you can call a spade a spade.
tw: medical neglect, invalidation ⚠️
you can call yourself “disabled”, if it is disabling.
you deserve to express how it feels, and what you experience.
a lot of people don’t have the words.
think about all the people in pain, who don’t know what to make of it. what to call it. why they are in pain.
words can be instrinsically liberating.
“how can you not know why you don’t speak?”
because I didn’t have the words back then. having the words doesn't make it more or less valid.
‘disabled’ isn’t just a word for people who meet a govt’s criteria, a doctor’s criteria, a society’s criteria. ‘disabled’ isn’t just a word for people who know themselves to be disabled. it's also for those who traverse the obscurity of medical and societal neglect.
there are so so many people who don’t know it shouldn’t hurt that much. who don’t know that that isn’t normal. who don’t know that their experiences ‘count’ or are real enough.
who are well aware of the amount they struggle, and yet have been told so many times that it is normal, by doctors, by parents. by people who also struggle and so don’t see it.
“delabelling” is a tool of the powerful to remove the victim label, the sick label, the disabled label etc.
your experiences are real enough. your struggles are serious enough. you can call a spade a spade.🌹🌹
