owls

disability, aac, plurality blog | they/xe/it | header by lâm tùng nguyễn

[owlsbeast]

hi! we're the owls system (they/xe/it)

this is our blog to talk about disability, aac, plurality, and other similar things. this is a side blog, will follow back from different name

we have multiple diagnosed physical & mental disabilities as well as undiagnosed chronic pain. we use aac part time and a rollator whenever we leave the house.

no specific dni but we're an adult and think endogenic systems are real if either matters to you

[parapride]

idk i just think its fine if someone acknowledges im weaker and less capable than them because of my disability and they want to protect and care for me while being horny. they get off on taking care of me??? thats literally so hot. and youre calling it devotion? youre devoted to me? a word mostly used for worshipping deities? wow...

im reclaiming it. devote yourself to me.

READING COMPREHENSION POP QUIZ: does this post include people that contact and harass disabled people with unconsented to sexual fantasies?

[shepandem]

Ta da! My secret communication project is finished! I spent hours upon hours making 530 1"×1" PECS cards for my new PECS book from scratch!

I had to design, print, cut, laminate, re-cut, and add Velcro to every card, one at a time. I need to get new scissors because my current ones got so blunt!

I originally got the small size PECS book, but it became immediately obvious that I need the large one. So I got it in red. It should be here in about a week.

I got the book from the Pyramid Education Consultants website (not sponsored!) I had originally bought a regular binder to construct my own book, because the official books are extortionately expensive, but after I got started tackling the 500+ cards, I didn't have the energy to then build the book as well!

My plan is to use the PECS book at times when my talker is too heavy and unwieldy, like when I go for walks, or on all day outings to the museum or zoo.

I'm very pleased with how the cards came out!

[catcrumb]

[owlsbeast]

a watched package never delivers

[owlsbeast]

pros of moving: i've stopped doing my most annoying physical compulsion as often, because the routine for it is different now that i'm in a new place

cons of moving: i've gained a new physical compulsion that is somehow even more annoying

[owlsbeast]

eating yummy snacks while edible high and watching youtube while building a pretty lego set and our cats are sleeping in our peripheral vision. maybe the world is full of love after all

[owlsbeast]

it should be illegal to have your accessible parking & accessible entrance in the very back of your building. because then you are sending every disabled person without a car through the Torment Nexus Of Uneven Asphalt And Also Cars That Don't Look For Pedestrians (Because This Is The Very Back Of A Parking Lot) every time they want to enter your place of business.

[pangur-and-grim]

I’ve tricked myself into thinking I’m normal by constructing an environment and daily routine that supports all my needs, but then once I leave it I collapse like a deep sea fish being taken to the surface

[ohwhatagloomyshow]

this disability pride month I’d like to spread the gospel of the shower chair. I’m not disabled but my father is, and when I first started visiting him from out of town I’d move his chair in and out of the tub as I showered until one day I said fuck it and kept it in.

And oh my god.

If you’re a person who needs a 1000°F shower, get a chair. Get a chair and let yourself sit in the sauna. It’s amazing.

Long live the shower chair.

[smilepilled]

happy disability pride month. this year, i hope we can focus properly on people with physical disabilities. every time a conversation goes towards physical disabilities, it gets derailed and turned into a discussion of other disabilities. that's obviously bad, and is rooted into a deeper case of ableism within many spaces.

this year, let's shine some light and focus on people with more physical disabilities

people with missing/compromised limbs

people with compromised/absent motor functions

people who experience constant pains

people who are always exhausted/tired

people who are blind (cannot see to the point of it being dangerous / getting in the way of daily ordeals)

people who have autoimmune diseases (like lupus— PLEASE stop making house md jokes. its uncomfortable obnoxious and treats many real struggles like just a joke/reference to a show)

people who are deaf (including those who can barely hear anything instead of not hearing at all)

people who have heart related issues that force them to lay or sit down, etc

people who experience extremely violent seizures due to epilepsy or other issues

people who are mute (with nonverbality included)

people who have bone-related issues that affect their day-to-day life (so for example extreme scoliosis or other malformations)

people who are physically disabled and need mobility aids

people who are physically disabled and dont use mobility aids

people who are physically disabled but cannot get any help (including mobility aids, but goes all the way to a proper diagnosis)

people who became disabled later on in their lives (usually due to accidents but theres more reasons)

people who have limps or cannot walk """properly""" (according to the able bodied society)

lets celebrate the people struggling and surviving with physical disabilities a little more this year. its disability pride month, and i hope we dont forget the people with physical disabilities to talk about non-physical ones. happy disability pride month!

[owlsbeast]

"why could i only do one tiny productive thing today and now im exhausted? this is so weird" says guy with multiple physical & mental disabilities who just went through two days of extreme, constant, traumatizing stress

[anautistic]

Anyone interested in 1980-ish era high-mid tech AAC, definitely check out this website! The focus is on devices that were used and/or developed in France from the 70's till the 90's, with a focus on the 80's. There's pictures and archival footage and demonstrations of the devices in use.

[mamoru]

sorry to be brave on the internet but I think food labels should list every single ingredient and that there should be harsher penalties for mislabeling and deceptive labeling

[mcr-themed-brain]

As someone with an undiagnosed disability (99% sure its fibromyalgia) that I've had since I was a little kid, I've never understood why adults feel the need to enter the Pain Olympics whenever a kid says they're in pain.

I cannot tell you how many times an adult told me over the years that "you're too young to be in that kind of pain" or the classic "wait until you're my age", insinuating that I was a little bitch who could never grasp what true pain really is.

Just yesterday I was in class and a guy near me mentioned that his back hurt, which our teacher heard and said "you're too young, just wait until your 50s, then it'll really hurt", and I hear this guy very quietly say that he has scoliosis.

It's so annoying. Why do you need to win the Pain Olympics? Why do you need to prove to a child that your life is harder than theirs? This is the reason I didn't know I had chronic pain until I was 16

[insidestory1]

It is so hard to explain problems as a kid too, because you don't have the vocabulary, the knowledge or the objectivity to get across what you want to say. Kids only know how to say "it hurts", and if don't take them up on just that then the kid isn't going yo be able to eleborate. A kid isn't going to say, "No in fact, contrary to what you may believe my pain is not minor and is not the cause of some insignificant bump or bruise". If a child's told that their pain is "normal" or "isn't that bad" they are going to believe it until they're old enough to realise that they were undermined and ignored.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

This is going to be hard for a lot of people to hear but if you want to make your spaces safer for disabled people, then you need to stop assuming malice from every poorly worded post.

A lot of neurodivergencies and disabilities cause people to ramble, lose their train of thought very easily, go on tangents, have disordered thinking, etc. We can get words and names mixed up very easily, lose words entirely, struggle to put our thoughts into actual words that make sense to people, and lose track of conversations. Whether it's from ADHD, psychosis, brain fog, brain damage, or any other condition, thinking and verbalizing ourselves can be really fucking hard.

This isn't malicious. We aren't doing it on purpose to hurt or upset people, and we aren't ignorant about the topic just because we get mixed up. We deserve to have voices, even if we don't always make sense to other people.

[owlsbeast]

growing up in constant pain that you're never believed about (or treated properly) really fucks with your baseline perception of what "feelings in my body i should be doing something about" is

like. constant neck pain for whats around eight years now. went to see a doctor about two years in, did physical therapy that didn't work, they went "well that sucks" and sorta just brushed me off.

and i was like sixteen, what was i going to do? ask my parents to see a different doctor? i didn't even know i could do that! i just believed there was nothing that could be done about it, and well. just gotta suck it up for the rest of my life i guess.

otc pain meds never helped much and i didnt want to take them every single day, so i just didnt. not for the neck pain... or any other kind of pain. muscles hurt somewhere else on my body? im already dealing with the neck pain, so just have to deal with this too.

and then it extends to not just physical pain, but every other kind of discomfort i could possibly be feeling. a little too dehydrated and there's an electrolyte drink in the fridge, but i dont drink it. really annoying pimple on my face and there's acne patches but im not gonna use any.

then of course i never learned how to properly gauge my body's limits. the ache of a muscle that means i should stop and rest is nothing compared to the neck pain, so i just keep going and overexert myself, which leads to more pain that i still don't do anything about.

whats the point when im already in constant pain anyway? after all, ive learned i just have to suck it up.