[Disability] Out of Sight
I've been remiss with the posting lately. Partly it's just the Polanski week was difficult and I kind of had to get away and recover some. The fibromyalgia has been very bad (more about this later) and so there have not been so many spoons available to do stuff. Webcomics fell off first, then video games, and then LJ. I've been trying to do some tabletop-related writing but it's been going pretty slow.
The last reason is a really good one and one I'm excited about. A certain big-name feminist blog (because I believe in naming names: it's Feministing, to whom I will not link) has been kind of a toxic place for people with disabilities for a while now. Their 'report abuse' buttons work for issues the moderators there care about, and ableist language in comment threads is not one of those issues. Nor is ableist language in actual posts. (Mainstream feminism has been here before, what with excluding women of color, poor women, and trans women -- and women with disabilities before us. We're just the most recent to have pointed this out.)
meloukhia of this ain't living's open letter I cosigned sparked something among a bunch of feminist bloggers with disabilities. We've built a group blog at FWD/Forward: feminists with disabilities for a way forward. The response in just the few days since the roll-out has been tremendous and inspiring and humbling; we keep getting "Thank you! I'm so glad someone is finally doing this!" messages and requests to write guest posts. Considering we've all got some version of impostor syndrome it makes us a bit anxious, but it's very flattering.
These are some awesome women, O my readers. I am honored to be among them.
k0
p.s. Today is Love Your Body Day. It's complicated, especially for those of us with physical disabilities (like, ahem, chronic pain conditions), but we've got reasons to love our bodies too, and a post on that is scheduled for later today.
p.p.s. Oh, the fibro. It's been very bad. It makes me stupid. My hands hurt, which is kind of bad considering what I do for a living and for recreation. The pain meds don't come close to providing full relief but I won't ask for stronger lest I be perceived as drug-seeking. The TENS helps but only where the electrode pads are. Yesterday I stayed home from work and was awake for maybe five hours of the twenty-four.
What needs to happen for me to feel less awful is for me to not work. At least for a while. I'm terrified of what will happen though. And I'm having a hard time with the idea of letting myself quit without anyone else's approval. But when I asked the wife when she thought might be a good time she said five more weeks.
It seems I was hoping more than I thought that this job would be over on 30 September. It's been really disappointing to still be working. I feel trapped, and that always digs up some unpleasantness from other times I've felt trapped. Only now I don't have access to the coping mechanisms I had then. (They were not good for me, long-term.)
The last reason is a really good one and one I'm excited about. A certain big-name feminist blog (because I believe in naming names: it's Feministing, to whom I will not link) has been kind of a toxic place for people with disabilities for a while now. Their 'report abuse' buttons work for issues the moderators there care about, and ableist language in comment threads is not one of those issues. Nor is ableist language in actual posts. (Mainstream feminism has been here before, what with excluding women of color, poor women, and trans women -- and women with disabilities before us. We're just the most recent to have pointed this out.)
meloukhia of this ain't living's open letter I cosigned sparked something among a bunch of feminist bloggers with disabilities. We've built a group blog at FWD/Forward: feminists with disabilities for a way forward. The response in just the few days since the roll-out has been tremendous and inspiring and humbling; we keep getting "Thank you! I'm so glad someone is finally doing this!" messages and requests to write guest posts. Considering we've all got some version of impostor syndrome it makes us a bit anxious, but it's very flattering.
These are some awesome women, O my readers. I am honored to be among them.
k0
p.s. Today is Love Your Body Day. It's complicated, especially for those of us with physical disabilities (like, ahem, chronic pain conditions), but we've got reasons to love our bodies too, and a post on that is scheduled for later today.
p.p.s. Oh, the fibro. It's been very bad. It makes me stupid. My hands hurt, which is kind of bad considering what I do for a living and for recreation. The pain meds don't come close to providing full relief but I won't ask for stronger lest I be perceived as drug-seeking. The TENS helps but only where the electrode pads are. Yesterday I stayed home from work and was awake for maybe five hours of the twenty-four.
What needs to happen for me to feel less awful is for me to not work. At least for a while. I'm terrified of what will happen though. And I'm having a hard time with the idea of letting myself quit without anyone else's approval. But when I asked the wife when she thought might be a good time she said five more weeks.
It seems I was hoping more than I thought that this job would be over on 30 September. It's been really disappointing to still be working. I feel trapped, and that always digs up some unpleasantness from other times I've felt trapped. Only now I don't have access to the coping mechanisms I had then. (They were not good for me, long-term.)