annieelainey: CW: chronic illness, degenerative condition, ableism, this is a “chronic illness
annieelainey: CW: chronic illness, degenerative condition, ableism, this is a “chronic illness and ableism are hard” kind of post. People thinking I “look fine” is more than just a peeve, more than just erasure; it is incredibly harmful to just assume one is able-bodied because their appearance doesn’t match your stereotypical expectations of what a sick person looks like. I push myself beyond my limits in order to do everything that I am responsible for; my legs throb and burn, I get dizzy, nauseous, migraines, I get so fatigued that I cannot concentrate or retain new information, sometimes I can’t wake up… my body is put through so much! But because looks are deceiving, people will continue to expect from me, and pile on things, and get angry if I can’t meet those expectations. When I finally speak up and say that I need help, they get these disgusted looks on their faces while asking “Why can’t YOU do it?” And it hurts that they want me to say out loud the pieces of myself that I’m losing, the pieces of myself that are suffering, it hurts that they can’t see how thin I have stretched myself already, and how if I’d let them, they’d just wear me down to nothing because even if they know that I have painful conditions and disabilities, my appearance allows them to forget and they don’t bother to consider my condition. Not always, but sometimes, I am envious of the assumed fragility of elders, I kind of need that assumed fragility in terms of consideration and access. The fact that we do this at all is ageism; we shouldn’t assume elders are fragile and we shouldn’t assume young people and adults are able-bodied, we should be retraining how we think, to see all as individuals and there is possibility for abled and disabled people of all ages. And in case anyone is unaware… having chronic pain; being in pain every waking moment, it’s exhausting. Today, the pain and the lack of help, the erasure, the amount of physical labor I perform, how hard I work just to do the smallest tasks like fill a glass of water or turning a doorknob, just standing up for a few seconds, and how it goes completely unknown and unnoticed… it hurts. [Image Description: a selfie of Annie laying in bed with a turquoise blanket and a white shirt that reads, “I’m fine.”] https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs7BObgnuV3/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=qzczp6pd85uj -- source link