Sorry to be incredibly out of date replying to this, I’ve found myself chewing over this sentence rather a lot, and I’m really conflicted about it.

I’ll say up front, I struggle daily with paranoia. In the clinical description of the word. It goes hand in hand with my depression and anxiety issues and plays a big part in exacerbating both of those.

And while on the one hand I roll my eyes a little when people use the word incorrectly, I’m also incredibly concerned about feeling like I need to “out” myself and/or defend my word usage when talking about my own condition. I want to be able to talk about a situation or action that is triggering that constantly underlying conviction that everyone secretly hates me without having to explicitly justify my right to use the word.

The writer of this letter signs themself as “Paranoid”, and I’m not sure how we can judge just based on this description of one small segment of their life whether or not they have the “right” to do so. I could totally see the described situation feeding into my own paranoia and depression, which is not in any way meant to justify either the writer’s actions toward their MIL or Prudie’s frankly appalling advice just that I feel like paranoid is one of those words where it’s really hard to tell from the outside how genuinely accurate a description it is when looking at only one data point. Paranoid as a description of someone else, particularly when used as a way to dismiss, mock or belittle their opinions, yeah, ableist as hell. Paranoid as a description of self? How am I, as an outsider to that person’s head and life, to know?

Being able to steal candy from bulk bins (and embarrass people at the store who are related to you and shop with you) has nothing to do with neurological impairment or the need for a work up. Or the need to threaten someone with being housebound.
.-= MomTFH´s last blog ..I’m so stoked! =-.

No kidding! The fact that Prudie suggests this and *doesn’t* ever suggest that someone else might be better at taking the woman grocery shopping is just awful. She doesn’t even ask if there are other family members who might be more comfortable with the job, let alone aides they could hire. If someone needs assistance with activities of daily living and you’re not able to provide that assistance, the only ethical thing to do is to find someone else who can. (The fact that this can be profoundly difficult due to systemic cultural ableism doesn’t change the obligation to treat PWD ethically.)
.-= Sweet Machine´s last blog ..Fluffcation: Holiday =-.

It is a feeling, but it has gone (far) beyond that.
.-= Adelaide Dupont´s last blog ..Running sheet for Key Concepts and Development: prelim and first draft, with pics and sounds! =-.

That’s what this boils down to. The mother in law needs help because of her disability/ her age (there is so much intersection between ableism and ageism!), and this dependency is the perfect tool to shape the mil’s behaviour as the daughter in law sees fit, so she can enjoy the shopping.

That’s undue duress, if not extortion. Prudie is telling the dil to hold the mil’s ability to provide lives neccesseties for herself hostage until the mil changes into the person her dil wants her to be.

This is why I’m rather adamant that certain types of care should not be performed by me. Don has a homecare worker that comes by once a week to help with things like shaving and making sure his hair gets a thorough wash and all that. The idea that those sorts of important body-related tasks should be something that I could punish him by refusing to do, or something that could end up waiting until I have spare time to do them is, is horrifying to me. (And if you think I’m hardly on line, you should see how rarely I’m home.)

And yet, people suggest it all the time.
.-= Anna´s last blog ..A random collection of things =-.

No one considered why someone would live at home until marriage, except for immaturity. (I first was mad for cultural reasons, but now I’m mad for ableism reasons – I lived on my own, everyone should!)
.-= Kaitlyn´s last blog ..Spoon Theory and Me (It’s all about me) =-.

On the other hand, if there is some reason that getting caught might result in a dangerous situation for MIL, like being taken to jail or something, it might be worth it to do what’s possible to help MIL not steal. But there’s only so much one should or can do, and trying to control the MIL by threatening to “shrink her world” is really wrong.

I found Prudie’s attitude to be quite condescending and infantalizing.