If a healthy person suddenly felt my pain, nausea, and exhaustion they would call out sick and maybe even go to the hospital. But just like everyone else with chronic illness, the longer it goes on the more life is intolerant of your perpetual health issues and all you can do is deal. If you became disabled tomorrow you either have to deal or die.
How one copes varies, but one thing is for sure, unless it happens to you, (and for real I don’t wish this on anyone) you cannot possible understand what it’s like. Please respect that and stop acting like you’re our doctor when you find out our conditions. We’ve heard it all and done it all.
And please stop telling us to push through. You wouldn’t push through flu, or a dislocated shoulder, or fatigue so heavy you feel like you can’t breathe. Stop telling us we’ll feel better if we just did X or Y. Some of us have been dealing with this for a lifetime. Trust us, we know.
Exactly. Dealing is not acting like the disability isn’t there. It’s resting when you need to, making the choices you need, and planning your future with the disability in mind. If we just keep “pushing through” we will burn out faster than a dry stick.
In Ontario, disability (ODSP) payments are so far below the poverty line that people on disability are seeking out medical assistance in death (MAID). The only thing our premier has to say about it is that disabled people should just work if they wanna get out of poverty so bad.
Ewald’s payments total $1,169 per month to cover rent, food, and other essentials. He tells CityNews he will apply for MAID if his situation gets worse and knows several others who are doing the same.
“I’m not suicidal. Sometimes it’s a choice between burning to death and jumping out of a high-rise building. I’d like to have that choice. I’ve suffered. I really don’t want to suffer past a certain point,” said Ewald. “I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t so stuck in this situation with ODSP.”
[…] He tells CityNews he survives, as many do, by learning the “ODSP diet.” For some, it’s not much more than a potato a day, while others drink coffee because caffeine is an appetite suppressant.
[…] “For the people who are unable to work, for any reason, be it physically, mentally, I will always be there to support them,” said Ford. “But the people who can work in any capacity at all, there’s endless jobs in every sector and the best way to help someone who can work is to get them a job.”
[…] The Ontario NDP and The Green Party of Ontario have promised to raise rates if elected this June, while the Liberals have yet to make an announcement on the issue.
Aside from being callous ableist bullshit, Ford’s response ignores that:
- getting approved for ODSP is a NOTORIOUSLY gruelling and difficult process - there are far too many people with serious and documented disabilities that STILL can’t get ODSP, so this alleged “issue” of “people who could work but are on ODSP instead” is extra-ridiculous
- if he’s implying that people should be working while receiving ODSP - YOUR SUPPORT IS REDUCED IF YOU MAKE TOO MUCH MONEY! Even if you are able to work a LITTLE (although if you got approved you probably aren’t, see previous point), anything over a very low threshold (around $200 per month as per the link below) is going to reduce your ODSP payments. The extra amount you could earn is absolutely not enough to lift ODSP recipients out of poverty.
if you see someone with language disability make post , and you want comment on how talk , here how !
don’t .
“ but think so easy read- ” not care , someone else disability not about you . keep to self .
“ but think seem cute and nice- ” go sit in corner and think before you infantise .
“ but have trouble read- ” understand , but language disability means person probably not have way make clearer . if really need ask , do not blame and complain about person .
this not something that choose do . talk this way because need something call AAC . brain have hard time make words without support . AAC give way say things , able use picture buttons that brain understand better and those become words . not all AAC same , but this what duckie use .
do you know how many people comment already that think cute or nice or easy how talk ?
do you know how many people ignore what say , so they can pat back for tolerate how say ?
do you know how many people then get tired , say need do better like have any choice?
promise you . hear all this before . not need again . should not randomly point out things about other people disability , even if you think give compliment .
complimentwhat they chooseifreally still feel need , like how decorate aid . but not just point out disability and expect them happy .
We feel like we have to project this image of disabled and chronically ill people being so brave. Like they’re such heroes because of everything they go through without complaining. And it’s true that we’re cool, but sometimes I’m sick of it. Sometimes I don’t want to be seen as someone brave or tough, even by myself. I cried for hours today because the pain just got so bad, and afterwards I found myself apologising to my family. Screw that. Why was that my first reaction? I want it to be okay for me to have days when I’ve had enough of it, to just cry and be sad and angry and frustrated because it’s not bloody fair. To not constantly worry that I’m a burden to everyone around me. Sure, I like making people smile, I think it’s good to be sunshine when you can’t find any, but I’m sick of insisting it’s not raining. I like to inspire people and do good where I can, but I am not your inspiration. That’s not my sole purpose. I didn’t choose this. I don’t owe it to anyone to turn this into some kind of origin story. Some days I just need to frickin survive and know it’s ok to not be ok and cry without apologising for it and be mad without feeling guilty because this is not my fault
The narrative of ‘this person was disabled but their disability was cured as part of their story’ is ableist
The narrative of ‘this person is disabled but “overcame” disability in order for them to be a hero’ (e.g. a paralysed person finding a way to walk) is ableist
And just for clarification for the non-disabled, using adaptive technologies, like prostheses or whatever, is not ableist as long as you never forget. Ask yourself questions about the benefits but also the limitations of whatever adaptive thing you’re giving the character.
They have to take a pill every day to treat a chronic illness or chronic pain? Okay, what happens when they forget, or are in a bad situation and run out of pills?
They lost a limb or are paralyzed and now they have a sci-fi cybernetic prosthesis/exoskeleton to replace the lost functionality? Cool. What does maintenance look like? Does it ever malfunction? What happens if they don’t or can’t take care of it? Do they still get phantom pains even with the adaptation?
They’re deaf or blind or anosmic, but they’re a wizard who uses magic to adapt to the lost sense? Fine. What does it take to maintain that magic? Do they have adaptive strategies for when the magic fails?
They’re autistic or have ADHD or schizophrenia or some other cognitive disorder, and they have a chip in their head to make it easier to communicate when non-verbal? Okay. What exactly does it do for them? Does it ever malfunction or give them headaches? What are other ways they’ve adapted to their disability apart from this chip?
Other questions to ask that go for all kinds of things:
Do they have a service animal? For what tasks or situations is it trained?
Do their family/friends know how to help if their adaptive technologies/strategies fail?
Is their disability (or the adaptation) visible or observable to others? How do others react?
Has their society adapted to accommodate disabilities, and if so, in what ways? (Ramps, closed captions, sign language, etc.)
Basically, think about what it adds to the story to have your character disabled. If you were just going to completely cure it with no ongoing repercussions or adaptations, why did you bother making them disabled in the first place? What story were you telling?
“Look, online dating isn’t a magical solution, you have to work hard, and it takes time to find someone you can see yourself having a serious relationship with. That said, the biggest pitfall you will encounter with online dating is losing patience and giving up on the whole thing. Here are some great ideas on how to not get fed up and subsequently give up. Because hey, it may be a cliche, but it’s very likely that there is someone ondating4disabled that you can end up meeting and falling in love with, and if you get fed up too soon, you probably won’t get a chance to meet.”
If you are American, PLEASE SUPPORT THE SSI RESTORATION ACT OF 2021
This new bill has been introduced in both the house and the Senate.
Among other things, it will:
Raise the monthly disability income by just over 30 percent - bringing it to poverty level.
Remove penalties for recieving financial help from friends and family.
Increase the amount of assets a disabled person may have from $2,000 to $10,000 (this hasn’t been updated since 1989)
Update outside income restrictions to allow disabled people to receive up to $399 a month without reducing their benefits.
REWARD, not penalize, people who want to receive additional income while on social security income.
REMOVE THE MARRIAGE BAN YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT THIS WILL REMOVE THE MARRIAGE BAN
For those unaware current regulations do a lot to oppress disabled people. In fact marriage equality doesn’t even extend to disbled people who risk having their benefits reduced or outright taken away if they marry someone. This means that in common law states disabled people can’t even live with their significant other or they risk losing their financial independence.
Current regulations mean that if you’re disbled you can’t have so much as one penny over $2,000 to your name. So buying a car and gaining more independence or freedom is largely out of the question for disabled people.
Current regulations penalize social security recipients who receive income from outside sources, even if those sources are reimbursement. Did you get paid to babysit for a few hours? That’s income, and you get your benefits reduced. Did you loan a friend $10 and they pay you back? The government considers that $10 income, and you get your benefits reduced.
These aren’t mere anecdotes - these are all examples of actual things that have happened to disbled people I know, and if you have any disabled friends in your life I’m sure they can tell you the same stories.
If you value marriage equality, if you value financial independence, if you value the rights of disbled people, please PLEASE support this bill! Contact your reps, vote, and make noise! This is a great thing!
UPDATE: Text SIGN PSLOAE to 50409
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Why the hell isnt Defying Doomsday a staple of the post apocalyptic genre yet? Why must we suffer under the twisted power fantasies of mediocre men while this gem lies waiting in relative obscurity? Why must we suffer through bland protagonists and stale, recycled apocalypses while these infinitely richer armageddons are a mere curiosity? Why?
Concept: an apocalyptic or post apocalyptic tv show centred on a group of disabled protagonists
Must include:
-enough details about how they survive that no one can call it “unrealistic”
-mental and physical disabilities
-a character who isn’t necessarily contributing to the survival of the group, but is not abandoned or looked down upon
-at least one character whose disability is actually less of a problem for them now that the world is ending/ended (example: autistic character who used to be constantly overstimulated but no longer is)
Optional features:
-abled person says “the only disability in life is a bad attitude” and gets told where to stuff it
-character who abled people think isn’t worth helping because of their disability, but actually has at least one skill essential to the survival of the group
-every time an abled person says something ignorant, all present disabled people look into the camera like they’re on the office
- character who only survived the initial apocalyptic event because they had an assistive device which just so happened in that one circumstance to give them an advantage over everyone else
-the abled camp wearing rags and eating meat on sticks cooked over a crude fire. pans over to our heroes and they have perfect clothes, a variety of food and also music.
“what? how did you do that?” “well, jane’s special interest is the medieval production of cloth and, like 8 of us can sew. Turns out those of us who can’t go out much develop a LOT of hobbies.”
A character who scares everyone when a zombie bites them but literally every one of their limbs are amputated.
“They…. they bit Gina.”
*Gina pulls of prosthetic arm* “It’s ok guys! They just got my decoy.”
(vibrates at the speed of sound)
I love this a normal amount
Defying Doomsday is an anthology of apocalypse fiction featuring disabled and chronically ill protagonists, proving it’s not always the “fittest” who survive – it’s the most tenacious, stubborn, enduring and innovative characters who have the best chance of adapting when everything is lost.
In stories of fear, hope and survival, this anthology gives new perspectives on the end of the world, from authors Corinne Duyvis, Janet Edwards, Seanan McGuire, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Stephanie Gunn, Elinor Caiman Sands, Rivqa Rafael, Bogi Takács, John Chu, Maree Kimberley, Octavia Cade, Lauren E Mitchell, Thoraiya Dyer, Samantha Rich, and K L Evangelista.
*reblogs this version again in case you haven’t seen it*
SoRebuilding Tomorrow, the sequel to Defying Doomsday is on Kickstarter RIGHT NOW (running over August 2020). You can also pick up a copy (ebook or paperback) of Defying Doomsday if you haven’t already.
[Image description: Book cover. In the foreground is a woman with brown curly hair, sitting in a futuristic wheelchair and holding a flowerpot with a seedling in it on her lap. In the background is an overgrown city in ruins. The title text reads “Rebuilding Tomorrow” and in smaller font “edited by Tsana Dolichva”.
Since we announced Rebuilding Tomorrow last year, the world has seen a lot have of changes. It took us a little while to work through how we want to deliver Rebuilding Tomorrow and we’re excited to be sharing that news with you first.
In August, we will be running a Kickstarter campaign to fund a portion of the production costs for Rebuilding Tomorrow. You will be able to back for the ebook, paperback and/or exclusive hardcover editions plus all sorts of other goodies. So mark your calendars (or keep an eye out for our next reminder email)! The Kickstarter campaign will be running form 1-31 August. And we really appreciate your ongoing support for this project and in helping us to make it happen.
In the meantime, we hope you and your loved ones are staying safe in these turbulent times.
The above is the preliminary front cover for our new anthology, Rebuilding Tomorrow. We just had a reveal of the full wraparound cover over at The BookSmugglers, so head over there to check it out in its full glory.
We’re currently crowdfunding Rebuilding Tomorrow, so you can pre-order a copy (or some pins or a mug) over on Pozible and help us make this book a reality!
To recap: Rebuilding Tomorrow will focus on disabled and/or chronically ill protagonists and it will have a post-apocalyptic theme. But! Rather than focussing on survival in the immediate aftermath of an apocalypse, the stories in Rebuilding Tomorrow will be set a significant time after whatever apocalyptic disaster. These will be stories that show society getting back on its feet and people moving past subsistence-level existence into a new, sustainable world, even though it’s one that has been irrevocably changed by an apocalypse.
We at Twelfth Planet Press are currently crowdfunding a new anthology called Rebuilding Tomorrow. It’s a follow-up to Defying Doomsday, and maintains the theme of post-apocalyptic stories featuring disabled and/or chronically ill protagonists. However, the stories in Rebuilding Tomorrow will be set a significant time after an apocalyptic disaster with characters moving past (or that have moved past) subsistence-level existence into a new, sustainable world, even though it’s a world that has been irrevocably changed by an apocalypse.
We’re crowdfund this book so that we can pay our authors professional rates and make this book happen. We’re using Pozible instead of Kickstarter because we support worker’s rights and have been deeply disappointed in Kickstarter’s attitude towards its employees attempting to unionise. We support Kickstarter United, and hope that they are successful in their endeavours. We know that many of our supporters and readers have been likewise unhappy with Kickstarter’s unsatisfactory response to this issue, and we have chosen to respond the only way we can — by taking our business elsewhere, for now.
OnPozible, you can pre-order Rebuilding Tomorrow as a paperback, hardcover, or DRM-free ebook. You can also bundle it with a copy of Defying Doomsday (and our other recent anthologies) or an enamel pin (we have two designs to choose from!). If we meet our initial funding goal, our first stretch goal is to make an audiobook version of Rebuilding Tomorrow, because we want to make our book as accessible as possible.
My roomate and I are trans, disabled, and homeless. We are getting a check from a legal proceeding which will allow us to get into an apartment, but we are waiting on that. (Dm me for details)
Right now, I have a serious and urgent medical thing going on I need checked out. Separately, I had to get a dr appt and meds today for a bad ear infection as well.
Anything helps to cover any of this. We’ll have basically nothing when we do get an apartment, so anything we have extra will go towards that, but I cant even really see having anything to go towards homegoods rn with all the medical stuff I need to tend to.
My roomates art is up there, if you send $50+ and a pet photo he will draw for you!!!
A piece of advice to anyone who’s been considering, avoiding thinking about, or waffling on:
Get the fucking cane.
I am very serious. Get the cane, get the assistive device (I’m going with cane here, because simplicity, but the device you’re thinking about goes here), do it. If you’re thinking “damn, if these Symptoms get much worse, I’m gonna need to get a cane”, you already need the cane. You’ve probably been in a state that would be improved by it for a while.
I get it, though. I had other disabilities, including physical ones, prior to Getting A Cane, and I heard this advice from other people and I thought “okay, but my situation is not that bad, and I’m sure I’ll know when it’s really bad” as I lay awake half the night in pain because of a short little walk that afternoon. It turns out, I am not immune to internalized ableism either, like I’m a person in an ableist society or something.
I thought “this is gonna be a hassle, and they cost money, and people will be weird about it”, and learning to use it did take a minute, thankfully mine was pretty cheap, and yeah, some people are weird but most importantly: fuck ‘em, I did in fact need the cane. I can do a lot more now, and probably could have prevented some damage if I’d gotten it earlier and it looks cool.
Stop putting it off. Stop worrying about unpleasant people being unpleasant. You don’t have to suffer at the highest pain/difficulty/etc to be allowed to get the cane, you’re allowed to get it now. If you only need it sometimes, that’s okay.
In South California, LA way, At the Oscars, Will Smith was having a nice day Chillin’ in black suit, sittin’ in front seats And all watchin’ awards go to acting elites
When a guy named Chris Rock, Who had shit for a brain Joked that Jada Pinkett Smith was “GI Jane”
Will got right up on the stage Slapped with perfect aim He said “You keep your fucking mouth off of my wife’s name.”
It has been a month since the Presidential election, and the dust still has not settled from the shock of Donald Trump winning the coveted seat or the demand for recounts of votes.
It took me some time to find the words to articulate the reality that I will live in a Trump-led America come January. This is the America that has no regard for human dignity, empathy, or compassion. This is the…
