Cultural criticism can be an agent for change, educating for critical consciousness in liberatory ways, only if we start with a mind-set and a progressive politics that is fundamentally anti-colonialist, that negates cultural imperialism in all its manifestations […] In many ways progressive cultural revolution can happen only as we learn how to do everything differently.
–From “The Heartbeat of Cultural Revolution,” introduction to Outlaw Culture, 1994
Eliot Renard is a genderqueer, feminist, socialist Chicagoan who enjoys making math and science accessible and fun for students through various online tutoring programs. Ze also has a health blog, personal blog and tumblr, because compartmentalizing is fun.
I began experiencing the symptoms of what I now know to be depression, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome when I first hit puberty. When I complained, the doctor would usually laugh and attribute my complaints to growing pains. I was told many times by family members and medical professionals to grow up and to stop complaining. So, I did. For a decade.
Fast forward to now, and I am once again vocal about my experiences. This willingness to speak up – to come out as a chronic pain, fatigue, and depression sufferer – has been incredibly beneficial. I am now on treatments that greatly reduce my muscle pain and depression symptoms, although I have yet to find a solution for many other symptoms. I have a supportive husband who understands when it’s me speaking and when it’s the pain speaking. He has adapted admirably to “physical contact rules” that change daily. He encouraged me to seek out a therapist, which I was reluctant to do after an extremely negative experience with a therapist in my childhood. He helps me with whatever tasks I cannot accomplish on a given day. In short, he is a wonderful spouse helping me through a very rough adjustment period. The rest of my family, however, is problematic.
When my health began to decline rapidly this past summer, I assumed that my mother and grandmother, both diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis for at least a decade, would understand what I was going through, and instinctively know how to support me. This assumption was untrue and unfair; being in pain and watching a loved one in pain are two very different experiences. So, after many conversations in which I asked them repeatedly not to say some hurtful, untrue, and pointless things*, I sent out an email with a list of the offensive remarks, why they were offensive, and a request that the remarks stop immediately.
Unfortunately, this attempt was unsuccessful. Every phone call was about my illness, and how I wasn’t doing enough to get better – I should be exercising more, undergoing this or that treatment, stopping this or that medication, finding something I “really want to do”, unlike the graduate school I loved and had to leave because I couldn’t get out of bed, much less get to campus and perform a 16-hour work day, being happier, etc. Things got bad enough that I attempted suicide in September. It felt like I was not only losing my physical and mental functions, but my family as well. Nothing I tried was working, and it seemed that there was no way out.
After the suicide attempt, I turned off my phone for a week. The first person I called when I felt well enough to use the phone was my little brother – he needed to know that none of this was his fault. My sister’s 6-year-old son happened to be present, so I got to talk to him, as well. My nephew noted that it had been a long time since we had talked. I replied that I was sick and needed to turn my phone off for a while. My nephew’s response was absolutely perfect: “Well, I’m sorry you were sick, but I’m glad you feel better. At school, I got a dinosaur, and…”
Why can’t the adults in my life figure that out? Why is treating someone like a person so difficult, not only for my family, but for people on the street or the bus? Most of my frustration is not actually born from the constant pain, fatigue, fog, etc. – it is from the rest of the world failing to accept me as I am. And, given the amount of frustration my illness itself causes me, that’s saying something.
*[Bingo, anyone?]
Talulah Mankiller at Life Under a Rock: Just the Facts, Ma’am (via Kiri) (post mentions domestic violence but doesn’t describe)
Even when I was very sick and had no idea what was wrong, I always had two versions of reality in my head: what I logically knew was actually probably going on, and what I emotionally understood was happening. The two rarely matched up, but that doesn’t mean that they weren’t both there. For years, various people made futile efforts to help me “grow up” and “learn to deal with things” by trying to get those two versions of reality to overlap as much as possible, but the fact of the matter is that they were never going to. Because those kind people, those lovely people, thought if I just understood that another, less emotionally volatile reality existed, then I would just magically walk right over there and everything would be fine.
Problem was, I’d been well aware of that reality the whole time. I just couldn’t reach it. Because, you know, MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY IS FUCKED.
Kiriamaya: “Why aren’t you angry?”
Because I’m fucking exhausted, that’s why. Depression means I don’t have much energy to begin with, and I have to use most of what I do have for school, work and social situations, which doesn’t leave much over to do activism or to be angry about shit. Oh, and I’m also trans, which means I have to constantly fight just to be seen as human (and usually fail). And I try to squeeze creative projects in amidst all this because that’s how I keep from killing myself.
Old Kentish Sign Language Put On the Worldwide Endangered List
A centuries-old sign language thought to have been spread throughout America by Kentish settlers is on the worldwide endangered list.
Evidence of the use of Old Kentish Sign Language dates back as far as the mid-1600s, but is now thought to be extinct thanks to the rise of British Sign Language in its place.
It is also thought to be one of the forerunners of American Sign Language, as a number of 17th century settlers on the island of Martha’s Vineyard near Massachusetts – the majority of whom knew how to sign – migrated from the Kentish Weald.
Disability Scoop: Violent Crime Odds Double for People With Disabilities
The findings come in a report released Thursday by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics that looked at 730,000 nonfatal violent crimes during 2008 in which the victim had a disability. Overall, those with disabilities age 12 and older experienced crime at a rate of 40 cases out of 1,000. During the same period those without a disability were affected at a far lower rate of 21 per 1,000, the findings indicate.
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): Inside an isolated world
There are more than 300,000 Australians who are deafblind and an Access Economics report is predicting that with an ageing population that figure will top one million by 2050. The 7.30 Report’s Natasha Johnson spent a day with a woman who is deafblind to witness the many challenges she faces.