land of tea & codeine

Fat disabled people are ok.

It’s ok to be fat and disabled.

It’s ok to use mobility aids as much or as little as works for you.

You are the boss of your own body. You have done nothing wrong. 

I support you. You are important. 

Making shitty jokes or being an asshole about fat people who need mobility scooters is wrong. 

Anyone who replies to this with something nasty about fat people who use mobility scooters will be blocked. 

I don’t care if you’ve followed this blog for three years. Immediately blocked. 

You are making people afraid to use the tools they need to be able to use, that exist to make life easier for them. That is NOT ok. You should be ashamed of your behavior. 

{Image is of a flyer for the 2017 Disability Day of Mourning Vigil in New Westminster.

Text reads: DISABILITY DAY OF MOURNING 2017 REMEMBERING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES MURDERED BY FAMILY AND CARETAKERS CANDLELIGHT VIGIL

WEDNESDAY MARCH 1 5:00 - 6:30 PM Woodlands Memorial Garden New Westminster, BC V3L 5E8

“Mourn for the dead, and fight for the living” — Mother Jones

People with disabilities are twice as likely as non-disabled people to be victims of violent crime. Every year, dozens of people with disabilities are killed by family members or caregivers.

Too often, the coverage focuses on sympathy for the murderer, because they had to live with or care for a person with a disability. The message to the public is that our lives—not our deaths—are the tragedy.

On March 1st, join the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network in remembering people with disabilities who lost their lives at the hands of family members or caregivers. We will remember those we have lost and remind the world that their lives — and ours — have value.

Contact Us: facebook.com/ASANVan [email protected]}

Disability Day of Mourning is one week from today. We invite everyone to join us on this important day to honour those whose lives have been taken away unjustly by filicide, neglect, and ableism.

\o_ -ow

My name is Valerie, I’m a teenager, and I’m chronically ill. 

I’ve been sick for a decade now, and unfortunately, I tend to get all the rare and ~special~ disorders. Because of this, I currently have doctors in nine cities spanning across five states. I battle six chronic conditions, and balancing them is a daily struggle, but I’ve managed. 

But my newest condition has turned my life upside down. It’s called Recurrent Subacute Thyroiditis (RSAT) and most doctors will never see a case of this in their lifetime. I luckily have found a doctor who has least seen a few cases of this before, but I am the youngest person she has ever seen with this condition. 

RSAT is an inflammation of the thyroid that causes overactivity, leading to high heart rates, trouble breathing, low blood pressure, dizziness, chest pains, insomnia, fatigue, hair loss, and muscle weakness. The overactivity lasts for about 2-3 months, and then the thyroid flips to inactivity, leading to lethargy, extreme fatigue, depression, low body temperature, and slow heart rates. The inactivity lasts for 2-3 months, making this a 4-6 month condition. I’m currently in the middle of my second episode, and my first episode was just two years ago.

I am terrified. This condition has caused me to be rushed to the ER twice. This condition has rendered me so dizzy and dropped my blood pressure so low that walking is a hazard and I am in a wheelchair. This condition has prevented me from attending school since the end of October. This condition can occur again, and there is no telling when or how often. 

I’ve scoured the web, posted in countless Facebook groups, analyzed research, and even scheduled a conference call with doctors in another country to try to get some answers. Not only is there no information on it, but I can’t find anyone else with it (and due to HIPPA laws, my doctor is not allowed to connect me with the other cases she has seen). I have support from my friends and family, but they cannot even begin to understand what this is like. 

I am alone in this right now, but I know the internet is a powerful place. I’ve seen other kids with rare conditions find support and/or answers, and I thought I might as well give it a shot. Please, please - even if you don’t have this condition, even if you don’t know me, please reblog this and spread this around. I just need to know that I’m not alone in this. Even finding one person who has this would make the world of a difference.

Destroy it.

Destroy the stigma that surrounds people who are overweight and in wheelchairs. 

Destroy the photos of people riding electric wheelchairs in Walmart with long, hateful, fatphobic captions about how they’re lazy and entitled.

And I’m looking at every single member of the disabled community because we (and I say we because even I’ve been guilty of this) are just as guilty of this as the abled community.

Which is really, really, really unfair.

Because disability advocacy is supposed to be about showing how we’re all equal despite the differences in our bodies (and/or minds).

And it’s shocking that so many people will talk about how beautiful people with disabilities are in one breath and then will use their next breath to fat-shame overweight people with disabilities.

Okay so…

1) You have no idea what my day to day is like or what internal issues I have, or all the health crises that I may experience, or the disabilities I have so don’t be so presumptuous just because I don’t share every single detail about my experience. Not cool.

2) Why are you comparing? That is so toxic to yourself and others.

I’ll tell you real quick: I struggle with that as well, I have several friends with EDS who can WALK and definitely MUCH longer than I can (1 min avg), who don’t need mobility aids to get around, who don’t pass out from standing up or have narcoleptic episodes, whp don’t have to stay in bed all the time or see the doctor all the time, who don’t have any issues cutting their own food or picking up an object over 2lbs with their hands, who are able to perform athletic feats, and I get envious sometimes, but I fight that and remind myself that we’re all different and no one ever really knows everything one is going through.

I would never tell them that they “milk” EDS or attempt to silence them when they talk about it, and I would never project my insecurities onto them because they appear to have better health than I do but the same diagnosis. EDS is on a wide spectrum and our pain and disability is not a competition.

3) “Milking it” you mean discussing it? A diagnosis it took me 26 years to get, 3 of them actively fighting for proper medical attention? With countless people still undiagnosed, seeking answers, seeking help, going through a similar journey that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Being that sick and no one believes you, no medicine, no aid, no help, teens have written to me about having to raise their own money for canes and wheelchair to then have their parents take it away from them, when they need it for mobility, it’s horrible.

Anon, get thee to some training on how to manage your attitudes towards patients and individuals with chronic illness diagnoses. You need to seriously re-evaluate your professionalism, your ethics, and your compassion for people. You are in a field of healers, advocates, and (supposed) experts with knowledge to benefit the lives of others, and your callous words are DOING HARM.

I am going to be nice and assume you are suffering from burn out and compassion fatigue, not that are you are just a bad person. Because if you are just awful, please just dissappear into the woods so humans don’t ha e to deal with you.

Get into some therapy. There is help for providers that get this messed up from the job.

Find a relaxing hobby.

Get a new job that has nothing to do with medicine.

Stop talking to sick people. You have lost your ability to be rational and useful that that way.

Also, it doesn’t sound as if anon actually understands EDS very well? EDS-III is not really a ‘milder’ form of vascular EDS; it’s a different variation which tends to be far less life threatening but nonetheless can and does cause excruciating pain. The pain, I am afraid, doesn’t vanish in a cloud of sparkles just because Other People Have It Worse You Know.

to my fellow cripples, it is ok to talk about your pain and your mobility problems and how they affect your life. it does not matter in the slightest if there are people who ~wish they could be where you are~. talk all you need to.

I really want to see more inclusion of disabled people in the discussions being had because both after the election and Brexit there was and is total silence unless disabled people fucking shout endlessly until someone notices. In the UK, the government is deadset on killing as many disabled people as possible and it’s literally so bad that the UN (source) is like “UK maybe fucking chill.” 

we are important

hell, tiny things, stupid things. i will fucking buy minecraft for someone to get them through a shitty week. i don’t know. even if all i manage to do is like, one nice thing for one person, that’s more than nothing.