#disability advocacy

[defiantcripple]

Going to start wearing a sign that says "I don't yield to ableds" as I refuse to move for the people trying to get on through the accessible bus entrance/exit before I've gotten off.

Be disabled. Take up space. Demand your accommodations. Make them wait, make them move, and don't feel sorry about it.

#make room fuckers #i chose this username for a reason #and im gonna live up to it #i literally made this lady just barely squeeze past me #you cant go first just because your legs work #cripple punk #cripplepunk #cripple #angry cripple #queer cripple #cpunk #c punk #cpunk blog #c punk blog #cripple shit #crip punk #cripple posting #disability #disabled #physically disabled #physical disability #accessibility #actually disabled #disability advocacy

[justabunny]

can we stop making things meant for disabled people a trend and making it 100x harder for disabled people to actually be able to get the things they need?? please?

#disability rights #disabled #chronic pain #forearm crutches #joint pain #mobility aid #young and disabled #mobility aid user #chronically ill #disability #disability advocacy #actually disabled #disabilities #disability awareness

[neuroticboyfriend]

IM GOING TO CRY THEY MIGHT INCREASE THE SSI ASSETS LIMIT TO $10,000.

it's a bipartisan bill too! and for anyone unaware, people on SSI (which is different from SSDI), can only have $2,000 in assets (unless they have an ABLE account, which comes with its own rules). this assets limit has been in place for FORTY YEARS and is a giant part of why being on SSI keeps people incredibly impoverished.

i've also heard they might remove the marriage penalty but i don't have the spoons to read or explain it so someone else please add on!

this is huge! please spread the word and do what you can to help ensure this happens!

#softspoonie #disabled #disability #disability rights #disability advocacy #disability activism #disabled rights #disabled community #marriage equality #equality #usa #us politics #us congress #usa politics

[ineffectualdemon]

Disability Pride month let's not forget about the people in our community with intellectual disabilities!

I just found out about the Stay Up Late campaign to advocate for people with intellectual disabilities to have the right to go out in the evening and not have to be in bed by 8pm

I learned about it from this video:

And I found the website for the campaign which is here:

Let's support all members of our community

#disability #disability pride month #intellectual disabilities #advocacy #disability advocacy #please reblog

[autismserenity]

know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)

#covid isn't over #covid 19 #disability rights #disability advocacy #wear a mask #covid conscious #covid cautious #mask up #wall of words #public health #health care

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

Can we please for the love of god stop telling teenagers they’re too young to have aches and pains. Can we please stop being dismissive about these things. Fakeclaiming is disgusting period, but it is exponentially harmful to youth. Just because you didn’t start hurting until your 20s or 30s or 40s doesn’t mean every teenager complaining of chronic pain must be lying. I learned the hard way that if kids are invalidated enough about this, they will just learn to accept constant pain as a fact of life. And then they will need surgery they can’t afford in ten years bc it turns out constant pain is NOT a fact of life. At any age.

p.s. same goes for mental health

#chronic pain #chronic illness #medical trauma #tw fakeclaiming #fake claiming #anti fakeclaiming #childhood trauma #complex trauma #physical disability #disability advocacy

[uncanny-tranny]

The leftism/anticapitalism leaving people's bodies the zeptosecond you imply that disabled people who aren't "productive" still matter in society and need to be treated like intrinsic equals who have a place in this world:

#disability #disability advocacy #described images #image description in alt #ableism #ableism tw #my full-time job is my disability and you're lucky that i am still 'productive' as-is #your boss doesn't care that you think you're superior for being hired by them. they're still going to treat you like profit machines #it astounds me how people will capitulate for oppression because they place their intrinsic value in their ability to be at the top... #...or at least 'at the top' compared to others. it's the same impulse that makes people think their cisgender status makes them superior... #...you are placing your worth into systems which not only oppress others but offer you no true sense of worth... #...ESPECIALLY if you're also being exploited (even if just a bit)... #...you have a job sure but... do you actually get treated like a human being? are you actually paid? are you actually safe?... #...if the answer to any of those questions and more is 'no' then why do you place your value in capitalistic production. genuinely. #and why would you DEMAND disabled people to have the same exploitation you experience. why do you DEMAND productivity if you are proletaria #yes being a leftist and anticapitalist are linked but. some people still internalize capitalism without questioning it #being a leftist is about challenging that rather than assuming you're correct i think #also scientists were very silly when describing time that's like. less than a millisecond i think

[crazycatsiren]

I'm not worried about people faking disabilities. I'm worried about disabled people constantly not being believed.

#disabled #spoonie #cripple punk #chronic illness warrior #disabled community #disability advocacy

[alex2xander]

Be nice and don't mock tumblr users that communicate differently.

Examples:

1.) Typing quirks

2.) No punctuation

3.) Random Capitalisation

4.) Long run on sentences

5.) Frequently misspelled words

6.) Missing spaces between words

7.) Repeating words and sentences

8.) Posts audios and videos instead of typing

9.) Express themselves through custom emojis

10.) Use an AAC (Augmentative and alternative communication) device

Some users have intellectual disabilities, use speech to text, struggle with grammar, have hand tremmers, have high support needs, etc.

Regardless of how they communicate and their reason why, they still deserve respect. They are trying their best.

#intellectual disability #disability #communication styles #disabled community #communication #aac user #aac device #autism awareness #disability awareness #typing quirk #disability advocacy #poor grammar #grammar nerd #actually neurodivergent #actually neurodiverse #its the neurodivergency #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #autistic #autism #disability community #neurodivergent community #judgment free zone #no judgement #adhd #adhd brain

[kalethemonster]

what neurotypical abled people cant seem to get into their heads is aids and medication dont stop people from being neurodivergent and/or disabled. hearing aids dont stop deaf or hard of hearing people from being deaf or hard of hearing, it just makes hearing easier mobility aids such as canes or crutches dont stop people with arthritis, chronic pain, or just general mobility issues from having arthritis, chronic pain, or just general mobility issues, it just makes getting around easier

pain medication doesnt stop people with chronic pain stop being in pain (specifically in the long term), it just makes pain management easier

fidget & stim toys and fidget & stim jewelry dont stop people with anxiety from having anxiety, adhd-ers from having fucked up exectutive function, and autistics not being able to automatically regulate emotions and sensory responses, it just makes dealing with them all easier

various adhd medications doesnt make people not have adhd anymore, it just makes it easier to regulate their executive function.

anxiety medication doesnt get rid of anxiety, it just makes it easier to deal with.

white canes and sight specific service animals dont stop blind people and people with sight impairments from being blind or having sight impairments, it just makes living with them easier.

trauma and emotional support specific service animals dont stop people from having trauma and emotional issues, it just makes dealing with them easier

anti-depressants dont stop people with clinical depression from being depressed, they just make it easier to deal with by stabilizing mood.

immune suppressants dont stop people with any autoimmune condition(s) (such as crohn's, psoriasis or psoratic arthritis, rhumitiod arthritis, myasthenia gravis, fibromyalgia, ect.) being affected in any way affected by their autoimmune condition(s), they just make living with the condition(s) easier.

medication and aids arent magic. they dont make the disabled and/or neurodiverse person not disabled and/or not neurodiverse, they dont entirely cancel out the thing they are used/pescribed for, they just make it easier to exist in a world where whats considered "normal" or "independant" or "a regular human being" doesnt automatically include them.

#kale is at his serious table #kale will rip out teeth #disability #disabled #actually disabled #disability rights #neurodivergent #neurodivergence #adhd #autism #autoimmune #chronic illness #chronic pain #deaf #deafawareness #blind #blindness #visual impairment #disability advocacy #neurodiverse advocacy #disability awareness

[crippledpunks]

i love you so much if you are diabetic, or pre-diabetic. our society treats diabetes so poorly. it's such a readily mocked condition, people often times resort to blaming the individual for having it, even going so far as to pass judgment on the diabetic's character, regardless of what type of diabetes they have.

diabetics are wonderful and deserve to love themselves regardless of whether or not they 'gave' themselves their diabetes. whether or not the person is "unhealthy" whether or not the person eats "right" or knows how to eat in ways that are safer for their body doesn't matter, they still deserve love, respect, and compassion.

diabetes is not a fucking judge of character. diabetics deserve better. diabetics deserve respect. diabetics deserve to be recognized as disabled. diabetics deserve kindness, love, care, compassion, and support. no matter what.

#diabetes #diabetic #type 2 diabetes #type 2 diabetic #type 1 diabetes #type 1 diabetic #cripple punk #crip punk #cpunk #cripplepunk #actually disabled #disability culture #disability rights #disability advocacy #our writing

[vizthedatum]

An apparently unpopular opinion: disabled people can have and do their hobbies. They deserve to have fun. They deserve to live their lives.

Their inability to do some things (like work, for example) does not mean they should be judged for… idk hanging out with their friends or to going outside. After all, having interests outside of work is often essential to our mental and physical health OUTSIDE of our disability.

And also *you might want to sit down for this* disabled people know what’s disabling for them (unless they people-please or push through due to necessity or survival of some sort). Disabilities don’t have to be visible or persistent to be disabling.

So yeah - my declaration: if an activity you want to do feels good and you’re able to do it, then do it. REGARDLESS OF YOUR DISABILITY WITH OTHER THINGS.

#disability #disability advocacy #disabilities #invisible disability #healing #trauma #neurodivergence #autistic #self love #prose #a rant #a vent #sigh #a lot of ppl don’t get this #thoughts

[sojourner-between-worlds]

Even if you, personally, don't hate Discord's new UI, I am begging ya'll to still send them the following feedback:

"The changes made to Dark Mode are an accessibility issue due to the lack of a low contrast option for those who need it."

The previous dark gray was never ideal, tbh, but it was still worlds better than what we have now. As someone who can feasibly get by with the new dark mode but vastly prefers low contrast, and as someone who knows people who do need low contrast -- please tell them about this problem.

#discord #its all terrible but most of it i can get over #this i will not #its a problem and they NEED TO KNOW its a problem #disability #autism #autistic #random ramblings #PLEASE mind me #disability visibility #disability advocacy #idk what all to tag this with but hopefully thatll at least get it seen a little bit

[accessories-not-included]

#disability advocacy #disabled people #wheelchair #ableism #disabilities #disability #cpunk #medical ableism #physically disabled #fibro #chronic illness #chronic disability #chronically ill #chronic pain

[chronically-evie]

my mom keeps trying to get me to go to the ER when im having a flare up and i have no idea what to tell her.

because ive BEEN to the ER before. you wanna know what they did? while i was sweating, shaking, and sobbing, curled in a ball of pain?

they asked me if i was on my period. when i told them no, they asked me if i was pregnant.

when i told them no, because i wasn't sexually active, they forcibly tested me anyways, and then when it came back negative said, "well maybe you should just take a few deep breaths", gave me liquid ibuprofen, and sent me home.

disabled people, in this particular situation disabled afabs, are never fucking listened to.

the ER staff literally LAUGHED at me multiple times. they pointed at me when i was having one of the worst episodes of my life and snickered.

so no, i do not want to go to the fucking ER. my heating pad, ice packs, and nausea meds are going to help me more than anything a hospital could do.

#postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome #pots syndrome #disability #disabled #pots #potsie #spoonie #ehlers danlos zebra #chronic pain #hypermobile ehlers danlos #actually disabled #physically disabled #disabled community #disabled life #chronic disability #physical disability #disability advocacy #disability awareness #disability rights #disabilties #invisible disability

[justabunny]

disabled people don't owe you their medical history :)

#disability rights #disabled #chronic pain #forearm crutches #joint pain #mobility aid #young and disabled #mobility aid user #chronically ill #disability #disability advocacy #chronic fatigue syndrome