augh

no one signed my petition. i had one meeting with the YMCA and then they never got back to me.

all progress seemed to slow, and nothing ever came of my plan for the rest of the time i was living there. i remember weeping on the stairs because i wanted so badly to leave my town behind with something that would help the kids who are still stuck there, and it fell apart.

this summer, i couldn't find an apartment in my new city in time, so i had to return home for 4 months while college was off. i found out that in my absence, someone with more resources, connections and funding had remembered my project, and she picked up the pieces i'd left behind and tried again.

she succeeded. there is now a drop-in youth program at the local health centre in my hometown.

it finally worked. it really, really worked. thank you, candace. 🌱

Making friends as an adult is so fucking hard already and isolating yourself from other people is a very common symptom of depression, anxiety, burnout, ocd, trauma, grief, etc. Which means that someone will do the hard work of recovery/healing and resurface back into a world where their previous friends have written them off because they stopped showing up.

I am a raccoon biologist and one of the few people in the state allowed to take in captive bred raccoons that had been possessed illegally. The raccoon in the photos is Moonshine, but she is currently at the animal sanctuary where I work as I had been quarantining multiple new intakes from an abuse case. I still have two males (Rum Tum Tugger and Electra) left in my home enclosure as we are getting them neutered and then hopefully sending them to an AZA accredited zoo.

I am a raccoon biologist and one of the few people in the state allowed to take in captive bred raccoons that had been possessed illegally. The raccoon in the photos is Moonshine, but she is currently at the animal sanctuary where I work as I had been quarantining multiple new intakes from an abuse case. I still have two males (Rum Tum Tugger and Electra) left in my home enclosure as we are getting them neutered and then hopefully sending them to an AZA accredited zoo.

frankly i think a LOT of "picky eaters" have some kind of sensory problems– autistic or allistic– and shame is never useful. i don't fucking care how annoying you think we are. if you've never lived through the humiliation of being the only one not eating at a dinner table, or having to choke down something disgusting you already know you hate because other people insist you don't know your own body, or getting a hunger migraine in a house full of food because none of its edible to you? you don't understand how awful it is to have food issues.

whenever i see people draw this distinction between being "just a picky eater" and "having a real problem" all i think is, who does this serve? most people don't even know ARFID exists. there are so many undiagnosed autistics, or just people with a variety of issues that aren't officially diagnosed. why do we need a medical label in order to be treated with respect and compassion? why did i need to be diagnosed as autistic for my family to realize the abuse they put me through for years because of my eating habits?

it's such an easy habit for neglected groups to fall into– the idea that a medical diagnosis can save us. that by appealing to the medical/psychiatric industry, we can be protected from abuse and given basic respect and resources. but the truth is that it should never have come to this in the first place. dignity doesn't come from an abled doctor telling you that there's a medical reason for your symptoms. it comes from being a person. once you accept that you need a Good Reason to have your needs respected, you doom yourself to neglecting and abusing those who have your same struggles because they aren't lucky enough to access medical recognition.

omgomg hiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!! I remememeber youuuuu!!!! :DDDDDDDD that lottie x gladion fan art you made way back when is still genuinely the cutest thing ever vhwaaaahhbabwabwaa

Does anyone else constantly think about JY!Aelwyn who lives alone and seems to know only two ways to decompress and regulate complex feelings: pet cats and do crimes?

Disabled people often die from a lack of support. A lot of disability aids are not a luxury, but a basic need in order to live.

“Well what happens if—” people die. People hurt themselves. People hurt others. Disabled people don’t magically become abled if our needs aren’t met.

If a bedbound quadriplegic is caught in a housefire, and there’s nobody there to save them, they’ll probably die. They won’t magically become able-bodied out of sheer will.

If a nonspeaking/nonverbal autistic is denied access to alternative methods of communication, they’ll suffer in silence. They won’t spontaneously become capable of speech.

as an example: around scotland, there is pretty much no gp surgeries that have a hoist. which means if you're not ambulatory, you can't get on the bed to be examined. so you either need to wait for the doctors to have the staff to visit you at home, assuming you've managed to get a hoist installed at home, or you try to get accessible transport to a hospital which does have a hoist. which costs time and money.

and i bring this up specifically bc a disabled woman i knew was in this exact situation. she couldn't get a smear test bc doctors aren't set up for non ambulatory wheelchair users. she had cancer. they didn't find it in time and now she's dead.

That list might say things like “Paint a picture. Go birdwatching. Finish that great novel I started reading. Call my grandma. Learn to bake a cake. Visit my sister. Play piano.”

“I should not be struggling this much to do things that I want to do and have the time, space, energy, and skills to do. Actually, when I list it all out like that, I should not be struggling at all to do those kinds of tasks.”