#Fluff and the disabled agenda

[gotta-pet-em-all]

....okay. doing a bit better, i think. damn i've really had one flare up after another with the stresses lately, huh? I'm gonna order delivery from a nice restaurant, try and clean up my space so it feels more peaceful, and take a shower.

i'll admit. sometimes it does feel hopeless. like i'm too delicate, like the world is just throwing bricks at me, over and over, and i can't get a break. if i'm being honest, i've hidden the worst of the symptoms out of reflex, or downplayed them, or made them into a joke. Like I can't present these parts of myself, so ugly and unpresentable, that I need to doll them up in some way or another.

I'm working on it. I'm going to be working on it for a long time, maybe forever. I'll relapse and i'll come back. it matters, that i keep coming back. i'm not giving up. i'm a crybaby, but i'll do it scared and i'll do it weak and i'll do it pathetic. by the gods, i'll fucking do it. but not today.

rest is resistance. taking time for yourself is an act of resistance in a hostile world. sometimes, you only have the energy to save one person today. and it's okay if that person is yourself. you deserve to be saved.

[gotta-pet-em-all]

Pelipper Mail! A dream — of connection.

You're sitting, somewhere — it doesn't matter where — with someone; a man of about thirty, if you had to guess, with tanned skin and long, dark hair. He's talking about his arm — and some battle, maybe, you don't really process the specifics. The important part is he's disabled, now, and he's learning to live with it. And you talk about your bones, and their tendency to wiggle out of place, and canes and rollators, and all sorts of things. And he talks about his younger sister and her friends, close as family at this point, and you talk about your 'mons.

It doesn't fix anything, for either of you. But it's comforting. It's nice. And for now, that's enough.

….oh. That was nice.

The man introduces himself as Dunban, says his universe is patchy and sometimes he dreams of other worlds. You invite him to sit down; this dream is no good anyways, all sterile calming green and anodyne round furniture with not a single sharp in sight.

“I have this dream a lot,” you say, almost apologetically. “It’s not quite a nightmare, more of a, um, a stress dream to be honest. My cane is somewhere down the hall, but I can never reach it.”

“You have my deepest condolences,” he says, his voice deep. He’s a bit old fashioned, and as someone who’s speech patterns are irrevocably altered by reading more than you converse, you appreciate it.

His right arm is tucked away under a sort of asymmetrical cape, and you squint, trying to figure out if it’s a shadow or a bruise. “Is your arm doing all right?”

“Ah, I’m afraid it’s been like that for a long time. Old war injury,” he explains.

“Oh! My bad, I thought it looked discolored and was going to ask if it was bruised. I guess I should have figured, from the way you dress.” You duck your head, wishing for even a hospital dream to give you better lighting.

“No need to be so avoidant of the topic. It’s not as though it’s a sore subject, simply a matter of learning to live with it.” He carefully, gingerly moves his arm to show you, fingers curled in a neutral position and every movement deliberate but also shaky. It looks rather atrophied compared to the rest of him.

“Nerve damage,” you guess, instinctively taking it in your hand and feeling it up, watching his face. “Chronic pain, loss of sensation, and I’m betting you didn’t even realize it was bruised, did you?”

“No, miss, I did not. You’re quite astute— please give my arm back,” he says tersely, and you jerk back.

“Sorry. Uh. You have lichtenburg marks on your hands. I… don’t know much about war, but were you trying to use that hand to protect yourself from something?”

His expression does something difficult to read. “We all did things to protect ourselves in the war, and to protect our homes. I don’t regret what I did. But I am not left handed by nature.”

[gotta-pet-em-all]

"But Fluff, how can you take ibuprofen so often that you've made a diorama shrine to it?" some people might ask. "Won't that destroy your liver and stomach lining?"

And this is where I cackle. Because, in truth! A side effect of another medication is that my stomach lining is thicker than normal and it basically cancels out ibuprofen. So I need to take it on an empty stomach or else my body will get worse. There are two mightyena inside me and I'm just praying neither one wins because if that happens then it's gonna eat my face.

It's weird, kind of a "saline solution will kill the patient, he needs ratatta bites to live" situation. My body is the subject of multiple medical papers.

[gotta-pet-em-all]

So about disability theory…actually idk where to start so I’ll just ask a different question

Have you ever seen a modification for disabled folks (ramps, hearing loops, grippy surfaces, etc) that had “he a little confused but he got the spirit” energy?

No, but also yes.

If a modification is useless, it is worse than useless. Because it gives Abled people the impression that they have already done their part in helping! And thus any further action on their part is unneeded. Sometimes you get people hiding scummy shit behind the guise of “oh it’s for disabled people” when disabled people actively fucking loathe the thing in question.

The yes part comes from the old man who once said “fer fucks sake, let the crip sit! It’s dead on its feet.” Which, yeah, dehumanizing and calling me a slur, but I probably would have passed out if he hadn’t noticed me and spoken up. So… I genuinely would rather be called a slur by someone who’s advocating on my behalf, you know? It really isn’t a big deal to me if someone uses the wrong language for the right thing.

[gotta-pet-em-all]

How do you think of he adeptus mechanicus, from warhammer 40k, and how they wish to ascend from flesh to machine? How would you feel if someone in real life aspired or even attempted such a thing?

you need to understand that the people I spend time with are largely autistic, transgender, disabled, or some combination thereof. So I am quite familiar with people who want to become a machine and would solve many problems that way. Long as they’re practicing informed consent, it’s their body and not mine, yknow?

[gotta-pet-em-all]

you know it’s really frustrating that being disabled. Especially invisibly. Requires near constant self-advocacy. Because I actually have social anxiety. When it comes to my public facing advocacy, I have to hype myself up. It’s fulfilling sure but it doesn’t come naturally.

Anyways if you’re Abled and looking for ways to be a better ally, you can do so by being the “excuse me he ask for no pickles” guy. Just say “excuse me? My friend is disabled and cannot do what you’re asking of them. Can we get some accommodations? Because this is going to be a miserable affair otherwise.”

[gotta-pet-em-all]

kinda bored, does anyone want to ask me questions about disability theory? Social and medical models, gap models, technoableism, dignity of risk, caretaking dynamics, that sort of thing?

[gotta-pet-em-all]

i feel like i need to add a section to my pinned post explaining what The Entity is

[gotta-pet-em-all]

i fucking love having the dignity of risk, it's such a sick ass concept and has legitimately helped me to recover from a lot of abuse because it allowed me to unpack the idea that i am a human being who is allowed to make mistakes. and furthermore that shit is unpredictable!

unfortunately i am not immune to the consequences. i will likely not be leaving bed much tomorrow. but im okay with that

[gotta-pet-em-all]

for the longest time i thought that "zoomers" was some kind of oddly specific slur directed at inconsiderate wheelchair users. i have since come to the conclusion that wheelchair users deserve to crush toes and go fast, and zoomer is not on the list of slurs they are called.

[gotta-pet-em-all]

Have your mons done anything that’s made you laugh recently?

Uh... I'm gonna be honest, I've been hospitalized for most of the time I've been away. And laughing, unfortunately, makes your heart rate go up and then the monitor beeps really annoyingly until you can get a nurse to come shut it up for you.

[gotta-pet-em-all]

it's my opinion that if a medical professional gives you grippy socks because you had a serious health issue that interrupted your daily life, they should at least be GOOD grippy socks. these look like an upper middle class cricut mom decided to dye them orange and then squiggled puffy paint over both sides in one of those faux DIY tutorials that are actually just gentrification of lower class ingenuity for the sake of a novelty

[gotta-pet-em-all]

having one of those days where i'm just. so incredibly fucking angry at plasma and everything they did to me, and i can see so clearly now that their ideology was designed to hurt me and isolate me and the only way i could survive was to become manipulative and toxic and i hate being that person! i'm sick of being defined by my mother and living a life defined by absence of love!

i got out. but i

gods. i don't think i've ever really. talked about it. but sometimes i wonder if lola really did get lost.

[gotta-pet-em-all]

Bitches will be like "ooo what's your lockscreen? you can tell so much about a person from the image they chose on their phone, it's always the thing they love and value most, im going to assign you mental illness based on the fictional character on your lock screen"

Mine is this. Pussy.

[gotta-pet-em-all]

I feel like at some point the language we use to talk about trauma and how it damages you breaks down into meaningless sludge where one thing oozes into another. Is it my anxiety making me fixated on [bad thing that happened years ago]? Is this the ptsd? Acute, complex? Or does this count as an intrusive thought?

idk man. There’s kind of a low level dissociation haze over everything that’s making it hard to safely do a lot of things. So no battling and no wandering off far today. I’m going to take care of myself and my Pokémon. Maybe a bath. No cooking, just takeout, and I’ll order it online cause if I make a phone call I’ll cry.

[gotta-pet-em-all]

[A series of images are attached. The first one is a clear picture of a medication lineup, with a dozen or so pills per day and various supplements. The labels have been cut apart and you can see phrases like “may cause dizziness” “risk of seizure” “do not operate heavy machinery” “risk of infertility”.

Next, a trio of canes has been added to the pile. Then a fat binder labeled “medical records” with sticky notes poking out. The pictures get progressively blurrier. A shower chair. A weighted blanket, a water bottle, spools of bandages and sports tape. Braces for every joint imaginable, something that looks like a corset, more and more items that look like they’re being tossed on, but you can’t make them out.

By the end, the last picture is blurry and crooked and dark. A heap of medical equipment can barely be seen. In the foreground is a tripod, tipped over.]

Idk if you can like. Give collection titles or whatever. But. The folder where I keep them is called “Sorry, I can’t help what I am.”

I got. Pissed. At all the things that people don’t acknowledge, things that. Help me live. I’m at a disadvantage and I can use so many tools to help me and still have a subpar day with subpar performance compared to them. So I tossed them into a pile. My pill bottles have sensitive medical information on them, so I tried to print off new labels, then just. Cut up the scariest parts of it. Yes I’m at risk of so so many side effects so I just have to live with it.

Idk man. It’s not worth entering the contest with this. I’ll just share them with the crip forums and maybe we can have a bitching session about it or something.