u/RandomInSuburbia

Annoyed AF that we have to come right after Pride month when we as a demographic collectively have a whole lot less swagger than our LGBTQIA+ friends; and FFS can't one of us please step up and do some more with the branding and PR? (Not me, I'm tired).

111-0074979-7570636

u/Thatgirlisaproblem thank you for all your advocacy for disabled people. When the public gets educated, they become more tolerant, and it leads to better healthcare outcomes for everyone.

I hope you are having a wonderful summer and I hope your wedding planning is going great.

If you haven't tried this item yet it is LIFE-CHANGING. ;-)

111-1475150-7024211 is coming at you on FRIDAY!!!

Thank you for your friendship and I hope something amazing happens to you today.

I am a transplant to a rather densely-populated, ethnically-diverse Metro area in the Southeastern USA.

I was raised Catholic - my mom's faith and her family's for hundreds and hundreds of years. However, my dad's family was not Catholic, and I have a Jewish-sounding last name (married but still use my maiden name).

Something I am running into here is that when I try to attend Mass or be part of a parish, inevitably someone from the church will confront me about "Are you really Catholic?" (and occasionally comment on physical features, name, etc).

It's not the priests or anything for the most part; the objections are mostly from people who are acquaintances but I've also gotten some weird gatekeeping/pushback from laypeople at the churches.

Some say they don't want converts. In those cases, I've offered to show skeptical parish secretaries my baptism, first communion, confirmation records, proof I graduated from Catholic school, even my grandparents' immigration records from Ireland, but that all gets refused. It makes me feel not comfortable and not welcome there.

To note, I am visibly physically disabled due to a local drunk driver a few years ago and people haven't exactly been kind about that. (Some have even been violent). Including the head of St. Vincent de Paul at the church nearest my house literally made fun of me for it verbally and made some comments suggesting she disagrees with my disability diagnosis/prognosis.
So disability may be part of or the entire problem here.

Help me understand if this is normal? Because I'm not going to apologize for my last name or how I look in any sense of the word. And I strongly believe I have just as much right to be there as anyone else.

And no, I'm not open to converting to another faith just because the one I was raised in seems to reject me suddenly.

Don't get me wrong. I'm very grateful to the mods for removing the ugly shit some of you wrote.

But for freak sake, punching down on other disabled people is not going to make your situation any better.

I have an acquired serious and complex physical disability due to an extremely violent driver several years ago who nearly killed me.

The legal system treated it like an accident, but it may not have been entirely that.

The people in the community where I live let's just say have not exactly been the most compassionate or accepting.

For example, I now have difficulties communicating verbally, use mobility aid, and other medical devices, and sometimes have seizures because of what that piece of shit did to me.

Some people have even gotten violent they hate having a disabled woman in their community so much.

Recently someone with this mindset really got out of control and there was involvement by mandated reporters law enforcement etc.

My dad's response was to tell me he doesn't want me to speak to him or my mom again until I can learn to be more positive and stop dwelling on the "accident."
He went onto add that he doesn't feel like I've tried hard enough to get better from my incurable physical disability, and suggested that I was just using a mobility aid having seizures etc. just to antagonize other people.

I don't go around every day thinking about the "accident", but the fact is that it changed my life and I have a permanent physical disability as a result and that's always going to be there.

I'm wondering if anybody else's family absolutely fucking hates you because you have a disability.

Hi there!
I am looking forward to a family vacation in Sandals - Provençale next month.

But I have a few questions related to my physical disability.

I use a mobility aid, a small electronic medical device (External to my body) and take several medications, including Ritalin.

How big of a problem will it be to bring that into the country?

113-5772290-5289848

Is coming at you tomorrow or Monday!

113-8844260-1245815

Is coming at you sometime between tomorrow and Thursday with all my love and good vibes.

Long story short, I was referred to VR about 2 years ago after I had to engage Disability Rights in my state to handle some ADA accommodations pushback I was experiencing at work. (I was assigned to a brand-new manager in a re-org who let's just say did not take my accommodations well).

NOTE: My physical disability diagnosis/prognosis was made after extensive empirical medical testing... including a neuropsychological evaluation that only dinged me for "expected level of stress in adjusting to a sudden serious physical disability that came about due to violence".

Disability Rights suggested that "the fact you faced this degree of pushback with your ADA accommodations means perhaps a different job function might be good for you."

VR did some assessments and determined that retraining for a job function similar to the job I do would be the best fit for me. We identified a training path. Then I had some health issues and had to put those training programs on pause... during that time I was assigned a new counselor.

My new VR counselor decided to listen to community gossip (I literally am in the process of getting a restraining order against some of the people who were saying that shit); disregard specialist documentation and reclassify my empirically-proven physical disability as purely psychiatric in their system; and overall seems to have developed a very unhealthy and concerning obsession with interfering with my medical care, ADA accommodations, and life in general.

She believes that (paraphrased) "relationships need to be rebuilt with the community and mental restoration starts with you showing up to a job just like an adult. You've been calling too many of the shots with your own medical care, and getting whatever accommodations you want and I don't hear you trying to get better." She wants me in a high-control, high-supervision office, no accommodations, no adaptive equipment, no mobility aid, no doctor's appointments, just choose not to have seizures and etc.

Note: My physical disability is the result of violence a few years ago (so yes, some discomfort and stigma in the community around that).
It's been tough and I've had to mourn it, but I've accepted there is no physical cure, and I'm mostly okay with that. It's just about how to live my best life despite that.

I am still at my current job, which (after getting Disability rights involved) transferred me to another manager and still gives me the accommodations I need. This pisses off the VR counselor - I work for a fully-remote company based in another state, as remote work is the only way my doctors were willing to sign off on my working full-time.

I make good money, better than I'd likely make at a local employer. I've been there over five years and get good performance reviews. That is because I have accommodations in place and can focus on work, not commuting. She calls that "sitting on your ass locked in your house alone all day".

VR has been pressuring me to quit my job and take one of their shitty high-control ones; ditch my amazing specialized therapist and medical providers for their shitty ones; etc.

Last straw for me? My new PCP recently gave me disability tags for my car and told me to use them. Which I need them, so I did. Someone apparently saw me using them and reached out to VR, and VR counselor reached out to me all upset.

"You were seen using handicapped tags... why was this not discussed with me... I would never have supported this... those are for people with PHYSICAL disabilities.... you need to be showing people in the community that you're trying hard to be normal and not continuing to put distance between yourself and others like this... I need you to call me so we can discuss how to stop your self-hatred and victim complex and reintegrate you into the community."

I wrote her back, "I have cc'd my attorney Stan Marsh. Please direct all future such communications through him."

Counselor wrote back (with Stan cc.d) "You do not get to use an attorney just to get your own way, that is not how any of this works, please be an adult and call me."

What the HELL? Is this level of attempted control/concern normal?

Help me with this dream because it was awful:

There was a demon that was terrorizing everything and everyone in my life.
I called a priest to get it exorcised.
The priest came to my house and my Catholic-hating next door neighbor flipped her shit.
The exorcism worked, and we were figuring out how to celebrate
But then the demon came back a day later and melted the priest.
Then I woke up and it was 3 AM and creepy-ass Perry Mason reruns were playing on my laptop. (That show was before my time, and I just never got into it).

Other context here that may be relevant:
* Easter-Christmas Catholic (in other words, demonic exorcism is not an everyday event but technically it is a thing in my religion)

* My next-door neighbor does hate Catholics, and has freaked out and screamed obscenities at the priest who came to my house last year to give me Anointing of the Sick;

* Currently in a very ugly legal battle against some individuals who've been assaulting me physically, threatening my life, and obstructing my medical care just because I have an acquired physical disability. The more certain protections get put in place for me (by the mandated reporters who have intervened), the more their psycho unhinged behavior escalates.

And yes, I have an attorney and a therapist. Both are actively monitoring the "disabled adult is being physically abused" situation.

Please help me because I'm really creeped out.

Hi all. I have been visibly physically disabled for several years now (drunk driver). While this was a very difficult journey, I've accepted the fact that I'm never going to get better and in a strange way now that I no longer have that expectation it's been a lot easier to be happy. I still have a lot to be grateful for.

Just my next-door neighbor is not one of those things.

My next-door neighbor who is not a dumb woman, in fact she has a pretty senior pretty high trust professional position, has developed this bizarre fixation with my incurable physical disability and her behavior is escalating.

A close friend of hers opened up a certain alternative medicine place (I'm deliberately being vague) about a year ago.

Shortly after that my neighbor began telling me that she just knew that this treatment would cure me.

She's also offered theories over the years that 5G, chemtrails, Barack Obama, etc are the cause of my disability.

I have to live next-door to this woman so my response to these conversations has been something along the lines of that's interesting, thank you for sharing that, I've got to run now nice seeing you.

Today she accosted my husband in our front yard and informed him that Jesus had appeared to her in a dream and told her that I was not following her medical directives (OK well perhaps her blond deity had a point there... 🤣).

She became extremely agitated and told my husband that I needed to get that medical treatment and that I was being irresponsible not to and missing my chance to be a good person God made me to be again. She gave my husband all of these medical detail details about me which are not accurate and which I have never shared with her. We just don't talk like that.

To me, this bitch crossed the line when she tried to triangulate my husband on her crazy bullshit.

I have already dealt with a lot of disability based harassment and defamation in this community and other people's reactions to it has put my safety in serious jeopardy.

This bitch is holding herself out as a medical authority and she's creating a narrative that is misrepresenting not only my medical situation but my actions, mental fitness & competency.

Of course people in the community are taking sides saying well you make everyone look at you on that thing (referring to my mobility aid) so it is everyone's business.

I've had it with this shit.

Has anyone ever dealt with anything like this and how do you shut it down because you have to teach people how to treat you.

Hi all. I have been visibly physically disabled for several years now (drunk driver).

My next-door neighbor who is not a dumb woman, in fact she has a pretty senior pretty high trust professional position, has developed this bizarre fixation with my incurable physical disability and her behavior is escalating.

A close friend of hers opened up a certain alternative medicine place (I'm deliberately being vague) about a year ago.

Shortly after that my neighbor began telling me that she just knew that this treatment would cure me.

She's also offered theories over the years that 5G, chemtrails, Barack Obama, etc are the cause of my disability.

I have to live next-door to this woman so my response to these conversations has been something along the lines of that's interesting, thank you for sharing that, I've got to run now nice seeing you.

Today she accosted my husband in our front yard and informed him that Jesus had appeared to her in a dream and told her that I was not following her medical directives (OK well that's actually true... 🤣).

She became extremely agitated and told my husband that I needed to get that medical treatment and that I was being irresponsible not to and missing my chance to be a good person God made me to be again. She gave my husband all of these medical detail details about me which are not accurate and which I have never shared with her. We just don't talk like that.

To me, this bitch crossed the line when she tried to triangulate my husband on her crazy bullshit.

I have already dealt with a lot of disability based harassment and defamation in this community and other people's reactions to it has put my safety in serious jeopardy.

This bitch is holding herself out as a medical authority and she's creating a narrative that is misrepresenting not only my medical situation but my actions, mental fitness & competency.

Of course people in the community are taking sides saying well you make everyone look at you on that thing (referring to my mobility aid) so it is everyone's business.

I've had it with this shit.

Has anyone ever dealt with anything like this and how do you shut it down because you have to teach people how to treat you.