Do NOT interact with anyone using the MAP flags!!!

tags from @tumblingclockwork

consider this: wheelchairs should be free

Consider this: if you need it to live it should be affordable

consider this: if you need it to live, it should be free

I'd love my next wheelchair to be free, but that's not a realistic expectation to have. Even if we could do that, it would likely come with a lot of consequences to the user.

That said, I don't think it would be unreasonable for us to fight for these things to be affordable, especially because these companies and our insurance are notorious for inflating the shit out of prices for chairs and everything on them and using the word luxury pretty liberally when you need something to function. I think it's ridiculous DME companies can not only have such a monopoly on equipment production, but also be given free reign to financially exploit disabled people in so many different ways. Especially given that poverty is rampent in the disabled community.

Those of us receiving benefits don't even get a living wage as it is, add having to pay out of pocket for some or all of a wheelchair and you might find yourself having to decide between using inadequate equipment for longer, (often leading to worsening medical problems in the long run) going without a necessary feature on the new chair that you'll have to use for 5+ years before insurance will cover a new one or going without some other necessity. You may even find yourself skipping meals or neglecting yourself or your needs in some other way.

Hell, even those who can work often can't escape poverty either, thanks to workplace discrimination and the many other ways we are punished for trying.

I ended up having to go on SSI to stay alive because when I got a PT job, they threatened to take my Medicaid, which would have literally killed me. The job I had treated me like shit.I tried to find a Full-time job, but many places don't want to hire disabled people, Full-time and some managers have even told me this when I was looking for work. There's so much more I can say about the impact of that and the lack of services we sorely need on my life, but that's another post for another day.

I think another thing we desperately need as people who rely on mobility aides to function is to advocate for the right to repair our own equipment. We should be able to go online and easily locate tutorials, schematics, etc. People should be allowed to put tutorials for how to deal with certain problems without fear of being sued, but sadly this is not the case. A lot of people who I've seen trying are being threatened with lawsuits right now.

I do most of my repairs and tune ups on my own, but most of the mentioned resources are difficult, if not impossible to find. This leaves a lot of people, who would be otherwise willing and able to repair or tune up their chairs limited or without that option entirely.

Instead they're forced to call a tech, give them the chair and be without one for weeks or months, be charged hundreds or thousands of dollars for even simple repairs and then get it back. A lot of the time, when you do get it back, the problem isn't even solved and/or you end up with a new problem and have to start the process again. Oh, and good luck getting insurance to help with any of that... if you decide to do that, you'll likely be ignored or left in broken equipment limbo for much longer.

TL;DR I doubt we'd be able to get equipment for free but we should definitely be pushing for it to be much more affordable. I think we should also be pushing for the right and resources to repair our own equipment without fear!!

Disabled or not, please share this, it's important and I want to spark a discussion.

Wait, so we had SYSTEMIC RACISM in government during Obama/Biden’s 8 years and they did NOTHING? During his first two years, Obama held super majorities in Congress and did NOTHING? They controlled Federal Judgeships and did NOTHING? Why was systemic racism NOT ended by Obama?

Or when a Minneapolis cop shot this woman as she peaceably tried to make a police report:

Maybe the problem isn’t anti-black “systemic racism” …

… maybe it’s just that Democrat controlled (for decades) Minneapolis is a violent hell hole for everybody.

Obama didn’t call any of it systemic racism and he was fine with it just like the Clinton’s who armed and expanded the policeforce and aggressive policing policy

I'm gonna get shit for this, but I don't see police brutality as a racial issue. I see it as "US police are far too militarized, have too much powerand they know they can get away with shit" issue .

I also strongly believe that mainstream and many popular media outlets like to push division and keep average joes and janes at each other's throats. I think that's why we almost never hear about white police brutality victims! It's not because police are always racist or the media only cares about black people, its textbook divide and conquer!Race isn't the only thing they use to divide us all, but it's probably the most effective. I think the government and their mouthpieces may even be trying to incite another civil war and tear everything apart!!

We cannot let this happen!!

Now more than ever, we need to unite and stand against them, its not about black or white, it's about citizens and corrupt powers who want absolute control!! I don't care what color you are, the future they want to create is not going to be good for you!

You don't have to believe me or agree with everything I said, but I'd be more than happy to provide souces and information. No matter what, I'd like foster productive discussion.

[ID: Tweet by Alex Dacy @dacy_alex “It’s 2019 & disabled people get paid below minimum wage, don’t have marriage rights, can’t access many public buildings, have the highest unemployment rate, die because of poor government services, have unequal access to education. Let’s make 2020 about disability rights.”]

wait they don’t have equal marriage rights because they’re disabled???? Holy shit that’s terrible!! What the fuck!!!

If disabled people get married, they lose their benefits! I’m disabled but I can’t get a doctor to give me even a BASIC accommodation (handicap placard)! Let alone actually getting any kind of benefits! Like because I’m married, I CAN’T get the accommodations I need cause to the government, marriage = faking disability. 

And they have strict regulations about living with other people too, in the US. If you even seem married and are living together, you could lose everything. People are told to divorce if one of them ends up disabled enough to need Medicaid or SSI. And getting any sort of in-home help when you don’t live alone is nearly impossible.

One of my clients works at a sheltered workshop. We found out today from the workshop that because of how hard she works, they are going to be increasing her pay to minimum wage. Instead of just being able to be happy for her (which is frustrating and infuriating to the point of tears that I am happy for the smallest victory for her such as being paid minimum wage when she should have been being paid minimum wage from the beginning-), I immediately began worrying about the extra money she would be making and the potential of it endangering her eligibility for Medicaid, including the waiver that allows her to live in her own home. What followed was an immediate call to my supervisor and our having to plan about diverting the extra cash flow into a specialized account where she can keep up to $15,000. The state of disability rights in the United States is bullshit and it’s time for revolution. 

My client works 25 hours a week and brings home 25-50$ per paycheck. It’s inhuman.

That's horrifying! That's about a 1/2 step above slavery!

They don't give you enough to live on with disability benefits. So you try to find a job to supplement your income. You can find these sheltered workshops or whatever they're called that hire stricky disabled folks and get away with paying them below minimum wage! The best part? These companies get praised for it and so they get away with this because look! They gave that disabled (burden) a job! They should be so grateful to have anything! How kind of that compa y for making that disabled person feel useful and god knows we need to "feel" useful! We can't actually "be" useful can we?

Hell, I don't work in a sheltered workshop or anything like tha and I can tell you all kinds of stories about my job and their blatant discrimination. People just don't wanna hear it and they don't wanna think about it because they see you as someone who has the option to "mooch off the system" and "get all this free money!" They don't wanna be told otherwise. No one wants to see the truth behind the thin veil of inclusion.

  Far too many people have short memories when it comes to the shit their side did.

White supremacists and police have never been asked to commit to nonviolence. That’s only ever been asked of victims.

Say it louder for the people with their fingers in their ears.

My mom peacefully protested our country~s dictatorship when she was in uni.

The protesters weren’t the ones who brought dogs to maul people, it was the police who did it. 

As my mom once put it, “If possible, it’s preferable to protest peacefully. But there comes a point where peaceful protesting isn’t enough. And if you need to get violent then so be it. If you tried to protest peacefully and no one would listen, sometimes you have to make them listen.”

I think it's also worth noting that often even peaceful protests can be turned violent. Many different countries including the US have been using agitators to disrupt peaceful protests and try to bring them to violence. Look it up, the documentation goes way back.

I'm not saying there are not protest movements that are inherently violent and claim to be peaceful, there are plenty of those. There are even movements that the media portrays as peaceful that are anything but. It's important to remember our history and take everything we hear with a grain of salt.

[ID: Tweet by Alex Dacy @dacy_alex “It’s 2019 & disabled people get paid below minimum wage, don’t have marriage rights, can’t access many public buildings, have the highest unemployment rate, die because of poor government services, have unequal access to education. Let’s make 2020 about disability rights.”]

wait they don’t have equal marriage rights because they’re disabled???? Holy shit that’s terrible!! What the fuck!!!

If disabled people get married, they lose their benefits! I’m disabled but I can’t get a doctor to give me even a BASIC accommodation (handicap placard)! Let alone actually getting any kind of benefits! Like because I’m married, I CAN’T get the accommodations I need cause to the government, marriage = faking disability. 

And they have strict regulations about living with other people too, in the US. If you even seem married and are living together, you could lose everything. People are told to divorce if one of them ends up disabled enough to need Medicaid or SSI. And getting any sort of in-home help when you don’t live alone is nearly impossible.

Reblogging for this last addition.  I knew that if you were on SSI or Medicaid because of disability before you get married, you could lose it after marriage.

But I didn’t know that people who were already married are told to get a divorce.

(And of course disabled people who are married must be faking it, because who, in their right mind would want to marry a degenerate defective, amirite? [/bitter])

Adding for full disclosure: this does not affect me, personally, at least, directly and financially, because I have the privilege not to need medicaid – I have SSDI through Medicare, which works slightly differently. And my father (Who had a very well paying job with a major airline, back when labor unions still had leverage) had the foresight to connect my financial support to his pension and social security while I was still a minor and his legal dependent.

Still, Medicare’s support for the disabled is only marginally better, and would have pleased pre-Ghostly-Visit Ebenezer Scrooge quite well. And it hurts like hell knowing that I live in a country – no, make that world – that believes “My Kind” don’t deserve to have a loving, committed partnership with another human being.

This is why my aunt and her boyfriend of almost 20 years never married. She was a double amputee because of diabetes, 80% blind and her boyfriend can not work because he has severe PTSD from fighting during Vietnam. They would have both lost their benefits if they married. And that was all they talked about. How he wanted to marry her in case anything ever happened to him. 

And now the same shit is kind of starting with my parents. The social security office doesn’t know my parents are married because my dad will lose his SSI if they find out. 

It’s just bullshit.

In the eyes of the government, I am my “wife’s burden” now that we are married.

G-d forbid my health deteriorates any more - we’ll be forced to get a divorce and live seperately in order for me to recieve basic medical care. Thanks, Canada!

I think I shared a version of this before, but this needs to be everywhere.

Now how does that response get me blocked? 😂😂

I know I wasn't 100% polite, but come on.

Feeling Part II

I have lived with CP my whole life. Having a lifelong disability  means I’ve been fed various “do good, be nice, you can do it! messages constantly . I have been told I should be grateful  for being able to do the basic  bodily functions like eating and communicating verbally. The concept of inspiration porn was born  from the phrase “There’s no disability in life but a bad attitude.” As someone who has multiple disabilities, I hate this statement.

I don’t like promposals  that feature interabled  pairs because the news coverage focuses exclusively on how sweet it is that an able-bodied student asked their friend to prom and never focus on the disabled askee. Well guess what? Ten years ago,  I asked a friend to prom.  I had had the biggest crush on him too so I was super nervous for his answer. He accepted and we had a great time at prom. This was because he accepted my disability and all that came with it. Truthfully, I did not at the time because I was afraid to have him see me eat. Anyway, I encourage everyone to realize the deeper meaning behind cute videos featuring disabled people on the Internet. We have stories and we  matter beyond the images portraying us. 

I don't understand how anyone can read these articles and fawn over these abled people just for being friends with disabled people, then turn around and act like this isn't soft ableism. How would you feel if your best friend got news coverage just for being your friend? How would you feel if all people saw is one thing that makes you different from your peers and not only was it highlighted in negative light, but you had to be grateful for any basic human decency because of it? Do you think that would mess with your confidence a little?

Hey Ableds! Get your Feel Good Feeling Somewhere Else

The Internet  is bombarded with those videos of  people taking their disabled friends to prom, kids playing with a disabled classmate on the playground, a kid showing their pet how they walk with crutches. That may make you feel good and be cute to look at online but there’s more to it than that. Those images, stories, and videos have a name too familair to disabled folk. Inspiration porn is gross because it objectifies disabled folks. I’ll explain more in a future post.

Over my life, the phrase "don't use your disabilities as an excuse" has been weaponized to mean "your reality makes me too uncomfortable to want to help you" and for a while I accepted it because I didn't want to dissapoint and upset people. But now I'm feeling disappointed and upset when people refuse to believe my limitations. We didn't have all this information and knowledge when I was growing up. We need to be better than what I knew twenty and thirty years ago. I accept that I can push my limits, but I also accept when I am at my limit and cannot go further. You must accept it and accept me. I have words and labels now and I will use them to help myself.

THIS!

I am angry at my parents for abusing me.

I am just as angry at society for letting them.

I’m angry at society for contributing to their abuse.

I’m angery at society for normalizing the abuse we went through, and that when ever we try to bring it ip so we can talk about these types of things, they say we’re just over sensitive.

I’m angry that I would be seen as ungrateful for saying something about the emotional trauma I went through, just because I was provided with nice things and a good education.

I’m angry at society telling me it’s not my parents fault.

I’m angry at society for making it seem like it was my fault, and that I deserved every horrible thing they’ve done to me

I’m mad at society for ignoring my abuse

I’m angry that when I spoke out about my abuse I was “being dramatic”

Im angry that people say its okay because i was a “hyper child” so it was okay to hit

I’m angry that when I tried to defend myself against his abuse, I was treated like the villain and taken away to Juvenile Hall for 13 months.

I’m angry that my parents only tried to do something about him until after I started telling other people about it, ruining their image as Good Parents

I’m angry that when I finally reached out to a teacher and spilled all my secrets to a social worker, when they called home (because it was a rule, they had to do it and the social worker I was talking to was very against it) and my dad came to pick me up, he dismissed everything with just, “you’ll be fine, you’re going through puberty.”

I’m angry that everyone blames my hatred towards my parents as “teenage hormones” when really it’s because of all the abuse everyone blatantly ignores.

I’m angry that my parents forced us to act like we were fine the first time CPS was called on them then cut us off from the family that actually loved us for years after CPS didn’t take us away.

i’m angry at all the “friends” (read: enablers) who turned a blind eye to me/my parents and did everything from belittling and ignoring me to attacking my character when i insisted i was in danger and needed help

i’m angry that my family is justgenerally dysfunctional i wish i had a happy family i wish i was clean and happy

I’m angry that I had to pretend the abuse wasn’t happening — that I was just a bad child. I’m angry that I had to convince myself it was all normal and I deserved it anyway. I’m angry because there were adults in my life who saw what was happening, admitted it to me behind close doors that they knew and how f*cked up it was, and yet did absolutely NOTHING. I’m angry because I was blamed for my sexual abuse. I’m angry because they STILL try to gaslight me. I’m angry that I have permanent injury as an adult because my medical needs as a child were labeled as “just wanting attention.”

I'm angry at society for allowing my parents to use my disability as an excuse to abuse me.

My Experience as a Transabled

People have always had people be very rude to me about being Transabled. It’s not that hard to understand. I just think ablebodied people are privileged assholes and I’ve decided that I was too privileged. So I decided to stop using my legs to remove ableism. Every ablebodied person is an asshole who deserved to burn and die for their privileged.

I don’t understand why people don’t get it.

So in conclusion, if you’re disabled or transabled like me, I love you. If you’re abled, you’re a bigotted, ableist asshole who should burn.

Hello: I’m going to put this as nicely as I can and ask that you read it in it’s entirely. I’m disabled and I was born that way. I never had a choice whether my body worked or not. I’m sorry that you feel so Terrible about the fact that your body works the way it’s supposed to. It sucks that you have to feel so ashamed of how you were born, and you shouldn’t. Although my initial reaction was to be angry at this and want to make a smart comment, I’d genuinely like to talk to you, and try to understand where you’re coming from either privately or on this post. I am willing to share my perspective on the issue as well without being a Dick.

OK, I am now 99% sure that this is a troll blog, but I know people who identify as transabled exist so if you are transabled and reading this, I'm genuinely trying to understand where you're coming from.

Why is it that nearly every middle aged woman I know of is in an MLM scheme?

It seems like most mlm reps are middle aged moms too.

Unfortunately it’s because many of these women are being preyed on with the pitch about them being able to make money and stay at home. Many of them were (or are) stay at home moms who don’t have the opportunity or the experience to really get a high paying job. I’m not knocking stay at home moms or working from home - I do both. (My business is freelance transcription work, not pyramid sales, and I do actually make money from it, but that’s neither here nor there.) So it’s pitched to them as “Make easy money and still be able to spend time with your children!” Add onto that that the older generation for the most part aren’t as internet savvy and don’t have the know-how to be able to find reliable answers online, so they just trust whoever has pulled them into it, and you have many middle aged women falling for it.

This is the best answer to any question I have ever asked while I was stoned, you are 100% right. It's really sad to see so many good hard working women lose everything because they just want to provide something better for the children and feel independent. I don't know how those responsible for these schemes sleep at night.

Karen Wheeler having an affair with a teenager is not a good way for her to “reclaim her sexuality.” To feel “desired,” because her husband is neglectful in that department. Teenage boys are not instruments for freeing adult women from the impact of misogyny. The idea that women cannot be predatory and teenage boys can’t be victims of female predators is a result of misogyny and sexism.  

Billy Hargrove is an teenager who seeks out relationships with older adult women, which isn’t a healthy behavior. If you get into it, this could reflect possible trauma and abandonment issues. You might think his behavior is gross, but the only thing gross about it is that adult women see that he responds to them in that way and they don’t put an end to it. They indulge it.

Those women at that pool have no business sexualizing him let alone contemplating actually having sex with him. That’s predatory behavior. Plain and simple. The first thing out of Karen’s mouth when Billy asked her to meet him at a motel should have been “No, you’re a kid.” “No, you’re my daughter’s age.” “No, I’m an adult and it’s my job to protect you.”

This is not that complicated. It’s insidious to suggest that older adult women deserve to be predatory because of some backwards notion of how misogyny and sexism work when you know right away that adult men preying on teenage girls is unacceptable. Teenagers may act out, but it’s the job of an adults to put those boundaries in place when teenagers don’t know how.

I don’t care if the actor is technically an adult, either, and you have to “suspend belief” to view him as a teenager. (Besides, he’s not even that old compared to some actors playing teenagers.) There are teenagers who look older than their age. Not everyone looks as young as the Stranger Things kids. Teens who look older get preyed on a lot. This happened to people I knew in high school. 

Karen Wheeler isn’t some feminist icon, you weirdos. 

Yes, this exactly.

The one good thing she did was opt to not cheat on her husband, but, as someone else pointed out, that wasn’t even about the wrongness of being with Billy, that was about not cheating. Which is definitely a good thing, but does very much miss the point that even if she were single, this would still be very wrong.

1000 paragraphs of sob story won’t make me care about an American soldier or person in the us military more than the country than they are invading.

To be fair, a lot of people that sign up to join the military aren't doing it to hurt other people, a lot of them are in desperate situations and the military is the only place they can go. Others believe propaganda that we're fed on a daily basis here. By the time they end up finding out why we are fighting these wars and what we are doing to the people there they've already gotten involved in it. I'm not saying we shouldn't care about the people we are hurting just as much or more, but I'm saying that some people see all military men and women as monsters. I think a lot of them are good people that did bad things and they now have to live with it the rest of their lives.