This is a good song about fighting OCD intrusive thoughts and compulsions (despite that surely not being the intention of the song). No matter how much I reassure myself, OCD will create even wilder intrusive thoughts to cancel my reassurance. And no matter how many compulsions I follow, a whale is gonna die.
Probably the most disgusting example of lateral ableism is whenever I see posts (and yes, that's plural) about how terrible it is that disabled people are represented so badly in horror movies and the op advocating for this to stop, but all of the examples the op lists of this horrible ableism in horror franchises are solely examples of ableism against physical disabilities. You know, as if mental disabilities are not the very subject, plot device, and bigoted aesthetic of nearly every single horror movie in existence.
Some of the most common horror movie settings are literally mental hospitals, psych wards, and abandoned mental asylums that have the graves of all of the dead mentally ill patients in its backyard. One of the most common visuals in the horror genre is an "ins*ne" person in a straight jacket that the mentally abled main character has to escape from so they aren't killed by this horrifying "monster" in human form. You could make a drinking game of all the times a horror movie uses the words "psychopath," "sociopath," "cr*zy," "ins*ne," "narcissist," and "delusional," but I wouldn't recommend it because you'd die of alcohol poisoning only thirty minutes in.
If you can't even include mentally disabled people in your definition of the word "disabled" when talking about the movie genre that makes its bread and butter off of oppressing mentally disabled people, particularly mentally ill people and those who have severely demonized mental illnesses like schizophrenia and personality disorders, then you might as well put a neon sign and fireworks on your post about ableism that let's you say with your full chest "Mentally disabled people can fuck themselves though, lol💕"
It's disgusting enough how many fellow disabled people genuinely believe that the word "able-bodied" is the antonym of the term "disabled," plus all of the other countless ways anyone not physically disabled is constantly excluded from this poor excuse of a "loving" "community," but if mentally disabled people don't even "count" as disabled to you when we are harmed just as much if not more often than physically disabled people by the specific situation you're talking about? I know for a fact that you are never going to treat us as equal.
This community still demands I lay my medical history, life story, and complete list of traumas out on the table so my application to be part of the disabled community as a fucking disabled person can be reviewed and processed, so that they can make sure I suffer enough and specifically in the right ways to fucking matter to a movement that supposedly cares about disabled lives. The exclusionism I experience from fellow disabled people is to such an unfathomably high degree that I am less excluded as a bisexual, ace, nonbinary woman in the queer community than as a severely mentally ill person with chronic illnesses in the disabled community.
Truly an incredible feat.
Very ironic and frustrating how people on this website will support stuff like forgiving student debt saying "Can you believe there are people who don't support this because they think others should suffer as much as they have?" but then will make a post right after that saying anyone who is not "oppressed enough" does not have a place in their own marginalized community.
I don't think you actually support the idea of helping and caring about other people regardless of whether or not you seem to have suffered more than them when you believe bisexuals, pansexuals, asexuals, aromantics, polyamorous people, nonbinary people, trans men, mentally disabled people, people not "visibly disabled," people without autism or ADHD, poor people who can still afford minuscule luxuries like a candle, and so many other commonly excluded groups don't have it "bad enough" to be part of whatever community or identity you have.
Not only do you not realize just how bad those people have it, that they're oppressed too, but you're completely going against what you claim to value. And maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't put so much worth on oppression that we treat oppression like a badge of pride that needs to be protected from "the less deserving." Sometimes it's good to care about people even when they aren't oppressed in whatever specific way or at all.
I’m reading a book for my advanced policy social work class and-
“Little acknowledged in public debate, this situation is readily apparent in almost every correctional facility in the country. In Michigan roughly half of all people in county jails have a mental illness, and nearly a quarter of people in state prisons do. In 2016 the state spent nearly $4 million on psychiatric medication for state prisoners. In Iowa about a third of people in prison have a serious mental illness; another quarter have a chronic mental health diagnosis. Meanwhile, nearly half of the people executed nationwide between 2000 and 2015 had been diagnosed with a mental illness and/or substance use disorder in their adult lives. When a legal settlement required California to build a psychiatric unit on its death row at San Quentin, the forty beds were filled immediately. The mental health crisis is especially pronounced among women prisoners: one study by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 75 percent of women incarcerated in jails and prisons had a mental illness, as compared with just over 60 and 55 percent of men, respectively.“ —Insane by Alisa Roth
Holy absolute fuck. This is just from the author’s note alone too. I haven’t even read the rest of the horrors present in the book. And for anyone who does not understand, this is not because mentally disabled people are more capable of committing harm. It is because there is no real care, resources, or support for mentally disabled people, and the only open door to things like shelter when you are abused by society is usually a jail cell, similar to other oppression to prison pipelines. And even the little “care” mentally disabled people do receive is often involuntarily locking mentally disabled people up in hospitals where their rights and humanity are taken away, where they are traumatized and not given real help. People with suicidal intentions are locked up against their wills and much of the time still do as they originally intended before the involuntary hospitalization, which makes sense when you consider how much trauma was just inflicted upon them. Mentally disabled people have no real route to actual support in our current society.
"You guys do realize that mental conditions can express physically, right?"
"Oh yeah? Well physical conditions can express mentally!"
Then maybe we shouldn't be so focused on dividing the disabled community into who is "actually disabled" and realize that the lines between disability types are blurred? Just a thought.
The brain is a physical part of the body. It is a physical entity just like how a kidney or the stomach are physical parts of the body. It physically exists there. There is a physical aspect to a brain not functioning properly. You cannot draw a line in the sand that completely separates mental and physical disabilities from each other. A person convulsing on the floor will be looked at with judgement by others regardless of if that person is having a breakdown due to sensory overload or is having a stroke. A person who cannot shower due to a mental disorder or due to needing physical help to shower are both going to be judged by society.
It's time to stop throwing people out of the community based on who you think deserves to be cared about and instead make space for everyone.
I appreciate how common it is to tag things like abuse to hopefully keep from triggering people who have experienced those things as well as how common it is to tag potentially triggering things like body horror and (as of recent) unreality. I love the consideration. I would especially love if we could start extending that tagging consideration more. For instance, I know that technically someone could have a phobia of anything, so it's not always possible to tag for every phobia, but I would love if we could even just start tagging for common phobias. I know that's a big ask, and I don't mean that sarcastically, but even just starting to tag for one common phobia would help so many people. And I'm doing the "It would help abled people too" thing here, but it would also help people who don't have full on phobias but are still made uncomfortable by things that are common to have phobias of. If anyone has any other suggestions for content to tag to help people with mental disabilities, I would love to know!
Just had to see yet another post that phrases “able-bodied” as the opposite of disabled :) I am so fucking sick of this. And the post was about disabled people using tools to help them with their disabilities and health issues. Gee, I wonder if mentally disabled people ALSO use tools to help them with their disabilities/health issues and that this isn’t solely relevant to physically disabled people.
If you want to make a post just about physical disabilities, do it. But don’t then say “Able-bodied people don’t understand disabled people!!!!!!” as if physical disabilities are the only disabilities that fucking count and as if your post about disability-related tools isn’t relevant to literally EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF DISABILITY.
I’m working on a disability resource project and would love recommendations for any disability resources you all use. By disabilities I mean all disabilities, so this includes resources for people who are neurodivergent (and yes, neurodivergent means anyone with a mental condition). Resources can be about accessibility, recovery, destigmatization, advocacy, government assistance, tools, tips, support groups, you name it. They can be resources that are national, international, state-wide, etc. Thank you for any suggestions!
I’m so tired of people thinking the opposite of “disabled” is “able-bodied.” I was reading an article and it said this:
People with disabilities face both physical and societal barriers in accessing mental health care. The term “disability” encompasses a vast array of physical and mental conditions, and is defined under the Americans With Disabilities Act as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Disability positive testimony consists of a person with a disability giving a positive account of their experiences with such disability. They share the value in their experiences as a person with a disability, and attest to the fact that they are pleased with their lives. However, many able-bodied people will attribute this positive testimony to adaptive preference, in which a person’s preferences change towards something suboptimal due to constraints in their options.
So they acknowledged that “disabled” includes mental conditions. They acknowledged that they’re talking about both physical and mental disabilities. And then they still go on to say “able-bodied” to mean the opposite of “disabled.”
I am so fucking sick of this. Can you imagine what it’s like to constantly be told over and over again that you aren’t part of your own community and that your experiences, suffering, and oppression don’t matter all because everyone everyday misuses a term? Either able-bodied means everyone who is not disabled in some way or we start using terminology correctly to stop erasing people with mental conditions. For fuck’s sake!
I still don't understand what counts as neurodivergent, and so often the neurodivergent content I see is just autism and ADHD, so it leaves me feeling like my disorders don't count and that I'm not represented by posts about neurodivergency. And if neurodivergence really is just a way to split up people with mental conditions into who's valid and who's not, especially since so many neurodivergent posts talk about "neurotypical people" which apparently includes others with mental conditions I guess, plus how people with mental conditions are already routinely left out of the disabled community, that fucking sucks. Like if people with mental conditions don't have a place in disabled spaces and don't have a place in neurodivergent spaces, then where the fuck do we go???
I just saw this posted on someone’s blog and it really is just such a good example of how mental disabilities are completely shoved aside and not seen as “real disabilities.” I’m not asking to use the term cripplepunk, but it is completely fucked up that this post phrases able-bodied people as the opposite of disabled. It specifically says that able-bodied people must “amplify the voices of the disabled” as if able-bodied mentally disabled people don’t fucking count as disabled themselves. And then to demand that able-bodied people relinquish that information when they reblog a post like it’s a status of shame and proof that you’re not “actually” disabled. Plus acting like physically disabled people are all completely innocent against the mean mentally disabled people who better not use their slurs while at the same time physically disabled people do not give a FUCK about avoiding using words like “crazy,” “insane,” “psycho,” “schizo,” you name it. Fuck whoever wrote this.
Physical disabilities are not the only disabilities that exist. Stop silencing all other disabled people and viewing our disabilities as lesser. Stop shitting on us while at the same time demanding our sympathy and care. You are not the only ones who belong in this fucking community. If you believe that “able-bodied” is the opposite of disabled, YOU ARE ABLEIST. If you have a problem with wording posts to keep from implying that only physical disabilities count as disabilities (like is shown in the screenshot), YOU ARE ABLEIST. It takes zero effort to not imply that mentally disabled people don’t count as disabled. You just don’t give a fuck about anyone but yourself.
I just looked in the phobia tag and half of the posts are about homophobia and other forms of bigotry.
When I looked at the OCD tag, 90% of posts were about neurodivergencies in general or specifically autism/ADHD.
I am so sick of not even not having a place in the disabled community but not even having a place in the mentally ill community either. Like for fuck's sake, is there anywhere that people like me are fucking welcome???