Hello! Sorry for the late mega last week. How are my disabled comrades doing?
As always, we ask that in order to participate in the weekly megathread, one self-identifies as some form of disabled, which is broadly defined in the community sidebar:
"Disability" is an umbrella term which encompasses physical disabilities, emotional/psychiatric disabilities, neurodivergence, intellectual/developmental disabilities, sensory disabilities, invisible disabilities, and more. You do not have to have an official diagnosis to consider yourself disabled.
Mask up, love one another, and stay alive for one more week.
Does anyone else get really infuriated by able bodied people comparing and contrasting the achievements and attitudes of ill/disabled people and using that against you? For instance if you're unable to work/study because you're exhausted and brain foggy from cancer treatment, someone will try to shame you for not working by saying "Look at this person, they are deafblind and they are a lawyer! You aren't as badly off as them, what is your excuse?" Or "Oh, you won't walk far because your in pain/lame from a stroke/whatever? Well this person has no legs at all and ran a marathon, what's your excuse?"
As well as it being horrible to shame people for being unable to do things, it's so stupid because they contrast apples with oranges. While it's amazing that a deafblind person overcame their challenges to become a lawyer, it's a completely different situation from the cancer patient, who is so tired they can't help falling asleep and can't concentrate on basic tasks, never mind studying for a law degree.
It's amazing that a double amputee ran a marathon on false legs but that is a different situation from, say, a stroke patient who is dragging a painful leg that doesn't fully work.
I hate the attempts to enforce cheerfulness on the ill/disabled as well. Like say, you're laying in your hospital bed after cancer surgery crying because you're scared and in pain and some dickhead will show you a news article about a woman who is dying from cancer but so cheerful about it and say "Look, she's worse off than you and she is still smiling and happy. What have you got to complain about? Cheer up."
In my experience people will do everything but admit that your situation is hopeless. Maybe it’s idealism where they think that if you just believe in it enough then everything will get better. And if it doesn’t get better then it’s your fault for not trying hard enough.
I think a lot of them don't want to accept how luck has influenced their success. They don't want to accept that if they'd had the challenges someone else has had, they wouldn't have been successful either.
They do the same thing with other marginalized communities, like POC who complain about missing opportunities get rich black people shoved in their faces. Able people who live comfortably are made uncomfortable by the idea of there being a class of people who are forced to exist in poor conditions due to something they can't control, be it disability, race, sexuality, gender, etc. So instead of addressing the systemic issues of why that might be, they go, "well some disabled people are able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, why can't everyone? it must be a personal failing."
Many Americans very much so believe that we live in a meritocracy, and anything that would combat that idea provides too much dissonance. Or at least I think that's what it is idk, I wish they'd stop trying to drag me into making them feel better because the fact i'm suffering makes them uncomfortable... lol
imho, you only get to say "it could be so much worse!" about your own situation or the situation of a friend who has asked for comfort
otherwise, you need to stfu, because you don't know all the surrounding circumstances in a person's life, and you obviously haven't come to terms with the fact that what can seem bearable in one situation is absolutely intolerable in others.
all of that is just to say that you should completely disregard those people; they lack intelligence, sense, and empathy, and this lack makes their opinions and thoughts utterly meaningless.
Thanks.