feel, maybe explain why magic that negates disability is a bad thing? Don't accuse them, just ask them and talk to them.

But no, you aren't wrong in not liking the change, you are very much justified in that.

Mod Aaron

Wait a second are you pro endo?

I'm not a system, I have absolutely zero authority to speak on the issue and I don't have skin in the game so even if I did know enough about the discourse to have an opinion on it, my opinion would mean nothing. I am not educated enough to have an opinion and every time I try to do research it just winds up confusing me even more and again, I have no right to have an opinion here anyways as a singlet.

I'm neither pro-endo nor anti-endo, neither pro-sysmed nor anti-sysmed. It's not my place to have an opinion here even if I knew enough to have one. I'm sorry if this answer isn't satisfactory, but it's the only answer I feel I can give. My opinion doesn't matter here and I think the best thing I can do is acknowledge that and not try to insert my unimportant and likely ill-informed opinion where it is not needed.

I can't for the life of me understand the issue and so much of the information is contradictory and complicated. So I think it's best I simply not have an opinion at all.

okay now how the fuck do we make friends in the tumblr disabled community T-T

should I make a list like other communities do sometimes?

if you - have ADHD - have had a TBI or brain damage caused by multiple concussions - are plural (origin doesn't matter just please tag sys/course and don't talk to us about it) - have sensory sensitivities - use AAC (we usually don't but need to sometimes) - have high support needs (we don't but explicitly don't want to be friends with only low support needs people) - are neuropunk, madpunk, and/or c-punk (we can only ID wit neuropunk and madpunk as far as we know but want friends across all) - have hyperphantasia (not a disability that I know of but definitely impacts ours)

you should follow and say hello!! you can also do that if you're not on this list lol, these are just specific things we thought of

love msn / hsn spaces , love i/dd spaces , love nonverbal / nonspeaking spaces , love tbi spaces . these spaces help kitty understand self , help kitty be kinder to self , help kitty advocate for self .

know not perfect person to be in spaces , know not understand things well and know will say wrong thing but still love spaces even if scary to me . still love spaces that help kitty realize not exaggerating , not being paranoid , not struggle because personal failure . spaces that help kitty find voice to say have issue and need help and need acknowledgement despite years and years of told just " attention seeking "

"Brain damage" only sounds like a harsh and offensive way to describe brain injuries because people constantly use it as an insult. It's a totally neutral descriptor of what it is. I have brain damage. My brain is damaged. It's not ableist to call it that, it's ableist to call people you don't like brain damaged because you think it's an inherently bad thing to be.

(Yes abled bodied neurodivergents, that includes you)

having washed hair: fantastic. amazing. wonderful. refreshing

washing my hair: the most challenging and tedious and impossible task I’ve ever done

Able bodied parents I'm begging you to teach your kids about disabled people. Not just because they could become disabled themselves one day but also because even if they don't, they have a very real chance of being rude to us if you don't teach them.

Yes, kids just say shit. They have no filter. That doesn't make it any less humiliating when your child sits near me on the bus and incessantly grills me on why I have a stick when I'm not old. Or laughs at us for things our disability causes. It doesn't take away the hurt when they bully a disabled classmate. For a large part these things could be avoided if you just taught your kids to respect us. It's really not that hard.

Basic Respect for Cane Users

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION]

Pic 1: A title card that says ‘basic respect for cane users’.

Pic 2: Not all cane users are: physically weak, slow, elderly. Some cane users can: run, lift heavy things, ride bikes, skateboards, etc. Cane users are not all the same.

Pic 3: Do: move out of the way for someone using a cane, give your seat to a cane user on public transport, offer to carry something for your friend or co worker with a cane, ask cane users what their access needs are, treat cane users with respect. Remember that not everyone with a physical disability uses a mobility aid.

Pic 4: DON’T: touch cane users without their explicit permission, make assumptions about whether someone 'really’ needs their cane, give unwanted advice about someones disability, make a cane user feel bad or like they’re an embarassment. Remember: people might not use their cane full-time, you can’t know if someone is faking.

Filming people without their consent is a massive issue of not only privacy but ableism that's been going on for many years.

It started out with filming more visibly disabled people, like high support needs autistic people having meltdowns in public and (especially fat) disabled people literally just using mobility aids, but once that was deemed less acceptable it moved to other things. Filming people acting "weird" in public. Eating weird foods. Falling asleep in weird places. Wearing weird things. Stimming. You get the idea. It's no longer safe to be visibly weird in public and that's an issue for a lot of disabled people. I recently had to lay down on the floor of a department store because I had an ME crash while out shopping. Not only did I have to worry about the normal things like people coming up to ask me if I'm ok, I also had to worry about some video of me at my lowest point, when I'm suffering immensely, being shared around as "haha look at this weird bitch on the floor". It's upsetting. It's scary.

And then there's fakeclaiming. A fun trend where people will film us in public to "prove" there's some kind of huge epidemic of people faking disability. Spoiler alert: there is not. Most of the time the people they film are real disabled people who don't fit into the expected mold for disability, usually service dog teams or people who use mobility aids who don't "look sick". And you would think this trend would be some kind of abled nonsense, but it's not. It's often other disabled people doing the fakeclaiming. Yes, there are some times when it's obvious a service dog isn't trained properly, but other than that, it's damn near impossible to tell if someone is faking a disability, and you're much more likely to target a disabled person than a faker. I'd love to say this trend was new, but it's been going on since the days of "the people of walmart" where many of the people posted were fat mobility aid users, always with the assumption that they used it because they were too fat or lazy to move on their own. In fact, the image of a fat person in a mobility cart has become almost synonymous with "lazy". It's one of the things that drove me to get my own expensive power wheelchair, to avoid the judgmental stares in the grocery store when I was just trying to exist, to avoid the fear of public shame. Even now when I stand up from my chair to walk to the bathroom stall or reach something on a high shelf, I watch the corners of my vision for that telltale phone in the air. I feel like I'm never safe from the judgemental eye of the internet, even when I'm logged off, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels that way.

Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, these places are all great for disabled people, especially those of us without access to the outside world. But it's also become a source of great anxiety for anyone who's uncontrollably "weird", mostly disabled people. Leave us alone, I'm begging you, we just want to go to the fucking grocery store in peace and safety.

Tl;dr

Stop filming people for "acting weird" or "faking a disability" in public. It's ableist, it's invasive, it's creepy, and it's humiliating. People don't exist in public for your amusement and especially not disabled people. You don't know who is disabled and who isn't no matter how many disabled people you've known or how sure you are that the person is faking.

Being disabled has made me notice all of the ways the world is failing in accessibility. I’m fortunate that I can now open doors with my arms/hands, but do you know how many times I look around and there is no wheelchair access button on public doorways? Or how many times the button is broken? Or how there is no place to sit in a store, or the chairs were recently removed when I planned on using them to rest? Not to mention the uneven sidewalks, or aisles that are too narrow, or whatever else? People really do forget disabled people exist.

people acting like accessibility tools are an inconvenience to them and would rather they not exist are annoying little shits. no, the captions aren’t ruining the movie. no, that ramp isn’t making your life harder because you have to go to the side entrance. abled people are so entitled to think that other peoples accessibility is a nuisance, especially considering disabled people rarely get the same kind of access abled people get automatically. equity is not oppression of the privileged

DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT-

put spikes on your wheelchair's handles. wrap barbed wire around your cane or crutch so it'll hurt like a motherfucker if someone kicks or grabs it from under your hand. wear a personal alarm and pull the pin every time someone moves you without your consent, leans on your chair, takes a seat on your rollator, taps your hearing aid, steals your AAC device. scream for help when you're abducted. wail like you're in agony when people trip you up or knock into you. take pepper spray to the grocery store. take a knife to the club. leave cards that say "fuck you" under the wipers of inconsiderately parked cars and scratch access codes for bathrooms on the outside of the door. we are not begging for mercy, we're fighting dirty. we have to.

i just wanna say, as a feeding tube haver, that it's so much more possible to get used to invasive medical devices than you might fear.

i grew up horrified by even being reminded organs exist. i was just so severely grossed out by human anatomy. i got a lot better about it through years of chronic illness, since you just have to get used to it. but that's the baseline i started from originally, in case you are also squeamish and wonder if it's possible for that to change.

so when i needed a feeding tube, i was pretty distressed by the idea. having a tube sticking through a new hole in my abdomen was a seriously horrifying concept, and i couldn't imagine coping with having a stoma (the hole) and caring for it etc. i did it because i needed it to survive but thought i might never get used to it.

and yeah, it freaked me out at first. but eventually i did just get used to it. it just feels normal now. i even feel affection towards it, because it is keeping me alive.

feel like maybe we should talk about the ableism problem in true crime circles

Just for once I’d like to tell the gate agents and flight attendants that my folding wheelchair is going into the onboard closet and not have them tell me there’s “no room”. Bitch that’s a wheelchair closet, not a “your bags” closet. Move your damn bags where they belong.

if you’re able bodied pls give up your seat for us cripples if there aren’t any open. you can’t even comprehend how difficult and painful it is to do even so much as stand for extended periods of time

just a reminder that if you yourself are not autistic, don’t use the actually autistic tag. i know it sounds like it goes without saying, and i see this more on instagram and tiktok than on here, but it bears repeating; this tag is for us to talk about our experiences and relate with one another without allistics speaking over us. we direct the conversation. it is not for allistics/neurotypicals to interject with their opinions on autism and autistic people or to discuss their autistic sibling/friend/whatever. these posts clog up the tag so that it no longer serves its intended function, pushing us out of our own curated spaces. leave the tag alone if it doesn’t concern you

if you do post about autism and need advice for your autistic friend/sib/etc or just want to understand better, just use the ‘autism’ tag, clarify that you are not autistic, and ask for help from autistic people. im sure someone on the spectrum will be more than happy to give you their pov because understanding and respect is all we really ask

i simply need everyone to understand that i am tired all of the time. literally at all moments. if i ever go somewhere and do something, it is not because i am somehow full of energy, but instead that i have carefully stored up all of my little bits of energy like a dragon collecting jewels, and am now vaporizing them all at once

Heads up: If you consistently CANNOT do tasks unless they are at the “Must Happen Right Now” stage, then you have a disability. 

Most people CHOOSE to put stuff off sometimes, but abled people do not consistently feel UNABLE to complete tasks without threat of consequence.

Maybe it’s an executive dysfunction issue, maybe it’s fatigue, maybe it’s chronic pain– doesn’t matter why, what matters is acknowledging it so that you can move forward. Reach out to resources that are there to help disabled people! Ask for accommodations! They’re there FOR YOU, BECAUSE YOU NEED THEM! Understanding and accepting that you have the limitations you have, and learning what can be done about them, will lead to a much more fulfilling life which you absolutely deserve. 

some of y’all will be like “yeah i support autistic people” and then go bully the weird kid at school

I feel like we don’t talk enough about how having chronic illness and/or chronic pain makes you irritable. It makes you grumpy. It can make you a not very fun person to be around. 

We don’t talk enough about the ugly sides of chronic illness/pain. The parts where you feel like a bad person not because of the pain in of itself but because everyone else thinks you are pushing them away. The times when you don’t bear it like a saint and the roughest edges of your personality come out. Where maybe you do hurt other people’s feelings. Its a complicated side of the experience thats resists an easy answer. 

sure there’s a ramp, but is it steep? is there a curb at the top? is the ground uneven? do i need a key for the elevator? are the aisles and doorways wide enough? do i have room to turn? is there furniture and clutter in my way? is the carpet difficult to wheel on? can i open the doors myself?

accessibility to wheelchairs is more than just a ramp.

there was a tiktok I made a while ago basically saying "your abusive ex boyfriend is more likely a misogynist than a narcissist" and while most people agreed some said I was victim blaming(?) and that I couldn't know what their ex is like, and while obviously I don't, every fucking person describing their narcissistic ex is describing a typical misogynist. ask yourself, is this behavior you associate with narcissism directed at women or does he treat his male friends the same way? is his general functioning in life impaired?

many people don't seem to know this, but a mental disorder is NOT based on symptoms alone, it's based on how much the symptoms actually impair you in daily life. most people could look at a list of mental disorder symptoms and identify either themselves or someone else with them. as far as a narcissistic personality, we all know people who appear more self absorbed than others, but this is typically subclinical narcissism (presence of narcissistic traits without significant impairment of functioning) which is not a disorder. there is also a misunderstanding of what npd is. a narcissist is not a supervillain invincible to emotion. npd is a defensive reaction to trauma that lead to deep insecurity and fear of being seen as weak or vulnerable. so narcissists aren't actually "in love with themselves" at all and often are diagnosed when seeking help for other issues such as substance abuse resulting from their struggles.

this focus a lot of abused women in online pop psychology have on narcissism is particularly concerning because it completely glosses over misogyny which is literally a huge factor in violence against women. people really only know misogyny as a surface level thing. they don't know it can lead to family annihilation, for example, and is one reason most family annihilations are committed by the husband. it's always "this man is a sociopath" "this man is a narcissist" when the man's behavior is driven by ideology. I am so fucking tired of everything being tied to mental illness and left at that. you know what this leads to? courts "fixing" abusive men by...giving them anger management therapy. guess what? it doesn't fucking do anything because the problem isn't mental instability leading to anger, it's targeted, purposeful abuse. we are getting nowhere

when the “10 tips on how to make showering easy for disabled people” list doesn’t include a shower chair or a shower/changing table or grab bars etc, i know they don’t care about us physically disabled people.

good for u that turning off the lights and lighting a scented candle instead and listening to music or put on a show and using a bath bomb etc etc helps u but like none of those tips are that beneficial for physically disabled ppl specifically.

it’s good that those tips are there but for once we’d love to be included.

sincerely if you see a nurse/healthcare professional making tiktoks (and/or otherwise revealing personal details) about a patient please do not hesitate to report a HIPAA violation or whatever the respective health-information privacy policy is in your region. people who do this do not take their job or oath seriously and do not belong in healthcare

teaching yourself how to deal with mildly annoying inconveniences is imo an essential part of treating the disabled people around you with compassion and no i'm not kidding

one thing about retail layoffs i've noticed is they always get rid of physically disabled employees first. it's just fucking sad. you have no right to act like you're such a progressive company for accommodating disabled employees when they're the first to be thrown under the bus.