Disabled people in the UK face being forced into institutions after serious cuts to funding for at-home care
NHS cost cutting leaving disabled people ‘interned’ in care homes
Tag: ableism
Autism Registries are Dangerous
Cranston, Rhode Island, has just established a voluntary registry to record information on autistic people between the ages of 6 and 21. The registry is managed by the Cranston Police Department and is intended to help autistic young people who interact with the police. Autism registries aren’t limited to Cranston. Several US states and Canadian provinces have databases that require or encourage…
Things they don’t tell you about being a first time wheelchair user in highschool
Literally everyone will ask if you broke your leg(s). Everyone. Even people you don’t know. Theyll ask a lot and think you’re extremely fragile.
bruises show up within the first day of rolling around, and they can really suck
people will try to grab your chair if they think you’re struggling and it can be hard not to snap at them for it
static electricity is a huge issue. You will probably either continuously shock your leg when you’re rolling around or do what I did today and zap someone so hard as you pass that both of you nearly keel over
people will call you out as a faker if you do anything even remotely fun ever on your wheelchair. Wheelies? Obviously your legs are fine lol not like you have to go down fucking curbs /s
puddles are the worst and if there’s a curb with a puddle all around and you have some ability to walk its a better idea to just stand up and navigate the chair than to fall backwards into said puddle
weird looks from people are inevitable, especially from people who don’t like you
bus drivers will often push your chair and give you advise you don’t want to hear, even if you tell them nicely you can push yourself. Its really hard not to get mad at them for it
no wheelies in school. Though if you do it in the elevator when no one else is with you you can’t really get caught.
speaking of wheelies, always be ready to throw at least one arm behind you in case you fall. They say tuck your chin in but its easier and more reliable to throw your hands back and keep your neck up so you don’t hit the floor. Sore arms are way easier to put up with than head injuries
don’t even bother to try and roll back up curbs. You will either be there for an hour or fall backwards. I managed to do both.
90% of classrooms that aren’t special ed are not very wheelchair accessible.
people will automatically assume you’re faking something if you’re not considered dumb enough in their standards to fit in with disabled students (aka high class ableism at its finest)
people are going to give you weird looks if you don’t suddenly start sitting with the other disabled kids
standard backpacks usually dangle way too much to keep on you easily, so try to pack light
built in storage on wheelchairs cannot sufficiently carry books
don’t try to hold an umbrella. Period. Especially not with your teeth. It doesn’t work.
don’t try to give the bus driver your ticket while you’re stuck on the ramp. And speaking of, its easy to start falling down the bus ramp so be careful, and when in doubt throw on the breaks
and finally if you’re like me pray to god you don’t go nonverbal when someone is trying to push you and you don’t want them to because it is hard to get them to stop if you can’t speak
able-bodied people can and should 1000% reblog this, some of these things I’ve seen on tips about using a wheelchair but a lot of these weren’t things I’ve seen
I broke my leg in high school and I had to use a wheelchair. It was then that I realized how inaccessible my school was for people in wheelchairs. I had a class on the second floor in which the elevator often broke down. There was only one elevator in the whole building and it constantly had issues. I physically could not attend class because of that. The doorways themselves were narrow and had a large bump that I could only roll across if I went backwards. Because they were so narrow I couldn’t quite keep my hands on the wheels and fit through at the same time. The only way I could get through them was if someone held the door open and another person pulled me through backwards. It was so frustrating. I was out of the wheelchair in three months. But I had no idea how anyone else could stand going to school in these conditions for 4 years. They are rebuilding a lot of the campus and I hope they will make alterations for future students in wheelchairs.
This rant can apply to any disability that makes toileting difficult or impossible. I’m just specifying autism because freaking Autism Moms™ always broadcast the diapers and it pisses me off.
Having to wear incontinence products isn’t something to be ashamed of, but it’s not cool to out somebody who wears them either unless they say you can or do it themselves.
THAT INCLUDES: All you damn autism moms who post videos / photos on the freakin’ internet explicitly showing that your autistic child (adult or young) still wearing diapers at age whatever.
THAT INCLUDES: All you damn autism moms who talk about how your child isn’t toilet trained at age whatever and stating that they wear diapers as if you have to make them as embarrassed as possible to shut down advocates like me who can speak or type to tell YOU to shut up.
“They won’t see it / they won’t understand” is not a valid excuse. Talking about or showing a disabled person’s diapers without their consent serves zero educational purpose. That is not how you treat someone you claim to love and respect.
Outing someone’s incontinence without their consent is NOT educational, loving or respectful.
I mean, they clearly think anyone with what’s simply a separate medical disability (incontinence) has no mind with which to comprehend they have it, but they probably talk to people they don’t know have it every day. It’s just that obvious disability in someone you live with makes every comorbid condition seem like a symptom and treated like a behavior problem (or treated with non-science).
Something I wasn’t able to really articulate until recently, but has helped me understand why I’m so angry about people suggesting dietry cures for disabilities or chronic illnesses is because it puts the blame at my feet.
When you say “have you tried yoga?” as though it will stop my chronic pain, or “you know you can actually supplement x medication with y and z pills and you’ll feel much better!” or suggest some other diet or exercise fad that is going to work miracles and cure the uncurable in me, you suggest that, quite simply, I haven’t done enough.
I have tried everything. I have seen the Doctor(s) multiple times, I have poured innumerable hours into researching my condition(s) and expended exhaustable amounts of energy coming together with other people who share my struggles to try and figure out what will work best for managing my symptoms.
But my condition is incurable. And it’s not my fault. I didn’t cause my condition by eating badly, or by not exercising enough, and it won’t be fixed by eating better or exercising more.
And the implication of suggesting simple fixes like diet and exercise is that it’s my simple lack of those things which has made me sick. If I’d only eaten more kale, or if I’d done more yoga, or if I’d just gone gluten free vegan, or if I’d done this or that… well, then I wouldn’t be sick.
But that’s not how this works. Autoimmune disorders aren’t caused by bad diets, chronic pain isn’t caused by not doing enough or the right kind of exercise, and disabilities aren’t caused by laziness or not putting enough effort into finding a cure. It’s not our fault.
Stop telling us that it is.
Videos Show UHS Hospital Staff Assaulting Young Patients
(not quite off hiatus, but wanted to share this link).
But the company, which has been the subject of an ongoing, two-year BuzzFeed News investigation, is under increasing scrutiny by state and federal agencies for a litany of allegations: holding patients until their insurance runs out, regardless of actual medical need; inadequate staffing and training that endangers both employees and patients; and physical abuse of patients. Following BuzzFeed News’ stories, Oklahoma stopped sending kids in the state’s custody to a UHS facility and terminated its Medicaid contract. Top senators have also called for scrutiny of the company.
The more things change… 😩 I have to add that blatant physical abuse is obviously not good. But it’s more a symptom of the rest of the problems with this whole abusive setup.
The Four Social Rules every Autistic Person needs to Learn
From a young age I was taught three things:-
- The messages I get from my body are wrong
- Not wanting to be touched is wrong
- That I must override these feelings to be accepted
I think women in authority who don’t understand neurodiverse children are particularly pissed when it’s a girl, because they expect certain behavior from boys and a girl acting that way, well hell, she isn’t being her gender the right way and that’s just a personal insult to women everywhere somehow.
I’ve told this story before but it’s relevant so I’m telling it again:
As you all have noticed, I have a pottymouth. I’ve been trying to swear less because it’s both unprofessional and unbecoming of a gentleman, but I say the fuck word a lot. And I did this as a smol AFAB child, too, only I didn’t know any dirty words because I was a sheltered kid. I said ‘darn’ and ‘heck’ and ‘crap’ and ‘stupid’ and ‘moron’ a lot in the same way I say ‘damn’ or ‘hell’ or ‘shit’ or ‘fucking’ or ‘bastard’ these days.
Wellllll… when I was in school, especially middle and high school, the special ed teachers and paraprofessionals I had to work with Did Not Like That. They banned me from using any of the minced oaths I knew. And I mean any of them- . I can understand them telling me i’m not allowed to say ‘stupid’, but
I wasn’t allowed to say ‘heck’, for pete’s sake.
I started switching to fictional curse words, because I need to have something to put in the ‘curse’ word space- if I don’t have a way to quickly intensify a phrase, I can’t properly express myself. But even the fictional curse words quickly got banned. ‘D’arvit’, for example, sounded too much like ‘darn it’.
For a while, I had to resort to the phrase ‘oh, purple-spotted dalmatians’, because it was the only even remotely-curse-like thing I could get away with using. Eventually, I switched to French curse words, and used them until I was able to escape to the safety of homeschool.
People really don’t like neurodivergent girls being anything but sweetness and light. You’re supposed to be cute and childish and innocent, gentle little Helen Kellers ready to be taught by noble Annie Sullivans.
People forget that Helen Keller was always full of righteous anger.
when it comes to consciousness raising you can spend time telling someone “crazy” is a slur or you can spend time explaining that what looks like “care” or “cure” or “mercy” to them is actually eugenics or abuse. one of these projects has to precede the other and i bet you can guess which one i would prioritize
you’re either going to build a base of clueless liberals who learn by rote to nitpick their language for anything with the remotest connection to ability, or you’re going to help them develop the alertness and critical eye necessary to recognize eugenics and abuse. i don’t think those things are mutually compatible in an immediate timeframe, because one locates both the root and branch of oppression in a disembodied cloud of language and thought, and the other locates it in the real material structures that we need to confront immediately in order to save actual lives. not saying “crazy” isn’t going to get anyone out of forced institutionalization
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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