#ctfdq

[the-safety-pins]

absolutely cannot fucking stand when people warn me against using my wheelchair and crutches because my legs "will just get weaker."

well, given the choice, i'd rather use my medical equipment that strengthens more of my body than walking, prevents constant injury, and makes my leg muscles atrophy a tiny bit than put all my eggs in the walking basket and accelerate the deterioration of my leg joints until one or both legs are non-weight bearing and i become fully reliant on mobility aids i do not have the upper body strength or practice to use.

having super buff legs with joints that have nothing holding them together is, in my opinion, not preferable to reasonably strong legs with minimal joint damage. maybe that's just me though [/s].

[the-safety-pins]

hey, my friends with disabilities affecting your joints, arms, hands, shoulders or back—

it is normal and okay that it’s hard to change your bedsheets. it’s okay that it’s hard to fold blankets and tablecloths. maybe even impossible for you.

it’s not shameful to ask for help, and not shameful to have unchanged sheets. hygiene isn’t morality. sometimes you can only change them when they get dirty, or less, and that’s okay. you’re doing your best.

people don’t really talk about it, but changing sheets is one of the most common impossible tasks for arm and shoulder disabilities. it’s often easier to lift weights than pull up just one corner of a sheet.

you’re not lazy. you’re not weird (unless you want to be). you’re not alone.

you’re doing your best, even if you don’t think you’re trying. you and your disabled body deserve compassion.

.🌻

able bodied neurodivergent people if you even breathe on this post i will stomp you to death with my hooves. this is a cripple punk post. like/RB without comment or leave.

[the-safety-pins]

this seems like as good a time as any to say i’m not calling the “war on drugs” that anymore. that name is explicitly US gov propaganda. it’s the war on addicts/crips, or the war on the addicted/disabled.

it was never about drugs. it was always about murdering two majority BIPOC groups seen as “weak links” of society, and then dividing us so that we’d perpetuate oppression for them.

if it was a war on drugs, they’d have stopped making the drugs. instead they planted even more drugs, and imprisoned, abused, harassed, denied healthcare, and murdered the addicted and disabled—which caused even more drug deaths, and killed so many off us. it’s still killing us.

it hasn’t stopped, and i refuse to call it “won.” we’re still here, and we’re still denied life saving drug access and treatment.

this, btw, is why “stop calling [x things people do to get medicated] drug seeking!” is always gonna fall flat, because it’s blatantly false—meds are drugs—and misses the point entirely.

the issue isn’t acknowledging drug seeking. drug seeking is not inherently good or bad, and often necessary to survive. most people with untreated health conditions are drug seeking, and that’s okay. i am in fact seeking drugs because i need painkillers to live. it doesn’t stop being drug seeking because i have a “good reason.” it’s not more moral than an addict trying to access supply in a safer way.

you’re not helping us by saying we’re totally not drug seekers. work on destigmatizing drug seeking, addiction, painkillers, recreational drugs, mind altering pain medication. that’s how you help us.

we have a right to seek life saving care.

the anti addict and anti drug seeking implications of “people seeking needed pain meds aren’t drug seeking” is not cute. a ton of addicts have untreated health issues, and addiction rates are lowered when there is more free access to drugs/medication!

chronic illness liberation is addict liberation is disabled liberation is BIPOC liberation is cripple liberation. none of them can be separated. stop pitting disabled people who need drugs & healthcare against addicts who need drugs & healthcare, and start fighting the corporations and systems trying to kill us both.

[the-safety-pins]

okay listen the whole no kink at pride thing is bullshit but

how fucking funny would it be to see a kink-free pride

like it’s tiny and everyone there is a teen, tween, or middle class parent

literally none of the usual parade members are there so it’s just like 20 guys with rainbow flags

they get hit with counter protestors and are just like “you just called a MINOR a faggot”

honestly can we do one year where we just let them have it?

we can have our own party somewhere else while they’re walking around with their shipcourse pins and lesbian flag no. 38392 to convey that they hate lesboys, talking about how mean the dykes, fags, butches, sissies, bears, femmes, twinks, and fucking queers are for not letting them in our party. maybe they can even have an extra hour in their kink-free ballpit

[please keep ALL discussion of kink on this post nonexplicit/SFW and dont interact from nsfw blogs, i’m not 18 but more importantly i simply don’t consent to it. this is a discussion of kink that you WOULD be comfortable with children seeing.]

[the-safety-pins]

me: wow i love being crippled my leg: hurts even a little bit me: nvm

[the-safety-pins]

Hey sorry for any bother but we've done a lot of research and talking to a friend with hypermobile ehlers danlos and we are 90% certain we have it. We have years of symptoms that can be confirmed by our parents and sibling, as well as our performance notes in gradeschool physed :') The only issue is that our dad doesn't take diagnosis of disabilities seriously unless it's in elderly people, and our mom is into alternative medicine and when we try and bring up symptoms she says we just need to eat differently and exercise more. So diagnosis will probably be quite far out. Do you think we should self dx or hold off until a doctor tells us? We hit every listed symptom except for the stretchy skin :<

hEDS specifically is a checklist diagnosis; there is no testing beyond the beighton scale. unlike other types of EDS, we literally have no idea what the gene is for it.

i would definitely still try to see an EDS specialist when possible in case it's one of the types of EDS that can be tested for and is especially dangerous--namely cEDS--but if it's another type other than hEDS, it's not like you can do anything about that now, so incorrectly classifying the type in the meantime is no harm no foul. you could also just say EDS.

i would also say, like, look into marfan syndrome, but again, can't do anything about that anyway without a specialist. (also: people with hEDS do not need to have especially stretchy skin, though we can! hEDS is probably actually like 5 kinds of EDS that have not been identified).

most folks with EDS had to self dx to access healthcare or self manage symptoms. especially without the privilege/access to obtain a professional diagnosis, you're still experiencing the EDS symptoms. at worst, you're a non-EDS disabled person with a ridiculously similar experience to people with EDS, in which case no one's going to be/should be mad about it!

that was excessively long. short answer is "go for it"--and also i should clarify that we have hEDS ourselves and were among the many who self diagnosed out of necessity until we obtained our professional diagnosis.

[the-safety-pins]

will never forget when a sophomore in our LGBT studies course this year was talking to their friend about how they’re switching schools and hope they’ll see “gay people who don’t make it their whole personality” and are “more mature”—basically, mocking our school’s GSA (which they’re an ex member and we’re president of).

to which we interjected, “gay people who’ve ‘grown up don’t talk about’ other queers like that”

and gods the look on their face. superb. like ooh, not so brave now that the mean upperclassman dyke called your shit, huh? fucking great.

[the-safety-pins]

okay i’m here to start discourse

are dead people disabled? don’t they technically count as every type?

(please be as toxic as possible in the notes)