Tag Archives: mental health

Someone Get This Rock Off Of My Chest…

I read a post at Crazy Mermaid’s Blog recently that neatly summarized some things that I have been struggling with lately.

Friends and loved ones of those with a mental illness have a hard time understanding noncompliance with medication.  Why, they reason, if the drug helps control the symptoms of the mental illness, doesn’t the mentally ill person take the medication?

One of the biggest reasons for noncompliance is the side effects of the drugs. Especially for those with more severe cases, the side effects of strong doses of medication can cause horrific side effects. So horrific, in fact, that the patient makes the conscious decision to stop taking the medication to avoid those side effects. Living with the mental illness becomes more appealing than living without it.

I linked it in my most recent RR, but it hit home so well that I really had to bring it back around here for some tossing around. I have been rolling some things around in my brain on my own like a toy surprise… the kind that can eat you up… and while the particular sitch that Crazy Mermaid describes doesn’t apply specifically to me, it is relevant.

We all have, I think, things in our lives that we face that create little fissures that attempt to pull us apart from any amount of happiness we might grasp onto in our lives. Those of us in the disabled community know that this kind of stress can be especially taxing on our resources as the two sides rub together, causing the tiny quakes and aftershocks of the impending snaps of what we can handle. Sometimes the aftermath of having to live on the fault line long enough results is losses we, as people, can’t quite handle with smiles on our faces, if at all.

These things might not all be catastrophic life situations, but sometimes they are. Perhaps it is, on one side of the fault, the choice to not medicate and along with it the constant shame and scrutiny from doctors, family, friends, and basically everyone you might know (or the lack of understanding of your continued symptoms from those “anti Big Pharma” friends who think you really can have it both ways). On the other, living daily with side effects that leave you with little to no quality of life. Crazy Mermaid listed a few fairly severe ones. I know some of my medications for other-than-mental illness conditions come with their own host of side effects that I had to consider, including vomiting, vertigo, extreme fatigue, and that is just to name some pleasant ones. They can sap your will to get out of bed. You have to weigh these options carefully as the ground trembles beneath you. Often, you don’t have anything  or anyone to cling to as you weigh your bleak options. What choice is it, really, sometimes?

Perhaps your choice is whether to accept a job across the country (or the world, in another country you have never even seen before) because it will provide for your immediate family. The other side of that precipice is the close-knit extended family you leave behind: grandparents and aunts and uncles who all had a hand in raising you, some of whom now could use your help as they get older. Their lives continue and you miss the daily events that used to be part of your daily life. The little things that mattered are missing from your life now as your support system is thousands of miles behind you. Their cycles of life don’t stand still because you have moved away. How do you make that choice, and what if you are a partner of someone who takes that job? Do you choose your partner or your family (and how do you choose)? Some of these answers might seems snap-crackle easy… but if you really break it down, they are many faces of the rock to look at. Do you choose financial or emotional security?

How do you make those choices? How do you survive the tremors of straddling the fissure while you weigh your options? When do the rock and hard place stop grinding against you to let you breathe for a moment so you can rest?

Let’s Bust Some Myths: Depressed People Are Always Sad or They’re Faking!

Last year, after the incredibly scientific method of “looking at Facebook photos”, Manulife Insurance Company decided that Nathalie Blanchard wasn’t really depressed, she was just faking it, and thus cut off her disability-related funding.

Mix up a few details, and Blanchard’s story is a pretty common one. Whenever I talk to people who are currently living with long- or short-term depression, or have lived with it in the past, they tell me the same story: Friends thought they were faking because they managed to get out and have a good time. They laughed at a joke once and everyone decided they were “over” their “funk”. They didn’t act like stereotypes of depressed people, so they must not actually be depressed.

Woe, and all that.

This is what short-term depression was like for me: I spent four months getting up, going to work, doing my job quite well, eating at work, coming home, feeding the cat, lying down on the couch, falling asleep, and waking up to do it all again the next day when the cat bit me to remind me that I had to feed him. I didn’t answer the phone. I didn’t go online. I didn’t eat when I wasn’t at work. I didn’t go into my bedroom. I enjoyed my job, and was often bubbly and vivacious at work, and while everyone outside of my job figured there was something up, everyone I worked with thought I was great fun and having a lovely time.

This is what short-term depression looked like for my friend: She spent a few months being aware of every possible way she could kill herself in a room. She was really angry and yelled at people a lot. She would go for long walks in the dark and wonder if someone would just hit her with a car and be done with it. She cut off most contact with her friends and spent as much time as possible alone. She was told that she should “get over it” – whatever “it” was – because everyone gets “down” sometime and she was just being a drama queen.

This is what short-term depression looked like for another friend of mine: He didn’t feel like doing anything, so he didn’t. His doctor encouraged him to go out with friends, so he went out with friends, and laughed when other people laughed and acted as normal as he could. Sometimes he’d have a really good time, and then he’d feel bad because if he was having a good time, he probably wasn’t depressed, and that meant he was just a horrible person, so he’d go back into his room and not do anything because otherwise he was bad, and then the doctor would encourage him to go out and the cycle would begin anew. But most of the time he just didn’t feel much of anything. People told him he must be getting over everything because otherwise he wouldn’t be getting out.

Depression can be sitting alone in a room being sad or down or feeling empty and alone. But when this is the only thing that people think of when they think of depression, not only are there cases like Blanchard’s, but there is pressure on the person with depression, from friends, family members, co-workers, even themselves, to look “depressed enough”.

This stereotype can also lead to people with depression delaying seeking assistance. When I was depressed, I didn’t think I was really depressed, because I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t crying. I just didn’t want to talk to anyone. At all. Ever again. But I just knew I wasn’t depressed because I didn’t want to die. It took me many months to get any of the help I needed, and many of my friendships were irreparably damaged in the meantime.

This stereotype can also lead to more social isolation for someone with depression. If one needs to “act depressed” in order for people to take depression seriously, that can lead to sitting alone even if sitting alone isn’t what one wants to be doing.

I can’t tell you how people will behave when they’re depressed because, even when depressed, people can and do make all sorts of choices. They may do any of the things I’ve referred to here, or they may do something else entirely. If you think you’re depressed, I encourage you to do what you need to do to get through it, and I hope you find the help you need to recover.

For your reading enjoyment, a “Things People Say To People With Depression” Bingo Card. It looks like it was originally posted by inbar–1423 on Tumblr. The link is to one with the image described.

ETA: Actually, the bingo card was originally created by YouKiddinRight on Livejournal. Thanks for the correction!

Recommended Reading for Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Description is below.
Black and white advertising image. On the right is a man standing behind a podium that has US flags, his eyes covered with SLOGAN OBSESSED. On the right is the text: Labels get in the way. Disabilities rarely do. Learn the truth. Think Beyond The Label.com Photo courtesy of Kate in DC.

A few signal-boosting calls to action that people, especially those in the US, may want to participate in.

Penny Reeder at Abled Body: Share your Smart Phone Strife with the FCC

And one other thing, I don’t want to pay any more for my smartphone than anybody who has a Blackberry, Droid, or iPhone. I don’t believe I should have to pay extra for a screen reader, like TALKS or MobileSpeak. I don’t mind paying for apps that maximize my capabilities, like GPS or the Kindle app, because everybody pays for those. But everybody doesn’t pay extra for the opportunity to read what’s on the screen!

When I go to meetings with sighted colleagues, I find they are connected in real-time to their smart phones. Ask them a question like, “What does a First Class stamp cost?” (I can never remember…), or “What should the temperature of a medium-rare burger be? — and they can respond, literally, in seconds! That’s because they can see the screen, so they don’t need spoken output to access the information, giving them immediate access to answers.

There’s more information and how to contact the FCC to discuss your accessibility-related concerns at the post.

Steve Spohn at Abled Gamers: Sony’s new Firmware stops disabled gamers from playing PS3

Mad Catz, makers of many PS3 modded controllers, supplies the circuit boards to Broadened Horizons for several of its accessible controllers. These controllers are responsible for allowing severely disabled gamers with no dexterity or hand movement at all to use their PlayStation 3. Normal OEM controllers require lots of finger movement and hand strength while Broadened Horizons’ controllers allow for little or no movement at all.

Suddenly, and without warning, several of these motor impaired gamers were locked out of their favorite activity.

Steve provides information about how to contact Sony and raise concerns with them directly.

Blog Posts:

Steven M. Schwartz at the Emperor Has No Toque: “A Demographic of Silence Living With Mental Health Stigma”

Silence when it comes to mental illness is a killer, a killer of self esteem, hope, and emotional safety. Silence mixed with stigma is painful and is a cause for those living with Mental Illness to separate ourselves from the world around us. Rarely does a person living with mental illness speak out to identify with or protect others traveling down our own road, because the fear of being stigmatized by others is a constant shroud that covers us. We have all faces stigma, either self imposed or from a external source, both feed each other and keep us in so many ways from reaching our potential.

Holy Gray at Don’t Call Me Sybil: Speaking of Crazy

One thing that struck me when reading RMJ’s post was that, like the mythology that surrounds Dissociative Identity Disorder has roots in the truth, most of those negative connotations of the word “crazy” spring from reality, however distant. In light of that, I understand why Natasha Tracy and others choose to embrace the word. Why not call a duck a duck? The problem as I see it is that while most of us reserve the word “duck” exclusively for referencing actual ducks, we don’t use “crazy” in the same way. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s used in positive or negative ways. If, from this day forward, we all used that word only to mean (1) stunningly awesome, or (2) mentally ill, it would still irk me. Because if your boyfriend is crazy hot, DID isn’t crazy. And if DID is crazy, your boyfriend isn’t crazy hot.

Laura Hershey at Life Support: My Wheelchair, My Body, Myself

For that’s exactly what this felt like to me – an assault. It was a direct, physical affront to my person. This man wasn’t just messing with some piece of equipment. He was interfering with my mobility, my power to position myself, to go where I want. My wheelchair is a part of my means of being in the world. In other words, it was part of me that he grabbed – my wheelchair, my body, myself.

Would anyone else recognize this? If I had tried to charge him with assault, would the legal system have supported me? Were other passengers aware of the depth of this violation? Or did they accept his statement that he was “helping” me?

Writer in a Wheelchair on Disability Voices: Virginia Ironside’s Comments on Sunday Morning Live

Her take is that it’s a moral thing and that it’s to be done to prevent suffering. She does then go on to say that there are millions of disabled people who live “Marvellous” lives but there are also thousands of millions who are suffering and not live no kind of life.

She’d do it to a child she really loved and she doesn’t know any mother wouldn’t. I personally am very glad that according to Ms Ironside’s views my own mother can’t love me and must be a terrible mother.

WHEELIE cATHOLIC: Independent Living: Planning Pet Care

I do have to change my cat’s diet and routine a bit. One thing that is always time intensive is when new tasks get added to the schedule around here. I have a limited number of care hours. Anything that goes over those hours gets added to what I have to do with adaptive devices. That can drain energy I need to work.

So I start by trying to figure out ways to do the new tasks using assistive devices. If I can’t or if the energy it will take won’t work, I add it to what others do and have to pick out something they are doing that I can take on. There are only so many care hours and since I also use them also to help me get my work done, it takes a lot of planning and resourcefulness on everyone’s part.

Teeny Little Super-Meta: The things I can’t write about

And they say that the truth will set you free/but then/so will a lie

— Ani DiFranco, “Promised Land” (2003)

Yesterday, I wrote some things down, intending to use them for a post. The half-post or so that I wrote was inspired by, in large part, bullying-related suicides recently making the national news. It was difficult to write, as much of it was stuff I have kept to myself for a while — both for the sake of those I care about, and for my own mental health.

After I finished writing, I realized that I could not use any of it. Because the thought of  exposing this stuff to an audience was, and is, too painful. I want to believe that writing it down helped me in some way, because otherwise what I wrote exists as just a barely-legible scattering of meaningless words, scrawled on a piece of paper.

There are many things that I can’t write about here on FWD, or on my personal blog. Many of the things that I have experienced are so emotionally fraught that I am reluctant to even consider writing about them, mostly for fear of going into a black hole of emotions from which I may not be able to get out.

There are other reasons, too, such as protecting the people that I care about in any public retelling and/or analysis of these events. Some of these people may not have heard every part of the story, or even every story. There are also people — many of whom have a central role in these painful stories — about whom I do not care, and I would relish the opportunity to textually rip some of these people apart. It would be easy to say, “They ripped me to shreds, and now I will grate them like cheese, using my keyboard. It is payback time.”  Paradoxically, my own selfish concerns about my integrity prevents me from using my keyboard as a weapon.

The twist, of course, is that writing about these things in the “right” way — dispassionately, analytically — might help someone. Posting about things that are painful for me to think about, let alone write about, might reassure someone going through similar issues that they are not the only person who has dealt with some scary things.

And, like many people, I like the idea of helping someone get through rough times, or reassuring someone or someones that they are not alone in facing trying circumstances. Maybe that’s selfish. Maybe it’s part of human nature. Maybe it’s both.

Writing publicly about these things, on the other hand, may get me comments that I do not particularly want to face. This could not have happened. How do we know you’re not just making this up? Do you always have to write about yourself? Let’s look at this objectively. Why can’t you focus on something more important? I’m sure they didn’t mean it like that. Why can’t you just let it go? It was so long ago, anyway. We all have difficulties, what makes you so special? Who do you think you are?

According to the dichotomy of writing for an audience, I should either “get over it” and write about x or y more important topic, or excavate all of these painful things — that is, come forward with them publicly, dissect these less-than-savory experiences and my role(s) in them like a vivisected frog laden with pins to keep it from slipping out of the pan — in order to help others.

I think this dichotomy is bullshit.

But, the main thing is:  Very often, I cannot tell the whole story, for highly specific and extremely personal reasons. I might, in time, choose to reveal parts of these stories. I certainly do not have an obligation to do it all right now.

[Note: The title of this post was partially inspired by Sesame Street’s Teeny Little Super Guy short segments.]

Recommended Reading for October 6, 2010

RMJ at Deeply Problematic: A feminist reading of Achewood, part one: disability and Roast Beef (trigger warning for discussion of ableist jokes)

Roast Beef’s depression is a major theme of his character and the strip. At the outset of his appearance in the Achewood universe, he expresses the wish to commit suicide repeatedly, though he has not mentioned past his first year in the strip. His actions and words (in a distinctive smaller font) are often explicitly steered by his low opinion of himself; depression is a simple fact of him. While sadness is a constant in his his characterization, the portrayal of his disability is far from static: his emotions are fluid, dependent on context, an advantage at time and a palpable pain at others.

Julia at a l’allure garconniere: cultural appropriation: still refusing to see the truth

rather, it’s that images of models, of clothing catalogues, and of white girls in headdresses at concerts that attack and offend us: those of us who feel like these conversations are important to be having, that we have to ask these questions. i am fed up with it. fed up with seeing “Othered” cultures reduced to shitty stereotypes for uncritical (mostly) white people to buy into, as a product, and then to attack me when i ask them to think about what they are wearing, when i ask them why they choose to wear what they wear. is that such an offensive question? is it really us who are so hypersensitive and who take things “too seriously,” or is it you who just wants to refuse to think for two seconds?

mycultureisnotatrend on Tumblr: I received a flood of angry notes and messages after that last post. . . (trigger warning)

We are multifarious people, and no one native cultural symbol can represent us all. It is impossible to dress like “an Indian” without reverting to stereotype. This does not mean all native related things are off limits. But be wise with your choices, stay away from things of great religious significance, and don’t play “dress up.” Moccassins = okay, Warbonnets = not. The line between the two is grey – use caution and respect if you near it.

Roya Nikkah for the Telegraph (UK): Channel 4 criticized for new reality “freak show”

A recent advertisement in Fame Magazine, a celebrity magazine, seeking recruits for the six-part series said that the show “will place two people who are defined by the way they look … in close proximity to each other”.

It added: “Our participants will get to live together in a specially constructed space. Over a number of days, they will explore each other’s lives in the real world.

“They will be challenged to look beyond the mirror and step into the shoes of someone for whom looks have a completely different meaning.”

Gary Marx and David Jackson for the Los Angeles Times: Pact to decrease number of mentally ill in nursing homes

A Chicago federal judge has approved a landmark agreement that will enable thousands of people with mental illness currently living in nursing homes to move into community settings that experts say are more appropriate and less expensive.

If you’re on Delicious, feel free to tag entries ‘disfem’ or ‘disfeminists,’ or ‘for:feminists’ to bring them to our attention! Link recommendations can also be emailed to recreading at disabledfeminists dot com. Please note if you would like to be credited, and under what name/site.

Recommended Reading For 16 September 2010

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post and links are provided as topics of interest and exploration only. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

Guiding Golden: Service Dogs as a Last Resort (Thanks to Sharon and Barnum for the link!)

There should be no correlation between a disabled person’s willingness, or lack thereof, to experiment with various options and others’ assessments of wether that person’s decision to use a service dog was made appropriately.  In the same spirit, a person who decides to use a service dog after alternatives have proven ineffective, should not be viewed as any more validated in their position than one who simply decides that the medication is not for her.

Planet of the Blind: No Wonder Blind People Have So Much Difficulty Getting Jobs, Have You Checked Out Their Computer Situation Lately?

Like my friend William Peace the administration at Iowa has come to think of me as a “bad cripple” who is simply a thorn–largely because I keep insisting that we need to have accessible campus buildings and a dignified disability culture that stands for true inclusion. Call me a thorn if you must. I simply believe that 20 years after the ADA people should be able to work and go to the bathroom by golly. When I think of how low my utopian dreams have fallen I could just cry.

Wibbly Wobbly Ramblings: A Serious Case of Discrimination against Students with Disabilities

Being forced to take a full course-load despite a diagnosis that says otherwise, forces students with disabilities to play the system and risk mental stress and burnout, to which their studies suffer and creates for them the issue of repairing the damage to their GPA.

Refusing to play the system, and, following a diagnosis, being considered part-time limits a student who cannot handle working at a job to support oneself at the same time as going to school.  It restricts students from grants, services, and the benefits of a full-time student.

Healthy Place: Sorry, Too Busy Panicking to Breathe

Right now I’m doing a little bit of all of the above. Who said multitasking’s just for the highly efficient? It’s one of the few skills that comes free as part of the anxiety package (No steak knives I’m afraid. They take away the sharp things when you shake as much as I do). If you’re panicked enough, you can do 5 million things at once. Adrenaline is just homemade speed.

Comment is free: Unemployment is no “lifestyle choice”

After 18 months, the job centre was forced to pass me on to an “Employment Zone” – a private company paid by the government for every client it got into work, suitable or not.

It offered nothing that I was not already doing: I have internet access and know how to fill in forms and write CVs. My “adviser” was the Scots incarnation of League of Gentlemen’s Pauline, who relished humiliating people better qualified than herself: “We have to find ways of hiding the fact you’ve got a PhD,” she said. I wondered how she would explain away six years. I told her that I had been applying for jobs to which I was suited in skills. She replied: “If you were suited to them, you’d be getting them, wouldn’t you? Try cleaning or call centres.” Fortunately, just as she was demanding that I come in twice a week (on pain of stopping my benefit), the temping agencies with which I was registered began coming up with short-term work in academic administration.

If you’re on Delicious, feel free to tag entries ‘disfem’ or ‘disfeminists,’ or ‘for:feminists’ to bring them to our attention! Link recommendations can also be emailed to recreading at disabledfeminists dot com. Please note if you would like to be credited, and under what name/site.

Recommended Reading for September 14, 2010

Astrid van Woerkom at Astrid’s Journal: “Exercise For Mental Health!”

Bakker forgets the barriers to exercise that some people encounter. Due to the construction going on, I cannot take walks on grounds unaccompanied anymore. I cannot navigate the busy gym during fitness class. If I want to bike, I need to go on a tandem. I cannot participate in my institution’s running therapy program. None of this is due to anxiety. All of it is due to my disabilities, and the barriers to access that stand in the way.

Spilt Milk at Feministe: Fat acceptance: when kindness is activism

Body shame is a great tool of kyriarchy and we often get it from our mothers first, as we learn how bodies can be reduced to a collection of parts and how those parts can be ranked in order of acceptability. Thighs and bums, boobs and upper arms, back-fat and belly-rolls can all be prodded and critiqued, despaired over, disparaged, loathed. This is often a social activity, too. Who doesn’t love normalising misogyny over a cup of tea and a (low calorie) biscuit while the kids play in the next room?

Clarissa at Clarissa’s Blog: Asperger’s: Daily Experiences

As I mentioned earlier, I have “good days” and “bad days.” On bad days, it becomes more difficult to manage my autism, while on good days I make use of a variety of strategies that make it difficult for most people who know me to guess that I am in any way different. In this post, I will describe the techniques I use on my good days, of which today was one. I remind you that my form of Asperger’s is pretty severe, which means that not everybody who has it needs to go through a similar routine.

Cripchick at cripchick’s blog: the politics of mobility

there are so many times when i feel deep resentment for the mobility that (most) nondisabled people our age have. not physical mobility as in moving your arms, but the privilege of being able to move through the world so easily. never having to ask permission. never being dependent on access their support systems provide. never worrying about where they will stay, how they will get around, or who will hire them if they need cash.

Kim Webber at Croakey: How to boost the rural/remote health workforce? It’s not all about the dollars… [via tigtog at Hoyden About Town]

After a year-long consultative effort, the WHO document proposes 16 recommendations on how to improve the recruitment and retention of health workers in underserved areas.  You can see what they are at the bottom of this post (only one of the recommendations relates to financial incentives).

Finally, this week — September 13-19th —  is National Invisible Illness Awareness Week in the U.S. You can find out more by visiting the NIIAW website.

Recommended Reading for September 7, 2010

Lisa Harney at Questioning Transphobia: QT and Posting and My Inability to be Consistent

Oh, and a lot of neurotypicals learn about ADHD symptoms, and they think “I lose my keys sometimes? I lose my train of thought! I miss deadlines!” And you know, it’s true. Everyone does these things occasionally. But the difference is that you do not do them every. single. day. This isn’t what your life is like, this is when you have a bad moment – you’re tired, overwhelmed, in a hurry, and bam, a thing happens. This is what life is like every day for ADHDers, and when we’re tired, overwhelmed, in a hurry, then it’s that much worse for us. So, I can understand if you relate to these symptoms? I’m sure most people do. But don’t generalize how you experience them (as not-symptoms, assuming you do not have some other condition that causes similar symptoms – or you’re not an undiagnosed ADHDer yourself) to how I experience them (as symptoms). For me, they are a daily impairment.

K__ at Feminists With FSD: Book review — The Camera My Mother Gave Me [trigger warning for sexual assault]

The negative reviews usually contain some variation of gross-out due to TMI or frustration with Kaysen’s lack of progress in treating her pain medically. It’s TMI and gross because vaginas and vulvas are generally considered vulgar and gross – at least outside of feminist circles – sometimes even within feminist circles, because don’t talk about vaginas too much or else you reduce yourself to a big walking vagina – and thus it’s a shock to read such frank language and descriptions about the vagina.

Tammy Worth for the Los Angeles Times: Mental health parity act may affect your medical benefits

Other provisions of the bill require out-of-network coverage for mental health services, parity of coverage of medical and mental health medications, and if someone is denied coverage of a mental health service that is deemed medically unnecessary by the insurer, patients have the right to find out why.

Andrew Palma for the Golden Gate [X]press (San Francisco State University student newspaper): University loses scholar, activist

Longmore is arguably most well known for his 1988 protest outside the Social Security Administration’s Los Angeles office. He burned his book about George Washington, written word by word with a pen in his mouth and a keyboard, to protest policies that penalized disabled writers for counting royalties from their work as earned income.

Adrian Morrow for the Globe and Mail: Efforts to battle chronic pain found lacking

Some 80 per cent of people around the world who suffer from chronic pain can’t get the treatment they need and governments must step up their efforts to tackle the issue, says Michael Cousins, an Australian anesthetist and the driving force behind the first International Pain Summit [. . .] Earlier this year, he had a hand in drafting a national pain management strategy for Australia – the first in the world – and the summit, which takes place in Montreal on Friday, will draw up guidelines to help other countries follow suit.

Recommended Reading for 26 August 2010

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post and links are provided as topics of interest and exploration only. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

Westborough News: Marines shoot calendar for male breast cancer research

They are the few. The proud part has been a bit more of a struggle.

“Most guys don’t want to reach out, don’t want to tell anyone they’ve got a woman’s disease,” Pete Devereaux said yesterday as he talked with fellow male Marines who’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer.

INCITE! Blog: Reflections from Detroit: Reflections On An Opening: Disability Justice and Creating Collective Access in Detroit

We would not just think about disability as separate from class, age, race, queerness, family, children, gender, citizenship, violence, but we would understand it as intimately connected.  We would think, not just about “conference and workshop time,” but we would also think about social time and what social spaces were accessible and how we would make sure no one was isolated or left out.  Because in our movements much of the relationship building, socializing and bonding is done in very inaccessible ways in very inaccessible places—we know this all too well.

New York Times: When Battlefield Humor Backfires (Extra Trigger Warning)

And so the doctor’s determination not to lose a contest of wills undermines the opportunity to have successful discussions about treatment. The patient instantly senses that the doctor distrusts and dislikes him, and this, coupled with the patient’s lack of respect toward authority figures, leads to a rapidly deteriorating situation, often ending in a discharge against medical advice — much to the team’s relief.

NPR: Administration To Appeal Ruling in Stem-Cell Case

The Justice Department said an appeal is expected this week of the federal judge’s preliminary injunction that disrupted an entire field of science.

Judge Royce Lamberth on Monday threw the research community into disarray when he said a federal law invalidated Obama administration guidelines on human-stem-cell research. He concluded that two researchers challenging the Obama stem-cell policy stood a good chance of success as the case moved ahead in the courts.

The judge said any scientific projects using human embryos required their destruction, which flouts a longstanding federal law.

Something More Than Sides: Dear Doctor: Actually, I *Am* Sick

Let’s completely ignore the actual health concerns in exchange for shaming a young girl. Classy. And let’s not forget the fact that, were I suffering from an eating disorder, this is not the way to broach the subject. I left that appointment feeling shamed and humiliated, and with no answers.

If you’re on Delicious, feel free to tag entries ‘disfem’ or ‘disfeminists,’ or ‘for:feminists’ to bring them to our attention! Link recommendations can also be emailed to recreading at disabledfeminists dot com. Please note if you would like to be credited, and under what name/site.

Recommended Reading for 23 August 2010

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post and links are provided as topics of interest and exploration only. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

The Guardian’s Comment is Free: Mental disability, state power, and the capacity to decide

The judge faced a hard decision and his judgment shows the traces of his ambivalence. In the end, he ruled that Mrs A lacked the capacity to make decisions about contraception, citing as the crucial factor “the uneven relationship between Mr and Mrs A”. Although Mrs A herself indicated in court that she did not want contraceptive devices, the judge found that this decision “was not of her own free will”. But at the same time, he refused to grant the local authority the power it sought to administer contraceptive devices involuntarily. In practice, granting such a power would have authorised the police to enter her residence, sedate her if necessary and remove her to hospital for conceptive measures.

Chicago Tribune: University of Illinois opens new dorm for students with disabilities (Thank you to Lassarina for the link!)

As much as moving into Nugent Hall was a remarkable accomplishment for Rozema, it also was momentous for the U. of I. Already recognized as a front-runner in disability services for students, the U. of I. dorm will allow students with the most severe disabilities — all use motorized wheelchairs or scooters — to get the personalized care they need while being integrated with typical students.

WUSA9.com: Hearing Impaired Woman With Service Dog Told To Leave Mall

“He said dogs aren’t allowed in the mall.” Denise says she never before had a problem bringing her service dog Chloe, into the mall.

On Monday, August 9, “a security guard pulled up in his car and stopped and told us we couldn’t bring a dog in the mall.”

Denise has a cochlear implant but says she still had a hard time hearing the guard. She says she tried to explain the law and proceeded inside to shop. About 30 minutes later, she was approached again by the guard. He “demanded that we leave.”

On Saturday, it happened again in front of her daughter and her husband, Terry.

CTV News: B.C. cop who shoved disabled woman gets new assignment

VANCOUVER — A Vancouver police officer caught on video pushing a disabled woman down to the ground in one of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods has been reassigned.

The 65-second video was uploaded to the web last week and appears to show a woman trying to weave her way through three male officers on the city’s Downtown Eastside.

One of the officers then shoves the woman to the ground, before walking away. The two other officers do not intervene.

Via Change.org and from the USO: A petition to support wounded warriors as they return from war

The United States is a nation at war. Thanks to improvements in battlefield medicine and the use of body armor, men and women are surviving wounds that would have been fatal in earlier wars. While they have survived, their severe injuries have turned their lives–and the lives of their families–upside down, sometimes involving many surgeries, years of therapy and a lifetime of support.

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