*alt text* Graphic with a purple background. A pair of pink hands over a seer's orb. Inside is a patient on a hospital bed being spoken to by a medical professonal. There is a black wheelchair in the bottom right corner and a covid virus in the top left corner. In bold red letters reads, "Disabled people can see your future" in small white letters reads, "Why abled people refuse to see the future is disability"
Reflecting on my life I realize disability has always been something I feared. Despite being disabled my entire life it was not a label I attached to myself until the reality became undeniable. I grew up an undiagnosed autistic child with cptsd, ocd, and asthma. All things that shaped the way I moved through the world. When I found out I was a type one diabetic I went through a period of mourning because it was something I would live with forever. It was not something I could diet or exercise away (of course type 2 diabetes is not a simple fix and requires more than exercise and diet to treat). It wasn't something I could fix.
In reality I couldn't 'fix' any of my disabilities. However, I could ignore them. For many years that's what I did to cope. In college I would return to my dorm room and cry for hours in secret because I was overstimulated from being around thousands of people every day and having to navigate new and complex social situations.
I quit college after becoming homeless and having what I described at the time as a mental breakdown during finals. I recognize now that it was autistic burnout caused by trying to pursue higher education while homeless with unmanaged disabilities. After college I quickly learned that I would never be able to have the 20-year career people of older generations often talk about. Boasting proudly of how many years or decades they have worked for a company. I knew that would never be me because I would inevitably burn out before I reached the two-year mark. So, I hopped from job to job. I bounced around so many jobs that most of them couldn't fit on my resume.
Despite all of this I never claimed to be disabled. Part of me likes to attribute this to the disability community's making distinctions between physically disabled people and those with mental disabilities. Usually lumping in mentally disabled people in with abled people and ignoring how impactful mental disabilities are. Along with the government's strict rules on who is considered truly disabled. However, I know it's because I did not want to recognize how limited I was.
Disability means limitations. While it's true that most of the limitations disabled people face comes as a result of living in an ableist society that ignores our existence and access needs, disability itself is still limiting. Someone with arthritis will have a hard time crafting, opening jars or struggling with pain even if they lived in a more accessible world. Those who suffer from chronic illnesses such as ME/CFS will still struggle with an energy deficit and chronic pain. A diabetic will have a non-functioning pancreas even if the world was more accessible.
Knowing the limitations of being disabled prevented me from fully acknowledging my multiple disabilities. If I acknowledged that my chronic depression and anxiety couldn't be 'fixed' but instead something that had to be managed then that would mean I would have to be on pills forever. And isn't that just horrible? If I recognized that my dependance on weed wasn't just for fun but something that I needed to cope with physical pain and constant overstimulation, then that would mean these things were impacting my life and that I couldn't move through the world like a "normal" person.
Running from the reality of disability caused me to harm myself. For years I downplayed chronic pain I was experiencing. Allowing doctors to gaslight me and internalizing the excuses they made to avoid helping me. I turned to religion as a solution to my cptsd. I convinced myself anger management would fix the autistic meltdowns that caused me to hit myself out of anger and frustration. I forced myself to socialize despite how overstimulated it left me.
I did everything in my power to ignore the reality of disability. That was until the Covid-19 pandemic. My first two infections came as a result of working at a clinic during the pandemic. My chronic pain and asthma symptoms increased but for the most part everything still felt manageable. My symptoms weren’t something that wouldn't impact my ability to work or exercise. The third infection came from an ex of mine. Which resulted in my chronic pain increasing along with the introduction of chronic fatigue. Still, these were things I could brush off as not impactful enough to deter my long-term life goals.
Then seemingly overnight the pain became too much. I couldn't stand for very long. Cooking became difficult because my hands were in too much pain to chop veggies. My apartment became a mess because I had to plan chores and resting times after those chores days ahead of time. I slept most of the day. I couldn't go on nature walks anymore. I barely even left my apartment.
Working was out of the question and I was forced to quit my job. I survived by applying to Muslim charities and crowdfunding online. I attempted to start a business by selling paintings and although I got many compliments, I never earned enough to support myself.
Disability often feels like you're trapped in your body. Trapped in your mind. Rotting away as the world moves on without you. With nothing to keep you clinging on to life besides your memories of better days and the few times you're able to actually go out and have fun. I began to miss the routine of work. Feeling like I had a purpose. When you grow up in a capitalist society it's engrained in you that your worth in life comes from what you can produce.
It is also engrained in you that the more dependent you are on your friends, family and the system the less value you have as a human. At the start of my disability things still seemed hopeful. Yes, my body was falling apart but I had free healthcare courtesy of the state of Minnesota. I had friends who urged me to hold on and promised they would be there. I had support of the charities I applied to. But as time dragged on and my disability remained unwavering. I lost those friends. My doctors began gas lighting me and dismissing my symptoms. Telling me I could exercise my way back to health despite physical activity increasing my symptoms. Eventually the Muslim charity cut me off telling me that they hadn't anticipated my disability would last so long.
I forced myself back to work. Withholding the fact that I was disabled to get the job. The work made me sicker and also caused my last two Covid infections since my employment was during the time when the government decided Covid was no longer a threat and states began repealing their mask mandates in businesses and on public transportation.
Despite going back to work I was still barely surviving. I relied on thc gummies to help me through work and with the pain that work caused me. I could only work part time and I was swamped with overdue bills and rent. I could barely afford to feed myself and relied on food pantries. When I was too sick or too tired from work to go to the pantry in person I had to rely on delivery. Per the policy of my local pantry those who needed deliveries couldn't pick what food they received and weren't eligible for the same amount of food in person attendants could get. Not being able to choose my own food options meant that I was given pork and Sabre hummus even though I was a practicing Muslim at the time. Overall, the food choices I was given were less nutritious and I never received fresh produce, which isn't great for a diabetic.
Sometimes when I got paid, I would treat myself to an Instacart order and other times I would crowdfund for one. Around this time, I began noticing a certain discourse occurring in online spaces about delivery services. Discourse similar to the one pictured below.
*alt text* Twitter screenshot @arod_twit says, "i say this as someone who is very lazy and loves treats: ya gotta stop using the delivery apps"
Despite food delivery services being considered normal and dating back as far as the late 1880's, grocery delivery services, which exploded after the pandemic, were regarded as posh. Something only overly privileged or those too lazy to shop partook in. Many communists accused those who used these grocery delivery services and others such as cleaning services of being bourgeoisie exploiters of the working class. During the summer a Black woman who joked about cishet male delivery drivers not knowing how to properly shop kicked off weeks of discourse after online communists accused her of being privileged, lazy, ungrateful, transphobic and exploitative. Those who were not communist simply concluded that people who used delivery services did so out of laziness. Afterall, the pandemic was over, right? No need to order in anymore.
More recently as food prices have soared and the general public has realized we're being priced out of living many have concluded that those raising complaints about the unaffordability of food were just bad shoppers. Or in the case of the tweet pictured above they concluded that the issue is people are too reliant on grocery delivery apps. When disabled people speak up about how we are also struggling to keep up with the rising cost of food and these services help us live considering there are not sufficient government programs to make sure we are fed on a consistent basis, we’re met with snide remarks brushing us off, “Well of course this doesn’t apply to you! That should be obvious.” Or “Can't you just get a friend to do your shopping for you?” We’re accused of being overly sensitive. The implications is that these wide sweeping statements of delivery and cleaning services only existing for lazy or overly privileged people couldn’t possibly apply to disabled people who genuinely need it. Let’s examine this line of reasoning.
Due to the influence of the protestant work ethic Americans believe it is virtuous to be a hard worker. Not to depend on the state or succumb to circumstances but to rise above them to achieve worth and thereby salvation through upward mobility. While many would not openly say that they subscribe to this belief it is one that has been embedded in American culture. We cannot divorce ourselves from its influence in a capitalist society. The culture of protestant work ethic encourages us to sacrifice sleep, work multiple jobs, give all our energy to a job, not demand higher wages unless we have proven our worth in a number of arbitrary ways and to above all sacrifice ourselves and our health for the sake of capital.
Capitalism is inherently disabling. It accelerates the ageing process, leaves millions of workers battling with chronic pain and due to the lack of worker protection in the U.S lands many of us in an early grave. The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the number of disabled Americans due to a number of factors such as government neglect to monetarily support citizens, purposeful public health misinformation from the CDC for the purpose of capital, companies forcing a return to in person work for non-essential jobs, local governments ending mask mandates, and even our own president declaring the pandemic to be over.
Many Americans are not equipped with the tools to manage their new disabilities or even to recognize what their symptoms are. We live in a society that has rigid laws on who constitutes as disabled. The purpose of these strict legal restrictions on who is disabled and who is not is to relieve the government of its responsibility towards its citizens. Thousands of Americans die each year just waiting to be approved for our SSI program. A process designed to reject every applicant on their initial application, often requires hiring a disability lawyer, and is designed to take years of court proceedings. Our government has become even more neglectful towards citizens since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic by purposefully misinforming us of the dangers Covid-19 poses to our heath.
As a result most people don’t know how to recognize that they are now disabled and due to ableism in our society many will ignore their symptoms in the hope that they will one day disappear or lessen. There are Americans wondering why they’re suddenly battling with chronic fatigue. Wondering how weed went from something they only used recreationally to something they depend on to help them deal with unending chronic pain. Unable to sleep or focus. Now troubled with a host of new ailments from heart problems to blood clots and even strokes. These newly disabled people are not able to manage life as they once were able to do. Many will try in vain to regain a sense of normalcy only to do more damage to their bodies in the process.
When your body shuts down services that are regarded as a luxury by abled people suddenly become lifesaving. When you can’t get out of bed, walk long distances, stand for long periods of time or have basic use of your hands grocery shopping is not something that you can easily do. Cleaning your house becomes impossible. With the lack of social services for disabled people grocery delivery companies, cleaning services or pet walking services become essential for survival.
You might be saying to yourself right now, “But those tweets aren’t about disabled people who REALLY do need these services. They’re about lazy people, bad shoppers, and privileged people with money who just don’t feel like shopping.” This line of thinking relies on the ableist belief that you can tell who is truly disabled and in need of these services. It comes from the belief that you will never be disabled or least not disabled until you reach old age a time which is considered more acceptable to be disabled. The reality is that disability is a universal experience, and it is not something that can be decided upon by us. Especially not during a pandemic that is leaving millions of people dead or disabled.
Abled people cannot conceive a reality in which they are disabled. Which is why their refusal to acknowledge the existence of disabled people feels natural to them. Of course, they don’t include disabled people in their generalizations on “luxury services”. Disabled people don’t truly exist to them except in theory. Our existence causes fear in them, revulsion even. They know they will one day be us. They will be forced to exist in vulnerable bodies, be excluded, exist on the margins, be forced to depend on an entity outside of themselves and that scares them. This fear of disability coupled with engrained capitalist ideas of worth being tired to the ability to produce for the sake of capital and a lack of dependency has led abled people to create a culture of shame around what they consider to be non-essential, “luxury services”. If grocery delivery services are stigmatized it will directly lead to disabled people pushing themselves beyond their limits so they are not seen as lazy.
Considering that everyone is just temporarily abled this also applies to abled people as well. Many formerly abled people struggle to adjust to life with a disability and one of the reasons is because there is so much stigma attached to disability. Creating more stigma around essential services only leads to harm.
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