laugh so we don't cry, right?
Disability Pride Month, it's now in case you didn't know that July is that, yeah. Here's the thing, I am not proud of my disability and nobody I know IS proud of theirs, we are pained, inconvenienced, often shamed, and exhausted by them. How About Instead... Disability Understanding Month. Where normies try to have some compassion and imagine what it's like to suddenly or gradually, depending on our situation, not be able to do things, or in many cases never having been able to do some things ever. I am not asking for pity, that is entirely useless to me and everyone else who has something different beyond their control. And yes, it could be worse, I could be missing a piece of my physical body, but that doesn't make me better or folks missing bits worse, it makes our experiences different but no less real or challenging. Spoon Theory has helped a lot in making some differences clear, and it is good that there is some way to explain that what most folks take for granted (getting up, getting a shower, getting dressed, going out to the store, whatever tasks need done) take more time and energy and effort for some of us, and we might not have enough spoons for all the things that need done. Look up Spoon Theory, it's helpful. But one thing that is often not clear is that we (disabled folk) don't always know HOW MANY SPOONS WE GET from day to day. It is NOT always the same. Some days I can cope and deal, some days I need two five hour naps and am lucky if I accomplish more than feeding the cat. It's ok to laugh, it sounds funny, except it is the literal truth. I laugh so I don't cry and scream my constant anger to the sky. That's another thing, disability is f*cking angering, I simply can't do a lot of things I once could, and I am stuck in the anger stage of grief over that, have been for years. Antidepressants only go so far to alleviate that bit, and talking about it is frustrating because it isn't going to get better, and our constant fear, mostly unspoken by nearly everybody I know with a disability, is that it CAN and likely WILL get worse. So not only are we fighting against whatever it is that is stealing our spoons/energy/whatever we are ALSO constantly in fear, and many of us I suspect also constantly low-level peeved, I am anyway. And yes, it sucks so very much. So yes, when someone opens a door for me I am genuinely grateful for just that tiny moment of compassion not because I feel their pity but because I feel seen and if only for a moment understood in a small way. I am constantly exhausted and some days I simply cannot DO, even though yesterday maybe I could, and did, and today I cannot. Maybe tomorrow I can again, and maybe it will be weeks before I can DO whatever it was I did yesterday. And I just NEVER KNOW. Frustrating, see? If I sound angry some days or my sarcasm is sharper than usual (my go to coping skill since forever) understand that it is not anger at YOU or the world, but at the situation that is beyond my control, at the parts of my disability that are invisible yet still impeding my life as I used to live it, at the parts that are very visible and letting strangers see that I do indeed need a door opened. If you made it this far, thank you. I am not asking that you repost or support a charity or even reply or like, I am simply asking that you view the world with compassion, that you do whatever you do with joy knowing that you CAN do whatever it is you are doing, that you maybe do what is needed to protect what help we who are different for whatever reason can get. And shame the a$$holes who park in handicapped parking spaces without a plate or placard stating that they belong there, 'cause I am telling you, they really are a$$hats and should one day find out what it is like to NEED that f*cking parking space. It's ok to laugh, I meant that to be funny. But it is ALSO the literal truth.