these, my dear alice, are the dangers of wonderland

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star-anise:

hrovitnir:

tikkunolamorgtfo:

anarcho-dragonitism:

anarcho-dragonitism:

can we stop saying that words like dumb and stupid are ableist slurs or ableist language please I’m autistic and that’s just… not what the fuck a slur is bye

A slur is when a word’s principal colloquial usage is intended to target a certain group in a violent manner and stupid and dumb are used in relation to disability like 0.1% of the time. It’s almost always referring to people who say shit completely out of their lane and realm of expertise and it’s actually useful language. It’s like, I’ve been called disgusting for being gay b4 but disgusting is mainly intended to refer to other stuff and it’s not homophobic to use it in a context that has nothing to do with gay ppl. Tired of seeing ppl getting hassled over insulting an idea using the only language that can describe the negative quality of the idea. Like, guys. R***rded is a slur. Stupid and dumb are not damn slurs.

I’m Autistic and Schizophrenic and I think both ND and NT ppl should reblog this if they want

Co-signed by an autistic person with dyspraxia and a learning disorder. 

I’m tired of people not understanding what slurs are.

I certainly respect where people are coming from not liking the terms, and will avoid them around people who are hurt by them; but yes, I do tend to draw my “OK, people are always going to weaponise words, we can’t stop using all of them” line about here too.

I had a small role in the blog that originated “ableist word profiles” and while I’m proud of a lot of what we did on FWD/Forward, and while it was worthwhile to examine the ableist underpinnings of a lot of pejoratives… the effort to police ableist language in an absolutist “you should not do this” way was exhausting. It wasn’t worthwhile. It did not improve the tenor of discourse, derailed important conversations, created a hostile climate, and made the space inaccessible for many disabled people. Its disadvantages outweighed the potential benefit. In conclusion, would not recommend, have given up the effort.

The R-word is a slur. There are legit ableist slurs. But “stupid” and “crazy” are not in the same category.
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mrozna:

hawkeyedflame:

biphobicerasurer:

hawkeyedflame:

t-i-a-r-n-a-c-a-p-a-i-l-l:

If you’re one of those people who thinks executive dysfunction only happens for things we don’t like (school, cleaning,) then please consider the fact that I’ve been meaning to plug my phone in for 20 minutes and I’m now at 2% and still putting it off to write this post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My anime/video game list consists of over 100 titles, easily, and yet I almost never get around to watching/playing any of them.

Executive dysfunction is not just for boring or unenjoyable things. It’s for everything. Even eating.

What is executive dysfunction? O.o

Put simply, it’s difficulty/inability with initiating tasks. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functions, like decision-making and impulse control. People with ADHD and other neurological disorders that affect the prefrontal cortex often experience difficulty making decisions and performing tasks, as well as exercising self restraint. Part of why people with ADHD tend to procrastinate so badly is out of genuine inability to begin tasks, even if they’re very important.

It feels, for me at least, like I’m constantly waiting for something and I can’t start X task because I’m waiting. I never know what exactly I’m waiting for, but that doesn’t stop me from wasting hours and days not doing the things I need to do, even if I have a desire to do them.

It feels, for me at least, like I’m constantly waiting for something and I can’t start X task because I’m waiting. I never know what exactly I’m waiting for, but that doesn’t stop me from wasting hours and days not doing the things I need to do, even if I have a desire to do them.

Oh thank god, someone put it into words.

For me it’s also waiting for the “right” time to come to complete the task because for some reason my brain thinks doing the task at any other time is horribly, horribly wrong, weird, and out of order. The “right” time might come eventually, might not. It’s a lottery.
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“It’s amazing that in 1969 we as a society managed to put a man on the moon and yet we still can’t get a wheelchair user from one railway station to another nearly 50 years later… You have to come to the conclusion that it is a lack of will to create a more accessible world, NOT lack of technology or design skills.”

- Tony Heaton, English sculptor and wheelchair user
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compostpile:

compostpile:

when it comes to consciousness raising you can spend time telling someone “crazy” is a slur or you can spend time explaining that what looks like “care” or “cure” or “mercy” to them is actually eugenics or abuse. one of these projects has to precede the other and i bet you can guess which one i would prioritize

you’re either going to build a base of clueless liberals who learn by rote to nitpick their language for anything with the remotest connection to ability, or you’re going to help them develop the alertness and critical eye necessary to recognize eugenics and abuse. i don’t think those things are mutually compatible in an immediate timeframe, because one locates both the root and branch of oppression in a disembodied cloud of language and thought, and the other locates it in the real material structures that we need to confront immediately in order to save actual lives. not saying “crazy” isn’t going to get anyone out of forced institutionalization
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sciendere:

ayalaatreides:

misspider:

gayjamesmcgraw:

The Shape of Water (2017) dir. Guillermo del Toro

The literally silent women protagonist leaves a super bad taste in my mouth.

She’s deaf and speaks with sign language, she’s not a silent woman. Like, can we agree that deaf representation in media is important? Can we agree that ASL representation in media is important? This is an adult-oriented romance/sci-fi movie where the female lead is a deaf woman. How can you act like this isn’t significant? The last gif has a deaf woman in the 60s standing up to an aggressive man and telling him to go fuck himself. 

This movie is doing something that has probably never been done before. But hey, she can’t talk “normally” like a hearing woman and that’s bad, so go off I guess.

reblogging this as an example of ableist feminists that me and @onewordtest have discussed in the past.

oh man, not this shit again. can abled feminists just stop? 

um, but, also she’s not deaf. she’s hearing and mute. (personally, I think she’s gonna read as autistic from everything I’ve seen). which is still a disabled female romantic lead character, which is still great representation and important. 

#the idea that disabled women existing in fiction is sexist (via @fourloves)
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dezfez:

dresdencodak:

kateordie:

Viktoria Modesta

Self-described “bionic girl” and pop artist. Hell yes forever.

are we not gonna talk about the fact that the music video these gifs are from, and the song that plays in it, is essentially a giant “fuck you” to society’s views of “disabled people are broken/useless/should be pitied”? or the fact that she WILLINGLY CHOSE to have her leg amputated? [due to medical reasons, there were other options presented to her, but again she said “fuck it” and chose the amputation because that was the safest option in her opinion, and she never once lets this decision hinder her or change anything about her.] Or how she has teamed up with the Alternative Limb Project who not only supplies her with these downright masterful prosthetic limbs but also helps other amputees afford such limbs for themselves? And helps said amputees express themselves and be creative with their newfound limbs? [fyi, the glowy leg is NOT cgi, that is 100% real, LED powered prosthesis. Fuck yeah engineering, baybee!]

Viktoria Modesta is quite possibly the greatest thing to happen to pop music and maybe even modern society as a whole, because she is literally proving that disabled people are not broken, they are not weak; they are strong, can put “normal” abled bodied people in their place, and look downright amazing while doing so. She is an inspiration and if you don’t think that is incredible then get the fuck away from me, you are not worth anyone’s time.
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Friends, family members and loved ones of learning disabled and mentally ill people need to have a working knowledge of what Executive Dysfunction is, and respect the fact that it is a prominent feature of that person’s psychology and life.

Executive Dysfunction is best known as a symptom of autism and ADHD, but it also features in depression, anxiety disorders schizophrenia, OCD (which by the way is also an anxiety disorder), personality disorders; etc, a whole myriad of mental illnesses and disabilities can result in executive dysfunction.

Years ago when I was like 14 and had recently learned of my autism diagnosis, I watched a youtube interview between autistic people, and an autistic woman said something along these lines:

“Sometimes, a lightbulb will burn out, but I cannot change it. I have the physical capability to change the lightbulb, and I want to change the lightbulb, and I know I need to do it, but because of my autism I just don’t do it. So the lightbulb remains unchanged for weeks. Sometimes people have to change the lightbulb for me.”

When she said that I related so much, because constantly throughout my whole life I have wanted and needed to do things with my wanting and needing being akin to my spurring an extremely stubborn horse who refuses to move. For the first time I learned that I wasn’t just “lazy”, I had a condition that prevented me from doing things as easily as other people can, but unfortunately it took me years since then to understand that.

Imagine that you are a horserider, but your horse is entirely unwilling to move even if you want to move. You dig in your heels, you raise the reins, but the horse refuses to respond. Your wants and needs are the rider, and your executive functions (the parts of your mind responsible for getting things done) are the horse.

I think it’s incredibly dangerous for neurotypical loved ones to not understand, or be aware of, or respect executive dysfunction. Neurotypical can assume that we are just being lazy, careless, selfish or difficult, when in reality we want to do the thing but our brains prevent us from consistently and reliably doing the thing.
That misinterpretation can lead to toxic behavior and resentment on the part of the loved one, which will harm us emotionally and do us a lot of damage gradually over time.
That damage can take the form of internal self-criticism, complicating executive dysfunction even further and making it worse.

edited for easier reading!

I think about this a lot, because I have to.  In my own life, as a parent who struggles with executive dysfunction and yet has to teach a child basic life skills, it’s important to know my blind spots and learn to function around them.  He’s watching me and learning from my example, so I have to do my best to explain what I can’t always do, and try to do it anyway.

Executive function is such a fundamental and yet hidden trait.  It is in charge of reasoning, flexibility, problem solving, planning, and execution/prioritization of necessary steps in any action.

Each task is never one task.  Take changing the lightbulb - from beginning to end, it’s a series of steps that must be put in proper order:

Notice light bulb is burnt out.

Recognize that it can be fixed by putting in a new light bulb

Remember where new light bulbs are stored

Go to light bulb storage area

Select new one

Find stool or chair to stand on

Take out old bulb, put in new one

Screw in bulb

Replace chair or stool to previous spot

Throw away old bulb

That’s not even all of them, but it’s a good enough summary for now.  There are hidden stumbling blocks in every single step. 

A burnt out bulb may go unrecognized as a problem - there’s two other bulbs in the room, it’s a little dimmer, so what?  It might take all three burning out before you see it as a problem.

Maybe you forgot where the bulbs are, because it’s been a while.  Searching the house is a task you put off, because it’s messy/disorganized/big/you have other more pressing matters.  The bulb can wait.

You find the bulb storage, but you’re out of new ones.  You have to shop.  You’re busy, you put it off until the next time you shop, by which time you’ve forgotten you need a light bulb.  Repeat cycle.

You’ve been depressed for a while, or maybe you’re just a messy person.  A stack of important documents is on the chair you’d use to stand on to get to the bulb.  You know if you move those documents you’ll forget where they are, and it’s tax stuff/homework/your mom’s birthday card, and you can’t forget that.  The bulb gets put aside until you deal with those things.  But you don’t want to deal with them now, so the bulb waits.

Throwing out the bulb requires safe disposal so that you don’t break it and accidentally cut yourself, or someone else in your home.  You have no idea how to safely dispose of it.  You put off changing the bulb until you figure out what to do with the old one.

On and on and on.  Each step requires problem solving, prioritization, and reasoning.  These are the hidden processes that go on in our minds every single moment of every day.  Difficult tasks build up, compounding the problem of completing others, until each action requires ten more before you can solve the minor problem you started with.  Changing a light bulb ends in a night of doing your taxes.  Doing the dishes ends in standing in the dish soap aisle at the grocery story for a half hour trying to figure out which soap to buy for the dishwasher.

When a simple action requires the same effort from you as the most complex, abstract problem-solving…. to put it mildly, you’re fucked.  Every day tasks require exhausting mental gymnastics.

So, be kind to the person who can’t seem to change a light bulb.  There’s a lot that can stand in the way.

this is such a good addition to my post

Important info!

“Difficult tasks build up, compounding the problem of completing others, until each action requires ten more before you can solve the minor problem you started with. Changing a light bulb ends in a night of doing your taxes. Doing the dishes ends in standing in the dish soap aisle at the grocery story for a half hour trying to figure out which soap to buy for the dishwasher.”

I relate to this so hard.
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nebet-ren:

neddythestylish:

memelordrevan:

rosslynpaladin:

iamthethunder:

s8yrboy:

“If autism isn’t caused by environmental factors and is natural why didn’t we ever see it in the past?”

We did, except it wasn’t called autism it was called “Little Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and can’t speak so we’re taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.”

Or “little Jonathan doesn’t talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.” That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.

Or, backing up FURTHER

and lots of people think this very likely,

“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”

The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.

To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science)  indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.

Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of people’s confusion at the development of autistic children.

Weirdly enough, that legend is now comforting to me.

I think it’s worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. I’m only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and I’m prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.

But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.

I’m not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I don’t actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What I’m saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isn’t making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because they’re overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like there’s millions more autistic people than existed before.

Clearest conceptualization I’ve seen of the interaction of individual and environmental factors in disability. 
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saferincages:

sephirajo:

justsomeantifas:

i don’t give a fuck if hundreds of thousands of people are scamming the government for money if it means that hundreds of thousands of disabled people aren’t dying because the system failed them.

All this fear mongering about fakers cheating the system is really just another way to kill disabled people. Fact is, welfare fraud isn’t common and for everyone to act like it is … is full of shit.

And furthermore the people charged with welfare fraud are almost all poor people who just needed a little extra food, or a little extra cash to fucking survive. We’re penalizing the poor for being poor because the government doesn’t initially give them enough to live on.

When you’re disabled and on SSI, you make far below the poverty line, and you cannot even save up enough money to make it to the poverty line. If you’re really that fucking worried about someone getting an extra $50 for food by “cheating the system” … you have fucked up priorities. 

You really think they’re faking needing that $50 fucking dollars for food and necessities … then you’re fucking absurd, that’s barely any money to fucking live on with their other benefits from the government. 

Fact is, the government should be giving disabled people MORE money to live on and then people wouldn’t need to cheat the system for basic survival. 

I get 1500/mo for me and my daughter. I’m reduced to begging each month to make ends meet. And it took me four years to get on disabilty because they were convinced I was FAKING Lupus and fibro. Despite blood work, despite a support from a doctor who HATES the disability program saying I am fully disabled.  The State’s doctor tried to tell the court that I was faking my blood tests. The job coach had to be put on the spot by the sitting Judge to finally admit that with all the restrictions my doctor has on me that there is no job at my skill level I could do.

They take you jump through hoops and those hoops are on fire and at the end we’re told BE DAMN HAPPY FOR YOUR CRUMBS, BITCH. YOU ARE LAZY AND DESERVE NOTHING.

as someone who has been chronically ill for twelve years, i’ve struggled to find anyone (in the medical field, the legal field, or otherwise) who will take me seriously, i struggle even to get certain members of my own family or friends to believe how real and debilitating my illnesses are, and being sick has consumed and taken away my entire life - and still, after fighting for years for disability, i’ve gotten nothing but denials and, finally, a dismissal. my life will eventually end as a direct cause of not being able to get help. i would, too, would rather see a handful of people ‘cheating’ the system (a feat that is nearly impossible given the byzantine laws and those fiery hoops they force us to jump through), if it meant that the ill, the disabled, and the impoverished were able to receive assistance, were treated like their lives are worth something, and were given the ability to keep surviving with some modicum of dignity. no one should be made to feel that their lives mean nothing and are worthless because they’re ill/disabled. no one should have to struggle to buy basic necessities and food for their families, no one should have to choose between being able to pay the bills or being able to afford to eat, no person who desperately needs to be able to receive medical assistance should be denied it. poor and/or sick people are not disposable. they are not attention seeking, they do not enjoy being seen as ‘drains’ on the system, they are not lazy and weak. but the way it’s set up, far too many have to suffer or die in silence. i have wept in agony over this, for myself and for everyone who lives in fear and anguish because there’s nowhere to turn. people ask for help because they desperately need it, and everywhere we go, we keep being told we don’t deserve it.
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[[Image description: Tweet by Jenna Rice @jenna_niccole reads “why is just making fun of disabled people considered horrible, but ACTUALLY KILLING US is ‘well maybe there was a reason/they’re better off’]]

Getting really fed up with people using Trump mocking a disabled person as a prop for “the worst ever,” yet these people couldn’t care less about tragedies disabled people actually face, like the 2016 Japan massacre of people with disabilities (will we ever even know the names of the victims?,) or the frequent cases here in the US where caregivers kill their disabled children and get sympathy, or history of Aktion T4, or what’s happening in North Korea now, or deaths in the UK over disabled people being declared “fit to work” and this decision killing them, or the horrifying statistics of cops killing disabled citizens (that up to half of people killed by cops in the US are disabled,) or the fact that 43,000 people will die per year if the ACA is repealed and not properly replaced… If you’re going to use disabled people as props in your activism, maybe you should educate yourselves and ACTUALLY include us in your activism.

(For further reading on disability issues and Trump’s administration specifically, here have just a few more links for the road. And most of them are from the campaign. Things have gotten, and can get, worse.)

we are sick of being used as mere props for sympathy

#most the time i see disability discussed on here its usually being used as an addendum to a different issue #like it’s used to add greater weight to your specific cause #but god forbid people talk about disability in general -@pressxtodavid  this is really important