"have You Learned How To Drive Yet" I Have The Spirit Of Friendship In My Heart. The Joy Of Lifes Little

I think the biggest misconception abled people have about disabled people's pain is that it feels like normal pain everyone has felt before, and that you can get used to it and grow a tolerance like normal pain.

ITS NOT LIKE THAT

Here's an example, when I was 12 I got a daith piercing in my ear, It was the worst pain I had ever felt. I felt like someone was trying to crush my skull.

Then I became disabled, And that became the worst pain I ever felt. My joints felt like they were literally on fire almost constantly for over 3 years. It NEVER felt less painful.

Last year I had to get my daith repierced, it felt like a tiny pinch.

The constant chronic pain I feel has increased my tolerance for normal pain, but you cannot increase tolerance for chronic pain. It is always excruciating at worst, very uncomfortable at best, the pain never hurts less. You just learn how to accept it and strengthen your mind enough to think past the pain. YOU CANNOT GET USED TO CHRONIC PAIN. That's why we can't "push through it", or "toughen up". It's not normal pain, your brain is literally confused and forces you to feel pain because it thinks you're extremely injured.

Imagine burning your arm on something reeaaally hot, now imagine the burning sensation you feel is inside your muscles and joints and not on the surface on your skin, now imagine feeling that 24/7 and you can't get rid of it. That's what I'm dealing with man. Do you abled people get it now??

I feel like this a lot lately, especially bc uni started again and I'm using a wheelchair now. The other day in anatomy class I was constantly apologising and being just my general awkward self. A friend of mine and fellow med student messaged me later to ask if I felt like I was in the way with my wheelchair and to remind me that I belong there just as much as anyone else🥺 so thankful for the few friends I have found in medschool who are genuinely kind and accepting when it comes to my disabilities.

I'm in medschool and I'm the only visibly disabled student in my semester. I'm not very social outside of classes so I can't be certain, but I'm fairly sure I'm the only visibly physically disabled med student in multiple years. I've heard about one other who is atleast 4 years ahead of me. So, in doing the math I can conclude that I'm 1 out of 2 visibly physically disabled med students out of roughly 3500 med students at my university.....

if you feel like you’re ‘getting in the way’ as a mobility aid user, particularly with larger aids like wheelchairs, rollators/walkers, gait trainers and service dogs, That Is A Fault Of The Space (and potentially the people), not of you. You deserve all the space you take up and more.

I know this is for artists and writers, but it's also just really helpful if you're considering beginning to use a cane or researching which one to buy. It gives a really nice overview of the most common types of canes. I have used a cane for a little over 6 months now and I would have loved to see something like this, when I was trying to figure out which cane to buy and how to walk with it. I usually use the cane with my dominant hand and didn't even realise that I can obviously just switch hands so I have my dominant hand free for stuff😂 I ALSO HAD NO IDEA THAT YOU CAN BUY A TIP FOR ICE!?!?!! I'VE BEEN SLIPPING AND FALLING AROUND FOR MONTHS AND DIDN'T EVEN QUESTION IT😭😭

A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)

Disclaimer: Though I have been using a cane for 6 years, I am not a doctor, nor am I by any means an expert. This guide is true to my experience, but there are as many ways to use a cane as there are cane users!

This guide will not include: White canes for blindness, crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs as I have no personal experience with these.

This is meant to be a general guide to get you started and avoid some common mishaps/misconceptions in your writing, but you absolutely should continue to do your own research outside of this guide!

This is NOT a medical resource!!! And never tell a real person you think they're using a cane wrong!

The biggest recurring problem I've seen is using the cane on the wrong side. The cane goes on the opposite side of the pain! If your character has even-sided pain or needs it for balance/weakness, then use the cane in the non-dominant hand to keep the dominant hand free. Some cane users also switch sides to give their arm a rest!

A cane takes about 20% of your weight off the opposite leg. It should fit within your natural gait and become something of an extension of your body. If you need more weight off than 20%, then crutches, a walker, or a wheelchair is needed.

Putting more pressure on the cane, using it on the wrong side, or having it at the wrong height can make it less effective, and can cause long term damage to your body from improper pressure and posture. (Hugh Laurie genuinely hurt his body from years of using a cane wrong on House!)

(some people elect to use a cane wrong for their personal situation despite this, everyone is different!)

(an animated GIF of a cane matching the natural walking gait. It turns red when pressure is placed on it.)

When going up and down stairs, there is an ideal standard: You want to use the handrail and the cane at the same time, or prioritize the handrail if it's only on one side. When going up stairs you lead with your good leg and follow with the cane and hurt leg together. When going down stairs you lead with the cane and the bad leg and follow with the good leg!

Realistically though, many people don't move out of the way for cane users to access the railing, many stairs don't have railings, and many are wet, rusty, or generally not ideal to grip.

In these cases, if you have a friend nearby, holding on to them is a good idea. Or, take it one step at a time carefully if you're alone.

Now we come to a very common mistake I see... Using fashion canes for medical use!

(These are 4 broad shapes, but there is INCREDIBLE variation in cane handles. Research heavily what will be best for your character's specific needs!)

The handle is the contact point for all the weight you're putting on your cane, and that pressure is being put onto your hand, wrist, and shoulder. So the shape is very important for long term use!

Knob handles (and very decorative handles) are not used for medical use for this reason. It adds extra stress to the body and can damage your hand to put constant pressure onto these painful shapes.

The weight of a cane is also incredibly important, as a heavier cane will cause wear on your body much faster. When you're using it all day, it gets heavy fast! If your character struggles with weakness, then they won't want a heavy cane if they can help it!

This is also part of why sword canes aren't usually very viable for medical use (along with them usually being knob handles) is that swords are extra weight!

However, a small knife or perhaps a retractable blade hidden within the base might be viable even for weak characters.

Bases have a lot of variability as well, and the modern standard is generally adjustable bases. Adjustable canes are very handy if your character regularly changes shoe height, for instance (gotta keep the height at your hip!)

Canes help on most terrain with their standard base and structure. But for some terrain, you might want a different base, or to forego the cane entirely! This article covers it pretty well.

Many cane users decorate their canes! Stickers are incredibly common, and painting canes is relatively common as well! You'll also see people replacing the standard wrist strap with a personalized one, or even adding a small charm to the ring the strap connects to. (nothing too large, or it gets annoying as the cane is swinging around everywhere)

(my canes, for reference)

If your character uses a cane full time, then they might also have multiple canes that look different aesthetically to match their outfits!

When it comes to practical things outside of the cane, you reasonably only have one hand available while it's being used. Many people will hook their cane onto their arm or let it dangle on the strap (if they have one) while using their cane arm, but it's often significantly less convenient than 2 hands. But, if you need 2 hands, then it's either setting the cane down or letting it hang!

For this reason, optimizing one handed use is ideal! Keeping bags/items on the side of your free hand helps keep your items accessible.

When sitting, the cane either leans against a wall or table, goes under the chair, or hooks onto the back of the chair. (It often falls when hanging off of a chair, in my experience)

When getting up, the user will either use their cane to help them balance/support as they stand, or get up and then grab their cane. This depends on what it's being used for (balance vs pain when walking, for instance!)

That's everything I can think of for now. Thank you for reading my long-but-absolutely-not-comprehensive list of things to keep in mind when writing or drawing a cane user!

Happy disability pride month! Go forth and make more characters use canes!!!

Went on a date and they were like "I'm sorry you're disabled". My first thought was to get frustrated or feel patronised, but, that doesn't get us anywhere. So i thought about it and tempered my reaction, and what I came to was this: they're sad, but I'm not!

I understand the impulse to feel bad about my life situation. I get it. It sucks. Like objectively. It bums me out too sometimes.

But im not sorry I'm disabled, I'm happy I'm alive! Im happy with disability, not in spite of it. It's a part of my life. I can no more be miserable about my disability than I can be about getting a bad haircut. It's a part of me and I can either live with it, or I can suffer. If those are my options i choose live with it. Its really that simple and drastic.

Disability means pain, yes, but pain does not mean suffering. I am in pain every day of my life, but I do not suffer. How does that work? I live my life. I live! Isn't that wonderful? I am alive and I have a good, privileged life! I have friends. I have community. I have family. I have passions. So long as i can find the good, I am not focused on my pain, and if i am not focused on my pain it cannot consume me, and if it cannot consume me then I cannot suffer.

My disability is just another thing that is part of me. I don't look at what I can't do. I look at what I want to do, and I find a way to get there.

My life looks different from an able bodied person's life. It just does, and it always will. It's going to be different. I can either embrace it, or I can be miserable. I can either live with it or i can suffer.

I choose to embrace it. I choose to live with it.

It wasn't easy to do so, don't get me wrong. I was miserable for such a long time. I wanted to die; I wanted to die so badly. I thought there was no worth in my life and that I'd never be worth anything. But that's not true.

My life is beautiful. It's not exactly what i wanted for myself, and yeah, if i could wave a magic wand and be in a perfect body... I wouldnt even hesitate to take that option. But that's not gonna happen. So i look at what I have, and I'm so grateful to have it in the first place.

I could be so much worse off. Im fortunate. Im lucky. Im an immigrant success story. I live in a better land. Im happy here. Im well integrated. This place is my home. My country looks after me. I dont want for food. I dont want for shelter. Thats amazing. So if I can look at the little things that im grateful for and build from there...

I dont have all the abilities i want. I will never have everything I want, no matter how simple it may seem. So instead, I will be grateful for what I do have.

Im not sorry i'm im a wheelchair! Im happy! How many people in the world dont have a wheelchair who need one? Im fortunate to have one. My wheelchair is freedom. My world opened up when i got my wheelchair the same way it did when i got my licence.

My life may be sad to you, but its not sad to me. And if its not sad to me, then its not sad! You dont have to feel sad for someones disability. I think its natural to want them to be able to do the same things you can, or to achieve the same things you can. I think you should foster that desire into finding ways to help bridge the gap between what someone can do and what they cant. Access is how you bridge that gap.

Feeling sad for someone with disability is a natural empathetic response. I think its wrong to shame people for it, but it is worth it to redirect their thinking. They are sad for me, but its because they can only see limits. But disability isnt about seeing limits, its about finding out how to move past them.

My life might look sad to you, but you dont know what i can do. You dont know how far ive come. You dont know what my life looks like beyond my disability because you've never been shown that. Its not a story thats told. And i dont mind showing you that theres more to my story than what i cant do.

So, i dont mind if someone tells me theyre sorry im in a wheelchair. Im not. Lets get past that impulse of empathy, and have a real conversation. Because you'll see that i'm not sad. I have a rich life and im happy. Once you can see all that joy, the wheelchair becomes secondary. Of course i'm happy, my life is good.

The wheelchair. The disability. Its set dressing. Its the stage my life takes place on. We cant ignore it. Its there. But it is not so big that it robs goodness from my world.

Am I happy about having my disability? No. But I'm not sad about it. Not anymore.

And that is going to be true about any other disabled person you meet. We dont need pity, because our lives dont warrant it. We dont need you to feel bad for us, because there is no need to feel bad. Its just life. Thats how it goes sometimes.

Once a disabled person's hit the acceptance stage, there's really no need to offer them your sympathies anymore. Be happy with them in their life, however that looks.

'BUTCH MANIFESTO'

inspired by 'FEMME SHARK MANIFESTO' by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

(ID under cut)

Ko-Fi (Commissions Open!)

[ID: an original poem titled 'BUTCH MANIFESTO'. the stanzas are all on the left side of the page and lineated, except for the first line, and last stanza. Poem begins:

Listen up! Butches hold it down! We don’t spend hundreds of pounds on designer clothes and black and white tuxes – we shop off the charity shop rack, hand-me-downs from our bois, our men, our women. Butch is not a glamour word - Butch is not for the white collars in their 9-5 and their office parties, Butch is not for the woman in a police uniform with short cropped hair, Butch is not for the masc who looks down on our femmes, Butch is not for the dumbass white people who call themselves stud, like our people haven’t taken enough from black lesbians, Butch is not for the politician or the soldier, it’s for those of us who get shit done and don’t throw anyone under the bus; who stand between our loved ones and the white-knuckled fist; it’s for the people who take a breath of relief when they get home and get to lay their head on the shoulder of their baby and say, it’s hard, and I need you right now; it’s for those of us with hard-soled feet, worn by hours of standing, just so people can buy some useless shit on a Sunday. Butch is for the primary school teachers, the neighbour keeping your package safe, the hairstylist, the barber, the youth worker, the locked up, the sectioned, the evicted, the boy on the dole. Butches hold each other up, Butches stand up for communities, no matter how different we might be.

Butches stand up for Butches, because only we know the shit we face, we don’t argue over what butch looks like for someone - their struggle doesn’t counteract ours. We’re brothers, sisters, siblings, lovers, mentors, we don’t fight over femmes or fight each other. We help up our siblings who can’t hold themselves up and shouldn’t have to.

Butch is recognising our hurt, our pain, and making sure nobody has to go through that, in the very least not alone. Butch is not reproducing that hurt, butch isn’t the transfem exclusion, the toxicity, it’s driving our girls and boys to the abortion clinic, it’s holding your femme’s hair back over the toilet bowl, it’s telling your darlin’ to take a deep breath, before you poke the needle into her thigh, it’s holding back on punching the catcaller because you know it’ll put your lover in more danger, it’s fishing in your closet for an old, dusty dress for your questioning girl, it’s never calling the cops, it’s carrying the Narcan, it’s gathering the funds for bail, it’s tipping the waiter, it’s kissing the bruised chin of a fellow butch who’s built like a brick shithouse.

Butch is not all muscle, able-bodied, white Butch is not all skinny and androgynous Butch is care Butch is NURTURE. Butch is a cane and an unsteady step Butch is putting down the ramp Butch is wheeling up it Butch is addict Butch is straight-edge Butch is diaspora Butch is desi Butch is antiracist Butch is socialist Butch is punk Butch is black Butch is brown Butch is fat Butch is fat-loving Butch is mental illness Butch is antipsych Butch is autism Butch is trans Butch is anger Butch is tears Butch is grief Butch is the old bull Butch is the closeted kid in a dress Butch is the baby dyke wearing a rainbow flag cape Butch is smile lines Butch is crinkled eyes Butch is crying in your friend’s beat-up car Butch is foetal position Butch is pink Butch is motherhood Butch is fatherhood Butch is cat-dad Butch is fucking Butch is getting fucked Butch is stone Butch is bashful Butch is humble Butch is cocky Butch is proud Butch is single Butch is uneducated Butch is poet Butch is poetry Butch is council estate Butch is gentleness Butch is bones and spit and the soft curve of our lower backs the clenched jaw under a double chin the hard-eyes that any femme can see right through the estradiol the testosterone the carabiner clink the thick hands the cellulite the bloody pads the tampon string the mood swings the sagging tits the top surgery scars the swinging cock the hairy pussy the protruding t-dick the leather harness.

Butch is eternity Butch is sewn into the fabric of atoms Butch is love and solidarity Butch is never leaving anyone behind and never selling anyone out.

End poem. In the bottom right corner, the poet is signed as 'Ren H.' End ID].

“I am getting anxious because time is flying by, but time doesn’t exist, but in this realm they pretend it does so it stresses me out. ”

(via sarahkjh)

Source

Here’s an explanation retweeted by the Minnesota Freedom Fund of what’s happening in Minneapolis right now. When it comes to all the voices clamoring to tell you what’s going on in Minneapolis, find the people who are actually IN Minneapolis and listen to what they have to say before you listen to someone five states away who insist, for example, that saying there’s white supremacist groups causing problems in Minneapolis right now is a liberal fantasy. It’s not. There really are white supremacists causing problems in Minneapolis right now and I’ve seen at least half a dozen people who have been verified to live in Minneapolis who have confirmed this and I’ve barely even been looking. This information is easy to find but you have to understand that when you want to find out what’s happening, you have to listen to the people who are living through it.

It is the time of the year again where all the finalists are fighting for the first place, except, of course, Germany and the UK who will keep competing for the last spot.