fishability

Latest Posts by fishability

This is probably still good OpSec, but mostly I need to reblog this to cite it for a paper.

just wanted to share the National Down Syndrome Society’s message for this year’s World Down Syndrome Day (21st March) 💛💙

I also would like to add Bill Shannon as a great source of reference poses for cool crutch positions. He is a wonderful dancer and disability activist and I love his work so much. Hope you enjoy this visual breakdown of some of the poses of Shannon Technique!

Crutches poses

On 12 March 1990, dozens of disabled people descended on the US Capitol and carried out a protest which became known as the Capitol Crawl. Participants were protesting against the stalling of a proposed law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which would prohibit discrimination against disabled people. Around 1000 other protesters watched and cheered while dozens of members of ADAPT, a group campaigning for public transit access for disabled people, abandoned their wheelchairs and mobility aids and began crawling up the steps of the building housing Congress. It was a powerful illustration of the difficulties faced by many disabled people faced with a hostile environment which had been constructed without their needs in mind. Michael Winter, one of the participants later reflected: “Some people may have thought it was undignified for people in wheelchairs to crawl in that manner, but I felt that it was necessary to show the country what kinds of things people with disabilities have to face on a day-to-day basis. We had to be willing to fight for what we believed in.” In the wake of the protest, Congress passed the bill and it was signed into law in July 1990. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2229212140597257/?type=3

We need shittable cities (actively maintained public restrooms).

Trump accidentally does a good thing.

Though I'm not sure if this will actually do anything. Sometimes I feel like his EOs are like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy. He doesn't seem to understand what he actually has power over.

And I wonder if he knew "woke" disability activists were asking for this if he would have changed his view to spite them.

In any case, banning straws will not save the world. A tiny drop in a vast bucket of plastic waste. Fishing nets cause orders of magnitude more damage to sea life. This was mostly a PR move that some thought would be an "easy win" because they had a photo of a turtle with a straw up its nose.

Single use plastics are absolutely a huge issue. I don't like having plastic in my brain as much as the next person. But an item by item ban is a Sisyphean approach and, in this case, hurts disabled folks more than it helps turtles.

Blog Update ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡

Salutations all! Just letting everyone know that I've gone through all my posts and updated everything with alt text to make it more accessible. ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Also I now have everything up on my AO3 and will be posting on there alongside this blog. So if you prefer to read on there, thats also an option! о( ˶^▾^˶ )о

Please let me know if there is any tweaks, things I can do, or keep in mind to make this blog easier for you to use. I have a family member and close friend with dyslexia, so I've been trying to use emphasis and colors in my posts to assist with that.

In case anyone is interested, here are some references for blog, website, and graphic designing in a disability friendly way~

It's the last weekend of data collection for my thesis survey on disability, so if you're 18 or older and identify as disabled or partially-disabled (even if you live outside the U.S.) I'd love to hear from you! The survey is about how social friction is perceived in interactions between disabled and able-bodied people, and takes about 15 minutes to complete. It's also completely anonymous.

As an incentive for participation, there's an optional raffle that you can participate in for the chance to win an Amazon gift card (yep, even if you live outside the U.S.).

"Let Me Get That For You": Analyzing Frictional Situations in a Disability Context (via Google Forms)

Big thanks to everyone who has already completed the survey, and if you fall into that group, you don't need to take it again.

--------------------

This research survey has received approval (IRB number 2025-037) from Delta State's Institutional Review Board.

Tumblr

@fishdavidson in Disabled Hardcore Life community

I'm running a survey for my graduate thesis at Delta State University about how social friction is perceived in interactions between disable

This is an archive link of a previous post I made on January 23, 2025, so I can grab the link for citation and inclusion in thesis appendices. If the link doesn't display the text or you aren't a member of the community in which it was posted, this is what it said:

--------------

I'm running a survey for my graduate thesis at Delta State University about how social friction is perceived in interactions between disabled and able-bodied people. The survey probably takes about 15-20 minutes to complete, and I'm looking for respondents from individuals 18 or older who identify as disabled or partially-disabled. If you've already completed the survey, you don't need to do it again. As an incentive for participation, there's an optional raffle that you can participate in for the chance to win an Amazon gift card. Both the survey and the raffle are open to individuals outside the US!

"Let Me Get That For You": Analyzing Frictional Situations in a Disability Context (via Google Forms)

Thank you everyone who has participated in the survey so far, and special thanks to the people who helped identify places where the survey could be improved!

This research survey has received approval (IRB number 2025-037) from Delta State's Institutional Review Board.

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

every time anyone talks about liberation for the intellectually disabled in any real material way (i.e. creating plain-language educational resources accessible to adults reading on a first-grade level, detangling literacy from basic requirements to participate in society, destigmatizing inability to benefit from pedagogy, criticizing the construct of financial literacy as a necessary skill, etc etc etc), some chud comes along calling it "anti-intellectualism" and blabbing about how you're a morally inferior person if you only read middle-grade novels for fun, i'm so tired and we are never making it out

Fuck this one hits home.

I'm working on my graduate thesis at Delta State University (fear the Fighting Okra!) and I'm looking adults with disabilities to take part in an online survey. The survey will probably take 15-20 minutes to complete and it's about how social friction is perceived in interactions between disabled and able-bodied people. So if you're 18 or older and self-identify as disabled or partially-disabled, I would love to hear from you on the survey:

"Let Me Get That For You": Analyzing Frictional Situations in a Disability Context (via Google Forms)

This research survey has received approval (IRB number 2025-037) from Delta State's Institutional Review Board. It will be live and accepting responses for the next 4-6 weeks depending on the number of responses received. But there's also something for you!

The survey itself is anonymous, though you can optionally enter a drawing for an Amazon gift card at the end of the survey. I can't buy a gift card for every response (as much as I would like to be able to do that) but I can give away a token of appreciation to a randomly selected portion of you. Email addresses are collected only for those who wish to participate in the raffle; any collected emails are deleted after each weekly drawing and only used to contact whoever won that week.

If you have any questions about the project, feel free to send me a message on tumblr!

How to approach a wheelchair user in your way

-> A visual guide

[ID: a graphic with simple figures. on the left is a column of 3 identical images of a wheelchair user sitting in front of a pedestrian. on the right are examples of do's and don'ts. the first don't is a person attempting to step over the wheelchair user. the second don't shows a person attempting to push the wheelchair user. the final image is a do with a person saying "excuse me" to the wheelchair user]

❌ stepping over wheelchair users

❌ pushing wheelchair users

✅ asking politely for the wheelchair user to move

Cosplayers, please don’t forget about those of us with disabilities at cons. Don’t push that walker or wheelchair out the way in artist’s alley because the owner of it isn’t touching it. Don’t give people funny looks for standing without their aids while they’re looking at things. Don’t get angry at the wheelchair user who has no choice but to go past your photographer because you’re taking up the entire space. Don’t kick out other cosplayers mobility aids. Keep space around you for disabled people, because we exist in your community and we just want to have fun like you do.

btw while people continue to fight the system don't forget about Undue Medical Debt (formerly RIP Medical Debt), a charity that buys and forgives medical debt. on average a donation of $10 will forgive $1,000 of medical debt.

why isn't there much info about coathanger pain with POTS?? or at least why is this not more common knowledge? i don't think i've ever seen anyone talking about this. every time i've asked about it (+other POTS symptoms it comes with in my case) in chronic illness spaces people have suggested everything from fibro, MCAS, a CFS leak, a herniated disc, CCI, etc. but nobody ever said "coathanger pain."

but dysautonomia international posted a silly little graphic on their instagram and now i have my answers to why i was having a ton of symptoms that did suggest a herniated disc but there were no signs of disc herniation upon getting an MRI and for some reason it was triggered by working morning shift/having to be upright for a long time in the mornings. i would get excruciating, searing pain that feels pike a knife has been shoved into the base of my neck and the whole of my upper back would have this icy burning sensation. accompanied by me losing the ability to think straight, losing my coordination, and slurring my speech. i left work crying one morning because of how much pain i was in before i eventually came to the conclusion i couldn't do morning shifts.

that's coathanger pain. my spine is okay (i think...for now, anyway.) according to The Stuff they don't know what causes coathanger pain necessarily but they theorize it has to do with reduced blood flow to those areas of the body (which would track since POTS tends to involve blood pooling in the extremities and such.) it's also not exclusive to POTS and is associated with dysautonomia or orthostatic intolerance in general i think.

One example of the power of obtaining the autonomic history is the Coat Hanger Phenomenon. In people who have neurogenic orthostatic hypotension or orthostatic intolerance, they can complain of pain, or like a charley horse kind of sensation, in the back of the neck and shoulder areas in the distribution that’s like a coat hanger. And it goes away when the person is lying down. That’s an important symptom. And the way I explain it is that the muscles that control your head are tonically active, otherwise your head be falling down all the time. Tonically active. That means they’re using up oxygenated blood all the time. Well suppose you’re in a critical situation where there’s a drop in blood flow at the delivery of oxygenated blood to the head. In that situation these muscles are not getting enough oxygenated blood. They’re tonically active, so they’re producing lactic acid and you get a charley horse, just like you’d have a cramp anywhere else. It’s a skeletal muscle thing. So, I think when somebody complains of Coat Hanger Phenomenon, that’s a very important sign or symptom. And that is not invented. That’s a real phenomenon. It points to ischemia to the skeletal muscle holding your head up.

(Dr. Goldstein, The Dysautonomia Project)

worsening cognitive dysfunction, slurred speech, and worsening coordination because blood's not getting to my brain. bordering on emergency-room-level pain in my upper back and neck because not enough blood is getting to those parts of my body. got it.

anyway, i legit have NEVER seen this discussed until recently and i thought i should share.

I realized the other day that the reason I didn't watch much TV as a teenager (and why I'm only now catching up on late aughts/early teens media that I missed), is because I literally didn't understand how to use our TV. My parents got a new system, and it had three remotes with a Venn diagram of functions. If someone left the TV on an unfamiliar mode, I didn't know how to get back to where I wanted to be, so I just stopped watching TV on my own altogether.

I explained all this to my therapist, because I didn't know if this was more related to my then-unnoticed autism, or to my relationship with my parents at the time (we had issues less/unrelated to neurodivergency). She told me something interesting.

In children's autism assessments, a common test is to give them a straightforward task that they cannot reasonably perform, like opening an overtight jar. The "real" test is to see, when they realize that they cannot do it on their own, if they approach a caregiver for help. Children that do not seek help are more likely to be autistic than those that do.

This aligns with the compulsory independence I've noticed to be common in autistic adults, particularly articulated by those with lower support needs and/or who were evaluated later in life. It just genuinely does not occur to us to ask for help, to the point that we abandon many tasks that we could easily perform with minor assistance. I had assumed it was due to a shared common social trauma (ie bad experiences with asking for help in the past), but the fact that this trait is a childhood test metric hints at something deeper.

My therapist told me that the extremely pathologizing main theory is that this has something to do with theory of mind, that is doesn't occur to us that other people may have skills that we do not. I can't speak for my early childhood self, or for all autistic people, but I don't buy this. Even if I'm aware that someone else has knowledge that I do not (as with my parents understanding of our TV), asking for help still doesn't present itself as an option. Why?

My best guess, using only myself as a model, is due to the static wall of a communication barrier. I struggle a lot to make myself understood, to articulate the thing in my brain well enough that it will appear identically (or at least close enough) in somebody else's brain. I need to be actively aware of myself and my audience. I need to know the correct words, the correct sentence structure, and a close-enough tone, cadence, and body language. I need draft scripts to react to possible responses, because if I get caught too off guard, I may need several minutes to construct an appropriate response. In simple day-to-day interactions, I can get by okay. In a few very specific situations, I can excel. When given the opportunity, I can write more clearly than I am ever capable of speaking.

When I'm in a situation where I need help, I don't have many of my components of communication. I don't always know what my audience knows. I don't have sufficient vocabulary to explain what I need. I don't know what information is relevant to convey, and the order in which I should convey it. I don't often understand the degree of help I need, so I can come across inappropriately urgent or overly relaxed. I have no ability to preplan scripts because I don't even know the basic plot of the situation.

I can stumble though with one or two deficiencies, but if I'm missing too much, me and the potential helper become mutually unintelligible. I have learned the limits of what I can expect from myself, and it is conceptualized as a real and physical barrier. I am not a runner, so running a 5k tomorrow does not present itself as an option to me. In the same way, if I have subconscious knowledge that an interaction is beyond my capability, it does not present itself as an option to me. It's the minimum communication requirements that prevent me from asking for help, not anything to do with the concept of help itself.

Maybe. This is the theory of one person. I'm curious if anyone else vibes with this at all.

I saw a post saying that stimulants for ADHD are life saving medications because they reduce car crashes and while stimulants are very important for people with ADHD they just... aren't life saving.

some medications you will die without. stimulants for ADHD are not on that list.

when other disabled people talk about life saving medication we don't just mean "very important" we mean "life saving"

I would die of organ failure caused by inflammation from lupus if I didn't have my biologic. diabetics would die of diabetic ketoacidosis without insulin. people with asthma would suffocate to death without their inhalers. that is what it means to have a life saving medication.

you can emphasize the importance of a medication without comparing it to truly life saving medications. it just comes across really insensitive when you compare lower risk of car crashes to guaranteed death without a medication

like, the shortage of stimulants is absolutely detrimental to people with ADHD but it's not comparable to a shortage of a life saving medication. without a stimulant people with ADHD would still live, without insulin diabetics would die. when stimulant prices are inflated and people can't access them it is hard but it does not equate to death. when people with life threatening autoimmune diseases can't afford their medication it does equate to death.

if you want to talk about the importance of stimulants for people with ADHD and the negative effects of the shortage that's great! but refer to the medication correctly- it's life changing, it's not life saving

stop making fun of bad people for being fat or having small dicks or being socially awkward or whatever else you seem to think is a fair target. none of that shit has anything to do with why theyre bad. i don’t care if a nazi has a stutter or a terf has thinning hair or whatever. at best youre missing the point, at worst your comments are gonna hurt vulnerable people more than they will ever affect the shitty person you’re mocking. why are you so attached to these bullshit standards anyway?

I think the reason a lot of leftists struggle with disability justice is that they haven't moved past the concept that discrimination isn't bad because it's objectively "wrong." yes, sexists are objectively wrong when they try to claim women are dumber than men. yes, antisemites are objectively wrong that jewish people are inherently greedy and run the state. yes, racists are wrong when they try to claim that white people are the superior race. and so on.

but then with disabled people, there are a lot of objective truths to the discrimination we face. people with IDs/LDs do fall behind and struggle with certain concepts. physically disabled people are often weaker and less capable of performing demanding tasks than able bodied people. many of us with mental illnesses are more reckless and less responsible. a lot of us are dependent on others and do not contribute much "worth".

and guess what? disabled people still deserve a place in the world. disabled people still deserve the supports they need. because they are people, and that should be enough to support them and believe they deserve a place at the table.

if your only rebuttal against discrimination is its objective inaccuracies, you are meeting bigots where they are at. you are validating the very concept that if and when people are truly incapable of being equal to the majority, that means they are worth less. this causes some leftists to then try to deny the objective realities of disabled people and/or become ableist themselves.

your rallying behind marginalized groups should start and end with the fact that people are completely worthy of life and equity, because they are fellow human beings and that should, frankly, be enough.

A disabled woman fell on the bus I'm on and I'm literally the only one who listened to her and didn't try and pull her up when she said she wanted to sit for a second, or crowd her saying what she should do next.

Can we actually listen to disabled people maybe? This is exhausting.

i love when i see another cane user/ disabled person in public and we make that eye contact of solidarity

like yes!! you are like me!! i am like you!!

A friend of mine recently broke her foot.

She's a wonderful friend. A deeply kind and considerate person. One of the first things she did after getting out of the hospital was to apologize to me.

"I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

"Hun, you're the one with the broken foot. What are you talking about?"

"I had no idea it was so hard for you all the time... There are stairs everywhere... Even in places where there's supposed to be a lift. And often the lift doesn't work. And there's pavement where my crutches keep getting stuck.... I'm so tired because walking like this isn't the same but there are no benches where I can rest....

You tried to explain and I thought I understood.... But I really had no idea. And this is what it's like for you ALL THE TIME.... I'm so so so sorry"

God how I cried.

ayo this pretty cool

Redpillinnovations

Open Source Wheelchairs

This page provides information on open source wheelchairs.

[id: active style manual wheelchair with frame made of rectangle wood planks screwed together. end id]

as we know active type wheelchair very expensive, & repair need buy from specific medical manufacturer n take very long time. someone (who wheelchair user themself of near 40 years) made open source active manual wheelchair where most (if not all?) material from commercial easy get materials! wood, plastic, pvc pipe, & those commercial aluminum square pipe things. n they put guide made them yourself in link for anyone want try make

this video from their instagram show their wood frame wheelchair actually pretty durable, include clip from everyday use & even drop wheelchair all over place (basically imagine what airline do to them…) - n wheelchair stay in tact! n even if some part break - it easy change because wood planks all screwed together so you just buy wood plank & unscrew & rescrew.

not great for people w advanced seating positioning needs probably (think if only problem is easy butt pressure sore, maybe can still use this + supportive cushion but think beyond that it get hard). but if like you don’t need those things then maybe fun project?

have not use for self so can’t actually talk about experience but it look pretty cool

wheelchair users deserve a minimum of three wheelchairs to meet different needs. like, bare minimum of indoor chair, outdoor chair, and off road chair. chairs that meet different needs for transport, activity, positioning needs, energy levels, etc.

there is not "one chair" that can meet every need. wheelchair users deserve to have multiple chairs that meet specific needs, no matter how complex their seating/positioning needs. we deserve to at least have a backup if our chair breaks that is just as suited to our needs.

on peace after trauma 🌻

Every country should have options for free/affordable accomodation for disabled people who don't want to live with their families and I'm so serious. Personally I'm in the process of realising that my current living situation is actually making me feel miserable lmao, and I was fortunate enough to stumble upon an opportunity to live somewhere else, where I would have 24/7 care without having to see my parents every day. I'm still on the waiting list, but it honestly can't come soon enough. The codependency between disabled people (especially people who were born disabled) and their parents isn't talked about nearly enough (or at all?) and it's a huge fucking shame because I think that if it was more present in the discussion on disability rights, there could be more tools in place to help disabled people who want to be independent from their families while still receiving the care they need.

And still it feels like it's not talked about because families should "stick together" and "sort it amongst themselves" and their disabled relatives are "their cross to bear". Like. Has anyone asked the disabled people in question whether they want to be their family's cross to bear? Whether they want their parents to be the people they see and talk to the most throughout the day? Whether they want to have only them to depend on, and if they were both sick or something, then I guess they're fucked lmao?

So. Accomodation for disabled people who seek independence from their families. Now 🤲🏻