#i am physically and mentally disabled

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[asairayn]

anyone else constantly searching for disability-focused fanfics?

WELL I MADE A GOOGLE DOC!

Over a hundred fanfics centered on disability (physical, IDD, mental illness, neurodivergence, and more!)! All in one place! Titles, authors, link, and summary all written out - you don't have to click on them to see the summary! Sorted by fandom! Almost 30 different fandoms! Over a hundred fics! Constantly being updated whenever I find more!

As someone who is physically disabled, I spend a lot of time searching for fics centered on disability. They tend to be very difficult to find, only from a few fandoms, and often... not great representation. So, finally, I decided to make a list of them!

The majority are about physical disability. I've done my best to find any focused on intellectual and developmental disability, but there aren't many of those because there just aren't very many of them. There's also quite a few focused on neurodivergence and mental illness, and those are highlighted in light blue. My personal favorites are highlighted in light purple and marked with a star emoji.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE ME MORE! I am constantly looking for more fics centered on disability! I will take any fandom!

[eriklehnsherrific]

in case you need to hear this

workout because its good for your heart, lungs, releases endorphins, and you want to get stronger. not because it’ll make you skinny or make your body look a certain way.

wear sunscreen every day in order to protect yourself from easily preventable and deadly skin cancer, not with the goal of preventing aging (there is nothing wrong with aging or wrinkles; it is a natural part of life and reflection of the life you live).

eat more vegetables because you need the fiber to make you more regular, they help lower your risk of eye and digestive problems, and they help in nutrient re-uptake. not because eating only carbs is “bad” for you. you need a combination of carbs, fruit/veg, protein, fiber, fat, etc for a full balanced diet. 

cut out dairy from your diet if it makes you shit your brains out every single time without fail, not because it will “make you fat”.

drink more water because, despite how annoying it is to be told “just drink water”, it does actually make you feel better if you’re anxious or your head hurts or you don’t have any energy. not because it’ll “flush out your immune system uwu” or it will make your skin clear.

drink green tea because its delicious, not because it’s a “natural detox”. ( “detoxes” aren’t real. your kidneys detoxify your blood for you)

not everything “natural” is automatically healthy for you. not everything “unnatural” is automatically unhealthy/dangerous

cutting out whole food groups and labeling them as “bad for you” in any form is restrictive. if you aren’t allergic to gluten, you don’t need to cut gluten from your diet in order to be healthy. if you were not specifically instructed by a doctor to go keto in order to aid treatment for a disease (such as cancer or epilepsy), you do not and should not go keto. 

do “healthy” things because you deserve to live a long, healthy life. yes, you. your weight doesn’t matter and it has never mattered. you deserve to keep yourself safe. 

[rotteneldritchhorror]

One of my favourite things about being disabled is the excitement and happiness when you can do small things that others might find easy

It’s such simple joy to be able to make yourself a cup of tea for the first time (or the first time in a while!) or to just make a simple meal that you couldn’t before! Finally figuring out how to make something that doesn’t overwhelm you, etc etc

It’s a joy in the mundane that ableds need to learn from sometimes /lh

[signedjehanne]

people on tumblr will literally post things like “you have to eat vegetables and expand your palate i dont care if you are a picky eater because of autism (if i can overcome it you can too)” and everybody will reblog it being like “yes this is true for everybody no matter what” and think its okay. like sorry but that wont work for everyone and there is no one size fits all and some people will never be able to eat these things no matter how hard they try. im only allowed by my doctors to eat recreationally and not for nutrition, because my ARFID is so severe that i get my nutrition solely from a specially made formula drink. your suggestions of “try vegetables roasted!” or “try them in soup!” and assurances of “i did it, you can too!” don’t work for those of us with more severe mental illnesses and disabilities. stop tying a person’s worth to their diet and stop assuming everybody has the ability to do what you can.

[venusinverted]

differently abled feels like such a pandering term like no I am physically incapable of doing some things I'm disabled. you can dress it up in pretty language all you want but thats just. what I am

[inniave]

Section 504 is under threat.

If you don't know, Section 504 says you can’t discriminate against disabled people if you get federal funding. This includes schools and hospitals; it covers situations such as ASL interpreters for deaf people in hospitals, letting students with type one diabetes receive insulin in schools, wheelchair accessibility, accommodations, and much more.

17 states are suing to completely overturn Section 504. Those states are: Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. If Section 504 is overturned, the effects would be devastating.

If you live in one of those states, please contact your attorney general and tell them to drop the suit immediately. You can find the contact information for your AG & an example letter at the link below:

[thecorvidforest]

i fucking hate how for so much of the year people will claim to be disability allies and then september hits and suddenly they’re super excited about the horror movies and games and costumes that profit off of the fear of the the visibly disabled and those with “scary” mental illnesses. you can’t simultaneously be a disability ally and also spend your spooky season ignoring the blatant ableism in horror so you can delighted at how scary we are to you.

[rustyghostviolin]

I'm going down the rabbit hole of why Albert threw Frank in the well and I need to ramble about my thoughts because omg I need to get all of this out

This all kind of started with me seeing that a lot of different media contains a child falling or being thrown into a well. I was curious why this was so common so I looked into it a bit further. Turns out that back in the day, disabled or children deemed not good enough were sometimes; very rarely though; thrown into wells. Being locked in the attic was more common, but being left for dead in a well was apparently more common than it should've been. Which got me thinking, was that why Albert threw him in that well?

Albert very clearly has a facial scar or deformity even before the beehive incident, which just made his facial scar even worse, which might mean that he was disabled in other ways. We also see how sadistic Albert is, probably a mix of the abuse he endured as a disabled child in some way and mental illness. What I'm trying to say is that Albert clearly wasn't treated very well by his family; his mother gave him wine as a baby for God's sake and the beehive incident is just clear proof; and he wasn't going to let anyone else get the love that he was deprived of.

So let's get to why I think Albert threw Frank in the well specifically. Of course this could be just because he was the first nephew and was given the love that Albert was deprived of, but I think it goes deeper than that. I've seen lots of people in the fandom headcannon Frank as nonverbal or having some sort of speech impediment; which I TOTALLY agree with; and that got me thinking... This *popularly headcannoned* nonverbal kid with big dorky glasses was thrown into a well; a way of getting rid of a disabled kid back in the day; by his probably disabled uncle...

Albert threw Frank in that well because he saw that he was treated with the love that he hadn't been given. He saw similar traits in Frank that he himself had and was jealous that he could be loved despite his disability. I'm literally writing a fanfic at this moment with this theme

[vastly-fixated-devotee-667]

refusing to give this even a single note but can someone tell me what on earth this person is on about 💀

[firminfollowing]

Happy disability pride month to disabled people who dropped out of primary school.

Happy disability pride month to disabled people who dropped out of high school.

Happy disability pride month to disabled people who dropped out of college, university, and other post-secondary school.

Happy disability pride month to disabled people who feel smart.

Happy disability pride month to disabled people who feel stupid.

Happy disability pride month to disabled people who feel both, or neither at all.

I’m sorry the world is so difficult, and I’m sorry learning in academics has become a privilege. I’m sorry it was taken from you, however it happened.

I hope you know how valued, cherished, important, brave, and loved you are.

I love you and happy disability pride month.

[Image ID starts:

The disability pride flag, set to a dark grey background with diagonal stripes in red, yellow, white, blue, and green from left to right.

Image ID ends.]

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

”why don’t you ever post about x?” i literally cannot remember it. “but it’s important!” yeah but that doesn’t stop me from being disabled. i really Am trying to spread awareness about important topics when i remember they exist but when i'm waking up confused to where i am what’s going on or if i'm even real my brain is Also going to forget about Other important things

[deservedgrace]

I don't think that framing "Marginalized™️ Atheism/Deconstruction" and "Cishet White Male Atheism/Deconstruction" as inherently ~separate and distinct~ is super effective (and disclaimer I'm specifically speaking about my experience with christianity, atheism, and ex christian atheists/deconstructors), but also... okay so I was raised in a cult, and cults are oppressive for all its members. Nobody gets out unscathed, everyone experiences the abuse tactics, everybody is a victim. But within the cult there is a hierarchy, and cishet white men are at the top. So while the cult is oppressive to everyone, and everyone is harmed in some way, it is also uniquely oppressive to queer folks, to BIPOC, to disabled folks, to women, etc etc. And the thing that happens to some of those cishet white men is they leave an oppressive cult, where they are considered the "default", and they go into the ~real world~, where they are also considered the "default", and even in atheist/deconstruction spaces, their bodies and experiences are often the leading voices.

The men that leave go from an oppressive patriarchal culture to a far less oppressive (to them) patriarchal society. The white people that leave go from an oppressive racist culture to a far less oppressive (to them) racist society. The people that leave go from an oppressive culture that does not value marginalized voices to a different, less oppressive culture that also does not value marginalized voices. And if you personally do not experience [xyz] oppression, it can be difficult to even realize there are things surrounding that you have to deconstruct unless you listen to the voices of the oppressed. But some cishet white men go from being considered the "default" in an oppressive culture, to being considered the "default" in a less oppressive culture (to them). Their experience of "overcoming systemic oppression" comes from leaving the church, and it can be really easy to fall into the trap that the church, specifically, is the sole oppressor and enemy of everyone.

Of course this doesn't happen in every single case and it's also not exclusive to cishet white men. But those blind spots are why I think it's important for everyone to listen to a variety of voices when they're deconstructing, especially if those voices are talking about oppression you wouldn't have experienced firsthand.

No, our deconstructions are not inherently different, but the experiences and circumstances prior to it often are. It's okay to acknowledge that and beneficial for everybody to listen to each other's experiences.

[doomsdayradio]

this disability pride/awareness month remember that pwPDs are disabled and often face an extremely normalized form of ableism. i've literally been called a subhuman parasite for having NPD, ive been told i should kill myself for having HPD, and those are just some of the worse comments, i've gotten tons of other shit from ableist fuckers.

don't leave us out of the fight against ableism and the fight for disability rights, we don't always have the exact same struggles but our struggles still matter and deserve to be put into consideration.

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

it's annoying as hell to have my disability blog blocked by like 75% of radical disability tumblr because i don't believe in the anti-scientific concept of mind-body dualism, specifically because my specific disability outright disproves it entirely as my "mental" and "physical" symptoms are one and the same (and make me almost entirely incapable of existing in public, and therefore broadly unable to build friendships and support networks offline). good job building community for isolated housebound disabled people who need it, y'all. 10/10.

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Interesting. Don’t necessarily think I’m autistic but I have more going on than just ADHD and I’m not sure what that is.