I've Been Considering Shaving My Head Because Of The Pain. It's Still Constant And My Hair Makes It Worse.

I feel like some of my fellow students in med school could stand to read this. And by "some" I mean most and by "students" I actually mean the able-bodied students, which seems like everyone but me, but I could be wrong.

daily reminder to able bodied folks,

disabled people don't owe you their story or their medical diagnoses.

disabled people dont owe you education on their disability.

disabled people don't owe you justification that they are disabled.

hey if you're trans in the us i love you. hey if you're queer in the us i love you. hey if you're a person of color in the us i love you. hey if you're a woman in the us i love you. hey if you're disabled in the us i love you. i love you i love you i love you

Went on a date and they were like "I'm sorry you're disabled". My first thought was to get frustrated or feel patronised, but, that doesn't get us anywhere. So i thought about it and tempered my reaction, and what I came to was this: they're sad, but I'm not!

I understand the impulse to feel bad about my life situation. I get it. It sucks. Like objectively. It bums me out too sometimes.

But im not sorry I'm disabled, I'm happy I'm alive! Im happy with disability, not in spite of it. It's a part of my life. I can no more be miserable about my disability than I can be about getting a bad haircut. It's a part of me and I can either live with it, or I can suffer. If those are my options i choose live with it. Its really that simple and drastic.

Disability means pain, yes, but pain does not mean suffering. I am in pain every day of my life, but I do not suffer. How does that work? I live my life. I live! Isn't that wonderful? I am alive and I have a good, privileged life! I have friends. I have community. I have family. I have passions. So long as i can find the good, I am not focused on my pain, and if i am not focused on my pain it cannot consume me, and if it cannot consume me then I cannot suffer.

My disability is just another thing that is part of me. I don't look at what I can't do. I look at what I want to do, and I find a way to get there.

My life looks different from an able bodied person's life. It just does, and it always will. It's going to be different. I can either embrace it, or I can be miserable. I can either live with it or i can suffer.

I choose to embrace it. I choose to live with it.

It wasn't easy to do so, don't get me wrong. I was miserable for such a long time. I wanted to die; I wanted to die so badly. I thought there was no worth in my life and that I'd never be worth anything. But that's not true.

My life is beautiful. It's not exactly what i wanted for myself, and yeah, if i could wave a magic wand and be in a perfect body... I wouldnt even hesitate to take that option. But that's not gonna happen. So i look at what I have, and I'm so grateful to have it in the first place.

I could be so much worse off. Im fortunate. Im lucky. Im an immigrant success story. I live in a better land. Im happy here. Im well integrated. This place is my home. My country looks after me. I dont want for food. I dont want for shelter. Thats amazing. So if I can look at the little things that im grateful for and build from there...

I dont have all the abilities i want. I will never have everything I want, no matter how simple it may seem. So instead, I will be grateful for what I do have.

Im not sorry i'm im a wheelchair! Im happy! How many people in the world dont have a wheelchair who need one? Im fortunate to have one. My wheelchair is freedom. My world opened up when i got my wheelchair the same way it did when i got my licence.

My life may be sad to you, but its not sad to me. And if its not sad to me, then its not sad! You dont have to feel sad for someones disability. I think its natural to want them to be able to do the same things you can, or to achieve the same things you can. I think you should foster that desire into finding ways to help bridge the gap between what someone can do and what they cant. Access is how you bridge that gap.

Feeling sad for someone with disability is a natural empathetic response. I think its wrong to shame people for it, but it is worth it to redirect their thinking. They are sad for me, but its because they can only see limits. But disability isnt about seeing limits, its about finding out how to move past them.

My life might look sad to you, but you dont know what i can do. You dont know how far ive come. You dont know what my life looks like beyond my disability because you've never been shown that. Its not a story thats told. And i dont mind showing you that theres more to my story than what i cant do.

So, i dont mind if someone tells me theyre sorry im in a wheelchair. Im not. Lets get past that impulse of empathy, and have a real conversation. Because you'll see that i'm not sad. I have a rich life and im happy. Once you can see all that joy, the wheelchair becomes secondary. Of course i'm happy, my life is good.

The wheelchair. The disability. Its set dressing. Its the stage my life takes place on. We cant ignore it. Its there. But it is not so big that it robs goodness from my world.

Am I happy about having my disability? No. But I'm not sad about it. Not anymore.

And that is going to be true about any other disabled person you meet. We dont need pity, because our lives dont warrant it. We dont need you to feel bad for us, because there is no need to feel bad. Its just life. Thats how it goes sometimes.

Once a disabled person's hit the acceptance stage, there's really no need to offer them your sympathies anymore. Be happy with them in their life, however that looks.

pick your fighter

ukraine: edgy vampire sets whole stage on fire

spain: 3 month anniversary date singing to all of europe

solvenia: pink hair and her gal pals

lithuania: no please no not a ballad

austria: mmmmm heart eyes #bae

estonia: opera? really? okay rainbow dress, they did get the memo after all!

norway: not fairytale (2009)

portugal: they're gay and in love for sure

uk: british katy perry, got sabotaged, liked her more because of it

serbia: cult leader and sister wives feat. Albert Einstein on the pipe

germany: ballad but forgivable because its totes emosh

albania: adam lambert is that you? tattoos so good, china banned them

france: je suis bored

czech republic: backpack boy, sounds like talk dirty to me?

denmark: this viking ballad got me sailing straight to valhalla

australia: shE DOESNT EVEN GO HERE

finland: third time lucky saara?

bulgaria: washed up boyband???

moldova: no led staging? moldova don't need it

sweden: red lights I think? I skipped out for a toilet break lol

hungary: screaming into the void #mood

israel: the birdie song but new and improved (feat. body positivity)

netherlands: america? what are you doing here?

ireland: beautiful gay love story, don't hate us cause you ain't us China xox

cyprus: absolute banger, looks like Queen Bey

italy: absolute tune, powerful lyrics, anti-terrorist

being productive is not about fancy bullet journals or well-thought out plans or meditating every morning!! while they mean well, posts/videos about ‘maximising’ productivity often make us feel inadequate, or like if we’re not doing our best then we’re not doing enough. don’t complicate things. it’s OKAY to just have one or two tasks on your to-do list, to study in your pyjamas, to only feel up to doing a couple hours of work a day. you don’t have to make green smoothies or have neat handwriting or workout every morning. scribble those notes if you need to. it’s okay to just grab some toast when you don’t feel up to much. it’s okay to not do everything you told yourself you would do, like that run you planned or reading that book. life doesn’t have to be this hard. if you get overwhelmed by this, set yourself a small list of achievable goals for the day. it may seem simple. good. that’s what you need. don’t beat yourself up for not being perfect. you are okay.

you are okay.

normal vs not normal: pain edition

normal: your knees/hips starting to twinge after climbing a big set of stairs

not normal: climbing stairs is hard for you, and you start to feel pain after a couple steps

normal: you wake up feeling pain after doing a lot of exercise the day before

not normal: you wake up feeling pain regardless of your activities the day before

normal: you are usually a zero on the pain scale

not normal: you cannot imagine what a pain scale zero would feel like

normal: when you experience pain, there is a direct reason for it, and it is able to be fixed with over-the-counter drugs (such as paracetamol)

not normal: you can’t figure out why you’re in pain, and taking over-the-counter painkillers doesn’t always work to fix it

normal: you do not spend most of your time in pain

not normal: you’ve spent most of your time in pain for over three months

if you experience pain regularly and for seemingly no reason, go to the doctor! you are not supposed to be in pain, and you deserve to find out what’s going on with your body!

Yeah, so where's my credit?🥺

Being chronically ill or having chronic pain is exhausting, but it's also normal for you after a while, so it's not really a bummer most of the time. It's just "oh yeah lol my hands usually feel like someone attacked them with small hammers" but you know, it's whatever.

That is, until one time you get up on the wrong side of the bed, or you're a bit hormonal, or too many other things go wrong, or you're just Sick Of It for a minute, and you completely break down and you can't stand the continuous discomfort, the tiredness, the pain, the having to remember medication, always keeping your guard up, dealing with risks day to day, watching your self care habits, not being able to work (and oftentimes having to anyway) etc etc. But then you're fine again and you go back to the small hammers and it's normal again.

It's tough living with that and never getting any credit for it, tbh

Okey, the Russian performance has the exact level of batshit insane I’m here for. 12 points