Having a traumatic childhood means you cannot talk even objectively about your basic foundational experiences without it being "venting", even if you're not actually venting. You just straight up have a huge chunk of your life you can't talk about, full stop, without it being trauma dumping.

And it not being socially acceptable to talk about your own childhood is super alienating. Sometimes people want to know why, and any answer you can give them is going to be off putting.

It's to the point I get irritated when something I said is framed as venting when I'm literally just talking about my life experiences, doing my best to keep emotion out of it.

when I was in high school, I overheard two older students talking about a friend of theirs.

One of them said something like, "it doesn't bother me that [Friend] was in residential mental health treatment, I just wish they wouldn't talk about it ALL the time".

The other replied, "Well, that was all of last year for them. So when they say 'when I was in treatment,' it's like when you say 'last year'."

I try to remember that any time someone says something that sounds Shocking to me. sometimes one person's scary special crisis is another person's last year.

If you want to be accepting of mental illness, you need to accept the fact that some people's everyday lives are going to be terrifying to you. That doesn't mean they don't get to talk about it. Stop forcing hurt, isolated people to become even MORE hurt and isolated because you can't fathom toughening up a bit.

For disability pride, think I want to focus on this one thing that been bothering me

Been very frustrated lately by lack of phone call accessibility as someone who lacks speech but needs a lot of resources to stay healthy.

With rise of AI, it's only getting worse and worse.

More places changing their systems to incorporate AI answering machines.

Thing is...

Whenever I hear most people ranting about this change, it's usually about how annoying it is from an abled-person perspective or environmental or ethical impact.

Which are important valid reasons to be upset. I share those sentiments too.

But feel like disability is once again forgotten about within important discussion about change.

AI creates terrible language accessibility issues.

In fact, that's why it so annoying to deal with it.

In the past, if a place didn't have a call center or desk person to answer calls, they use extentions.

That meant you had to press a few numbers to get the right person.

Now with AI, you're expected to have a full conversation with a robot.

Tell them why you're calling, who you need to speak to, verify your info so the humans don't have to later, etc.

These bots can be bad at understanding what able-people are saying, so imagine how they handle these disabled callers:

(i don't know if there is a different preferred term for this. Im sorry if I sound offensive. Please Lmk)

Ability to understand what AI is saying can be harder too:

(AI can't help people who need things explained a certain way. AI unreliable and fails to adapt a lot.)

The problems I often face with AI answering machines (and that I'm sure many other disabled people have faced as well):

These are the machines being put in front of

It's another example of some of the most vulnerable being pushed away from the things we need, and we're also being forgotten in these discussions about things that can affect us a lot

Next time someone is ranting about AI job interviewers, please also remember:

Human beings need to be at the forefront of human resources and issues for disabled people especially. Please remember us. Please fight.

Happy disability pride ♡

This post is so funny literally proving OOP’s point. Most of “transfeminist” Tumblr can’t handle how queer people described themselves in the 90’s either. Ntm that at least 50% of these are clearly transfems describing themselves, which it’s pretty fucking transmisogynistic to police the language they’re using. The only possible issue is the use of the h-word if said person wasn’t intersex but it’s the 90’s. All these people sound cool as fuck and would probably call OP a cop

Also this is "My Gender Workbook" by Kate Bornstein a transfem who literally helped to pave way for transfeminism (in fact this book is arguably the first ever transfeminist workbook) and these are the replies that she chose to include in her book about gender diversity.

It's very clear that for many people, the mere act of supporting a transgender man or transmasc person is enough to throw trans women and transfem people under the bus, even including transfem people who have spent decades developing transfeminism and gender activism.

I am now on my fifth day without food… surviving only on water Not because I’m fasting by choice . I do this to save whatever little food I can for my family.

The food we have left wouldn’t last a day if we all ate. So I stay hungry. I drink water to quiet the pain, to stay standing, to keep going. Every bite I don’t eat means one more bite for my kids.

My body is getting weaker, but a parent’s love is stronger than hunger.

The famine is real. The suffering is deep.

Please don’t look away.

@dawoudi and I speak almost every day. Every day I ask him how he's doing and hope he can tell me he's been able to eat something. He tells me not to worry, but I can't help it, because my heart is breaking.

Please help him by donating to his family's fundraiser, so that they can buy food when it arrives on the market. Thank you. ❤️

It is #15 on the gazavetters list, and was also shared by @nabulsi here and here.

My father was at the market, as he always is, searching for anything that might ease our hunger. Under the relentless sun and on his seventh day without food, surviving only on water he collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

Thank God, he’s home now, beside me. But he’s terribly weak, as if his body can no longer carry the weight of life. I begged him to eat. I pleaded, just so he could stay with us a little longer. He hasn’t had chicken, or meat, or even fruit. God knows we don’t have those.

He finally took a few bites of dry bread. But watching him struggle to swallow, my throat tightened. The lump wasn’t just in his throat it was in my heart. Scraps of stale bread… which I begged him to eat, just so his heartbeat wouldn’t leave this home.

And in that moment, I understood.

I understood why he wasn’t eating.

Because sometimes, hunger "cruel as it is" is easier to bear than eating when your dignity is shattered. When you’re trapped, abandoned, and the world is watching in silence.

We at the @gazavetters team extend our heartfelt wishes for a swift recovery and complete safety to our brother AboAhmed @dawoudi and his honorable family.

We are all going through extremely difficult circumstances, and we pray that this hardship will soon pass, and that peace and security will prevail for everyone.

This is a historic event in every painful sense of the word a brutal war, massive destruction, and a famine devouring lives. Every moment of delay could mean the loss of another life.

What more can be said?

Stop the genocide. Lift the siege. Feed the hungry. Shelter the unhoused. Heal the hurt and ill.

End the occupation.

Free Palestine.

I’m deeply thankful to be back home, surrounded by my children. Though my body is tired and frail, my heart still beats with strength, and my will remains unshaken.

These past days have been harsh, but it is dignity and patience that have truly kept me going. Hardship has not broken me and by God’s grace, it never will.

As long as there is breath in me "in all of us" we will stand tall, endure with courage, and keep praying for relief, not only for ourselves but for all who suffer.

You scared me. I'm glad you're ok. I know you're strong and you will keep going, but I still worry.

This cannot go on. This needs to end, so the people in Gaza can have peace, food, water, housing, and their health and dignity back.

Pressure your governments, share fundraisers, donate when you can.

Please.

What we’re enduring isn’t just hunger. It’s a daily assault on dignity. A test of patience.

Your words truly touched me, reaching a place in my heart that only sincerity and love can reach.

Vetted! #15 on @/gazavetters vetted gfm list, promoted by @/gazavetters here, promoted by nabulsi (x, x, x, x).

In what world is it normal for a person to have to go for 7 days without food? Please, please, please support them in this incredibly difficult time!

You can get a postcard after you donate!

A year ago, during the famine, my father was forced to survive for seven full days on nothing but water because there was simply no food.

It was one of the hardest periods our family has ever endured, and the memories of those days still haunt us.

We pray that those days never return, and that no one is ever forced to experience the pain of hunger and famine.

every year small towns and indigenous communities across canada are burnt to nothing by horrific wildfires and americans go on the internet to complain about it and blame us bc the smoke has spread to their state. i’m so tired.

go yell at mark carney or your own local politicians about climate change and urge them to do more to stop it. the namaygoosisagagun first nation had their community destroyed today. you can find a link to donate to them here. donate to your local food bank. go to the beach next week when the smoke clears and you don’t have to think about it anymore while the people who’s lives have been destroyed will have to pick up the pieces and try to move forward when we are already in a huge cost of living crisis across the country.

Hypothetical scenario: you're in public and you see someone using a walking cane (a cane for physical support/stability, not a white cane that blind people use). They're approaching a door that has an accessible push button to open it, and instead of pressing the button with their hand, they press it with the end of their cane.

What are your thoughts on using the bottom/end of a walking cane to press one of these buttons?

If you use a mobility aid but not a cane specifically, and this specific action would not be possible with your given mobility aid, choose the fitting non-cane answer.

Anon uses a cane and does this sometimes and no one ever says anything, but they worry that maybe it bothers people and they just don't say anything. Anon had never thought about it until recently when they saw someone hit the button with their shoe and anon got grossed out. They wonder if others view it the same way as using a shoe.

–

We ask your questions anonymously so you don’t have to! Submissions are open on the 1st and 15th of the month.

Cane and wheelchair user. DON'T DO THIS.

It's like using your shoe to open the door, who knows what germs you picked up while walking around. These buttons are typically higher up for wheelchair users and we need to use our hands to reach. These buttons also tend to break pretty easily from too much pressure or someone pushing against the door while the button has been pressed.

Also, when you use your cane to point or press buttons you aren't being properly supported and you will fall eventually.

Anon, it's okay you didn't know. But going forward please use your elbow ❤️

The hidden reality of intersex menstruators

This is what I think about every single time I see people talking about period poverty, or helping women in places like Palestine access menstrual products.

It's obviously extremely important. But how often do those resources actually teach intersex and trans people who menstruate and aren't living as women? We likely can't even say because no one ever thinks about it.

As with so many issues caused by misogyny, all feminists can agree it's an extremely important issue UNTIL trans and intersex people point out their exclusion. And then suddenly people being unable to work or go to school because they are bleeding all over themselves isn't actually an issue, even though if you are living as a man it is then even MORE of an issue because it's not a problem you are "meant" to have.

Transmasc, nonbinary, and intersex inclusion in feminism, reproductive and menstrual activism, must not optional.

notes for my impostor syndrome:

• no, it's not painful to walk for abled-bodied people

• no, healthy people don't usually use every chance they get to lean against walls or sit down

• no, ableds don't dream about shower stool

• no, ableds don't celebrate days when they're not in pain. because usually they're not in pain

• no, ableds don't want to stop walking mid-way, lay down on the ground, curl up and cry and whine from pain

• no, ableds aren't exhausted by their own bodies 24/7

Hey man thanks for this I really needed it

found this today

Please use these terms correctly. Not doing so will deeply harm the people who actually have experienced trauma, gaslighting, triggers, and people who have NPD.

This needs to be shared wide and far. I’m so sick of people misusing these terms. Especially to draw and false sympathy to themselves.

actually I love using my disability as a crutch and an excuse and I think all disabled people should be allowed to do it as much as we want

band on the run

she got stage fright

"you guys are brainwashed idiots if being on rednote is what woke you up to chinese people being actual humans" might be swinging at a hornet's nest here but firstly, better late than never, secondly, we are aware that chinese people are learning the same about americans too, yes? there are fully grown adults on rednote who thought homeless americans were homeless on purpose because they're lazy and didn't learn the truth of it until americans told them otherwise. it does go both ways here. don't wish for change and then turn around shitting on the people who are changing

I've been disabled for almost 29 years. Here's what I've learned.

Feel free to add on what you've learned about disability!