u/liveliar

I'm really curious about this as a person who has been disabled from birth. Of course, I'm not saying only people who become disabled later are ableist (duh). Internalized ableism is one heck of a monster I've had to deal with and still am dealing with. But still, I assume there are parts of the experience that are different across the two camps?

Like I thought it was supposed to help alleviate task paralysis and overwhelm, but for some reason my brain is funky and I get more anxious. There's this constant sense of doom, panic, self-loathing that I should be doing more, more efficiently. I feel more depressed even after completing everything when all the mental health advice tells me the sense of achievement should make me feel better. I don't. I want to but I don't. God, my depressed brain is fucking exhausting to deal with.

I'm going to go for it regardless. I'm burning to. I'm too fed up with this ableist world we live in to not and feel like I desperately need this outlet to channel these suffocating emotions into advocacy. Into something. Anything. And at the same time, I already know how emotionally and mentally taxing it will be educating others and combatting ableism online and I'm nervous as heck lol. I've already been doing small things for a while, like writing articles at the organization I volunteer in, curating a bunch of advocacy materials on my personal sns platform, talking with people in meatspace and just getting started on reaching out to on-the-ground seasoned disability activists. I really want to actually do something and starting this page is one small part of it... and I'm spiraling with nerves. Will I be able to do at least an ok job, delivering points with well educated nuance and care? Will I do a good job and not do a disservice to the disability community with my ignorance? Hope so. Really hope so. I don't know. I'm terrified and honestly I don't know why I'm even posting this here. 🫠

One where people can learn and discuss about disability with a critical sociopolitical lens and gather for various kinds of activism and advocacy relating to it.

Of course, I've seen great discussions happen on this sub but I think it would be great if there's a sub specifically for this purpose. I've seen subs like r/ableism but they seem barely active. Quite dead, frankly.

I am disabled and only started to get exposed disability studies and disability justice since last year. It has quickly become a central passion of mine that I want to really do a deep-dive into and even pivot my secondary education path to pursue a degree and get into it professionally, but I don't feel confident enough yet to actively run and maintain an online space for it.

Has anyone else thought of this?

I really am. I'm just so unbelievably tired, especially these last few days with the Ridgeway controversy blowing up the internet. I'm tired of people not understanding (or just refusing to understand?) nuance that one can and should respect reproductive autonomy to terminate a pregnancy, AND we shouldn't devalue and dehumanize a whole marginalized group of people.
I'm tired of people pitying me, saying I have a hard, tragic life full of suffering when so much of that
"suffering" is from the barriers created by ableism, not the disability itself. I'm tired. I've wrote long posts, comments, talked with people in meatspace, wrote articles, anything to fight it, screaming into the void that our lives are worth living, just give us the support and access we need to thrive and not just survive... but people just don't seem to get it, and I'm villified as being anti-choice, and as a delusional martyr, because how can one possibly be content with a disabled body?
I know I'm rambling.
I don't have the energy at the moment to write out a well-organized post.
I just need to get this rage and grief off my chest. I'm tired, and it feels like society will never change. How will they, if they think we're better off not existing in the first place? For all you non-disabled people going on and on about how much "full of suffering" disabled life is, if you're so aware... where are all of you when we're fighting tooth-and-nail against systems that exclude, oppress, and discriminate against us? Where are all of you?

I really am. I'm just so unbelievably tired, especially these last few days with the Ridgeway controversy blowing up the internet. I'm tired of people not understanding (or just refusing to understand?) nuance that one can and should respect reproductive autonomy to terminate a pregnancy, AND we shouldn't devalue and dehumanize a whole marginalized group of people.

I'm tired of people pitying me, saying I have a hard, tragic life full of suffering when so much of that "suffering" is from the barriers created by ableism, not the disability itself. I'm tired. I've wrote long posts, comments, talked with people in meatspace, wrote articles, anything to fight it, screaming into the void that our lives are worth living, just give us the support and access we need to thrive and not just survive... but people just don't seem to get it, and I'm villified as being anti-choice, and as a delusional martyr, because how can one possibly be content with a disabled body?

I know I'm rambling.
I don't have the energy at the moment to write out a well-organized post.

I just need to get this rage and grief off my chest.
I'm tired.

I am pro-choice. I support bodily autonomy, and I am not arguing womens' reproductive rights should be restricted in any way in favor of the unborn fetus.

What I oppose is using ableist assumptions about "quality of life" to justify biased decisions, while refusing to dismantle the barriers and stigma that actually make disabled lives harder.

Choice without challenging discrimination is not justice.

It's not abortion that is the problem. It's the narratives that say disability is only suffering with no counterweight, non-existence is "kinder" than disabled existence. It's the narratives where the structural violence is erased while the bodies are blamed that is alarming.

A lot of the mainstream pro-choice rhetoric goes: "Of course I'd abort. Look how hard such a life would be." Yet, for being so concerned about quality of life and suffering, there is no urgency in society as a whole to make the world accessible, no accountability from systems that have ableism baked into them, no interest in disabled adults' testimonies, no compassion and empathy for disabled people who are already here. Pro-choice, if it were truly so, should mean that both choices, whether the disabled child is brought into the world or not, is respected and fully supported. Yet, what are the reactions?"They should've been let go", how selfish of theparents", "why weren't they aborted?", "waste of space", "vegetable." This is a different realm from respecting bodily autonomy. It's bigotry. Blatant dehumanization.

This goes for pro-life as well. Using disabled lives as political weapons to control and restrict bodily autonomy, while doing nothing to support the lives that result from it-and in fact going so far as to rolling back such supports-is not being pro-life.

I am sick and tired of disabled lives being viewed as tragedies to avoid or being used as weapons against human rights.

I hate how people are so wound up on being on either one side of the debate and refuse to acknowledge nuance, framing those like myself as anti-women when I'm trying to point out societal bias.
Two things can be true at once: no one should be forced to give birth, and disabled lives should not be framed as mistakes, tragedies, or moral cautionary tales.

I am tired of having to defend my existence. I am angry that our bodies and minds are blamed when it's not the problem, this ableist world is.

I'm so, so, tired, grief-stricken and angry. I hate this world we live in.