Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
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Many thanks to @rewuyuu for the commission!
hello everyone do you have a moment to learn about Sampo and Jing Yuan friendship propaganda because IN THIS ESSAY I WILL--
(based on that one Jason Momoa meme, because this is so their energy)
Edit: said essay--
(obligatory these are just personal headcanons of a friend and mine other interpretations are valid)
-They both go :3 they are both some of the few characters that make that face and it is adorable.
-They both conceal their true deeper feelings behind teehee funny man/lax eepy personas [this is assuming the Funny Bone video is canon to Sampo. It was made for Hoyofair but Hoyoverse showcased it in the Live concert event so I consider that canon until Hoyoverse says otherwise]
-On the topic of that both had a tight-knit group of friends they hung out with when they were younger and were ride or die with. Unfortunately, this turned out to be die as all of their friends died (some of the HCQ are still alive but are either reincarnated or so changed/driven mad from Mara the version Jing Yuan knew had died) while Sampo and Jing Yuan were the only one out of their pals to survive.
-But both had to move on and continue to anyway, whether they wanted to or not
-Due to these things in common they would understand and relate to each other in a deep, meaningful way that few others in their lives could. There would be a certain level of liberty to their friendship because of it. They'd be able to release pent-up emotions and trauma as well as sympathize and empathize with each other. They'd be able to support each other and trust each other with the burdens of their pasts because of it. While not easy for these topics to come up initially, once they did they would find a safe space in each other for these topics. And from this would form a strong bond of trust.
-Not to mention Sampo would be a great way for master strategist ™️ Jing Yuan to keep tabs on what is happening throughout the galaxy in other places or gain valuable information for the Xianzhou Alliance. AND as Jing Yuan has expressed a lot his daily life is quite boring and loves to hear tales from the Astral Express's adventures he'd also love to hear all the wild antics Sampo gets up to because you KNOW Sampo has some wild tales to tell
-In happier news Sampo is very outwardly mischievous while Jing Yuan is also hella sneaky but in a different way usually. But when put together they bring out the utter gremlin in each other and are constantly messing with each other or having a prank war but it's all in good fun. It makes them both genuinely laugh a lot, breathing new life into their days.
-Also Mimi is either really affectionate with Sampo or bullying him (safely and gently) but it freaks Sampo out because she so beeeg. Jing Yuan finds it hilarious.
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jenndoesnotcare replied to this post:
Every time LDS kids come to my neighborhood I am so so nice to them. I hope they remember the blue haired lady who was kind, when people try to convince them the outside world is bad and scary. (Also they are always so young! I want to feed them cookies and give them Diana Wynne Jones books or something)
Thank you! Honestly, this sort of kindness can go a really long way, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.
LDS children and missionaries (and the majority of the latter are barely of age) are often the people who interact the most with non-Mormons on a daily basis, and thus are kind of the "face" of the Church to non-Mormons a lot of the time. As a result, they're frequently the ones who actually experience the brunt of antagonism towards the Church, which only reinforces the distrust they've already been taught to feel towards the rest of the world.
It's not that the Church doesn't deserve this antagonism, but a lot of people seem to take this enormous pride in showing up Mormon teenagers who have spent most of their lives under intense social pressure, instruction, expectation, and close observation from both their peers and from older authorities in the Church (it largely operates on seniority, so young unmarried people in particular tend to have very little power within its hierarchies). Being "owned" for clout by non-Mormons doesn't prove anything to most of them except that their leaders and parents are right and they can't trust people outside the Church.
The fact that the Church usually does provide a tightly-knit community, a distinct and familiar culture, and a well-developed infrastructure for supporting its members' needs as long as they do [xyz] means that there can be very concrete benefits to staying in the Church, staying closeted, whatever. So if, additionally, a Mormon kid has every reason to think that nobody outside the Church is going to extend compassion or kindness towards them, that the rest of the world really is as hostile and dangerous as they've been told, the stakes for leaving are all the higher, despite the costs of staying.
So people from "outside" who disrupt this narrative of a hostile, threatening world that cannot conceivably understand their experiences or perspectives can be really important. It's important for them to know that there are communities and reliable support systems outside the Church, that leaving the Church does not have to mean being a pariah in every context, that there are concrete resources outside the Church, that compassion and decency in ordinary day-to-day life is not the province of any particular religion or sect and can be found anywhere. This kind of information can be really important evidence for people to have when they are deciding how much they're willing to risk losing.
So yeah, all of this is to say that you're doing a good thing that may well provide a lifeline for very vulnerable people, even if you don't personally see results at the time.
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