(no subject)
Sep. 8th, 2008 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nilchanceFrom September 8th to the 14th is Invisible Illness Awareness Week. I'm going to try to blog daily on the topic of invisible disability, but ironically my fibromyalgia is flaring up, so we'll see what I can do.
I used to be that asshole in the parking lot. I check for the handicapped tag when I pass those parking spots. I used to check not only that the parked cars had one, but that they "deserved" it. If you walked fine, if you didn't have a cane or a service dog or a wheelchair in the backseat, I used to judge the hell out of you. Sometimes I did it quietly. Sometimes it came with pointed remarks about "oh, they sure look disabled, don't they?"
Ahaha. Yeah. The goddess has a sense of humor.
For those of you who don't know, I work in a disability services office. My mom is disabled; she was diagnosed with MS when I was 2. I have fibromyalgia and chronic daily headache with a side of depression. And with all this dubious experience, let me just say: most people with disabilities don't look like it.
I should've known better. Mom didn't use a cane or a chair until I was 15; you couldn't tell that this short firecracker of a woman raged inside with bipolar disorder, that she had bruises under her clothes from injecting herself with a drug to suppress her immune system so it didn't eat her spinal cord, that she had holes in the gray matter of her brain. But it was easy to judge. Disability was the blind man with a white cane, the mentally retarded students my mom worked with, the wheelchair, the flurry of sign language.
Disability is "oh, but you look so good!" It's friends and relatives suggesting vitamins and prayer. It's professors telling you that you just can't hack it and you're wasting their time. It's working through chemotherapy for the health insurance, it's high divorce rates and doctors who police your painkiller usage. It's not that easy, is what I'm trying to say.
The other day, as T and I pulled into the library in a space beside (beside) the handicapped spots, there was a young couple staring at us. While I got out of the car, I heard the woman mutter, disgusted, "oh, they really look disabled."
It's not the body that's disabled. It's our culture, the one that lays out rules about who gets to be "really" disabled. It's the Jerry Lewis telethon that tells us to pity poor cripples and to pay out for a cure, rather than using the money to pay for ramps and health care. It's the myth of the welfare queen and the person bilking SSDI, the expectation that everyone is trying to pull one over, the lack of compassion for each other. That's a real disease, and it's not invisible. You can see it everywhere you go.
Especially in parking lots.
I used to be that asshole in the parking lot. I check for the handicapped tag when I pass those parking spots. I used to check not only that the parked cars had one, but that they "deserved" it. If you walked fine, if you didn't have a cane or a service dog or a wheelchair in the backseat, I used to judge the hell out of you. Sometimes I did it quietly. Sometimes it came with pointed remarks about "oh, they sure look disabled, don't they?"
Ahaha. Yeah. The goddess has a sense of humor.
For those of you who don't know, I work in a disability services office. My mom is disabled; she was diagnosed with MS when I was 2. I have fibromyalgia and chronic daily headache with a side of depression. And with all this dubious experience, let me just say: most people with disabilities don't look like it.
I should've known better. Mom didn't use a cane or a chair until I was 15; you couldn't tell that this short firecracker of a woman raged inside with bipolar disorder, that she had bruises under her clothes from injecting herself with a drug to suppress her immune system so it didn't eat her spinal cord, that she had holes in the gray matter of her brain. But it was easy to judge. Disability was the blind man with a white cane, the mentally retarded students my mom worked with, the wheelchair, the flurry of sign language.
Disability is "oh, but you look so good!" It's friends and relatives suggesting vitamins and prayer. It's professors telling you that you just can't hack it and you're wasting their time. It's working through chemotherapy for the health insurance, it's high divorce rates and doctors who police your painkiller usage. It's not that easy, is what I'm trying to say.
The other day, as T and I pulled into the library in a space beside (beside) the handicapped spots, there was a young couple staring at us. While I got out of the car, I heard the woman mutter, disgusted, "oh, they really look disabled."
It's not the body that's disabled. It's our culture, the one that lays out rules about who gets to be "really" disabled. It's the Jerry Lewis telethon that tells us to pity poor cripples and to pay out for a cure, rather than using the money to pay for ramps and health care. It's the myth of the welfare queen and the person bilking SSDI, the expectation that everyone is trying to pull one over, the lack of compassion for each other. That's a real disease, and it's not invisible. You can see it everywhere you go.
Especially in parking lots.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 05:13 pm (UTC)1. Your personal experience only comprises a VERY SMALL PART of human experience.
2. You are NOT IN THESE PEOPLE'S SHOES. Even when you are a peripheral part of their life, YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE THEM. YOU DO NOT GET TO JUDGE.
3. Being told to "buck up" and "don't wallow" is part of the problem. Don't be part of the problem. Check your ableist privilege. When you don't feel good, haven't felt good and might never again feel good, "bucking up" is THE HARDEST THING IN THE WORLD TO DO. If you are not in that situation, thank your deity of choice, be quiet and stop telling people who ARE in that situation how to feel or what to do.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 05:32 pm (UTC)At the end of the day we all judge other people but it is our acts which determine the extent of our bigotry. I still think it's important to acknowledge that and make comment, afterall you've judged me without knowing me.
As for your point 3 I've been there, done that, considered suicide and I'm still here fighting out the other side and trying not to slip back. So maybe I should stop feeling the compulsion to comment and just read the fanfics that brought me here in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 05:36 pm (UTC)Second of all, everything I said was on the words you put here. I didn't just say this based on no information. I responded to what you, yourself put out there. There's a big difference.
Third, I'm glad that's a method that worked for you. The POINT is that that doesn't work for everyone. And that you are still making broad, sweeping statements about people based on situations you know nothing about, except as an outsider. You are showing your privilege. You are not acknowledging your privilege. And you are doing so on the journal of a person who doesn't have the options that you do. Perhaps you should think of that before you speak up about a situation that YOU only know from other people but that SHE is LIVING.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 06:00 pm (UTC)Trying to defend making a comment with you is likely to send me into my annual depression, so I'll give up now.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 06:05 pm (UTC)