Self and Blog Introduction
It is extremely typical of me to dive right in to discussion and completely neglect important things like introductions for those who might not know me personally, and answers to basic questions they might have like: "Who are you", "Why should I be reading this?", "Why should I care?" and "Good Lord your grammar is atrocious, when are you going to do something about that?"
So invisible chronic illness has been a major part of my life, and after taking a Disability studies class with Dr. Dirth and having my whole world and self-understanding turned upside down in a positive way, I really began to identify as a person with an invisible illness, as a person with a disability. (by the way, any particularly intelligent points on this blog, articulations of the social model and construction of disability are definitely due to him, and as far as intelligent thoughts or points on this blog in terms of Cultural psychology as a whole, are down to him as well as Dr. Adams from whom I took Cultural Psychology, any mistakes, embarrassing errors, flat ignorance or strange-sounding ideas are definitely mine and not theirs!)
At this point, though I am politely choosing to share in general terms more directly with people in person that I am getting to know, that I am a person with an invisible illness and disability to reduce stigma and gently work on increasing comfort with the topic, I am choosing to not disclose on this public blog my exact diagnoses for now (although its super weird when people start asking about symptoms...what's that about? Do they really think I want to talk that deeply about internal processes with people I don't know that well? Why do they think that's okay? I mean a cooler question would be, "How has this affected your life?"). It took me from 1999-2006 to get my first undergraduate degree due to illness and barriers to students with chronic illness. In 2012 I attempted graduate school for the first time, and due to worsening health and barriers was dismissed from the program for lack of progress two days before I got a diagnosis and documentation.
After completing a second bachelor's this spring in Psychology, I am now attending graduate school again in Social Work at 40 years old. For so long, I blamed myself, my health, and my inability to just "power through" what everybody else was able to do (or so it seemed) and it was not until I took that class from Dr. Dirth and really saw how much these academic and work structures, expectations, and biases,contributed to my difficulties. In other words the "built worlds" around me had contributed to my problems and that I did not deserve to feel blame or shame for my illness, for needing to take time and take care of myself, or for having to set limits on my activity. And it wasn't until I achieved enough health and ability through finally acknowledging and living by my body's limits, to be able to engage these built worlds head on, and begin to self-advocate, even before I had the words for them and what I was doing, that I began to achieve traditional "success" in my studies and volunteer work.
Hopefully the answers to why you should be reading this are made easy by my engaging, heartfelt, and thought-provoking writing...erm...well I'll strive for that kind of writing, anyway! (hopefully as I go through my program will also become less jargon-y and more accessible for everyone!).
As for why you should care about what I write? That depends on you and the reasons you are here reading this, but why you should care about disability issues? Because so many people "have them" (hopefully the quotations will become obvious later), probably many people you know "have them" and may not speak about them, they may be "passing" which is an understandable choice. You may "have one" yourself, and not be aware of it (many people with language or processing disorders think they are bad at school, or not smart when the opposite is often very true, for an example)! And because ability and able-bodiedness are temporary and can change with age as well as sudden and unforeseen circumstances.
But even more so, you should care because once you see how so much of disability is not in individual people, diagnoses, or limitations, you can't unsee it and it becomes almost monolithically awe-inspiring in our culture's absolute willful refusal to see this. That (dis)ability rather than being an individual issue of diagnosis, diseases, physical and mental differences and diversity, is actually socially constructed, that the way we build our worlds is highly exclusionary to (dis)abled people in so many ways because they are built towards an imaginary typical ideal person according to what a culture finds important. That even with our relative diagnoses, and different bodies and abilities, that what limits us most happens in barriers both phyical/environmental and cultural that exclude us from participation, or make that participation more difficult and often diminishes, overlooks, or downplays our gifts, talents, voices, and contributions. These ideas, by the way are not mine, and good sources for these are in the works of authors such as Dr. Simi Linton, Dr. Dirth, Dr. Branscombe, Dr. Adams, and so many other writers, professors, and thinkers in the history of (dis)ability studies.
So, to all my readers (I see all, you know, three of you :-)), I realize my grammar is indeed atrocious, and my long and run-on sentences can make legendary run-on sentences by Charles Dickens look positively short. I do have ADHD and sometimes my condition makes it difficult for me to write or think as clearly or concisely as I would like. I am also hoping that the writing I do for my program and the help I am planning on seeking at my University on this issue will help. Feel free to ask questions or ask for clarifications in the comments!
I hope in this blog to describe my experiences with disability, also to highlight and provide links to other disabled bloggers,writers, and thinkers, and think about systems, cultures, built worlds, and activism or things we can do to help change our culture to be more inclusive. But also, hope to convince any readers who fit the typical able-bodied ideal, to care about these issues and want to work towards creating more inclusive built worlds.
So invisible chronic illness has been a major part of my life, and after taking a Disability studies class with Dr. Dirth and having my whole world and self-understanding turned upside down in a positive way, I really began to identify as a person with an invisible illness, as a person with a disability. (by the way, any particularly intelligent points on this blog, articulations of the social model and construction of disability are definitely due to him, and as far as intelligent thoughts or points on this blog in terms of Cultural psychology as a whole, are down to him as well as Dr. Adams from whom I took Cultural Psychology, any mistakes, embarrassing errors, flat ignorance or strange-sounding ideas are definitely mine and not theirs!)
At this point, though I am politely choosing to share in general terms more directly with people in person that I am getting to know, that I am a person with an invisible illness and disability to reduce stigma and gently work on increasing comfort with the topic, I am choosing to not disclose on this public blog my exact diagnoses for now (although its super weird when people start asking about symptoms...what's that about? Do they really think I want to talk that deeply about internal processes with people I don't know that well? Why do they think that's okay? I mean a cooler question would be, "How has this affected your life?"). It took me from 1999-2006 to get my first undergraduate degree due to illness and barriers to students with chronic illness. In 2012 I attempted graduate school for the first time, and due to worsening health and barriers was dismissed from the program for lack of progress two days before I got a diagnosis and documentation.
After completing a second bachelor's this spring in Psychology, I am now attending graduate school again in Social Work at 40 years old. For so long, I blamed myself, my health, and my inability to just "power through" what everybody else was able to do (or so it seemed) and it was not until I took that class from Dr. Dirth and really saw how much these academic and work structures, expectations, and biases,contributed to my difficulties. In other words the "built worlds" around me had contributed to my problems and that I did not deserve to feel blame or shame for my illness, for needing to take time and take care of myself, or for having to set limits on my activity. And it wasn't until I achieved enough health and ability through finally acknowledging and living by my body's limits, to be able to engage these built worlds head on, and begin to self-advocate, even before I had the words for them and what I was doing, that I began to achieve traditional "success" in my studies and volunteer work.
Hopefully the answers to why you should be reading this are made easy by my engaging, heartfelt, and thought-provoking writing...erm...well I'll strive for that kind of writing, anyway! (hopefully as I go through my program will also become less jargon-y and more accessible for everyone!).
As for why you should care about what I write? That depends on you and the reasons you are here reading this, but why you should care about disability issues? Because so many people "have them" (hopefully the quotations will become obvious later), probably many people you know "have them" and may not speak about them, they may be "passing" which is an understandable choice. You may "have one" yourself, and not be aware of it (many people with language or processing disorders think they are bad at school, or not smart when the opposite is often very true, for an example)! And because ability and able-bodiedness are temporary and can change with age as well as sudden and unforeseen circumstances.
But even more so, you should care because once you see how so much of disability is not in individual people, diagnoses, or limitations, you can't unsee it and it becomes almost monolithically awe-inspiring in our culture's absolute willful refusal to see this. That (dis)ability rather than being an individual issue of diagnosis, diseases, physical and mental differences and diversity, is actually socially constructed, that the way we build our worlds is highly exclusionary to (dis)abled people in so many ways because they are built towards an imaginary typical ideal person according to what a culture finds important. That even with our relative diagnoses, and different bodies and abilities, that what limits us most happens in barriers both phyical/environmental and cultural that exclude us from participation, or make that participation more difficult and often diminishes, overlooks, or downplays our gifts, talents, voices, and contributions. These ideas, by the way are not mine, and good sources for these are in the works of authors such as Dr. Simi Linton, Dr. Dirth, Dr. Branscombe, Dr. Adams, and so many other writers, professors, and thinkers in the history of (dis)ability studies.
So, to all my readers (I see all, you know, three of you :-)), I realize my grammar is indeed atrocious, and my long and run-on sentences can make legendary run-on sentences by Charles Dickens look positively short. I do have ADHD and sometimes my condition makes it difficult for me to write or think as clearly or concisely as I would like. I am also hoping that the writing I do for my program and the help I am planning on seeking at my University on this issue will help. Feel free to ask questions or ask for clarifications in the comments!
I hope in this blog to describe my experiences with disability, also to highlight and provide links to other disabled bloggers,writers, and thinkers, and think about systems, cultures, built worlds, and activism or things we can do to help change our culture to be more inclusive. But also, hope to convince any readers who fit the typical able-bodied ideal, to care about these issues and want to work towards creating more inclusive built worlds.
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