The Memory Palace

Feb 20

Where Are All the Disabled Creators? – this ain't livin' blog -

munineye:

an excellent discussion of disability in pop culture and how creative work by those with disabilities featuring persons with disabilities is considered too outside of the norm for mainstream audiences.

i am disabled. there are many things i cannot do because of my severe carpal tunnel caused by a workplace injury over a year ago. i was laid off because of my disability. it was humiliating, demoralizing, and i spent a great deal of time and money seeing therapists to help me cope with this time of change. i hurt every day, sometimes a little, and sometimes a lot, depending on what i do and sometimes not even that. i will have sharp, stabbing pains that run up my arms that come from nowhere, and i will have days where i do more than i did in the previous week put together with little effect. this creates a problem, because i am unable to work because i have no method to predict the whims of my body, but i can usually count on any repetitive act (especially lifting small things, like books) to cause pain, so i avoid it as best i can.

i am a creator. i embroider, i write, i draw, and i sing. i can only do a little bit of the first three everyday. guess which one i do most often. and guess which one i long to do with every fiber of my being. well, split that desire between writing and embroidery, because i find the most peace and joy from them, actually. i have a story in the works about a woman with my sister’s mental handicap, and i am endeavoring to learn as much as i can. but it will end up being a specialty book if i am not careful in my presentation. that is the fine line i must dance, being disabled and writing about disabilities. the disability must not be overt, or editors will be uninterested in publishing it as anything but a curious work of genre fiction (already a problem, since i plan for this to be a science fiction story). the disability must still be recognizable for those who know what to look for, a sort of nod and wink to family and friends of those with this particular disability. and it’s sad, really. quite sad.

Feb 15

“

Doctors at the Odense University Hospital refrained from operating a 65-year-old woman with pancreatic cancer, noting as a reason in her medical journal that she was ‘slightly retarded’.

Six months later, the woman was re-admitted to hospital in a serious condition, with her cancer having spread so much that it was not possible to operate. She died six months later.

Denmark: No op for retarded patient - Politiken.dk

I don’t think I can add anything articulate to this. Words fail me.

(H/T inessita)

Fuck these murderers.

(Source: redlightpolitics)

Feb 14

[video]

[video]

Feb 12

gallifreygal:

Doctor: Look at that, fish! I like fish!
Doctor/Rose shippers: CHIPS. FISH AND CHIPS. HE’S THINKING ABOUT ROSE
Doctor/Amy shippers: FISHFINGERS AND CUSTARD. HE’S THINKING ABOUT AMY.
Doctor/River shippers: JIM THE FISH. HE’S THINKING ABOUT RIVER.
Doctor:
Doctor:
Doctor:
Doctor: I really just meant fish.

—-

A good reminder that the Doctor Who that I watch isn’t necessarily the same Doctor Who as what someone else watches. Maybe we all start off with a neutral “viewer” stance (i.e. someone who watches the show and enjoys it enough to continue to watch it) and then our own experiences and preferences add to that “viewer” stance. So you have the fic writers, who want to add to and reinterpret what canon gives us. And then you have the shippers. And also the cosplayers (who themselves cosplay for different reasons).

The thing is, we all love the show, and it’s great when we find others who love the show for the same reasons, but not all of us will love the same things about the show that everyone else does. But Doctor Who is like that, it’s a big sprawling thing that’s nearly 50 years old but still resonates with people for whatever reason.

For me, the appeal of Doctor Who is that of the found family, that a man exiled from his own people travels all over time and space to create friendships and bonds which changes the lives of the individuals he meets, as well as his own. The bonds aren’t necessarily sexual or romantic in nature, but they can be.

(This is also why Lilo & Stitch is my favorite Disney movie ever, BTW. The idea that love and friendship can significantly change someone for the better, and that a found family is just as important as blood ties.)

I guess I’m rambling too much but it’s a good thing to keep in mind in the days before a lot of Whovians who love the show for all sorts of different reasons congregate at Gally.

This is awesome. :) And makes me sad I’m missing Gally even more!

Doctor/Master shippers: FUCK THE FISH HE WANTS THE MISTER MASTER!

(Source: queencersei)

Things I don’t get about South Florida part 259295

When I lived in a suburb of Salt Lake City, I could literally find a 24 hour grocery store.

Salt Lake City has a population of roughly 250,000 people.

In South Florida, virtually everything shuts down at 10 p.m. except for fast food places.

The Ft. Lauderdale area? Has far more than 250,000 people.

I just…

What?

[video]

Crazy Cloud: ableism -

cuitlatlaza:

People need to stop talking about suicidal people and people with mental illness or disabilities like it’s some mystical, mysterious thing. “I’ve never met anyone who was bipolar.” “OMG, I don’t know what to say to a suicidal person. I’d never think about killing myself…” Like there’s not a…

ihaveabsolutelynoidea:

people who say things like “where there’s a will there is a way” or “happiness is a choice” are probably people who have never had to rely on a medicine regiment to regulate and sustain their moods, and therefor need to take their clearly misinformed and unwarranted advice and fuck off. 

Feb 11

mental illness, treatment, and tumblr

melonary:

This is a post that was originally on unpopularsjopinions. I’m posting it under tags on this tumblr so people can respond to me if they want to.

Also, I apologise for the abrupt start.  It began as a response to a brief comment about mental illness and treatment, and morphed into a larger discussion about the way different mental illnesses are perceived and talked about.

Re: “…but have mental disorders, and I think it’s perfectly alright if you don’t want to be cured”?  From context here, I’m taking “cured” as ‘treated’ since often chronic or severe mis can’t be entirely cured, please correct me if i’m wrong.    I agree with your answer - that people shouldn’t be allowed to refuse treatment if they’re hurting others - but I’d say it’s important sometimes when they’re hurting themselves.

I feel like this is another issue of conflating different mis with different problems, honestly.  I see this opinion around a lot on tumblr, and while I definitely agree that it’s a complicated issue and that patients should be active participants in their own treatment to a degree that’s extremely rare today, I have to wonder if these people have ever been so delusional or so psychotic that they were unable to reasonably make decisions about their own wellbeing.  

I have been.  I’ve fought with the police, I’ve been handcuffed and arrested (under the mental health act) and I’ve been sectioned.  And as much as I’ve gotten mostly really shitty care and treatment in the mental health care system, treating me against my will was a lifeline.  I’ve also had other really bad times when I look back and thing, wow, I was really fucking crazy, why didn’t anyone do something?   Because in the long run, the only person that hurt was me.  I lost time, I alienated people, and I came very, very close to death.

Again, I’m not saying it’s not complex.  I know people have had really horrific experiences with forced treatment - I mean, I’ve had some horrific experiences even though I feel it was necessary overall, and those are a drop in the ocean compared to some stories I’ve heard.  I overwhelmingly think that institutionalization (forcing patients to become reliant on being institutionalized or keeping them in hospital for long periods of times) is wrong, but I also realise that hospitalizations of a shorter nature are necessary for some of the population some of the time.  I recognize that the system of community care that should have replaced the old psychiatric hospitalizations after de-institutionalization is in shambles or, more often, was simply never built.  The fact that the system that exists is entirely inadequate, both in terms of active patient participation, community care, and care in-hospital doesn’t in my mind negate the fact that sometimes treatment is necessary for a small percentage of the population a small percent of the time who are unable to make that decision for themselves. 

All of the above are serious problems facing the mentally ill population today, but just like in terms of other care, the fact that the system is criminally inadequate does not mean that treatment is unnecessary.  

However, I do think this is a conversation in which experience matters.  Mental illness and disability cannot be represented in a yes or no manner.  Different mental illnesses carry different problems and different stigmas.  People with chronic mental illnesses often have different needs than those with shorter-term (but still debilitating) ones.  Furthermore, not all mental illnesses are disabilities.

In my experience, the people who are heavy users of the public mental health care system (by which I mean psychiatric hospitals, emergency rooms, police, etc) and who are mostly likely to be treated against their will are often hard to hear in the conversations about mental illness.   It makes sense - mental illnesses that cause the kind of disconnect from reality that I’m talking about are statistically rarer than those that don’t.  Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, bpd, appear in the population at rates of 1-2%.  Psychotic depression and anxiety are similarily fairly rare.  So it makes sense that our voices are often hard to hear, since there are less of us.  However, it also means it’s incredibly important to listen to people with other mental illnesses, and not speak over us just because you also happen to be mentally ill.

My incredibly long-winded point is this: Mental illnesses are incredibly varied; in experience, stigma, treatment, disability, severity, and chronicity.  I would like to see more voices of those who have been heavy consumers in conversations like this, and people with psychotic symptoms, since this is an issue that disproportionately affects us.

Thanks, and sorry about the far-too-long post.

(and, just in case anyone asks - I am not at all trying to belittle what people with depression, anxiety, or other mental illnesses go through.  I have struggled with a fairly severe anxiety disorder as well for much of my life, so I am not at all trying to make a hierarchy of mental illness oppression.  Rather, I’m just asking that we don’t speak for those with mental illnesses we don’t have, experiences we don’t have, on behalf of the entire mentally ill community, or on behalf of the entire disabled community.)