Hope Is A Skill

hope is a skill

Tips on how to avoid being unintentionally ableist

1. When a disabled person says they cannot do something, and you wish to offer solutions, do not make a solution that involves them powering through pain, or something thats not accessible to the disabled.

Example:

Disabled person: "washing dishes hurts too much and i cannot do it."

Abled person: "what if you did one dish at a time throughout the day?"

This statement is not respecting that this disabled person just said they "can't". Always respect that. No matter how simple the task would be for you.

Disabled person:" i think ill use plastic silverware so i don't make dishes."

Abled person: "plastic is bad for the environment!"

This statement shuts down the most accessible and disabled friendly option that this disabled person can actually do because of the abled persons personal beliefs. This is not helpful, and ableist.

Better yet, instead of offering solutions, ask them directly "is there anything you need that you do not have that would help you do this?" This allows the disabled person to think about what would work, and they will always have a better idea of what would work than you do.

To add on to this, when we say we have no more energy to solve a problem or do a task, or change our lifestyle, we mean it.

2. If you feel discomfort when a disabled person is talking about their health, good and bad, that is ableist. Your discomfort is coming from a place that deams disabled peoples very existence as a bad thing and you need to fix that.

For example:

Disabled person:" this week has been rough pain wise, ive been through a lot, felt like my body was on fire. Lucky i got new meds though and i think they're helping!"

Abled person: "can we talk about something else, this is a bummer."

Disabled people should be able to exist freely without worrying about your personal comfort. Do you really think its appropriate to tell someone in constant pain that their life is making YOU uncomfortable?

3. Do not treat disabled people as tragedies, do not romanticize their old life or put their current one down.

For example:

Disabled person: "yeah my life is pretty difficult sometimes, ive lost a lot but i still have happy moments."

Abled person: "it makes me so sad to see what disabled people go through :(. You used to love rock climbing and running, i would love to see you move around more again."

This statement is putting more value on the disabled persons abled past, and ignoring their life as a whole.

4. Do not avoid speaking to disabled people because it hurts to see your loved one disabled.

For example: my grandmother avoids conversations with me because it hurts her to see me in pain. While she has good intentions it leaves me being unable to be close to her. This is very isolating to the disabled.

5. Do not stop inviting your disabled friend/loved one out even if they are never well enough to attend. Unless we specifically ask you to stop asking if we can go out, good chances are we want to know you still care because again, disability is very isolating.

6. When a disabled person says certain things in their health have gotten better or worse, do not challenge this because you don't see a difference.

For example:

Disabled person: "yeah things are getting a little better"

Abled person sees disabled person using their wheelchair like usual: "i thought you said you were getting better?"

Better and worse are usually small changes only the disabled experience, its not like abled people healing from a broken arm. Better to a disabled person could mean they can stand for 10 more minutes.

7. Do not expect disabled people to ever be abled again, and again, do not put more value on an abled life.

For example:

Disabled person:"I have been using a wheelchair for 2 years."

Abled person: "oh you're young, im sure you'll be walking around in no time!"

This statement invalidates and ignores the disabled persons current life by hoping they get a more abled bodied life. Its fine to hope disabled people get better, but you don't get to decide what better looks like.

Hope this helps, stay punk.

Neurodiversity from an Evolutionary Perspective

I spoke yesterday about how neurodiversity is a bit of Schrödinger's Disability today. We neurodiverse people get all the backlash of being diabled, and all the discrimination, but we rarely get disability benefits of any sort.

But today I want to talk about something else: Evolutionarily speaking most neurodiverse people are not disabled. Our disability stems entirely from the fact that we just do not function in a 9-5 capitalist hellscape.

Just look at it from the perspective that our species actually evolved to gather and hunt - and maybe also cultivate some stuff. (Given how long ago we did that, you could argue that this also shows in our genes.)

See, by now a lot of specialists think, that both autism and ADHD are very underdiagnosed, because even within the field a lot of people are looking for a certain, stereotypic way for the neurodiversity to show. With modern diagnostic criteria there is a good chance that about 5% of all people have ADHD and/or autism. Which is... a lot.

But the thing is that it actually makes a lot of sense. Because evolutionarily it would totally have been an advantage.

Let me talk about something we did at university yesterday. We got a lot of random shapes on a picture and we were supposed to find the T and the X between these shapes. Something I could do within less than a second, while three of my fellow students were unable to find the T (which was rotated) at all. Because my brain processes visual information completely differently.

And this... is evolutionarily an advantage, right? Just imagine being a hunter-gatherer and going through the forest or the savanna. And now you have someone among you, who is able to see a prey animal instantly, because of how they process visual information. Or who realizes them being stalked by a predator. Or them finding fruits and other things.

Neurodiverse people are also very capable of having a very different approach to problem solving. Which again would have a small tribe easier survive. Doubly so with the hyperfocus that neurodiverse people can have. Which totally is an evolutionary advantage for a group to have. Who knows. Maybe the first person to make fire was a neurodiverse person hyperfocusing on this task.

Also, there is the very common believe that people with ADHD specifically were probably very well adapt at hunting for several reasons.

So, yeah. This is so very common, because evolutionarily it was an advantage. From an evolutionary perspective it makes sense that it is so very common.

You have to remember: Modern Homo Sapiens as a species is around 160 000 years old. We settled down sometime between 10 000 and 15 000 years ago. So, just from an evolutionary perspective us having settled down is a very, very new thing. And not to mention, that the modern working culture has been around for not even quite 100 years. Office jobs have been a thing for even less.

And I can tell you: If you leave me out and about outside. I am good. Like, give me some nature observatory duty or something, putting up trail cams, what not. I am good. I can work for 12 hours straight (because hyperfocus). But sit me in the office for just 6 hours, and you will have me crawling up the walls, because that is just not what my brain does.

Ideally I am gonna need a job, that involves a lot of research and going outside. Which is why I hope to either go into Digital Humanities or the Environmental Geoinformatics. Because that is stuff I work well with.

If you gotta put me in an office job, you might as well shoot me right. Because my brain just doed not work like that.

There are places you haven't been where you already belong

have decided this is my first day on planet earth !! and it is beautiful!!!!

it seems so strange to me that the only people it is socially acceptable to live with (once you reach a certain stage in life) are sexual partners? like why can’t i live with my best friend? why can’t i raise a child with them? why do i need to have sex with someone in order to live with them? why do we put certain relationships on a pedestal? why don’t we value non-sexual relationships enough? why do life partners always have to be sexual partners?