#but it fucking SUCKS that having a disability limits the way you are allowed to exist

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

hi! you've been posting about using corsets to manage dysautonomic symptoms lately, and i was wondering if you had any insight into the action mechanisms behind how that helps/advice for what types of corsets to look for and what sensations to be aiming for in your body when using them as a mitigation?

i have a bunch of dysautonomia/potential POTS symptoms (episodes of racing heartrate and lightheadedness, usually helped somewhat by keeping my feet elevated and often tied to barometric pressure changes or doing A Lot Of Stairs Daily for extended periods, really poor temperature regulation and inability to function when im overheated, constantly freezing extremities, coathanger pain and extreme constant muscle tension in my neck/shoulders, an innate need to be constantly guzzling water, the list goes on and on), and ive been doing some really basic research into corsetry for fashion silhouette reasons lately anyway. if i could combine the fashion items i'm eyeing up anyway with a functional disability aid, that would be... some of the most awesome shit i've ever encountered? lol.

(no obligation to answer, of course, i don't expect you to like, be willing to give something adjacent to medical advice to an internet stranger, but if you want to ramble at length about this topic, i'd be greatly helped by the information! either way, sending solidarity your way and i hope the Horrors retreat again for a time soon.)

Oh gosh, let me be very clear. I DO NOT RECOMMEND CORSETRY FOR DYSAUTONOMIA

What is MEDICALLY recommended for many dysautonomia patients, including POTSies like my cousin, or OH long haulers like me is COMPRESSION GARMENTS. Things like compression socks, gloves, joint braces, etc. The compression makes it harder for blood too pool downwards with gravity in your extremeties, which can also reduce the frequency of fainting spells for those of us with accompanying syncope. There are some GREAT ones available at most department stores for pretty cheap. Walmart fucking sucks, but they carry affordable copper lined compression gloves that i have been using with regularity for about 5 years now to manage blood-pooling/swelling and joint pain.

The additional problem I have (and critically the additional TRAINING that I have) is that on top of my condition meaning I'm unable to stay upright for extended periods without swooning, I have hypovolemia. There is just....sort of less blood in me???? Volume-wise at least. So when it pools, it leaves a much more oxygen deprived brain behind than it even would have without that. What's the medical intervention for this come to find out? Compression garments again!

Well, I've been making and wearing corsets since I was 12 so that's AWFULLY convenient lmao since buying one would mean either convincing a doctor to prescribe me a medical corset (my doctor doesn't like doing stuff like this due to my tendency for severe deconditioning) or saving up a few hundred dollars for someone who can construct an appropriately tailored daily-use corset.

Thank fuck I can just make one instead lol.

That said, I am actually planning to make the project into a visual process here on tumblr (maybe ravelry too) because I'm strongly on the side of knowledge being shared. I doubt there will be many who could make use of my exact plans, but maybe seeing how the process is built helps them anyway!

Here are my primary recommendations for using corsetry as compression garmentry in the meantime:

Due to the severity of my symptoms, and the limited nature of my current corsetry options, I have been intermittently "tight-lacing¹" throughout the day to retain cognitive function. For the love of fucking god, do not do this to yourself. Ensure that whatever corsetry you may purchase is able to be comfortably worn as compression garmentry with about a 1inch gap between the lacing panels rather than allowing the corset to be fully tight-laced shut.

Functional corsetry is largely intended to redistribute the weight of heavy layered outer clothing, which means it will have gussets for your hips to ensure they are not overly compressed. Lingerie corstry rarely does this, often ending at the wearing waist instead to avoid over-constriction of the hips. Whichever route you take is fine, and likely determined by what compression you may or may not need around your low back, but make sure that whatever design you choose allows for full hip movement/rotation

Compression corsetry can also double as a pretty fabulous frame for binding breast tissue or packing a fuller bra cup look into the chest, but if you do this INSIDE the corset rather than ADDED TO THE OUTSIDE and sealed internally into the corset by the outer fabric, it may change the compression function of the garment, so you will want to work with someone knowledgeable about which placements may work best for you.

You will need to learn how to breathe differently in a corset. I recommend looking into the breathing and vocal exercises that opera simgers use to train, as often they must be able to perform at high lung capacities in similarly structured garments. This will have the double effect of giving you additional resilience OUT of the corsets to passing out if you have syncope symptoms. When you know more about intentional breathwork, it becomes easier to alter your breath throughout the day to maintain cognitive functioning and balance/consciousness.

If you're going to use ANY compression garments for an orthostatic dysautonomia condition, I recommend doing a few things: buy a couple of the thing you're using, and then SEVERAL UNDER LININGS. This allows you to wear the outer compression garment daily for much longer before needing to trade out to your spare and wash the first. Just replace the liners each day. Also, keep your liners and compression garments in a small container by your bed with a full water bottle and some kind of portable electrolyte [I have a metal water bottle with a water filter pod in it so I can refill it at most water sources, and a small tupperware of a sodium and sodium bicarbonate 50/50blend in a little folding storage cube by my bed]. When you first wake up, your body is gonna really hate trying to re-regulate, and you're more likely to have rapid onset (as opposed to daily cumulative) symptoms of the condition. So before you stand up in bed, pop some electrolytes, drink at least 8oz of water, and strap into your compression garments before you actually stand up. This makes it easier for your body to move through regulation without you passing out suddenly for anyone who has fall risk flags like syncope. Lastly, keep a stimulent around for emergency blood pressure drops or days when you can't seem to regulate. Caffeine and prescription stimulents like Ritalin or Adderall are common (I get Ritalin already for ADHD, and it has substantially lowered my rate of falls), but there are other options out in the world too. Just. Don't fuck around with stimulents casually. They can be really critical for dysautonomia if you're dealing with a lot of it, because they're CNS-actors and tend to be regulating for us, but stimulents are, nonetheless, prone to some nasty side effects (known more than a few people who ended up with severe malnutrition issues or psychotic/manic episodes being induced and while those things are obviously things that can happen, and don't necessarily mean you should or should rule a support out, knowing your specific areas of risk when using a stimulent medication can be really important. If you need stimulents regularly to raise your BP and aren't already taking it for another reason, I'd recommend exploring BP raising meds for daily use with your doctor instead so you can save any stimulent use for when it's most urgent without having already accumulated risk factors.

I really wish I had more for you, but unfortunately treating and managing orthostatic conditions has been a nightmare for all of the 30yrs I've been diagnosed with one. It's getting better for sure, but it's still rough out there for us.

Ultimately, here's what I'll say: if you like corsets aesthetically, take the time to get yourself a really well made, tailored to you corset, and let the tailor know that you're looking for something that may be daily use. They'll balance out some of the more formal and rigid boning with enough flexibility that you should be safe wearing the corsets for up to 4-8hrs consequetively. And while I don't recommend jumping into the long haul right off, if you wear it for an hour and it's comfortable and you can think a little more clearly and you're moving faster than you're used to without toppling, maybe try it again for two hours next time. Never keep it on for longer than is comfortable, and let your body tell you what comfortable is going to look like. With time, as you get used to wearing it, it'll be easier to mark places you'd like more or less compression for future versions. As with any compression garment, make sure you have a comfortable underlining tho, or you'll have some hard-to explain marks on your skin after a few days.

[ghostscrown]

Society is so fucked up because like

I'm on disability allowances bc I'm autistic

In my country (france) these are about 1000 euros a month

I wanna find a place to rent but most landlords simply won't accept you if you don't work or are a student, even less if you're disabled – most could if you earned 1000€ from your job, but not if it's from allowances, out of pure ableism

But I'm not able to work normal hours, so I'll probably have to get a part-time job

However, in france, the law is basically that if you work, they'll take off the exact amount of money you earn from your disability allowances

Example : disabilities are 1000, if you earn let's say 600 with your job, they'll take off 600 from the disabilities (so give you 400 instead of 1000), so in the end you'll only have 1000 in total each month

This way you're stuck only having exactly 1000 a month unless you work full time and get more than 1k with your job only (and of course if that's the case you receive 0 disabilities), which is impossible for many disabled people

(To note that, still in france, the poverty line is about 1150€ a month, and the legal minimum wage for full time jobs is about 1300€ a month)

So what does that mean? I'll probably be forced to work part time even tho it's very difficult for me, and it'll get me not a single euro more than if I didn't work at all and just stayed to regular disability incomes. The only thing is that it'll look nicer on my file and more landlords will accept me to rent their places.

Not even talking about the way I need a place in this specific city BEFORE getting a job because otherwise how will I go to the job in question, but they won't rent me anything if I don't have the job, and setting a date for the start of job is too dangerous because what if I don't find a place in the meantime, so what do I even do?

I applied for social housing but the waiting lists are HUDGE, if I'm lucky I'll get something in about 8 months, if not it could take years, I've heard of disabled people who had to wait almost a decade to get a place in social housing, so just waiting for that isn't a solution either

Society sucks

Like idk, you want us to not get too much money, at least put the total amount money limit at the minimum wage or something so we get some actual benefits from working and we can live decently? Is this too much to ask? Then they wonder why so many disabled people simply give up on having a job lmao, we're basically forced to work for free-

[lastoneout]

It really is wild to tell a doctor to their face that I have tried to "push myself" to regain my mobility and it put me on bedrest for like three fucking months only for them to be like "well have you tried pushing yourself to regain your mobility??" like bro going on a 15 minute slow-ass walk around my neighborhood once a day for a month took away what was left of my mobility for THREE months and my knee STILL hurts more now than it did before. Pushing myself lead to me permanently making my pain worse, not better.

I also wasn't kidding about the cooking thing, I broke down about not being able to cook because I love cooking so much and eating take out and boxed/frozen food all the time SUCKS so my fiancé helped me make just spaghetti one night, just sauce, cheese, and noodles, it took 45 minutes, I was wearing my knee brace, and I sat down as much as possible, and I was in so much pain by the end that I could barely stand. How do I "push myself" in this situation?? I can't even make a basic dinner for myself and my fiancé without having to give up doing anything else including showering and giving my cat her meds and shit like that for the entire rest of the day. How do I push from here??

Like I just genuinely don't know how you can hear all that and then say to my face that continually injuring myself in this way is going to yield positive results. Every time I have pushed I have limited my mobility further. My PT even TOLD me I shouldn't reach the point of being in actual pain while exercising, if I'm hurting really bad I need to stop so I don't injure myself. How does my PT know that when my fucking rhumatologist doesn't??? How does it not make sense for me even just stay mobile until I hit my limit and then use the wheelchair so hitting my limit doesn't mean "not being able to do anything for the next two days"?????

It's like they think I just started hurting and fucking gave up immediately. I was forced to quit my job THAT I LOVED SO MUCH because even when I hit the point where I could barely walk or sit without pain I didn't want to give it up, I kept pushing myself until my fiancé would have to practically carry my ass to the car at the end of my shifts, and it ended with me so disabled I still can't work. My fiancé legit has to constantly step in to stop me from pushing myself too far because I just want to do the things I want to do and I will hurt myself because of it!! I'm independent to a fault, I hate nothing more than admitting that I can't do something I want to do. Every shred of mobility I have sacrificed has been torn from my very unwilling hands, I haven't given up, I've had it taken from me. I never stopped trying to keep walking, keep working, keep cooking, keep going places, I had to stop because I had no other alternative. It was that or destroy my body. And tbh overall I still chose "destroy my body" more often than I should have.

But they still act like I'm giving up. Like it's me being lazy and stupid that got me here. Like if I was willing to just cope with the pain and not give up it would fix everything even though I already tried that.

I dont hate being disabled, I really don't, even though I've had to give up so much stuff. I grew up with a disabled mother, she's used a wheelchair my entire life and tbh I'm thankful because it seems to have spared me the all too familiar abled worldview that disability is something tragic and shameful and horrifying. It's just life, it's always just been my life, and becoming disabled was pretty easy to accept because I never saw it as a tragic fate to be avoided at all costs. This is the body I have, this is what it can and can't do, my life isn't over it's just different now, I'm allowed to mourn what I used to be able to do while recognizing that I can still live a full life with the right kind of medical care. Most of my frustration comes from people projecting their ableist feelings about disability onto me! It's why "oh but you're so young" comments make me want to deck people.

The only thing I hate about being disabled is other people and all their fucking issues that they keep projecting onto me. The way doctors act like it's better for me to give up everything I do just so I can eventually maybe regain some of my mobility rather than give me the help that would ACTUALLY make that possible. And I cannot stand the way I'm treated like some sort of stupid infant who doesn't have any idea what's best for her because I recognize my own limitations and ask for help. The pain isn't even the worst part, it's the dehumanization and infantilization. The insistence that suffering is better than "giving up" and using a mobility aid. The idea that something happening to someone like me is a tragedy and not just part of life. And the way it constantly makes me feel like I'm the problem when I fucking KNOW I'm not.

Every issue I have faced has been a result of the way other people have treated me. My mobility probably wouldn't even be as bad as it is now if my doctors had Fucking Listened To Me when I first brought up my chronic pain as a teenager, because if they had they would have figured out that I have EDS and will always be damaging my joints and thus need braces NOW to prevent that damage from progressing. I hate thinking about how not being taken seriously by doctors is what got me here in the first place. I'm so fucking tired of my fate being in the hands of people who won't help me and then blame ME for how bad I'm doing and insist I have no idea what I'm talking about and helping me would make things worse actually and have you tried just suffering more.

It's legit inhumane. I just want to be treated like a person, and maybe have some recognition for the way other people constantly make my life hell rather than people acting like I got myself into this situation when I fucking didn't, they did.

I was never the problem.

[bumblebeerror]

I take issue with the idea that “if you could just get disability easily, then everyone would because people don’t want to work!”

Because a) That is not a problem that I, someone who after four hours of working on my feet or sitting at a desk is in major pain and needs to lay down to relieve it, caused. Me personally needing assistance because there’s no way in hell that any job I can get will literally ever make me able to only work about 8 total hours a week and still allow me to have the money to pay for an apartment and groceries does not cause people to “be lazy” or “not want to work”

B) if people actively ARE going through the process who aren’t disabled instead of trying to get a job, I feel like that says WAY MORE about labor standards and working conditions and the cost of living than it does about that person being “lazy”.

Because humans fucking love having shit to do. I know that because despite being in pain every time I go to work, I still enjoy my work. I still feel satisfaction when I finish my job for the night. I will be upset if I ever have to completely stop working, in fact. To the point that because my job takes up so little of my time now, I’ve spent all summer gardening, growing food crops, maintaining my little pool that I use to relieve my pain, cleaning off the patio, trimming bushes, fixing up the backyard, picking up trash, composting. You name it, I’ve been doin it really shittily and slowly and painfully but I’ve been doin it because I can’t fucking stand not doing anything. I’ve been spending multiple hours building stuff in Minecraft. I’ve taken up streaming when I have enough energy.

Humans fucking love to work and make things and do stuff. So if your job conditions or pay suck so fucking much that a human would rather do nothing and be limited to having 2k in liquid assets for the rest of their life instead, boy have you fucked right up.

[benzedrine-calmstheitch]

just saw some troubling posts in a discord server I’m in but I don’t have the brain power left to engage in direct conversation re: interpreting another person’s text and responding so I’m just gonna throw my thoughts here :

you cannot, CANNOT, let your anger and fury at Greg Abbott’s heinous policies and positions transmutate into any position that blames him for being paralyzed, argues he should not receive financial compensation for getting paralyzed, or any other form of ableism against him. I mean, I guess you can, arguably, but I find it an inherently unethical stance, and it also undermines any sort of argument one could make to be in favor of universal healthcare and UBI (which I also find to be baseline ethical things to be for, more or less).

Yes, he supported the tort reforms in Texas that put limits on damages plaintiffs can receive, which makes it very unlikely a future Texan unfortunate enough to be in a similar situation that he was in will be able to have the same level of financial security via a settlement (although I do think it’s worth noting that he had no direct involvement in the passing of these reforms - both of these were done by Legislature). And it is fucking garbage that he doesn’t think other Texans deserve financial security in the face of injury and loss! And yes, there are nine million other awful awful stances he has, and having him in a position of leadership is not just abhorrent on principle but incredibly dangerous. These things ARE infuriating and terrible! He sucks really!

But the thing about universal healthcare is that it is universal. The principle behind it is that no one should have to worry about healthcare costs for any reason. To be in favor of healthcare for all, you must, must recognize that, short of unconditional access to healthcare (as well as related accessibility needs, such as equipment, renovated housing, in-home health care, mobility aids, etc etc), anyone suffering such a devastating and life-altering injury at least getting a settlement that takes care of these ongoing costs, is a good thing. and to be in favor of, again, universal, health care, is to sincerely want that for anyone. no conditions!

Being furious at him is, frankly, how we should feel right now. But that fury simply cannot mean deciding he is to blame in any way for his paralysis. First of all and most importantly, because conceptualizing disability in terms of “blame” just feels like a really, really dangerous thought. This tie back in to the fundamental idea that universal healthcare means exactly that, universal, but is a bit deeper also. Even if the actions Abbott took that led to his injury were ill-advised (and I’m not saying they were, more on that in a moment), he still should have full access to care, because the idea that someone can become unworthy of access to care through their actions is troubling! When we draw lines, someone always has to decide where it is, and if we can draw it once, someone else can redraw it later, and this time you might find yourself on the wrong side of it. We must, must, refuse to allow “fault” to determine access.

Also, and this is just me being pedantic, but I have seen some variance in the recounts of what exactly happened, and I have also seen folks taking those summations and shifting them, just a bit, to make it easier to find him at fault and thus deserving of his disability (this also touches on the whole other concept of disability itself being considered Less Than, which is ofc gross, but I’m not going to dive into that aspect). This is something we all need to be so, so careful about these days. Yes, it does fit your emotional response better if he was out jogging under a big tree while it was actually storming, which I think we can all agree is a Silly Idea. But the little bit I have read says he was jogging after it had stormed; ok, maybe a small difference, but are you telling me you don’t know a single person who would take a run the morning after it had stormed because it was still too dangerous? Suddenly his actions seems less silly and more everyday. Also I read that the homeowner (who himself was a wealthy attorney, which also complicates things!) had been made aware the tree was rotting a year and a half beforehand, and the inspector who told him this recommended the wrong treatment for it. So we have gone from “god this dodo went jogging during a storm under big trees well yeah of course one fell on him” to “oh actually he was just out for a run the day after a storm and a rotten tree that had been improperly treated happened to fall on him in a very bizarre coincidence.” and for the record, I have almost been taken tf out by a tree randomly splitting in two and falling while I was on my daily walk on a sunny day. no idea why and it scared the bejesus out of me, but like. it weirdly happens!

but my point in being pedantic is this : facts fucking matter! changing them, no matter how slightly, to fit the narrative that matches your emotions, is not the route to take, because you end up taking a kind of fucked up stance in the process. this is what we as a culture are fighting so, so much right now. it’s so hard to hold on to nuance, to contextualize and allow for complexity, when we have all been trained by twitter and tiktok and fucking clickbait to be sensational and brief. but my friends, we have to retrain ourselves. we have to do better. We cannot paint in broad strokes, because we will lose the ability to focus on any one thing we can push back on and fight for.

So yes, be angry at Greg Abbott. Be fucking FURIOUS, really. But please, please, know why, and stay focused on that.

[lastoneout]

A bit more of an extreme take but also insurance and/or the government should pay for people who need wheelchairs to purchase vehicles and/or vehicle add ons that can transport them. We should also ofc fix public transit in every conceivable way and add sidewalks to roads and all that but rn there are a lot of disabled people who cannot get places because scheduling for rides through insurance or the public transit system or outreach centers/charities is a fucking nightmare and on top of that many of us would like to be able to go places those systems can't/won't take us, and also even if you do have a chair that can travel long distances outside there are like 50 billion reasons that can be unsafe including drivers just not being able to even see us because cars and trucks are so fucking big these days we're basically invisible to them.

As for the other 50 billion reasons, safe accessible sidewalks are rare in most places and get blocked by assholes or snow or just aren't maintained, weather exists and it's really hard to properly protect yourself from it in a chair and depending on the weather can make it 500% more unsafe to be out there, power chairs run out of battery eventually which strands you out who fucking knows where(plus the chargers aren't exactly easy to carry around, and even if you do have it you have to find somewhere to plug it in which is hard if you literally cannot move), like I could go on for hours.

I mean like, my mom currently doesn't have access to a vehicle that can fit her power chair and she is quite literally trapped at home because of it. She can go places on the bus, but her apartment is on a steep ass hill and we live in AZ where it's 100F+ for like a solid third of the year, if the battery runs out she's fucked, and the systems that do exist to help her get places are inconvenient and unreliable and are often late or just don't fucking show up which makes her miss important appointments(which leads to no-show fees and also her not getting the help she needs) and most of them won't take you anywhere that isn't for a medical reason, no leisure trips, so if she wants to go do anything fun she has to have someone drive her and use a folding hospital transport chair that she cannot get around in on her own, which limits what she can do even further. It's completely fucked.

And hell, even if you live somewhere that has a retailer for these sorts of vehicles/add ons, the prices are ABSURD which makes them inaccessible to people who don't have tons of money, which like, the government sure likes to make sure disabled people aren't allowed to have any fucking money!!

Cars suck, and we need to make public transport safer and more accessible and reliable, but right now we should be doing what we can to not only get wheelchairs into the hands of people who need them, but also vehicles that can take us AND our chairs where we need to go. Both are SO unbelievably important. We deserve to not be stuck at home because our ability to live our lives isn't important to abled society.

wheelchair users deserve a minimum of three wheelchairs to meet different needs. like, bare minimum of indoor chair, outdoor chair, and off road chair. chairs that meet different needs for transport, activity, positioning needs, energy levels, etc.

there is not "one chair" that can meet every need. wheelchair users deserve to have multiple chairs that meet specific needs, no matter how complex their seating/positioning needs. we deserve to at least have a backup if our chair breaks that is just as suited to our needs.

[wanderingchronicle]

G for all your rpg guys! Patch: 7 & 39

G: What trait of theirs bothers you the most?

Oh this is a good one.

Calix does a really good job of hiding how deeply wounded she is and how easily hurt her feelings are, and instead of pushing back when people hurt her initially she has a tendency to allow herself to be pushed to the point where she loses her temper. This is a problem because Calix is genuinely very threatening, and it makes her come off as volatile and be treated that way...which irritates her. Cycle repeats. For someone who literally has a perpetually bleeding chest wound, girl HATES to let people see her weak or hurting. She let one of her partners fuss over her after a party and it would have been less intimate if they'd fucked nasty.

Lux takes her position as the mum friend and one of the eldest of the Clean Up Crew way too seriously. She's also the member of the party with the biggest tendency towards deliberate and malicious cruelty, which bothers me far less but means that she's incredibly effective at hurting the people she loves. This bothers me less than her conviction that she knows better than those kids and has to be the adult in the situation. Girl. You are 29 and the most unmedicated bitch in the room you are hanging in there by your fingernails you are literally weeping black ichor stop that

Kahavi is another person who would rather die than show weakness. At the start of the game she was keeping a giant life-ending secret and catastrophising that if the people around her knew she'd die in a cage. And in her defense, this was ironed into her from childhood, but also when she found herself with another secret to keep she fell right back on the old habit of suffering in silence and lying to everyone she loves and feeling HELLA guilty about it. She's so stupid lol this is NOT healthy.

Rory has many problems and most of them are caused or exacerbated by the fact that she has ONE strategy in times of trouble and that's to hit the bricks and she is currently in a situation where she CANNOT hit the bricks because she is physically unable to leave.

Atlas' biggest idiocy is that she only knows how to function when she's acting as an offsider. She was her husband's number two and now she's Bird's. Make your own decisions and live your own life you dumb cunt

7. What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

Patch got taught the basics of information science by an administrator on the bridge crew when she was in her late teens, early twenties. That administrator is the only person who died in the Heliopause's crash-landing that Patch actually misses.

She doesn't like feeling nostalgic, and doesn't feel it often. She was five when the Heliopause began its journey and has only the dimmest memories of Earth, and she was deeply unhappy aboard. From her perspective, her early life was pretty miserable and she doesn't want to look back on it. Being too disabled to be a soldier on a ship full of them...sucks. 39. How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people? 

Patch is actually very patient, as a product of growing up on a ship where her ability to get away from people was limited. If you're not inconveniencing her (or her work) directly, as long as it's not egregious she's got no skin in the game.

She gets more combative as she gets older, though, mostly because she's no longer socially bottom rung and people might actually listen when she tells them they're stupid or an asshole. With that said, generally Patch will only call you on your bullshit if she respects you at least a little.

[cpunkwitch]

answering my questions p2

[pt: answering my questions p2]

ask game 2 (link)

whats the most recent encounter of ableism you've had, online or irl?

my dad calling my condition "just labels" when i told him my mom and i suspect i have arthritis. "you guys and your labels, you liike labels too much"

2. whats the worst encounter of ableism you've had, online or irl?

unsure what the worst one would be, they all suck imo. i guess any ableism coming from my dad, because hes my dad so it tends to hurt the most coming from him.

3. whats the funniest encounter of ableism you've had, online or irl?

tried to think of a few things but they werent so funny so im not sure. maybe my dad saying he though i was an old lady when he first saw me with my cane picking me up from college last year?

4. whats something an ableist said that stuck with you and for what reason?

i cannot remember anything specific

5. whats something you want ableds to understand?

main point: ask consent before daring to touch anyones belongings especially mobility aids and not every disabled person will have the same limitations and experience with their disabilities. we arent inspiration porn, we are human beings functioning differently from you.

some people will be okay with you moving their cane aside or something AS LONG AS YOU ASK and keep it within reach of them. some people in a wheelchair can walk or use other aids on different days, some people dont use any any aids but still cant do th e same activities you do let alone they way you do them for the same length of time. some only use aids on rare days, some have perfect use of their legs, some have to have assistance with mundane tasks, so on and so forth.

a disabled person in the olympics, competing in a sport, creating things while in a wheelchair or walking with a cane etc are not there for you to go "wow so amazing youre so strong and brave im so proud of you for doing this despite your disability" they do it for them, with their disability and never for your degrading "positivity". you wouldnt say that if they werent disabled, why arent you saying congrats to the others who do the same thing as them too? is it just because youre singling them out for being disabled? fuck off with that.

6. got a story involving ableism that you like to share/feel like sharing/find amusing? can be yours or someone else's story.

likely have tonnes of stories about my parents ableism. if you prompt me i can probably some up with something to talk about but sometimes i need specific prompts like "your parents reaction to your first mobility aid?"

specifically ones that i find amusing though? normally ones that arent mine and they came from either youtube readings of tumblr or reddit posts, story times or someone pissing off my mom.

i do remember when i walked into the dollar store the cashier asked what happened when she saw my cane and i went "oh i was born with a defect in my spine :D" and watched her deflate with a quiet "oh.." what were you expecting?? how is that question ever not awkward?

7. dumbest or funniest question someone asked you about your condition and/or aid?

answered in 6 i guess

8. if you dont have one, do you think you could benefit from a service animal? if so, what animal would you like?

therapy, or emotional support cat or rabbit? i cant do dogs, im terrified of dogs. cats and rabbits i could handle. im actually unsure what else there is but iv looked into getting an esa a while ago and the only reason my mom said no no matter how many times i bargained is because we live in too small of a house thats constantly a mess.

im never allowed to get a rabbit while i live with her, she hates them ever since one horny rabbit years ago bit her leg.

parents were really mean about me wanting a bunny rabbit and im still holding it aganst them.

9. do you have an ideal mobility aid or ideal disability aid in general?

easy to move wheelchair, easy for me anyway. one with a no handles so no one can grab them. maybe a basket or something on it too idk, that way everything not in my lap or in my bag hanging off the side or something? idc if its motorized or not tbh

when im finally out of my crappy parents house, i'll look into gettingone.

10. whats something you wish ableds would stop doing/do less of?

asking dumb questions and touching our stuff without permission

11. whats something you wish ableds would do more of?

hold doors open regardless of ability, regardless if they have a mobility aid or not. treat people the fucking same.

12. whats something in the community you dont see talked about enough?

i know its talked about in other places but i dont actually run into the discussion much, people talking about living with an able-bodied partner or another phys disabled partner while being disabled themselves and what its like/what to expect etc.

i do plan on eventually moving in with someone and id like to hear more stories about home life with roommates or partners.

13. have you ever tried out someone else's mobility aid before?

i once used my brothers crutches when i was maybe 4? dont fully remember why he had them but i remember that day i picked them up. it was an xmas party.

14. whats something thats supposed to be an accessible accommodation but just turns out to be more of a hinderance for you and why?

i used to have an answer for this and i dont remember what it was.

15. whats something you see thats overhyped in regards to disability or cripplepunk?

overhyped/overrated imo? yet another question i no longer remember my answer for jfc who's taking my memories? /cj

i remember there was something that was talked about a lot that was really not worth all the hype to me but i guess since the talk of it died down and i stopped seeing it in the tags/on my dash i completely forgot what it was specifically.

im a very "out of sight out of mind" person..

16. whats something that you see people talk about constantly in the community and are now tired of?

answered in 15 ig?

17. have you ever made characters with disabilities? if yes, tell us about them and their disability?

oh yeah lots, which book or fandom shall i start with?

off the top of my head theres "escape", "the adventurers" and "afterwards", maybe even "the four witches", original books of mine. as for fandom related characters, my oc macey comes to mind first. shes a marvel/avengers oc (in general not just mcu). im happy to talk about any of these, you can even ask if i have a character with a specific condition, i probably have a dnd npc or two from one of my campaigns who have it if none of my book or fandom oc's have it.

i like character creation..

18. what are your favourite disability headcanons?

about everything i post to @/beecanons and @/your-fave-is-crippled that isnt expressly canon, and the stuff i plan on posting.

19. whats a disability you want to see more or better representation of/for?

honestly my first look at anemia in media was vampire knight and diabolik lovers... please give me better rep.. i need to see more anemic characters that arent just "whoa im dizzy" and "oops passed out cuz a vampire drank my blood"

20. free space!

feel free to ask me to elaborate/expand on, clarify or just ask whatever you'd like, my inbox is alway open!

[ID: banner reading "dni if... proship, transx/id, syscourse/discourse blog, anti-mspec lesbians/gays, anti-lesboy/turigirl more in pinned rentry. this blog is protected by the addams family, the de rolo family and co." in all black lowercase text. It has a grey cloud background. On the left is the De Rolo coat of arms with a cobweb in the top corner and symmetrically flipped on the right is the symbol of Vox Machina with the same cobweb in the bottom corner :End ID]

[scheherazades-vigil]

CW: disabilities, (mild daily type) ableism, mental illness, chronic illness, transmasc identity, (mild daily annoying) transphobia, COVID, discourse, abuse

Trust, I've seen some shit. It's honestly been noticeably *harder* for me to find both belief and sympathy when addressing my (invisible) physical limitations and disabilities. Frankly, I'm just glad I've got enough (worsening) leg trouble to justify my cane, because fuck if that don't justify my existence in the eyes of the vocal majority.

I'll never forget the time I, after the queue for disabled store hrs during early COVID, waited in line and heard countless times that you needed to be "elderly or pregnant," to be allowed admission.

Legally/per store instruction, disability was a necessary requirement of this trifecta, but no employee bothered to assure it. I hope no disabled people fucked off b/c of the stupidity of these (presumably) young, cishet white dudes, parrots with a smirk essentially telling them to do as such by implying without statement that their lack of presentation presents as a lacking of worthy disability. The old Karens of the waiting crowd would jeer at passersby. "Elderly and pregnant only!' they'd screech. Then, if a younger person got in line, best believe they were notified repeatedly by the throng. Wish I could steal a pair of balls that I ought've been born with from the start, so I could scream right back at them without mortal terror and shaking with the right of it.

Good thing, again, for my cane. I'd be disabled regardless, but with it, I (to my amused-rage), I'd be left well enough alone. Same with my disability placard. Look able bodied with it, tho, give up on ever feeling peace again. Least as I hear it. Even if you do have it, eeeh. On all the counts. Perks just suck.

The part I cared about was after I got in, though, already cleared by staff obviously. There were some odd goings-on. But some old woman (yeah, it was always the old women tbh, larger numbers but seemingly unlimited supply of judgment so all the fiercer), that, to my surprise, approached me to discuss the state of my cart.

How full it was. How quickly. I realized I was getting into a "What big eyes you have," discussion sooner than I would've cared to (at least afterwards, then, I'd have had just cause to get her in trouble). Instead, she got her metaphors all mixed up, and I moved on from her, the old wolf who would be a woodcutter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My sister was there helping me, naturally. Contrary to popular belief, disabled people do have families, may not be able to drive themselves, may be able to load a cart quickly if necessary, but may also be unable to unload it, etc etc. Whatever. I just smiled and agreed and smiled and nodded in all the ways one does with the old; eyes locked, nodding, growing to imposing stature, backing away.

I made my escape, but only barely. Lolol sorry I'm not aiming to play this up, I'm just easily amused. There's a million little (or huge) things that happen to invisibly disabled people all the time. Bizarre, cruel things. The elderly, especially, who most talk of our (millennials and younger) entitlement, tend to be the most entitled of all I've met, be they boomers or older. They've decided they've got a horse in this race (??? but why), and that gives them leave to patrol it. Anyway, you don't need to be invisibly disabled. They might call you a faker or just not care.

ASD lvl 2. Practiced all my life to pass, not to act out of line as a "proper woman," perhaps because I am neither. Yet another situation the aggressively abled impose upon. You're either not disabled enough or too disabled and there are functioning labels and yeah either you couldn't possibly get it you're just normal or you don't get it because you're not normal enough. It's rancid.

It all comes together in funny ways at the Starbucks inside, where people do not know how to treat me, because obviously "as human" is a reach for them. Also yeah, trans shit? I'll tell them a nickname. It's 3 letters and they ask how it's spelled. "Eli, okay..." excruciating pause, averted eye contact "... and how is that spelled?"

Anyone who reads Eli as my name and sees me? Yeah. No, *they* don't ask. They speak assuredly, "Ellie!" Little menaces lol. Big bag stuff is wise, but this still adds up.

My mental health is, to put it bluntly, garbage. Leg-aside (I have fallen at least a dozen times on tile, with my kneecaps, ftr, esp the bad [right] one, average 1-4 bone bruises biweekly, just started getting it sorted, but ya my leg was bad before anyway), my chronic illness is doing me a disservice. The ebb and flow between it and mental illness is disturbing and rude. I have EPS/TD from an antipsychotic prescribed to avoid "autistic irritability" from a time when I was being actively abused, idk, for like 11 years I guess, and I was so very damaged from that (cPTSD among others)... but I was never irritable, and no one warned me I could be permanently disabled in a new and horrifying way (+emotional lability for weeks before evening and maintaining, never leaving, + important control disorders in the form of "retail therapy" that built debt I can never repay hahaha and it's back again now that we're trying other meds! I had a brilliant month and a half of misery but zero spending, there!).

Meh I'm making myself sad but, there's a ton of other things I wanted to include and address in agreement with this post and for the sake of pro-intersectionality of everything and anything, more or less. I'm "too white" for a mestizo Latinx, I'm too feminine to pass as male-aligned, so if people see my legs I'm lucky when they ¯\_(ツ)_/¯and tell their kids "some people like that," I'm too young to be in so much pain, I also must be exaggerating my pain, especially dentally (so confused, I had total mouth surgery? I survived that agony for which I wasn't even forewarned?! My local ran off mid-root canal and the dentist finished anyway, despite my shouted, clenched protests, because you can't just. Get up or you'll lose an eye or smth idk? But no, THIS pain surely must be invented or it's hyperbole?!? Peeeeeooople).

I'm too inexperienced for a lot of other stuff, disputes, passing, whatever. I feel like a child. I may have known significantly more in the past, functioned more convincingly, succeeded in places I can no longer be physically or mentally present.

I also have OCD, DPD, (am I bipolar now? do I just have mania forever, and if so what does that mean diagnostically? I need to ask but want to wait to see how my meds are shaking out so I can mass address), MDD, GAD... Certain I'm missing things, but I've got to leave now anyway! Hugs! Be well y'all.

I hope this is somehow helpful and not triggering for anyone, because it hurt a good deal to write it. A confession, of sorts, if short.

There's a mistake I see a lot of people in the mental health community make and in all honesty, it's one I've made myself. But I think we should really work on it. And that's saying "if this were a physical illness, wouldn't you care?"

I've learned that no actually, people wouldn't care. Katelyn Weinstein (theADHDprincess on Twitter) is a neurodiversity acceptance activist who really put this in perspective for me. She said that it's actually more an issue of longevity than physical vs mental health.

If you're having a bad day people will generally be understanding. But when you're experiencing chronic depression and you have many bad days people lose sympathy.

In the same respect people may be understanding when you've broken a bone that will heal properly or when you have a cold that will go away soon in ways they simply won't understand when you have chronic pain or need to use a wheelchair. They may send chicken soup for a temporary situation, but when you need consistent accomodations it's an entirely different story.

I understand that from our perspective it looks like people care more about physical health than mental health, but it's good to remember that our own perspective is also limiting. Facing ableism doesn't mean you can't be ableist. And I know so many people are not ill-intentioned when they say this. I know I wasn't. But we can't discount the lived experiences of physically disabled people. If we want true equality we need to be united and we need to listen to those with physical disabilities and illnesses. And those with physical disabilities and illnesses (some of which are also invisible) have said that they are not given proper accomodations either.

So let's be united and fight for equality and accomodations for everyone, no matter what their illness or disability may be.

[floralbfs]

yknow it sure sucks that u know ur body might give in and fuck up at any moment but it also sucks that people will walk on eggshells around you 99% of the time

[eroticcannibal]

Listen. Not to be Alarmist but I have many thoughts and feelings and Fears about voice recognition technology and the effect it will have on identity.

Like, we are already living in a time where maintaining a Regional identity is becoming a fight, specifically with regard to language. Trying to preserve your identity and community and heritage through ur children with language is so. fucking. hard. When u have only RP being recognized as “correct” English, and media is dominated by American ways of speaking.

And now we are very much being left behind by technology, which honestly fucking sucks for many people, and is straight up harmful for many disabled people with regional ways of speaking!

Now I know someone is gonna be all “oh u gotta speak slowly and clearly” no. Shut up. *You* need to speak slowly and clearly. That don’t work with many regional ways of speaking. We’ve been trying to use speech-to-text for my ADHD kid who can’t write without struggling A LOT and IT DOESN’T WORK. We TRIED slow and clear, even then it does not work! In fact recognition of their accent is so poor we couldn’t even do the training to recognize their voice. And they do not have a particularly hard to understand accent. They ain’t geordie. They ain’t full yorkshire. They ain’t that rural. How the fuck is voice recognition not recognizing really standard midlands-ish speech?

This is a choice. Those people developing voice recognition have chosen to not spend as many resources on recognising reigonal speech than on RP. It has been around so fucking long at this point, how the fuck in 2021 are we at the point where my child cannot even dictate one single fucking sentence?

They should not be forced to strip their identity from their speech to be understood. They should not be forced to go through the, for them, grueling process of learning *how* to strip their identity from their voice just to use an accessibility tool they need NOW.

What kind of a message is this going to give them? I went my whole life hearing how talking like I did made me thick, uneducated, scum. Now they’re hearing they aren’t even worth a basic accessibility thing that other people can freely access. They aren’t worthy of being allowed to do something as simple as write, just because of how they talk, because of how their family and community talks. How is that fair?

And like, not to bring up subtitles again, but this same issue effectively limits certain disabled groups to content produced only by people of certain backgrounds on youtube and no doubt other platforms eventually (cus why pay a person if a computer can guess). Is that not fucked up? Is it not quite fucked up that deaf people just straight up can’t understand content made by certain people cus no fucker can be arsed to have their voice recognition actually recognise voices?

I’m just so fucking mad about this.

[system-of-a-feather]

Okay I’m too tired to go on the full Ted Talk rant, but I really really hate how much being able to drive is a near requirement in most of America because there are a number of medical / mental conditions that do not allow driving / make it so driving isn’t a good idea. Like most places do not have accessible bike areas (or at least safe ones) and some places don’t even have proper side walks and public transit in those areas also tend to suck equally.

So not only is it 1) forcing people to get their own car and add to the total carbon that we release 2) fucking over people who can’t afford a car / gas / car maintenance because that shit is expensive but also 3) making some people who a lot more of an inability to function than their disability would otherwise make it occur 

Which is bad enough, but if you also consider that (at least to my knowledge) not being able to drive is not enough reason alone to get any form of disability benefits, America just looks at someone’s inability to drive and says “Eh you are fine and totally on equal footing in day to day, life to life function as someone who can. You just choose not to”

And so that puts people like me - who struggles to drive due to a combination of dissociation and anxiety - in the place of having to choose to 1) force ourselves to figure out ways to make sure we can drive safely - regularly relying on 1000 management techniques to provide a decent security driving, 2) limit ourselves to the rare locations in America where the city is optimized or at least accessible / inclusive to bike and being a pedestrian in general 3) forfeit most of your ability to function as an adult with little support to make up for it

Like, I’ve worked with my therapist to be able to cope / manage symptoms when I DO HAVE to drive which pretty much consists of having 1) everything in the car be perfect and having the car at a perfect temperature 2) listening to a VERY specific playlist and making sure my music is perfect 3) Having a proper drink on me at all times 4) regularly stopping ever 25~ minutes or just having to sit for like an hour or so before to make sure someone who DOESN’T struggle with driving is FIRMLY out.

And so I *can* drive if I have to. Aderis and Ray have no issue driving and between being able to positively trigger them out and the stuff above, we *can* drive. 

With that being said, even with all those skills we REALLY would prefer if we didn’t have to. In our usual city, we just bike everywhere because its relatively bike friendly. When we aren’t there, we are usually with our fiance who actually offers to usually drive us anywhere when he has the time because no matter how much we can drive, we are always at a higher risk for something to happen because like half of us are not comfortable and there is always a chance we might just get stranded or have to pull over for an hour plus to be safe in which we might as just walked.

And so this hasn’t been an issue. This body has probably driven for a total of like 1 or 2 hours in the past year and a half, but the idea that eventually I might move to a place that isn’t bike accessible and my fiance will have a full time job just stresses me the fuck out because once you remove both of those, you restrict my ability to actually get anywhere and its just so fucking frustrating.

Being a car dominated society is just so pointless and unnecessary and just straight up bad for the environment and I fucking hate it.

And if anyone wants to bitch about my takes here, fuck you and fuck off. Fix the issue first, then you can talk to me.

-Riku (Host)

[dreamingsnowflake2013]

They are so freaking domestic and married and functional the whole time I can’t!!! They bicker and banter with ease of two people who feel secure and confident around each other and know each other’s boundaries and limits and don’t need to worry about offending the other person or the conversation turning antagonistic which allows them this sort of brutal honesty, at times, and frank criticism.

Issei gets the edamame shell husband treatment and he literally can’t believe it Hayame did that to him right in front of his salad when it already helped to ruin her previous relationship. It seems Hayame didn’t understand his lesson about the difference between the edamame shell and skin, well, she was in the middle of confronting her cheating ex so I suppose she was otherwise engaged.

Though, poor Issei doesn’t know the depth of Hayame’s culinary disability until he discovers her special lemon and cereal gyoza! HA! I admire that he doubles down on his criticism and even if he tries to back pedal, he simply can’t make himself lie to her even to please her when it’s so awful.

Unlike her ex-husband, he doesn’t put on a fake smile and swallows it so he wouldn’t hurt Hayame’s feelings but actually tells her it sucks bigly, showing that not only won’t he ever lie to her or keep secrets from her, he won’t feed her white lies to avoid conflict either. You almost never see portrayed in Asian dramas how these little mundane details can lead to a complete failure of a relationship once they pile up. Quite the opposite, they often depict swallowing food that makes you puke as something romantic and a proof of love without giving any thought to the fact whether the person can manage that for the rest of their life, considering it’s suggested most of the OTPs live happily ever after. The issue shows that Hayame and Issei are already more than one step further regarding the growth and functionality of their relationship than she ever came with Masahiro, illustrating their suitability. It’s not about a relationship being conflict-free, it’s about confronting the problems, argue about them even though it’s exhausting and uncomfortable and solve them through communication and misucommunication, not about hushing the issues up and staying silent about them in order to avoid arguments.

The drama might be called Promise Cinderella but it has been turning the Cinderella stereotypes on their head since episode 1. One of them is Hayame not fitting the bill of a girl who is amazing at cooking, sewing, reading, embroidering, polite conversation, dancing and generally being more princess-like than all the princesses and noblewomen, even though her mother died in her childhood and she couldn’t have taught her all those things, neither could her father, nor the mice or the other animals she spent all her whole time with. Let’s face it, Cinderella has always been the fairytale counterpart of Richardson’s Pamela and Hayame - divorced, almost thirty, penniless and jobless - is the modern real-life version of an orphaned abused virgin fallen on hard times. 

On the other hand, while Hayame might share Cinderella’s origin story of her mother dying at an early age, this sad event tragically affects her whole life in a much more realistic and darker way. Her father falls into a depression and becomes neglectful and she has to grow up overnight, having to learn everything by herself as she is left with no one to teach her, guide her and defend her so she ends up turning into a fiercely independent tomboy who is a self-taught cook and, as such, her cooking, well, sucks. She is literally the farthest thing from a Mary Sue ever. 

Then, Issei may be a modern version of a prince but while young, he has been taught since an early age and has a very unconventional unique upbringing in a modern world - he is the one who excels at cooking (because he had someone who actually taught him), can tie kimonos, knows the proper etiquette, can arrange flowers and knows their language and meaning. 

You would expect all those things from a woman, not a man; however, he is not only educated and good at them, he has a natural talent for them. In this way, the drama re-invents the Cinderella story, gives it a new original meaning and a breath of fresh air. 

Thus, you can see all these details in which Hayame’s relationship with Issei differs from her marriage - they are left to live together alone in what is basically a simulated marriage, but she doesn’t end up in the traditional role of a woman and housewife whose purpose is to provide dinner/food for her husband who comes back from work. She used to work back then, too, even if only part time. Now, it’s her who works full-time while Issei works part-time but despite it they share the cooking and he, fittingly, ends up being the better cook, completely changing up the dynamic of the traditional roles both in the original fairytale and male/female relationships in general.

Except for a brief denial stage caused by his confused feelings, Issei has always been honest with Hayame, sometimes brutally so, be it regarding the major issues or mundane everyday things like her cooking skills. 

He treats her the way she wants her to treat him, and, as a result, he rightfully expects the same honesty and consideration in return from her. He doesn’t want any lies or secrets between them, he wants a conversation not a deafening silence, regardless whether they are lovers or friends. 

He wants honesty and equality and instead, Hayame is trying to dismiss him as a child again in an attempt to avoid the problem because it’s uncomfortable and she doesn’t want to have a messy argument or worry him. She should have known by now that that’s exactly the attitude which led to the failure of her marriage. Not that they are an excuse or justification for cheating, but Masahiro raised some good points about the things he disliked about her and it’s time Hayame learns from her past mistakes.

Marriage/romantic relationship is not a one-person show, the point of it being you are not alone to deal with your problems, some burdens should be shared and if not, the other person feels left out because their partner keeps secrets from them which then leaves many opportunities for misunderstandings and creates a rift that keeps growing between the couple. Hayame’s greatest strengths - her self-reliance and independence - which allowed her to survive on her own so far become her greatest weaknesses and drag her down now. 

Issei immediately realizes Hayame has been putting a mask around him, trying to make herself look cheerful and happy, he can see through it right away as she can never fool him because he knows her so well and, frankly, she couldn’t pretend even if her life depended on it just like him. She fails to notice that this sort of consideration and selflessness are a double-edged sword. 

It’s both apt and ironic she tries to dismiss him as a child because her stubborness, discomfort and avoidance maker HER appear like a child and Issei the one 10 years older with his patience, calm and and persistence on discussing and solving the whole issue. This time it’s him who calls her out on her bullshit and childishness.

Issei notices everything about Hayame, including her mood swings which also refer to the mixed signals she’s been sending him, and how could he not when he always watches her so searchingly as if he were trying to look inside her soul, trying to spot every quiver of her lashes and nervous press of her lips. 

Thus, he can sense and predict what she plans to do because he can read her like an open book after watching her so closely for so long but also because he’s been there where Hayame is right now - he had been running away for the past 10 years before he met her and she saved him by making him realize he had been fucking up his life that way, therfore he gets angry seeing her repeating his mistakes. 

Moreover, he is scared shitless he may one day wake up and end up like Seigo, abandoned by her, not even left with a direction where to look at her, because she thinks she is not good enough and fears she might drag him down and mess up his life.

Despite it all, Issei doesn’t think about himself first, he thinks about Hayame and what it is she truly wants. She feels so lost and conflicted, fretting and completely panicking and he pretty much tells her ‘fuck the world and other people! You are the only person who matters! Think about yourself first and do what you truly wish to do even if it makes them hate you.’ And from the hopeful way she looks at him, it’s exactly what she needs to hear and wants to truly do but lacks the courage to go through with it just yet. 

Finally, THIS SHOT on the sofa! It pretty much says ‘married, in the middle of marital crisis and before a huge life-changing conversation’!

[duggarsetal]

Oh God I hate being this guy I am so sorry in advance. And I’m sorry if I get spicy I swear it’s not meant to be directed at you or any one person in any way. But this stuff has been coming up a lot especially over the last couple of years.

So this is the one area I have some pretty deep issues with, when it comes to fundie snark communities (much as they’ve helped my exvangelical journey, and how deeply appreciative I am of these internet streets that I love to lurk on so dearly). I mean no ill will in any way.

So…I guess I just really encourage y’all to think harder before shitting on homebirth. Necessary disclaimer: I **sincerely revile** Bethy (I’m trans and queer as fuck, need I say more) but…I’m also an obstetrics worker…and let me tell ya how not safe the way the United States corporate medical system can be for someone with a low risk pregnancy and any birth preferences other than “whatever my doctor tells me to do”. Especially if that person is nonwhite, single, queer, disabled, has non-Christian religious preferences, or is on Medicaid (not that any of those things apply to Bethany, but they do matter in the context of what I’m about to say).

The widespread incorrect assumption that homebirth is generally unsafe is one small part of why our hospitals are filled to the gills with people having experiences that range from “didn’t totally suck” to “I will be forever traumatized”. And the hospitals aren’t the issue. The homebirths aren’t the issue. The issue is that many people understand that when they enter the hospital they are (to varying degrees) relinquishing parts of their autonomy - and they’re right. And they don’t want to do that. And I can’t blame them! But they feel like they have no options (to be fair, sometimes they really don’t).

Advocating for yourself in hospital can be a really mixed bag, when the person you’re pushing back against is also the one you have to ultimately trust with your and your baby’s lives. That’s a troubling power dynamic as it is, midwife/OB alike . And when you’re in labor, advocating for your preferences (to someone you very likely haven’t met before/have only met a few times in an office visit setting) can be damn near impossible. And most partners are overwhelmed and don’t know how to navigate those moments. And who could blame them! It’s all a LOT and they’ve often never been in that kind of setting before!

So generally speaking, the midwifery model of care for low risk pregnancies allows time to navigate those complexities and build trust. You even usually receive more postpartum visits with homebirth providers (before 6 weeks) and that alone can be critical care - we recently had someone come in with pre-eclampsia that developed 48 hours after her smooth and low risk homebirth. If she’d given birth in our hospital, she would have been discharged and at home by the time her BP started to creep up. She didn’t feel off. But her midwife caught it early and brought her in, avoiding scary complications entirely. With typical OBs and hospital midwives you get a single visit at 6 weeks to make sure you’re superficially healed (so you can do the sex again) and that’s it. Midwifery care is extremely appealing to many people for many different reasons, not just white homeschool moms, I promise!!!

We do not know what type of midwife (credential-wise) is assisting Bethany but…I think it’s worth noting that her last midwife helped her make the call to transfer care to a hospital for a surgical repair with anesthetic. That decision centered her client’s safety and comfort, not the “original plan”. It showed that she isn’t afraid to call in help when needed. As someone who attends births primarily in hospital and who has QUITE limited insight on that situation - but who has seen a lot of shit? That’s a midwife I think I could trust. Regardless of her politics. And ultimately, Bethany didn’t regret her homebirth. That aligns with what I’ve seen with patients who have received good care. Plenty of folks who I’ve supported who have come in for a transfer of care don’t regret their choices, when they were supported prenatally and through labor by a trusted professional. Most people who are able to make fully informed, fully supported, non-coerced choices in labor do not regret them, regardless of the outcome. So I guess the nut of it is that while I think most folks do understand that birth is unpredictable…they don’t understand that intervening unnecessarily or shaming folks for birthing outside of the hospital won’t lower our maternal fetal mortality rates.

The insinuation that birth centers are unique or superior in some way is also misinformed. Birth centers are located either outside of a hospital and overseen by trained midwives (so that means identical risks and costs to a homebirth in literally every way except your risk of delivering in the car increases a bit lol). But can be good for folks whose homes aren’t suited for a homebirth (Nurie and Nathan). Or sometimes, birth centers are adjacent to a hospital. So similar rates of interventions used as a hospital, same rates of no rooms being available when you need one/your provider being busy helping someone else because their patient loads are miles too high, same risk of coercion and loss of control to staff who you didn’t select to support you - you could honestly get a terrified first year resident who doesn’t know their ass from their elbow or someone who’s been there 40 years and still thinks episiotomies are wonderful “helpers” and demand to know why you aren’t having one? It’s a crapshoot.

And to beat whomever is thinking of asking to the punch - I wouldn’t freebirth or feel super great if my partner wanted to (free birth means to birth outside of the hospital WITHOUT trained support, a la Karissa Collins) and if it came up, we would have that conversation like adults with the respectful understanding that the person giving birth gets to make those calls. (But for what it’s worth if my partner ever gave birth she would want alllllll the drugs and we love our hospital midwife.) But shaming someone who does choose to freebirth - especially in the instance that they come into the hospital for assistance during that process - is the fastest way we can make sure that person will never go to a hospital when they need one again. There is no benefit to shaming someone for making the choices they felt were correct for them at the time, especially when the decisions pertain to care and control of their body. If you’re more concerned with risk to the baby than you are about the preferences and needs of the parent, then reconsider calling yourself pro-choice, if that’s an idea you also think that you hold. Pro-choice means you think everyone should be able to choose what their reproductive experiences are and are not. That’s absolutely applicable here, but ADMITTEDLY very uncomfortable to consider.

Ultimately there is no one right way to be pregnant or give birth and we have no way of knowing what the reality of any fundie’s medical charts is. But when a fundie decides to birth at home, suddenly everyone is an expert on third degree repairs and pelvic floor trauma. And that’s weird to me, and has been for years now.

I will never give birth because I’ve seen too much. I prefer to support those braver (or with less second hand trauma) than me. But I swear, most of the truly horrific nightmare moments that I will never be able to wipe from my brain have been courtesy of the words or hands of overworked or undertrained doctors and nurses. Some medical providers are life saving miracles of humanity with incredible experience. Others are just humans, late for their kid’s violin recital and in the middle of a messy divorce, who frankly don’t care what choices you’re making with your own silly little life. Sometimes the former turns into the latter.

Not to say all homebirth midwives are awesome - a lot of them have issues with both boundaries and burn out. There are also quacks in every specialty (the one Jill D trained with seems like she practices really irresponsibly). But there are hospital midwives and OBs who are also very, very troubling in their practices. One OB I know uses baby shampoo to “grease up” his patients’ nether regions as the baby crowns. There is no evidence or data to suggest that this is good or helpful or wise, and yet he’s been doing it for years and none of his colleagues give a shit because it hasn’t killed anyone, or else don’t want to make waves. That is a mild example. The messy, uncomfortable, scary reality is that we have to be really discerning when it comes to our care providers, and to stay vigilant and ask questions. It would be so much easier to say “if you birth in this way, with this type of person, you’ll be safe.” But it would be a lie. The two worst and saddest births I have ever witnessed part or parcel of were entirely different from one another. One was with a senior physician in a new hospital, utilizing intervention after intervention. The other was a transfer of care due to a freebirth that went very wrong. There is no one right way to do things. I really wish there was.

I don’t blame Bethany for her choices but I do think it’s interesting and sad how quickly snarkers jump on these people for making the same choices that queer and trans and Black and undocumented people are making everyday, (for different reasons). I fault fundies for so much (mountains of deprogramming woohoo!) but never for their choices surrounding birth.

Okay, so I get your points

And one thing I want to make clear, is that I am not anti-homebirths

I understand many of the reasons behind the desire for a homebirt - the comfort, the familiarity and the lesser chance of unwanted/unneeded medical interventions.

However, I'm not a fan of needlessly careless homebirths. I may have jumped the gun regarding Bethany specifically, but I know that she did have complications following her previous homebirth. I don't claim to be an expert, but her birth plan does make me nervous. Maybe that's because I'm naturally a nervous person, maybe that's because of the implications that come from Bethany saying "birth is natural" and relying on that, potentially ignoring the risks associated (although I'm not in her mind - I'm basing my assumptions on the way she seems to make her decisions generall), maybe it's something to do with not trusting her decision making process (the way she's going about buying her home, for example, seems very misinformed/uninformed and I'm not sure that she actually has considered it fully).

I suggested a birthing centre since it's something of a hybrid between homebirth and hospital birth. The major thing she seems to have concerns about is unnecessary interventions - and I fully understand that! But you are less likely to have that happen than in a hospital. And you still have access to a hospital should it become necessary, with transfer times being much less than if you're a 45 min drive away.

I think ultimately its that, were I in her position, I'd make different choices.

That doesn't mean I don't want her to have the freedom to make her own choices, but I definitely question the route she's taken to come to those choices, and what she's shared does make me nervous.

[tea-and-la]

You’re right, it is very annoying how some people (usually a certain brand of Zukka shippers) insist that Zuko HAS to be gay and Toph HAS to be a lesbian.

I mean we all know that the only reason that they think Zuko HAS to be gay is so that people won’t ship him with women instead of with Sokka.

I also find that a lot of Zukkas will insist that Mai, Ty Lee, Toph, and sometimes even Suki and/or Yue all HAVE to be lesbians. You know what all of those girls have in common? They all canonically dated or expressed romantic interest in Zuko or Sokka. Connect the dots.

Obviously not everyone who has those headcanons is like that. People can and should be allowed to headcanon characters however they want. Personally I view Zuko as bisexual and Toph as straight (none of the popular F/F Toph ships appeal to me and I generally find that portrayals of her as LGBT aren’t to my tastes because some - not all - people who headcanon her as such will often exaggerate her masculinity/androgyny far beyond the extent to which it exists in canon in order to make her the “man” in the relationship as well as ignore that the reasons for her gender nonconformity are heavily tied to her trauma and disability and have very little to do with sexuality, which is something that squicks me out. Also dislike how society at large seems to really hate the idea of GNC women being with men because that means they’ll be forced to reconsider their perception of gender roles within M/F relationships). However, those are just my interpretations.

"it is very annoying how some people (usually a certain brand of Zukka shippers) insist that Zuko HAS to be gay and Toph HAS to be a lesbian."

yes exactly! i'm all for people having their head canons, but there is no reason to shame others because they have a different one than you. it reeks of privilege because no head canon is more "right" than another. and also, why are we gatekeeping characters from having other lgbtq+ identities that other fans can identify with? seems very exclusionary to me.

i think the thing that bothers me about zookas is that they will take scenes like the jinko fountain scene and use it as "proof" that he's gay. bc zuko hesitated at first and also because he pulled away and ran away. like, there's so many other reasons for that, including the one that's actually, ya know, canon. zuko was nervous. it's his first teenaged date, so ofc he would be a bit awkward about it. not to mention that he is a decent enough person to not want to complicate a girl's feelings for him because she doesn't know the real him. he even says in the tale of the earth kingdom novelization that he likes this girl. and he says in canon that he had a nice time. that's not to say that people can't head canon what they want, but to say things like "there's no het explanation for this." there's literally several, actually.

another thing that i've seen is zookas use the "zuko gay" in response to zutaras, but then they'll also simultaneously ship m*iko. and it's just so obviously a bias/convenience thing because if you hc him as gay (which is fine), why would you like a ship of him with a woman??? just say you hate zutara and go.

back to toph, because i've been meaning to speak on this for a while. so toph is my favorite character and i head canon her as nonbinary and pansexual. it is actually partially through my appreciation of toph's character that i realized that i was nonbinary. so when certain people gatekeep and confine her to one identity because of stereotypical traits and behaviors, i take it very personal.

none of toph's popular F/F ships appeal to me either, but i do see her as LGBTQ+. i have to agree that the way she is masculinized does cause me significant discomfort, especially wrt to people who do so to limit her "desirability" for aang.

i also find that a lot of people will head canon aang as nonbinary or GNC (i do as well). so in the case of toph being lesbian, she could potentially still be attracted to aang. so why then, do people act like it would just be a het relationship? it doesn't make sense. they're both queer as fuck. not to mention that i've had to endure months on twitter with people saying that kateeng is wlw (which gives me the HIVES) because aang is nonbinary. so suddenly, when it's taang, aang's a straight man and/or toph would have to be straight. these people talk themselves into circles i swear. it's just easier to admit that you want aang only for katara than to sit here and come up with flimsy excuses.

i wish people would just admit that they don't think toph is feminine enough for aang. i've seen so many shitty takes about how toph would be abusive to aang and always hurt him, or that they would argue a lot (which is comical because kateeng canonically has 3 big fights.) it's just upsetting how toph is treated and perceived by certain people in the fandom to push their agendas.

for me personally, i see aang and toph as nonbinary pan. so i see their relationship pretty much free of gender roles and they are equals. they already have a good foundation for childhood friends to lovers. i just don't get why people hate taang so much and would instead rather invest time in a ship with a side character from ONE comic (no offense to any tophl*ngs out there, but the ship literally gives me not one fuzzy feeling.) in lieu of her best friend that she spends two seasons with, has multiple interactions with in the comics, etc. i feel like this is mainly because toph isn't perceived as "shippable" and is cast to the side, which sucks because she's my favorite character.

[feralgoblinchild]

Fun facts that SUCK about chronic illness:

I have POTS-Postural Orthoststic Tachycardia Syndrome among other issues, but the POTS makes me pass out and makes me feel like I'm about to pass out. It also flares up REALLY bad if I have to miss my antidepressants (I can't afford $188/month for that AND another $188/month for my heart meds so sometimes I don't get to take either unless my mom covers the cost for me right now). Chronic illness is EXPENSIVE!!!!!!! This doesn't include medical debt I've accumulated. Thats literally just two of my medications monthly cost right now. Insurance systems don't work. They make people even more sick.

With antidepressant withdrawals, mine makes me violently vomit. One day when I was JUST BARELY able to not vomit all over all the surfaces in my work, one of my coworkers asked how I was doing on my lunch. I was honest and explained how shitty I felt. He said he meant it as a compliment, but you can't tell that in feeling bad at all. We learn to mask disability and illness because its so much easier than explaining to every customer or patient that you're chronically ill and drinking more water or meditating will not cure your neurological dysfunction. No matter how well meaning they are. We can be at an 8 or a 9 on a feeling shitty scale and a good percentage of people may not be able to tell. I've worked through passing out multiple times in a shift. No one would have known if it hadn't happened in the middle of a case or I hadn't told them. Couldn't move the next day, but I worked through it.

We have to be so obnoxiously careful to not overextended ourselves or we pay for it the next day/later that day. I take too hot a shower and I can't sleep for hours because of the palpitations. I forget my compression socks my head might become a fishbowl on a merry-go-round. I don't get to take my meds, I feel like I can't catch my breath. I let myself overheat, I hit the ground. But we've learned that we have limits, and we're constantly fine tuning those limits. Sometimes we push past it for one reason or another, but we'll always pay for it when we do.

I can't afford basic medical care. The US has an excessively flawed system. I literally can't afford medications to make me not pass out. I have to have help from my parents when I'm almost 30 just to afford my medical bills. And this isn't even doctors appointments. We CANNOT continue to allow this country to run healthcare on insurance. It's damn well past time for socialized healthcare. It took me a fucking year to get in to see my dysautonomia specialist, so don't you DARE tell me ITS gonna make it sO mUcH lOnGeR tO wAiT NOT THAT MUCH LONGER BUDDY IT TOOK 2-3 YEARS FROM WHEN MY AYMOTOMA GOT BAD ENOUGH TO SEEK MEDICAL CARE TO THE TESTING TO DIAGNOSE IT. TWO TO THREE YEARS OF MY LIFE LIFING WITHIUT A DIAGNOSIS TO AN ILLNESS THAT TOOK ME OUT OF MY DREAM JOB, ENTIRELY OUT OF MY FIELD, AND LEFT ME SCRAMBLING TO FIND ANY JOB I COULD PHYSICALLY DO

And I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm able to stand up to work sometimes. I'm able to enjoy active activities if I've spent enough time resting. I'm not entirely reliant on my wheelchair. I have a doctor who cared enough to get me a parking placard. I made enough money in my dream job to start looking into what was going on. My parents make enough money to help me. I'm LUCKY over here with my life falling apart in so many ways. There are people who can't even afford a diagnosis to take to a disability hearing, but disability will be damned if you don't have a diagnosis.

Disabled and chronically ill people struggle on the daily, regardless of government's decision on their disability, regardless of the degree of their illness. We fight tooth and nail and claw and every last possible tool we can find, down to the last dirt clod we can throw. If you're dealing with any disability or chronic illness, no matter the extent, no matter the type, know you're strong just for being here right now, even if scrolling on Tumblr is all you could manage today. Ita hard as hell dealing with this crap. And you're fighting every day to stay here. That's hardcore if I've ever seen it