Not! All! People! With! Your! Type! Of! Disability! Can! Do! What! You! Can! Do!

[Plaintext: Not all people with your type of disability can do what you can do! /End plaintext]

Alright, I'm doing the "stock photo mom taking the words away" meme for "low support needs". You people have just taken what might've been a useful term to discuss biases and intra-community ableism into just another way to desperately find autistics who aren't "really" disabled and can acceptably be treated like shit.

Like, posts present "low support needs autism" as an opposition to "autism as a lifelong disability" or list things that have happened to me as exclusive to "high support needs people", and struggles with social interaction end up framed as just "awkwardness" or as moral failings.

Responding to this: https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/696808051476414464/i-support-blocking-people-that-one-feels-are

Yes, ableism is pervasive (I understand this as a disabled person), but it's the axis of marginalization that crybullies rely on the most, in my experience at least. Someone like RSD anon fits the bill.

This type is usually white, American-born and into a comfortable middle-class family (important because they never, ever acknowledge their class privilege), has an invisible disability (which may be self-diagnosed), and has trauma-related boundary issues that lead to interpersonal conflicts and resentments. They might try to shut down conversations with victims of family members with personality disorders. Or they might pick on POC for minor transgressions with disturbing frequency (and get enraged when those POC push back and call them to account). They will claim things like "reading is ableist" and then socially annihilate anyone who expresses themselves ineloquently due to a lack of education access they take for granted. They are self-appointed intra-community policers with followings driven by that policing behavior (not hard work or talent, two things of which they are deeply suspicious). They have no meaningful sense of group solidarity outside of personal validation chasing. They almost always lack experience with social justice or mutual aid outside the Internet. They imagine that having a disability insulates them from all criticism for working in an absurdly violent industry because lots of people they know (read: the white middle class) have opportunities to make similar compromises and insufficient character to resist.

Maybe someone will say this makes disabled people look bad but I'm not talking about the vast majority of us (me included), just a toxic minority I have observed on social media where soft bullies thrive.

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Yup.

It's sickening to see people framing Nathan's panic attack as "instant caramel" or him getting what he deserves for leaking Ted's panic attack.

It pains me to see disability framed as a punishment, as a result of a moral deficiency, as something that happens to bad people. That's the moral model of disability all over again. It's nothing new; equating disability with immorality or divine punishment is one of the oldest forms of ableism.

It's also kinda ridiculous that people think this was Nathan's Very First Panic Attack. In S1, we repeatedly see him run away from anxiety-provoking situations. What do you think he was having off screen? A Panic at the Disco!? The press conference was just the first time that the writers spelled out, "Hey! Nathan has anxiety just like Ted." (Something they didn't know they needed to do until they saw the horrific reaction to S2 Nathan.)

Up until that press conference, a majority of fandom was unwilling to read Nathan as disabled. After S2, fandom was very much pitting the ableism Ted experienced versus the racism Nathan experienced. (Nathan experiencing the intersection of ableism and racism was beyond consideration.) Nathan's (internalized, intra-community) ableist actions were always measured as far worse than anything he could ever experience personally. Ableism against a white disabled man was awarded Most Vile Thing Ever.

Which is a thing that happens all the time in real life disability communities. In the US, white people are the default disabled people; our experiences of ableism are given the most weight and attention. Disabled people of color are erased and accused of being ableist against white disabled people. It will take decades (if not centuries) for disability communities to heal from the the pain and division wrought by white disabled people's investment in white supremacy.

Viewing white disabled people (especially white disabled men) as The One True Disabled who experiences the Purest Ableism creates a skewed picture of intra-community oppression. Disabled people of color are hyper-scrutinized, while white disabled people are assumed to be incapable of true ableism.

This is why Nathan leaking Ted's panic attack is seen as the Most Ableist Moment in the series. It's also why Ted trying to My Fair Lady the autism out of Nathan is seen as a kind of charity--even by autistic people who have the community knowledge to recognize why Ted telling Nathan how to talk, when to laugh, and how to move mirrors how we are treated irl.

(Do not misunderstand; I am not saying that Ted's internalized ableism excuses Nathan's internalized ableism. That's the thing about internalized oppression: it's bad and it makes everything worse.)

After S2, the fandom's view was very much, "I can excuse racism, but I draw the line at ableism."

But that changed this week--as soon as Nathan's disabled identity was too apparent to deny. Now it's, "I can also excuse ableism."

It's terrible, hurtful, and ableist to portray a panic attack as just deserts for bad behavior. Equating disability with punishment is a step backward. What does that say about real life disabled people? Are we disabled because we are bad? Do we have flare-ups, pain, panic attacks because of something evil we did? Do our bodies reflect our sinful nature?

I realize that some of the people saying Nathan is being punished with disability may in fact be disabled themselves. They may have panic attacks. And to them I say, Buddy, you are playing a dangerous game with more lives than your own. The moral model of disability is not a path to victory.

Cripping grounded theory: disabled disability resource providers and disability disclosure in postsecondary education

https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2023.2258105

Disability disclosure is a complex, ongoing process involves navigating medical, legal, educational, economic, and employment systems. Disclosure decision making occurs for all disabled individuals regardless of how apparent their disability is to others. Professionals working in disability resource positions, who identify as disabled, navigate multiple layers of disclosure on personal, interpersonal, and institutional levels. Disabled disability resource professionals hold complex understandings of disclosure mediated by their environment, relationships, and identity. Centering the expertise of disabled professionals and their embodied knowledge (e.g. cripistemologies) the authors propose a model for the complex interplay of factors that influence each disclosure decision and how disabled staff crip disclosure and use it as a tool to navigate institutional, inter-, and intra-personal dynamics.

Keywords: 

Disclosure

navigating disability

access

ableism

microaggressions

Hot take: Almost nobody needs to hear “your disability isn’t an excuse.” Sure, it’s probably true that disability isn’t an excuse for misbehaviour in some contexts. Frankly, in 99% of contexts where someone might say something like this, it is the pinnacle of ableism. After all, a significant portion of ableism is just “your disability isn’t an excuse, you should be able to do this thing in the way I do, and you are not experiencing violence when the system is set up in a way that is more difficult for you.” Sure, sometimes it’s “You were never valuable because you are disabled”, but normally ableist violence - at least in my experience - takes the form of systemic barriers, not outright prejudice. Sure, there are abusers who use their disability to justify their actions. Frankly, that is the tiniest portion of the way people say “I can’t do this, I’m disabled”, and generally, when someone says that, they are the victim.  Stand by your disabled peers, damn it. I mean this particularly to other disabled people - it is my experience in the world that there is almost no intra-disability solidarity, hell to an inter-disability coalition. We’re understanding to each other, maybe, but solidarity is more than that.

The problem with the "Sapiosexuality is ableist" argument:

To assume that expecting intelligence is ableist is to assume that disabled people cannot be intelligent.

So, I'm pretty sure this one sentence speaks for itself. But I'm going to elaborate anyways. People who call Sapiosexuality "ableist" are creating a paradox in which they are trying to point out something as ableist by being ableist. People who believe that Sapiosexuality is ableist are, whether they realize it or not, inherently saying that disabled people cannot be smart. And that is not true at all. Many disabled people can be very smart (just look at Stephen Hawking), and plenty of able-bodied, neurotypical people are not smart. "Smart" is not an exclusive term for people who are "normal," can afford a college degree, and happen to have a high IQ (because really, IQ measures one of many types of intelligences). In fact, according to developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, there are nine types of intelligences (and no, this isn't one of those fake science thing like vaccines causing autism). Those nine are: Naturalist, musical, logical-mathematical, existential, interpersonal, body-kinesthetic, linguistic, intra-personal, and spatial. No one person is actually good with all of these intelligences. People have their strengths and weaknesses, regardless of sex/gender, race, class, disability, etc. Also, even Albert Einstein would agree that there are many ways to be intelligent and to express intelligence. There is a quote from Einstein that says that "creativity is intelligence having fun." And creativity can be art, music, comedy, acting, poetry, DIY projects, makeup art, etc. And, in my opinion (and the opinions of most Sapiosexual people), "smart" also includes humor and knowing miscellaneous knowledge, which isn't hard, regardless of who you are, really. Also, even if it was about the traditional idea of intelligence (which, again, it isn't), 11% of undergraduate college students have a disability (National Center for Education Statistics), and more than 25% have a mental illness (National Alliance on Mental Illness). But anyways, there are so many ways to be intelligent, and people assume that being Sapiosexual automatically puts intelligence into one very specific, exclusive box, but that's not at all true. We just want someone who we can have intelligent conversations of any kind with, and preferably who we can learn something from. We don't have one standard definition for intelligence. And by assuming that "intelligence" has to fit a certain mold, you're the one perpetuating ableism, elitism, classism and exclusivity. So please, next time you want to argue against something, find out more about it, and think very in-depth about the implications of your argument, and maybe you'll learn a thing or two in the process.

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Also, before someone comments something along the lines of "but Sapiosexuality is still not a real thing. Everyone likes intelligent people," if you think that, you have a misunderstanding of what Sapiosexuality is. For a Sapiosexual person, intelligence is the absolute number one factor; real attraction is impossible without it, and an attractive mind can make a Sapiosexual person ignore physical appearance entirely. Also, there is scientific evidence supporting the legitimacy of Sapiosexuality:

http://www.psypost.org/2018/01/study-sapiosexuality-suggests-people-really-sexually-attracted-intelligence-50526

http://iheartintelligence.com/2015/05/23/sapiosexuality-why-some-of-us-are-attracted-purely-by-intelligence/

And, all that said, regardless of facts and science and logic, all of you, as members of the LGBTQ+ community, should understand that sexuality is about what you feel and what you identify with. And to try to shut down someone's identity when yours was once unaccepted as well is not what this community is about. The LGBTQ+ community is about love and acceptance, but at times, it seems like it breeds more hate than love. Everyone's identity is what they feel is right, and love is love.

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P.S. Sapiosexuality becoming accepted is not going to make your identity seem less legitimate/valid. The only people who will try to say your identity is less valid because of someone else's are the people who are never going to accept any part of the LGBTQ+ community regardless of what is or isn't considered a part of it. So, screw them, don't worry about what they'll think, and just spread love and acceptance for all of the sexualities, gender identities, etc. You're going to be okay, I promise. A little bit of change and more diversity in the LGBTQ+ community isn't going to hurt anyone~ 💚

P.P.S. If any of you still want to say that Sapiosexuality isn't real, even after I provided links to scientific evidence and explained that, even with that scientific evidence, an identity is really just about what feels right for each individual person: Really, if you think about it, no sexuality (including straight) is technically "real." None of these things really need a label. But we put labels on these things so we can feel a sense of identity and a sense of community with other people who identify the same way. You can love whoever you want and have sex with whoever you want without putting a label on it or without it even being a concrete thing, regardless of labels, but we use labels anyways, because the human race loves to name everything. So, with labels being as arbitrary as they are, why complain about a label that someone else has given themself? If people feel like they identify with this, why shouldn't they identify with it? Does this label hurt anyone?

Use words for their actual fucking meanings.

No, that random person who was ableist about wheelchair accessibility isn't "abled" or "able-bodied" just because they aren't using a wheelchair. You can say "non wheelchair users" when that is what you mean. Disabled people, shocker, are capable of being ableist. And you if you call random people abled just because they don't have a specific disability being immediately obvious, are doing exactly that, too.

Yes, that ADHDer who posts about social theory of disability and how in non-ableist world their ADHD would not cause them any problems is developmentally disabled. You can say "severe/profound developmental disability", "medium/high support needs", etc, when that is what you mean.

Yes, psychologically-traumagenic mental illness is cognitive disability. You can say "developmental cognitive disability" when that is what you mean. You can say "brain damage" when that is what you mean.

No, literally fucking no disabled person is "able-bodied" because central nervous system is a fucking part of the body. Throw that entire term in the trash.

No, "nervous system" does not mean "central nervous system". Stop it. Stop. It. Say "central nervous system" when that is what you mean. Stop only using "neurological" to refer to central nervous system.

Might later do more. For now will post this like this.

Hello, can you please help me understand what are endogenic systems? :)

p/groan/ i know right? there are no good terms for this stuff, but that one is particularly difficult for me to internalize. 

here’s a good description (from a glossary by @thatmultiplefeel): 

NATURAL SYSTEMalso called a “non-traumagenic system” or endogenic system. a natural system is a system that does not ascribe trauma (either at all or alone) to the origins of their system. 

people who talk about having “walk-ins” in their systems, or otherkin, or having been born multiple and not having been abused, or remembering being multiple before ever being abused, etc., all get even more ableism thrown at them than your just average regular multiple system. (which is already A FUCKTON OF A SHITLOAD OF A LOT OF ABLEISM.) 

this is the usual gatekeeping setup: when some members of a group are considered even weirder or less acceptable than the rest by outsiders, the former often internalize those ideas and use them against the latter. instead of rejecting the entire oppressive setup. 

i can totally understand not liking the term “natural system”, personally, because purity culture assumes that anything “natural” is “good,” and that the converse is “unnatural” and “bad”, and nobody needs that shit. especially not abuse survivors ffs. i know people don’t mean that when they use the term “natural multiple” or “natural system,” but you can’t really avoid that baggage. 

the arguments against endogenic systems are bog-standard gatekeeping that should sound very familiar: - they make regular multiple systems look bad! (this is often framed, in the syscourse, as “they are obviously faking in order to make us look bad,” or just “they’re faking and that makes us look bad”

the worst is when it’s framed as “they are fake and talk about things like otherkin and system-hopping and past lives and alternate universes, and that makes OTHER people think WE must be fake!” because the solution to that is not “yeah THEY’RE fake but WE’RE not,” which is a weak argument, it’s “they’re not fake, we’re not fake, you’re ableist and ignorant, have some goddamn respect for people’s experiences and go educate yourself.”) - they steal resources! (aka “if someone who WASN’T abused thinks they’re multiple and they go to a therapist, that’s taking away resources from someone who needs them” -- which is interesting because it totally inverts the usual anti-self-dx argument. From this perspective, instead of it being “you need to go get diagnosed or else you’re faking,” it’s “you’re faking so you shouldn’t go get diagnosed”. Which makes no sense, is a real double bind, and -- just like anti-self-dx talk in the autistic community -- is just the speaker assuming that they have the right and the skills and the deep personal knowledge to diagnose somebody, but the person themselves doesn’t.) - they confuse people about what their real identities and needs are! 

(the argument here is basically “endogenic systems/members say that DID isn’t a disorder, and that treatment for it is harmful, but it absolutely is and people need treatment!” 

the thing is that it’s like autism or any other neurodiversity or disability thing. some people experience it as a disorder because it’s hugely negative and damaging in their life. some people, even people with the exact same experience of it, have a different perspective, and say they don’t want to call it a disorder because in another way it totally saved their lives. 

for some people, it’s very negative at first, and then they reach a level of cooperation or coconsciousness where it actually works for them and isn’t harmful. some people don’t have the damaging intra-system warfare that others do, and may or may not experience it as a disorder. all of that is true whether or not you’re trauma-based. 

I’ve known many, many trauma-based systems who didn’t really care if it was a disorder or not, and who were staunchly against integration and had a lot of problems with the way that it’s treated. 

Because the truth is that things are a little better now, but there’s a LONG history of really dehumanizing treatment that insists on framing one person as the “real” one and everyone else as... less than people. 

And in systems where that’s not the case. it can incredibly painful and retraumatizing for people to be treated as not real.  And to be told that they need to disappear in order for the REAL person to be healthy. And many professionals still think this way today; and others think that way, but phrase it slightly better. 

And that’s not only true whether or not you’re trauma-based, it���s often way worse if you WERE abused. Because you were already treated like less than a person.

Like, if somebody sees it as a disorder and seeks treatment and is happy with the treatment they’re getting, THAT’S FANTASTIC! but to then turn around and tell other people that if they don’t think it’s a disorder, or if they don’t trust the mental health system, they are harming “real systems” - that’s a problem. especially since many multiple systems have a history of the types of abuse that make it extremely difficult to trust mental health professionals in the first place.) 

- the usual resources that a system needs, like help with cooperation, integration, or PTSD, don’t apply to them, even if they have PTSD and just have members who existed before the trauma! (I read this one today and it’s... not accurate. I say this as an integrated multiple, who spent years learning about intra-system cooperation before integrating, both in therapy, and by talking to other multiples, and by reading books that multiple systems had written about it. The exact same fucking resources will work for a trauma-based system, a system with no trauma, and a system in which only some of the people experienced trauma or postdate the trauma. The variations, like some people not needing to deal with trauma, will vary between people in a trauma-based system as well. And between different trauma-based systems.  For example, we were absoluuuuuuuuutely a trauma-based system, and we didn’t have to deal with having one member who held all the abuse memories (as a lot of systems do). Many of the memories weren’t accessible to anybody (as opposed to the common trope, in case studies and memoirs, of one or several people being created to hold the memories, and remembering all of the abuse upon integration). And while we were all affected by some or all of the abuse, many of us didn’t need any help with PTSD, and actually therapy was the absolute least effective thing we tried for it. And the most fucking expensive!!!!) 

ok it turned out i had a lot to say about this lol 

i haven’t written much about it in years and today i ran into a multiple friend i haven’t seen in years, and i am Full of Words. 

Stop fucking lying to folx about what intrusive thoughts are. They do not have to be about “harming oneself or others” (in ways that *you* think are Objectively Harmful, not what might be harm to oneself to the individual experiencing them, of course, yea). They do not even have to be about actions at all.

Intrusive thoughts are your brain picking a theme that distresses you the most and bombarding you with thoughts about it because it thinks it’s protecting you from it that way (basically like an allergic reaction). That can be anything for anyone. And you don’t fucking get to decide what is distressing or non-distressing for others.

Holy *shit* imagine making a post that just says “disability”, with a point that is very important to hear for *all* disabled folkel, and adding a tag “this post is about physically disabled people”.

Anyway, as your local cripple whose most disabling things are migraines and ADHD, who can barely walk with a cane and doesn’t know if any mobility aid can actually fit his needs but would choose getting rid of bipolar over finding proper mobility support if it was possible: *whatever* your disabilities are, you deserve your pain being heard, you deserve spaces among other disabled folkel, you deserve positivity that doesn’t try to put a divide literally through your life or between you and other disabled folkel.

Some of us actually do want to “fix” our disabilities, without pushing that goal onto anyone else, and we deserve to not be treated like exclusively a product of ableism.

Fellow disableds for whom disability is suffering, stop going after transabled folkel, who are not saying anything about *others’* lives, and start going after cisdisabled folkel who roll around insisting that disabled suffering is ableist stereotype.

(And don’t fucking gatekeep disability from them either)

For fuck’s sake you don’t need to put down individuals with low intelligence when you talk about the ableism you face/have faced

Fuck it. Full stop. Calling anyone abled is ableist. You don’t know their full health / life conditions. And extremely often it’s used to mean “ableist”, painting “disabled” and “ableist” as non-overlapping categories.