My brain is not your brain, so quit trying to make it like yours.

[brightrosefox]

Copied and pasted here to remind myself.



Life is life, and my life is sometimes a broken life, a crippled life, a life I push through with courage.

I do not care if people accuse me of using my disabilities as identification. I don't know if the people who say that were born disabled and have been living with it forever, and even if they were, their views are not mine.

I am not a "person first" disabled person. I don't want to be. I don't even know what that means, aside from "my disability is a very negative thing that should be peripheral to who I am, something I must shun, something I must be ashamed of, something I must seek to cure permanently when that is impossible for me personally." It may be a label, but it is my label. It is as much a part of me as my being female, very short, pagan, bisexual, of Jewish heritage, having a deep love of knowledge and fantasy.
I am an individual with stuff happening to me, stuff with labels and connotations and usually offensive slurs attached that may never truly fade. This may be an unpopular opinion among certain social justice warrior circles. But I never wanted to be part of The Crowd, the Hive Minds who collectively attack anyone who disagrees with them.
I am quite happy to amend my language for others, because nobody else is me, in my head or body, and it would be the height of insult for me to try to compare someone else's issues to my own without respecting their personal views.

I was born a disabled person. It is most likely a completely different thing than people who acquired disabilities in adulthood, say via accidents or illnesses. For them, there was Normal Before. For them, they are "people with disabilities" probably because of the Normal Before Disabled After deal. I never had a Normal Before. I never had a Normal.
Also, I will stand up and say it: I am not "normal." I am not "just fine." I do not need to be patronized, condescended to, cooed at. I am not "a person with epilepsy" - I am an epileptic person. It's the same thing, but with less eye-rolling. I am a "person with fibromyalgia" and a "person with cerebral palsy" because I don't thing there are "-ic" suffixes for those terms. In any case, I'm not putting my person first just because it's socially polite now. Fuck that. I am who I am. I. Me. Personally. And that means I'm still a person, just a disabled person, because I'm disabled, because I have disabilities, and walking on eggshells is painful. Like I said, I'm happy to amend my language for others. But don't put me person-first. It's not necessary, and it's rather irritating.
I am a person. I was born with disabilities. It is all I have ever known. My disabilities do not define me, and they never have and they never will. However, they are part of me forever, and I cannot and will not ignore them while putting on a fake gleaming smile.

I am a disabled person, and I refuse to shove my disabilities aside to cater to the politically correct whims of those who think I need to change how I see myself. If that makes me unpopular, offensive, insulting or on the receiving end of comments like "Really? Seriously? I can't believe you just said that." then so be it. We all have our own personal Things to deal with. Mine are mine and nobody else's, so I'm not going to be politically correct at myself just because a bunch of people decided it sounded better to them. There are only so many ways I can see myself through the eyes of my culture, and this is not one of them.

/rant over

Comments

[el-esteleth.livejournal.com]

I had a thought while reading this, or more a question, or something. I dunno. LOL

Today was one of those days where I got asked multiple times when I would get over my Fibromyalgia or be cured, etc. I was having a horrible pain day and it showed. I couldn't hide it once my pain got to an 8. I'm wondering now if that's the reason people try to do person-first language, so they can 'cure' someone with a disability with the way they talk about them. Kinda like that kind of language means that the disabled person chose the disability.

I dunno. I don't even know if that made sense. (Brain fog like insane at the moment.)

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

That made fantastic sense, and it is a great thought. I do feel as though the "person-first" people would rather see the problem go away so it doesn't have to bother them - particularly if they don't have disabilities.

[el-esteleth.livejournal.com]

*nods* That's the attitude I get every day from the people at work and around me, a lot. They don't want to "deal with" a disabled person, and I think since Fibro's invisible, a lot of them don't even believe it exists. But trying to dismiss or get rid of the Fibro makes me feel like I just need to disappear, like I'm not a person. So the dang person-first language makes me feel less of a person. If that makes any sense at all... It's not like I slack at work or in my other stuff, I work hard and get things done, even with a disability. So I don't know if that makes them feel inadequate cuz I work so hard, or something. I dunno. (Sorry for the venting. I had no idea I was this upset over today.)

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Trying to dismiss. Yes. Exactly.