Baiting Mental Illness: Attempts at No-Fault Ableism

Note: In this post, I am using the terms “bipolar disorder” and “manic depression” interchangeably. The latter is sort of an old-school term for the same illness, and one that some sufferers prefer as more descriptive. Personally, I find both terms handy in different linguistic scenarios, hence my dual use of them here.

I once had a friend call me a “drama queen” because I had a panic attack. She knew of my anxiety disorder, I’d told her just a few hours prior that I’d been horribly rape-triggered by a traumatic event that afternoon, and was on dangerous ground, sanity-speaking. Yet when her boyfriend decided to mansplain to me about male privilege and rape, when I had no one in my corner to advocate for me, I was in the wrong for choking on my own tears and running to hide while I tried to recover my ability to breathe. I was just a drama queen, mental disorder be damned. That’s just an excuse for being a bad person, doncha know.

This is an approach to mental illness that I am absolutely unwilling to tolerate. Mental illness is not an “excuse” for shitty behavior. Sometimes mental illness causes shitty behavior, but it’s not an “excuse.” It’s a legitimate fucking reason that is often far beyond the control of the mentally ill person.

I bring this up because recently, I lost another friend to my bipolar disorder. She sees it differently, though; she feels that I am an awful person, and while that may have emerged during a manic episode, it is not intrinsically linked to it. Basically, she thinks my true cruelty came out during a manic episode, and I’m blaming my illness for my poor behavior. She specifically said “it wasn’t the manic episode” it’s that I’m a “hateful asshole.” We’ve known each other for years, and she thinks all of those years of me being a generally kind and loving person were a lie, and my one day of horrible behavior is who I really am. One day of thousands, and that’s the “real” me. Man I work hard at this facade. No wonder I snapped! It’s really hard to make the world believe I’m not doing all this puppy-kicking to start my days.

Before I go further into my personal example, I’m going to take this moment to dispel some myths about bipolar disorder:

Episodes of mania or depression are always of a similar, recordable length. For some reason, there’s this idea that you can set an egg timer and know when a manic/depressive episode will end, and that’s incredibly untrue. Depending on the individual, their meds and therapeutic control, the specific triggers involved, and the surrounding circumstances, episodes can last from minutes to days. And there may be moments of clarity and calm in the middle of an episode, only to disappear moments later.

Outsiders (family, friends, therapists) are best able to judge when an episode is occurring, and when it will end. Just because we’re in the grips of chemicals beyond our control doesn’t mean we’ve lost all concept of reality. A bipolar person can know damn well that they’re stuck in an episode, but still be unable to crawl out (bootstraps! and what have you). And while outsiders can sometimes identify an episode, that isn’t an inherently good thing. Judging an episode as “over” because the bipolar person has met some arbitrary definition of normalcy can be dangerous, because it ignores the very real delicacy of our states of being. Likewise, it’s disrespectful and ableist to blame every poor mood on our disorder. Sometimes our highs and lows are the same as anyone not suffering bipolar, and blaming our illness for everything is ableist and condescending.

Bipolar people are hard to love. This is a huge social myth, aimed at isolating the mentally ill. Yeah, dealing with bipolar can be challenging, but so are any of a million other aspects of someone’s personality. It’s hard to love people in certain fields of work, because they’re very busy, so you rarely see them. It’s hard to love sports fanatics whose sports bore the utter shit out of you. It’s hard to love cat people when you’ve got horrible pet allergies. But no one suggests that those people live alone and unloved forever, because those people have not been branded with the stigma given to the mentally ill.

Mania is inherently violent. Some manic-depressives are extremely non-violent, even when in the grips of a severe manic episode. Mania is not about what our bodies are doing, it’s about what our minds are doing. We can tear at our internal walls ‘til they bleed, without so much as stepping on a ladybug.

Mania and depression are linear, and someone with bipolar can only exist at one given point on that line. A manic-depressive can experience both ends of their illness at once, in a complicated web of interaction. Sometimes a manic episode can trigger a depressive one, or vice versa, and so they are intrinsically linked until the person is able to dig themselves out. This actually makes the illness more dangerous, especially for those of us prone to self-injury or suicidal tendencies. Acts of self-harm that we wouldn’t normally engage in when depressed become common tools of self-punishment when mania sneaks into our depressive minds.

I’d also like to cover some little-acknowledged truths about manic depression:

Manic-depressives are taught that we are undeserving of empathy or compassion. Our illness is painted as one of selfishness and cruelty, and we are taught to hate ourselves for it. Society only likes personalities that clean up pretty, and ours do not, at least not all the time. We are taught that since we are not “normal,” we can not expect “normal” people to be understanding or kind. Asking such of them is demanding too much, and just another example of how selfish we are.

Our mental health does not and should not have to live apart from us as people. The way to manage this illness is not by trying to compartmentalize it and shove it under a rug at the back of our brains, it’s to acknowledge that it is a real part of us. It doesn’t have to be treated as inherently negative, either, in order to successfully integrate it into our lives. Like any illness, it may sometimes make things a little shaky for us, but it does not define who we are.

There is no right or wrong way to have a manic or depressive episode. Not everyone will experience their illness in the same way, which is another reason why it’s dangerous for outsiders to make assumptions about our episodes. Some people will have manic episodes that last days and result in taking a sledgehammer to furniture and burning family photos. (I use this as an example because this is what I witnessed from my grandmother as a child.) Some people will have manic episodes that present as nasty comments, an utter lack of patience with anyone and anything, and an inability to properly express any of their thoughts. (This is how I primarily present.) Not all depressive arcs result in self-injury or suicide attempts; sometimes it’s just lethargy and apathy.

It is blatantly ableist to bait a bipolar person when you know they are in the middle of an episode, that they are off their meds, or that they are otherwise at greatly increased risk of having an episode. This does not mean you have to walk on eggshells around us, but simply that you shouldn’t trample us under your heels. If someone says their allergies are acting up, you don’t get to wave a bunch of flowers under their nose, then call them a monster when they sneeze on you. Similarly, you don’t get to antagonize someone who has point-blank warned you that they are off their meds or on a manic streak, then act like it’s all their fault when they lose their shit. If you’ve been warned of an episode, or have witnessed it, and don’t think you can stick by the person through it, the least you can do is steer clear, and not antagonize them.

It is ableist to demand that we meet social definitions of normalcy in order to be respected or loved. Some folks can never truly be “normal,” in the sense that they maintain an easy balance between their extremes. If you don’t want to expose yourself to the “risk” of experiencing either of those extremes, you should not offer love or close friendship to someone with bipolar. You are not required to take abuse, or stay with someone who you feel harms you, but you also should not promise love and support to someone with a mental illness, then flee the moment that illness causes trouble.We deserve to know who’s in our corner, to know who we can count on when we hit our lows. It’s as much a measure of self-preservation and self-respect as you might view your need to flee.

So, back to the personal example: As I said, I lost a friend to a manic episode. But the most upsetting part of it is not the loss of the friendship, but rather how it was lost. It’s left me feeling unsupported, suspicious, and frightened, because of how it lined up with things on my handy-dandy lists up there.

The confrontation was born of a Tumblr post. (Oh, social media, how you like to cause trouble.) In that post, I said, “Going cold-turkey off one of my meds (which controls both depression and chronic pain) because my doc keeps calling out sick.” Now, I’m going to take this moment to explain that for a chronic pain sufferer, mental illness can be even more frightening, because our physical pain often manifests in psychological ways, our psychological problems can cause physical disorders, and the complex web of physical and chemical imbalances is an absolute nightmare. TL;DR being in pain can, all on its own, trigger bipolar. And I am in a constant state of pain.

That aside, I announced that I was off a psych med. And one med often feeds off of another, one pill may increase or decrease the effects of another, so going off even one pill (especially cold-turkey) is a recipe for disaster. So, when a friend mentioned reading that post, and came to me with objections related to another part of it, I lost my shit. Want to know how lost my shit was? Here’s an example of how I was able to communicate during this day-long episode:

I’m losing it. huge manic episode earlier soitired to nap it of then woke up to being abandoned by someoneiright card about me and nowijust want to fucking kill myself

Not exactly my normal eloquence, is it? And I actually had moments of much worse lucidity.

I was so angry at this friend for bringing up something that, seen through my mania, was so insignificant and selfish that I flew right the fuck off. And I said nasty things, some of them utterly unreadable because of my inability to properly communicate. (Seriously, I drunk-text better than that.) Then it finally hit me that my fury was less about the subject my friend had brought up, and more about how ableist it was to insist on talking about it while I was in such a state. And then I kept saying, over and over, how ableist it was, and it kept not mattering to her, or not making sense to her, or maybe both. And I said it with a lot of “fuck”s because that’s how I roll. Like I said, I was nasty. And, caused my my illness or not, I would have apologized for that nastiness once I came back to center. But when she told me everything was “overwhelmingly” my fault, that “it wasn’t the manic episode,” it was how “hateful” I was…that’s when I realized the friendship was over. Because I’m not willing to have fair-weather friends. My “hatefulness” in that day was outweighed thousands-to-one by my kindness on other days, she knew I was having a manic episode, she knew I was off my psych meds before she started a contentious conversation, and still it was all my fault? My inability to meet social standards of “normalcy,” my physical, chemical inability to communicate to her level was worth derision? I will not grovel for forgiveness of my illness from an ableist person.

When you’re dealing with an unmedicated or mid-episode manic-depressive, you don’t get to feel superior for being kinder, calmer, or better able to communicate. Feeling that sort of moral superiority over me when I’m physically and chemically unable to reach those standards of acceptability is like feeling superior to me because you can run.

Get it? Because I’m a cripple. lololol.

Reinforcing those unattainable standards of normalcy on someone in such a situation is ableist, full stop. And I’m tired of people expecting me to apologize for being disabled.

Did You Know Cripples Can Do Things?: Inspiration Porn and the Ableist Commodification of Disabled Bodies

Usually as the end of the year draws nearer, websites really like to do lists or countdowns of various notable things that happened during the year. More and more often, I’m seeing some version of a collection of “heartwarming moments.” The problem is, these lists are often ableist as all fuck. So, let’s talk about inspiration porn!

This list is a great one to critique, because over a quarter of these images are about disabled folks, or people battling illnesses. I mean, just think about that for a second–a quarter of the reasons to feel good are inspiration porn. That’s no small amount. That’s a hefty burden to place upon our shoulders as a community. I mean damn, if I’m not a good cripple, there’s only 73% the reasons to feel good about the last year! That’s like…a low C if you’re lucky. A failing grade at my old school, because I wasn’t afforded the luxury of 10% grading increments (fuck you, 7%, fuck you).

I don’t want to turn this post into an analysis of each image, but I’m going to pick out a few to make my point.

1. The parents who made their son’s wheelchair into the best Halloween costume ever

No one would be particularly bowled over by a kid dressing as an ice cream server if that kid could walk. But oh my holy crap a cripple is trick-or-treating. And that’s exactly what this is. This is only “inspirational” because the kid is in a wheelchair. And the parents are only great because they love their crippled son enough to make him a Halloween costume. Lots of able-bodied kids have homemade Halloween costumes, some of them incredibly awesome, and way more impressive than this. But this is happening to a cripple, and everything that happens to a cripple is inspirational to the able-bodied.

5. And the people that helped out any way that they could

This is wonderful. I love this. This is truly a display of true human kindness, people sharing their blessings with their community. This is inspirational, because it’s a good deed that anyone could do, and anyone could benefit from.

10. And the police officers who made blind 13-year-old Gage Hancock-Stevens’ dream of being a cop come true

Cops do ride-alongs with kids. It’s nothing surprising, nothing out of the ordinary. But because this kid is blind, it’s “inspirational.” Because both “oh wow those police officers are treating that blind kid like he’s normal” and “oh wow that blind kid can participate in an activity that normal kids can do.” And disabled kids are used rather often in inspiration porn, because they’re little and cute and haven’t built up the resistance to this sort of commodification that us grown-up disabled folks have.

16. The Icelandic heroes who rescued sheep during a major snowstorm

Who the hell doesn’t love a good story about animals being helped during tragic circumstances? It’s heartwarming. Hell, have another:

20. The bros who worked together to save a cat

SAVE EVERYTHING FLUFFY.

Now, by this point on the list, my exasperation with and expectation of inspiration porn had reached epic levels. So, when I saw this headline and photo:

25. The amazing couple who stuck together through unbelievable odds

I immediately said to my partner who was in the room with me, “I bet he lost all his limbs.”

Yup.

These entries about disabled people? They’re not “inspirational,” they’re ableist. “Sticking together through unbelievable odds” should not mean “Oh wow she stayed with him after he became a cripple.” Being an amputee, being disabled, that does not make us any less worthy of love. And constantly those who “stick by us” (whether lovers, friends, or family) are painted as saints for being willing to tolerate our disabilities, let alone accommodate them. Would anyone say it’s “inspirational” that your partner stayed with you after you got a really ugly haircut? No. Your physical state does not determine your worth as a person. Think about that for a minute, okay?

“Against all odds” should not mean “after one became a cripple.” That’s not “all odds,” that’s like…one odd. And if one odd is enough to make you abandon your partner, you’re a shitty person. If you consider someone’s disability a reason to not love them, you are a terrible human being and I hate you. I don’t normally get that specific and personal on here, but holy fuck am I tired of people thinking it’s just so “strong” and “kind” and “charitable” for people to stick around after their loved one becomes disabled. That’s called “being a halfway-descent human being.” People should try it a little more, maybe.

Events aren’t magically more “inspiring” just because they happen to a disabled person. This shit doesn’t make disabled people feel better, it exists to make able-bodied people feel better about their lives, both because they think it’s sweet to bestow charity upon the disabled, and wow if that worthless cripple is happy, being half a person, then dagnabbit, they should be happy, too!

Look, I love a good “furry animal being rescued from the brink of disaster” story as much as the next person. But that shit does not belong next to inspiration porn. It just fucking doesn’t. Because one of these is a sweet gesture of saving a creature that society deems less important than humans. And the other…well, it’s treated the exact same way, and that’s the problem. The people who like inspiration porn, they’re giving us the same role as a puppy stranded in flood waters. These animals need that charity, they are truly incapable of rescuing themselves, and fans of inspiration porn act like being disabled is a lifetime of being a cat stuck in a tree.

It is always heartwarming to see people putting their lives on the line for others. But we’re not talking about life-threatening situations. We’re talking about disabled people doing completely normal things. A child trick-or-treating. A child getting a glimpse of a profession he’s interested in. A woman continuing to love her partner.

This is not inspiring. That’s being a human.

From Plastic Picnicware to Polished Silver: My Life in Spoons

A lot of folks, particularly within the disabled community, are familiar with The Spoon Theory. If you’re not, hop over and read it, or else this won’t make a damn bit of sense.

I’ve struggled with how to apply that theory to my life. I used in the past, before becoming mobility-impaired, because I dealt with more than my fair share of chronic illnesses and invisible disabilities. But it meant something totally different to me as I lost my ability to walk without difficulty, without pain. It takes on new meanings every time I have a new experience as a wheelchair user. And as I loaded my chair back into the car the other day after one of a million clinic visits, I thought of a way to make my personal concept of spoons more cohesive, more understandable.

The Spoon Theory is wonderful, and perhaps its greatest purpose is giving people an easy, dignified way of saying we can’t handle something: “I just don’t have the spoons.” It conveys the message, but also tells people that we’re just not in the mood to explain ourselves. We don’t have the spoons for that, either.

But there’s something within the theory that, when constructed inside my own head, makes it much more meaningful to me. Yeah, these women were sitting in a diner, and gathered all the spoons off the tables. But I don’t just eat at diners. I eat fast food and microwave dinners and sometimes fancy family meals hosted by those relatives who have way more money than I’d ever dream of. My life is filled with all sorts of spoons, and my body reflects it.

There is no set scale to any of this, because depending on the state of my physical and mental health, certain disabilities or illnesses may become more or less important to me. But for how it stands now, these are my spoons:

1. The disposable plastic spoons

I like to imagine that they’re recyclable and that they refresh themselves every night. These are the spoons that reflect my most manageable struggles, those that I generally don’t put much thought into, like my eyesight. I don’t really think about my legal blindness on a daily basis, because I’ve lived with it my entire life, and have learned to accommodate it. Usually, I’ve got a stock of plastic spoons to rival that of Baskin Robbins. But every once in a while, somebody does a faulty inventory check, or the order doesn’t come through in time, and they run out. So sometimes, I run out of spoons, too.

2. The “what are these, aluminum foil?” spoons

You know, the ones you get in a four-pack at the Dollar Tree. They’re spoons alright, and they’re even made of legit metal (though lord only knows what kind). These are the spoons that currently embody my “lesser” physical illnesses and disabilities. My IBS, chronic pancreatitis, migraines, bad back, etc. on down the line. They’re something I should actively count and allot every day, but usually I’m too damn lazy. Those spoons pile up in the sink until–oh shit!–I run out, and something goes terribly wrong. I’ve thrown out my back (ie, injured to the point of immobility for two or more days, at least two weeks of recovery thereafter) three times, the first at 16. I injure it rather easily, and it hurts to some degree every day. I’ve gotten acute pancreatitis maybe 4 times, and get pains from it pretty often, but still, I almost never start my day with the protein shake I’m supposed to drink.

Sometimes it’s not even about things that hit an epic level of fail, but rather just always lurk about, being miserable. My IBS and dysbiosis are a daily nuisance, but I still skip taking my supplements and instead just grumble when I suffer for it. This is when those spoons have piled up in the sink, and I just drink soup straight from the bowl. It’s annoying, but I do it so often, I barely blink at it anymore. If I get desperate, I can usually drop into the Dollar Tree and buy more spoons. It’s okay. Now I have more for next time.

3. The fancy shit (spoons bought at Wal-Mart or better)

I know, I know, I have high standards for “fancy.” Welcome to the American poverty line! Anyway….

These spoons are clinking their way into my brain every day. They’re my mental spoons, the threads of my sanity that I need to actively count, lest the rope break. And I try really, really hard to monitor them, because they’re important spoons, and when I run out, it is disastrous. Panic attacks, suicidal tendencies, self-injury, fury, mania…it can get really bad. When I say I don’t have the mental spoons, dear god I don’t have the spoons, don’t push me. This is exacerbated by constant med changes, as none of my doctors seem to be able to agree on which pills will work well, and which ones will literally kill me.

These spoons scoop up my optimism, my serenity, my patience, and often jump straight out of my brain with them. I pack them with my soup to eat at work during my lunch hour, and for some damn reason, I keep leaving them in the break room. Then I return home after a long day’s work, and I’m out of proper utensils, desperately trying to figure out how to eat minestrone with a fork. Yeah, I can pick up a veggie or a bean here or there, but that’s the minimum for sustenance. I don’t have the spoons to function how I need to function, and I end up feeling lucky if I make it to bed that night without dying of starvation.

4. The “oh fuck the rich relatives are coming over for holiday dinner” spoons–the really fancy shit

These are my mobility spoons. These are the spoons that literally decide whether or not I’m capable of motion. For the most part, this applies to my knees, because they house the majority of my pain. If I’m filled up on those fancy silver spoons, I can actually walk with my forearm crutches without too much pain, or too much of a limp. If I’ve had to lay those spoons down for Cousin Jimmy a half-dozen times because he keeps stealing them to pawn for his cocaine addiction, I don’t just lose the ability to walk, I lose the ability to stand at all. Sometimes I lose the ability to even exist without agony. I can be in my wheelchair, on my couch, in my bed, but if I reach for something and use up my last spoon, it takes all my composure to not scream, gutturally and with unchecked fury.

People think that if a chronic pain sufferer is pained when walking, it means we’re automatically relieved when we sit in a wheelchair. This isn’t true. For one, we have to deal with the jolts and jostling of uneven pavement, pebbles under our wheels, and those goddamn cobblestones East Coast cities love so much. Every little bump on the ground that ableds don’t even usually notice can cause pain to shoot through our bodies like dozens needles threading through our veins. And secondly, there doesn’t even necessarily need to be outside stimuli to cause pain. Sometimes I’m sitting utterly motionless when an invisible sadist jams hot irons into my knees. I’ll just be standing, propped up on my crutches, and the sudden stabbing, shooting agony will cause my muscles to visibly ripple and cease function, leaving me to collapse into a whimpering heap of frustrated misery.

Obviously, my experiences can’t be applied in broad strokes to the disabled community, or any other, specific disabled individual. But I think most of us who suffer more than one illness or disability can understand the concept of different spoons, and how we treat each affliction with specialized care. Sometimes it takes a while for us to learn our limits, and sometimes those limits fluctuate based on flares, stress, or any number of other reasons. But the main point in all of this is that, even if we’re still testing our boundaries, working to know our specific spoon counts, we still know our limits better than any outside person can. So when we say we don’t have the spoons, we don’t have the spoons. And not having the spoons for one activity doesn’t mean we don’t have the spoons for something entirely different. Some days I’m physically confident, and could wheel for miles, but my anxiety is so bad I can’t leave the house. Other days I’m desperate for human interaction, but in too much pain to get to my apartment door. There is no right or wrong way to experience disability, and everyone’s feelings toward their own bodies are legitimate and should be respected.

And if you’re friends with a spoonie, and you’re not sure what activities or interactions we may be up for, I have an easy solution: Ask us. Show us that you respect our limits enough to not push, but that you love us enough to want to include us in your life, regardless of our afflictions. I’m crippled, not dead, so sometimes I really do want to go for a wheel around the lake. And I’m crazy, not antisocial, so sometimes I really would like to be invited to game night. I’m never offended when someone asks me if I’d like to join them in doing something I may or may not have the spoons for. But it cuts really fucking deep when people assume I’m incapable of any sort of basic human function, so they just never invite me to do anything. The crazy cripples like to have fun, too. Give us the chance.

“No Vote for You!”: How Voter ID Laws are Ableist, Transphobic, Racist, and Classist

I think at this point, most people have heard about the voter ID laws being instituted through GOP legislation. They’re promoted as being necessary to prevent “voter fraud”–you know, that democracy-destroying scourge that’s been ravaging…well nothing, really, because it’s virtually nonexistent. Yes, it’s totally legitimate to waste taxpayer dollars and legislative time on preventing something that is so rare it makes landing on mars look as common as a full moon. Totally important. Yes. Indeed. (Take it away, Jon.)

But primary figures in the GOP are creating a firestorm, very purposefully lying about this, fear-baiting a gullible public so they can pass laws steeped in bigotry:

That bigotry, by the way? Very real:

If you’re one who thinks it’s “so easy” to get a photo ID that this shouldn’t be an issue, let me stop you right there: That is an incredibly privileged statement to make.

Take, for example, the horrible roadblocks faced by transgendered citizens. Our country’s accepted ideas of gender identification very specifically punish those who fall outside of the cis spectrum. This is how voter ID laws are transphobic.

Many minorities face difficulties beyond what even I experience, but for the sake of discussion, I’m going to talk about my own experiences here, to maybe give those who dismiss these laws reason to pause and consider why their dismissal is privileged, and why supporting voter ID laws is supporting bigotry.

I’ve always had great difficulty getting a driver’s license, because I’m legally blind in one eye. I am not physically able to pass the eye tests at the DMV, and need a waiver from my doctor. When I was young, before I realized this, I spent a long day sitting at the vision exam, trying over and over again, crying into the periphery machine, praying that I could guess the right answers and be able to get that ID. It didn’t work, and ended with me sobbing in front of the DMV, heartbroken that I was too disabled to get a driver’s license. This is how voter ID laws are ableist.

I learned from that experience that before ever attempting to get a license, I needed to get a waiver from my doctor. And for a little while, that worked fine. But it’s hard to get that waiver when I can’t afford to go to that doctor, because I don’t have insurance. So I spent a good bit of time without valid identification this year, because of poverty. This is how voter ID laws are classist.

When I finally got the vision waiver and made another attempt at getting my license, I was informed that my state instituted a new law that voided all birth certificates issued before 2010. So the original birth certificate that my parents had saved and kept immaculate since 1984? Void. And you know what you have to do to get a new one? Pay for it. So here’s a doctor’s visit I couldn’t afford, followed by a new birth certificate I couldn’t afford. This is how voter ID laws are classist.

This year was my first experience trying to get a license as a wheelchair user. When I finally got my birth certificate and vision waiver together, they just found more roadblocks to throw in my way. I got bounced around and told different things by each person I spoke with, sometimes contradicting the information both on their handouts and on their website, and directly contradicting the words of the person one desk over. They refused to give me a license, even though I had all the necessary forms. I was in and out of the DMV for over six hours trying to get what each different person told me I needed. First my partner got stuck driving me all over town, trying to collect various proofs of ID and residency that I didn’t actually need, and then my mother had to leave work early to take over for him. I was in absolute, undying agony all day, and still, I got rejected again and again. I only finally got an empathetic person willing to actually pay attention to my documentation when I wheeled away from the desk after yet another dismissal and burst into tears.

But voter ID laws aren’t prejudiced in any way, right? And I’m just “lazy,” right? Goddammit, those of us in the 47% just want voting handed to us, too! Fucking leeches, we are.

And by the way, in a country where poverty is inextricably linked to race (which is itself resultant of so much bigotry I can’t even touch on it here), there is absolutely no way to enact classist barriers to voting without unjustly punishing people of color. This is how voter ID laws are racist.

If you had no difficulty obtaining a driver’s license or photo ID, I’m happy for you, really. But to assume that everyone’s experience will be as simple as yours is naive. Many of us struggle with such “simple” tasks to a degree that it would astonish you. (Hell, throw in how these roadblocks can majorly trigger someone’s anxiety, and you’ve got another dash of ableism to spice things up.) We’re not lazy. We’re not stupid. We’re not demanding special treatment. But we’re being punished in ways that you aren’t, simply because of who we are. And when the government can impose this many restrictions on our basic rights to legal identification, you expect us to sit idly by, accepting that we are unable to vote thanks to the political party who’s trying to strip us of even more rights?

No. Just…no. This is bigotry, plain and simple, and no one who cares about true equality should accept it.

Wheelie Gripes: The Worst Thing About Not Having a Diagnosis

There are a lot of things that fucking suck about having an undiagnosed chronic pain condition. It’s a long-ass list that others have tackled far better than I could. But there is one thing that, for me, is the absolute worst thing in this entire situation.

It isn’t the disbelief of the doctors, though that’s disheartening. It hurts to have to run down lists of symptoms with every new visit, every new face, and get told to take some naproxen and walk it off. It sucks to keep pain diaries and symptom logs only to be told that you can’t possibly be experiencing the pain you say, because you aren’t splayed on the floor screaming. It’s frustrating to have your high pain tolerance used against you, used to gaslight you, and have all of your legitimate concerns dismissed because don’t you know how rare it is for someone so young to be suffering like this? (And yes, actually, I do know how rare it is. Looking around at a constant stream of my peers who can, you know, walk, sort of gave me a hint.)

It also isn’t the worst to deal with disregard of strangers, though they certainly seem to revel in treating you like a petulant child. It’s blood-boiling when they stare at you with disdain, demanding to know why someone so young and seemingly healthy is demanding equal access to their store, restaurant, music venue when you can’t even give them a valid reason to believe you need or deserve it. It’s unsettling when they refuse to accept “I don’t know” as an answer to their invasive questions, and then proceed to quiz you about your health history, and tell you about their great-aunt’s-girlfriend’s-nephew’s-cousin who had this illness or that disability, and you should get tested for it. It’s annoying to have your personal medical issues treated like fodder for public guesswork, and your demands for privacy treated like snobbery.

The worst thing isn’t even the disbelief of your loved ones, though that’s a special kind of sting. It’s confusing how they could scream in horror when watching a part of your body bend, swell, dislocate, shift in a way that it never should, yet they’ll still eyeroll when you insist that no, really, you can’t “just walk” for some particular errand. It aches that they guilt you for not being around for more social events, when you’ve told them again and again that leaving the house is agonizing. It cuts really fucking deep when they “forget” that you need accommodations, when they scoff at the idea that you’ve really seen that many doctors, had that many tests, gone through that many treatments and still don’t have an answer. It kills to sense their impatience, to feel like they’re blaming you for not having an answer to give them yet, a valid excuse for your behavior.

No, for me, the worst part, it’s from the person who treats me the most callously in all of this…it’s from me. Because this endless symphony of doubt from the outside world bores into my brain, it plants its ugly little seeds and then watches first with bemusement, then with devilish glee as I spend every waking moment questioning myself, berating myself, hating myself. There’s nothing worse than that. It’s the reason I push myself too hard (because surely my abilities can’t be as limited as I think they are!) and end up in agony. It’s the reason I refuse to purchase quality mobility devices, because I just can’t justify spending that sort of money for what my self-doubt tells me is a completely made-up disability. It’s the reason my anxiety is skyrocketing, my pill regimen is getting heavier, and my pain is worsening. It’s the reason I can’t fall asleep at night, and the reason I can’t get out of bed in the morning. It’s the reason my life is crumbling around me.

But it’s all in my head. Somehow, I’m thinking my body into brokenness. Because otherwise, they’d know what’s wrong with me…right?

Right?

Wheelie Gripes: The Desolation of Pain

My brain’s in a fog today. Or, I think, my brain’s in a constant fog now. Funny thing is, the rest of the world doesn’t care that you’re in pain. The rest of the world doesn’t care that you’ve been put on new meds, and had the dosages on your old ones adjusted, that interactions are taking you by surprise, and side effects and withdrawal are bogging you down. The world doesn’t care about the drowsiness, the confusion, the fatigue, the endless state of futile frustration that accompanies chronic pain and/or chronic illness. The rest of the world expects you to pretend you’re fine, even when you’re not.

I’m never really “fine.” Chronic Illness Cat totally gets me.

I usually give the rest of the world that leeway. I usually paste on a smile when dealing with strangers, I put forth my best effort to be kind and polite, even when I don’t want to.

But sometimes I just can’t do it. Sometimes I can’t create that psychological dissonance that allows me to interact with people way over there in Rational Land, while telling my body and my pain to stop trying to push its way in. I can’t ignore it, but I’m expected to pretend that I can, I’m expected to tell other people it’s okay for them to ignore it. Even when it’s not. Even when it’s absolutely, 100%, not in any way okay. My problems shouldn’t be their problems, even though they at least passively accept and sometimes create those problems themselves. They’re fine living in a world unkind to me, inaccessible to me, and I’m the unreasonable one when I object.

For a long time, I’ve been tired of privileged people telling me to be a good little minority. Come now, don’t criticize the “male feminists,” they’re clearly not misogynists just by declaring themselves so. Hush, don’t object to the “straight allies,” they’re at least supporting your basic human rights. Shh, don’t go off on one of your socialist rants, the rich people are talking about their money that they all clearly worked hard for while you were dining on that tasty tasty welfare lobster.

Yet somehow, it’s different dealing with the ableism I encounter now. And I’d dealt with ableism in the past in a lot of different ways, but never anything like this. Because this is forcing me to acknowledge that even the best-intentioned people around me, even my closest friends who I know love me dearly and would never want to hurt me, they just…can’t understand. And this lack of understanding often comes hand-in-hand with sincere attempts at kindness, which just drives home the point even harder: They don’t get it. They’re trying, I know they are, and when I voice my objections, they react humbly and with kindness.

But I’ll always have to voice those objections. And I’m just tired. This fatigue, it’s bone-deep, it’s smothering, it’s wrapped bloody tendrils ’round my brain, squeezing tighter with each heartbeat. This is a fatigue not just of mind or body, but of soul. And it’s a sort of crushing loneliness that I haven’t learned to handle yet.

“Back When I Was a Minority…”: Parenthood as a Faulty Analogy for the Problem of Privilege

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I believe that, in discussion of minority issues, privileged people should not steal the floor. Frankly, I don’t think any minority is required to listen to privileged opinions on an issue that only the marginalized person can fully understand. So, yes, I think a great deal of the social justice movement relies on a person’s willingness to shut the fuck up. This is something I still sometimes stick my foot in my mouth over, because I have privilege (as do most people), and I’m not perfect.

Yet, this is something that privileged people are most likely to object to. They co-opt the term “silencing,” and accuse minorities of being bigoted because we dare object to hearing the same warped rhetoric again, again, and again, from every new privileged party that jumps in front of us.

I’ve run into plenty of versions of, “You saying men shouldn’t have an equal say in gender/sex equality is like saying white people shouldn’t have an equal say in racial equality.” Yes, yes it is. While I know this is supposed to be an attack that puts me on the defensive (get it? ’cause I’m white), it just doesn’t. Because that’s exactly what I’m saying. White people are privileged, we do not deserve an “equal say” (or necessarily any say at all) in issues of racial inequality. I’m comfortable relinquishing that control to the people of color who are actually affected by their own systemic oppression. They are far more capable in this discussion, and I will always be ignorant to at least some (I believe most) of the nuances of that debate.

Well the other night I was on the receiving end of an interesting analogy that brought whole new sorts of fallacies into the mix:

“[Y]our [comment] is like saying someone can’t have ideas on raising a child because someone doesn’t have children themselves.”

Now, this is interesting for a few reasons. Primarily, I actually do think that most people without kids could do with a good dose of shutting the fuck up about parenting. Everyone is the perfect parent to their fictional kid. Their child will never have a meltdown in the grocery store, their child will never talk back to them, their child will always say “please” and “thank you,” and never ever swear. And these people, as parents, would never lose their temper, they would never feed their child unhealthy food, they’d never miss a recital or let back-talk slide. Parenting wouldn’t affect their sense of self, because they’d always stay perfectly coiffed, they’d never have cheerios ground into the floor mats of their car, and they’d balance parenting, work, and a social life effortlessly. Clearly, those of us in the trenches of parenting just don’t have their superior skillz. These people would raise the next Gandhi or Mother Teresa, because they have absolutely all of the answers.

Damn, do I ever wish those people would start having kids. The world would be a way better place, amirite?

But it turns out, hypothetical kids are a wee bit easier to raise than the ones that actually eat, cry, talk, and have the audacity to have their own dynamic personalities and needs. Somewhere between removal from the womb and college graduation, children tend to become individuals, who present distinct needs and unique challenges. Parenting is a job done on the fly; children scoff in the face of your precious, precious plans. You cannot possibly know how you will handle those unique needs and challenges until you are in the trenches, with each individual child demanding that tailored approach to parenting.

And there’s another major reason why that analogy utterly fails. You see, childfree people are in a unique position to comment on the lives of children: The used to be children themselves. So while I think the nuances of parenting are things you simply can’t predict until you have that individual dynamic with each parent-child relationship, I do believe that childfree people should be allowed certain allowances in these discussions. It is entirely possible for a childfree person to bring forth an issue they faced as a child that is worth parental consideration. Perhaps they were abused by their parents, and they have insight into the most damaging scenarios they faced. Maybe they felt truly loved and supported, and could share a story of how their parents fostered the strong familial bond that let them feel safe when tackling difficult issues. It doesn’t really matter what the specific scenario is, every adult has experience being a child. They have experience of being on the receiving end of those rules, punishments, praises. They have experience with that anxiety and frustration, that affection and comfort. I reiterate, very, very simply: They were once children themselves.

Show me a white person with experience being a person of color. Show me a native-born citizen with experience being an immigrant. Show me a cis person with experience being trans*. And yes, it is derailing and offensive to hold trans*men up as having “experience” being women. While possibly having experience on the receiving end of legislation that technically affects them, they are still men, and as such, they benefit from male privilege. (Note: They are privileged as men, not as trans* people; there is no “trans* privilege.”)

Straight, white, cis, native-born men were not born minorities who spent 20-ish years growing into their privilege. They do not have experience as those people they are privileged over, and thus their opinions can absolutely never carry anything near the weight as the opinions of the minorities in question. Even those rare circumstances when someone does transition from minority to majority–a fat person becoming thin, a disabled person receiving treatment that eradicates their disability, etc.–can’t be held as a loophole. Because while those people, much like childfree adults, remember what it was like when they were on the other side, they are still being actively affected by their current state of being. The privilege they are being granted in their current reality has the power to warp their memories and opinions as someone who was once a minority. The social hierarchy is a complex, malleable, tricky system, and the simple fact is, no one can understand all the nuances of marginalization like those currently suffering from it.

Most of this backlash, this attempt to nail down an analogy like this, is because privileged people get scared when minorities tell them to be quiet. Because the glory of privilege allows people to always be heard, and it’s disturbing to give up that power. But sometimes, if you want to be a decent person, you need to be willing to be fucking uncomfortable. Remember: Minorities have been dealing with that discomfort for far, far longer.