listen. listen to me so carefully right now. (if you're in the eclipse path/planning on viewing). please don't stare directly at the sun tomorrow. i am begging you - do not stare at it. if you got eclipse glasses off of amazon/other, please put them on in your house and make sure you can't see anything; if you can still see like regular sun glasses, they are not safe for eclipse viewing, you will burn your retinas, and we cannot fix that. eclipse glasses should be iso/ce certified, and aas (american astronomical society) approved. please make smart choices and protect your eyes. please.
Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
We were so close to smoking not being cool anymore. We were so close. Then they flavored it mango and now it's taboo to criticize it anymore. People don't ask if they're allowed to vape indoors, they aren't considerate of people who may have health problems that are triggered by the chemicals or if it just bothers them, people don't care that they're supporting an industry built on corruption and greed, they can't see it draining their pockets and much less their health. We were so close to smoking not being cool anymore.
Whenever I talk about the medical neglect and ableism I've encountered as a victim of the healthcare system, there's always some cockwaffle who feels entitled to come into my inbox and make the argument of "not all doctors" while talking about how "people like them" (because it's always someone in a field of medicine who does this) are doing their best and it's really hard because so many people fake being ill to get on welfare (Yikes), but like, yeah, obviously #not all doctors, because if all doctors were negligent, bullying scum bags, I'd be dead.
But here's the thing: while I truly believe that the majority of doctors are doing their best in a system stacked against them and their patients, their presence does not negate the mass harm caused by the bad ones. And there are far more bad ones than you realize.
Fuck, John Oliver literally did a segment on this last week:
youtube
Yes, the truly bad, malicious doctors are in the minority. Most are just horrifically burned out and fighting a losing battle against a system, killing both them and their patients through a lack of funding and resources and profound overwork.
But the malicious ones do exist, and they will go out of their way to harm patients who don't kowtow to them.
I almost lost my life because when I was in my early twenties, I told a doctor I didn't think she was listening to me, and I disagreed with her assessment of my mental health (she was not a mental health doctor, and I was there for heart palpitations and chronic pain). She retaliated by putting "non-compliant" in my file.
There was also a fun little "doesn't show respect" note too that lives rent-free in my head because I know I wasn't rude. I was polite. I just didn't agree with her, and my refusal to accept her off-handed comment that "you probably have bipolar or BPD" (again, I was there for heart palpitations and chronic pain) meant I was "refusing care."
I wasn't. I just refused to be slapped with a mood/personality disorder when I was there because I kept fucking fainting when I stood up.
(Spoiler alert: it was dysautonomia)
That "non-compliant" marker followed me around for years. It followed me across an ocean and effectively ensured that any doctor I saw was going to treat me like absolute dogshit because no one wants to help Difficult Patients. It wasn't until I was so undeniably ill, literally on the brink of death, that anyone helped me.
I'm alive because of a good doctor. And all the good ones that came after him because of him.
So, I know they exist. You don't have to tell me that.
But I really fucking need you to acknowledge the bad ones and that you're part of a system with a long, long history of abusing minorities and vulnerable people. I need you to acknowledge that because it's the only way we're going to survive this godforsaken nightmare and make things better.
So yeah, #notalldoctors, but if you feel the need to say that because someone talking about being literally left to die by the medical system hurts your feelings, I'm going to have to ask you to take a step back and ask yourself if you're going into medicine for the right reasons.
Namely: do you want to help people, even the "difficult" ones?
Even the ones who might disagree with you?
Even if they're on welfare?
Even if they'll never get "better" in a way that means "cured"?
Just a thought. But hey, what do I know. I'm just someone who experienced hemolytic anemia because doctors kept telling me I was anxious and needed to exercise more 🤷♀️.
it's actually terrifying how quickly the concept of self care (originally a radical concept rooted in the black panther party's efforts to support other black ppl living through racism) became another tool of self-management which is viewed as both a moral obligation + an individual responsibility. businesses + employers + other institutions now easily wield it as a progressive way to say "if you're upset about xyz, make yourself get over it". "we are going to treat you like shit + you need to learn how to cope with that or else you're doing something wrong"
i have seen job listings where "ability to practice self care" was listed as a requirement for employment. as a case worker, we were repeatedly drilled on "self-care" as a response to unconscionably high case loads, traumatizing experiences, dead end job obligations, + poor living conditions due to subpar pay/high stress. my clients would go to appointments regarding their evictions, food insecurity, active domestic violence situations, etc + receive tips on "self care" without any tangible community, legal, or structural support to follow.
everyone absolutely deserves to care for themselves + it is useful to circulate affirmations + advice on how to do this. this should happen within communities, through a sincere concern/love for one another, as a way of helping everyone live the best life possible while we work towards total liberation. it should not be a replacement for caring for one another!!! it should be one of many ways of caring for one another!!!
this year my challenge for everyone is to unlearn the association between love and morality. love is not something that is inherently morally good, and the absence of love is not something that is inherently bad. sex without love isn't morally bankrupt, it's just an action. people without love aren't less kind or less good, they're just people. when we can get past this false (and often unnoticed) dichotomy of good love/evil lovelessness then i think we are going to be able to take leaps and bounds in sex positivity, aro advocacy, certain discussions of mental health...
Join us—and thousands of other happy people who are living sea otter aware—for Sea Otter Awareness Week, September 24-30. It’ll furever change your life!
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Nie Huaisang at ten isn't that jarring, even considering the adult version he left behind, because he's pretty much exactly as Jiang Cheng remembers him.
Seeing Nie Mingjue at thirteen as a sullen child instead of the looming specter of his memories takes some adjusting.
Nie Haoyu wouldn't take no for an answer and it hadn't helped that A-Ying had been thrilled at the invitation and immediately started peppering the Nies with question that they'd answered in good humor the whole way back. Nie Haoyu seems delighted with A-Ying, finding him amusing and impressive and complimenting Jiang Cheng several times on raising such an impressive son.
He just glares back but Nie Haoyu's good humor is unaffected. His memory of the clan leader is spotty at best and he's coming to the slow and horrifying realization that it was Nie Huaisang and not Nie Mingjue that got his personality from their father.
Joining a clan is probably good for them, long term, and the Nies are the only other tolerable major clan, not that he'd ever expected to get practically kidnapped by them.
The only problem is that Nie Haoyu is going to be dead in two years time and if he wants A-Ying and the Nie siblings to have some semblance of a normal childhood, he's going to have to. Do something about that.