No fancy OP this time because I am running on E! I’m definitely not a couple of days late! This week’s person of interest is you, dear reader. Tell this fat frog lady all about your lovely selves this week. Tell me what makes you laugh and what brings you joy in this hell on earth we call home.
As always, we ask that in order to participate in the weekly megathread, one self-identifies as some form of disabled, which is broadly defined in the community sidebar:
“Disability” is an umbrella term which encompasses physical disabilities, emotional/psychiatric disabilities, neurodivergence, intellectual/developmental disabilities, sensory disabilities, invisible disabilities, and more. You do not have to have an official diagnosis to consider yourself disabled.
Mask up, love one another, and stay alive for one more week.
What can I say but death to fascist britain.
I think you’re completely spot on when you say that what’s happening to you is social murder. They don’t want to do it explicitly, because that would require acknowledgement that disability exists - part of the erasure of “undesirables” isn’t just the physical erasure of bodies and lives, but also the erasure of the very idea of you and the history of your existence. Similarly to how my mother will not acknowledge my transness and views me as her confused “son” because that allows her to ignore the existence of trans people, the pharmacist viewed you as a pathetic “normal person” who just can’t get their shit together and drains NHS resources because that allows them to ignore the existence of disabled and chronically ill people.
Personally I’m quite sceptical of the legalisation of assisted suicide, which I’ve seen movements for amongst the british ruling class. The way I see it, it will make it acceptable for all the professionals you’ve talked about to just say “well if you’re not happy then just kys”. It already feels like that’s what they’re actually thinking and conveying, even if they won’t say it out loud right now. Death camps are just a natural, logical conclusion of this type of thinking.
Things are so bleak… Let’s do our best to survive another week comrade.
I understand why disabled people who want to live would be fearful of assisted suicide. But for me, I really hate being alive and I do wish it was over. I already tried to kms once, ended up in intensive care for 5 days. Even in there, the medical staff were nice to all the other patients on the ward but mostly ignored me, they seemed really disapproving of what I had done, no sympathy, no wondering what had driven me to that. It’s difficult to do and I just can’t do it myself. I want to go to dignitas but it’s unaffordable. I joined a suicide forum, and made several suicide pacts with people there, but something always went wrong to prevent it (like them backing out at the last minute, or the supplies we needed for the plan being unobtainable). Then when my benefit appeal started and I eventually ran out of credit, I got so desperate for money that I tried selling my prescription meds on there. I had no other way to feed myself. For that, I got banned. So from my point of view, society legalising assisted suicide or even forcing us into gas chambers to die would be a relief. In fact, I’d have more respect for them if they just did that openly instead of saying “OUr sOcIETy hAs a roBUsT saFETy nET,” while giving people like me zero points on our assessments and leaving us to starve. Being in constant pain, begging for food vouchers and trying to make them last as long as possible because I don’t know if anyone will respond the next time I ask, completely destitute, endless benefit assessments and appeals, threatened with homelessness and now being deprived of the meds I need, on top of having cancer treatment and recovering from a stroke, has just overwhelmed and exhausted me to the point life isn’t worth living. especially since I’ve got nothing good in my life either. I don’t have friends in real life any more, they all gradually drifted away as I got sicker and wasn’t fun any more. I used to love hiking but now even walking a few steps really hurts, and I have no money to do anything that I could do by myself at home like renting films or whatever.
What you said about society erasing our existences and seeing me as a normal person who is just pathetic - I’d never thought of it like that before but you’re right. And when I talk to someone and they find out I’m on benefits - even if they know about my health issues and can see the state I’m in - they either don’t bother talking to me any more, or get critical about it and suggest I should just find some work or a course of study I can do. My own doctors have said I’m totally unfit for any type of work whatsoever, I now need help doing basic things, I struggle even to dress myself and use the toilet but of course there must be some work I can do. Employers are just crying out for people like me. Doesn’t matter that I worked and paid tax and national insurance for 16 years previously. How dare I now draw on that “safety net” I paid into all those years. The obsession that society has with finding some work for the disabled, or even forcing the disabled into work, is a denial that people can be too disabled to work.
On reddit I saw a comment about Luigi Mangione, someone had found his reddit account, and discovered that he suffered from crippling, painful back problems. He was giving other sufferers advice on how to convince their insurance companies to pay for their treatment. He made a a comment in response to a post where somebody asked for help convincing a surgeon that they needed spinal fusion surgery because their pain is unbearable.
Mangione said “Tell them you are “unable to work” / do your job. We live in a capitalist society. I’ve found that the medical industry responds to these key words far more urgently than you describing unbearable pain and how it’s impacting your quality of life.”
And I think that says everything about our society. we aren’t seen as humans with needs, we’re all just units of productivity. Those who don’t produce get thrown out like trash and those who do produce may stand a chance of getting the help they need to keep on producing.
Anyway, sorry to hear that your mother doesn’t accept you for who you are. We live in a cruel world full of miserable people.
cw: suicidal ideation, genocide
I completely get that. I wouldn’t say I’m completely in the “want to live” camp, but I am fortunate enough to have one or two good things in my life I’m still clinging to. Although there are times (sometimes very long stretches of time) when I really question why I’m still going. The best I can usually come up with is “I will upset the couple of people still close to me if I dip out early” or “maybe I can stick around long enough in case something drastically changes”. The latter is especially hard to cling to when even organising spaces struggle so much to take disabled people’s perspectives and needs seriously.
Keeping in mind though, that these feelings are the desired outcome of the british system, it does sometimes give me fuel to keep going sometimes out of pure spite, but the longer I’m around the more it just feels like all the suffering is slowly driving me mad.
This sentence should tell people everything they need to know about how disabled people are treated in society. Alas, the brits don’t know the meaning of solidarity or even empathy tbh
Thank you comrade; ain’t that so…