Limb Differences - Tumblr Posts

Yes I’m chronically online, but it’s like… what else am I gonna do?? 😂🥲

i wanna say fuck you to anyone who shame disabled, chronically ill & neurodivergent people, especially homebound folks, for "spending too much time on their phone/on the internet/etc." when it's the only (Somewhat) accessible way for them to experience the world. many people don't get to get out much even if they want to because of their disabilities. shaming someone for trying to connect with the world, make friends and engage with hobbies in ways that are accessible to them is beyond cruel and unnecessary

Writing Advice Part 2: Disability And EVIL

Disabled adults are adults and because they're adults they have a wide variety of morality and characters since humans are an exceedingly diverse group with even more diversed existences.

WRONG!

No. No. In reality:

👿👿DISABLED ADULTS ARE EVIL, ALL EVIL!!!!!!! 👿👿 According to certain writers!

When writers take communities and existences such as the facial difference gang or the intellectually disabled doers this results in horrific portrayals of "demonization". Obviously, people with physical disabilities are often portrayed horribly. I will mention them in the facial differences saga. The only reason I am specifically talking about facial differences and intellectual disability is because physical disability and facial differences tend to overlap while intellectual disability is a common yet undertalked form of representation.

Demonization: it's just like what it sounds like. Disablity always equals evil

However, the ways that facial differences gang is demonized is different to how intellectually disabled doers are demonized.

THIS BECAUSE OF A COMMON ASSOCIATION aka

Good = Beautiful/Handsome, Evil = Ugly

For future reference, when I say ugly I mean "not conventionally attractive" and when I say beautiful I mean "conventionally attractive". Afterall, Harvey Dent is attractive. That's a fact.

A popular example of this is the James Bond franchise which has stocks full of villainous characters with various limb differences, scars, and other such things. These ugly and bad characters fight against the cool and handsome James Bond

Literally, the association between evil and "ugly" is so ubiquitous that when a character becomes disabled they also become evil. The transition between being law-abiding handsome attorney Harvey Dent and evil insane "ugly" Two-Face is marked by fire/acid.

Let me tell you, there is no link between being a bad person and being not conventionally attractive. I'm not saying you can't write bad people with facial differences but they're not bad people because of their facial differences.

Secondly, Facial differences aren't only scars. They are often congenital. There are hundreds of different kinds of facial differences. This was just to talk about the fact that most people hear "facial difference" and think "scar".

FOR INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED DOERS, their evilness comes from their supposed "mental status as a six-year old". For the purposes of clarity, I am just going to say that's not how intellectual disability is labeled and move on.

Because of their supposed "mental status" 🤢, they have no ability to guage morality. They're " *derogatory term* who does evil out of ignorance"

Firstly, intellectually disabled people can learn things, like morality. Especially, if we are talking about the majority of intellectually disabled people who have to mild-to-moderate intellectual disability. Either way, there are hundreds of education prgrams designed to help people in learning about things from periods to childrearing to reading to everything necessary for life.

Secondly, intellectually disabled people aren't children. I talked about that in Part 1 named Writing Advice: Disability And Infantilization. Check it out, it's fun.

Thirdly, intellectually disabled people exist in the real world. If you want to write a character who is intellectually disabled, you can ask them for assistance. There is nothing stopping you.

CONCLUSION: No matter what disability someone has, that shouldn't stop them from being human. You can write disabled characters as evil but disabled characters should be evil not because of disability but regardless of disability. Evil Doesn't Equal Not Conventional.

Could anybody direct me to a congenital amputee community or do I need to make one myself?

I'm so serious please DM me. I don't care where you're from, I don't care who you are. I am alone in a sea of adult content and people who will never understand.

TL;DR: Obvious amputee struggles, hidden hEDS hijinks, failed attempt at mooning church ladies with my sexy yoga talents.

Invisible disabilities are still disabilities, and even if people can't outwardly see what you struggle with, you have the right to look "unsightly" or "inappropriate" in public to take care of yourself. This is taking medications, this is sitting down, this is doing whatever you need to do to keep your body happy and healthy. I'm used to being very obviously different with a congenital forearm amputation that doesn't really get in the way of my life besides the occasional inconveniently short microwave handles (can't get my residual joints behind them) or the way strangers and family often treat me in public for it (very poorly; this is my main struggle and I'd go so far as to say social separation is my main lifestyle difference. I am always unsightly in public.) . . . But the less notable side of my body, which is a progressively worsening diagnosis of hEDS that I've been dealing with for half of my life, is something I am still getting used to accepting and managing. With or without a lot of physical therapy, supplements, rest, and preventative care, I have issues that won't go away. Lately, this means that I can't sit up straight or stand for long periods of time, and very often need to do strange little jigs to get my ribs back into their parking spots in my poorly-oiled upper back— essentially, I can't look proper in quiet spaces. As a woman attending a tri-city snooty-suburb church primarily composed of prim-and-proper older ladies and their equally judgy sheltered tweenagers who would have a conniption at the idea our planet Earth being over 6,000 years old or, God literally forbid, people being themselves, I have at least one personal worst place to have three ribs twist themselves out of me so suddenly while mid- un-pretzelifying my body (to avoid back pain on a shitty pew) (also read: standing up like I'm an overburdened robot). That said, I love my community for the things they do correctly, and I love and prefer the church I attend while at my university for being much kinder, more open-minded, science-loving people.

So anyway, you do what you have to do, even if this means gasping like a fish with a harmonica stuck in its throat, squeezing past 10 of those people very forcefully, and lumpily skittering out of the room (picture a constipated armadillo. I'm fond of my parenthetical similes if you can't tell) to the aghast spite of plenty to put your rebellious skeleton back together in the bathroom, hands covered in napkins and ass directly to the door like this:

(I was taught this funny hot banana-pyramid pose by some very good friends of mine. It saves lives.)

Some people will still love you when they see your nice ass at church, and others will be offended over silly things, and even more will have the right intentions but a terrible mindset. . . But you matter most in this context, unless you're bowling over 95-year old grandfathers for bonus points.

And no, I didn't get caught. And, as a final addition, I think this whole connective tissue disorder thing has helped me to start accepting the visible part of me more. As I've mentioned before, I was raised to stamp out the idea that I was different, and to ignore my own support needs to convince others. Those needs were much easier to believe for something new and fresh that I could demand regular appointments for, and the wacky things I have to get up to to avoid pain have helped me to give less of a shit about others, even if it's hard to.