![Advert for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. A green and black print on a white field. Text reads National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (the "c" is a telephone handset), and the phone number 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The web address "suicidepreventionlifeline[dot]org" is underneath.](http://disabledfeminists.com/fwd/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/photo.jpeg "Advert for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. A green and black print on a white field. Text reads National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (the \"c\" is a telephone handset), and the phone number 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The web address \"suicidepreventionlifeline[dot]org\" is underneath.")
Moderatrix Note: Please kindly consider this the 05-06 November RR. I simply added the incorrect date in the title. My apologies. Also, thanks to Indigo Jo for pointing out that I forgot to add the Daily Record link, which has now been added.
pinkpjs guest posts at Where’s the Benefit?: ‘Not Really Disabled’
As part of my job I had to attend a meeting with a manager working with
the DWP who told me that their role was to support disabled people to
receive benefits they are entitled to.I asked them about the changes to DLA in particular and the impact of
people in residential care and was shocked to be told that ‘they don’t
really need the mobility allowance as most of them rarely go out except
to medical appointments and then the staff are more than happy to take
them, so it is only fair that they shouldn’t get this’.Then, the response to my question about any other changes to DLA which
the condems have hinted at, was ‘well, we all know that many people
currently getting this really aren’t disabled and shouldn’t be getting
it’.
Planet of the Blind: Shame On Ohio’s Cedar Point
[Excerpt] Call ’em crazy, but Cedar Point won’t alter or remove any of its attractions, despite a request from mental health advocates to do so.
A Cedar Point spokesman said “changes are not required.”
On Thursday, the National Alliance on Mental Illness asked the amusement park to immediately remove two offerings focusing on fictional mental health patients: Dr. D. Mented’s Asylum for the Criminally Insane, and The Edge of Madness: Still Crazy.
One is a haunted house, the other is a separate show.
The attractions promote the false stereotype that the public should fear mental health patients, the alliance said.
Navy SEASs Blog: VA Releases Suicide Prevention Street Ad
One of the resources available to service members or friends and loved ones of those who need help is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-TALK.
A post on the website of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) shared the efforts of the VA to ensure that people know about the Lifeline. Last week, almost 1,200 ads that carry messages of hope for service members facing emotional crises, and details for the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, were put up by the VA on city buses, bus shelters, rail and subway stations across the country.
Daily Record: Parents tell how every day is a battle to care for teenager struck down with chronic fatigue syndrome (sent in by Indigo Jo)
Just getting a diagnosis of ME, otherwise known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, was a battle for the family. When it finally came in October 2005, Carol said she was shocked by their GP’s reaction.
She explained: “Eilidh was being treated for asthma but I knew something wasn’t right and her teachers agreed.
“When I took her to the GP he said, ‘Right, that’s enough of all this’ and told Eilidh to go and run round the building three times.”
Minutes later dad Blyth, also 46, found Eilidh outside in a distressed state but the GP wouldn’t accept that she couldn’t carry on.
Carol said: “He told her to run through the waiting room. After that, they said she had chronic fatigue syndrome and would recover in six months.”
Four years on, her parents had to fight to stop Eilidh being treated as a psychiatric patient. Now the family, from Glenrothes, Fife, complain doctors seem to have washed their hands of them.
Carol said: “The paediatrician told us the ME has been dealt with and it’s all down to anxiety. They always fudge over the physical illness.”
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): Social networkers switch off for autism awareness (sent in by Kathryn Bjornstad)
Ms Bjornstad says the people behind the Communication Shutdown “meant well”.
“But it’s more of the kind of advertisement and philosophy that is harmful to the autistic community,” she said.
“It ignores the fact that autistic people are actually less socially isolated because of inventions like the internet, and it does a poor job of explaining what autism is like.
“Staying off of Facebook will not mirror the social isolation that many autistic people face. I don’t think that anything they do could mimic this.”
Ms Harvey says she can understand why members of the autistic community have expressed concern.
“Our aim was to create empathy in the wider community. There’s no way that we would ask autistic people to give up their tools of communication,” she said.
“There are a wide spectrum of opinions.”
Ms Harvey says she is glad the Communication Shutdown has prompted events like Autistics Speaking Day.
“Although our executions are paradoxical, we believe we have the same goal,” she said.
“I would hope that the two events can complement each other,” she said.
You haven’t posted the link to the Daily Record article; it’s here.
I would like to make it clear: this doctor should have known that forcing people with ME to exercise is a bad idea and has led to several patients suffering dramatic deteriorations, particularly if it’s repeated, and some have ended up bedridden and/or paralysed. This has been well-observed since the 1980s and is a distinctive feature of ME; it is only not well-known because many doctors have not been open to accepting that ME is a real illness.
When I was about 15 or 16, my physical issues were really not improving with the treatment I was getting, so my mother did some research and found out who was considered the best pediatric rheumatologist in NYC. (We lived about 20 minutes outside the city.) So she took me to him, and we described my problems. Please note that this was in his office, not in the exam room — he hadn’t done any sort of physical exam yet at this point. He asked me a few questions that I couldn’t answer, and he was kind of a jerk about it, and I got frustrated and started crying. (It had been a REALLY long day at school already, and I was kind of at the end of my rope by the time I went to the appointment in the afternoon.) He concluded from my crying that all my problems were psychological, and that there was nothing wrong with me physically, and I would get 100% better if I just did several hours of exercise each day. (At this point, I looked at my mother, and she looked at me, and I knew we were both remembering that, just a few days earlier, my knees had both swollen to the size of cantelopes after my gym teacher made me run laps for two minutes.) He then did the physical exam and concluded that nothing was wrong with me. My mother mentioned that, when I was a little kid, I’d really hated walking, and even after I got too big for a stroller, I still always wanted to be carried everywhere if we were walking more than a short distance, and she asked him if that could have been an early symptom of my joint problems, and he said no, kids are just lazy.
Thanks, Indigo Jo. I added the link above. I must have just missed it when I went back and added all of the links and html.
Regarding the social networking shutoff…
Dang, this is problematic on a few levels. What immediately occurs to me is that, duh, not using facebook for one day is just not going to replicate the experiences of people with autism, which is addressed in this article. What isn’t brought up is the other assumptions going into the “shutoff”- which is that not using social networking sites could only be the result of an involuntary condition. I’m not sure I’m phrasing this right, I’ve spent a few days thinking about the reasons the whole thing bothers me, but still haven’t put it into very concise words.
I don’t use social networking sites for social, political, and mental health reasons. It strikes me as odd and objectifying, in both directions, to classify that choice as equivalent to experiencing autism. It’s also upsetting to me that, the way the whole thing is presented, it’s hard to phrase how I feel about this without implying that there’s something wrong with being autistic. It shouldn’t need to be said, but that’s not what I think. Any opinions on this?