Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
“Chronic pain management requires, in most cases, the taking of
strong, often-opiate based medications. ANY patient who takes these
drugs on a daily basis will become “physically dependent” in a short
time. Physical dependence is not addiction. Diabetics are physically
dependent on insulin, and yet we do not call insulin an addictive drug. ”
Prince didn’t die of an overdose; he died due to his chronic
pain. But rather than opening up a much-needed debate on the management
and treatment of chronic pain sufferers - in particular the horrendously
shameful way PoC with chronic pain are dismissed - the media instead
choose the sensationalist path of insisting it was an OD and claiming he
was a junkie. Frankly - fuck that noise. I frequently have to take
opioid medication (in my case, cocodamol and sometimes straight codeine)
- it renders me functional, not an addict.
The more I read about
the horrendous pain Prince suffered - and watching the dance moves he
pulled off earlier in his career - I do wonder if he had hypermobility.
It would explain how he sustained so much damage to his hips. I have
similar damage, for similar reasons (pushing flexibility too far too
often), so I sympathise hugely with what he endured.
A friend remarked that it was amazing that Prince did all that stuff whilst in incredible pain. It was because
he loved what he was doing. The endorphines released when performing
can be pretty good painkillers. It’s why I drag myself to church to sing
when sometimes even the thought of walking makes me want to cry -
because when you have something you love, that makes you feel alive,
that sometimes gives you a reason to carry on - then the pain is worth
it.
It’s
also why I dance alone in the kitchen even when my hips and knees are
screaming, because it makes me feel good. I can lose myself in the music
and the motion. It’s like moving meditation.
We shouldn’t have lost Prince so early. But his memory deserves so much more than the label of “junkie”.
Last year, I went to a con in Chicago. On Saturday morning, I took the elevator from my room (fourth floor) to the con suite (second floor). Also on that elevator: a dude taking it to the first floor. As soon as I pressed the button, he said chidingly, “Two floors! Should’ve walked it.” And then he literally, actually tutted at me. “Tut tut tut” went the arbiter of everyone else’s body and abilities. Just so I’d know for sure that I’d been bad and been judged for it.
Now. There were a couple of conversations we could have had at this point. I could have told elevator dude the truth: that I have lupus (please please don’t make the House joke; you have no idea how many times I’ve heard the House joke, and I promise you that sometimes it is in fact lupus), so I keep an eye on my energy and pain levels and try to save some of whatever ability I have for later. That I’m especially careful to do that when I’m at an event or traveling, because I don’t want to be in my room exhausted or in pain when a thing I really wanted to do is happening two floors away, and I really don’t want to be in pain and out of energy while traveling in modern American airports (apparent motto: “If you can’t stand for four hours and run two miles full-tilt while carrying two weeks’ supplies, lol no go fuck yourself”). So I’m careful. I don’t push it. In the mornings, I might take the elevator, which the hotel did, after all, install for people to use.
I could also have told elevator dude to go fuck himself, which is the other honest conversation we could have had at that point. It is seriously none of his business whether I use the stairs, or the elevator, or rappel down the outside of the building, or maybe just dissolve into primordial ooze and drip down the walls.
But, you know, confrontation is another energy burner. I wanted to save my energy for having fun with my friends, the people I came to see. So I said something non-committal. Elevator dude wasn’t done, though. “You should always find the stairs, first thing when you check into a hotel,” this dude who was maybe ten years older than me and in no way my father said. “Did you know you’re not allowed to use the elevator during a fire? Whenever you check into a hotel, you should think: what if there’s a fire?”
Indeed, elevator dude. What if? What if, in my second decade of staying alone in hotels, you had not come along to tell me how to do it? I might have done it wrong, and then I would surely have burned to death in a fiery inferno, just as I have at least once a year throughout my adulthood, despite my mother giving me pretty much exactly those instructions back when I was seven and actually needed them.
Fortunately, at that point, we arrived at the second floor. I headed to the con suite and settled in. Some minutes later, I mentioned the mansplainer in the elevator and his profound concern for my well-being in case of fire. I didn’t complain about the “should’ve walked” comment, largely because I didn’t expect any support for it; I know an apparently able-bodied (and fat!) woman taking the elevator is cause for judgment in this world. (In some places, going by the general response, it’s borderline actionable.) And most people at that particular table didn’t know the details of my medical status, since in general, when given the choice between talking with my friends about lupus or talking with them about people banging, or being unicorn space eagles, or both, I tend to choose the pointy space birds and their sexytimes.
“Why would anyone say that to you?” one of the women at the table asked, in that mystified dudes-why-are-you? tone. “How does that even come up?”
So I explained about how we got on the topic of elevators. As soon as I said, “He said I should’ve taken the stairs,” ten women around the table looked up and angry cat hissed in unison. It was like they’d rehearsed it for weeks after months of watching angry cats and studying their motivations. Truly a beautiful moment.
From this experience I learned some things:
Support matters. Those women and their instinctive and audible anger didn’t just make me feel better; they actually changed the way I remember the event. They became what was important about it rather than elevator dude. His judgment has become small and insignificant to me, and in fact I smile when I think about him, because he’s inextricably linked to that moment ten people became Team Angry Cat for me.
A lot of times, I don’t reach for support because I don’t expect it. I don’t talk about the random elevator dude type aggravations of life, because I assume there’s a good chance most people will side with the elevator dudes of the world. It’s worth it to find the places where that isn’t true. And it’s worth it to reach for support when I can.
I need to look for more chances to be on other people’s Team Angry Cat. I don’t need to know about that person’s life or judge their worthiness; if they’ve experienced harassment or microaggressions, I’m gonna try to support them.
I’d pay significant money for a YouTube series that was just ten women angry cat hissing at ability enforcers and mansplainers and dudes shouting “smile, baby!” at random ladies and so on.
Oh, yeah, and to the ten members of that particular Team Angry Cat: thank you. You’re the best, and I will hiss for you anytime.
“A person wearing headphones and/or avoiding eye-contact when you are talking isnt necessarily ‘rude’. That person may be autistic and most probably finds it easier to listen like that! Please respect their sensory needs!”
Just a quick PSA.
I’m feeling a lot less pissed off at neurotypicals today so that calls for less angry art.
Avoiding eye contact and wearing headphones all the time is often perceived by neurotypical people as a rather rude gesture. This is unfortunate and is something that really has to be unlearnt for the benefit of autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people who do these things.
Autistic people (as well as some other neurodivergent people) avoid eye contact because the experience ranges from uncomfortable and mildly distressing to very painful and upsetting. Avoiding eye contact is much more comfortable and natural for a lot of us and makes us feel a bit more at ease interacting with people and the world in general. (I will add though that not all autistic people avoid eye contact but enough of us do that it needs to be respected. If you meet a person who says they are autistic but are able to make eye contact yes they are still autistic.)
Forcing an autistic person to make eye contact with you is not only incredibly rude and insensitive, but it is also an act of ableism. You are in no way entitled to force anyone to make eye contact with you. Please respect autistic and otherwise neurodivergent peoples need to avoid eye contact.
Wearing headphones all the time is something a lot of autistic people and people with sensory processing disorder do to avoid sensory overload and meltdowns that can be caused by loud noises or too many noises at once. It is important to remember that our hearing can be more sensitive than yours so what we perceive as loud might not seem that loud to you but that doesnt change the fact that it may still be painful to us.
If an autistic person wears headphones while interacting with you they are not being rude, they are avoiding pain, sensory overload and potential meltdowns. Please respect this. If you try to force an autistic person to remove their headphones you are being rude and insensitive and being very ableist.
That is all for now, unless I have forgotten something. Thank you.
Imagine this for a second: you’re a kid in a wheelchair.
It’s pretty isolating. You love reading, but every book you read has a hero who can walk. After a while, you start to get the message: only kids without disabilities are allowed to have adventures. Because of your condition, you’ll never be able to have a story worth reading.
Now imagine you discover a book about a kid in a wheelchair.
It’s fantastic. All of a sudden, there’s someone like you who gets to go on awesome adventures. Maybe your story actually is worth telling after all!
But then the hero gets their greatest wish granted: their legs are fixed and they rise from their wheelchair, healthy and strong.
And there you are, the reader, still stuck in your wheelchair.
Your legs will never be fixed.
You will never be granted that magical wish.
And the character who used to just be like you is now something you can never be. The writer has decided that their story is only worth telling if they end up magically abled.
But you will never end up magically abled. So what does this tell you?
If I hear ableism being justified with good intentions again I am going to flip my shit. I don’t care if it is good intentions. Usually it is good intentions. My fight is not towards mainly bad intentions.
Ableism is so intwined with our daily lives it’s sickening. It has its claws on our vocabulary, way of thinking, and every second of our being from birth. That is what I am fighting.
If I correct someone, or bring up something, I don’t care if it’s good intentions. I just want it to be noticed, and I want it to stop, because intention does not dictate my emotions.
I will be upset. If you are incorrect or say something ableist, whether you knew it was ableist or not, it will hurt me. That will not change just because you didn’t know better.
I am not mad at you if you didn’t know, I am mad at the ableism that caused the misconception in the first place, and I am mad at the construct that allows ableism to exist without consequences.
So don’t get angry because your good intentions are being ignored. Listen, learn, and change. It isn’t about you. It’s about the ableism in your actions and words. The ableism that was taught to you, and me, and everyone growing up in this fucked up world.
If you see someone in a wheelchair stand up or walk, just keep your mouth shut. They either were prescribed that wheelchair and their insurance agreed they needed it, or they became so desperate for the mobility the chair would provide that they paid a lot of money out of pocket (because they don’t have insurance or they have a shitty ableist doctor or whatever).
It’s estimated that around 85% of full time wheelchair users can stand or walk to some extent. Think of it like glasses: the majority of people who wear them can technically see without them, but they reduce pain, improve the quality of the wearer’s life, and enable millions of people to do things they otherwise couldn’t. A wheelchair is no different. In fact, even part time users legitimately need their chair, just as people who need reading glasses legitimately need their glasses. In addition to paralysis, some reasons for using a wheelchair include pain, fatigue, fragile joints/bones, vertigo, and many, many other debilitating symptoms.
Using a wheelchair is already stressful enough as it is, thanks to iffy accessibility. Please don’t add to a disabled person’s difficulties by calling them a faker.
Questioning whether or not someone on disability benefits actually deserves them is literally always ableist, because you are assuming your limited knowledge of someone else’s situation is more important than what they, their doctors and government officials know about their health.
You are not helping disabled people when you talk about ‘fakers abusing the system.’ You are contributing to a culture of doubt, and you are keeping us from being able to live life without shame.
please don’t forget disabled women on international women’s day.
disabled women are 1.5 as likely to be the victim of violent crime and twice as likely to be the victim of rape and sexual assault than non-disabled women. 80% of disabled women have been sexually assaulted, 50% more than ten times. most of these crimes are perpetrated by their family or carers, people they are supposed to be able to trust and people they are dependent on. (source, another)
this dependency means that they cannot open up about their abuse because they need the support and care of their abuser. more than 70% of abuse against disabled women goes unreported. even when disabled women try to talk about their abuse they are dismissed on the basis of their disability more often than not, especially when it comes to developmental disabilities. (source, another)
in many places, including states in america, developmentally disabled people are not allowed to vote. additionally, a large amount of polling sites are completely inaccessible for disabled people. (source, another)
the bodily autonomy of disabled women is consistently violated. for example, disabled women are often sterilized against their will (source).
disabled women are constantly forgotten by feminists and so much feminist activism is inaccessible, and when they try to speak up about this they are accused of making everything about their disability. this is just one example.
disabled women are just as much a part of the feminist movement as ablebodied women and the continued lack of support for them is one of the movement’s biggest failings. remember them today.
