Everyone deserves the opportunity to dress their best. That’s why I’m so glad to be able to share Tommy Hilfiger’s innovative #TommyAdaptive collection with you. #TommyPartner
I know this is very important for people with disabilities and such but all I’m thinking is “Oh this is where super heroes get their shirts from.”
This shit looks awesome. :D
so for some ungodly reason tumblr staff decided it’d be a good idea to allow flashy gifs or incredibly bright images to be a background for the login screen. a lot of people i know are photosensitive and prone to headaches or other, worse things that can be caused by this. so naturally i wrote a small script to disable those completely. hopefully permanently.
you can find it here. you’ll need the browser extension/addon stylish for it to work, which you should be able to get from the website itself if i remember correctly. hope it helps someone o7
This is seriously so important. I suffer epilepsy and am extremly photosensitive, as I am sure a lot of other epileptics are. Please, spread this around, you could seriously save someone.
For our epileptic followers
Hi everyone! I know this isn’t a funny gif post, but I’m extremely photosensitive and know that many others with fibro are as well.
I’m not epileptic, but sharing for those who are.
Hey, unpopular opinion, apparently. But people don’t just “have pain for no reason” doctors say this all the time (especially to women and chronically ill people) and the truth is, Thats literally not possible. Even if your pains are psychosomatic (a word I hesitate to even use because of the way its used so often) there is a reason you are having those pains whether its mental illness, abuse, etc. If your doctor consistently tells you that “well some people just have pain for no reason” get a new doctor. That’s a doctor who is not going to give a shit what your actual symptoms or experiences are.
I just wanna add to clarify the psychosomatic thing.
That word DOES NOT MEAN you’re making it up. It doesn’t mean you’re imagining the symptom. What it means is that the symptom ISN’T DIRECTLY CAUSED BY ANY OF THE THINGS THAT WOULD NORMALLY CAUSE IT.
I fought to get a PCOS diagnosis for 2 and a half years. For the ENTIRE time I was fighting, I was dealing with 3 cysts that were not going away by themselves and eventually required surgery to remove. At one point close to the end of the battle, I suddenly went blind. I was visiting my parents and was standing on the veranda looking out over the tree we had planted in memory of my dog and suddenly I got one of the shooting pains that I was quite frankly used to at that point and my vision started to go dark. It was like the sun was setting while being completely hidden behind storm clouds but it was 2pm in the middle of Summer on a clear day. Within about 30 seconds I couldn’t see ANYTHING. I was 27 years old and I was screaming for my mother.
My mum raced me to her doctor (he was a 15 minute drive away as opposed to 45 minutes to the nearest hospital) and he quickly worked out that there was nothing wrong with my eyes and what had happened was totally unrelated to them. Then he said it was psychosomatic and I freaked out, yelling that I was NOT making this up and I definitely wasn’t imagining it. Very quickly he calmed me down and said he believed me and I had misunderstood. He explained that whatever was going on with my abdominal pains (he suggested PCOS which I hadn’t even heard of at that point) had been ignored for so long that my body was starting to do things other than the normal pain response to try to draw my attention to the problem. My sight going was my body basically jumping around in front of me going “HEY ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME HELLLOOOOOOO??????”
He gave me some prescription strength painkillers and my sight started to come back as soon as they started to kick in. About 45 minutes after it started I could see well enough to walk around without help and within a day and a half I was back to normal. On top of that I finally had a scan booked to figure out what the hell was causing all the pain.
Psychosomatic symptoms are NOT imagined or fabricated or happening for “no reason”. Experiencing them DOES NOT make you a liar. It makes you someone who has been battling with something serious for so long that your own body has started to get impatient with you.
I completely agree. Thank you for sharing this.
I have chronic pain. I have experienced pain for my entire conscious life; I was in high school before I discovered that it was not something everyone has. My pain has, for the most part, been difficult to define and even more difficult to track down. Half of my medical records make no mention of it, because it was so obvious that my doctors were out of their depth and had no suggestions that I stopped even mentioning it unless specifically asked.
AND YET pain is not my body’s natural state. It is not “normal” for me to be in pain every day of my life. There is a cause, and that cause is a physiological disorder. We’re only just managing to start unraveling it (even the science isn’t really there yet) but I only started to make progress with it when I found a doctor who not only acknowledged that it is not normal, and that it is a problem, but who had an unshakable belief that there is a cause that we can find and address. Some doctors will agree that yes, it’s real and adversely affects your life, but they finish with “...and that’s a real shame.” And there it sits. No one ever found solutions to problems by pointing at them and saying “It sucks, but it is what it is.” I had that for years, years when I didn’t get even the basic tests which would have at least given me a place to start. Now I have them.
Pain is not normal. You deserve to be heard. You deserve the chance to find out what’s wrong. You deserve treatment for it, if possible. You do not have to “just tough it out”. If anyone tries to convince you otherwise, walk away.
I think abled people really underestimate the amount of mental and emotional effort, not to mention actual physical risk, that goes into assessing whether a situation is safe for a disabled person. If there is some element of everyday life that challenges our health (a trauma trigger, a chemical sensitivity, a food allergy, a migraine trigger) then we have spent a great deal of effort to set up our lives to avoid it as much as possible. When we are presented with a situation outside of our safe space, we have to assess it carefully.
And guess what: our safe spaces are often quite small. So every time we go out and interact with the rest of the world, we have to be on guard. Watching carefully for warnings, bracing ourselves against the possibility of an injury, rehearsing what to do (how to get out of the situation, where our meds are, what to tell bystanders if we need help). Yes, it is exhausting.
So when you ask us to deliberately leave that safe space -- to watch a clip which might relate to a trauma, to eat food that we aren’t absolutely sure is safe, to enter an environment which may have the wrong kind of stimulus -- you are asking us to perform a strenuous task. Sure, we might do that sort of thing on our own sometimes. But that’s on our own terms, when we feel we have the bandwidth to deal with it and any possible repercussions, or we feel the risk is worth it. When you ask us to do it at other times, we may not feel up to it. We may refuse. That’s not because we don’t believe you when you say it’s an awesome restaurant/movie/club. It’s because we don’t feel up to being an unpaid bodyguard for ourselves that day. Please respect that.
Okay. When I’m at a gathering where people are going to have a meal, and you offer me something, when I say “That’s okay, I have food sensitivities, I’ll handle it myself” and you come back with an offer of accommodation, that’s charming. Thank you for being accepting and gracious.
But when I follow that with “Thank you, but I brought my own food because I’m really difficult to feed”, please take that as an answer. Do not insist. Do not take it as a slight against your abilities as a host. Do not “take that as a personal challenge”. I can’t spare the spoons to look after both myself and your tender feelings. I will become increasingly less polite as I attempt to enforce my boundaries, and that is never a good thing in friendly social situations.
I am not here to present you with interesting culinary challenges. I am not here to give you a chance to experiment. I am not here as a prop so you can demonstrate how good a host you are.
Please respect me and take “no” for an answer.
With regards, Your Friendly Neighborhood Person With Food Issues
I still run across supposed allies who use “derp” and “lame” in everyday language. (I confess to slipping occasionally on the latter, but I always realize my mistake.) Please check yourself. “Derp” mocks people with intellectual disabilities, particularly when it’s used to refer to animals. Don’t use it.
“Lame”, by contrast, is really only acceptable when the subject is an animal, such as a horse; it means “mobility-impaired”, not “pathetic”, “worthless”, or “disappointing”. And no, to my knowledge no one is trying to reclaim it (most mobility-impaired people who want to reclaim a slur seem to prefer “crip(ple)” instead). If you’re able-bodied, don’t use "lame”. Unless you’re a horse trainer.
Language matters. If you don’t believe that, just look at the effect our political leaders’ words are having.
quietly making breakfast when all I really want to do is sit on the floor and howl from the pain... but that would distress the housemates.
Man proposes, Chronic Illness disposes. #updatedquotes
I just got a car and started driving again so I was thinking about some safety things for D/deaf/HoH drivers. One huge concern is the possibility of being pulled over and encountering the police.
I have a magnet similar to this on my car in case of that situation
I also keep a notepad and pen in my glove box with my insurance card and registration. I keep everything is in one place so I won’t have to reach around and look like i’m searching for “something”
—-
I also found this article with more information—
Too many deaf folks have been killed by police, already. Stay safe!
(Hearing people are encouraged to reblog)
I have an appointment with my specialist today, and I realized I’m already braced and defensive. sigh
Reminder: he’s not my boss. He’s not my manager. He’s not my legal guardian. He’s not my professor. He can’t fire/flunk/evict me. I don’t have to justify my choices to him, though he does need to be informed, and he’s entitled to at least a brief explanation.
He’s a consultant I am voluntarily coming to for advice, and I can accept or reject that advice as I see fit. I don’t need his approval, I just need to be able to work with him on the problem at hand. And the solution doesn’t have to be exactly what he proposes. After all, I’m the one out here where the rubber hits the road, dealing with the complications that life always introduces. I’ll implement plans as I see fit.
Oh, and I get to express my own disapproval if he treats me like I’m too young, too ignorant, or too sick to know what I’m doing. After all, he’s the one who doesn’t actually read the emails I send him, just skims the first half dozen words and flicks off a reply.
Me making healthy people uncomfortable by being accepting and open about my chronic illnesses
[Image description: A short animated GIF. In a pleasant living room, two people are standing to the left while one comes in from the right, facing toward them. One of the couple has white hair and glasses, and is wearing a grey suit with a bow tie. The other has long brown hair, a flowered blouse, and a dark button-down dress. The second person is speaking, and the caption reads "Hi guys! I'm broken." The person entering has long dark hair and a white summer dress, and looks nonplussed.]
I have several blogs on my Tumblr feed full of trans men showing off the results of their top surgery, and other topless photos (because hey, if you can, why not?) And that’s awesome, since I’ll be getting top surgery, and it helps to normalize the scars and post-op care and all that.
But as a fat person, it’s really hard sometimes looking at all those lean muscular bodies and knowing I’ll never look like that. I’m built short and wide, not a lot I can do about that, even if I were to start taking long-term testosterone I’d still be a stocky dude. Something something German/Scottish peasant stock. Good for long lean winters.
And as a disabled person it’s doubly hard, because I would love to work out 5 days a week like some of these people, and get better musculature and feel fitter. I loved doing regular workouts many years ago, particularly weightlifting. But I know for a fact that my body can’t stand up to that sort of routine.
I don’t feel like my gender is less valid -- I am who I am -- but I feel kind of left out, and I feel like my post-op photos won’t elicit the same kind of awe and celebration as the ones I’m seeing. I’ll just be a pale dumpy enby with chest scars, big deal. I’m not getting the surgery just so I can post selfies, or because of how people view me in general, but it still hurts some.
But I’ll still post selfies of my post-op recovery. Because if I feel left out, there are other fat and disabled people who feel exactly the same way, and I can make sure that at least a few of the pics that cross their dash are of someone who looks like them. Loving and being proud of my body is more difficult with chronic illness, but I can celebrate getting closer to a body I really want to live in. And that’s why I’ll be smiling.
The use of plastic straws by disabled people became a moral detriment suitable for public shaming before lack of accessibility became a moral detriment suitable for public shaming.
My disabled YouTuber friend now gets harassed when she uses a plastic bending straw (an accessibility tool, something she NEEDS in order to drink, no alternative currently works) in her videos.
Reminder right here: no matter how someone looks, their disability will not always be apparent to you.
But when my disabled friend is denied emergency evacuation plans out of a building because the elevators get shut off and she uses a wheelchair, does the building owner get shamed or harassed? No.
Those are the power dynamics at play here.
Imagine if ableds cared about accessibility as much as they care about banning plastic straws.
As much as I’m in favor of reducing plastic waste, we shouldn’t throw disabled people under the bus in the name of “saving the environment”.
Let’s keep it to the level of “you need to ask for a straw”, not “all straws must be banned ombwtfbbq”. Recognize that there is currently no non-plastic alternative for a bendy straw. Recognize that some people actually need bendy straws or they can’t drink. Recognize that this is only one of many, many thoughtless exclusions that disabled people have to face every day.
Just because an item is a luxury/convenience for you, that does not mean it is optional for everyone.
Me, waking up: OMG it’s noon already. I don’t think I’ll be able to leave the house today because I feel like crap. My friends are going out hiking, and working, and doing normal stuff... I’m so lazy and weak. I’m pathetic.
Me, a moment later: Hang on a minute. I just woke up with pain which is an 8 out of 10 on my scale. That would probably have most other people crying and screaming to be taken to the ER. I took a Tylenol, checked out stuff on my phone until I felt a little better, and now I’m going to go make breakfast while walking around on two perpetually-sprained feet. I’ve got a bunch of useful things I can do today without taxing my system, because I know my limits and how to work within them. I’ll have my friends swing by here, they’ll understand if I can’t go out. And tomorrow I’ll wake up and see whether I’m in better shape.
I’m not weak or pathetic. I’m strong. I’m a mf badass. Because I do this every damn day. And I don’t let it get in the way of having a great time.
It’s worth noting that Kenneth spent the entire episode making the game (and the subsequent fight) as inclusive as possible for JJ and his disabled friends (all of whom were played by disabled actors/actresses).
For those interested, the show is "Speechless", an American sitcom that debuted on ABC in 2018. It is set to start its third season on October 5, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speechless_(TV_series)
shoutout to all my pals with a degenerative disability who just want to lay down and cry but have to get their shit done anyway. it’s really fucking hard and i’m so sorry we have to put our mourning on hold like this.
shoutout to all my pals with a degenerative disability who can’t get their shit done, too. i know it’s frustrating as hell, but we don’t have to be strong all the time. it’s okay to just be.
I needed this today.
