Blissful Isolation @akunnia - Tumblr Blog

brandi quiñones by karl lagerfeld

📸: tianaparkr

Is funny when doctors and other peeps act like my problem is that I’m obsessed w/ my disability. Um no. You have it backwards. The problem is I HAVE to be cuz it is a constant problem.

andreashettle

I’m deaf. About 25 years ago, I was working for a little while as a classroom aide at a program that worked with deaf children with multiple disabilities. All the teachers and other classroom aides were hearing, but they all could sign. Not at native signing level, but enough to carry on a basic conversation.

So, one evening, all us adults bring all the kids to a special one-night camping trip. All the kids are put to sleep, which frees up the adults to get into a circle and have some fun to ourselves for a while. People start talking, except they were forgetting to sign. So I reminded them to please sign so I could understand them. One of them told me that, no, they weren’t going to sign because this was our night to have fun and not have to think about communication.

So no one signed all night. They talked, they laughed, they had fun. I sat, feeling lost and cut off and betrayed. I remember wishing I had had the nerve to say, “No, what you mean is, you want a night in which everyone EXCEPT ME gets to not think about communication.”

I think sometimes when non-disabled people insist that we are too obsessed with our disability, what they REALLY mean is, “I wish you would stop reminding me that I have a shared responsibility as a fellow member of society to proactively ensure that we all have an opportunity to be engaged in society. I wish you would just pretend to not have a disability so I can pretend that I don’t have to do anything to enable you to do the same things the rest of us are doing.”

The luxury of not needing to think about disability in a society that is designed to lock us on the cold outside is a non-disabled privilege.

unreactive

brianmalik

if i sigh loudly enough will all of my problems go away

onlinecounsellingcollege

“Don’t be a victim of your own mind.”

— Unknown

nyctaeus

melisica

Alex Strohl

fruitsaladchewits-deactivated20

1985: National Geo make millions from ‘Afghan Girl’ portrait

2016: Still has the status of a refugee and may spend 14 years in jail because of her papers

wretchedofthe-earth

I fucking hate this picture and everything it represents. Steve McCurry made millions off of this picture and its what launched his photojournalism career into the spotlight. While the woman in this picture got absolutely NOTHING and lived an awful and horrific existence. And calling her “Afghan Girl” is so disrespectful. Her name is Sharbat Gula and her life could have been made 1000X easier had McCurry shared his wealth with her - or even if he couldn’t find her, to share it with of refugees who he exploited. And honestly the idea of a white man going into wartorn nations (that are that way bc of american imperialism) to take pictures of refugees to profit off of their pain and trauma is gross