Rhi. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rhivolution) wrote2010-12-03 12:35 pm
rhivolution) wrote2010-12-03 12:35 pm
Entry tags:
out of the closet, endlessly rocking
Welp, it's the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, per the UN.* So, out of the closet with me, because there's really not any better day for it.
Hi, I'm Rhi and I have a disability.
It's sort of sickening that it took me this long to actually sit down and say it aloud in an explicit sentence instead of just talking about my OCD + assorted issues (let's call it OCD+) and disability activism.
It took a long time because we are trained to think of 'disability' as certain specific things, which is harmful both to people who have those conditions and to people with disabilities who don't. I am not in the mood right now to do additional explaining, so here are some starter posts on the Disability 101 level from FWD.
I am fortunate and privileged, in the sense that, thanks to treatment, I can scrape by to meet the median functioning level society requires; that is, what is falsely known as 'normal'. I usually fake able-bodied pretty well, as a coping mechanism, because I have never been an adult without a disability and that is how I learned to handle the world.
Because of that, it took me a long time to accept that my OCD+ affects my daily functioning, that it is most likely a life-long condition, and that I may very well have chronic relapses. It took even longer to accept that the fighting I've done wasn't the way things should be. I have been discriminated against, yes. If you've followed me long enough, you've heard about my personal experiences with the US health care system, my mother's belief that anything I like a lot is 'an obsession', a fear of accidentally outing myself at work, the people who think Monk is funny, and how OCD is not a goddamn adjective.
And my experiences are mild and not anything particularly unique.
So yeah. Get aware. We're just gonna get louder.
* I was going to write about the US failure to do anything with the UN Convention and Optional Protocol on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, but then I got too damn angry, considering it took two years and an administration change to even SIGN the damn convention, much less implement it a year and a half later than THAT. But I don't know that much, so I'll just say 'google it'.
Hi, I'm Rhi and I have a disability.
It's sort of sickening that it took me this long to actually sit down and say it aloud in an explicit sentence instead of just talking about my OCD + assorted issues (let's call it OCD+) and disability activism.
It took a long time because we are trained to think of 'disability' as certain specific things, which is harmful both to people who have those conditions and to people with disabilities who don't. I am not in the mood right now to do additional explaining, so here are some starter posts on the Disability 101 level from FWD.
I am fortunate and privileged, in the sense that, thanks to treatment, I can scrape by to meet the median functioning level society requires; that is, what is falsely known as 'normal'. I usually fake able-bodied pretty well, as a coping mechanism, because I have never been an adult without a disability and that is how I learned to handle the world.
Because of that, it took me a long time to accept that my OCD+ affects my daily functioning, that it is most likely a life-long condition, and that I may very well have chronic relapses. It took even longer to accept that the fighting I've done wasn't the way things should be. I have been discriminated against, yes. If you've followed me long enough, you've heard about my personal experiences with the US health care system, my mother's belief that anything I like a lot is 'an obsession', a fear of accidentally outing myself at work, the people who think Monk is funny, and how OCD is not a goddamn adjective.
And my experiences are mild and not anything particularly unique.
So yeah. Get aware. We're just gonna get louder.
* I was going to write about the US failure to do anything with the UN Convention and Optional Protocol on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, but then I got too damn angry, considering it took two years and an administration change to even SIGN the damn convention, much less implement it a year and a half later than THAT. But I don't know that much, so I'll just say 'google it'.
no subject
And I'm sorry about the unpleasantries you've experienced (Monk = raaaage). Even if they're mild and not unique, they matter, and they draw a picture of larger problems that affects all of us and more often than not govern out lives.
(Hi! I'm Lena and I'm bipolar+ and I don't talk about it much, because society's programmed me to not want others to feel uncomfortable by being in the presence of someone insane.)
no subject