#but yeah i hops you keep youe chin up despife the inconveniences of life

[weabooweedwitch]

to that prior anon: what makes something a disability is how it impacts the life of the person who has it. for example, you use arthritis as an example of smth being "just a medical condition" but without medication that would cost more than $12k/month if I didn't have insurance, I am in constant pain and literally cannot walk or use my hands. my arthritis is disabling, while for others it's just constant low level pain and they may not consider it a disability.

please remember it's up to the person with the medical condition to determine if it disables them, and it varies person to person even with the same condition.

In their defense i think they were just asking a question because it is definitely like, a weird gray area? It honestly brings up a good discussion about, when do you you start calling something a disability, and how, I think, the broken health care system really, uh, falsely categorizes a lot of people based on what insurance is up to. Also different countries apparently have different guidelines, like for example my Canadian friend gets disability benefits literally just for being autistic despite being very "high functioning", putting that in quotes just because I know that can be kind of a controversial term.

But also, I'm so sorry you deal with that, I dont quite have arthritis but I can totally empathize wirh chronic physical pain 🥺 its actually horrifying reading the prices of some of these treatments sometimes and im really glad you have your medicine taken csre of. I often think about what would've happened to me if I hadn't been on state insurance when I was diagnosed with my equinus, I think it was literally like at least 5k per leg (i actually barely remember tbh, it couldve been higher or lower), which, I guess ultimately isn't a lot, but on my income and my moms income would have been so significant I would've felt actual guilt seeking treatment. Like, there was a legitimate possibility that the mere price could have kept me from... walking normally? And like my mom is 58 and she's been told she qualifies for knee replacements but she's literally scared of even getting them because of how long the recovery period can be and the financial loss and also just the price? So my mom could end up in legitimately worse health, although I guess that also has to do with like, America not having good workers rights where she could've taken off laid leave for surgery or something

It's that whole expression about "disability is defined by the environment" or something like that. Sort of like that whole controversy with Mr Beast where he paid for a bunch of people to get their sight or hearing back. Those people had treatable conditions and were stuck living in a way that negatively impacted their lives simply because they couldn't afford it? Like I can't even imagine not being able to use one of my five senses just because I couldn't afford it, but I know that's um already a reality for like, people who can't afford hearing aids and stuff like that

I think I'm starting to ramble here but like, I wish people had more sympathy for the disabled (and im talking about like society, not the last ask just to be clear, I feel like they were legitimately just curious). Like sometimes when you see people like violently hating the homeless, sometimes those people are literally people who got into horrible accidents or had some sort of injury and they wound up addicted to painkillers and had to turn to drugs when they can't afford prescription pain meds or those prescriptions get them addicted. I had a manager who was in a car accident and the painkillers made her eventually switch to straight up heroin. Even our disabled vets don't get good healthcare half the time

But yeah, as for me, I guess consider myself kind of straddling the line between disabled and able bodied, leaning more towards able bodied, but I can still have issues, like my knees are still kinda jacked up and even though i can stand and walk great now, stairs can be really tough sometimes, especially when I'm coming home from work and my body aches. and I still get pains in my back sometimes when I'm bending and leaning to the point I use a menthol roll-on gel for pain relief. Part of me kind of likes that I, I dunno, overcame the challenge and all that, but like, I think I would've preferred a body that didn't hurt lol 😅