#i am in fact disabled by that chronic illness which is why i call myself disabled.

[kerosene-saint]

reminder that chronically ill and disabled are not the same thing, you can be disabled and chronically ill but you can also be chronically ill and not disabled and disabled and not chronically ill

[witchesofvaliant]

My Take on Worshipping & Working with Ares

(Disclaimer: "My take" means my personal opinion and deriving heavily from my own experience.)

I work with Ares primarily in Shadow Work, and worship/work with him heavily in my practice.

1: The Misconceptions

I see a lot of "I work with Ares, so I work out all the time for him", and while exercise is wonderful for the body, and I myself love to get in a good walk, I have never devoted that to Ares. I am not saying you shouldn't, but the reason I mention it at all is the fact that many people equate working with Ares or those who do as muscle-headed gym bros who are always having to exercise or have to prove their masculinity. As a computer nerd who doesn't have exercise in their daily life and has chronic disabilities/illness that make that harder, I just don't do that. If I can, I take a good long walk for an hour or two about twice or once a week (if I can), that's mostly as far as it goes. In terms of proving my masculinity? Why? Let's dispense with the antiquated gender roles that say we have to assign the tough masculine aura to the cis guys. I am a trans male who has no issue looking feminine and being both a Queen and a King, that's just how it is. Ares can tell me himself if he has an issue with it, but he never has. And after getting to know him for some time, personally, he's not the type to give a fuck about your gender presentation. That also means, you don't have to be a guy to work with him, as I have also seen before.

Now, if we're trying to be true to the ancient Greek times, he was the primary deity worshipped in Sparta, and once the Romans adopted (which is putting it nicely) the Greek deities into their belief system, Mars was used as the primary deity equivalent to Zeus (Jupiter as he was called), with the common epithet to represent him being Mars Ultor, basically a title of greatness and power for him. He was used to inspire and push young men in those times toward a great strength and motivation in terms of military service as that was a greater focus in their culture than it was in the Greek culture (Not that the Greeks couldn't fight of course, they had their war deities, and Ares was one of them, but there IS a massive shift in the Greek and Roman mindsets when involving war, too much to get into). Now, here's where I stop, as I'm not an expert on Greco-Roman history and the two cultures, but it should demonstrate the point well at least on where these ideas so many people are spreading come from and why many think they're valid for everyone.

2: Worship

I tend to worship him by simple prayer. I take the knife I have and meditate with it, praying to him or simply talking. Sometimes, I don't even take the knife Lol. He's honestly a very simple person to deal with in my experience. You don't need to do fancy shit for him as devotional acts, he values respect and honor above all, so if you are giving that and offering this to him, he's a very pleased guy. I can't and don't use candles or fire in my practice, but my fire element/offering is going into a game and killing some bad guys. Is it semi-stereotypical in terms of the aggression? Kind of. Is it more focused on lessening my own stress and self-control so I'm taking my stress and anger out in a game than on people? Yes, and usually this isn't done FOR Ares, this is done more in terms of working on myself as agreed upon with Ares. Which goes into our next subject.

3: Work

Working with Ares is a huge part of my relationship with him (don't get me wrong, I love to just exist with him and listen to Fallout Boy too) but it's here where I have much more to say as I have always focused on Shadow Work in my life, and that only increased when I started my practice and my move away from the toxic Christianity I was raised with. Ares was not the first to work with me on this, and I had to work on some stuff myself just to be open to the idea of working with other deities. But in terms of Ares, he has been someone that I feel a strong connection to because of the heart, not my masculinity, not fighting others and exercising, but more because of the internal struggles and survival for my life I have had throughout my entire life. Be it with illness, my heart and trauma, or defending others, mainly my little brother, but all these thins took an internal struggle, not am external one. I find I work with him purely in terms of internal survival (either against physical or mental illness) and Shadow Work, which means understanding my heart, my will, and how to overcome the pain that has broken those things in my past. THIS part of him, is the part I rarely see anyone say anything about. Or everyone pairs him with Aphrodite and says this is their thing. I don't understand why it can't be him alone, I have hardly ever worked or dealt with Aphrodite, and while I give her respect and have given her my prayer, she is rarely there as my path just doesn't flow that way.

And also.. Why does no one talk about the fact that Ares can connect to illness too? In my opinion, he connects to illness through the issue of having to fight through it or even fight to keep someone alive.

I love embracing him as someone that doesn't require you to be a cis man with a six pack, or fight a literal war or fight other people just to work with him, and I really want to stress that you don't have to be these things, or change who you are as a person or fit into any requirement to work with him, and you don't have to do this with any deity either. You bring yourself first, that's all you truly need to bring to them, yourself and an open mind and ears to listen.

(Damn, this was long, hope people actually read this rant lmao)

If you got to the end, congratulations! And thank you for reading, I deeply appreciate that and you! 💖

[alullinchaos]

vent and a lot of thoughts below the read more related to illness (chronic illness) and disability

(large inhale. large exhale.) i try not to talk about being sick very much. for a variety of reasons mainly because I feel like the label of "chronically ill" doesn't belong to me. because all the people I see online who talk about being chronically ill are constantly dealing with symptoms, either due to their healthcare team not treating them properly or their symptoms not Being extremely treatable. I am lucky. I take my pill, one pill, every day and I am mostly okay. "mostly" okay, in that I can't run or exercise hardly at all. in that I feel extremely uncomfortable using a flight of stairs, and often am in pain when doing so at school (because of my backpack). in that I never know how much I'm going to sleep at night, that I often don't feel fully rested when I wake up. I am constantly experiencing some level of physical discomfort or pain, and while it is never something I can't just ignore, it does annoy me. this is not to mention the mental load of taking my medication. I have to take it an hour (at least) before I eat breakfast, so I wake up, take it, and go back to sleep. so every single day I have to ask myself if I remember taking it (hard to do so when you're half asleep and when it's the same every single time) and I stress about it a lot. my dose just got upped again even though I'm not sure it should've been but I don't feel comfortable starting a discussion with my provider about it. every time I see her (like I did earlier this week) the discussion is always the same. I never feel more informed. I never feel like I'm being properly treated, even though she's nice to me and I get my meds. this probably has something to do with the fact that she made me believe I had cancer for a month. not maliciously, she's just sort of incompetent. the thing about my medication is that at some point if I stop taking it I'll die, and I have no idea when that will be, but I assume if my dosage is getting upped again then that day is coming closer. I don't know if this means it's already hit. I'm almost at the number my friend gave me for their "severe" prescription, because they recently got diagnosed with the same autoimmune disorder I have, and they were given that dosage because they're "severe." so am I severe? I have no idea. obviously I will continue to take my medication. it makes my life substantially better. I can kinda do things now, which I couldn't before. but I think it makes a difference in my mind if it's me taking it because I don't want to feel like shit or if it's me taking it because I'll die otherwise, y'know? in a sense they are the same because if I go untreated then it'd lead to my death because of the effects on the rest of my body. but they are also very different, because looking out for the symptoms of Not Feeling Great as a way to know I forgot my medication vs. looking out for symptoms of About To Go Into a Coma and Possibly Die are very different things. i say all this and i barely feel comfortable calling myself disabled, because a lot of disabled people are people who can't be "helped" and i'm very sorry for them. i keep thinking about that post someone made about how they had two moms and then they were gay, and their experience being gay was totally different from what people normally have to deal with because of the total absence of homophobia or ignorance on the subject. and how identities shouldn't be defined by suffering. am I only disabled if I were to lose access to my medication? am I only disabled if someone is forcing me to run a ten minute mile and I collapse? I don't know the answer. I really don't. I'm not looking for comfort here, but any of my disabled mutuals (I know there's at minimum two of you) feel free to weigh in. I'm not an expert. also big disclaimer that my mom was disabled (which is why she died) so maybe my understanding of the world is warped as a result of that.

[threadedwheels]

ember and his health; an informative post

( aka - the fates hit Ember with a baseball bat called “illness” until he stopped moving )

cw for discussions of; physical and mental illnesses, minor ableism, chronic pain

While I’ve made a lot of mentions to Ember’s health, I promised myself I’d make an actual informative guide to direct people to for questions. As a quick piece of information about me: a lot of Ember’s relationship to his disabilities is based off of how I cope with it. I’m noting this because I don’t want to seem like I’m coming from a place of just “I wanted to cause this guy problems” and instead “I have never seen a disabled character who wasn’t babied and who wasn’t excused for actions because of their disabilities”.

I don’t have all of these things, namely I’ve never been diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) or Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), so if there are any inaccuracies I apologize! I have a lot of overlapping symptoms which are the ones I tend to focus on. Also, I do not have a complete comprehension of the healthcare system in TWST, so I am making assumptions and kind of using the fact that Ember comes from a traditional and slightly isolated home as reasoning for any differences in canon vs what I am writing.

With that, lets get into it

- BODY -

Ember has something called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, specifically the classical subtype. This affects the connective tissues in his body, making his joints hyper-mobile and unstable. It also causes his skin to be stretchy, something that isn’t mentioned as much, and causes him to scar a lot easier and worse than others. It’s genetic, he inherited it from his dad, and is something that will worsen throughout his life.

Ways in which this effects him includes:

- The use of mobility devices, namely his cane, crutches, and wheelchair.

- He almost always has all of his body covered, with the exception of occasionally wearing a turtleneck he cut the sleeves off of.

- He easily dislocates, sublexes, and sprains his joints- especially his legs and shoulders due to use.

A common comorbidity with EDS is POTS. This is what causes him to faint when he stands too fast. Essentially, his heart doesn’t get enough blood returned when he moves too fast and it will beat faster, usually requiring him to lay back down for a bit.

- MIND -

Ember’s mental health struggles, however, are not diagnosed. He isn’t fully aware of them himself. He has depression and is autistic.

For his depression, this is what causes him to not fully care for himself, come off as snippy, tending to isolate himself during lows. Until recently, he would successfully isolate himself, only interacting with others while working. I’ve made mentions in the past to this vaguely- namely in how his room is in a state of disrepair, he hasn’t been taking care of himself, and is quick to fight others. To him. this is simply an unfortunate part to being the next Oracle.

For his autism, he mainly is autistic because I myself am and I find it incredibly difficult to not write autistic characters. He’s more literal, causing his prophecies to be incredibly upfront and without much room for interpretation, doesn’t understand social cues, and has a special interest in death and magic.

- WHY DOES THIS MATTER ? -

If Ember was able bodied and neurotypical, he wouldn’t be himself. He is like this less because there’s evidence in the lore that he is twisted from and more because, as I mentioned, I wanted a character like him to exist. It matters because Ember, at his core, is someone who is struggling who will never admit it. Especially since being the Oracle already hurts his body.

[aviewfromtheclouds25]

This is a song I wrote almost a year ago, during the darkest time of my life. I was grieving for my mum and fighting daily abuse from the person who claimed to be my sister - the only relative I had left - in the place I used to call home, all while still battling chronic illness and disability. I have always turned to writing and music to transmute my pain back into love, the darkness back into light. So I wrote this song. And I want to share it with anyone who may be struggling, who may feel unable to admit how they're struggling for any reason. I was dealing with PTSD when I wrote this song; I hadn't opened up to anyone about the abuse I had been facing for months since my mum had passed away because I had no other family and no longer knew who I could trust. The only person I truly trusted was not able to be part of my life at that stage. It has been one heck of a journey this past year, but somehow I healed that PTSD and have even been reclaiming my physical health after years of chronic illness putting my life on hold. When my mum passed away, I vowed that I was going to get back to living and do a whole tonne of living for the both of us. And that's exactly what I've been doing. I cut my abuser out of my life for good, and then I reclaimed my life, myself and my voice. And I am very lucky and forever blessed to have had the biggest support and best cheerleader since reconnecting with the man I love (that one person I truly trust - we found a way to be part of each other's lives again. True love really does overcome all, folks. <3), my fiancé, who is my absolute rock and the man who has inspired every word I've ever written about love and soulmates on this blog. He is my eternal soulmate and I couldn't have got through all of this without him. <3

So I'm sharing this song here for anyone else struggling through hard times, who doesn't know how to open up or who to turn to. I'm sharing this song as a reminder that even in our darkest moments, none of us are ever truly alone. And that the only way to heal is to allow ourselves to truly feel.

When we disconnect from our pain, we disconnect from our hearts. When we disconnect from our hearts, we disconnect from ourselves. When we disconnect from ourselves, we disconnect from others. Leading to isolation, loneliness, apathy and total separation. As Rumi said, “The cure for pain is in the pain.”

Everyone is going through something. Some people talk about it. Some don’t. Some people talk about some things, but not others. None of that changes the fact that we are all going through stuff. Which is why we must all remember to show compassion, empathy and kindness to one another. To show humanity. After all, there can be no humanity without U-N-I-T-Y. We live in a capitalist rat race paradigm of a society controlled by fear and division, but there is far far more that unites us than divides us. This illusion of society would have everyone stand alone in apathy to continue their control through separation, but as individuals we can choose to stand together in the darkness and come to find that we ourselves are the light we all seek. Because the light is love, and love comes from unity. You can light an infinite number of candles with just one flame.

“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.” Thich Nhat Hanh

[newhologram]

I know only a few of you are on IG so I wanted to give an update here on the past few days. I am doing this knowing the potential risk but I need to also record where I'm at right now in case anything weird happens.

My week has been like this so far. Sunday: Family Member 1 misplaced their Xbox controller. They kept asking me if I knew where it was, each time growing more and more aggressive. I don't have an Xbox, I reminded them. I have my own controller for my PC. But they kept knocking loudly on my door. They followed me outside where I was vaping and tried to accuse me of I don't even know what. Pawning off their controller? FM1 said, "Is there something going on that you're not telling me? SOMEONE'S messing with me!" Later that night they and their gf were making dinner. FM1 suddenly knocked harshly on my door and said aggressively, "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE OVEN MITTS" in an angry voice. I was already stressed from them harassing me earlier about the controller. I came out of my room, heart racing, and told them I had not used them that day. I helped find the mitts, which had fallen behind the trash can because the hanging hook had broken. I went to bed on edge, feeling unsafe and targeted, wondering why my family member was suddenly acting so paranoid and accusing me of misplacing their things... Something they actually have done to me my whole life, denying it until the moment my item is found, when they suddenly remember they did move it there (or accidentally throw it out/destroy it). The controller ended up being some random place in the living room. Monday: I went to leave for my acupuncture appointment. My booster seat/pillow thing was missing from my car. Not in the trunk or anything. I cannot drive without it. I'm too short to see over the steering wheel. I called FM1 and they have no idea where it could be, despite the fact that they drive my car every day. FM1's gf helped find it, in the garage. But I still had an epic fucking meltdown, sobbing the whole way to and from my appointment. I just cannot handle people moving my shit and disrupting my schedule like that. And it just hurt so much more knowing that FM1 was so awful to me the day before about their stuff being misplaced. I'm always having my personal belongings, my feelings, my personhood, disrespected. It hurts deeply. When I got home I stressed to them that this is my car, and my accommodation should not ever be removed from it under any circumstances. It was after this that I decided it was time to hold a family meeting. I called Family Member 2 and 3 over to the house. I read a long letter to them in which I told them about the talks I have had with my therapist, psychiatrist, and another psychologist. Even though I cannot be formally assessed and diagnosed at this time, I am being treated for autism. I detailed to my family my entire life of trauma that is traced back directly to my autistic traits, and my needs not only not being met, but being outright denied. I was denied empathy most of my life for my sensory issues, my pain, everything. A big part of this is gaslighting. Even if it's unintentional or not malicious, gaslighting is incredibly traumatic. Especially when it comes to my sensory issues. I have had even more problems with overstimulation the past year which means I can barely sleep, so my daily naps are even more important. I try to coordinate my naps when there is less activity in my house. But if I'm in a ton of pain and extra sensitive and ask for quiet, that's when I get in trouble and a fight happens. That's when FM1 tells me I "need to be realistic" and "can't expect the whole world to shut up for you"... when I'm literally saying "I have a migraine and need to rest, can you please not play loud music or slam cupboards in the kitchen for a few hours?"

I was emotionally neglected and abused by both parents. A lot of it is just the result of their own trauma that they have not dealt with... But I have also been physically threatened and assaulted by them at different times, though it only happened those specific times. (They won't ever admit to it though.) The emotional and mental abuse still goes on in my home. I am not allowed to have emotions. I have been told "STOP. WHY ARE YOU CRYING. LIFE'S NOT FAIR. WHEN YOU GET OUT IN THE REAL WORLD YOU'LL HAVE SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT" over and over--like... in response to me crying about my pet dying, or in response to me crying bc I'm in horrible pain from my chronic illnesses, or crying after my usual yearly ER visit. I am also not allowed to have boundaries. I have tried to communicate with FM1 that these things hurt me deeply. And their response is basically, "YOU'RE SO UNGRATEFUL. I PUT A ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD!" and threats such as "BETWEEN TAKING CARE OF YOU AND GRANMDA, ONE OF THESE DAYS I'M GOING TO DRIVE OFF AND YOU'LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN!" or "I'M THE ONE WHO SHOULD KILL MYSELF BECAUSE I HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF YOU"-- y'know, in response to having a disabled child. Ouch. The message is clear: I am nothing but an inconvenience and a burden to my family. I still have nightmares about them abandoning me, or abusing me more. I think in their heads they think that they love me. But this isn't love. If I try to talk to them about how dangerous it is for them to say things like that to me, they say "I never said/did that." Which brings us back to the gaslighting: I said that every time they gaslight me and tell me that my emotions/thoughts/experiences aren't real, it triggers me so badly that I self-harm and become suicidal.

I was very clear with them: I said that I can no longer have that in my life because one day it will kill me. I don't wanna die that way. I want to live. I have very bad PTSD and it's something I have worked on for 8 years but it has been worse the past year with so many disruptions and FM1's worsening narcissistic traits. I gave the choice to them. I said if they gaslighted me again that they were making the decision to not be in my life. Because this is about preserving my life. I'm trying not to die here. I'm literally trying to save my own life, even if that means not having a relationship with my family. They accept that I am autistic... But they then took turns gaslighting me. When I pointed out, "that's gaslighting. that's exactly what I just said in my letter. What you're doing is gaslighting" they went even harder on it. They said my experience and my trauma is "not in line with reality". They also said I "need to be reasonable" with the boundary that I'm setting (meaning: they don't believe in boundaries at all). They tried to guilt trip me with, "you can't cut someone out of your life because what if they DIE and then you FEEL GUILTY??" (I mean, what if I killed myself because you keep hurting me? Wouldn't you feel guilty about that?) They also guilt tripped me with "well we TRY to invite you to family stuff, and we try to include you, but you never want to go..." um... I guess they forgot I am chronically ill? Sorry if I don't have the energy or pain tolerance to drive an hour each way to a loud family party after I've worked all week? I cried and cried, I said this is exactly what I told you that you do to me and how it endangers my life... and you're doing it... while telling me you don't do it to me... They were all weird and told me "we love you and would do anything for you!" except... I guess, not gaslight me constantly? Idk. I felt so trapped. I felt so hopeless. I was up all night crying. I wondered, "Why is the idea of me having distance from them somehow worse than me being dead? Why would they prefer that I die rather than set a boundary that will save me?" And then I remembered: I had set the terms. They broke them. You do this, you're out of my life, because me being alive is more important than us having a relationship which will eventually kill me. I'm not trapped. It doesn't matter if they think they can prevent me from setting this boundary because they can't. I'm in charge of my boundary. So I blocked them on social media, as well as their phones. I have to unfortunately keep FM1 unblocked bc I live with them, they drive my car, and they look after my cats while I am at work. If I didn't have so many great things happening behind the scenes, if I didn't have my cats, if I didn't have amazing friends and followers who are supportive and kind... I can definitely see that I would have ended my life that night in some alternate timeline. That is how much pain I was in from them doing that to me. Them literally trying to gaslight me into not setting a boundary. I mean it would've been so ridiculous on their part, can you imagine? Me: Hey family, when you gaslight me, it makes me suicidal. I don't want to die, so either you stop doing that, or we can't have a relationship. Family: UHH NO *gaslights me anyway* Me: ok *kills self* Family: *surprised Pikachu face* Like???? Would they really have been shocked because it seems like they should have known since I told them directly? And that just shows that they really don't take my pain seriously at all. They think I'm overly sensitive and that my trauma is not real. That would have been a painful wake up call for them. I told my therapist all of this. And she agrees that this is good, this is going to not only ween them off of me but also allow me to focus on all the good stuff I have going on. I have to get moving. So much stuff has been lagging because I'm constantly recovering from them triggering me. I'm going to focus, and heal, and gtfo of here. Thank you for your support and for never invalidating my pain.

[animerunner]

What Happened Is Not Right And That’s Okay (Chapter 2)

Ao3

Link to Chapter 1 Fandom: The Owl House Rating: T Warnings For this Chapter: Dehumanization, ableism, possible borderline gaslighting, and parental ignorance/neglect possibly bordering on child abuse.  Relationships: Eda Clawthorne & Lilith Clawthorne, Eda Clawthorne & Eda Clawthorne’s Mother, Eda Clawthorne & Principal Bump (additional relationships to be added as the story progresses. Summary:Living with a curse was never a simple task. And really from day one Eda knew it was going to be complicated. But she can't help but wonder at times. Just why hers has to be this complicated.

In short: An Exploration of what life might have been like for Eda growing up with the curse. AN: Hey there so what story is basically what it says on the tin. With some creative liberty of course.

Something to keep in mind is that this story progresses: 1. Explore Eda's character and others in response to the curse 2. Help myself explore and come to terms with my own Chronic Illness 3. Help educate others who aren't as familiar with disabilities on the realities of the situation. This one is important to me since the fandom can have an ableism issue. And I would like for readers to maybe take away why the use of certain tropes is a lot worse than they might realize. 4. This story is not meant to be either tragedy or inspiration porn.  5. I've only really begun interacting with the disability community in the last few years. So if I do a misstep its unintentional ignorance. Which I realize is not great either. I just want to make clear my intent is not malicious. If someone else who is in the community in some form be it Neurotypical, disabled, chronically ill, etc. sees something questionable within the story that comes off as unintentionally ableist please tell me. I would be happy to clarify if the plot beat was unintentional (and fix it) or somehow deals with the story itself. Which will happen sometimes. 6. Some of this is based on my own experience. Some of it is not. The parents issue this chapter is a good example of it not being based on my own experience. 

This story will touch on some topics that might be sensitive to some readers. I will include warnings . If your sensitive to the topic please keep that in mind before starting it. Also please bear in mind that not all chapters will have the same element. So while one chapter might have one issue, the other might not. A good example of this is an arc I will be exploring later in the story involving ableism in sports. 

For anyone who wasn’t around for the first chapter. This was originally inspired by @beckyarteest​‘s fic before it went off and became its own quasi multi chapter AU (I am bad at sticking to canon compliance): I'm getting old and I need something to rely on.

Anyways Actual story is under the read more. Ao3 link is at the top. Please let me know what you think!

One day turned into two and two turned quickly into a week. And after that with no real sign of the ‘curse’ resurfacing, Eda had actually started to think that maybe everyone else was right.

Maybe whatever had happened that day was just a one off thing. 

Unfortunately, reality had made that hope come crashing down just over two weeks after “the duel that wasn’t” with Lilith.

                                                  =============

Eda wouldn’t remember the moment that would properly change everything about her life.

Though, she guessed that wasn’t entirely accurate. Considering the biggest moment had happened a week prior was when she had been supposed to be vying for an Emperor’s Coven spot against Lily. The day of her first transformation.

However the incident in potions class, the moment they now knew this was almost certainly not just a one off incident like they had been hoping? That was the moment it became all too real for Eda. 

Even if it would be a while longer before it became real for the rest of the family. That was the day reality started to sink in for Eda. As it was the day that she knew at least to an extent that her life wasn’t going to ever be the same.

It would also be her first gateway into the many, many issues that came with the curse. Whether it be other people’s treatment of her cursed form, right or wrong, or just still having people take her seriously in the beginning. 

Something that would be a recurring struggle she would have to deal with in the coming years.

Much like the duel, she would only be told what had happened afterward. The entire time she was transformed she wasn’t even aware of what was going on. 

It was something that would over time become  associated with fear and worry. At the time though, for an Eda who was still in denial, it was more of a source of annoyance. 

Eda didn’t like that she had to rely on other people to necessarily do ‘the right thing’. Especially since in both instances so far it nearly hadn’t ended in her favor.

Thankfully of all people it was apparently Principle Bump who came to her rescue. Seeing reason when one of the other teachers had tried to suggest handing her off to the head of the Beast Keeping classes for the time being... 

Bump scowled at that not particularly liking the way this conversation was going, “She is still a student. A transformed one but one nonetheless. Unless she starts attacking someone there is no reason to be summoning Arden.”

Sure, he may not be particularly fond of Eda’s antics at times. Sometimes he wished that the entire Clawthorne dynamic wasn’t like how it was. It was a source of many of his headaches.

But that did not mean he supported putting Eda in a cage.

Even if she wasn’t in her right mind currently, she was still a student. And she wasn’t being aggressive. Honestly, this other form so far hasn't been aggressive at all. Though who was to say that wouldn’t change?

He was more than a bit concerned with how little they knew. However, there was one thing he was certain on: that forcing her into a cage would make things worse, not better.

Not that he particularly liked the idea even before you factored in the fact that they’d be caging a student.

“So what do you suggest we do with her then, sir? Leaving her out could cause property damage.”

Which, arguably, was more Eda than anything else. 

“Put her in my office and call a healer. Hopefully someone will know what to do to get her to transform back.”

“Sir, I must protest. Putting her with you could put you-”

Bump cut the other teacher off before he could continue. “I didn’t become the principal of this institution by sitting on my thumbs Marcus. I am more than capable of handling an unruly student. Even if she has been transformed into another creature.”

Not that he genuinely thought handling would be an issue.

                                                 =============

“So what your saying is neither of you can help.”

 Bump had ended up summoning both a healer and grabbing DeFrost anyway. Hoping maybe one of them would know how to solve their issue. 

 “I apologize, sir. But I’m used to dealing with minor curses. Things of inconvenience mostly. Under normal circumstances, I would refer this student to a specialist. This is way beyond my own capabilities to treat.”

 And of course, they couldn’t do that without involving the Clawthorne parents. Who he had tried to alert when Edalyn had transformed again. But they had both been busy and he had yet to hear anything from them yet.

 “And I’ve never seen a creature quite like this. Cursed or otherwise. I could possibly see if I have anything discussing something similar to Ms. Clawthorne. However...”

 “Most likely Edalyn will have transformed back by then.” Bump concluded.

 So apparently they were dealing with not just a curse. But a rare curse. Great. 

 Why was it that nothing involving the Clawthornes was just plain and simple?

 “At the very least can you tell me if she’s any sort of danger?”

 That way he could have his staff stop bothering him.

 DeFrost adjusted their glasses. “Well it's hard to say without knowing the curse or how it impacts her mind. But based on normal cursed creature behavior most likely she won’t be a danger to anyone unless she’s provoked. However there’s still a lot of questions there...”

 “Like what could provoke her.”

“Exactly.” DeFrost  nodded. “Sir, I know you said you could handle if anything happened but-”

“I can handle myself just fine Arden. I appreciate your concern but if I need your help again I will ask for it.”

“Understood sir.” DeFrost agreed reluctantly. Before taking their leave.

“Am I dismissed as well sir?”

“No. Actually I wanted to ask. I know you can’t help her return to normal. But I imagine the transformation back won’t be easy on her. Is there anything we can do to ease that at least?”

“Well yes. But that would normally involve the family…”

“I’ll handle anything that might come if they protest. This is already a difficult time for Edalyn. Let's not make it worse.”

                                                =============

Thankfully time really was all they needed for Eda to transform back. 

Though rather than answering his questions and possible suspicions. Eda’s return to awareness just raised even more of them in their steed.

“Welcome back Edalyn. How are you feeling?”

“Like an icicle is trying to drive a hole into my skull,” Eda said, wincing again rubbing the right side of her head. “What happened?” 

“I believe that you will probably want this, then.” Bump rather than answer the question slid the potion that the healer had left for Eda when she finally returned to normal. “The healers figured you might have one after you transformed back.” Bump explained as Eda downed the bottle.

Eda frowned as she put the bottle down again. Now that the pain was receding she could think a bit more clearly. And realize that she couldn’t think of a reason for why she would be in the office in the first place. “Back? Wait was I-”

“Transformed into that creature from the duel? Yes.”

“I didn’t even realize it,” Eda noted with a frown. Much like the last time everything was just a giant blank from right before she transformed. Which worried her on another level. Why was she unable to remember anything from when the spell, curse, whatever it was took effect?. “I didn’t hurt anyone did I?” 

“No everyone got out of your minor escapade without a scratch.” Bump assured her. Deciding to leave off the near incident with DeFrost and the cages for the moment. It wasn’t like he hadn’t specifically told them not to get the Beast Keeping professor involved. 

Eda sighed in relief. “That’s good at least.” 

“So you really aren’t aware of what happened after you transformed? I take it?”

“No, the last thing I remember is being in the potions classroom. And then waking up here. Everything between the two is a blank.” Eda’s face scrunched up in a frown. There was a bit of a tangible residue of some sort of memory. But she still didn’t know the relevance of it. “Mother’s going to kill me for missing class.”

“I would have thought you might be somewhat pleased by the new attention.”

After all that had been a reason behind some of Eda’s pranks over the years. Though sometimes Bump wondered just how much Eda realized this herself.

“Not like this.”

“Either way I’ll write a note. In the meantime you really should have a specialist check you.”

Eda winced. “That’s probably going to be easier said than done.” 

“If it comes to it, the same offer I made to your sister when she was being given difficulty by them I’ll extend to you. If you need someone to help you get seen about this curse then I can try to help you find someone that your parents won’t cause problems with.”

Eda winced remembering the fiasco that had been trying to get her sister her glasses. There was an unfortunate high probability history could repeat itself. She really hoped her parents had maybe learned. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you Principal Bump.”

“Your welcome.”

Eda’s unusual politeness wasn’t lost on him. Go figure the most polite conversation he had ever had with Edalyn was because of a curse.

Maybe he should have tried a different tactic with the youngest Clawthorne?

Too late to fix that now he supposed.                                                 =============

Any small hope for Eda that maybe her parents would take it seriously when she got home. And not try to toss it again under ‘something else’ didn’t last longer than five minutes after her mother got home. 

“Clawthornes don’t get cursed.”

“But-” Eda began to try and protest. Absentmindedly scratching her wrists. While most of the pain had subsided with the potion Bump had given her, there were still some residual aches and pains from the transformation.

Just like last time in fact. 

“End of discussion. I will not entertain this absolutely absurd discussion. Let alone the idea of taking you to a specialist.”

Eda scowled, not ready to back down without a fight. “If it's just a spell then why did it happen a second time?”

“I don’t know Edalyn, maybe someone thought they should continue the lesson.”

Eda opened her mouth to try and continue the argument. Only to have her mother disappear through the door, slamming it shut behind her. 

“But I haven’t even done anything this past week.” Eda muttered to herself.

After the first idea of it being a curse had gotten into her head. She had decided to try and be better. The transformation had hurt! She hadn’t wanted to go through it again. 

So as difficult as it had been she had hung up her pranking supplies. For now at least until whoever was angry with her cooled down.

If this really was because of a prank. Then someone was really vindictive was all she could say.

Either way whatever caused it wasn’t really the problem anymore. It was figuring out what to do next before the curse resurfaced a third time.  

Normally she would have turned to Lily for guidance. But her sister was away at training. Meaning it was her against her parents. And she had no clue how to handle it from there.  

It had always been them against the world. Even when that world sometimes included their own parents. 

With the one person who may have understood their complex family dynamic gone. With her having no idea when she would see Lily again. She had no one to turn to. 

Sure, Bump had once said that if she needed help to come to him. But this felt like a bit of a reach. 

Maybe it was for the best to leave it alone for now. Maybe if it happened again her parents would take it seriously.

She knew that the likelihood of that happening was probably small, but what else could she even do at this point?

Her parents' reaction, while infuriating, was not entirely unexpected. And it was even less likely to change if her childhood was anything to go by. Since, if it was something that made the Clawthorne’s imperfect, then it was not to be acknowledged. Even if it impacted their own children. 

And if there was anything that indicated an ‘imperfection’ it was having a curse on a child. 

Titan knew how it had been a fight to get Lily her glasses. Eda couldn’t even begin to imagine how complicated things might be if this was something far more sinister than getting your sight corrected.

She guessed if she needed too she could try looking for care on her own. She was old enough now that she didn’t need her parents there at a healer’s appointment. But then again the fall out from going to a doctor when she didn’t have her own source of income.

Well it would be a mess. 

Why did this have to be so complicated?

[justseveralowls]

I’ve spent over 16 hours in two different ERs and I’d like to vent

CW: Doctors hospitals, chronic illness, incompetence, female hysteria, humiliation, mental health stigma,

What follows is my original post made on Thursday, there is a update as of today at the end and the news is not all bad. This is made to spread awareness talk about an issue I feel is way too often ignored and most importantly let other people feeling this they aren’t alone.

So. I have ehler danlos syndrome, celiac, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, and an (so far) otherwise specified seizure disorder. So basically I am a medical dumpster fire. Getting a or in my case several diagnosis has been a long terrifying and grueling for both me and my partner. We have enountered many doctors and nurses who were kind attentive willing to listen and knowledgeable about my Miriad of admiditally uncommon diagnosis. But today I am so incredibly hurt, frustrated, angry and scared and I want to put this out there because this is part of the many problems that chronically ill and disabled people face everytime they walk into a doctors office, emergency room or even out in public.

So I look sick, it’s obvious and it’s been obvious for a long time. I sit at around a six to seven on a pain scale most of my life, which sucks. I have chronic nausea and weight loss that makes me weak and thin in a sick way, which also sucks. But by far the hardest thing is hoe many people refuse to take my seriously. So today after three months on a waiting list I saw a gastroenterologist. I was scared, underweight, sick and tired. I wanted answers like always and let my partner drag me into a beige fluorescent room to try and make some sense. Overall the doctor was nice, but put heavy emphasis on my past of CPTSD from repeated abuse, and implied that my weight loss and severe gastrointestinal problems could be “just a side effect of my anxiety”. That was dehumanizing to say the least. Because I know I’m traumatized, I’ve sat in therapists offices and cried, I’ve pulled myself together, fought addiction and anorexia and I know that I’m healing. I know it’s his job to look between the lines but I also want to just have a chance to be understood, and not dismissed as a psych case.

Later today I had an episode of vomiting and loss of consciousness, over all not great stuff. So my partner in their amazing sense of love and compassion took me to th ER. Because that’s where you’re supposed to go when you’re scared, sick, hurt, in danger and don’t know what to do.

My experience there was by far the worst I’ve ever had. My vitals were highly abnormal (high pulse at rest, low BP, and low pulse ox). I was having neurological symptoms related to my seizure disorder and instead was given a barrage of tests that had nothing to do with why I was there, the condition I repeatedly told them I had, or the worrying vitals. So after two hours a head CT and useless blood work the ER doctor looked at me and my partner (who was forced to wait in the car in 94 degree weather) and told me I was fine and dehydrated.

I’m a nursing student, I’m new, I’m a novice at the most, and I have a lot to learn. But never could I imagine having a chronically patient, with abnormal labs and vitals with numerological involvement be given saline and discharged. My partner and I were terrified because we didn’t know what else to do. I needed help. I needed answers. I needed them to hear me. After me panicking my partner told me that we should try again. Because doctors are here to help us, and if your scared and there’s something wrong they took an oath to help.

So I called the nurse who was awesome, he went and got the doctor and I was ready to make my case. My partner at this point as well as me were terrified frustrated and close to tears. And this ER doctor after hearing our concerns, my history (with chronic illness and anorexia) proceeded to throw up her hand and as’ my partner “what they her to do”. This was shocking but sadly it doesn’t end here. The doctor proceeded to insist that I was fine and the situation was both non emergent and out of her hands. I responded in a passive way because at that point I was scared triggered and exausted. And I asked what she thought I should do”. And the words that came of her mouth hurt me and made more angry than any four syllables ever has.

“Psych referral”

Now let me something straight. I am a survivor, I am working in me healing, I am growing and changing for the better. I take my meds go to therapy and work everyday to get a little better. But this woman who obviously hadn’t read my chart which denotes not only my diagnosis, psychological history, and notEs from speacialists on the severity of my physical condition has just implied that I’m crazy. This was horrible but 8 could see how it would seem that I am overreacting but, due years of gaslighting, medication being forced on me to cover abuse and trauma, I hate being called that. It’s not a real term, nor does it help anyone, nor does it doing anything but make me remember the nights I spent wondering if that word was me.

In one visit, one person managed to dehumanize, humiliate dismiss me and maybe risk my life based on the fact that 8 wasn’t worth the time it took to read my chart.

It so incredibly weird to have to say this but I as a queer, gay, chronically ill, Latin person am in fact still a human being WHOS painand concerns deserve as much respect as anyone else. We all deserve to be helped and heard and people like this are one of the many reasons that I and so many others are scared to ge5 help, scared to tell the full story, or scared to speak up. This kills people. This is killing people. And this is why I in all my chronically glory and working so hard to advocate and move forward in medicine as a whole. Because nobody deserves that. Because I didn’t deserve to sit in an ER terrified and be told I was crazy. Because my partner doesn’t deserve to be dismissed and mocked for being scared. Because I nor anyone else have to prove I am sick enough or disabled enough to be worth someone’s time.

I hope anyone who reads this and understands even a little. Who’s been through it, whose family and partners have been through it know that this is not okay, that this not your fault, and that you are by no means crazy. That the people who make feel like burden or an annoyance are the problem. Because you deserve to be heard. I m hoping everybody’s doing okay, I’m hoping your journeys are treating you well. Because as always no matter who are, where you are and what you’re feeling you are not alone, you are worthy and I believe you.

***Update**

I later went to a larger hospital not in my home town, and through a long stay in the ER got a formal epilepsy diagnosis, given a anti convulsants drug, and overall treated like a human being. I now have contact with their epilepsy unit and have the tool and education I need to start this part of my chronic illness journey. I’m exhausted and getting used to knew meds but am highly grateful for the good doctors out there, the nurses who listen and the partner who was angelic enough to be with me through it all.

[uberrapidash]

content/trigger warnings: suicide, death, isolation/loneliness, grief

Someone that I went to uni with died by suicide last week. Let's call him C. He was so kind. He was almost 10 years younger than me. Every day when I saw him, he smiled and said hey like he was genuinely so happy to see me. I never really got to know him, but I felt like I was important to him. I also had classes with his mom and his brother. We all sang together in the choruses.

I struggle to maintain friendships and make friends in new places (mostly in-person things -- I'm much more able to communicate in text settings). I have been struggling a lot with feeling isolation since moving to my current town and switching to this uni campus. I literally haven't made a single friend since coming here. There are people that I really like, who stick out to me, know what I mean? But any efforts to form any sort of relationship are completely one-sided, only coming from me.

Do you ever have those moments where someone waves at you from across the room, and you're confused and look around because no way they're waving at you, right? That's what C did to me. It really actually helped me sometimes, because I would go to my classes every day and see the same people every day (moreso than what you might realize, because as a music major you really have all the same classes together), yet still feel so lonely. And then there'd be C, not even in the music building, waving at me from across a crowded cafeteria. He impacted me.

I moved here to come to the main campus a couple years ago. I lost touch with the people that I thought were my friends at the old campus, despite my efforts to stay in touch. But again, always one-sided.

No one told me C died.

Of course I am feeling some amount of grief, though not overwhelming because I didn't really know him know him, you know? I think what is impacting me the most is that no one told me, and I'm struggling with that because I feel so guilty and ashamed of feeling this way.

I don't scroll facebook anymore. I had opened up facebook for some other reason, and there just happened to be something about his death at the top of my news feed. That's how I found out, after the funeral had already happened.

I'm not mad at any individuals for not telling me. I'm feeling distressed at my situation of isolation, made worse by the fact that I try to not be isolated.

I immediately reached out to those people who I considered my friends. A couple of them did want to talk a little. I was worried about my friends.

It might sound like this is "just some guy from uni." But it was a small campus, and the community is different within the music department. It's like a family. It's intimate. It's the nature of it. Everyone is affected by C's death.

You might say, "but uber, you switched campuses and moved away." Yeah, so have a couple other people -- actually, so did C. C was attending my campus at this point.

People from the music department at my current campus who had only just met him this semester went to his funeral. No one from my current campus told me either. The place that I'm currently attending. My current colleagues.

It's like I don't even exist.

Maybe this wouldn't be such a big deal to me if this didn't also happen when my best friend from childhood killed himself 3 years ago. I found out in passing from someone who didn't even know that we were childhood friends. Let's call this person B.

I have experienced a tremendous amount of grief over B. I have realistic dreams in which he comes back to life, and I'm sobbing in my dream because I can't believe what's happening, and then I wake up crying and I'm a wreck the whole day. B was the person that I spent my summers talking to on the phone all day, on a corded phone attached to the wall so imagine spending 8 hours a day in the kitchen to be on the phone. The kind of conversations where you say "hold on, I have to go pee" and you put the corded phone down instead of hanging up.

He was the kind of friend who I had a huge fight with my ex-husband about me sleeping in the same bed as B one time when I stayed over (I'm AFAB and B was cismale). I think my ex and I were engaged at the time that it happened. I didn't see anything wrong with it, because B was my best friend and I grew up with him and I trusted him, and B and I knew that our intimacy was platonic.

That's the kind of friend B was to me. And no one told me he died.

So my grief at these deaths is compounded by the isolation that I'm feeling. Like I don't exist. Like no one ever thinks of me.

You might say, "but uber, the pandemic is keeping people isolated." No. It's not that, either.

Despite the pandemic, I am chronically ill and often absent from classes.

When I notice someone misses class, I send them a message to ask if they're okay and if they want to get copies of my notes.

No one has ever done the same for me. Ever.

One-sided. Like I said. Like I don't matter.

Unless someone needs something from me. Unless someone needs a ride, or has a question for a vet tech (because I used to be a vet tech), or has a question about an orphaned bird (because I used to do orphaned songbird rehab).

I remember it being like this even when I was a kid. Kids didn't want to be friends with me until they wanted something from me -- answers to the homework that they didn't do, tutoring, or in like 1st grade when they wanted me to do art projects for them. It started young.

The impact that this kind of experience has had on me has been insidious. It's like it's been there my whole life, but I didn't really know about it, and then I started to notice it but just put it out of my mind. Then I recognized it was happening and I tried to comfort myself by coming up with all kinds of excuses/reasons for why it's this way, like I'm just not noticing the people who do keep in touch with me, I'm only noticing the negative, or like how I used to think that I just wasn't trying hard enough. And it's only going to get worse, as my health continues to decline. I'm going to be trapped at home more and more. All my energy is going towards just trying to take care of myself. I can't spare the energy for social interactions, pandemic or not. I'm disabled. I'm more disabled now than ever before, and it's just a fact that it's going to get worse.

I don't know how to handle this. Do I need to learn to put up boundaries to protect my emotional self? What does that look like? I could become jaded and keep in mind that no one ever actually wants to be friends, that they're just nice because they're nice people or because I'm useful -- but that's damaging in a different way, to never leave it open to make friends.

[modern-oedipus]

Covid Vent

No one: Nila, who goes out maybe once in a month due to covid: *listens to coffee shop sounds in youtube to get in mood*  It’s really hard to maintain social isolation now that it has been 5 months. But the cases are going up and up and up, hitting my friends and their families. I myself had to split houses with my mother because she had covid cases in her work place. I don’t think I’d isolate myself this much if I wasn’t in the risk group, but I am. Knowing that I am most likely to go to intensive care and experience the trouble breathing again like I did during the asthma treatment is not good. The potential permanent damage on lungs, for someone like me whose lungs are already more prone to sickness compared to healthy people, is also a big no, considering that I’m only in my early twenties and if everything goes well and I live a normal life I’d live around 50 more years.  50 more years with a disability or isolating myself at home? Isolation, obviously. But this pandemic doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. I am only indoors because both my internships are online & college hasn’t started yet. I know that I’ll eventually have to go out if my college doesn’t switch to online education. It doesn’t scare me at all, though, I am not like, “anxious”. I’m concerned, disturbed, alert, but not in a paranoid anxiety. If I end up catching covid, I’m at least mentally prepared to deal with it. I’m also eating healthy and exercising and don’t really have health problems except for that past-lung-treatments that more or less put me to a risk group (risky enough to concern me, even though I don’t have a chronic illness), so who knows, I might just pass it like a flu as well. No one knows. It’s not good overthinking covid, all I can do is to keep social distancing & mask & hygiene, as always. I’m just so suffocated. I’m more prone to be an extrovert. Before pandemic, I’d only use my house to sleep I’d keep being out in public, attending events, ORGANIZING events, going to coffee shops, club meetings, lots and lots of stage plays, tours, everything. I’d sneak into my friends’ dorms and change cities and just so many more “normal” fun things. I was barely starting to enjoy my life again after the depression healed. Now, I’m mentally ok, but physically trapped. The “watch netflix, read books, stay home” thing is kind of overdosing me right now. I like this shit for a week maybe, not for 5 months. I don’t know how to not risk my mental health while keeping my physical health anymore. Of course, to even HAVE a mental health I need to stay alive, so I’m not complaining- health care workers, people who go to job everyday (including my parents), etc. are in such a harder situation. I know. But my own life is also valid, and while not as troubling and concerning as lives of others right now, well, I think I’m still worth caring, at least by myself. I don’t expect any extra outside compassion or validation (we all are in same situation), me writing my thoughts here is more of me just trying to see my thoughts being worded on screen so that maybe I can come up with a solution to these things as I go. Because I’ve always been a problem-solver rather than just merely venting. (I can’t always solve problems though, I need to work on accepting this fact.) Anyway, I just thought, maybe spending more time outdoors in the natural park that is close to my house could be a good thing. But it’s crowded since it’s outdoors and I really don’t want to share any commonly used areas right now. (I used to be more than okay with this before covid, as I said, I’m mostly extroverted and I like community gatherings, but I like being healthy more), so like... Idk, maybe I can just sort of have phone calls and videochats with my friends as I sit outdoors. Except I don’t even know I have that many friends anymore. I mean, I do- I surely do have bestest of friends in my life that I’m grateful for, but like. I am somehow an introvert magnet and while I’d die for most of my best friends (both irl and online) I don’t really think they are as hype about just chatting as often as I am. (I know that this doesn’t mean they love me any less. They love me in their own way & I love them in their own way so that’s OK.) So like. Maybe Nila, have this BRILLIANT idea of making more friends. Except. Like. You’re at home so you aren’t in much of social gatherings [you aren’t in any! That is insane!] and you don’t really know how to make friends from home. I mean, yes there are online friends but like. EVEN WITH THEM. How can I just *trust* them right away? I can’t, so like. I don’t know. I’m bored af.  On the bright side, today one of my bff from school called me and said he’s back in town and that we should catch up, he’s literally one of the greatest company ever and he wants to see the doggo, so I’m positive we can just have hour 9242309204 hours long in-depth chats again without getting bored (amazing to have people like that in my life). Anyway. I guess the moral of this is:

- I need to accept “the new normal”

- I need to protect myself but try to keep my mental health as good as possible because I like myself more when my mental health is fine and I can also come up with better creations then

- I need to finish my course work (internship) so that I can relax before school starts

- I need to spend more time outdoors but in isolated areas (good luck finding them!) 

- I need to recharge

- I “want to” make more friends or just check up on existing ones! I can’t use the word “need” for this because this would degrade the freedom of the other party. Friends are appreciated, and to some extend, a necessity for social creatures like us, but no “need” will make it happen. I will just make an effort to check up on my existing friends more frequently-- I’m quite selective at this, though, I prefer generally upbringing people who are mature to a certain extend (aka, no obsession, no passive-aggression. yes to personal boundaries, yes to an overall nice attitude [we all can have problems and that’s ok and that’s normal. what /I/ personally don’t wish to be around [with my all respect] is this mindset of “life is a disaster let’s be depressed” thing. I just love love my current friend circle because even if my close friends are just around 7 people, and even if we get depressed or sad or scared, our general look to life is nicer, we don’t make disasters out of regular days, we enjoy talking and chatting, which overall increases our life quality and makes it better. We also communicate & respect & listen to each other and all. I mean. It’s not like that with everyone, and that’s ok, but as I said, this is my personal preference. I prefer having bonds that are good rather than toxic and I am doing my best to be equally good, rather than being toxic to my friends. [I’m sorry I post a lot of Banana Fish to those who don’t know Banana Fish, ok. I know ur bored but like I just cannot help it. I’m trying to tone it down but BANANA FISH.] sOOOOOOOO, SOOOO that’s why it’s not how “i have 29420343204 friends uwu” mindset, like, I noticed I need to be reasonably picky with those I’m close to so that I and people I love can overall have a nice, fun days, which is point of friendship. (I mean. As I said. I’m here on bad days too. But I don’t feel mentally healthy enough to carry the burden of someone else’s depression. It hasn’t even been two months since I’m out of therapy yet, and my mental health is, while not bad, it is fragile. I’d rather not be around those who can [mostly, unwillingly] effect me badly. SO LIKE.  - that’s one hell of a long post nila, but long story short FRIENDS or you’ll die out of boredom

- also just finish your coursework i beg you

- thanks for coming to my ted talk, I actually always offer potential solutions on my vent posts, but this time i wanted to write this publicly [i dont think anyone will read this and i dont mind it] because like. why not? it’s just me thinking and I feel as if this could be of use for some people who are reading this & isolating themselves too. anyway, i love u, stay safe. 

[breakingtanaka]

Going to No Shame Tour? Read this post (and please reblog)!

Hello! So I know I’ve made quite a few posts about this already, but I figured I would go ahead and make another one since we are getting closer to tour.

My name is Carly, and I’m a 17-year-old disabled 5SOS fan. Though I am able enough to enjoy pits at gigs, I know that some fans are not, which is why I have been working on this project for nearly two years now.

Known as #DisabledSOS, my project started way back in 2016 when a group of disabled fans, including myself, started a hashtag of the same name that trended in both the UK and the US. Once I began to see projects being created for MYT, I decided to bring it back, and have done everything from lighting venues up with blue lights to giving the boys a book full of stories.

Now that a new tour has been announced, I have already begun to plan projects for the shows to emphasize the fact that there is no shame in being disabled, and that us disabled and chronically ill fans matter as well, even if we can’t make it to shows. I want those who are unable to go to have something to let them know that they are loved and supported.

Of course, to achieve a blue light spectacular at a show, we have to have people that are willing to pitch in, which is why I’m calling on 5SOS Tumblr to spread the word. Every little repost helps, so please, even if you’re unable to help at a show, please take a moment to share!

If you do decide to become involved, we may ask you to print out sheets of squares to hold over phone flashlights, as well as to pass these out before the show and a few other things. There’s also plenty of online things you can do as well; don’t hesitate to ask!

If you would like more information before making your decision, here’s our blog (which contains links to mostly everything else), and the official project post on Twitter.

Please don’t be scared to reach out to me if you want to get hands-on with this at your show, or if you just have questions! Everyone is welcome; you don’t have to be disabled to help or participate.

Thank you!

[iereiaio]

𝕯𝖆𝖞 𝕺𝖓𝖊 𝖔𝖋: 𝕲𝖊𝖙𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕸𝖞 𝕾𝖍𝖎𝖙 𝕿𝖔𝖌𝖊𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗

Hello hi all of my 10 followers, today is day one of getting my shit together. I have already meditated, and I went to bed last night at 2am (which is a large improvement compared to the typical 5am I’ve been pushing the last few weeks) and I was up at 8:30, woke up from 8:30-9, then meditated for 15 minutes, ate a quick breakfast, and spent longer than I should have looking for my stylus before deciding it was probably a sign that maybe i should pull some cards instead. Immediately after I started shuffling i found my stylus so here we are. 

I did a couple readings. I shuffled up my cards until I felt it was right and searched for The Hermit for any messages from Haides, I did that twice (I pull the cards on the front and back of The Hermit when doing this), then I did the same with The High Priestess for any messages regarding my Priestesshood, and again with The Moon, considering it is the card that represents my sign. Figuring it would give me any messages regarding me personally, rather than my deities messages, or my spiritual path. 

Haides Reading

For this one, I pulled:

8 of Cups (R)

King of Wands (R)

5 of Swords

The Sun (R)

Seven of Cups (R)

Queen of Swords (R)

Fall out cards:

Temperance

The World

Strength

So, before I get into interpretations, my guided meditation today was one to meet your deities; personally I feel it was too short. It was only about 12 minutes long, and most of it was getting into the garden. My time is always very off when I meditate and go to any gardens, but if I had to guess, getting into the garden took more than 6 minutes of the meditation, then there was maybe 1 minute or 2 of talking to, and meeting with your deity, then the rest of the time was getting back into your body. So I spoke loosely with Haides, and I feel he is proud of my will to begin this energy switch so quickly, but weary considering I burn out quickly and typically fall back into old habits when I do. I’m gonna try to allow myself breaks, but not allow those breaks to turn into an all day ordeal. It’s not gonna be an overnight process,I’m gonna have days where it sucks and I wanna lay around all day, but I can’t let myself do that often. I can’t let myself not do SOMETHING. I’m wasting my life away. 

Anyway, with the interpretations. So Haides is here, hitting me with the fact that I am still in fact depressed. Which I am, I’m pushing through it today in order to do these few things I’ve already done. I’d love to still be laying in bed but I Am Not. I do still feel rather hopeless as well as aimless. I feel like I’m shooting in the dark with all of this. I feel like he feels this will be a difficult journey for me, considering the 5 of Swords, and I don’t think things will get any easier anytime soon. I feel he feels that I need to be weary of my own self. That I need to ground myself, and not fall into the temptation of going back into old habits. I feel it’ll just make me bitter and sad if I keep going through that cycle. 

As for the fall out cards,  Temperance and The World fell out while shuffling Haides reading; and in a pretty.... unmotivating reading from him, which I feel is smothered with worry that I will fall out of this (and realistically, I may) But I feel he has hope. I need to find balance in these habits. Balance between exercising and eating and resting. I need balance. I can’t do everything in extremes and expect any change. He knows this is the best thing for me, he just worries I will not be able to succeed this time around. But I feel he’s telling me this will end in success. I need to stay motivated and keep my head up. I am strong, and I have the ability to do WHATEVER I want with my life, however I have a lot of shadow work to do... 

Priestess Reading

So for THIS one, I pulled:

2 of Wands

5 of Cups

7 of Swords

Ace of Pentacles

I have a decision to make regarding my Priestesshood, and I’m being called to action. I worry about what these choices are, considering I have no idea what these choices could be- other than having to choose between art and Priestesshood- though I don’t see why I can’t do both. I do understand that my emergy is limited, but I could probably make it work. People do this stuff all the time. Priestesshood and art both should not be time consuming enough to take up all of my time on their own. At least I sure hope not. I would love to have both. Though, I do know that if art becomes a profession-- no??? Even doctors can be doctors an still take part in other important things. Their whole lives are doctordoctordoctor. They have other aspects of their life as well. While yes, I am chronically ill, disabled, etc. But I can do just as much as anyone else can. I feel like I’d need to find a strategy if I’m to do what I’d like??? Good things coming either way, but wow I cannot read these cards. I can’t understand them fully. 

Pisces Reading

Last but not least, for this reading, I pulled (for future reference, I will not be doing pulls like this every day, I am not able to do this many cards daily. I’m already tired of this reading, and may be why I’m finding it harder to interpret the cards. It feels like a pretty negative, jabby reading and I was hoping to be uplifted. Perhaps my deck needs cleansed, or switched out for a different deck):

2 of Cups

Ace of Swords (R)

So with this one, which is again, not very uplifting in my opinion; I feel it represents my relationship with my best friend. We are opposites, yet equals. We love each other deeply, but things were rough in the beginning. I worry her and I will have some issues with communication in the future considering this reading. Though that’s not much of a surprise; we often struggle communicating (our communication styles and love languages are super different, we’ve learned a lot about each other in these last few years, however it’s still hard to communicate sometimes! Which is okay in my opinion; her and I care deeply for each other and if we get to a certain point in a disagreement, we separate and come back when we’ve calmed down and can talk later, or we just drop it as an agree to disagree thing). Anyway. I don’t know, this could also have something to do with my roommate and I. Things are good but might become rocky because we haven’t been communicating lately. We will have to see. But frankly, I’m very done with this reading. I don’t know if I misinterpreted it, or if it’s really just being that rude, but I was hoping to be uplifted but I was very much not. I feel even more hopeless with myself than I had before. I’d much rather lay back down but instead, I’m going to try and work on my comic. Hopefully I can. 

[collectablecorner]

SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity supports the entire Armed Forces family. It is a UK non-profit charity that provides long life support to individuals who are currently serving or have served within the British Armed Forces and their families. This impressive organization has been operating since 1885 and was founded by Major James Gildea. Today SSAFA boasts of 5,000 volunteers to help upwards of   people every year and is the UK's oldest national tri-service Armed Forces charity.



Why is Collectable Corner choosing to support SSAFA?

The problem people tend to have when it comes to charitable donations and fundraising is not knowing how much of the donors funds are reaching the desired goal of helping someone in need. While we can't speak for the charities themselves, we (myself and my family) can talk about our experience with SSAFA and why we're confident that the money gets exactly to where it is needed the most.

Brian Cook, a loving husband, father, great grandfather and (my) grandad served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and was a part of the Christmas Island nuclear bomb tests in the 1950's which exposed the soldiers to radiation due to being closer to the bombs than any human should ever be. Today only a handful of the Suicide Squad Veterans are still alive. Almost (if not all) of the soldiers involved died through multiple various cancers and ill health such as chronic arthritis and heart, lung, liver diseases. There is evidence to support the fact that these health conditions can be directly related to what the soldiers were made to do. But not only has it affected the veterans themselves but their families genetics has also caused numerous health problems generation after generation. This will carry on for generations to come also and the UK is one of the only countries involved to not accept these findings and therefore the support for these individuals and families has been lacking. Unfortunately Brian (grandad) was no different, neither is his family.

In January 2018, Brian fell ill and was taken to hospital where within three days of admittance was diagnosed with late stage liver and lung cancer, all that could be done was to make him as comfortable as possible. Over the course of the following four days we prepared for his return home. We gave a sofa away from our living room to make room for the hospital bed due to Brian losing the use of his legs, and we turned a downstairs room into a bathroom. Monday came round and Brian had been in hospital for 7 days, Monday to Monday. He arrived home via hospital transport and we got him settled in as best we could. Grandad always wanted to die at home my grandmother tells me. At 3am tuesday morning, after being home for around 10 hours Brian, my grandmother's husband, my mother's father, and my very special grandad passed away. It was, as anyone who has lost a loved one will know, devastating. It all happened so fast.

During the period between Brian's death and his funeral service SSAFA actually offered us money towards the cost, which we refused based on the fact we would rather it had gone to someone more in need than ourselves, but it stuck with us in our hearts and minds. What we learned is that SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, gets the money and help to the people who really need it. We didn't expect nor ask for it either. At this period in Collectable Corner  didn't exist, what existed was another hobby project that never worked out but a vow was made by myself to use the public platform to raise donations for SSAFA in loving memory of RAF Veteran Brian Cook. Now after a couple of years of hard work, dedication and grind, Collectable Corner, i am elated to tell you is working out and in a position to honour that vow and may he rest in peace.

Who does SSAFA help? And how does it help?

SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity helps people in a variety of ways.

For currently serving personnel and their families provides:

Support in service communities

SSAFA has a network of volunteers on Army, RAF, and Naval bases in the UK and around the world who give local support.

Housing

Housing for wounded, injured, and sick serving personnel and their famiies SSAFA Norton House, Stanford Hall provide home-from-home accommodation for families visiting wounded, injured, sick service or ex-service personnel and outpatients. SSAFA also provides day-to-day management of Fisher House UK at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham (QEHB).

Mentoring for service leavers

SSAFA's mentoring scheme was set up in 2011 and supports those transitioning out of the Forces. SSAFA's volunteer mentors provide support to wounded, injured, and sick leavers through a long-term 'one-to-one' relationship that underpins the transition from the military. SSAFA Mentoring is nationally accredited by the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation.

Adoption for military families

SSAFA is a registered adoption agency dedicated to helping military families through the adoption process.

Additional need and disabilities support

SSAFA provide specialised support to military families with additional needs including their Forces Additional Needs and Disability Forum (FANDF).

Short breaks for children and young people with additional needs from Forces families

SSAFA coordinates holidays and events that focus on offering new experiences and activities for children and young people from services families.

Stepping Stone Homes for women and their children with a service connection

Stepping Stone Homes provides short-term supported accommodation, help, and advice during difficult times. Female spouses and partners of serving or ex-service personnal, along with their dependent children are all eligible to stay there.

Professional health care

SSAFA's professional health care staff provide patient-focussed care to military families worldwide.

Personal support and social work for the RAF

Working alongside the RAF, but outside the Chain of Command, SSAFA staff provide support for RAF personnel and their families worldwide. 

Independent Service Custody Visiting

SSAFA provides independent oversight of Army Service Custody facilities.

 

Support available to veterans and their families:

Housing advice

SSAFA offers practical housing advice and support to Armed Forces veterans and their dependents including guidance around housing benefits and accessing social housing.

Debt advice

SSAFA can help veterans to get advice on dealing with debt when they have fallen behind on their bills or repayments to credit cards and are struggling to get by or at risk of losing their home.

Mobility assistance

SSAFA volunteers seek financial assistance for veterans to help maintain mobility and independence at home. Trained volunteers can help veterans get mobility equipment such as Electronically Powered Vehicles (EPV) or mobility scooters, stair lifts, riser and recliner chairs.

Providing household goods

SSAFA can provide veterans with essential household items, including white and brown goods.

Support for homeless veterans

SSAFA has a range of specialist services to support veterans who are homeless or facing homelessness.

Joining Forces

SSAFA's partnership with Age UK to improve the lives of veterans born before 1950.

Gurkha services

Providing tailored support for Gurkhas and their families who live in the UK.

Glasgow's Helping Heroes

Glasgow's Helping Heroes' is an award-winning service provided by SSAFA in partnership with Glasgow City Council for current and former members of the Armed Forces and their dependants or carers who live, work, or wish to relocate there. It's dedicated team work with national and local governments and third sector providers to resolve clients employment, housing, health, financial and/or social isolation issues.

Forces helpline

SSAFA also offers Forcesline, which is a free and confidential telephone helpline, web chat, and email service that provides support for both current and ex-service men and women from the Armed Forces and their families.

As you can see, SSAFA goes above and beyond to help as many serving and veteran pesonnel and their families as possible who have sacrificed for our country and ensures the aid gets to exactly the places it is needed most. To do this requires a lot of time and money, as you can imagine.

Covid-19 and the SSAFA Emergency Response Fund

Covid-19 has had an impact on everyone regardless of if you are ill. It looks like it will remain a part of our lives for a long time to come, heck, it may be a permanent part of modern life. At SSAFA, calls and requests for help from the vulnerable people, such as the elderly, low income households, and those with serious underlying health conditions. In response to this SSAFA has an Emergency Response Fund. The strain on the organization is obviously high as more people need help with mental health, housing, and financial issues. SSAFA provides this support for the British Armed Forces, serving and veteran personnel, and their families but to do this SSAFA needs to ensure it's staff and volunteers are kept as safe as possible with PPE. Combine the huge rise in help requests and the need to protect SSAFA staff, volunteers and those they help results in a large increase in costs which is why donations are so important and critical to its operations to continue the vital work SSAFA does.

What is Collectable Corner doing to help?

We have purchased over a thousand Royal Air Force (RAF)  Dog Tags, Ball Chain Necklaces, Rubber Silencers and Packaging, which we are asking for a donation of £10 per set plus £2.29 for postage of which 100% of the £10 is being donated to SSAFA. Collectable Corner is paying any processing fees and extra postage fees that may incur. Essentially, the Dog Tags are a token of gratitude from us to you for making your donation and helping us to support and help as many people as we can together. In total we have 504 sets of Dog Tags available so that equates to £5,040 in funds to generate. We also have the ability to purchase more should we require them.

How are the donations being made and how often?

We will deposit the donations directly to SSAFA at the end of each month via bank transfer to an account SAFFA has provided to us*.

How will donors know that donations were made?

We understand how important it is to be absolutely transparent with charity work to ensure that everyone knows when and how much is being donated and it is just as important to us at Collectable Corner as to donors and customers. Collectable Corner will of course be publishing monthly updates on our blog and in our newsletter which we urge you to sign up for, along with publishing the donation receipts and sales records minus people's private data such as names and addresses etc. We also have a backend application running on our website which allows visitors to CollectableCorner.shop to view in real time exactly how many sets of dog tags have been claimed.

Share your experiences of SSAFA

Collectable Corner is welcoming you to share your stories with visitors to our website. On each product page is a review section where anyone can make use of by letting others know your story. Maybe it is about how SSAFA has helped you or someone close to you, or maybe you have fundraised and donated in the past. Maybe you are someone who works or have worked with and volunteered for SSAFA who wants to share with us all, or maybe you simply want to say hello.

Thank you... 

We, at Collectable Corner, want to thank SSAFA for the amazing work the staff and volunteers have, will and do do. The impact this charity has had on so many lives truly is something to be marvelled at.

Thank you to anyone who helps us to make some real world differences by ordering a set of RAF dog tags with the knowledge that you are donating to a truly awesome cause.

Thank you to all of the past, present and future British Armed Forces personnel who have sacrificed, and do sacrifice everything for our great nation. You make us proud each and every day.

Finally, thank you Brian Cook, my Grandmother's Husband, my Mothers Father, a Great Grandfather, and my Grandad for being such an inspiration, thank you for being the best and only Father i ever had. May you sleep easy and Rest in Peace.

*Please note that the information in this article has been vetted by and in part supplied by SSAFA prior to being released to the public and is accurate at the time of this publication. Collectable Corner has the permission of SSAFA of the logo to be used and they are the copyright owner. SSAFA is a non-profit charity registered in England and Wales (210760), Scotland (SCO38056) and the Republic of Ireland (20202001). Collectable Corner is not in a partnership with nor affiliated by SSAFA, however we are in contact. Anyone who wishes to confirm that SSAFA is aware of Collectable Corner's campaign to raise donations and the methods being used can do so by emailing commercial@ssafa.org.uk or GaryDavidson-Guild@ssafa.org.uk

[mouseyfox]

[Video description] A white woman with dark brown hair down to her chin and black horn rim glasses sits in front of a cream wall with a string of mint drying behind her. She is holding a pillow with a geometric design as she turns on her phone's video camera.

[sigh] Hi, my name is Krystal. I am a disabled queer woman and I am here to have a talk with you today about what it's like being disabled in the United States and trying to keep a job. 

[Transcript Below]

So [sighs] there's some major issues with how we as US citizens and people in general, um, deal with disability and how it relates to the job force and how [thoughtful pause] we are treated as employees. Now the Equal Opportunities, um, Equal Employment Opportunities Act, um, was a major step forward as were similar things such as the, you know, Disability Rights movement, and the Americans with Disabilites Act, and even, you know, the Affordable Care Act. Those have all had positive effects on the Disabled Community as a whole, but there's a lot more that needs to be done. Now, disabilities are not just physical. They can be emotional, or psychological, and they can also be intellectual. That means you could see someone with a wheelchair, or a missing limb, or someone who has Parkinson's Disease, or someone who has dyslexia, or someone who has PTSD, someone who's missing an eye, someone who's deaf, blind, the list goes on, honestly.

For me personally I have been disabled for ohhh well over fifteen years at this point. I have experienced over fifteen years of abuse in my life which has triggered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, um, DID, um, Anxiety Disorders, Major Reoccurring Depression, I have Trichotillomania, Excoriation Disorder, I also have physical disabilities as well. I have Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. I also have Chronic Pain and Fatigue, I have hips that don't sit right, and a back that doesn't like sitting straight, and I also have migraines that have gotten to the point where I'm having about a migraine every week or so even with medication. I'm going in for more treatment options with a neurologist to figure out why they're happening. Now, I am a person who would benefit greatly from things like Universal Healthcare, and uh Universal Basic Income because at the end of the day I am a queer woman who is disabled and who is supporting a partner who is totally disabled as much as I can, and even just saying that could cost him his benefits, and that is heinous. We are not married, if disabled people marry and they have benefits they can loose them entirely, legally, within the US as it is today. I have a Bachelor's degree I got from the University of Louisville this spring during COVID and while I am very happy that I have finally achieved something ten years in the making for a lot of reasons it was horrible on my health both mental and physical.

As a student who is independent and was relying entirely on loans aside from very few scholarships that did in no way cover the full cost of tuition. I worked [sigh] a full time job while being a full time student at a call center uh who violated my rights as a disabled person in a number of ways and when I eventually left that job and applied for full time disability benefits, which I was denied, by the way, uhm, [the call center] lied to the SSI department, and said that I had never once filed accomodation letters to them, which is very untrue as I had spoken with an HR Director on multiple occassions, I had emailed them, I had spoken to them on the phone, I had one on ones with supervisors about how the job was affecting my physical health, as well as my emotional and mental health and how it was worsening my disabilities.

I had applied for short term disability, which is something that in the United States, is only offered by certain employers and is something that you have to pay into. There is no short term disability department with the SSI. There is no way for an American citizen currently as it stands to have short term disability to get some of the medical issues under control in the US unless you have already paid into a pool.

Now, some of you might be wondering what about FMLA, the Family Medical Leave Act? I applied for that, and they really don't like you using that for short term disability unless if it's something that was happened at the job or outside. For example, if you undergo an amputation, you might be someone who would qualify for FMLA. But, for me, a person who was just dealing with further issues with my chronic disorders that are never going to go away, um, at this point my issues are so deeply imbeded that I will have to be on medication for the rest of my life to handle my disorders and as with many people, as I age, I am as likely to get more disabilities on top of everything else.

The way that our economy, the way that our healthcare works right now we don't accomodate or help or you know just give disabled people a way to live and work without highly unfair and horrible ways of treating them. I have been gaslit by employers. I have, uh, very highly insinuated that I was lying about issues with my health just so I could go home and "be lazy", or I've been told or implied by coworkers that I was lying about my disabilities and there are all sorts of negative public stigma about people who lie about disorders so they can like get benefits. And, honestly, here's a news flash for you, it's virtually impossible to get full time SSI benefits if you're lying. I have friends who have disorders that can kill them before they turn fifty who are considered not disabled enough to qualify for SSI benefits. And these are people who are dealing with horrible diseases that will kill them or just make it really impossible for them to ever work. Like, physically, mentally, some education, uhm, or not education, intellectual disorders there's no way they're going to be able to hold a full time steady job and you know with the way that our economy works part time jobs don't cut it.

Most people are working two to three jobs because our minimum wage isn't high enough. And if you're disabled you spend so much money on taking care of yourself, and spending days at home, and that's just part of being disabled. I don't like calling off of work. I don't like being drug into my supervisor's office to get you know reprimanded for constantly having to call in or leave early. I don't like inconveniencing my coworkers either because I know that makes it harder on them, but you know what's also harder on them? If I decide to power through a day even when I'm feeling like garbage, and I make more mistakes, I will get less things done, I'll be worse off with my customer interactions, and there are days where I have worked through on ten, twelve, even thirteen hour shifts as a disabled person, and it has absolutely wrecked my health.

I have been working for ten years and I've been a caretaker for even longer, and my ability to perform at a full time job has drastically diminished in just ten years of trying to support myself in the way our current economy works and I've worked in a variety of different jobs. I've done physical labor jobs, I've worked in factories, I've worked in call centers, I've been a barista, I've been a cashier, I have been a bourbon steward, I have worked in healthcare in a variety of fields, and I have worked in library science which is what I'm hoping to get for a- for my- my education goal is I want to be a librarian. I want to be someone who helps people with research and reference work, and helps with their community. I love being engaged with my community. I love helping people. I like going to work. I do genuinely enjoy going to work! But when I have to keep working to a point that would make even a- you know someone who's not disabled overly worked and wreck their health... What do you think that does to those of us who have disabilities? Huh? Cause I can promise you it's a lot worse than you initially think. And the accomodations that they offer at most jobs are a fucking joke. They really are.

Most jobs aren't even accomodating for people in wheelchairs, for people with physical disabilities, and not to mention people who have hearing problems, or who are blind, and don't get me started on psychological problems. We could have an entire separate discussion on that one because the way that workplace cultures work and the way with microaggressions with racism, and all sorts of other factors like homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, yes that counts, okay, because a lot of disabled people are just big, and you know what a lot of them are also really skinny, because their medical problem might be tied into that in ways that you can't understand either without a medical degree, or without being disabled yourself and having to do research.

Because at the end of the day the people who are most educated about their own disabilities are often the disabled person themselves. Yes doctors are very educated. Yes they know a lot. But you know who also knows a lot about the disorder, the person who's fucking experiencing it. I have friends who have been dismissed by doctors for years. Whose illnesses and issues have been completely mishandled and not at all treated by doctors because they wouldn't fucking listen to their patients. Okay. And, that's not something that we should be proud about as a country.

The way that we treat disabled people is horrible, and that's not even considering the problem with eugenics in this country because there are a number of people who are very interested in the fact of created designer babies, or aborting [disabled] babies, or you know, just throwing disabled people away until they die in a corner so you don't have to think about them. And that's a historical problem with this country and it hasn't gone away. We haven't fixed it. And it's something we need to work on.

But you know what? We're never going to be able to address those harder issues until we address the fact that working and having to hold multiple jobs to live for abled people that's inexcusable. It's even worse when you're disabled.

I can't tell you the number of times I have been almost homeless because my job had fired me because I had to call in too often, or I just had to leave a job because it was horribly wrecking my health. I have played yo-yo with all of my jobs for the past three years after I tried filing for disability, and you know what? They told me no. They told me I'm too young. I can't possibly have the disorders that I have or I'm just not disabled enough.

And you know what? You can be disabled at any age. And that possibility only increases the older that you get.  Because the older you get your systems start failing and you will be disabled at one point in your life. Period. Everyone will experience disability before they die in some way shape or form. So when we talk about disability rights it's not just about me. It's not just about friends of mine who are being killed by our healthcare system, and by our government, and by our economy, every single day. It's also about you. So when I ask you to give a fuck about disabled people and work and listen  to what we're asking you to do this is about you too. Because one day you're going to be in our position, and you know what? It sucks. And no one should have to deal with this.

[Emotional Pause] We need healthcare reform. We need it. Very badly. And when I say that it goes from everything to my own father who has been insulin rationing, and dealing with completely ludicrous insulin prices since before I was born.

It goes to my mother, you know, whose liver shut down because of black mold in a church my father preached at. I watched her slowly die for a year because she refused to go to the hospital because if she did, and she got the care that could have saved her, it would have killed my father because we wouldn't have been able to afford his insulin.

You know, and I'm not the only person, who's had situations like this, there are elderly people all over our nation who are dealing with similar issues all day. There are people who are disabled, there are families of disabled people, who are working to support people. There- Did you know that it's actually illegal for disabled people to marry and keep their benefits? Did you? Because I have a pertner who is disabled and even just saying that could rob him of his benefits.

That's not including issues with disability and, you know, being queer. Because being queer complicates everything. You know I don't say that because it's fun and I get "all the social benefits it brings" as Rosalarian would say because you know what? There really aren't any.

I'm queer because I'm queer. I'm disabled because my body is a pain in the ass, and because I've gone through things that no one ever should have had to go through and it has completely wrecked my mental health.

And I've gotten so much better than I used to be! I used to be so much worse off and put up with stuff that was absolutely wrecking my mental health and physical health because your mental health does a lot of stuff with your physical health that you might not be aware of. [Cat sneezes]

The United States as a nation is literally working itself to death, and that doesn't just affect able bodied people. It affects disabled people a lot worse. And you know what, I like working, but I like living a lot better. [Turns off video]

[statisticalimprobabilities]

I was called “an abomination” for being disabled

**ableism trigger warning**

Today I was scrolling through Instagram and I noticed that a girl I used to know back in elementary school had posted graphic photos of dying animals along with a caption that essentially said that anyone who eats any animal products is evil. Her intention, clearly, was to shame anyone who doesn’t make the same dietary choices as her. I’m always bothered when I see posts like this, because I recognize the ableism inherent in these sorts of broad shaming statements. They all rely on the idea that everyone is capable of becoming vegan, and often when people with these beliefs are questioned they will stand behind the idea that “anyone can find a vegan way to meet their nutritional needs.” But that simply isn’t true. There are a wide variety of disabilities, allergies, intolerances, etc., that can prevent a person from safely eating a vegan or vegetarian diet.

I myself am someone who, because of my disabilities, is unable to survive on a vegan or vegetarian diet. Not only do I have specific nutritional deficiencies due to poor stomach absorption, I also have a condition that severely limits the foods I can eat. This condition arose because back when I was an infant, my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome caused severe acid reflux which made eating a painful experience. As a result, my brain formed negative associations with food, and these negative associations led to the development of Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. ARFID is a condition in which people experience both mental and physical aversions to food, often lack a normal appetite, and can have their gag reflex activated simply by tasting or even smelling a food that isn’t on their “safe” list. The condition is largely subconscious, making it very difficult to control and not something a person could just “get over” or “push through.” We have very real physical reactions to foods outside of our usually tiny “safe” lists.

On another day I might not have bothered to comment on the post my acquaintance made, but today I was already feeling sensitive. My best friend in the world, who also has ARFID, is currently away at an event and is going through hell in part because she is faced with group meals comprised of foods she can’t eat. So knowing how much this wonderful, amazing friend of mine is suffering right now because of ARFID, I couldn’t stand to see someone ignorant of the condition imply that people, like my best friend and I, who eat meat and cheese are all terrible people. So I commented and politely told the person who made the post that she might want to avoid making broad shaming statements because they can be harmful to disabled people who have no choice but to consume animal products.

The next thing I knew, she was private messaging me and calling me a liar, saying that anyone could go vegan and demanding I provide sources stating the opposite. I complied and provided 9 separate scholarly sources discussing various issues like allergies, chronic illnesses which can cause zinc deficiencies (a deficiency which can be worsened by excessive vegetable consumption), studies that show that veganism worsens IBS, and of course I provided information on ARFID as well. The girl, who likely didn’t even read the sources, made it pretty clear she didn’t believe me. I’ll let the screenshots tell the next part of the story.

The things she said to me in this conversation were perhaps the cruelest and most dehumanizing things that I have ever had said directly to me. By calling me an abomination and telling me not to have kids so that I don’t pass on my “bad genes,” she essentially told me that she believed I am less than human and that people like me shouldn’t exist. The fact that in 2019 there are still people who think it is okay to say this sort of thing to disabled people is revolting. This faux-progressive girl would likely never say this sort of thing to a member of another minority group, would never imply that they were abominations, but she sees no issue in saying that same thing to a disabled person.

I’m lucky that this didn’t have too bad of an impact on my mental health because I’ve been a part of the disability activism community long enough to have grown to accept and embrace my disabilities. I understand that they are part of what makes me who I am, and while I still have days where I hate them and feel sad about them, overall I try to love them because if I didn’t have them then I wouldn’t be me. I try to remind myself every day that there is no “right way” to be a person, and that I don’t need to conform to arbitrary abled standards in order to be successful and happy.

But still, seeing this was a bit of a punch to the gut because it cut straight to the insecurities I had back before I began to love myself. I used to wonder if maybe I was too “broken” to exist, and used to think that my family would have been better off if I’d never been born. I know better now, but those thoughts still haunt me at times. I showed the girl’s messages to my parents a few hours after I got them, and it was heartbreaking to watch my mother tear up. “I feel the same as I did when you used to come home from school and ask me why kids were bullying you,” she said, “I want to have an explanation but I really don’t know. I really don’t understand how someone could say something this cruel to you.”

I really hope that anyone who sees this will reblog it, I really want this girl’s terrible words to be seen. Because ableism is not going to end until people are held accountable for it in the same way they are held accountable for other forms of discrimination.

[alarawriting]

Inktober #26: Dark

My name’s Mike London, and I hunt vampires, and that’s why I don’t love the darkness anymore.

Yeah, I know, I know. At this point you’re probably thinking “do we really have time to unpack all that?”, but the thing you’re getting hung up on is vampires, because vampires aren’t real. How could creatures who are technically dead survive only on blood, and if they were running around turning people into vampires every time they drank blood, why isn’t the world overrun with vampires? How could anyone function if they burst into flames when exposed to sunlight, why wouldn’t they show up on mirrors, does that mean they don’t show up on cameras, so on and so forth.

Okay, so most of the myths are wrong. You can see a vampire in a mirror… unless the vampire is positioned to see into your eyes, or their reflection. Vampires are stronger than humans but not by much – you know about that hysterical strength “mom lifts car off child” thing humans can do in extreme circumstances? They can do it all the time, because their bodies are constantly resetting to a perfect state based on what they were like at the moment of undeath, plus their self-image, with bodies that are perfectly healed except for anything that’s part of the self-image, like a scar that they’ve grown to identify with or a piercing. They’re faster than most humans, but they still have human muscles, so we’re talking Usain Bolt, not the Flash, or even a cheetah. They do burst into flames when exposed to strong ultraviolet light, a condition I can kind of sympathize with myself. And they aren’t created when a vampire drinks your blood, but when you drink a vampire’s, when your own blood levels are very low. As soon as a person has more vampiric blood than human blood in their system, boom, vampire.

They have only one really magical superpower, aside from the fact that they’re alive when they shouldn’t be, and it explains all the others that humans believe they have. If they can look into your eyes, and hold your gaze, they can control your mind. Make you think they’re invisible, make you think they just exploded into a hundred bats, make you compelled to do what they say.

It doesn’t work on me, because I’m an albino. And that’s why, despite the fact that all I ever wanted was to write programs, I am stuck hunting vampires as a side hustle. I’m still physically weaker and slower than they are, and while I see better in the dark than you do, I don’t see as well as they do. In light without UV components, such as standard indoor lighting, my vision’s more impaired than theirs, and a lot more than yours. But they can’t mesmerize me, and frankly, your average vampire has gotten so used to being able to mesmerize humans, it’s crippling for them to run into a human where it doesn’t work.

You probably haven’t got the vaguest idea why being an albino protects me. Maybe you have some notion that albinos have weird superpowers, since frankly in fiction we almost always do. You probably don’t know exactly how my disabilities work – in movies and TV, albinos never get to play albinos, it’s always white men in makeup.

Albinos have bad vision. Lack of pigment in the retina when we’re developing gives us vision problems that can’t be corrected with glasses. It’s like we have fewer pixels to see the world than you do, so everything’s going to be fuzzy no matter how strong the prescription lenses are. And a side effect of bad vision from birth is something called rhythmatic nystagmus, where our eyes go back and forth like an old DVD using pan-and-scan to show a movie on old-school near-square CRT televisions. (Old technology’s a hobby of mine.) I don’t have any conscious control or even awareness of it; I couldn’t stop my eyes from moving like that if I tried, short of closing them. My brain does post-processing on the moving image to make it look to me like my eyes aren’t moving, combining multiple snapshots from different angles into a single image. It means my ability to see a moving object is crap even if it’s close enough that I should be able to see it otherwise, but in theory it lets me see more detail than I would otherwise.

The thing is, there’s a reason the legends all have the vampires going “Look into my eyes”. They need to be able to make and sustain eye contact, the kind where you stare into each other’s eyes, and they can’t do that with eyes that are moving constantly. It’s not that I can’t see their eyes, because for me things don’t look like they’re going back and forth while my eyes move. It’s that they can’t look into mine.

I found this out the hard way last year. I was working at a big financial company, and I was behind schedule on the software I was building for them, and they had security rules that didn’t allow me to work from home. The boss used to say not to stay after hours, but I figured this was the kind of thing bosses say to make the company sound friendly and accommodating but is actually a control freak thing intended to benefit the morning people, which I have never been one of. I can’t drive – the state won’t give me a license, with my eyes – and I have chronic insomnia and equally chronic problems with waking up in the morning, making it impossible for me to rideshare with any of my co-workers. So I generally have an intermittently employed friend of mine who shares my apartment drive me places, and this means I’m usually late to work. If I can’t stay late and I can’t bring work home, I fall behind on my projects. Also, I do my best work late at night when there are no distractions. So I was in the habit of going to the bathroom with all of my stuff around 5:30 and then coming out at 6 after my boss had left. I could sit on the toilet with my laptop and continue to work, answering emails and setting Outlook to send them at 8 am in the morning the next day to make it look like I work normal hours, and then when I came out I could get back to the serious programming work, because my boss wasn’t a programmer and had no idea how to check the timestamps of my build check-ins.

It turned out it wasn’t corporate bullcrap after all. It was vampires. Vampires would come into the building to hold meetings on some kind of irregular schedule that meant something to them. I’d been working late for almost two weeks when they showed up, mesmerized my housemate and nearly ate both of us, and I had to kill a few of them with the combination of a steak knife from the kitchen and the cheap bamboo chopsticks I have a few hundred of in my drawer because I’m always getting Chinese takeout for lunch. See, you can’t actually stab a chopstick into a vampire’s heart – it’s too fragile – but stabbing with a regular knife only takes them out of commission for the two minutes or so it takes them to heal. But if you then stick a wooden chopstick in the wound, it prevents them from regenerating, and bamboo is apparently wood for vampire-killing purposes.

Also, I had a black light in my laptop bag, suitable for detecting whether my cats have peed on my laptop bag before I take it to work because they’ve done it so many times I’ve gotten desensitized to the smell of cat pee, and while I don’t like looking at UV light – my eyes have zero protection from it, so it’s painful – it’s a lot worse for vampires, whose skin will burn from very tiny amounts of UV exposure and can actually set on fire. And it’s just astonishing how often vampires will stand there trying to mesmerize you while you walk up to them and stab them in the heart, because they just can’t comprehend “human who cannot be mesmerized”.

And now that I know vampires exist and that I’m immune to their most powerful weapon… well, shit. I’m kind of stuck. I don’t actually know any other albinos, or anyone else with rhythmic nystagmus, and for normal people, wearing the kind of dark glasses that make it so the vampires can’t see your eyes will completely prevent you from seeing anything in the kind of darkness vampires like. I’m the only one I know who can do this. And they don’t kill humans constantly – they don’t need to – but they spread disease (they can’t get blood-borne illnesses but they can sure carry them) and they tend to pick on weaker humans to begin with, people who have less resistance to the bad effects of losing a lot of blood, because if chronically ill people seem sick and lethargic everyone assumes it’s their illness and not vampires attacking them. They’re like humanoid rats, in other words. If you had a well-behaved pet one who never harmed humans and only drank from volunteers, that one would be fine. But the rest of them are vermin.

Now, the best time to kill vampires is during the day, when they’re sleeping. Vampires know this. You are not going to find them when they’re sleeping, and if you did, you’d have to fight your way through their security guards, who are human, and do not know they’re protecting vampires, and really don’t deserve to have to deal with people trying to kill them. Also, being security guards, they are better at mayhem than I am; I’m an IT guy. So, lucky me, I have to go after them at night, when they have all the advantages except one: they expect to be able to mesmerize me, and they can’t.

Nighttime used to be my time. No bright sun glaring in my face and giving me a sunburn. Everyone around me having such poor vision from it being dark that my bad eyesight isn’t a disadvantage anymore, and when it’s dark enough, my eyesight gets better than theirs because my eyes collect every single photon that hits them, no filters. I’d walk around at night, or crank up my stereo and write code until 4 am.

But every time it’s dark, now, I know: they’re out there. They’re hunting. Feeding. And if I don’t track them down and get rid of them, people might die.

And that’s why I can’t love the darkness anymore.