cripchick’s weblog

i’m angry. i’m resentful. i don’t know where to begin.

a best friend and i just had a really deep conversation about how private i am about my sex/relationship life. i am unable to allow anyone to get close to me in that way. learning about doctors as a for-profit industry [medical industrial complex] has equipped me with the tools to describe my anger in words.

i am ANGRY that i have never felt ownership of my body in the last 20 years.

i RESENT the fact that the only way i can own my body is to stay away from doctors and people. to stay away and never let anyone near. this has been very detrimental in my physical health and emotional relationships that require physical closeness.

i am forever SCARRED by movies, news stories, authorities, religion, and people who have told me that my existence as a disabled person, a woman of color, as a queer person, as a queer disabled woman of color is reprehensible [to be blamed] and ugly.

i am FRUSTERATED that a life of surgeries, biopsies [tests], physical therapy, and appointments with every specialist has left me feeling like i have lost parts of me for some unknown quest to be normal (that was not even wanted or requested by me).

i can’t believe that all these years later it is leaving such a real big imprint on my life and how i interact with people. i hate this. i hate them. and at this point, i don’t even have the energy to hate right now.

where the hell does this leave me? how do i claim my body as my own? does anyone know? (more…)

I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head right now… it’s hard to grab a hold of them, they’re kind of just floating around and clogging up my to-do list.

Recently, a friend of mine had a call with a few feds about cultural competency [ability to understand a person's background]. The conversation was about whether disability culture even exists. (She wrote a MUST READ poem about it here). What I don’t think people get is when you question our culture, you question our identity. When you question our identity, you question our history and the value of our community (i.e. what do a bunch of crippled folk find in each other?) When you question the value of our community, you question our personhood.  What gives a non-disabled person the right to question any of this? It’s so offensive to sit there and discuss whether who WE ARE is valid. 

Another thought going on in my head… the whole phrase/sentiment [idea] I hear allies using “oh, in a way, we’re ALL disabled.” It’s frusterating when disability is simply reduced to being something you cannot do. Disability is so much more than a “limited function”… it’s a social status, a history of oppression [one group using power to keep others down], a cultural background, an interaction with nature, a way of life. (more…)

This is my first time carnivaling [a blog carnival is when bloggers get together and write on the same theme.] Look for the disability carnival at Andrea’s Buzzing About blog on August 9! Since the topic was about being “on holiday,” I was going to write about the importance of vacation as an activist but my friend (who introduced me to this carnival) Kara beat me to the punch. Hopefully, she won’t mind that my blog is a continuation of hers. After all, great minds think alike?

A lot of the way our movement organizes is through conferences and forums…Nothing is really localized and it seems like the younger activists I know (about 35 years old and younger) had to start on the national level and then search for things in their state. Some have been successful at finding space to grow on the state/local level but we still do most organizing via teleconference calls and emails. Anyways, back to conferences. Even though these conferences take A LOT of energy (imagine having to always defend your every belief), fellow activists and I treat them like vacations because it’s when we get to see each other.

I think community is a big part of the “vacation” concept because the main point of vacations and holidays is to give you energy. When Sarah Triano and Access Living put on the first ever Disability Pride Parade four years ago, it was a big, radical thing because it was the first real time Disabled people really got together without a policy agenda. (more…)