I Won't Lie Gang... This Past Month I Have Gone From Using A Cane To Get Around Outside To Only Using

me: ive been bedbound for six months

dr: have u tried getting up?

me:

dr: being upright is good for u to prevent deconditioning

me:

dr:

me: it was in fact the first thing i tried

different than what I usually post but I'm mentally so so tired and in a ranting mood lol

able bodied people doing things that aren't ideal for their health is so normalized, but when disabled people do it it's wrong or worse somehow?? are disabled people not allowed to be human sometimes??? "isn't that bad for XYZ?" "didn't you say you shouldn't XYZ?" "i thought people with XYZ shouldn't-" I'M AWARE!! I DID NOT ASK!! im not a toddler that you have to remind to eat their veggies or not to stand too close to the tv, im a grown ass adult. ive been living with my disability and chronic illnesses as long as i can remember. sometimes i don't wear my braces when i should, or drink more alcohol than i should, or have caffeine, or do things that I KNOW could trigger flares or seizure or some other issue my body feels like being a bitch about. im fucking human. im allowed to do things that make me happy even if it's not the best for me, just like anyone else. let me live, christ.

I think that it's really important for people to realize that being disabled is traumatic. genuinely. your body and brain feel like they are breaking down and wrong. you are in constant heavy stress from stuff like chronic pain. most disabled people i know have a somewhat regular emotional break down from the trauma of it all. and we are expected to just smile through it by society, to not be in the way, to not be an issue.

Anyway,

You deserve family who try to understand your illness.

You deserve family who try to accommodate your illness.

You deserve family who respect your decisions regarding your illness.

You deserve family who nicely listen to you vent about your illness.

people who assign morality to disabilities: you are not above becoming disabled. you will do everything right and you might still find that one day you are not able-bodied anymore. disability and morality have no correlation.

weird as fuck living in a culture where it's considered more impolite to speak up and defend yourself against someone treating you unfairly than it is for someone to be rude to you in the first place

We need to recognize the collective trauma disabled people went through and are still going through with covid when everyone around us told us that our lives were less important than their convenience. That "only the sick and elderly will die so why should I do anything differently?"

I lost my faith in humanity at that point and I don't think I'll ever be able to get it back.

actually though medical trauma is often really glossed over in general discussions and depictions of disability. i always get the sense that fiction mis-attributes medical trauma to hating being disabled but like. even people who are perfectly fine with their disability can experience extensive and severe medical trauma. people who are diagnosed or undiagnosed. people who were born disabled or became disabled after birth. you have to submit yourself constantly to the whims of people with significant power over you! you're forced to consent to things that you might find invasive in order to access healthcare. if you're trying to access healthcare you have to expose your difficulties, sometimes pain, sometimes suffering up for someone else's dissection and perusal. and it feels like shit even when they don't dismiss you or berate you, or assault you, or gaslight you, or deny you healthcare. god help you if you're also trans or black or brown or can't speak the local language well or a number of other intersecting issues

I was outside today! For the first time in weeks except medical appointments. Went for a very short walk. It was great, but i'll probably have to pay for it and also i'm more sad now than i was before. The distance between where im at and where i would like to be is just too big.