There is a specific horror in being young and chronically ill. When you are young you are told your body is indestructible. Your body is at its peak. You’ll never again be at this peak. Youth are painted as the picture of health. So when I was 16 and diagnosed with a chronic autoimmune disease, I was faced with a sort of paradox; at the height of my youth, at the time I was … [Read more...]
21 Ways Able-bodied Privilege Looks
This article originally appeared in WearYourVoiceMag.com and is reprinted by permission. Here are 21 ways that able-bodied privilege looks. Some of them are self-explanatory. Others? Well, just read on: 1. Ableist people will actually heed your call-outs about ableism: It all starts here. When you notice someone being ableist and call them out, they are more inclined to … [Read more...]
Healing the Disconnect and Starting a Revolution: Eating Disorders and Disability
In honor of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, TBINAA will feature stories that explore eating disorders at the intersections of our identities, sharing stories about ED from the groups that are often absent from the discussion. We believe that there must be space to tell the story of EVERY body and we are grateful to those who have shared their stories with us, so that … [Read more...]
But You Look Fine to Me: Invisible Disability and Flying
You get the wheelchair at check-in. An attendant swoops in and looks at everyone except you. The attendant is looking for someone apparently disabled. It’s embarrassing, and you wish you could take back the twenty-four-hours-in-advance phone call that reserved this chair. The alternative is to walk for you don’t know how much, stand in the security line for you don’t know how … [Read more...]
5 Things I Wish People Knew About Being Disabled
Meeting a person with a disability for the first time can leave people with a lot of questions. Personally, I’ve made my life about stuff so I don’t mind. However, some questions are frustrating or repetitive. As someone who has been a lot of peoples “first times” here are five things I wish able-bodied people (bonus fact: Able-bodied is what you are if you are not disabled.) … [Read more...]
Surviving the Holidays with Sensory Processing Disorder
Five years ago, I wedged myself into a town car with two fistfuls of luggage and settled into my seat next to my parents. My palms were drenched with sweat, I was unusually clad in comfortable velveteen sleep pants, and I was headed into the middle of New York City rush hour traffic to get to the airport. To take a flight. At night. Overnight. For days leading up to this trip … [Read more...]
10 Tips for Radically Loving Your Body (Disabled or Otherwise)
Having written, spoken, and taught about loving my disabled body for most of my life, a common first question is always “How did you do it? How did you learn to love your body?” I’ll tell you a secret: I’m still working on it. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have most of them, and you shouldn’t trust anyone who says they do. However, here are ten things I’ve … [Read more...]
10 Tips to Help Neurotypicals Understand Sensory Processing Disorder
[Image description: The photograph shows the author, a white woman with shoulder-length black hair and green eyes. She is looking into the camera with a friendly but serious expression. She is wearing a gray blouse and a necklace with gold, red, pink, and white.] Dear Neurotypicals Who Love or Know Someone with SPD, In honor of Sensory Awareness Month, this … [Read more...]
Why Policing Self-Diagnosis of Disabled Folks is Classist
I get into arguments with people on the Internet a lot these days. It’s kind of one of the only ways to be a disability activist when there are a lot of days where you can’t leave your bed. The most recent one I had was with a particular kind of ableist disabled person, which, oxymoronic as it sounds, is a thing that actually exists – in fact, I’ve encountered way too many of … [Read more...]
10 Answers to Common Questions People Ask When Being Called Out for Using Ableist Language
The Body Is Not an Apology’s goal is to share the myriad ways human bodies unshackle the box of “beauty” and fling it wide open for all of us to access. Our goal is to redefine the unapologetic, radically amazing magnificence of EVERY BODY on this planet. When we do, we change the world! Join the movement and become a subscriber today! bit.ly/NoBodiesInvisible. *** This … [Read more...]
Learning Not to Care What Abled Folks Think: How Internalized Ableism Affects My Body Image
I was talking with some of my disabled friends the other day about body image. One of my friends said they were always worried about looking fit because, as a wheelchair user, they feared that any extra weight would be perceived as the result of laziness and possibly part of the reason they needed the chair. Someone else mentioned that she avoided short haircuts because of the … [Read more...]
6 Things Not to Say to a Wheelchair User
Using a wheelchair in public requires you to develop a strong system of defense mechanisms, because it tends to lead strangers to assume they have access to your body. Sometimes these intrusions are physical – like when someone pushes your chair without permission, grabs items out of your hands to “help you carry them,” or climbs over you to open a door for you even if you … [Read more...]
Help Isn’t a Favor: Creating Intimacy and Connection in Disability
I’m that girl, the one everybody goes to when there’s a crisis. I’m there, sorting it, finding out, lending a hand, raising money. That’s me. That was me. Then, one day, I was the crisis. And Then She Fell is the soft title of a memoir of recent events that I never plan to write. I keep making up titles for the not-book, though. It helps me try to make sense of senseless … [Read more...]
How Can We Support the Disability Movement if Obamacare is Repealed
As I write this, there are people in this terrifying administration still actively trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act – the only reason that I, and many other disabled and chronically ill people in the U.S., have access to health insurance. If the ACA is overturned, we’ll return to the old system: one in which insurance companies can charge whatever they want, and their … [Read more...]
