[Image ID: A transparent image of the Disabled Sun, which is the same as the astrological symbol of the sun. It is a large black circle with a smaller black circle in the center. End ID]
So... I wanted a symbol to represent disabilities, one that wasn't the wheelchair symbol. As a wheelchair user myself, I do like the wheelchair symbol, but it also feels like an incomplete image of the disabled community as a whole. Disabled people can come in every shape and size, and for many, many of us, the wheelchair symbol isn't representative.
Disabled people may have wheelchairs, or canes, or crutches, or hearing aids, or service dogs, or different body shapes, or even nothing at all visibly indicating a disability. There have been alternative symbols suggested in the past, but most hinge on showing a silhouette, and there would never be a way to demonstrate all of us with one little bathroom-sign-style human. So, I made this! The Disabled Sun!
This isn't meant to replace the wheelchair symbol, as that certainly has its history and place in our community, it's simply meant to be an optional other symbol for those who choose to use it.
This symbol was chosen for the following reasons and meanings:
Outer circle represents the body; physical disabilities, our relationships to our bodies, disabled bodies in general.
The inner circle represents the mind; mental disabilities, our relationships to our minds, disabled minds in general.
The circles represent wholeness, representing that we are whole, complete people. We are whole, not despite our disabilities, but we are whole including our disabilities. We are not incomplete or broken, nor are we “missing” anything.
Circles also represent unity. In this case, the circles represent the solidarity and unity of disabled people across the wide range of disabilities. It also represents universal design.
The sun represents shining a light on disabled people, and the light we provide ourselves.
It's simple, discreet, easy to reproduce, and has a unicode symbol already. ☉
The symbol is welcome to be used by anyone of any kind of disability, be it physical, mental, neurodevelopmental, sensory, invisible, anything! If you have any sort of impairment and consider yourself disabled, you are welcome to use this symbol.
[Image ID: A transparent image of the Disabled Sun, a large circle with a smaller circle in the center, in the colors of the Disabled Pride Flag by Ann Magill. The disabled pride flag is a mostly grey flag with five diagonal stripes that start at the top left corner and run down to the bottom right corner. In order from left to right, the stripes are red, yellow, white. blue, and green.]
No credit is needed to use this symbol! It would be appreciated if you spread this post around to others to give it some traction, though!
I feel like daytime drowsiness isn’t talked about a lot when it comes to schizophrenia. It honestly sucks, cause I can’t function without either excessive amounts of caffeine (bad for me) or long naps during the day (not adult behavior seriously why?).
When you take into consideration that it often comes with insomnia - either due to paranoia, delusions, or just plain old insomnia. And antipsychotics have a sedating effect.
Alright using this opprotunity to ask what the hell else schizospec disorders cause that arent the well known things like delusions/hallucinations. Like there are phsyical symptoms? This is why im so exauhsted all the time forever? (And my sleep apnea i cant treat rn but you know, befofe that developed i was still eternally sleepy.) And while we are on the subject, ive been told there are cognitive symptoms but nowhere can i find WHAT THEY ARE.
Fatigue is pretty common, too, not just sleepiness. So that might be exacerbating it.
Here’s a list of symptoms you might’ve experienced before. The ones I can remember anyway.
It’s pretty long.
Heat intolerance. Schizophrenia can affect the part of your brain that controls temperature regulation. You’re way more likely to die of heart stroke, so please bring a big bottle of water with you if you’re going to be outside for a prolonged period of time, and if anyone else is with you that you can trust let them know you’re at an increased risk of heat stroke.
Disorganized speech and thoughts. This one is well known but not talked about extensively. It affects everything to do with thought and communication. If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t keep track of instructions or why writing down what someone is telling you to spell is hard, that’s why. Repetition of thoughts, words, and phrases can also be a part of this.
Involuntary movement is common. Repetitive movements and gestures, and twitching in the hands and legs. Lip smacking, odd neck and head movements, and grimacing can all be a part of it. These can be exasperated by antipsychotics.
Pacing and stopping and starting tasks. If you ever noticed you randomly get up to go pace or walk away from what you’re doing, and you can’t sit still, it’s not your fault. You’re not lazy or procrastinating. It’s called psychomotor agitation. Unlike the name implies, it isn’t always distressing, but it can be. Especially if you’re in public or in a space where getting up can be considered rude.
Noise sensitivity is common, with an inability to filter noises. It can make it hard to focus. And it can exacerbate already existing cognitive symptoms.
Bad memory and brain fog. There is no solid evidence to suggest that schizophrenia is a degenerative disease, and that belief stems from when the disorder was first discovered, and was classified as a form of dementia - I figured that important to note, because that belief still affects how people look at schizospec disorders today. That being said, it can still affect memory and recall. Keep notes, even if it seems excessive and paranoid. Do what you can to protect yourself if you think someone might be exploiting it.
There are others, but this is just what I recall. You might not experience all of these things. Everyone’s experience with schizospec disorders are different. If anyone has more they want to share, please add it in a reblog. Information is often withheld from us, especially in medical settings.
Everyone is free to use this design on shirts, stickers, pins, whatever they'd like, as long as they are using it for inclusive purposes! Just don't claim it as your own, please.
The transparent version:
A second version with a background, for easier viewing:
The individual symbols (that we made), transparent:
The meaning behind the symbols go as follows:
Neurodevelopmental disability symbol:
The two heads facing in opposite directions with arrows facing in different ways represent the difference in thinking patterns between neurodevelopmentally disabled people, and non-neurodevelopmentally disabled people. The black and white also represents these differences, however it alternatively can symbolize the "black and white thinking" that is often seen in neurodevelopmental conditions. The spectrum of colors represents the spectrum of possibilities in mental abilities.
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Cognitive disorder symbol:
We made this one based on several symbols we've seen before. In the symbols we saw before, the gear was broken, but we personally didn't like this concept, as it implied that the person's brain is "broken" for having a cognitive disorder. So instead, we made it where one of the gears is slightly outside of the head - to represent inaccessibility of certain skills or memories, as it is "out of their head."
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Learning disability symbol:
This symbol represents people with learning disabilities. This includes dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, nonverbal learning disability, and intellectual disabilities. It can also include autism, ADHD, CDS, and neurological communication disabilities.
The ABC symbol represents difficulty with reading, writing, or grammar. The speech bubble represents difficulty with verbal communication. The 123 symbol represents difficulty with numbers. The plus, minus, division, and multiplication symbols represents difficulty with math.
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Neurological communication disability symbol:
The morphing speech symbol represents how communication does not process in the typical manner (language disabilities), or it does not verbally come out in the intended manner (speech disabilities.)
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Neurological sensory conditions symbol:
The circles overlap with each other and with the center circle, to represent how all senses can overlap in certain conditions (ie; many types of synesthesia.) The first symbol, with the exclamation mark inside of the figure, representing interoception. The second symbol, with the swirl in the oval, is meant to resemble a fingerprint, to represent touch. The third symbol is an eye is for sight. The fourth symbol is an ear is for hearing. The fifth symbol is a nose for smell. The sixth symbol is a tongue for taste. The seventh symbol is for the vestibular system, with tildes around the rectangle to represent balance, and the arrows to represent speed. The eighth symbol is for proprioception, with the arrows pointing around the circle to represent movement.
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Epilepsy symbol:
We based this symbol on the one made by @eldritch-collective. We just edited it and added a seahorse, as seahorses are a common epilepsy symbol, since the hippocampus (part of the brain) is shaped like a seahorse, and epilepsy occurs there.
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Movement disorder symbol:
The wavy arrows around the figure represent involuntary movements (hyperkinesia) or difficulty with coordination (ataxia), while the electricity represents pain or difficulty with voluntary movements (hypokinesia). The open mouth represents vocal symptoms that occur for some movement disorders (ie; vocal tics), and the eyes represent movement disorders that affect eye movements.
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Neurodegenerative disorders symbol:
The brain is full on one side, but has gaps on the other side, showcasing the loss of neurons. The arrow showcases the progression from a healthy brain to a degenerating one. The arrow goes through the gear in the middle, to show how the progression disrupts brain functions.
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Neurological sleep disorder symbol:
The eye represents wakefulness or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, while the bed represents sleep.
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Neurological eating disorder symbol:
The symbol is meant to look like both a handheld mirror (to represent body image issues) and a scale (to represent weight changes). The fork and spoon represent dietary changes.
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Addictive & dependent disorders:
The chains around the thought bubble represent the struggles and restrictions of an addiction/dependence, and how its always on the person's mind.
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Behavioral disorder symbol:
The thought bubble with the explosive symbol represents disruptive behaviors (ie; disruptive behavior disorders.) The thought bubble with the repeat symbol represents obsessive thinking (ie; OCD-spectrum disorders). The thought bubble with the exclamation mark represents impulsive or compulsive thinking (ie; impulse control disorders.) The two hands with the wall between them represents attachment issues (ie; attachment disorders), and how either avoidance or anxiety causes difficulty forming connections.
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Personality disorder symbol:
The person with the swirls in their head represents Cluster A (or similar) personality disorders, and their odd mannerisms. The person with the upside down heart in their head represents Cluster B (or similar) personality disorders, with the upside down heart symbolizing how they experience emotions differently than others, and the upside down crown representing the self-serving or hierarchical mindsets/coping methods that often occur. The person with the squiggles and exclamation in their head represents Cluster C (or similar) personality disorders, and their anxious or obsessive feelings.
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Mood disorder symbol:
The fog represents depressive disorders. The rainbow tornado represents mania. The lightning represents mood disorders that cause aggression (ie; disruptive mood dysregulation disorder.)
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Anxiety disorder symbol:
The thought bubbles represent anxious thoughts. The overlap of the bubbles represents thought crowding. The explanation point represents impulsive or intrusive thinking, the question mark represents paranoia, and the squiggles represent mental spiraling and panic.
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The psychotic disorder symbol was made by @actuallyschizophrenic on Tumblr.
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Somatoform disorder symbol:
The person inside the brain represents how the brain creates physical symptoms or how a person's physical health/body is consistently on the person's mind. The separation of body parts on the figure can represent specific areas that the person has symptoms in, areas that the person worries about, or it could be viewed as a wooden puppet to represent people with factitious disorder or malingering that manipulate their body or behaviors like a person playing a puppet.
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Dissociative disorder symbol:
The blacked out thought bubble represents getting lost in another world (ie; immersive daydreaming or innerworlds) or loss/confusion of memory (ie; dissociative amnesia, identity alteration, and identity confusion.) The swirls around the head represents a separation between the body and reality (dissociative trance, autopilot, derealization, and depersonalization.)
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The plural rings, created by Tracee of Oure Gaiya.
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Trauma & stressor disorder symbol:
The dove represents a person's sense of inner peace. The anchor that the dove is carrying has a double meaning, representing both the weight of trauma & stress, while also representing how a person with trauma often needs something comforting to anchor them to reality.
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Identity incongruence symbol:
The figure in the center represents the physical body a person has. The brain with the heart and wispy symbol being separated from the body represents how a person with identity incongruence feels as though their brain or mind/soul are separate from one another. Around the person are the trans, altersex, intersex, alterhuman, regression, and plural symbols, as well as a handheld mirror to represent certain eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and body integrity dysphoria.
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Attractional disorder symbol:
The symbol uses a combination of the (pro-recovery) paraphillic disorder symbol made by @a-hydrangea-named-acti, the hypo- symbol by @metan01aaa, and the hyper- hearts (which we could not find the origin for, as there are many versions of it.) It's meant to resemble a flower on a stock, blooming from the broken heart, with the overlapping hearts being leaves.
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Neurological sexual dysfunction symbol:
The X over the person's pelvic area is meant to represent dysfunction, and the red that connects to the head represents how the dysfunction is neurological.
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Neurological perinatal disorder symbol:
The symbol as a whole is vaguely meant to resemble a uterus, to represent pregnancy and birth. The shape in the center is meant to resemble both a heart and a person who is pregnant or holding a baby against their stomach, with a baby mobile hanging. On the baby mobile, the shapes are supposed to look like a fork, spoon, and handheld mirror to represent unhealthy eating & body image issues. The lightning bolt represents impulsive/compulsive thinking or disruptive behavior. The cloud represents anxiety. The sun and moon represent sleep disorders, while also representing depression and hypomania/mania. The swirl represents symptoms of psychosis or dissociation. The chain represents addictive/dependent symptoms or trauma. The X on the circle represents perinatal neurological sexual dysfunction or distressing physical symptoms.
The answer is of course that 1) psychiatric medications effectiveness at treating mental illness is barely documented if at all, and 2) many of them come with side effects that are disabling BY THEMSELVES. So let's not fucking reduce mental illness to something that can be easily fixed with medication and thus isn't disabling because that plain isn't true
Unfortunately, I think stigmatised disorder (personality disorders, psychotic disorders, etc) culture is realising something you experience has a name and finally feeling seen, but you go to google it for more resources and only find people talking about how horrible and morally evil you are for daring to have that symptom you never chose in the first place.
people always act like there’s such a hard line between “psychotic person” and “normal person”, and I feel like that plays a lot into the dehumanization psychotic people face. cause once a nonpsychotic person internalizes this logic, suddenly we’re attractions and interesting and a fun research subject cause we’re just so fucking other that we become wholly unrelatable. for the nonpsychotic person, it’s unimaginable what psychosis must “really” feel like. so they treat us like a fictional species just trying to understand our existence. and they don’t worry about how their actions might affect us any more than they’d worry about insulting a vulcan by calling the vulcan thought process “just so interesting!”.
but in reality…. the difference between a psychotic person and a nonpsychotic person is not so stark. all human brains are prone to psychosis. all humans are capable of experiencing psychosis in one way or another. anyone could develop a full blown psychotic disorder at any time, no one is born immune to this. and while there’s some contexts in which it’s necessary to differentiate who does or doesn’t experience these symptoms of course, largely I think nonpsychotic people are doing themselves a disfavor - and being ableist in the process - by ignoring the hard truth of the matter: us psychotic people are exactly the same as them.
The thing about psychosis, in particular the delusions, is that in the moment, the beliefs are our reality. A delusional person doesn’t just believe they’re the reincarnation of Christ. To them in that moment, they are the reincarnation of Christ. They don’t just believe the cops are after them, the cops are after them. They don’t just believe their family members have been replaced by aliens, their family has been replaced by aliens.
This is one of the reasons psychosis can be so traumatizing. We don’t just believe in bizarre and unusual things, we’re actively experiencing them. We’re prone to such outrageous and scary beliefs that are out of our control, and to us, they’re as real as the air we breathe. Keep this in mind when considering the mental state of someone in psychosis.
“Fewer than 5 percent of units have the features needed to accommodate a person with moderate mobility difficulties. The percentage of wheelchair-accessible units is even smaller; less than 1 percent of all units are equipped with features that would allow a wheelchair user to live independently.”
Marriage is a privilege.
“The [SSI] monthly maximum Federal amounts for 2023 are $914 for an eligible individual, $1,371 for an eligible individual with an eligible spouse.”
Minimum wage is a privilege.
“Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act authorizes employers, after receiving a certificate from the Wage and Hour Division, to pay special minimum wages — wages less than the Federal minimum wage — to workers who have disabilities for the work being performed.”
We still need to fight for accessibility and equity for all disabled people.
I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.
It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.
It occurred to Pooh and Piglet that they hadn't heard from Eeyore for several days, so they put on their hats and coats and trotted across the Hundred Acre Wood to Eeyore's house. Inside the house was Eeyore.
"Hello Eeyore," said Pooh.
"Hello Pooh. Hello Piglet" said Eeyore, in a Glum sounding voice.
"We just thought we'd check on you," said Piglet, "because we hadn't heard from you, and so we wanted to know if you were okay."
Eeyore was silent for a moment. "Am I okay?" he asked, eventually. "Well, I don't know, to be honest. Are any of us really okay? That's what I ask myself. All I can tell you, Pooh and Piglet, is that right now I feel really rather Sad, and Alone, and Not Much Fun To Be Around At All.
Which is why I haven't bothered you. Because you wouldn't want to waste your time hanging out with someone who is Sad, and Alone, and Not Much Fun To Be Around At All, would you now."
Pooh looked at Piglet, and Piglet looked at Pooh, and they both sat down, one on either side of Eeyore in his stick house.
Eeyore looked at them in surprise. "What are you doing?"
"We're sitting here with you," said Pooh, "because we are your friends. And true friends don't care if someone is feeling Sad, or Alone, or Not Much Fun To Be Around At All. True friends are there for you anyway. And so here we are."
"Oh," said Eeyore. "Oh." And the three of them sat there in silence, and while Pooh and Piglet said nothing at all; somehow, almost imperceptibly, Eeyore started to feel a very tiny little bit better.
Because Pooh and Piglet were There.
No more; no less.
