Pirate Queen

Shoutout to all the disabled people who are managing to get out of bed for the first time in months.

Shoutout to the disabled people who made their own meals today.

Shoutout to the disabled people who are going back to school/ work.

Shoutout to the disabled people who went grocery shopping.

Shoutout to the disabled people who drove themselves around.

Shoutout to the disabled people who managed public transport.

Shoutout to the disabled people who accomplished any or all of the things they wanted to today.

And a big shoutout to the disabled people who didn’t do any of these things bc they finally gathered the strength to say no and listen to their limits.

many of the “tells” of lying are traits commonly found in abuse survivors and mentally ill/disabled people.

stuttering, averting eye contact, panicking, raising your volume, fidgeting, and other similar traits are actions performed commonly by these groups, especially in situations of heavy stress- such as being accused of doing something we didnt do, especially if we are afraid of being punished for doing nothing.

and i know, from watching my friends and seeing their panic and terror when something broke, that not only were not nearly enough children told this thing, many children were punished in place of being reassured

and thats heartbreaking

so heres the words from my mom that i was always told, and theyre the same words that anyone who never got to hear them should hear now, courtesy of my mom, who has repeated those same words to many a friend of mine and now to you

if i ever broke anything, the first words out of her mouth would always be and have always been, “are you hurt?” 

i would say no

she would say, “thats okay, then”

and i would ask why

me: yesssss

[the wind picks up and it starts to rain]

I’m not saying anyone should be panicking, but I am saying that as a society, as a planet, we ought to be pouring resources into finding ways to keep people alive under these unprecedented conditions; it’s going to be one of the major public health and civil engineering challenges of this century, and we can see it coming. Yet instead, because capitalism, what we are in effect doing is pouring resources into finding ways to make these conditions worse.