Able bodied neurotypicals forcing the "summer is fun" idea on everyone makes me really uncomfortable for some reason. I can't stand warmth and will literally cry in frustration when I feel greasy and sweaty and have the need to shower every few hours. Being outside without sunglasses becomes nearly impossible bc I'll literally be blinded and overwhelmed within a few minutes. The constant "you should go outside more, the weather is so nice" comments.

No. No it's not. And I hate how they don't give a shit about the comfort of disabled people in summer.

When you literally get seasonal depression in the summer because of constantly being uncomfortable, fainting, and chronic illness flare ups, but everyone around you can’t fathom why you’re so anti “summer fun.”

My favorite is when they ask what’s wrong, you say sunny/hot weather makes you feel more depressed, and they respond with “I’ve never heard of that before” as if you’re lying.

you know what? if anyone asks me what I've been up to lately I will just say witchcraft and let them decide if im joking or not

i do think therapy recommenders on here wildly irresponsibly downplay its potential risks lmao starting obviously w/ the threat of psych and criminal institutionalisation which is structurally inherent to the patient-physician relationship but also the maybe more mundane risk of simply receiving treatment that is bad for you and counterproductive. i do not know where the idea came from that therapy is 'at worst useless'. at worst it fucks you up majorstyle

My first and only therapist outed me as being non-hetero to my mom, who she knew was (religiously) homophobic and the main reason I was stressed/depressed because she was abusive, right in front of me by giving her a church pamphlet to a conversion camp 3 thousand miles away and overseas (because conversion therapy is literally illegal here!) and suggesting I go as a fundamental part of my “healing.”

I’m not going to trauma dump all that happened after my mom found out I’m bi and what continued to happen, but just know it was dramatic and traumatic. The only reason she said she decided against the camp was because it was a different faith.

I desperately want to try therapy again. But I’m terrified. I feel like I’m gonna have a panic attack anytime I even email a prospective therapist.

Therapists are human too; they can be prejudiced and make bad choices like anyone else.

I get what internet (often borderline or overt rad)feminists are trying to say with shit about how men never have to deal with x, but sooo many of the examples get shot to shit when you apply any other Man to the example than a cishet rich thin white guy.

“When have men ever had to worry about being killed for something they wore?” Black men. Gay men. Trans men.

“When have men ever been body shamed?” Fat men, balding men, disabled men.

“When have men ever had to worry about walking home at night?” Black men, gay men.

People reinvent “if men could get pregnant” over and over and when someone says “oh they do actually” it’s always viewed as hostile and not a potential intersection.

Like no, you do not have to coddle men, but men saying “hey I do know what it’s like actually” are not outright our enemy trying to center themselves, they are often extending a hand saying “hey I do get it too.”

You get “men shouldn’t be part of feminist conversations” which, hm, and then you get “they should sort this out amongst themselves” but if it’s just men talking about feminism on their own then it’s an insulated boys club being misogynists so they couldn’t ever come to feminist conclusions, but if the group is led by a woman then she’s spending her emotional labor teaching them when the men should just learn it themselves but if they go do it themselves then they’re talking over women (who are not present, curious. MRAs much?) so they should have women present but don’t talk in the conversations because it doesn’t actually involve you and you could never relate to this, so frankly why are you even here? You should go talk to your boys about this by yourselves.

Like, if you think the most bland ass version of Men are so wholly irredeemable and inherently evil by virtue of either birth or identity, why are we even bothering with theory? The fight is over then! There is no hope for change, and things will always be bad forever!

How is this a revolutionary viewpoint?

Forget men of marginalized identities having overlap, the most privileged ass man is going to overlap with the rest of us, and it is as much in his interest to reject patriarchy as much as the rest of us, because unfortunately solidarity means “our struggles are connected” not “in order to be morally pure you must support my cause”, and so any man who sees his struggle as being linked with mine and strives to fight oppressive structures IS my ally because yes the fight involves him too

This has me thinking about Paulo Freire (& by extension, bell hooks) again. If you’ve (anyone) never heard of or perhaps heard of & just not read Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I recommend reading at least chapter 1. It’s free online! It can get a little complicated if you’re not used to reading this kind of text, but his most important points are often spelled out rather plainly.

Here’s the excerpt I’m reminded of—

Obliterate the idea that oppressors are not themselves dehumanized under systems of oppression. Freire makes this point over and over again.

(Another point he makes over and over again is that the oppressed, in addition to being oppressed, have also internalized the image of the oppressor in themselves, and see the image of their oppressor in their oppressed comrades. This causes both deep self-hatred and lateral aggression & violence.)

So yeah. We absolutely need to get the least oppressed people on our sides & in these conversations because they need us in order for them to be liberated and we need them in order for us to be liberated.

sorry, any disability movement that tries to have me say that I DON’T have deficits or that I’m NOT defective will always end badly. endlessly trying to reframe disabled traits as superpowers will only ever exclude the most vulnerable. it will only ever shove aside other disabled people in an attempt to normalise the limited symptoms that CAN be reframed as “benefits”. and that’s not a movement I can prescribe to

chronic illness mood of the day is explaining to people that if I called out sick every time a reasonable able-bodied person feeling like I do would have called out sick, I wouldn’t have a job.

I get why the distinction of "physically disabled" can be useful and important. But we have to challenge the default assumption that someone who is living with chronic illness is not also physically disabled. Just because functionality, ability, strength, energy, etc, are very dynamic and change day to day (often in extremes) doesn't mean someone is sitting pretty. A lot of us have progressive conditions too, so the obsession with whether or not someone is a fulltime-mobility-aid-using-caretaker-needing spoonie right this moment is not helpful and leads to neglect and further health struggles and mental/emotional stress. Spoonies shouldn't have to force themselves to suffer more just because they're not at that point quite yet.

There is more to disability than just mobility and sensory, too.

My Ulcerative Colitis disabled me in regards to bathrooms. When flaring, I have a hard time leaving the house simply due to incontinence.

My mom has had chemotherapy every other week for years in her fight against ovarian cancer (We're on year eight!). Everything gets scheduled around it. She gets terrible nausea, terrible fatigue. The resection of her stomach and bowels restricts how much she can eat. She doesn't have any mobility aids and not in a ton of pain, but it's disabling nonetheless.

Disability is not necessarily a static state.

every once in a while Body Hair discourse returns and i simply must chime in with something. if your body hair is long/thick in a way that genuinely makes you uncomfortable (which is fair) you can trim it. it’s not any different than the hair on your head. you can use scissors, clippers, a razor with a guard on it, whatever. my leg hair grows really long and it’s uncomfortable so i trim it slightly shorter with a trimmer.

this isn’t really a comment on the western beauty standards that surround body hair. obviously, those standards favor the hairless. this is a comment on the practical reality of being a human being with a body. you don’t have to buy into the perfectly-hairless beauty standard or ignore your own comfort. free yourself. how you maintain your body hair is no different than how you maintain anything else on your body—please do challenge your personal relationship to beauty standards, but like, this isn’t a situation where you either have to shave every last hair off of your body or Never Touch That Hair Ever Again

forgive your disabled friends for always being angry with the world. but don’t feel pity for us

Really Simple Ways to Cleanse without Smoke (Cause I Don't Like Smoke)

Very short disclaimer, these are things that I do/have tried that work for me! They will not work for everyone, but I just wanted to share some ways to cleanse without smoke since not everyone can burn incense or a bundle of herbs. This is also going to talk a lot about cleaning because I personally correspond the cleanliness of my spaces with how I'm doing mentally or spiritually!

If you are physically able to do something for a short time, but it really hurts you, you should not be expected to do that thing.

Living with chronic pain is hard enough, I'm done hurting myself so that others don't have to think about accommodating my disability.

Please, please remember:

The term “neurodivergent” describes people whose brain differences affect how their brain works.

It is not only autism and ADHD.

It's many many many things!

Including personality disorders, foetal alcohol syndrome, Downs Syndrome, Tourette's, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, bipolar disorder, Irlen syndrome, and more then I can list here.

If it's your brain differences that is affecting how your brain works...it's a neurodivergence!

"Homelessness doesn't discriminate" and "Disability doesn't discriminate"

Bullshit. They both absolutely do, and absolutely affect specific populations more than others. I'll add sources later, but these statements piss me off so much I just need to say something about it.