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sabrielandorangejuice · 11 months ago

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For around 6 months when I lived with my friend, and about a year before that, she had a foster child. I can day from personal experience that the Australian foster system could not be more perfectly designed to traumatise children and carers if it tried.

Some context on Australia: from the foundation of the country until the 1960s or 70s it was government policy to take indigenous children from their parents and place them either with White Christian foster parents (if they had fair skin and could ‘assimilate’) or in Christian boarding schools (if they couldn’t pass them off as white). This was called the Stolen Generation and caused a lot of Inter generational trauma as you can imagine. I moved here in 2009 so I don’t know exactly when this started, but I think ~2000 the country/govt started caring very much about Reconciliation, except they care more about looking like Being Seen To Make Amends than actually making anything better.

Some context about my friend: She’s white, she’s the oldest of 6 kids, she’s a teacher. She’s always had an interest in helping disadvantaged kids: those with disabilities, those with behaviour problems. She’s taken courses about how to deal with and help these kinds of children specifically. Her husband is less formally educated but similarly nurturing and has worked in childcare his entire adult life. They were young (mid-20s) and didn’t have kids of their own yet but were otherwise perfectly suited to being foster parents.

The kid that they fostered was a friend of my friends younger brother (15 years between my friend and the kid). The kids parents were separated, and both suffered from the kinds of problems that often affect those in poverty and are very difficult to overcome: addiction, difficulty holding down a job, etc. The kid was living with his dad, who was also a friend of my friends family. The kid was also half-aboriginal.

When the kid was removed from his father he was initially placed in emergency care with my friends parents (and the 3 of her siblings still at home). They weren’t able to keep him long term, but everyone involved agreed it was best to keep him in a kinship placement: aka with people he already knows and trusts. That’s why my friend and her husband stepped up to take him.

They went through the process of becoming registered carers, made easier by the fact that they both already had blue cards (working with children licence). The kid was placed with them and they were told that although kinship placements are best, they had to make sure they were supporting his indigenous heritage and keeping him connected with his culture. My friend agreed, of course that was important, of course they wanted to do that.

I don’t know exactly what happened before I moved in with them, the proper order of events, but I do know this:

This was a 10 year old boy who had been taken from his parents for the second time in his short life. He didn’t have many positive role models. Of course he had behaviour issues. Of course he didn’t trust the new situation, even if he did know his carers this time. My friends were patient with him, they assured him that they wanted to do everything they could to help him, that they loved him. That for as long as he lived with them he was as much a part of their family as my friends parents, her husband, her siblings. It was slow, but they made progress with him.

I know that my friend and her husband let the kid choose what to call them; whether that was mum and dad, auntie and uncle, or just their names. After a while he chose to call them mum and dad. I know that they took him to a youth group for indigenous boys, run by indigenous adults, once a week. I know they wanted to do more, and asked child services for help, to connect them with more people or services, but they never heard back.

Around a month before I moved in with them, the whole family: my friend and her husband, her parents, all her siblings, went on a trip to the neighbouring state for a family wedding. When they started planning the trip, months in advance, they told the kid: we want you to come with us but your mum and dad and child services have to agree. Both the kids parents were fine with it, and told child services that, and child services didn’t raise any concerns, but they also didn’t approve it. “We’re just processing the paperwork” his case worker said, “there shouldn’t be any problems, we’ll get it approved before you go don’t worry”. So my friends told the kid that.

Time went on, child services started saying things like “what are you doing to support his indigenous heritage. You should be doing more to make sure he stays connected to his culture”. They still didn’t give my friend any help with doing that. The holiday still wasn’t approved, or denied. They kept asking and kept being told they were processing it. The kid was so excited about this holiday he was going to go on with his new family!

Im sure you can guess where this is going. 2 or 3 weeks before the trip child services said “you can’t take him out of state. He has to stay close to his family”. It didn’t matter that both his parents had agreed to the trip. It didn’t matter that everything was booked, that my friends were going to the family wedding regardless. It didn’t matter that they had no one to look after him while they were gone, and it was so short notice that they’d struggle to find someone. It didn’t matter that they’d taken so long to decide, and misled them that it would be approved the whole time, that the kid fully believed he would be going on the trip. My friends said he was part of the family! Of course he was going on the family trip! None of that mattered. He couldn’t leave the state.

Now at this point I knew that I’d be moving in with my friend and her husband and the kid just a few weeks after they got back. To do so legally I also needed a blue card, and I needed to submit the details to child services. That’s the law, anyone living in the same house as a child services kid has to do it. So I was in the process of that while the holiday drama happened.

What did they do with the kid while the whole family was away? They placed him with a relative of his mothers. In a house full of people without blue cards. A house full of generationally traumatised people with poor coping mechanisms. When everyone was home he said that they hit him, and the kids father said he knows at least some of the people in the house were drug users. But child services did t care because they were relatives, and more importantly they were aboriginal relatives.

At this point I moved in with them, and so I know all the details. My friend’s family had already been supporting the kids dad to overcome his struggles (things a decent child services should do). After the holiday they realised it was unlikely child services would let my friend keep the kid long term, and that the best place for him to go would be back to his father. So they started helping the dad even more, supporting him in his self-advocacy to child services and supporting him as he sought legal counsel.

I know that child services started getting more aggressive and combative with my friend. I know that it’s because she always advocated for what was actually best for the kid, instead of just shutting up and doing as she was told. The kids case worker came over once every week or two to check up on him. They were supposed to spend a little time with my friend discussing how he’d been, and a lot of time with the kid himself. Asking for his perspective on how things were going and if there was anything he needed. On at least one occasion (but i think more like 2 or 3) I know that instead they sprung a surprise meeting on my friend where they would berate her for not doing things their way, and they wouldn’t speak to the kid at all.

Most damningly I know that the kids trust in my friends was completely broken. I can understand why, they promised he was part of their family, and as the ultimate sign of that he was going on their family trip. Except suddenly 2 weeks before it happens he’s suddenly not going, and instead he has to spend the time alone with extended family he barely knows. I don’t know if he’d even met them before that. And he’s a traumatised 10 year old, he doesn’t know that it wasn’t my friends fault, he just knows that they lied to him.

All the trust they’d gained and all the progress they’d made with his behaviour disappeared instantly, and his behaviour just got worse the entire time I lived with him. At the time I nearly hated him. The only other kids I knew were my friends younger siblings who’d grown up in a supportive loving environment and were accordingly so much nicer. It was just a bad coincidence but the more I got to know him the more abusive he got to. Not usually to me, but to my friends, to his friends, to my cat. My friend and I both had cats, but mine was much younger and more fun to play with, which also meant more vulnerable to the kids ire. Our time living with my friend overlapped for about 6 months and for the last month of it my cat stayed with other friends for his own safety. By the end he would try to hurt either my friends or himself at least once a day and would have to be physically restrained.

When my friends first took the kid in there was talk of keeping him with them until he was 18, possibly even adopting him if they could. When it became clear child services wouldn’t let that happen they wanted to look after him for long enough that he could go back to his dad. Unfortunately though, the stress of dealing with both the kids worsening behaviour and the constant berating from child services, my friend got sick. They told child services they couldn’t look after him anymore, they were no longer the best place for him to be, and eventually they had to issue child services with an ultimatum because even with this they were dragging their feet. I don’t know anything about the next carers the kid ended up with, except that they were both aboriginal.

My friend spent a lot of days in the few months after the kid left bedridden with pain from the stress ulcers she’d developed. It took nearly two years for her to physically recover fully. The kid got a whole new load of trauma, lost a friend (remember this all started because he was friends with my friends brother), and lost a family that cared about both him and his biological parents.

And all because The System didn’t see a little boy in him, they saw a little aboriginal.

How do you think we can make the foster care system better?

Honestly, by making sure as few kids end up in it as possible.

Contrary to popular belief, physical abuse is not the most common reason that kids end up in foster care. Only 13% of kids taken into foster care are there because their parents physically abused them. The biggest reason that kids end up in foster care is actually neglect - neglect is the primary cause of 62% of foster care referrals.

When you look at those numbers, though, it's important to remember that "neglect" doesn't necessarily mean that parents withheld food and necessities from their children because they were careless or lazy or cruel - it often includes parents who desperately want to provide the necessities to their children, but can't afford to do so. Many jurisdictions don’t really make a distinction between kids whose parents purposely starved them and kids whose working parent left them home alone because she couldn’t afford daycare - that makes it hard to really know what we’re dealing with here.

And you might be surprised to learn what child protective services considers to be "necessary" for children. In most parts of Canada, for instance, it is legally required that children over the age of 5 not share a bedroom with opposite-sex siblings. Having six-year-old fraternal twins share a bedroom would be categorized as neglect; technically, the parent is failing to provide the children with adequate housing. But of course, the genders of your children don't influence how much money you get from your employer or from public assistance. In my area, a mother with a boy and a girl is legally required to rent a larger apartment for her family than a mother with two boys - but it's up to her to find the money to afford that. Partitioning one room or co-sleeping with the children is not allowed, and is also considered neglect. It might sound ridiculous, but I have worked with multiple families that have faced the potential removal of their children because of this, even if family co-sleeping is the norm in their culture.

1 in 10 children in the US foster care system are there at least partially because their parents don’t have adequate housing. Keep in mind, there are 424,000 children in the US foster care system on an average day - that means that housing was a major factor for more than 42,000 of them. Before we can truly reform the system, we need to understand what it is, exactly, that we’ve created - and what we’ve created is an incredibly expensive, inefficient and culturally insensitive system that is stretched so thin by the task of “solving child poverty” that it can’t do what it was actually designed to do, which is protecting abused children. Instead of a child protective system, we have an intergenerational meat grinder that effectively turns traumatized children into traumatized adults who create more traumatized children to go back into the system. Around and around we go.

The question of how to “fix” foster care could be a doctoral thesis, and it’s a far bigger problem than any one person can solve. But my few cents as someone who has worked with at-risk and homeless youth for nearly a decade now would be:

Dramatically increase affordable housing. Trying to fix child homelessness with foster care is like trying to put out a grease fire with a sledgehammer - it’s not solving the problem, and it’s only causing more damage. Truly affordable housing would keep many families off CPS radar - if affordable housing was available, many victims of family violence would be better able to flee their violent partner with their children. Calls to CPS because families are living in cars or shelters would cease to exist. “Fixing housing” is easier said than done, but I don’t think we’ll ever solve foster care without also addressing this.

Decolonize child welfare standards. In most parts of the US and Canada, child welfare standards adhere closely to Western European parenting practices. Things that other cultures have been doing for generations - like co-sleeping - can land non-white families in trouble with CPS. And there are huge discrepancies in how child welfare standards are applied - wealthy white families can homeschool, deny their children medical treatment and co-sleep without CPS knocking on their doors, but Indigenous families cannot say the same.

Create universal affordable childcare. Many families needlessly end up on CPS’s radar because their parents cannot afford childcare. Single working moms of colour have found themselves losing their children - or even facing prison time - after leaving their children unsupervised to work or attend job interviews. Compounding the issue is the fact that many working-class parents have shiftwork jobs, making it even harder to secure childcare.

Improve access to free and confidential family planning education and services. People who find themselves with unplanned pregnancies that they are not financially or emotionally ready for are at greater risk of ending up on CPS’s radar. When people are given access to family planning resources, they are better able to delay pregnancy until they feel more prepared.

Improve wraparound supports and early intervention. Removing a child from a home is - and should always be - a last resort. CPS are often alerted to at-risk families before they reach the point where removal is required. To truly do their job of protecting children, CPS needs more resources to offer these families in order to help them stay together in a healthier way. Culturally sensitive in-home and community-based supports, including mental health supports, addictions supports, and material supports, should be immediately available to all families who are potentially at risk.

Offer greater support for placements within families or communities of origin. Sometimes parents unfortunately just aren’t a healthy or safe option for their children. There are always going to be cases where that’s simply the reality of the situation. Many of these children, though, may have a family member who would be willing to take them in with the proper supports - which they can’t afford on their own. Offering more resources to family placements could help a lot of children stay within their families of origin instead of being sent to live with strangers. Likewise, many children from small communities - particularly Indigenous communities - end up being sent hundreds of miles away for foster care placements because the resources for them simply don’t exist in their communities. Ending this practice and committing to caring for children in their own community would help children grow up more connected to their roots and culture.

Decrease CPS worker caseloads. Many of the systemic issues with the foster care system stem, at least in part, from how abysmally and unbelievably overburdened the system is. There are too few workers and placements for far too many kids. In the US, the average CPS caseworker has 67 children on their caseload - in six states, the average is over 100. Nobody can provide adequate care to a caseload of 67 children, many of whom may have complicated cases. It’s just not possible. The workload contributes to the immense amounts of burnout and high turnover within child services - the average turnover rate (how many staff quit every year) for most agencies is 23-60%, with some agencies actually exceeding 90% annual turnover. We have a system of new, inexperienced workers burning out and passing on their enormous caseloads to newer, even less experienced workers and everyone is worse for it.

Provide more training, resources and support for foster parents. Many of the children entering foster care have complex trauma, as well as complex mental or physical health needs. Some areas do a better job of preparing foster parents for this reality than others - and everyone suffers when foster parents don’t have the resources and education that they need to meet children’s needs.

Extend aftercare supports well into adulthood. Many youth make an abrupt exit from foster care - at some point between age 18-21 they suddenly “age out” of supports. Some areas do offer supports that extend into a youth’s early 20s, but many of these areas require youth to be full-time post-secondary students to continue receiving support - youth who aren’t able to take that step often have no support, despite perhaps needing it the most. Outcomes for former foster children are bleak; only around 55% finish high school (compared to 87% of their peers), and in Canada, as many as 90% are on welfare within 6 months of aging out of care. Realistically, as it becomes more difficult for young people to achieve financial independence, many of these kids may need support that extends well into their late 20s and beyond.

This is just barely skimming the surface of what needs to change - there is so much that’s wrong, and I’ve barely touched on how to fix it. But when it comes to foster care, I really believe that an ounce of prevention is worth 100lbs of cure.

#i hope none of my irl friends see this #removing all the names won’t anonymise it to people who anyway know half the story #this also got pretty long sorry #i think all the details are relevant though #i didn’t even get in to the monetary aid child services promised my friend and never delivered on #my friends are very much working class and having a high needs 10 year old was difficult on their budget #i don’t know if they got none of the money they should have #or if they got some of it very late #but they definitely never got everything they were entitled to #my friends wouldn’t have cared about the money of child services had left them alone #they were never in it for that #but with the way things ended up it’s just another way The System failed them #and ultimately failed the kid

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justanother-fan-girl · 13 days ago

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CPS after moving you from one abusive household to another one!

#cps #dcf #the system is fucked #fuck the system #the system #system #child protective services #department of children and families

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sapphia · 6 months ago

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USA please listen to me: the price of “teaching them a lesson” is too high. take it from New Zealand, who voted our Labour government out in the last election because they weren’t doing exactly what we wanted and got facism instead.

Trans rights are being attacked, public transport has been defunded, tax cuts issued for the wealthy, they've mass-defunded public services, cut and attacked the disability funding model, cut benefits, diverted transport funding to roads, cut all recent public transport subsidies, cancelled massive important infrastructure projects like damns and ferries (we are three ISLANDS), fast tracked mining, oil, and other massive environmentally detrimental projects and gave the power the to approve these projects singularly to three ministers who have been wined and dined by lobbyists of the companies that have put the bids in to approve them while one of the main minister infers he will not prioritise the protection of endangered species like the archeys frog over mining projects that do massive environmental harm. They have attacked indigenous rights in an attempt to negate the Treaty of Waitangi by “redefining it”; as a backup, they are also trying to remove all mentions of the treaty from legislation starting with our Child Protection laws no longer requiring social workers to consider the importance of Maori children’s culture when placing those children; when the Waitangi Tribunal who oversees indigenous matters sought to enquire about this, the Minister for Children blocked their enquiry in a breach of comity that was condemned in a ruling — too late to do anything — by our Supreme Court. They have repealed labour protections around pay and 90 day trials, reversed our smoking ban, cancelled our EV subsidy, cancelled our water infrastructure scheme that would have given Maori iwi a say in water asset management, cancelled our biggest city’s fuel tax, made our treasury and inland revenue departments less accountable, dispensed of our Productivity Commission, begun work on charter schools and military boot camps in an obvious push towards privatisation, cancelled grants for first home buyers, reduced access to emergency housing, allowed no cause evictions, cancelled our Maori health system that would have given Maori control over their own public medical care and funding, cut funding of services like budgeting advice and food banks, cancelled the consumer advocacy council, cancelled our medicine regulations, repealed free prescriptions, deferred multiple hospital builds, failed to deliver on pre-election medical promises, reversed a gun ban created in response to the mosque shootings, brought back three strikes = life sentence policy, increased minimum wage by half the recommended amount, cancelled fair pay for disabled workers, reduced wheelchair services, reversed our oil and gas exploration ban, cancelled our climate emergency fund, cut science research funding including climate research, removed limits on killing sea lions, cut funding for the climate change commission, weakened our methane targets, cancelled Significant National Areas protections, have begun reversing our ban on live exports. Much of this was passed under urgency.

It’s been six months.

#politics #New Zealand #usa #us politics #nzpol #aotearoa #national suck #is that a tag? it should be

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sunni-stuff · 1 month ago

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Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Reader who gets pregnant off of a one night stand with some soldier during armed forces day, showing your appreciation for his service a little too well.

You had a support system, friends who joked about you having way too much fun, hence your predicament, others already offering to buy things for the baby and your parents who couldn't be happier to meet their grandchild.

But what about the father?

Well, it's not exactly like you could track him down. Fuck, you didn't even know the man's name, only how he made you feel, his filthy words strumming in your ear, big hands tight around your waist, hips slamming away in a desperate chase.

Let's forget how you leg-locked him.

When your daughter was born, everything changed, and time slowed down. She was a quiet baby, barely crying or having any outbursts like a normal child would but outspoken in her own little way. That chunky thing came out of the womb with a glare. Brown eyes staring down anyone and everyone but you.

That's something she definitely got from her father. You vividly remember how his umber eyes watching you from across the bar. He was like an eagle waiting for the perfect moment to strike his prey. A perfect soldier.

So, you named your daughter Adira in memory of his strength. That's one thing he could have.

Adira loved to be by your side. Her chubby cheeks pressed into the nook of your neck, holding you close with strength of a thousand babies. Your clingy little thing was a koala, always by her mommy's side, never straying far no matter how curious she got. When she learned to walk, her favorite thing became to hug your leg, especially while in stores. She hated people, wearing a tiny scowl whenever customers passed by tucking herself closer to you.

Maybe it was a good thing her father wasn't around. Having to compete for her first words would've been a bloodbath.

You spent two years in bliss. The fact that you were a single mother an afterthought to raising what you considered a blessing.

With Adira's second Christmas coming up, you wanted to do something special. She loved trains and found them absolutely amusing, often mimicking the honk as she ran around your apartment. Thankfully, there was a train ride for kids around the park during this time of year.

Here, you stood in line, bundled up to the nines. Big poofy coat, warm gloves, and fuzzy boots. As the crowd moved, Adira clung close, arms wrapped around your leg, glowering at any passerby with an annoyed look on her rosy cheeks.

That one was new. Maybe something else she got from her father.

The two of you took steps in tow, keeping Adira close and comfortable as the train came into view. Her expression shifted, excitement palpable. "Twain!" She squealed, jumping up and down.

Before you could respond to Adira's childlike joy, a man bumped into you by accident, nearly stumbling over his own feet. He turns to look at you, blue eyes meeting yours, but you were too focused on the weird ass Mohawk on his head.

People wore still those?

"Sorry bout that lass." The man starts to apologize, a Scottish accent lacing his voice.

That breaks your stare, laughing awkwardly to mask your wandering gaze. "Oh no, it's fine. You should be careful. you might slip on ice."

He nods, giving you a kind smile. The Scottish man starts to leave, but the look your kid was giving him sent shivers down his spine.

Little Adira was giving him a fierce stare down from behind your leg before ultimately cutting her eyes at him as if he were merely a nuisance.

"Next in line! Mctavish!"

The man doesn't stay after that. You assume that it was him they were calling with the way he hurried off. Hope he doesn't fall, seemed like a nice guy.

Soap can't help but do a double take when be gets to the front. The little rascal was wearing his Lieutenants face, hawk eyeing anyone who dared got to close. It was like looking in a mirror.

He nudged Gaz, making a gesture to look back without making it obvious. "See the lass and her bairn in line?"

Gaz gives him a raised brow, looking back for a second before turning around. "There's a lot of kids with their mother's, Johnny."

Soap glances back, double checking to make sure you were still in line. “The lass with the wee one—she’s got the same wicked look as Lt. You cannae miss her.”

Gaz rolls his eyes but humors Soap by looking once more, his eyes scanning the crowd until they land on a little girl already mean-mugging him from a distance. He swiftly turns around, blinking in surprise, trying to comprehend what he saw. "Uh..."

Soap only nods in agreement. That was Ghost's face, on a kid no less. He wastes no time, elbowing Roach and getting him to look back as well, leaving the other Sergeant in the same shock as Gaz. "That is not a face a kid should have."

"Agreed." Gaz added, shuddering at the thought.

"Where's the cap?" Soap asks, the train ride no longer feeling like fun now that he’s discovered the jackpot.

"Market place with Lt. for cigs," Gaz knowingly remarked, remembering that Price had run out on their way here.

"Well, let's go show them a Christmas miracle," Soap shot up from his seat all too eagerly.

The sergeants just got their Christmas present.

#simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #sunshine-sunni

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giantkillerjack · 4 months ago

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I've said it before and I'll say it again:

If you are disabled and you need to lie to get the accommodations you need or to escape ableist social harassment, then it is not just morally acceptable to lie in that scenario, it is morally GOOD.

I say this with no irony or satire whatsoever (unlike the original post, which is very much meant to be sarcastic).

Abled people are always trying to be the "hero" who finds the "fakers," as though "fakers" are actually a concern for disabled people. - When instead I don't know a single disabled person who hasn't been denied the care they need by being called a faker on multiple occasions. That's what we ACTUALLY live in fear of.

(Also, notably, finding the "faker" is not actually about protecting disabled people for these self-appointed "heroes". It's actually about finding an ego-boosting outlet for personal aggression and frustration. They don't care that the government has the funding to care for all of us and yet refuses. They just want to pretend this isn't about them, and are using other disabled people as a moral shield.)

Besides, every person I've met who is actually LYING about their disability has done so not because they are faking being disabled (for all the AWESOME benefits that DEFINITELY exist - ????), but because their ACTUAL disability is not taken seriously by the gatekeepers who can deny them the help they need.

Lying in this scenario protects a disabled person from stigma, injury, pain, death, and/or social neglect. This is a moral good. Lying to protect people from abuse is good, yourself included.

You shouldn't get a wheelchair, walker, cane, shower chair, or any kind of assistive technology mobility aid because then you might become dependent on them. Just like how you also shouldn't get glasses if you have bad eyesight because then you might become dependent on those.

For instance, if you end up stuck using corrective eyewear, you could actually lose your ability to tell what things are even when they are extremely blurry! You need to get used to having migraines from seeing unclearly because if you wear glasses all the time, you are basically giving up!! You don't need to see things coming at you from far away! You just need to get good at dodging, and if you can't, then you have no one to blame but yourself!!

For example, I read a really heart-worming article recently about a girl who was stuck using glasses - just absolutely, tragically trapped in her eyewear from dawn to dusk, even though she was good and never ever complained; and I heard she trained herself to discern the blurry faces of her loved ones with 60% accuracy! - she was even able to walk down the aisle at her wedding WITHOUT forcing the discomfort of seeing a woman in glasses on all her guests!!

Sure, she had to give her vows with a splitting headache, and she couldn't see her husband's expression when he said "I do," but overall, SO inspi-ration-al!!! So up-lifting!!

(She didn't even have to use a seeing eye cane, which would have been the worst-case scenario, obviously, because she worked hard to make sure she looked LESS disabled, not MORE disabled!!! Everyone knows blind people exist solely to be a cautionary tale to sighted people!!)

Also, did you know some people get glasses when they only need them a little bit?? How selfish of them! Sure, there's not a shortage, and an increase in demand would result in overall increased accessibility to glasses--but emotionally it's like taking glasses away from someone who needs them more! After all, if everyone who needed glasses got them, then...... um...... more people would have glasses! Which is probably bad!!!!

I also had a friend who was trapped in glasses who saved up all her money for laser eye surgery, and I don't know why everyone doesn't just do that! Sure, some doctors say some people don't "qualify" and it "won't help" those people, but that's why you can't give up!! You don't want to be one of those people!

After all, what's the worse thing that could happen with an unnecessary laser surgery to the face that comes with crippling debt??? It's worth the risk to gain your FREEDOM back, and I'm so proud of my friend!!

Tragically, she did die later that year while driving Uber and squinting at street signs, but at least now I know my friend is finally free from the shackles of her terrible eyesight. #ripAshley #rippedAshley #justripit 😌😌😌❤😇😇😇

And that's why you shouldn't get used to using a mobility aid!! Because, like glasses, they are inherently embarrassing to be seen with; and - like glasses - it is more noble to silently suffer than to depend on unnatural technologies that force you to rely on them!!! (Besides, everyone else will be SO much more comfortable if you look normal!)

I hope you learned something today. 💖

#original #disability #ref #might just make a separate post about this but here you go #autistic meltdowns can cause me serious nerve damage and trauma and if i have enough of them in close enough succession... death #but people don't understand that. they think it is a child's tantrum most of the time.#so i call them seizures. because functionally that's what they are. and as long as i can communicate well enough to make sure #no dumbass tries to shove a wallet in my mouth - which DOES NOT HELP SEIZURES in any case btw - then i say it's a seizure #people are nicer and more helpful and more accommodating all around. saying 'if this happens i can have a meltdown'#involves a huge amount of risk and effort for them to understand. but 'i could have a seizure' - suddenly they DO have accommodation for me #fancy that!!#if your professor is gonna be a judgy ableist bitch about you missing class from a ptsd episode (or if you don't know how they'll react)#then tell them you have the flu. no questions get asked. they don't want the flu. they'll tell YOU to stay home!#and if they are ableist then they won't secretly think you're crazy or being dramatic and weak!#I used to feel really bad about the fact that I would do that. but now I recognize that it was really smart actually and in fact good.#if someone said i can't treat your broken leg unless you also have gastrointestinal distress #then baby you better tell them you got a stomach ache #if you can only walk 20 feet but you are denied a wheelchair if you can walk more than 15 feet... no you can't.#if the fire department won't believe your house is on fire unless you say you can smell the fires of Mount Doom specifically then #by god you are Frodo with the One Ring. whatever it takes not to die in this fire.#and you don't have to feel guilty about it either. you're not the one withholding firefighting services from people with burning houses #they have enough time and money to put out all the fires in the town. they just don't want to. that's not your fault.#if the fire dept told you they'll only put out the fire in your house if it is an electrical fire then don't tell them about the grease fir #like in an ideal world we would all be totally honest all the time but in this world if your disease doesn't have the right code in #Aetna's system then they'll leave you to die idk what to tell you.#protect yourselves. protect each other. break rules. be punk.#cripplepunk #for legal reasons i am clarifying that i have never lied to an insurance company.

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