#Dignity of Risk

[thecircularsystem]

People should be allowed to heal however they see fit. You, a random tumblr user, are not the arbiter of other people’s recoveries and healing. What works for you — what you KNOW to be true — is based on your subjective experiences.

“But my therapist agreed with me! My psychologist agreed! My psychiatrist agreed!”

I’m so glad that [insert position of authority] here agreed that, for you, your method of healing was good, and maybe even that they agree with your opinions!

But they are not my therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist. They have never met me. They do not know my life experiences, trauma, or disorders. They can give their professional opinion, but remarkably, it’s still just that: an opinion, as flawed as any other human’s opinion, regardless of how much science goes behind it.

You wouldn’t say that a medical professional that says cancer doesn’t exist and it’s all just psychosomatic symptoms is “inherently correct” due to being a medical professional. You wouldn’t say that a therapist that says DID doesn’t exist and it’s just in your head is “inherently correct” due to being a medical professional.

So please stop doing saying this sort of thing over something as ridiculously minor as what labels people use for their own goddamn experiences.

[flowercrowncrip]

Let disabled people make our own bad decisions!!!

[hyperlexichypatia]

You're better off for having made the regrettable decisions you made when you were younger. Sure, you regret them now, maybe looking back on them causes you pain, and now you devote your life to taking away other people's right to make those same "mistakes" so they won't have to suffer as you did, but you're still better off. Making a decision and realizing "Wait, this was a BAD decisions. I DON'T want this!" was a necessary element of your process of learning what a good decision is, or what you do want. That bad partner you dated, that bad investment you made, that irrevocable mistake made you who you are. No matter how much you insist otherwise, you're better off. Does that make you angry? Offended? Ready to send me furious denunciations for how unforgivably presumptious I am to have the absolute audacity to tell YOU what's best for you in your OWN life? Good. It should. You have every reason to be angry at what I just said! I don't know what's best for you! I'm not you! I don't know your personal lived experience! That's absolutely correct! Presuming that I know what's best for you better than you know what's best for yourself is absolutely offensive! But that's what you're doing. That's what you're advocating. Consider that I do not have, nor am I advocating anyone else to have, any legal, social, or economic power over you and your choices, but you are advocating that you (or someone) have legal, social, or economic power over someone else's choices. Everyone deserves autonomy. Everyone deserves dignity of risk. Your regrets are not a good reason to violate someone else's basic rights.

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

The thing that distinguishes dignity of risk from unsafe practice is 1) informed consent and 2) lack of coercion.

Take, for example, Yvie Oddly.

Yvie Oddly is a drag queen. She was the winner of Season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and also participated in All Stars 7 (all winners season). If you watch her drag now, it’s very different. In Season 11, Yvie was doing a lot of contortionist stunts on stage, or moving in a very fluid and “jointless” way for effect during performances. Nowadays, she uses a wheelchair part time, and she mostly hosts events so she can sit safely and protect her joints.

Why the change?

Yvie has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), a genetic disorder which affects the hypermobility of joints, among other things. Notably, for EDS people, overextending joints consistently or performing those contortionist stunts is really bad for their joint health, and can cause their joints to stay in place much more weakly.

Yvie Oddly knew that. She was aware well before performing on Drag Race that her stunts and performances would damage her joints, and that it would shorten the limited timeframe she would have to walk and move without a mobility aid. With that knowledge, she chose to do those stunts anyway, because she enjoyed doing them and it was part of her career at the time. Notably, Yvie is still a drag queen. She chose to perform on Drag Race herself. In one of the episodes, despite not being required to, she chooses to perform through an injury. Are these the safe practices for people with EDS? Absolutely not. Did Yvie know that, and choose them anyway? Yes. Would it be wrong for the show producers to require Yvie to perform with an injury or not accommodate her EDS? Yes, 10000%. Should Yvie have been prevented from doing so? No.

Dignity of risk sometimes means that there is a very high or guaranteed known risk of harm. Yvie’s performances 5-6 years ago have likely directly contributed to her using a wheelchair so often now. That’s not a tragedy, or something that should have been prevented, because Yvie knew the risk and chose to do it anyway.

Does that mean others with EDS should do what Yvie did? No, not necessarily. She made risky choices, and someone shouldn’t make those choices without being informed of the potential outcomes. It would be wrong for a doctor to tell their patient “well, Yvie Oddly here has EDS too, and she’s doing all these splits and bends and contortions on stage, so you can do those too!” without also giving the context of the joint damage accumulated by those stunts. But it would also be wrong for a person with EDS to be told “Any unsafe or risky choices you make mean that you don’t deserve help anymore, because you knew it would make your disability symptoms worse and you did it anyway”. Yvie shouldn’t be denied access to a wheelchair because she chose to perform in a risky way before. She still deserves to be accommodated now.

Anyway. I think this should be applied to more contexts. Disabled people shouldn’t have to perform their disability accommodations “correctly” or always choose the safest option so they don’t get blamed and punished for their symptoms. Abled people make risky choices all the time.

[faithfromanewperspective]

I learned a lot about not living in fear by watching people do it. I learned about all the bad things that could happen to me when I went outside, when I did anything, at an age that was probably far too young to be hearing of these things. my dad, who knew he couldn’t control what his in-laws said to me (I know. I know he COULD but it would’ve meant Dealing With Complex Relational Things as a twentysomething autistic man who didn’t want to get divorced should my mum choose her parents over him, overall I don’t think I got nearly the worst scenario), who taught me martial arts and how to abseil at age six, would tell me not to let it dictate my behaviour. Not to live in fear.

now I’m a PDAer and with it comes the need to sometimes, not always, do the opposite when things get demanding. and not living in fear? I can do that. the more anxious I get, the more reckless I am with my own safety and I’ve always been like that, and I can minimise risk for myself pretty well so I don’t end up getting badly hurt. I grew up resentful of love, that was the price I paid for my own safety. I’m drawn to danger, but my brain is well enough developed that I don’t actually act on it. I get my kick out of doing things that SEEM scary, but since I was a child I’d swear up and down I wouldn’t complain if something bad did happen to me, I would simply do what it took to see the perpetrator brought to justice.

I got older, and I never encountered any sex trafficking. My neighbourhood proved safe to walk around, and though it’s not recommended at night I knew enough statistics to say that, the chance of something happening is low enough I’m happy to risk it now and then as long as I don’t make it a regular occurrence. Every action has a risk to it. For more years than I can remember, I’d weigh it up against my chance of dying by suicide, and that was so much higher. so I chose to live. Not feel trapped.

although none of the things I was warned of happened, as I got older I did get hurt. By groups and organisations who claimed to care for me, who offered community and then wanted to exploit me for my work. I was lucky though, that none of that work and connection was sexual: I never got pressured into a marriage I wasn’t sure of, or worse. I didn’t bring anyone to justice, there was nothing that severe, but I did always call them out when they needed. On when insecurity led them to exploit marginalised groups. On when it wasn’t consistent with what they claimed to believe.

my story isn’t quite that, but did you know most abuse and assault is perpetrated by people we know and trust? I can’t remember the exact statistic. but I know I’m not scared of a stranger on the street. I learned how to read people and I learned to recognise signs of abuse. A lot of them are to do with limiting freedoms to go places, to spend money, to talk to people. I don’t let anyone dictate those things for me ESPECIALLY if they claim it’s for my own safety or good. I know what it feels like to feel trapped and I have lasting trauma symptoms from it, but one thing it DID teach me was not to live in fear of something bad happening. The ‘something bad’ is the person or voice that says you’re not allowed to do what you want, you’re not allowed to take known risks or weigh up the actual statistics for yourself. You need to feel like you’re taking what autonomy you have over the situation.

but if you have children or just friends you care about, watch out. My grandmother lived in fear because she grew up around unsafe people. And in exercising her autonomy, she became the one to control me, and to this day she genuinely believes it’s for my own good because she doesn’t understand the concept of women having autonomy that isn’t staying alive for our loved ones out of duty. We’ve started to talk about it recently, now she’s older and I can retrain my brain to remember she has no power over me. But all I’m saying is: yes, there’s risk to everything we do. yes, it’s higher as women, as people of colour, as people who live in poorer neighbourhoods. And yes, fear doesn’t make us think rationally. But you have to live. Whatever that looks like for you. Weigh up your options and choose the life that’s gonna make you happiest and leave you with the least—not zero, because that’s very unlikely—unprocessed trauma going forwards.

[crazycherub]

I had no idea this assignment had sooooooooo so so many questions… my attention span lmfao to put it short she is failing me

[unopenablebox]

oh my god.... mittens are fun and fast to knit

[mosscreeperarchived]

I CANNOT stop thinking about Shiro, Adam, and the dignity of risk.

[megpie71]

Choice, Control and Responsibility

To all the people trying to say that as a writer I have a responsibility to my readers: you're right. I do have a responsibility to them. I have the same responsibility as any other crafts-person - the responsibility to do my best, to turn out the best product I can, and to trust to my readers to be able to appreciate my work.

I do not, however, bear any responsibility for what my readers choose to do in response to my work. That is entirely outside my control. If someone who isn't able to distinguish fiction from reality decides to read a work of fiction I wrote, and treat that as though it is absolute truth… that is their choice. It has nothing to do with me as a writer. I don't bear any responsibility for what my readers choose to do with my words once I've put them out there - any more than the workers in an automobile plant or a distillery bear responsibility for the actions of a drunk driver, or the workers at a cigarette factory bear responsibility for lung cancer deaths.

Maybe you feel I'm being entirely too callous, and giving up entirely too much of a responsibility you feel I should be bearing. But I'm coming to this from the perspective of being a person with a disability who is working in the disability sector in Australia. I'm coming to this with an understanding of the concepts of both "duty of care" and "dignity of risk".

"Duty of care" means I have a responsibility to ensure my readers understand what I'm putting out is fiction. It isn't reality, even though it may be realistic. I choose to exercise this duty of care by choosing where I publish my work - and my work is exclusively located on "An Archive Of Our Own" - a publicly available fanfiction archive on the internet. I label my work by genre: I write fanfiction - emphasis on the FICTION part.

"Dignity of risk", meanwhile, means I believe my readers are capable of making their own decisions about what they read, and they are capable of making choices and exercising control of their own lives. If they choose to read something they find distasteful, uncomfortable, confronting, or frightening, that is their choice and they have control over it. I will not treat my readers as though they are incapable of thinking for themselves. I will provide my readers with resources to ensure they're able to make choices which are right for them - I provide ratings and tags, and where necessary I will provide content warnings on my work - but I will not take away my readers' dignity of risk by making decisions for them about what is "safe" or "unsafe" for them to read.

Again, I re-iterate: I am a person with a disability. As such, there are a lot of people out there who are quite willing to treat me (a grown adult of over 50 years, who has been functioning as an adult in society since the age of 18) as though I were the equivalent of an infant. I will not infantilise my readers. I presume my readers are adults - or if they aren't adults, they're young people who are ready to be treated as adults. As such, they have choice, control, and they are entitled to their own dignity of risk, and to bear the responsibility for their own actions.

[disabledinwonderland]

what do we learn from risk.

[yousaythatsooften]

"You should be taking something for your mental health"

Yes, of course, dear Dr Watson, but only on my terms...I keep a list with Mycroft, as I do know how you carry on...

[ace-and-ranty]

The thematic through lines between Spinning Silver and The Scholomance drive me absolutely insane. It is so fascinating, seeing themes resurface across an author's body of work.

You've got paying for things with honest hard work (mana, Magreta's hand-sewing), VS paying them with exploitation and other people's lives (malia, Chernobog's magic clothing). You've got mothers who set up their children as bet as possible (Gwen, Silvija) VS mothers who sold them for their own gains (Ophelia, Minartius' mother). You've got monsters of endless hunger (Mawmouths, Chernoborg). You've got all our righteously angry girlies (El, Miryem, Irina). And you've got people coming together as a circle (all the circle castings in the Scholomance, the Staryk King's capture)

It's also interesting of course to see where themes don't repeat. The Scholomance has a huge focus on collective action that's not very present in Spinning Silver. And Spinning Silver has a lot to say about personal dignity, about the "thousand tiny deaths" of seeing yourself ground down by abuse, which the Scholomance doesn't say much about. But just. GOD. The parallels.

[ariadne-mouse]

Moc Weepe will pointedly, aggressively, wastefully crack expensive ice cubes with a nutcracker he socially bulldozed the other person into giving him, all with a patter fit for an auction house of casual intimidation, but for the life of him he cannot escape an innocent little collision with a cheerful lady who simply won't let him leave without being rude... because Imelda also is here to socially bulldoze people and has power and acumen to back it up. *A single tumbleweed rolls across the street* No but genuinely I love how textured all the characters are. Moc Weepe is intimidating in his element but he is also awkward and weird (not for his appearance, to be clear) and, like everyone else, navigating each situation as it comes, up to and including the possibility he will accidentally run into someone annoying in a doorway and be conscripted out of politeness into giving a tour of the town. Guess what buddy you're in the narrative with everybody else

[sp1dercons]

Pinterest usernames are crazy. WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'mmh.. Gojo! slow down!!' LIKED MY COMMENT??😨😨😨

[paranormaljones]

"It is mortifying to be caught wanting and devastating to be found needing. I have wanted and needed you more than my soul can bear, and the worst part is that you know it."

-something i wrote just now