Lonelyoneszone - Ash's Zone

anyone else ever wish they could lie down harder? Like, I'm already horizontal, but I need more horizontal. I need to be absorbed by the floor. I think that would fix me

Free Luigi

no sentence fills me with utter loathing so much as "i asked chatgpt"

2025-04-05

Disagree? Respectfully, you can argue with a wall🫶

I love talking to kids about disability bc

1. they often just Get It, and

2. they have 0 concept of disability as a tragedy or something pitiable.

I've watched kids get into an argument with a teacher bc they thought wheelchairs were cool. I told a kid that I can't stand for too long sometimes and they replied, "That's okay, I can't do cartwheels sometimes, but I just do other stuff then. You can sit down with me if you want". Today a girl asked me what the headphones on a classmate's desk were for and I told her that headphones are important for some kids because noises bother them, and she said she wished she had headphones at home, because her baby brothers make a lot of noise and it makes it hard to think. The idea that different people could use tools at different times is intuitive and simple and when accessibility aids are explained neutrally, kids don't see them as bad or unfortunate, they're just things that are useful.

Even mental disability!! In Kindergarten the other day one of the kids asked me why his table partner got stickers when nobody else did. I started off by saying, "Well, when you do your work well, it feels good, right? That's your brain giving you a reward," and the kid just right away went, "Oh, and the stickers are like his reward?" YES! You are 5 and have a better grasp on ADHD than most adults! Kids blow me away every day.

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.

its all 'be gay do crime' until a black person starts making allusions to drugs or sex or god forbid VIOLENCE and then it turns out nobody can handle anything more hardcore than downloading illegal torrents of hamilton