Fishability - Disability Awareness, Access, And Positivity

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.

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

I want more people to be aware of disabled joy. The freedom of getting the right mobility aid. The sense of victory and accomplishment when doing a task you thought you would never succeed at. The smug superiority of zooming ahead of your walking friends on a downhill slope. The relief of a proper diagnosis answering your questions. The peace of learning how to radically accept yourself and your body. It ain’t all bad, folks.

So many people wouldn’t have asthma in the first place if it wasn’t for these corporations…Shifting blame from actual culprits to people with asthma (and people who can’t help but use plastic straws at that) is peak capitalism.

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

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.

"ai is making it so everyone can make art" Everyone can make art dipshit it came free with your fucking humanity

The Dance of a Thousand Hands.