Month: August 2017

kipplekipple:

Wheelchairs aren’t furniture.

• Don’t move them unless the wheelchair user in question says you can. Even if we’re not in them at the time! Shout-out to the nurse who, during my last hospital trip, tried to put my wheelchair in the nurse’s station, thus effectively stopping me from going TO THE TOILET without asking someone. And, of course, various shout-outs to people who thought *I* was furniture and moved my chair while I was in it.

• Don’t lean on them unless you have permission from the wheelchair user in question. Again, they aren’t FURNITURE. They’re part of us. Lean on stuff that’s stuff, not stuff that’s people.

• If you walk into someone’s wheelchair, while someone is in that wheelchair, you’re walking into a person. You’re jolting us, shaking us, and potentially causing us pain (I have chronic conditions, and YOU ARE HURTING ME). Do what you do anytime you walk into someone, and apologise. It doesn’t need to be any more than, “Oop, sorry,” it doesn’t have to be a big thing (please don’t make it a big thing) but ACKNOWLEDGE US jesus christ this is so alienating. I get walked into all the time and excepting my loved ones I can’t even remember the last time I got an apology.

Wheelchairs are not furniture. They’re assistive devices. They are, for all intents and purposes, part of us and it is frankly incredibly rude not to treat them as such.

hey just to make sure everybody knows

bogleech:

It’s completely, 100% natural and should always be acceptable to change your opinions.

It shouldn’t be embarrassing.

You shouldn’t have to pretend you were never wrong about anything and that you’ve always felt the same way about everything.

You didn’t catch someone being a “hypocrite” when some older post of theirs conflicts with a new one. The simplest explanation is that they learned or reconsidered something.

The ability to evolve your understanding of things should be something to celebrate and respect. How did we end up with this shitty fucking culture where a change of perspective is treated like a shameful flaw.

clatterbane:

Having good intentions doesn’t mean that you can’t also get intrusive where it’s not welcome. Maybe especially where it involves situations you don’t have enough information about to reasonably draw conclusions

There are also reasons I do try to stay vague where it involves other people’s personal business. No matter how close they are, or how hard that is sometimes. It’s not my place to spread that around. Especially having been on the wrong end of that way too much growing up.

Having good intentions doesn’t mean that you can’t also get intrusive where it’s not welcome. Maybe especially where it involves situations you don’t have enough information about to reasonably draw conclusions

I’m trying not to flip out too much tonight, because that’s really not going to help anything. Much easier said than done, of course.

Not long before he went to bed, Mr. C decided to spring on me that he’d gotten a tentative recruiting offer while he was on that Worldcon trip recently–and he’s thinking of telling them he’s interested. When I asked, turns out the company is in Amsterdam 😳 He did add that he was going to say that he couldn’t start immediately, but that didn’t make me feel better about any of it.

I didn’t want to say anything I couldn’t take back right then, while I was that upset.

But, there’s just no fucking way that is going to work anytime in the foreseeable future. I really do want out of this place, but I am in absolutely no shape to even try to get my passport replaced. I’ve been practically housebound for coming up on a year now, just looking it up. And the health situation is not looking to improve anytime soon, as things stand; rather the reverse. With no obvious good way out. I also have some specific concerns about leaving the UK (or Ireland) with the pain situation as it is, but yeah.

Besides not necessarily wanting to move somewhere that neither of us has any ties and I have never even visited, just to get the hell out of Dodge.

I don’t need to get ranting about any of that more right now. I did tell him that I’m sorry I’ve been dead weight for a while now. He didn’t reply, and I can only hope it was because he didn’t know what to say. Really didn’t want to say much more after that.

Basically, I hope the whole damned thing is down to his not totally understanding the situation (and that weird style of denial), rather than not caring. Especially when I have barely been hanging on lately, and don’t really have any great options right now on my own.

Hopefully I can get settled down enough to be able to sleep before long. (Part of the reason for venting some.) But yeah, as uncomfortable as it makes me, particularly as the household dead weight now? I think I am just going to have to tell him no, there’s just no way I see that working at all.

Another case where no matter how many scrupulosity problems I have (or how carefully instilled in the past), I am really not the only one with a responsibility to avoid causing extra problems for the people around me. It’s not all on me. That’s just not reasonable. And it’s not like I’m purposely and maliciously sick, just to throw a wrench in other people’s plans.