#ability stuff

for me, there’s an obvious connection here to mental illness. if you sometimes exist in an altered state - if you lose track of your memories or identity, if you believe radically different things about yourself and the world, if you behave in ways that other people struggle to understand - that doesn’t make you less “real” at those times.

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They are planning to collect information from tens of thousands of people with ME/CFS and analyse DNA to see whether the disease is partly genetic and if so, help pinpoint what causes it – which is the path to finding treatments.

You can participate from home by completing a questionnaire, and you may also be asked to provide a saliva sample via post.

I’d had my diagnosis for ten years before I realized I could use the word disability.

So I have a rant. 

I’ve noticed, with a lot of blind fictional characters, the writers just say they were ‘blind from birth’ which is such a copout. It’s like saying that your nose is running. No reason given- could be allergies, could be a cold, could be that you ate something super spicy. 

Eye conditions that cause blindness and visual impairment (only something like 8 percent of legally blind people are completely blind) are varied and they have different effects and other symptoms. Not everyone who is blind ‘looks blind’ or has the clouded cornea that traditionally signals that a character is blind. The problem can be in the front of the eye, but it can also be in the optic nerves or the brain. 

Your character could have Albinism, Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, Retinopathy of Prematurity , Cataracts, Corneal Disease, Glaucoma, Diabetic Retinopathy, Macular degeneration, a detached retina, I’m sure I’m missing some. Each of these things affects the eye differently, and come with other symptoms. 

I don’t know but I really agree with you.

As someone with an invisible illness I often feel like just talking about my lived experience is being “attention seeking” and it’s so draining to have to self censor everything I say. Then when I actually need help (which is fairly frequent) it is hard enough without having to wrestle a voice in my head telling me that if my pain was real and bad enough I wouldn’t have to ask.

Here’s a heads up:

Pain - physical or mental - is, by its very nature, invisible to others. It’s also something you absolutely deserve help with. So go ahead and express your pain in whatever way gets you that help, no matter how attention-seeking it feels.