I think I'm going to start making this blog more personal because being disabled is a very isolating experience lol. Hi, my name is Asphodel and i use any/all pronouns with a preference for he/she
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@disabledlovingdisabled
I think I'm going to start making this blog more personal because being disabled is a very isolating experience lol. Hi, my name is Asphodel and i use any/all pronouns with a preference for he/she
we need to all get angrier about ableism. we all need to be more activly aware of it and against it
why is being on time so important for every job? why dont they just care about what you get done? why is a little bit of contibution seen as worse than you not being there? why is it all about conformity?
why is being on pace so important for every study program? why do they care about complicated assignments and scores and deadlines and limited amount of attempts? if you display skill they should let you pass no?
why is everything about climbing over arbitrary bariers rather than just learning and contributing? how many people aren't disables untill authority tells them that theyre not allowed to be tired, that theyre not allwed to take it slow? that they cant sleep in even if it's what they need? how many people could contribute to our world beutifully if it werent for unnecesery barriers to entry at every job and school? why do people have to be "good enough?" isn't every contributiom valuable? dont we all deserve our place and our voice?
More characters ending disabled and happy NOW
Love when the “I’m going to shame disabled people into having better hygiene practices” person shows up on my dash. 🙃
Shaming people into taking better care of themselves doesn’t work. Making fun of them for not doing laundry as often as you think they should is just cruel.
You know one reason people may start falling behind in care tasks? Depression. You know something that can cause or worsen depression? Shame.
Okay so I’m gonna make this the positivity post.
You’re doing fine. It’s okay.
Do what you can when you can and that’s fine.
But also, if there’s someone in your life that can help, please don’t let shame or embarrassment prevent you from seeking that help. If you genuinely can’t keep up with certain tasks, please consider asking a trusted person for assistance.
And don’t listen to anyone disparaging you. They don’t know your life. They aren’t in your shoes. They can’t understand the difficulties you face. And ultimately, your actions don’t effect them.
Do what you are able to do when you are able to do it. Seek help if you are able and need it. You’re doing your best and that’s all that matters.
some thoughts and ideas on mobility aids (and stuff) for grace :-)
‘The biggest rollback of disability rights in a generation’ – Charities respond to Supreme Court ruling
The uk Supreme Court has just done a major rollback on disability rights and is putting more disabled people in danger
Under this new ruling, multiple vulnerable groups will be impacted across social care and healthcare sectors. If an autistic person with high support needs, someone with a serious mental illness, or a person with a severe learning disability is locked in a care setting and sedated, but does not actively protest, they will no longer be considered "confined" by the state. They will lose their automatic right to independent reviews, a legal advocate, and protection from closed care cultures.
This ruling states if someone is sedated and does not instigate a complaint regarding their circumstances while ACTIVELY SEDATED, then they have no right to legal checks and balances to preserve their wellbeing??? Is this correct??? The UK is falling apart.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL
“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”
My mom learned it because she figured she’ll go deaf when she gets old
My family went holiday SCUBA diving once, and a couple of Deaf guys were in the group. I was really little and I spent most of the briefing overcome with the realization that while the rest of us were going to have regulators in our mouths and be underwater fairly soon, they were going to be able to do all the same stuff and keep talking.
The only reason some form of sign language is not a standard skill is ableism, as far as I can tell.
For anyone interested in learning, Bill Vicars has full lessons of ASL on youtube that were used in my college level classes.
https://www.youtube.com/user/billvicars
and here’s the link to the website he puts in his videos:
https://www.lifeprint.com/
Update: you guys this is an amazing resource for learning asl. Bill Vicars is an incredible teacher. His videos are of him teaching a student in a classroom, using the learned vocabulary to have conversations.
Not only is the conversation format immersive and helpful for learning the grammar, but the students make common mistakes which he corrects, mistakes I wouldn’t have otherwise know I was making.
He also emphasizes learning ASL in the way it’s actually used by the Deaf community and not the rigid structure that some ASL teachers impose in their classrooms
His lesson plans include learning about the Deaf community, which is an important aspect of learning ASL. Knowing how to communicate in ASL without the knowledge of the culture behind it leaves out a lot of nuances and explanations for the way ASL is.
Lastly, his lessons are just a lot of fun to watch. He is patient, entertaining, and funny. This good natured enthusiasm is contagious and learning feels like a privilege and not a chore
And it’s all FREE. Seriously. If you’ve ever wanted to learn ASL
Your tags reminded me of the comments section of any post in the cerebral palsy support group that insist we all learn sign language. In a group of two thousand people, most with permanent hand issues that would make fine motor functions a WEE BIT difficult. A reminder that “not everyone only has palsy in their legs, we have to work with what we got.” But literally that’s everybody everywhere.
As someone who is actively learning ASL, I will take those resources, yes. Please and thank you.
I also want to add that manual dexterity isn’t the only thing that affects signing. The signing area is (roughly) from forehead to waist and from shoulder to shoulder, and the location, rotation, and movement of your hands are all important. If you can’t lift your arms above a certain level, reach across your body, or have some other problem with your range of motion, you’re going to struggle with ASL.
Also, your face is surprisingly important! The shape of your mouth and the location of your eyebrows (raised, furrowed, etc) are used to convey a lot of information that is normally communicated through things like pitch and tone in spoken language. So anything that impacts your facial control, or even just wearing a mask in public, is also going to impact your ability to communicate clearly.
That being said, I would argue that there’s no reason not to learn any language, even if you can’t produce it yourself. People tend to look at language learning through the lens of communicating their thoughts, but you can learn because you want to understand other people, too. I think people tend to overlook how much just being understood might mean to their conversation partner, especially if that person is used to doing all the work for communication.
Hey! Deafie here.
So I love this conversation but I am BEGGING y’all to understand that ASL WAS CREATED for a community lacking access and is often modified for those with disabilities impacting their ability to use the language as it is taught in schools/asl classes/etc.
Deaf people with amputations still sign. DeafBlind people still sign. Autistic Deafies still sign. Deaf people with facial paralysis, hand paralysis, dexterity issues, still sign. These people with disabilities ARE COMMUNICATING CLEARLY. Saying they aren’t communicating clearly is incredibly ableist and incorrect.
Older Deafies often sign with smaller gestures, keeping their hands closer to their body due to less mobility. We understand them. They are communicating clearly.
If you don’t understand someone’s signs due to the accent of their ability, watch closely and recognize that they ARE COMMUNICATING CLEARLY. Just be patient with yourself and your own disability in understanding them.
(Many deaf people don’t sign, that’s okay.)
I feel like not enough people realize that people under enormous strain act really really fucking Weird
If someone is doing things that don't make Sense, try to understand that it is entirely possible that their brain is probably under an enormous weight and fracturing under the pressure. People who have been stabbed will sometimes talk a circle around the fact that they've been stabbed because stress and shock prevent you from recognizing the distress you are in and what you need to do to seek help for it. PTSD will do this also. You will find yourself repeatedly jamming a bag of frozen fruit into the same spot in the freezer where it doesn't fit and keeps falling, over and over and over, focused on nothing but that bag. You will decide that a beanbag chair is 10000% necessary to your life. You will lose your entire shit because you stubbed your toe on a table and that means the whole setup of your furniture is wrong. These are largely harmless examples. People under strain will also hurt themselves and others. Cornered animals bite. And it doesn't heal the bite to go "Hey, are you okay?" But it might get you to an animal that stops biting, so you can start to heal. And before you had an animal that bit, you probably had an animal that kept doing shit you didn't understand as stress signals
Christ, this times 10,000.
I talk a lot about accountability with BPD because I think it matters.
But I think something that doesn’t get talked about enough is that people with BPD can sometimes become vulnerable to overcorrecting.
We spending years hearing things like: Check the facts. Don't trust every feeling. Take accountability. Make sure you're being fair to people in your life. (Yes, a lot of these things are said on this blog too. I know. That's why I'm making this post. Because I definitely don't want to make it seem like it's always on us. It's not.)
And hearing these things can make it really easy to assume everything is your disorder.
And that can become dangerous.
Because sometimes people with BPD get dismissed, manipulated or even abused specifically because we’ve already been taught to distrust ourselves.
Sometimes we stop asking “Did someone hurt me?” and start asking: “How did I cause this?”
Sometimes people weaponize our diagnosis against us.
Learning accountability should not mean learning to abandon yourself.
You are allowed to reflect on your reactions and still ask whether someone else’s behaviour deserves accountability too.
why is ut always "being fat puts pressure on ur joints" but never "being skinny makes u more vulnerable to joint/bone injury" like lets be real im not playing this game with u where u get to pretend u know anything about medicine much less my personal case . u are going to have things happen to u and ur body no matter what size u are and pretending fat people are somehow the only people who can possibly sustain weight related injuries PISSES ME OFF . be fucking serious
people give me shit like "you wouldn't have such severely impaired mobility if you weren't so incredibly fat" like nice try fucker i lost my mobility when i was thin and fit and then i got fat when i could no longer walk, you know fuck all about me.
Meagan Morris and Autumn Hill have been sent back to FMC Fort Worth to await sentencing. If you want to write them letters, you'll have to use their deadname in the addresses, but please use their actual names in the letters! The addresses are below:
For Meagan:
Bradford Morris 11136-512
FMC Fort Worth FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER
P.O. BOX 15330
FORT WORTH, TX 76119
for Autumn Hill:
Cameron Arnold 11138-512
FMC Fort Worth FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER
P.O. BOX 15330
FORT WORTH, TX 76119
If you provide them with contact information, you can get emails to and from them with Corrlinks. They need your legal name, physical address, phone number, and email address for Corrlinks, and if you ask to get in touch with them that way you'll receive an email from Corrlinks with their contact request and instructions on setting up a Corrlinks account. Corrlinks is free for the people on the outside, so if you want to contact them without paying for postage that's an option.
however, Meagan and Autumn do need to pay for a bunch of things - access to Corrlinks emails, food and toiletries from the commissary, mailing labels and stamps for mailing letters. If you want to send them commissary, the Bureau of Prisons website has the instructions on how to send commissary money. You'll need to use their deadname and register number to send money to their account:
For Meagan Morris:
Bradford Morris, register/account number 11136512
For Autumn Hill:
Cameron Arnold, register/account number 11138512
If you have any questions about all this, feel free to message me or send me an ask on Tumblr, I'm willing to pass along messages and help you troubleshoot things if necessary. As always, thanks to everyone who supports Meagan and Autumn and all the Prairieland defendants! To support all of them as they appeal their convictions and prepare for the future, you can donate to their legal fund here:
Please visit our website at https://prairielanddefendants.com/ for more updates, articles, and letter writing information.Español abajo Supp
Anyway can we meditate on this, fellas?
Every time I point out that disabled people are chill and that presuming we are violent monster maniacs is a bit ridiculous, at least one fuckwit has to be like, "oh yeah? What about [condition]?"
"Oh yeah? Well my sister works at a special school and she gets bitten by autistic kids all the time!" Okay. I was an autistic kid who went to special school. Didn't bite anybody, didn't see anybody bitten. I also worked in SPED for a while as an adult. Never saw an incident. Hm.
Oh look, studies show that violence is common in pretty much all schools because exploring and experimenting with violence is actually really common for kids aged three to nine. But oh, we notice it more when the retards do it. Why is that. Could it be ableism. We discuss it as an especially common and problemaitc thing when the retards do it. Why is that. Could it be ableism.
"Oh yeah? Well I'm a psychiatric nurse and my schizophrenic patient punched me!" I am a diagnosed schizophrenic. The whole reason I'm not working any more is that I lost years of my life in psychosis. Now, follow me here, I never assaulted anybody, but I have been assaulted a number of times since I became ill, always with the excuse of "well he could've become violent." Hm.
Every single major study on violence and schizophrenia finds schizophrenics are not more violent than the general population but experience violence at massively, massively disproportionate rates. In fact, they usually find the majority of violence in these contexts is perpetrated by support workers, family members, and police. Hm.
It just doesn't work mate. I'm sorry. You not only look ignorant, you just become useful fodder to prove my point that ableism is a real social force, because you've seen some disabled dude on social media talking about being disabled and thought to yourself, "aha, this is a fine time to be ableist." Come on.
Something I always think about when I hear these comments about psychiatric workers getting bitten or hit is what happened before that they left out of their story.
My memory is so clouded from the years on antipsychotics I do not know if I have ever actually bitten to someone, but I do remember very clearly ways that I was treated when in hospital. For many, the humans do not treat you nicely, certainly many were not for me. For the humans to send you to hospital you are already in a state of pretty severe disstress, and now at the height of this stress they pull you away from your home, comforts, and supports. While you are there the humans will do whatever they want to you and nothing you say or do can make things better except to play along with their demands.
But if you are not well enough to do that, and you cannot stop the humans as they hurt you or restrain you, there is no real means to escape or make it stop. In my case I experience clinical zoanthropy and so was effectively an animal and unable to communicate with the humans. And so like a cornered and terrified animal biting or striking in that moment seems the only way to get away or make what is happening to you to stop. That does of course only make things worse for you and the humans become even harsher on you.
Which sure I suppose not every case is going to be the same as my experience, but the conditions within the psychiatric system create the conditions someone might bite. Psychiatric systems are terrifying and often exert violence to ensure compliance, which then further justifies itself on the responses of those in terror and desperation. This continues until you either cannot respond be it sedation or restraints, or simply let the humans do whatever it is they are going to do to you and hope it will be over quickly. There was a point I was honestly quite proud of how far I had come in letting the humans handle me - a statement which almost no one outside schizophrenic communities can even effectively parse or make sense of as it is so foreign to them.
The doctors and nurses are supposed to be the experts in the room. It should be on them primarily to effectively manage this state of fear and distress rather than adding to it. I might have had a particularly unique presentation of schizophrenia, but they should still be able to recognise my distress and respond appropriately rather than with force. If someone bites or strikes my sympathy stands with them, not the institution they are ensnared in.
Yeah I’m not sure why OP left out the fact that people, regardless of whether they’re in SpEd or not, have stress thresholds, and pushing someone past their stress threshold will absolutely result in aggression and violence. People also have the 4Fs response (fight, flight, freeze, fawn), and when a 4Fs response is triggered, fight is often the brain’s communication to the body that whatever is happening needs to stop right that very second, and they must fight for their life.
How terrifying must it be to be a small autistic child, where everyone is 10x bigger than you, and they’re asking you over and over again if you’re ready for lunchtime, and you can’t say anything because you’re already overwhelmed enough by the fluroescent lights, all the colors, the carpet has a bad texture and your teacher will not stop asking you to get ready for lunch, and you want her to shut the fuck up and stop scaring the shit out of you. I’d bite her now and I’m 31.
Healthy and well-adjusted autistic people do not use violence to end their sensory overloads and overwhelmed behavior. Healthy autistic children who have been taught how to communicate their needs effectively based on what works for them do not use violence to end their sensory overloads and overwhelmed behavior.
Because part of my point is that, regardless of whether they're autistic or not, people have stress thresholds, and pushing someone past their stress thresholds will absolutely result in aggression and violence.
Consider:
How normal it must be to be a small child, where everyone is 10x bigger than you, and they're asking you over and over again if you're ready for lunchtime, and you know that you don't actually have a decision to make because when you're very young demands are often presented as questions. All the colours, the carpet has a bad texture, and your teacher will not stop "asking" you to get your things because it's lunch time, and you want her to shut the fuck up. Oh look, one of the most common experiences you can have as a teacher is being hit, spit on, bitten, or having things thrown at you by a student. This remains consistent regardless of whether the kids have a disability or not.
And yet, we have a pervasive cultural narrative of autistic children biting. Not just being violent, biting specifically.
Could this be in part how stereotypes are formed and could this therefore be something of a self-fulfilling prophesy distorting evidence around the issue, especially when surveys and teachers' self-reports are used as the primary source of that evidence, as is very often the case in all studies on the subject?
There is a lot of mythologisation around autism and violence specifically that lends itself to the cultural expectation that autistic people, as with all "able-bodied disabled" people, are more violent than the general population. This is used to reinforce and justify violence against us. Back when deaf people were considered synonymous with intellectual disability because they "can't be educated," a common literary stock character was the ultra-violent intellectually disabled deaf person, for instance. Turns out, deaf people are neither commonly intellectually disabled or more violent, but it was considered cultural truth through the early 1800s that this was the case. And let's consider.
How normal it must be to be a deaf child, where everyone is 10x bigger than you, and they're asking you over and over again -- idk what, you're deaf. All the colours, the carpet had a bad texture, and your teacher will not stop yapping at you with her mouth partly obscured, refusing to use gestures and other symbols you'd recognise because ugh, that fucking Milan Conference.
I think this ignorance often faces inward and prompts a lot of autistic and adjacent people to self-mythologise, too. For instance, something happened here where you saw two schizophrenics discussing in part the trauma of institutionalisation and how that is a cyclically violent environment, in part perpetuated by the expectation of violence, which psychiatric staff always find often unconscious ways to justify, and how this lends to a similar stereotype that the schizophrenics are inherently a violent people who perhaps need to be caged and controlled (something that very industry profits from). And you were like, "idk why OP left out that autistic environments can make kids overwhelmed and violent!" as if that wasn't implied, firstly, but in a way where autism is sort of placed on a separate island from schizophrenia. That's part of this specific pattern, frankly.
Since autism acceptance month is coming up in April (I know I’m very early), shout out to all autistics and disabled people in general who:
Can’t get out of bed, leave the house, feed themselves, use the toilet, or perform other ADLs without assistance. I see you and you are not gross or weird or lazy or broken. You deserve a good caretaker.
Cannot communicate in any way. Like even AAC doesn’t work for you effectively, so someone else might have to speak on your behalf.
Can’t hold down a job, stay in school, or live independently.
Isn’t a savant, isn’t skilled with their special interests, or can’t do anything without immediate access to their special interests.
Has an intellectual or learning disability.
Has level 2 or level 3 autism that can’t be masked away so that you’re pretty much visibly autistic.
Has disturbing intrusive thoughts. They don’t define who you are, your actions do. You’re not a bad person for having intrusive thoughts; you can’t control them.
Experience delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, or any other psychotic traits. You’re not crazy or scary, and you’re welcome into this space.
Dissociate, have amnesia from trauma, have gaps in your memory, have an identity or personality disorder, etc.
You’re worth it, hun. 🫶🏻
medical abuse opinions you can have are "that doesn't happen" "that doesn't happen" "that happens sometimes but definitely only to people who deserve it and they're not real people anyway so it's ok" "that doesn't happen" "that maybe happened in the past but its funny" "that happened in the past but it was empowering somehow" "that doesn't happen"
the thing is that if you look directly AT various forms of medical abuse it becomes so fucking instantly clear that the forms happening today (forced antipsychotic medication, involuntary institutionalization, involuntary sedation, electroshock, etc etc) all have the same goal that things like lobotomy did: to make someone more convenient to their caretakers. like. that and making money for drug corporations. i was put on multiple medications it was absolutely not appropriate to put a child on when I was institutionalized as a child. there's procedures and meds that they know parents/guardians and insurance companies won't refuse to pay for if their kid or family or whatever is institutionalized and the doctors get kickbacks from the corps to mass prescribe these to institutionalized people bc we're basically like farm animals to them. a captive population to experiment on and charge us money for the pleasure of doing so. this isn't a conspiracy theory, there have been infinite class action lawsuits about these cases. which drug corps work into their budgeting by setting aside Settlement Money bc they know that's cheaper than not illegally giving doctors kickbacks to overprescibe their drugs to vulnerable people. this is public information. it is happening now and it has happened to many, MANY people who are alive today and a lot of them are your own age and you probably interact with them in your daily life without knowing it.
"the kind of person who would be lobotomized" still exists and is still inconvenient to patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism. they're still abusing us. stop ignoring us. STOP IGNORING US
How I can pimp my wheelchair? I am wanting to decorate for a long time but I am unsure. Someone has any easy decorate recs?
Yass! We love decorated mobility aids!
Stickers and vinyl wrap on the frame, or adding patches and pins to the back are probably the easiest, but there's definitely more options than that!
Check out the #mobility aid decorations tag for heaps of inspiration but here are a few of the more creative ideas this blog has seen...
Use hula hoop tape on the frame like this
Maybe you could wrap parts of the frame in fabric like this or this (both rollators but the posts might inspire you). Or maybe you could recover the seat back with fabric?
If you can knit or crochet or know someone who does, you could cover parts of the frame like this person did with their cane. Or like this.
Or make wheel covers like this wheelchair user!
Or take inspiration from this person's crocheted cane handle cover and make/get something made for your armrests or push handles?
You could add faux foliage like this person did on their rollator.
If you're into painting, take inspiration from this person's painted rollator seat; if you have side guards, maybe you could paint a design on those?
Maybe you have something you'd like to hang from the push handles or arm rest like kandi, beads, a plushie, or a keychain?
Also, I see a lot of people getting spoke covers for the wheel spokes. If you have the type of wheels that have thin metal spokes, you can do what I did and buy spoke covers that are sold for bike wheels. They come in a bunch of colours and if you search online, there should be a few places to buy them. I found it was a bit hard on my hands getting them on (fiddly and a tad painful) but I'm really happy to now have purple and yellow spokes!
Whatever you decide to do, we'd love to see it so please send in pics if you feel comfortable doing so; asks are always open or you can tag this blog in one of your posts ✌️
if you need full time care i love you. if you need part time care i love you. if it’s not safe for you to be unsupervised i love you. if it’s not safe for you to cook i love you. if you can’t dress yourself i love you. if you can’t toilet without help i love you. if you have uncontrollable behaviours unless someone is looking after you i love you. if someone else has to maintain your medical devices i love you. if you rely on informal or unpaid care from family or friends i love you. if you rely on formal care from professionals i love you. if you live in a group home, institution, or supported living i love you. if you’re embarrassed to admit you have carers i love you. if you talk about your carers with pride i love you.
if you need care i love you.
feeling such love for my bed rn. beds are beautiful. they’re a sacred refuge space for the disabled and chronically ill, for the depressed, for the weary, for the burned out, for the sleepy, for the snuggly, for the sexy. shoutout to beds. wouldn’t wanna lie down anywhere else.