Sionn NicNèill

goma-ramen　"After the rain"

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but now i am contrasting it in my head with another sentiment i see a lot, which is people who find it easier to absorb distress and misery than make a change to escape it. which makes sense, the communities i am part of seem to have a lot of neurodivergent and traumatized people, who are the kind of people who get conditioned to absorb distress. people who don't see the way they were treated as cruel and unfair, people who don't know how to parse their own hunger or pain signals, and so on. and that complicates things a lot, i think. i know i spent a long time assuming my own sensory discomfort was something everyone else simply dealt with better than me, and only after i received an autism diagnosis i stopped forcing myself to wear the most uncomfortable clothes. it sounds to me that the ability to accomodate for yourself when you are distressed is ALSO a pretty crucial skill.

i also think that maybe these two skills are not opposites, either. i know trauma responses can make safe situations feel unsafe. reality gets warped around instincts trying to keep you safe. building a foundational distress tolerance can presumably teach you what particular distress you can and must change. i think. i hope? and i have to assume the people telling others about the importance of distress tolerance are aware that not all distress should be tolerated. it just struck me that i sometimes get praised for making changes in my life instead of staying stuck in a misery forever, or that some people are loathe to turn of autocorrect even though it brings them nothing but grief... there are things i do in my life - accomodations i make to suit my own needs - that get me labeled as weak and coddled and spoiled by some, and praised as brave and admirable by others who can't imagine doing the same.

In the 'distress tolerance' discourse, I see two similar groups.

First, you have the people who didn't get to expand their distress tolerance until later in life, who are pointing out (correctly) that distress tolerance (and your ability to expand your window for distress tolerance) is a critical life skill.

Second, you have people who have had distress tolerance forced upon them because of systemic injustice, who are pointing out (correctly) how much pointless suffering they're asked to endure using the language of distress tolerance and character-building (ex: : getting told they need to 'learn to get along with people they don't agree with' or 'accept not everyone will like you' when they're targeted by a racist bully). I've seen a heartbreaking number of people, especially disabled people, absorb the message that they're being lazy or spoiled or refusing to better themselves if they do things that make their life easier or less painful (ex: using a mobility aid, wearing comfortable clothes, 'giving up' on a time-consuming therapy regime that isn't working).

I don't think these are mutually exclusive categories -- as OP pointed out, there are people who lived with constant demands to endure distress, and as a result never learned to recognize when they can and should refuse to tolerate distress (ie, learned helplessness). Or people who realize they've been the target of those unreasonable demands, and then go to the other extreme and interpret any situation where they have to leave their comfort zone as another unreasonable demand to tolerate unnecessary suffering. People can also experience both in different areas of their life -- maybe they've been asked to endure unnecessary physical pain in medical settings, but never learned to tolerate uncomfortable social situations (like gracefully handling romantic rejection).

Finally, this person made the excellent point that sometimes removing the unnecessary suffering is often what allows someone to do the personal growth discomfort, because the unnecessary suffering is using up all their capacity to handle stress.

1. there will always be someone more severely affected by their disability than you are, this does not mean you aren't disabled, or that your struggles aren't real. these disabled people are not your enemy.

2. visibly disabled people are not treated better than invisibly disabled people, there are different struggles to both.

3. visibly & severely disabled people are not lucky for being visibly disabled or severely disabled. this belief is ableist.

4. we all need to keep the more severely disabled people in mind, they are the most vulnerable & this is disability justice 101.

5. there will always be severely disabled people in public, you absolutely need to work on your discomforts about the conditions/aids/symptoms/behaviours they might have; drooling, incontinence, "odd" behaviours, visible differences, use of AAC etc. this is a you problem, not a them problem.

6. there will always be symptoms of disabilities that you don't approve of; zero social awareness, cognitive impairments, violent meltdowns, strong smells & loud noises, being nonverbal/semiverbal etc. no one can force you to like it, but you cannot be cruel to them regardless of your opinions, again, this is a you problem & not a them problem.

7. you can still be ableist even if you yourself are disabled, this isn't always internalised, it can also be outright ableism.

8. caregivers of severely disabled people often play an important role in disability spaces, try not to *immediately* discount their experiences, unless they're truly over stepping, are being factually incorrect/uneducated or ableist. (caregivers can come with unique problems in disability spaces, 100%, but they are not inherently bad)

9. severely disabled people will have experiences you do not have, it is not an attack on you when these experiences are talked about.

10. “people wouldn’t say [ableist thing] to a wheelchair user” yes they would and yes they do.

Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.

Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.

All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.

After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.

It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of years—far longer than settlers have been in Canada—and made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotēn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.

And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racism—like Kashechewan—because it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.

The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.

Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.

ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.

Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.

*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.

If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.

items needed are: food, diapers, medical masks, men’s and women’s joggers (all sizes), children’s clothing (newborn to size 14), children’s shoes, summer clothing, men’s clothing, toiletries (lotion, Vaseline, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, soap, deodorant, etc.), strollers, adult depends-all sizes, dog & cat food