#disability adjustment

[ceilidhtransing]

It never escapes my notice, as a glasses-wearer who is severely impaired without them, that the kind of people who come out of the woodwork to tell people who take medication, use disability aids, etc "are you sure you want to be dependent on drugs / aids / whatever for the rest of your life?" never come for people who need glasses.

I need glasses to live, and I know that I will probably be dependent on glasses for the rest of my life. It's a debated topic whether "terrible eyesight that's easily corrected with glasses" counts as a Disability™ or not, but I know that I am very disabled without glasses and I'm just as dependent on them to go about my life as, say, someone completely paralysed from the waist down is dependent on a wheelchair. Yet the weird ableist attitude about how "awful" and "life-ruining" it is to be "dependent on something" doesn't rear its head for glasses-wearers.

And this attitude always baffles me because not only is it not actually a shameful disaster to be "dependent on something for the rest of your life", as it's so often presented in abled society, but also because if you need something in order to live your life - a cane, a daily dose of medication, an accessibility adjustment, a hearing aid, a pair of glasses, or anything else - then you need it, and whether it would somehow be "preferable" not to be "dependent on that for the rest of your life" is a completely irrelevant question. That's not a choice you can make. "I had to choose between being dependent on glasses for the rest of my life, or simply Getting Good and not being shortsighted anymore" - like, what?????

If you need something for your disability, then whether you'd "rather not be dependent on it" is not the choice abled people seem to think it is. Hand-wringing about "but wouldn't you rather not be dependent on that?" [undertone: "shouldn't you be trying harder to not need that"] is completely tangential to the point: because if you need something, then either you have access to the thing that allows you to live a full(er) life, or you are denied access to that thing, but whether you have it or not you're still going to need it.

And if abled people are able (...no pun intended) to not be weird about people who will be dependent on glasses for the rest of their lives, they can sure as hell not be weird about people who are dependent on medication, aids, adjustments, or whatever else.

[benevolenterrancy]

the fish babies are NOT adjusting well to the limitations of being human

[charleslee-valentine]

Trudy refills Vincent’s cereal. He’s 2-3 years old and blind in one eye. He doesn’t need more cereal, he just needs his bowl rotated so he can see the cereal that was left over on his blind side. Not that we necessarily know how Vincent communicates without speech, but she hardly gives him time to answer her question about more before she’s refilling the bowl anyways. This is her approach to parenting her boys in general.

There’s no interest in fixing their actual issues. Rather than help Vincent to see what he already has in front of him, she’d rather add more, inadvertently also adding more onto the side he can’t see. At some point, this would just add to the issue. Overcompensation into overwhelm. Bo is brought in for breakfast kicking and screaming and it’s sort of evident why Trudy puts all her love into Vincent to the point of it being suffocating and unhelpful. Sure it could be a simple case of favoritism, but with the aspect of overcompensation specifically, it seems that she wants to balance her guilt over failing to parent one of her sons by pouring more effort than necessary into Vincent. Rather than giving the extra attention to Bo, it’s refilling a non-empty bowl of cereal.

I don’t think that necessarily mean she loves Vincent more. She finds him easier to parent. Fill the bowl whether or not he needs it because that’s easier than unpacking where Bo’s massive emotional outbursts are coming from. It seems more like love-bombing than genuine kindness. He’s “being such a good boy today,” but the implied part is an unsaid comparison to Bo. As twins, and conjoined twins at that, they’re not independent of each other. Vincent’s behavior exists only to contrast Bo’s, from her perspective. “Fix” his needs, and she can fix them both. Hence, preferring just to duct tape Bo to a chair than help him any.

Then Vincent grows up to become her protege, starting in his childhood but lasting until even after Trudy’s death. Over thirty years have passed since they were toddlers in those high chairs, but Bo gives a hint about why Vince got that ‘special privilege’ to not be as physically abused. “She always said that your talent would make up for what God took away from you.” Only, God didn’t take anything. Victor Sinclair doing illegal, unqualified surgery on his babies is why Vincent lost half of his face. Trudy only uses God’s name and religion as a shield for her own guilt about how her boys turned out. But it’s more likely she included Vincent in the wax business because she again, was dumping affection onto him over and over as her strategy.

Otherwise there isn’t as much favoritism between the boys. In their childhood photos, they both play piano, both play pool and baseball, both get to sit at the table with their birthday cake (without highchairs or bindings) and they play on the floor together. It's not entirely divisive between them, though it’s still obvious from which brother she’s slapping across his face and which brother she’s love-bombing which she’d prefer to deal with. Just not which she actually cares for more. Vincent wasn’t somehow spared from abuse in a house like the Sinclair household.

Interestingly, when Bo tells the story of Trudy and Victor, he mentions that once the Doc died, they were alone. Except, there’s at least one version of a prop newspaper stating that Trudy created a wax memorial for Victor. So this is just a false version of events most likely. Sure it could be that a decision changed, but there’s also the fact that, in the guns and ammo store, there’s a sign that says “Trudy’s Town or Wax.” And Bo tells Vincent, “We almost finished what mama started.” She’s also much older than the Trudy we see in the family photos and articles (even with the amount of cigarettes that woman smoked.) Ambrose is confirmed to have been abandoned for a decade, but to be turned into wax, Trudy would’ve had to die sometime between the abandonment of Ambrose and the present. Else she would’ve been properly buried most likely. The plan to fill Ambrose was hers, it’s just Bo that suggests using real humans (according to his apology to Vincent, he takes credit for the idea anyhow.)

Which makes her boys at least in their mid twenties when she died. In an older version of the script, Bo had killed her and Victor, but knowing it would put them all in foster care, that doesn’t quite make sense unless they were older. So the order of events is, Doc dying, the sugar mill closing, Trudy planning to reimagine Ambrose, and then dying herself.

The reason that’s important is because it’s emblematic of just how much pressure she was putting on both of her boys. And that’s not love. With two mentally ill, abused sons, (maybe three, since Lord only knows how they treated Lester once he came along,) that’s just manipulation. Victor and Trudy aren’t cartoon super villains for being bad to their boys. But when you can’t even just rotate a bowl slightly for your half blind little one, it’s shallow. Trudy has her cigarettes right in the boys faces in the opening and in most of the photos. Smoking was in one study linked to about 1/3rd of conjoined pregnancies, and in a similar case of conjoinment to the boys, one of the twins had lost an eye and had a prosthetic, but with minimal scarring because of the surgery being done in an actual legal hospital. It’s not about God taking anything, or about which is a little monsted and which is a very good boy- it’s about Trudy and Victor both messing up from the very beginning and causing the boys losses, then refusing to take accountability for it. Or, in the symbolic sense, to just do the right thing and turn a damn bowl of cheerios towards your blind kid.

[noliaert]

"Show me were you go at night", featuring a cigarette kiss

Fixed up on this one again

[rizatouchesthewalls]

Some of the Luigi Mangione x Reader posts I’ e been seeing have been horrific. This man is in prison (likely for life) and they’re projecting their fantasies on him like he’s a fictional character. The over-sexualisation is out of hand and I truly hope he doesn’t hear about how bad it is.

This!!! right!!! here!!!

Respect has been all but forgotten at this point. Life sentence and death on the line and here people are making fanfictions 😭 like okay edits fine but the smut is very very odd. that is another human being.

Hearing that he got choked up over the support he is receiving makes me sad, because I’m almost sure he’s only seen the people protesting outside and defending his cause rather than the creeps objectifying him. Even worse, I wonder if those people would care about our movement if he wasn’t attractive.

Though its the internet, I hope people who care for the message continue to fight for the cause against exploitative business and weaponized health care. Its really important to me and anyone else struggling.

Edit: Adding onto this, I as a disabled person really hate how people are ignoring the sheer anger that can come with being disabled. Like if for no other reason, I can very much understand how back pain could radicalize someone.

[kleptozoology]

Listen I am really happy that the United Healthcare CEO got shot, but yall are saying some CONCERNING shit about his suspected killer. First of all, you are innocent until proven guilty, so stop calling Luigi Mangione the assassin when he literally hasnt even had his trial yet. Secondly, yall treating him like a saint, a martyr, and the Second Coming of Christ (literally wtf, I've seen the art yall make) is fucking creepy. Seeing people compare him to art of the arrest of Jesus and making votive candles of him dressed as a saint? Fucking weird. That is not a normal thing to do no matter how much I hate UHC (I'm a disabled American who has had them deny my treatments repeatedly). Yall need to put some ice on your murder boners. I was pretty excited about this at first too, but yall have taken this to a crazy extreme. You've made a fandom. You've made a fandom that is bordering uncomfortably close to a cult. I think yall need a few deep breaths, a glass of water, and a fuckin wake up call. This did not hurt UHC in any measurable way. They replaced the CEO immediately as if they were cycling the laundry and the money machine kept churning. Hell, their stock actually increased in value immediately following the assassination.

My treatments still arent fully covered and my insurance keeps shifting me onto less effective medication because they dont want to pay for me to actually get well. Nothing has changed. This was a deeply satisfying moment of national catharsis, but the moment has passed and yall are making it weird.

[averixus]

To anyone who gets Personal Independence Payment (UK disability benefit) and has trouble with the types of communication they usually use (e.g. phone): I have just successfully got the DWP to promise that they will contact me by email only. If you want to do this, or need other adjustments in communication for disability reasons, email the address format.pip@dwp.gov.uk.

The magic formula to include in your email is:

"I am writing to request a reasonable adjustment in communication." (that's the legal jargon for them meeting your needs)

"I have [condition/s] and am defined as disabled under the Equality Act 2010." (that's the law that forces them to comply - you don't need specific diagnoses but can say e.g. "auditory processing issues" or whatever brief summary describes you)

"Due to my disabilities I am unable to communicate with the DWP by phonecall [or give any other communication types or formats you can't do]." (be brief but specific, you don't need to explain exactly why this need follows from your disabilities as long as you state that it does)

"Therefore, I need [your specific communication requirements] when communicating with the DWP." (tell them exactly what you actually need - for example, I said that I need asynchronous text-based communication such as email for both when the DWP contacts me and when I need to contact them directly. I specified that this includes assessments as well as any other contact about my PIP status or application. This means no in-person assessments!)

"Please contact me to confirm that the DWP will [meet your needs as requested]." (always ask for receipts)

"[Your full name], [your National Insurance number]." (make sure they can find your case)

And please feel free to share this info with anyone you think may need it! No need to refer to me or anything, just get it out there 👍 It's actually illega for them to not have already made this info public alongside their phone numbers and postal addresses, so.

[spookierz]

stardew valley alex with a knee brace guys. stardew valley alex with reoccuring issues from sports injuries. stardew valley alex with cognitive difficulties and chronic migraines from a tbi. stardew valley alex who is disabled....

[hemaris]

and i didn't even post about this yet but my boys are now INDOORS CATS! ❤️

[extreme-dyke-syndrome]

Just found out the tax return I'm using to buy forearm crutches can take 8 weeks to get to me. Having legs can wait, I guess.

Also, the fact that I have to use my tax return to be able to walk is fucking dystopian as shit, I hate it here.

[arotheosis]

Thoughts on Jan de la Vega and disability rep

I saw a post over on Twitter a while ago criticizing starstruck odyssey for having their only physically disabled character (Jan de la Vega) be a villain. As a physically disabled person myself, it’s kind of stuck with me, and I want to talk about why Jan actually was the kind of physical disability representation I really love seeing and would love to continue to see.

To be clear though, I also saw criticism of Jan’s character design not being considered a functional wheelchair. I think that’s a really valid criticism and I can’t speak on it cause I don’t use a wheelchair. I want to make it clear I’m referring specifically to the notion that Jan de la Vega is a villain, and therefore bad disability rep by being so.

First and foremost, Jan de la Vega isn’t a villain. By definition, at the start of the show Jan is an antagonist, as she is a force acting against our protagonists. But morally she’s not doing anything particularly different or more evil than what they’re doing. The world of starstruck is a world of lawlessness where morality is played fast and loose, and proldiers steal from each other all of the time. She’s a pirate. And a really good one at that. No one in the pc group is in any way hostile towards Jan after she takes their crates, they instead simply want to run away from her because they know she’s a formidable opponent. They respect her, to the point where Margaret expresses concern that she could end up recruiting people from the crew, because they’re impressed by her and understand that this is just what being a proldier is.

This doesn’t come off as villainous in the slightest. Jan is confident, capable, and smart. The players love her and want her to be on their side. And none of this is diminished by her disability. Jan being disabled is a part of her but it isn’t all that defines her. She makes her way through the galaxy doing what she needs to do and she’s allowed to be morally grey just like everyone else.

This moral greyness and the way that it’s not criticized by the crew is one of the things I value most about her. I find that often disabled characters are treated as these angelic miraculous characters that always do the right thing and are meant to inspire the audience. It almost feels infantilizing to assume that disabled characters always have to be morally pure and perfect. Jan isn’t evil, she isn’t a villain, she’s simply allowed to be as messy and as human as everyone else.

Very often I’ll watch a piece of media and think to myself “oh, someone like me really could never have adventures like this,” when I watch characters have to do even the mildest physically strenuous activity. But I could see myself being a starstruck proldier the way Jan is. Her using a wheelchair is never shown to impede her, and she’s good enough at fighting with it that she can take down Sidney, one of the most formidable fighters in the cast.

I love that. I love being able to see myself as a bitchy, grouchy space pirate that gets shit done no matter what methods she has to use. That feels so much more real than the millions of “look at this incredible and always perfect disabled person surpass their disability” pieces of media out there.

Now I will say I’d love to see more active disability representation on dimension 20. But I also will concede that this is a type of media where that type of thing is a little more difficult than just adding a disabled main character into any season. I wouldn’t necessarily want to see a physically disabled pc played by a non physically disabled player, for example. Even if they were willing to do a crazy level of deep dive and research, there’s something about the lived experience that would be lost.

Dimension 20 should absolutely increase the diversity of its cast though and I’d love to see a physically disabled player at the dome. In the meantime though it couldn’t hurt to have more physically disabled npcs, though hopefully some more research can be done to ensure fully accurate visual and story representation.

[mrghostrat]

I FUCKING LOVE BNF AU RAHHHHHHHH

do you have a friend help you with the discord messages? or do you have two seperate accounts you made just for the fic?

i wrote them all myself! and then used a workskin to make it appear like discord in ao3 :) this way you can disable the workskin, use reader mode, or download an epub etc and it'll still appear as plain text like the rest of the fic.

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

If I ever mention something I plan to do and never mention it again, I haven't actually forgotten its just on a long list of things I plan on doing and my brain is picking other things for me to do

[big-gay-bird]

Y’all I feel like I cannot express in words how much the response to the murder of the CEO has done for like, my sense self and genuine hope.

Since I first got sick, it’s felt like me and other disabled people against a world that truly means us nothing but harm sometimes. So many things reinforced this, whether related to my physical or mental disabilities. I felt constantly backed into a corner with my teeth barred, ready for a fight for my and members of our community’s literal life. I was here to claw my way through, to survive like a cockroach they can’t get rid of. I owed that to the more vulnerable members of my community. I refused to lay down and accept what I was handed, I was going to carver a better world one way or another.

I genuinely didn’t think the rest of the world saw just how constant and prevalent medical trauma, abuse and neglect is for people like me. I’m still one of the lucky ones, I know people murdered by this system. Black chronically ill women bear the weight of this violence in a way that causes immense and life long harm.

But when the CEO was killed, suddenly everyone flooded social media to point out just how much blood he had on his hands. The medical world froze and panicked. They had to answer for their crimes for maybe the first time ever. And it hasn’t stopped either. The “claims adjuster” is still be heralded as a hero across the political spectrum.

I am in aw. I feel seen, I feel heard, I feel like other people know that what happens to my community is wrong. I genuinely never expected that to happen in my life time.

Claims Adjuster, whether you’re Luigi or not, you cracked the world a bit to let the light get in. I don’t think I can ever express my gratitude enough.

[voidpunkpal]

how many times do people need to hear this

Do Not Touch People's Mobility Aids Without Getting Permission First !!!!

especially if you're a total stranger!!!!

idc if you're 'just trying to help'. or 'being nice'. you can mean well and do the worst shit on the planet. doesn't change anything.

ask. first. or die c:

[danepopfrippery]

They said Jordan Neely deserved to die because he was schizophrenic, an alleged drug user, and sickle cell sufferer.

THIS IS LITERALLY HOW HIS MURDERER WALKED FREE.

If you find this shit, along with all healthcare in the us shit, join me: