enemy of cracked sidewalks everywhere

mobility disability, autism with mild cognitive impairment (lvl 2), HoH - m27

[hell-on-sticks]

about me ♿

My name is Connor.

- I am physically disabled.

- Wheelchair and crutches user.

- Lvl 2 autism with mild cognitive difficulties.

- Hard of Hearing.

I post about physical disability, wheelchair and mobility aids, and autism from the perspective of those of us with lvl 2 or lvl 3.

I am passionate about challenging ideas of autism as all being lvl 1 or low support. I want more lvl 2 and lvl 3 voices heard.

Autism is a disability. It involves impairment. Without impairment, it is not autism. It is not personality trait, or "creative thinking".

Listen to people with lvl 2 and lvl 3. People with ID or who cannot speak. It is hurtful when autism is made quirky and palatable for social media. We are not here to be palatable.

I use a manual wheelchair or crutches to get around. Cannot speak for all wheelchair users. Not all wheelchair users are ambulatory. Listen to full time wheelchair users.

Hard of Hearing, but relatively mild. Cannot speak for d/Deaf people and only comfortable contributing to discussion if sharing consensus from the Deaf-led Auslan group I am in.

Disability is varied. Instead of fight to say "mental disability" (which should be used by people with ID, not people with mental health) is the same as physical, understand broader categories. Physical/mobility, sense (Blindness, low vision, d/Deafness, HoH, etc), neurological, intellectual and developmental, psychosocial/mental health. You'll have a better conversation if you don't just split into a binary of "physical or mental". Disability doesn't work like that.

(plain text: Physical/mobility, sense (Blindness, low vision, d/Deafness, HoH, etc), neurological, intellectual and developmental, psychosocial/mental health.)

Also have significant psychosocial disability. Not here to talk about that though, I'd rather talk about my physical disability and my autism.

🔗 My guide on types of wheelchairs

🔗 My guide on types of crutches

🔗 My post on what active manual wheelchairs can look like (and that they don't all have low backrests and no armrests...)

🔗 My post on why "physical vs mental" is not a good disability framework

🖤💚🩵🤍💛❤️💜🖤

[northern-punk-lad]

‘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

[roboticutie]

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.

[flowercrowncrip]

As far as I can tell from reading the statement by Mind and the BBC article, this ruling states that people who don’t have the legal capacity to understand why they’re being physically or chemically restrained/ kept in a locked care home or ward etc. are still able to give “consent” to that treatment in a way that it doesn’t count as a deprivation of liberty.

So if someone is chemically sedated, doesn’t understand that’s what’s happening, but doesn’t complain then they could be seen to be “consenting” to that treatment. That’s true even if they don’t know what the medication is, what the effects are, how long they last or that there might be other options.

Because the presence of “consent” means that a restriction wouldn’t be considered “Deprivation of Liberty” it means these people aren’t entitled to deprivation of liberty safeguards, which including having independent checks to make sure that any restrictions to their freedom is proportionate and that they’re not being abused in that setting.

One of the reasons the ruling was made is that it placed an “undue burden” on local authorities. Basically local governments were like “hey we’re massively failing our legal duties to protect incredibly vulnerable people from abuse, any chance you could let us off so we don’t have to do it?” And the UK Supreme Court agreed with them.

[flowercrowncrip]

The other hugely chilling “reasoning” behind this ruling (other than finances) is the idea that disabled people cannot be deprived of their liberty if they can’t understand that’s what’s happening. It’s absolutely disgusting.

[not-freyja]

Can everyone who makes video content do a Deaf bitch a favor? Watch your shit with the captions on and the sound off, and then do another round of editing to fix things including but not limited to:

Captions cover the spot on the screen you put the information I need

The dialogue is captioned but not the song you have playing that the dialogue is responding to

You only captioned the person on the screen, not the person off screen who is also talking

No captioning of critical sound effects (alarms, bells, dogs barking, etc)

Speakers are not labelled at moments where it is not clear on the screen who is talking.

Captions cover the spot on the screen that you put the information I need!

Other d/Deaf people welcome to add.

This post brought to you by the fifth video tutorial I could not follow because the bad, auto-generated captions covered what I was trying to watch today.

[guelwaar]

like in general making care work dependent on sentimentality is a fucking bad idea lol, to some extent you can't really prevent the fact that people interacting with one another will probably feel some type of way about each other but esp when you are taking on a role where people depend on you for basic bodily care tasks, necessary medications, proper performance of potentially dangerous procedures &c it's not actually about YOU or your feelings at all & the more you make it into that type of ego trip looking for self satisfaction because youre soooooo self sacrificing and empathetic and you love your patients sooooooooo much -- the less you actually see & think about & serve those patients. never confuse personal fondness for evidence you are doing right by that person -- completely irrelevant & not at all protective against or mutually exclusive of abuse. people who are disliked or dislikable also need care! you signed up to provide it to them. if you cannot do bear to do that and do it fucking well then find a different job

[spaceautie]

Being an autistic wheelchair user is great in some aspects like I can bring my safe space with me, it’s sensory fun to spin in wheelies and my overwhelm is reduced from trying to navigate my body but it is worse in others, like I am at ass height and I have to talk to so. Many people. To get anywhere without mishap

Bus driver? Chat

Train ramp? Chat

Taxi driver? Chat

Strangers on the street? Chat

People in the shops? Chat

And because people recognise me, they talk to me as if I should know them! Which my faceblind ass used to find hard already never mind judging whether I should know this person or not.

But also I can’t get too annoyed because I’d never leave the house.

Gah!

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

wheelchair users who use lateral trunk support wings thingie:

[id: lateral trunk support wings on greyed out rigid backrest by permobil. end jd]

^ this thing

how your experience? how helpful? how you like them? complaints? if financial not an issue, is there anything would change to yours / get different model? which model/brand you have, if feel comfortable tell at any specificity (e.g. permobil/comfort company basic wing + swing away hardware)? relevant disability symptoms / reason for need, n whether it help, if comfortable w share?

does it help you stop go too much side to side? can it act as thing lean against? help body from flop over in front?

am specifically looking at permobil for self & get really confuse at functional difference between all basic & premium shapes & hardware options, not able try them on n no ATP help. but experience of any brand greatly help

manual & powerchair user both welcome - tho personally am looking at it for my high support manual chair

[spaceautie]

I currently have laterals built into my backrest extra deep - 20cm deep I think?? It’s a jay j3 posterior deep contour. They help keep me from going to one side but I slump forward still without recline or support. But they give me good support on the sides! And good tactile feedback on my sides if I am leaning more one side.

The seperate ones also give you more options on where to mount them. And you can have them different heights on each side. I find the higher they are on my rib cage the better but other people prefer them lower or even on the hip. If you need a bigger support area the built in ones are less weight. The seperate ones have their own bolts each side so are heavier.

Also for transfers it can be a bit more tricky if they don’t move to the side, so the separate ones can be better there. I stay in my wheelchair most of the time though!

[sparklingbog]

You need to respect the intellectually disabled and delayed I'm not fucking asking

[faintlyhauntedsanctuary]

Why do so many people refuse to understand the concept of comorbidities. It's completely normal for disabled people to have multiple disabilities. It's actually rare for disabled people to have only one disability.

[birdofmay]

And I'd like to remind those who say that it's impossible not to have an accent that people who can't speak exist

[birdofmay]

You know what, no, I won't leave this in the tags.

Posts like these are about sensitivity. But if you make a post about sensitivity, please include us as well. Work on YOUR sensitivity too. Don't throw us under the bus.

[mountaincripple]

when you make a slightly risky joke to someone who hasn’t yet grasped that wheelchair users are capable of humor and silliness

so they look down at you like this

ID in alt

[bebsi-cola]

it's ironic that ableds love using disabled people for inspiration porn but hate actually giving the vast majority of disabled people the tools and accommodation to facilitate disabled people doing more with their time. it's almost like the point of it isn't to inspire but to create a false narrative that disability can be overcome with strength of will because look at these people who did it! now stop asking for help

[nightmaretour]

The sheer entitlement that people feel towards paralysed bodies and experiences and determination of what is harmful to us from even other disabled people is absolutely fucking shocking sometimes. We can't even say "Hey appropriating the language made specifically for our experiences is bad actually" without someone throwing an explosive tantrum about how we're being bitter gatekeeping assholes for *checks notes* wanting to be able to describe the experience of having a paralytic disorder

[nightmaretour]

"Hey executive dysfunction isn't the same as paralysis and when you flood our tags and spaces and water down the literal name of our disorders it makes it hard for us to communicate"

"How DARE you be such a BITTER GATEKEEPER to other disabled people! You're so PEDANTIC! Language can't harm you! I'm disabled too btw so I can't be ableist!!!"

"Representation of paralysed people in media is rarely if ever good representation because the people writing paralysed characters make no effort to learn what it's like to have a paralytic disorder and just go off of stereotypes"

"You're so UNGRATEFUL! Clearly paralysed people are the most privileged of all disabled people because you're the only ones on TV! What do you mean there's more than two types of paralysis, and you're not all pain free and practically abled??? LIAR!!"

Have you people ever considered shutting the ever loving fuck up and listening for once in your goddamn lives

[nightmaretour]

I wish unspeakable violence on anyone and everyone who unironically use the terms "adhd paralysis" and "task paralysis". IT'S EXECUTIVE DYSFUNCTION. You have executive dysfunction.

There is no way anybody using these terms isn't aware of how ableist it is to take away not just the language of people who have paralytic disorders, but the entire NAME of our disorders. And even beyond that, to block out any tags and search results relating to said disorders with your million variations on those terms so that we can't form a community online, or even find each other at all. Fuck off. You are not paralysed, you have executive dysfunction. Adhd isn't even the only disorder that CAUSES executive dysfunction. Get over yourself.

[nightmaretour]

If I had £1 for every time someone followed something breathtakingly ableist up with "but I'm disabled too so I can't be ableist!" on this site I would actually be stinking rich. How is so much of this site populated by literal clowns

[dailymanners]

I find it quite strange that even though Tumblr is known as The Neurodivergence Website, a lot of people on here seem to assume that they're the only neurodivergent person on here, and/or that they're the only person on here who understands The Neurodivergent Experience, so they're quite eager to assume that every post on here was written by someone who's neurotypical and needs to be lectured on The Neurodivergent Experience

[yungfenn]

yk what’s crazy guys. abled peoples thought process. because how are they mad at me for being accepting of my situation.. then they’re mad when some days i’m not.. make that make sense.. u want me dependent and independent?? 😭😭

[flowercrowncrip]

I don’t know if it’s just me being sensitive, but I feel like wheelchairs and other disability equipment shouldn’t be common centres of small talk. Like, I would massively prefer that people don’t mention my chair unless I bring it up/ it’s urgently relevant.

Even “complements” about my chair feel a bit weird. Unless it’s about something I’ve very clearly chosen for aesthetics (like “I like the stickers on your chair” is okay for me) just don’t mention it please. Even if it’s to say it looks cool and futuristic, it’s just another reminder that people see my wheelchair and disability (things I don’t get a choice in) before they see me and that sucks.

This also extends to other wheelchair users, especially if they don’t use the same kind of CRT powerchair/ otherwise use a wheelchair that isn’t a small manual chair.

[musashi]

Would it be safe to say that it follows the general rules of complimenting women without being creeps? Like the standard protocol is to only compliment things the woman has control over, ie "your legs are amazing" = freak shit, "I love your hair" = just nice

You mentioned stickers and presumably other mods. I often see wheelchair users with coloured spokes and decorations and stuff and I loooove complimenting them but I don't want to make anyone upset.

Similarly I also have seen some REALLY fun mobility aides (there's a guy with a Segway at my apartment complex and I've asked him about it before) is that the kinda thing that would fall into uncool territory? I'm asking all this genuinely as a person who loves complimenting strangers and wants to hone my technique lol

[flowercrowncrip]

Speaking for myself I’d say that those are really good rules. Decorations like spoke covers or spoke guards, stickers and decorative patches are all safer territory than the type of mobility aid.

I’d be much more cautious around commenting on “unusual” mobility aids. It might be the first time you’ve seen someone use a Segway or powerchair with modified controls, but that person has probably had that exact same conversation multiple times a week. My powerchair isn’t that unusual and it’s a conversation I have most times I leave the house. And even when people are saying it’s cool or futuristic or technologically impressive it is still a reminder that for most people my wheelchair is the first thing they see when they look at me (and many people don’t look further than that).

It’s also worth bearing in mind that not everyone has a completely positive or neutral relationship with their mobility aid (and that’s okay). And what can look like luxury extras someone has chosen for their chair are often medically necessary features they have had no choice in having. I get a lot of people complement things like my wheelchair’s powered tilt and recline function or my tray mounted controller thinking that they are cool optional extras I’ve chosen to add to my chair to make it more comfy. But for me those things are associated with my health declining and losing the ability to sit upright unsupported and use a standard controller. Those losses take time for me to process and I often don’t appreciate them being pointed out repeatedly when I’m just trying to go to the supermarket or have a nice day out somewhere, even if someone means well by it.

[eptck]

you have to be kinder to people with memory issues.

you have to be kinder to people who are slow processors.

you have to be kinder to people who don't understand your jokes.

you have to be kinder to people who forget important dates.

you have to be kinder to people with cognitive decline.

you have to be kinder to people who were always this way, too.

you have to be kind. you have to be kind.