All posts by Ouyang Dan

About Ouyang Dan

is an extremely proggy-liberal, formerly single mommy, Native American, invisibly disabled, U.S. Navy Veteran, social justice activist and aspiring freelance writer currently living in South Korea on Uncle Sam's dime. She has a super human tolerance for caffeine and chocolate and believes she should use those powers for good. She said should. She is not a concise person, and sometimes comes on a little aggressively in comments. Sometimes her right arm still twitches when military brass walks past her, but she would rather be reading YA Lit or pwning n00bs. She can be found being cliche about music, overthinking pop culture, and grumbling about whatever else suits her fancy at her personal website, random babble.... She also writes about military issues for Change.org's Women's Rights blog. If you have something interesting to say email her at ouyangdan [at] disabledfeminists [dot] com. Lawyers in Italy looking to hold lottery winnings in her bank account may wait longer for reply.

Recommended Reading for 05 November 2010

recommended reading

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.
An advert for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the U.S. 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Press "1" for veterans in the U.S.
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.

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.

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 28 October 2010

recommended reading, , , ,

Readers beware! Not every link is a guaranteed trip to a safe space, and the commentary is not necessarily the opinions of myself or others here at FWD/Forward, but have been included to provide you with a variety of reading that is possibly relevant to your interests (or perhaps to mine). The comments in the blog posts or mainstream news articles you will find below may or may not be triggering to various -isms, and so I would caution you, gentle readers, to proceed with the greatest of caution as you click through away from this page.

Yahoo! News: Nurse error left man brain-damaged

Mr Merrett was aware of the mistake that had been made before he lost consciousness, unable to speak. He can be heard on the film urgently clicking his tongue as a warning.

Ms Aylward tried to resuscitate him but it took 21 minutes for the machine to be restarted by paramedics, leaving Mr Merrett with serious brain damage. He had been nursed at home since 2002 after a road accident left him paralysed from the neck down.

In a strange land (sent in by reader Deborah Russell): The slow reveal

That’s one of the things I like about this book. It doesn’t try to pretend that illness is easy, that everyone can just take the pills and be happy. Kate de Goldi’s characters cope, but there are costs for each of them too. Above all, there are costs for Francie. She has found a way of living, a way of managing, a way of being… content, even if not happy per se. But there are costs. Fancie is no super-crip. She’s just an ordinary woman, who copes as best she can with the way her life has turned out.

The Living Artist (sent in by Heather Freeman): Withdrawal

I see my doctor once a month for a new prescription, because she won’t give me one with refills. (To be honest, I’m unclear if this is her policy, the hospital’s policy, or state law. My impression is that it’s the hospital.)

Last month the one person in her office who knows how to work the computer was out, so I had to have my husband call in to make my next appointment. By the time he got through to the office (which is incrediblyhard to reach by phone) their next available appointment was 6 weeks after the last one. He pointed out that I would run out of my medication before then, and they said they’d see what they could do. Of course we then heard nothing.

Feminists with FSD (sent in by reader Astrid): In defense of “Dysfunction”

Since I have FSD, I have vested interest in learning more about it – what it is, what treatments are or aren’t available, how it impacts individuals’ lives (if at all,) etc. It’s not just reading though – I’ve talked to and received feedback from women who themselves have FSD in one or more forms. I’m especially interested in how FSD is perceived and what people say about it! It’s meta, and its fascinating. So what are people saying about it? When I read about FSD, I notice a few familiar themes pop up repeatedly…

HealthCanal.com: Controversial Law Improves Care for Serious Mental Illness

Currently 45 states have involuntary outpatient commitment laws, but only a handful are designed with prevention in mind. Kendra’s Law is intended to identify and address at-risk behavior that may trigger the need for hospitalization.

Amid criticism that the law may violate patient rights by mandating treatment, the New York State Office of Mental Health commissioned an independent evaluation of the implementation and effectiveness of the program.

Gentle Readers! Always feel free to send your links for a Recommended Reading to recreading [at] disabledfeminists [dot] com. Be sure to include how you would like to be credited for your great find, and a link to any website you want affiliated with yourself.

Thyroid Cancer Treatment Affects the Abled, Healthy. Everyone Panic!

activism, blaming, bodies, disability activism, intersectionality, invisibility, medical practice, oyd rants, social attitudes, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have a little bit of a problem with people being handed down a mandate that insists they behave in a certain way or adhere to a certain set of guidelines for which they are not provided the means to do so. Usually, these rules or mandates are set by people whose lives the rules will never affect. I see it all the time here on the Garrison — rules that restrict the lives of military spouses set by Upper Brass who wear uniforms and sit in offices all day being briefed by people who don’t have to figure out how to tote around a couple of toddlers, diaper bags, strollers, car seats in case they might need a taxi while running to appointments, getting groceries, and picking up or dropping off older children at school without having a vehicle. I recently witnessed it in hospital policy regarding patients on long-term controlled substance use (something I should write another post about, eh?) — a pharmacist notices a patient prescribed a certain medication for a certain length of time, alerts a committee who sends out a generic letter triggering a “Single Provider” program without anyone actually meeting the patient involved.

Now, I read that a Congressional committee has noticed that patient being treated with radiation for thyroid cancer have been possibly exposing other people to, yes, radiation.

Well, let’s think about this for a moment. In the past, people who had thyroid cancer and who were insured and who were given this treatment were allowed a hospital stay so that the very strict regimen of sterility could be followed without putting extra strain on the patient. Then, someone got an itch and decided that it was just too costly to keep this up and that these leaches could just go home and do their own laundry every day. Not to mention, I am not sure what they are supposed to do with their garbage, how they are supposed to quarantine themselves from their families if they don’t have separate wings in their homes to live in, or how they are supposed to get home if they are weak from treatment and live alone.

The new regulations are supposed to discourage patients from taking public transportation, from staying in hotels, and from a whole slew of other things that really don’t take simple practicality into account. I think we can all agree that not exposing people to radiation is all around a good idea. I have no idea how much we are talking about, and the hyperbolic pictures of HAZMAT masks on the paper edition article I read didn’t help, but it must be significant if it is causing such a stir. Though, spokesman David McIntyre says it is “unclear” if the levels are harmful.

I remember getting a bone scan a few years ago and the tech had to wear a suit, and the dye they injected into me came in a lead tube. I was told I had to avoid metal detectors and public transit for a few days and was given a card to show that I was recently injected with radioactive substances. But I was a single mother, and a sailor, and I had no one else to help me out. Back to work I went, showing my card to security, who walked me through the non-metal detector way. I picked up my kid from daycare later, and drove myself home. I imagine that someone who has no support system who might be in a similar or worse situation would have to make similar decisions. So, I can see how people would disregard directions to go straight home.

Perhaps home is a day’s drive. Perhaps home is filled with young children and has only one car available. A hotel and train ride might be the only option, since the loosened restrictions mean that insurance will not pay for a hospital room that is no longer required. Or perhaps there is no insurance at all, and it was all a patient could manage to scrape up the cost of the treatment in the first place. There are so many reasons that these restrictions are not being followed, and I feel like this article, this committee, and this investigation are looking more at the people who are ‘violating’ the rules and less at the systemic problems that cause them to do so.

So, yes, those poor, unsuspecting people who have fallen victim to the carelessness of these cancer patients who have been so selfish to expose themselves to the world are who we should be focusing on. They are the true victims here, not the people who are trying to get healthy again, whose bodies are fighting cancer, and living with poison in them, and who are also now having to deal with the extra burden of a cumbersome set of rules of conduct for how to navigate live with a poison inside their bodies. The conversation is not, nor never is it, about them, but about the people around them whose lives are affected by their treatments, the ways those treatments impact their lives. All about the abled body, never the chronically sick or disabled unless it somehow affects the healthy and able.

Unless Congress is willing to establish a way to provide a place for these people to stay — all of them — I don’t see how a more enforced set of restrictions is reasonable. You can’t force a person to stay in a place they have to pay for against their will, and you should not be able to punish them because they had to use the resources available to them to survive.

These are just my own personal musings. I, of course, have no personal experience with these situations, but I grieve at the idea of restrictions that people might not be able to handle through no fault of their own.

I wonder if Representative Edward Markey (D – MA) and the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment are interested in hearing any of our thoughts on this matter while they re-think the policy.

Recommended Reading for 25 October 2010

accessibility, disability activism, intersectionality, recommended reading

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.

Indigo Jo sends in two links about the same story, one from Mail Online: Joyfully kissing her beautiful baby boy – the girl branded too stupid to be a wife or mother

When she became unexpectedly pregnant they were pleased rather than concerned. They had organised a white wedding in church, bought a dress and rings, arranged the reception and were eagerly anticipating their big day.

Mark recalls: ‘We were about to go out and make a few final arrangements for our wedding when we heard a frantic rapping at the front door.

‘When we opened it, two social workers burst in and told us that the marriage was illegal because Kerry has learning difficulties. They said she did not possess the capacity to make such a decision.’

Then came the second bombshell – their baby would be removed at birth. Once again, social workers believed her learning difficulties could lead to the baby suffering ‘emotional harm’.

‘It was as if I didn’t matter as a father,’ recalls Mark.

‘By stopping our wedding, social workers had taken away my rights as the baby’s dad. The fact that I would always be there to look after Ben as well didn’t seem to make any difference.’

He now believes that Fife social services had made up their minds that Kerry would not be able to keep the baby even before they had assessed her as a parent.

Because of this, days later the couple made the heart-wrenching decision to flee the UK and go to Ireland because they believed Irish social workers would prove more sympathetic.

And also, his own take on the story: “Too stupid” family reunited in Ireland

Still, the facts as presented do raise an awful lot of concern. Kerry supposedly had mild learning difficulties, but despite having worked successfully as a childcare assistant at a local school, social workers deemed her unfit to look after her own child. They also seemed to be treating the case as if it consisted of a lone parent with intellectual disabilities, not as a committed couple in which only one party had any impairment. When they arrived in Ireland and Kerry gave birth, social services removed the baby and reunited only Kerry with Ben two weeks later, expecting her to prove herself to them on her own, rather than as she would be living, with her partner. Of course, there would be times when she would be left alone with the baby, but these would not be all the time when her husband was not around, as she would likely have friends with their own babies who would be able to give her some support.

Walking is Overrated: Government bullying must stop

I’ll say it again: everyone does it. Disability support funding is limited, and the constraints around it are incredibly restrictive. For many parents of children with significant disabilities, it means they are unable to work, as they spend most of their time supporting their kid. Of course they’re going to attempt to get a small amount of compensation for this work – in this case, $40,000 over 8 years, of money that they were entitled to anyway. Yet the Ministry sees fit to chase them down and slam them with 5 months home detention.

The Guardian: The new anorexics: big increase in eating disorders among women over 30

Dr Adrienne Key, the lead clinician for eating disorders treatment at the Priory clinic in Roehampton, south-west London, said: “In the last 18 months I’ve seen 10 women in their mid to late-30s, mainly with bulimia, who have had a baby in the previous few years and have had increased body dissatisfaction. They start dieting but then try more drastic measures such as skipping meals or going on these strange protein, no-carbs diets, and then their starvation triggers the biology of an eating disorder.”

msnbc.com: Minorities get less treatment for their pain

A recent study by Green of 200 chronic pain patients in the University of Michigan health system found that black patients were prescribed fewer pain medications than whites and that women were given weaker pain medications than men were given. The research published in the Journal of Pain showed that, on average, a minority pain patient would be prescribed 1.8 pain medications compared to 2.6 drugs for non-minority sufferers.

OHS Canada: Employers may be legally on the hook for mental injury

Kathy Jurgens, program manager for Mental Health Works, a corporate training program offered by the Canadian Mental Health Association in Toronto, says that a changing view of the workplace is allowing the concept of psychological safety to take hold.

“If you think of the younger generation, they have different expectations of what work means to them and what they’re willing to engage in for a paycheque,” she points out, adding that younger workers are less likely to accept a workplace that expects chronic overtime and unreasonable demands. “I think it’s long overdue,” Jurgens says of the current approach to psychological safety, suggesting that mental injury in the workplace has been a problem for hundreds of years.

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.

Connections

activism, happy posts, introspective, Thank yous

Chally pointed out to me the other day that I was coming up on 100 posts. If scheduling goes right, this should be it. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I noticed, but I wasn’t sure if I should mention it. She has a knack for making people feel proud of things, no matter how trivial they seem to a person, she can make it seem like you’ve won the Pulitzer on your worst day.

It’s funny, the things you learn over the course of all of those 100 posts, or at least I did. Also funny are the way we assign value to things as arbitrary as numbers. Why is this post more important than the next or my last? Why does the first death in a war mean more or less than the 1,000th? Some people have written more, and some less, and for each of us our number is irrelevant. For me, I have a thing about marking out nice round things in ordinal series. Some birthdays are a bigger deal to me I suppose, though my mother remembers all of the recent ones.

It is, instead, what we put in and take away from a moment that matters more so than the number.

I, back when I first started blogging back at my humble little blog, wanted to be part of a group blog. Not for page hits or attention, but to be part of something. To feel that sense of belonging to a group, of being with people who had a sense of purpose. So many things in my life were constantly in disarray, and I wanted… no, honestly I needed something to feel connected to.

And it took a while, but by a random happenstance I was in the right place at the right time, and fell in with a remarkable group of people who came together to channel something hurtful into something positive, because instead of allowing ourselves to be angry, we decided to focus on being a force for change. Thus, did my life take me in a direction I never saw it going, because I had just begun to grasp onto this part of me that was OK with identifying as someone who is disabled. Not only that, I had not really learned how to interact with other people who identified that way. I was shy about venturing out as any kind of public face, let alone as any kind of self-spoken authority. Who was I, I wondered, to pretend that what I had to say mattered?

But I found out that it did matter. Not because, necessarily, that anything particular I had to say matter, but that I took a brave step and spoke up. I have always felt that the shortcomings in my life — my lack of college degree or extensive career — made me less of a credible person. What I found here was that it is the way we, as a community, relate to one another. I found that here I have a voice that matters, if not to many people, perhaps to just a few, perhaps to just one, and if I am brave enough perhaps I can be the advocate for that one person. If one person feels connected to this the way I finally feel connected then I feel that it has been worth all the tears and heart that have been poured into these 100 posts over these past months.

Even more, I found that these remarkable people, these co-contributors and founding members, have become something so deeply ingrained in my life now that not a day goes by that I don’t think of every single one of them and how they have impacted my life. I think about the way that Anna taught me to look at everything I see and think about how it could be more accessible and not to feel bad about demanding that it be so, and how lauredhel reminds me that part of being a good mum is teaching more independence because it leaves me more spoons to enjoy the fun times. I am reminded of the way that K-0 uses words artfully and lovingly, and the way that Amandaw reminds me of myself sometimes with her fierceness to defend fellow PWD. I think about Chally, who is often there at the right moment with the exact right thing to say, and abbyjean, who has a knack for looking at things from a different angle and getting to the quick of it. I can’t forget annaham, who was the first person to reach out to me and help me identify with my disability and to realize it is OK to be unsure of myself and to find strength in asking for help, and I can’t forget s.e. smith whose passion holds it all together and who sees the way everything is connected.

All of these lives have become intertwined with mine, irrevocably. All of you have become a part of it, for the part you play in reading these posts, linking them, sending them around the tubes of inter. We have all made connections and many of us have touched and impacted one another’s lives in many ways. There is amazing power in that… or, there has been for me, anyway. It is what has made the FWD dashboard the first thing I look at on a day I can work and the last thing I check before bed on the same.

I just wanted you to all know that. This is what I have taken away from these 100 posts, and I hope that is what I have put into them for you. That we, as a community of people who want social change for people with disabilities, have reached out and touched across the expanse of space and time, to be slightly cliche. You have impacted me, taught me, and given me more than I deserve, but given me everything that I had been searching for. I hope that through my learning, screwing up, and trying to get it right, I have done a decent job for you all. All of you, contributor and community member alike.

Thank you.

Going Through the Motions

introspective, , ,

I’ve been in hiding.

I admit it.

I’ve been shoving myself headlong into activities that keep my busy, and exhausted.

Still I always feel
This strange estrangement
Nothing here is real, nothing here is right*

“Wow! Aren’t you Supermom?”

Well, not really. It just keeps me occupied.

Just hoping no one knows
That I’ve been*

But really, I don’t have this kind of energy. To run to all these practices and game and meetings. To keep up with the chores. The volunteer events. To make meals. The group photos for people. Bringing snacks and handing out sports drinks. To pack lunches. The doctor’s appointments.

Going through the motions
Walking through the part

I have drawn it from somewhere. But I don’t always have somewhere from which to draw it. I feel like I have had to, though. Because if I didn’t I would have to think about the things that roll around in my mind.

And I just don’t want to do that.

I was always brave
And kind of righteous
Now I find I’m wavering*

It isn’t a pity party, or a call for anyone to feel sorry for me. I can’t even say it is a moment of clarity where I realize the err of my ways and that I will stop this silliness and start taking better care of myself. It’s a little late for that now that events are in full swing and people are counting on me to keep going somehow.

It’s my coping mechanism… however good or bad it may be. We all have them. Mine may just lead to more crashes, a slightly elevated pain med use (which is still well below my prescribed allowance), and periodic bouts of me crying into my pillow at night because I am too exhausted and in too much pain to sleep.

Will I stay this way forever?
Sleepwalk through my life’s endeavor?*

So I keep going through the motions.

Eventually I have to pay that proverbial piper (that jerk), but it keeps me going, in a sense, for now.

I don’t want to be…

Going through the motions

*“Going Through the Motions”, “From Once More With Feeling”, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 6

Recommended Reading for 18 October 2010

recommended reading, , , , , , , ,
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 first two links were sent in by Penny at Disability Studies from Temple U! Thanks Penny!

Knitting Clio: Ableism and NARAL Pro-Choice America

via NARAL Pro-Choice America, which is running a pro-choice slogan campaign.  Here are the choices:





I voted for the first one — why?  Because using “insanity” to discredit opponents trivializes persons with mental illness — a group that already experiences social marginalization and oppression.

Media dis&dat: South Carolina woman with Down syndrome volunteers as teacher’s aide in special ed classroom (Extra Special Trigger Warning for description of exploitative labor practices passed off as Very Special Favors done by abled folk)

“She had been working at a fast-food place, but they were really taking advantage of the fact that she was disabled,” Masaki said. “So, I offered her a ‘job’ here.”

Brown’s unpaid job is to be a teacher’s aide in Masaki’s classroom. While the position is voluntary, Brown works like the two full-time paid teacher’s aides, Rita Evans and Wendy Usary. The paid aides help Masaki with the classroom teaching everything from potty training to table manners to play time to desk work.

Brown helps control the children and helps keep the classroom running the three days a week she’s there.

The following post, which made me so angry I really cried because I hate the world sometimes, was sent in by reader Blake:

NYTimes.com: Mentally Ill US Citizen Wrongly Deported (TW, because the title doesn’t even begin to cover how awful this is!)

A mentally disabled U.S. citizen who spoke no Spanish was deported to Mexico with little but a prison jumpsuit after immigration agents manipulated him into signing documents allowing his removal, a lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges. His lawyers say the agents ignored records showing his Social Security number, while prison officials wouldn’t tell concerned relatives what happened.

Health Behavior News Service: Kids With Chronic Illness, Disability More Apt to Be Bullied

The study showed that students who reported having a disability or chronic illness — no matter where they lived — were more likely to be experience bullying from peers than those who did not. For instance, in France, 41 percent of boys with a disability or chronic illness reported undergoing bullying compared with 32 percent of boys without. Gender, however, was not a factor — boys and girls were victims equally often.

In addition, when students with a disability or chronic illness were restricted from participating in school activities, they had a 30 percent additional risk of being bullied.

Garland Grey at Tiger Beatdown: The Problem with Policing Someone Else’s Mental Health

Marginalized people are particularly susceptible to having their emotions pathologized, partly because their experiences aren’t typical. When young queers are experiencing depression related to the stigma of their sexuality, people like Tony Perkins swoop in to point the blame at their sexuality, and not the stigma that they themselves are perpetrating. Women, queers, the disabled, people of color, political dissidents, atheists; all of these groups have a history of being labeled “insane” to control them.

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.

Someone Get This Rock Off Of My Chest…

intersectionality, introspective, life changes, relationships, , , , , ,

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?

Recommended Reading for 14 October 2010

recommended reading, , , ,

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.

Crazy Mermaid’s Blog: Mental Illness Medication Side Effects

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.

Diary of a Goldfish (Thanks, Deborah, for sending this in!): Coming Home Undefeated

But it also helps that I am choosing to live with them now, because it is a sensible and practical thing which I actually want to do, not because I don’t have any other options. And it helps a very great deal, that this situation is not permanent. I think it would be a lot harder without plans for the future.

Deaf Echo: It Gets Better. It Really Does. (Thanks, codeman38, for the link!)

A few hours later, I received an email from some guy named Terrence, who told me he had just finished captioning the clip. I guess I’m a little slow these days, because I made no connection between Terrence and Terry.

That’s right. Terry, Dan Savage’s husband, took time out of his day to transcribe their video clip, figure out the program, and upload the captions so that gay deaf kids could have access.

Because. It. Is. Just. That. Important.

Penelope Friday: Read About Cost to the Poorest  of the Newest Welfare Reforms (Thanks, Rosemary, for the link!)

And explain patiently to me that if a family is earning £44000 then they don’t need child benefit. Even if it is the father who earns the money, and the  mother who may depend on the child benefit to have any money of her own (which yes, is often the case, even these days). When women have been able to use their years of claiming child benefit to count for contributions to National Insurance, and now will presumably lose that benefit alongside the present money.

Disability Scoop: SNL Offers Apologies For Disability Cracks

After repeatedly mocking New York Gov. David Paterson for being blind, “Saturday Night Live” used the governor’s appearance on the show’s season premiere Saturday to make amends.

During the show’s “Weekend Update” segment, the real Paterson made an appearance to take some jabs at Fred Armisen’s impression of him and set the record straight.

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 07 October 2010

accessibility, disability activism, intersectionality, recommended reading, shaming, social attitudes, , ,
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.

Deeply Problematic: Paperwork & homework, anxiety & ADD: institutionalized and internalized ableism

Paperwork is a form of institutionalized ableism. Paperwork keeps folks who have issues with anxiety, ADD, and likely other disorders from living, from working, from getting the care we need to treat that which disables us. It makes paperwork a daunting, insurmountable task – and its incompletion perpetuates guilt and sends it further away from actually getting done.

Wired.com: Exclusive: First Autistic Presidential Appointee Speaks Out (Thanks to reader Sara for the link!)

Wired.com: Much of the national conversation about autism in recent years has centered around statements by celebrities like Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey who claim that autism is caused by vaccines and other environmental factors, and can be cured by things like special diets, behavioral interventions, and alternative medicine. Is that the most productive conversation we can be having about autism as a society?

Ari Ne’eman: No. There’s a disturbing lack of attention to science in that conversation, but the problem goes deeper than that. What we have is a national dialogue on autism without the voices of the people who should be at the center: those who are on the [autism] spectrum ourselves. Instead of focusing on things like quality of life and civil rights, the autism community has been distracted by narrow questions of causation and cure.

Going back to the dark days of Bruno Bettelheim and “refrigerator mothers,” the focus of the conversation has been on placing the blame for autism, and on trying to make autistic people something we are not and never can be: normal. This focus on a cure has prevented us from actually helping people. There’s been a lot of progress in the disability rights movement over the past 20 years, but people on the spectrum haven’t benefited from it because those representing us at the national level have been focused on causes and cures.

We need to stop making autism advocacy about trying to create a world where there aren’t any autistic people, and start building one in which autistic people have the rights and support they deserve. That’s the goal of groups like ASAN, Autism Network International, and of the neurodiversity movement as a whole.

Orlando Sentinel: Chartari Jones: Sanford girl says bullies ‘spit in my hair’

The Sanford girl whose parents said was teased by bullies on a Seminole County school bus in September opened up Monday about her ordeal on national television.

“They would poke me with pencils, call me names and spit in my hair,” Chatari Jones told NBC Today Show host Matt Lauer while wiping tears from her face with a tissue.

WHERE’S LULU: “This American Life” Spotlights “Crybaby” ADA Lawsuit Filers

The episode starts with the extremely-unpopular-with-ablebodies Tom Mundy, who makes a living suing ADA-violating businesses in Southern California. The show’s producer mentions how in California, disabled people can make $4,000 by suing a business for not being up to code. A lawyer who represents business owners estimates Tom has made half a million dollars in just three years.

The producer then drops the bomb that most people who read this blog know all too well, but that most TABs don’t realize: The ADA is not enforced. The government doesn’t even pretend to enforce it – there is no agency (federal, state, regional, or otherwise) to monitor whether or not businesses are complying. So it’s up to people like Tom Mundy to sue in order to gain equal access.

I’M SOMEWHERE ELSE: [No Title]

First of all, why do people have to have recent documentation? Have there been many cases of developmental disabilities, like ASD, just disappearing? Do people with for example dyscalculia just suddenly get better, and then continue to try to get accommodations because they’re just a shitty person who wants to get a leg up on everyone else?

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.