#i hate you all so much
Hey, as a disabled and a chronically ill person, I find it alienating when mental health advocates and positivity blogs say things like “mental illness is just as important as physical illness”. While that is true, honestly, the preconception that society is properly understanding and accepting of physical illness as it is is simply not accurate.
I see this a lot, and while I understand the good intention of these types of posts to shed light on the importance of mental health, which often goes ignored, it’s detrimental to physically ill communities because it trivializes the ableism we face. Why not leave it at “mental health matters,” with no comparisons? It’s still completely true.
I sympathize with how that must feel. Typically when people can’t see a disability they pretend it isn’t there, though I know not all physical disabilities are always visible, which I’m sure is also a problem for those physical disabilities that are not visible. That is what the phase is trying to address, it is saying that mental illnesses should be treated as something that exists. This unfortunately often does not happen. However, I think there is always room for improvement on how we speak about both mental and physical illnesses.
You know people constantly invalidate physically disabled people even if their disabilities are visible? No, of course you fucking don’t, because anyone who defends this problematic fucking phrasing obviously does not have a physical disability. Mental health activism and advocacy matters, but if you speak over disabled people when you do it you are part of the problem! As an anxious cane user with OCD and a schizoid spectrum disorder I can assure you that these things are treated very fucking differently by abled people, and anyone who tries to claim that physical disabilities somehow receive a sort of sense of priority and legitimacy in an abled person’s eyes is obviously not fucking disabled.
I’ve had my cane ripped from under me and been pushed down the stairs, by my mother. I’ve been called an invalid, had people roll their eyes at me and tell me I was a waste of time and money. My parents refused to let me present myself as a disabled person in public for months and wouldn’t let me walk with my mobility aids even though I obviously needed them. I have people constantly tell me I’m too young to use a cane, that it’s a shame that I’m not able to exercise because no one will ever manage to love me, that I should be grateful for my parents who do me the grand service of not sending me to another country to be euthanized, and that Jesus will make me abled again if I pray. None of that happened because of my mental illnesses, and it’s fucking constant! But no one takes me seriously when I talk about ableism because “that’s just people being shitty.” No, no it isn’t. It’s fucking systemic oppression, and “mental health advocates”LIKE YOU will dismiss it and act like it doesn’t exist.
Erasure is what neurotypicals do to mentally ill people, huh? Well, guess what the fuck you do when you talk like this to physically disabled people?
You talk over me, erase my experiences, when you don’t fucking know how people actually perceive physical illness. You don’t want to listen to people whose experiences differ from those of your own, and that is why you are part of the fucking problem. My experiences are already invalidated by doctors, relatives, and strangers.
TL;DR? Don’t derail my posts.
Also, you know what I’m going to add, just because?
Just because you don’t think something needs to be addressed doesn’t mean it motherfucking doesn’t. Your perception of other people’s assumptions about my illness isn’t just accurate because you fucking say so. It’s my fucking body, my fucking illness, my goddamn marginalization!
I KNOW MORE THAN YOU.
