rely on someone to meet basic needs and perform basic self-care tasks is okay and morally neutral, but can we talk about how hard it is? how vulnerable it makes you, how dependent it makes you, how tiring it is, how anxiety-producing it is, how it affects your dignity and self-esteem?
how much guilt it brings to constantly ask people to do something for you, especially something basic and presumably "simple." how little privacy you have left when you need someone to assist you with bathing, feeding (putting food from plate to mouth), dressing, moving, brushing your hair and teeth, and other tasks socially considered private and/or very basic.
even if your caretaker(s) are always nice and respectful and patient and do everything like you wish, it may still feel humiliating. and lots of caretakers are not like this, not even close.
and it's hard for you, and it's hard for caretakers, yes, even paid ones, but often our caretakers are not professional and paid workers. often, it's our loved ones. and it creates unique dynamics that are too taboo to discuss because society sees disabled lives, dependent lives as gross, and toxic positivity requires never to show complicated parts of our experiences even in disability rights activism.
depending on someone for surviving and/or daily living is normal, but it's a complicated experience with plenty of nuances, difficulties, problems, and heavy emotions.
bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements
This people, need to hear this more often. Like thank you very much you know i have autism so you're treating me kindly. But why do you have to be a prick to that other girl who does the same sh*t i do but without the label.
The label only exists because I want it to mean something. If i didn't tell you i was autistic, would you have just been a prick too to then?
Why this double standard? Like if i don't like something someone did, it's not because of that that I'm a prick to them. Yes i will dislike what the person fid and maybe even tell them but that doesn't give me the right to disrespect them. Like they're still a f*cking human being.
Being accepting of autistic people includes being accepting of "weird" or "annoying" people who you don't know are autistic, BTW. We don't just spawn into existence with a list of diagnoses tattooed on our foreheads. If you claim to be accommodating of autistic people, but then get pissed off when someone shows a symptom of autism because your default assumption is that they're just an allistic person who's annoying you for no reason, then you aren't actually all that accommodating of autistic people.
what they don't tell you about making friends is you gotta be a lil annoying. you gotta push past the fear of "what if they don't want to talk to me" and simply ask someone how their day is going, send a meme. you cannot connect to people if you're both just awkwardly waiting for the other to start.
True lmaoooo
there is NOTHING like the rage of searching for a post you KNOW is on your blog with a highly specific phrase and then not only can this website not find it but tumblr says something fucking stupid like ‘please don’t be mad. please’
For real.
abled bodied people also need to understand that, for physically disabled people resting isn't "free time" that you can use up with assigning us tasks or duties because you're busy. it's an essential part of managing disability and some of us have a hard limit that we're avoiding by having days where we do nothing.
I really don't think a lot of abled and low support needs disabled people realize how many of us rely on the kindness of others to stay alive. Imagine if your entire survival and existence was pinned to being likeable enough.
Just to talk and enjoy my stuff. I have two side blogs ;) Read my pinned post ! Humans are fascinating
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