#chronic bullshit

[papermint-airplane]

God I wish my body were normal. I have two chronic lifelong conditions for which there is no cure: hypermobility and eczema. Hypermobility means my tendons in my joints are extra stretchy and my joints can overextend very easily leading to random dislocations, swelling, pain, and stiffness. Eczema means I get itchy, dry, painful rashes with welts all over my body that oozes, cracks, bleeds, swells, peels, and has a tendency to get infected very easily. And since both of those things are worsened by hormones, menstruation makes them worse.

Guess who started her period a week early.

Full body swelling and pain, yaaaaaaaay I'm so happy this is my life for the next week and that I can barely move. 🙃

Wanna see my gnarly-ass eczema-riddled arm? Don't say I didn't warn you if you click and regret it. It's not pretty.

Now imagine this on my entire body. Yes, even there. I am miserable right now.

And believe me, it's redder and looks worse in real life.

[cashthecomposer]

✧･ﾟ:* Everything aches *:･ﾟ✧*

[viaravt]

Fever of 102 but first Rona test was negative. I'll take another after a nap. Taking an antibody test should not make me feel like I ran a marathon, but here we are.

This is a particularly bad flare. It's got me considering applying for disability. I can't work like this😭 literally everything hurts

[matchakuracat]

to be disabled is to constantly be blamed for things that are out of your control

[enbycrip]

Pretty much no impairment is as simple as abled people think it is.

People are taught to believe that disability is a simple “Can’t”. Can’t walk. Can’t talk. Can’t hear. Can’t see. An ability is just excised and no longer exists, if it ever did.

In reality, it’s rarely that simple.

It’s “I can sort of do x thing sometimes, but I get muscle spasms making it very dangerous or impossible to do it reliably or safely”. Or “I can do x thing but it causes me so much pain I will be unable to do anything else for hours or days after doing it”. Or “I can do x thing but I constantly injure myself doing it because of lack of muscle control”. Or “I can do x thing but so badly I functionally can’t do it two inches beyond my face, but now I have a mobile phone I can put up to my face so I can do it in certain very specific circumstances”.

None of these things mean someone isn’t disabled. And if you think it does, then it’s *your* ideas about disability that need to change.

The reason disabled people end up saying “can’t” when the reality is more complex is because people don’t trust our boundaries. They force us to injure ourselves instead of accommodating, or use energy that means we have none left to do *anything* else we need to do for the rest of the day. Or week. Or month.

Abled people need to start trusting disabled people, or you need to shut up, get out of any situation where you have power over us, and provide someone who will. Those are the only options.

The way we are expected to live in a performative hell of the making of more privileged people who then turn around and criticise us for not suffering in the precise way they have decided we should is genuinely nothing but ridiculous.

Just stop.

[greyves-under-fire]

the grief feels like a poison that runs so deeply into me, into my history, into my future, and into my right now that it feels like it's become a part of my blood.

I keep waiting for it to not be so hard, and to not still create this unbearable ache in my chest that causes panic over worrying my heart will start skipping again.

but even trying to process anything to as much of an extent as i can feels so consistently hopeless when the brain fog caused by an immune system immune to working properly makes sure i never can.

Idk, i'm trying to do my best. I'm really trying, and i know that's all i can do.

but. fuck.

Having dreams crushed by disability is such a deeply traumatic experience, the realization that you’ll never be able to do the thing you want most in life because your body isn’t able to handle it. Waking up the day after you received the news and feeling that utter sense of heartbreak in your chest. Watching people go on and do those things while you sit on the sidelines, forced to watch bitterly. That feeling of being trapped, imprisoned by your inability to do what you love. The grief, the anger, the sadness. All because your body doesn’t allow you to.

[chronicallycouchbound]

The narrative that “you should care about disabled people because one day that’ll be you” is ableist in and of itself.

You should care about disabled people’s rights because you should care about the disenfranchisement of a marginalized community.

Becoming disabled is not a punishment. Becoming disabled is not a threat. Becoming disabled is not cosmic retaliation for being ableist. Becoming disabled is morally neutral.

[themathomhouse]

this disability pride month, stop making jokes about people in wheelchairs standing up or walking.

can I stand and walk? sure, for a short while and with pain. the consequences for trying to be out all day without a wheelchair are that I'll be in bed for the rest of the week, too tired and in too much pain to move.

but the government won't give me my own wheelchair because they have the same attitude as these jokes - I can stand up, so I don't need one. exercise is good for you, you should walk!

it keeps me trapped in the house, unable to do anything more than short stints anywhere without borrowing or hiring a wheelchair - one that causes me pain to sit in and relies on someone to push me (usually with difficulty), because they're not going to have a high-end chair for that sort of thing.

it's not a miracle that a wheelchair user can stand or walk. it's something we should aspire to see more often.

[eatfriesandsleep]

able-bodied people always have the audacity to say “you’re tired because you sleep too much”

[waitineedaname]

headcanon that shen jiu had chronic pain from old injuries and broken bones that never healed properly, but shen yuan didn't really notice because he already had chronic pain in his previous life so he's used to being at just a baseline level of discomfort all the time

[mascspomax]

you know what? I deserve to be angry.

[wheelingwithgrace]

One thing I wish more abled people understood is that even with accommodations disabled people often struggle with finding and maintaining employment. A lot of workplace policies cater to abled people and the assumption that no one will ever be sick. For example , I just started a new job and will probably be terminated due to the fact that within the first 90 days of employment, a person can only call off 3 days. I believe it gets bumped up to 6 after that in an 8 month period? A doctor's note does not excuse it either. One of my call off days was used for surgery and recovery.

In other words , even for an otherwise healthy person, they expect them not to have any issues pop up that could require them to take an extended period of time off. "Oh, you broke your leg this morning?" I'm sorry you still have to come to work, or it counts against you, and you could face termination.

I, as a disabled person, get told to "stop being lazy and find a job," and these are the policies I'm expected to conform to.

[batwynn]

Sending this out with special emphasis for folks who may not feel and/or express emotions the same way as neurotypicals expect, who often get told this. You deserve to be loved.

[crazycatsiren]

The next abled parent who tells me I can't possibly understand "tired" because I'm not a parent is getting one of my canes shoved down their throat.

[daisyjohnsn]

+

[matchakuracat]

disabled people aren't "strong" for not using mobility aids when they need them. lots of people are/would be a lot stronger with the help of mobility aids, that is the reason they exist. using mobility aids doesn't make you weak, it's quite literally the opposite