Deidream #59: DISS-ABLE(IST)

An author’s note

Here is DISS-ABLEIST. Dedicated with love to everyone who has told me to try harder, do better, pray, and self-improve my way out of chronic illness and neurodiversity. Dedicated with hate to anyone who has ever been pushy, shady, weird, fetishizing, or dismissive about disabled people and the things we do to care for ourselves.

May this middle finger find you. <3

A sister to Every Heavenly Body on Mute, Exhale. Nap. Repeat, and Mask Off. 123

I’m finna get this shit off my chest and lay it to rest.

Words of wisdom from those who came before.

Ancestor Fannie Lou Hamer was disabled. A childhood illness (polio) left her forever changed, and in 1963, she experienced a beating so severe in prison that it left her further disabled.

She really got active. I’m so grateful to be learning more about her these days and just think she’s so badass. Shoutout to disabled Black women, man. I get chills thinking about the complexities of the lives led by our disabled ancestors like Miss Hamer and Harriet Tubman. We’re pushing what they left us forward.

Something mad I said to my friends recently.

“I used to climb on tables in the club, but now I be in the crib singing the indoors song from SpongeBob and doing self-assigned homework……for fun. For fun, mind you!!!! The other day, I was shopping for whiteboards on wheels for three hours to start writing the equations I’m learning by hand again….OH MY GOD! WAIT, I HAVE TO WRITE THIS DOWN FOR MY DOCTOR. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN DIAGNOSED FOR LESS.”

- (REDACTED), making their other neurodiverse friends hoot ‘n holler

Hateration in the dancery as a healing practice.

1. Ableism. If you don’t know, now you know.

2. People who use the r word. Yuck. How does it feel to suck that bad? Cannot relate.

3. Companies that make it hard for disabled people to secure accommodations.

4. The American Healthcare system.

5. Ramps made by the MTA. Guys. Seriously. Do better.

Something I read that shaped me.

I love a juicy little book/quick read. At a whopping 122 pages, this pocket-sized book has renewed my perspective on disability justice, and I’ve learned so much. I really resonated with this particular theme present in the work:

“Jodie Hare, diagnosed with autism at twenty-three, argues it is time to redefine the politics of who we are. She calls for the recognition of diversity as part of natural variation, rather than a departure from sameness.” — Lauren Elkin, author of ART MONSTERS

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

Life is busy, and there’s always some task to be done. How tiresome.

I am a firm believer that, regardless of whether or not you’re disabled, we should all get to offload at least one chore to a professional service and pay them well.

One of the very first things I ever did for myself as an adult was to find a very lovely, family-owned laundromat to pick up, wash and fold, and drop off my laundry. Upon my return to my hometown, I realized laundromat life was not for me. Too noisy, too hot, too crowded. (Sensory sensitivities) It also takes too much time, and I don’t want to walk back and forth.

Plus, my experiences in university laundry rooms left me gagging.

Literally. I would find long blonde or brunette strands in my clothes or smell the hint of someone else’s personal detergent of choice and RETCH. I’d peel my clothes off in disgust. I remember calling my mother in tears about it. Other people’s……..sheddings and bodies lingering in my clothes…..blercgh.

(Sensory sensitivities)

My family laundry folks are meticulous about the cleanliness of their machines and use standard, unscented soaps, and for that, I am grateful.

I looked for a laundromat for weeks.

(liking to plan things carefully before doing them)

It was my first time ever doing something like that, and I’ll never forget how relieved I felt to be able to slide that single task off my plate. The first time I got to put all my folded clothes into their (color-coded) place in my closet, I sobbed for twenty minutes. I was so tired alllllll the time, drowning in chronic illness, professional burnout from a chain of exploitative gigs, and even if it cost me a bit of coin I didn’t quite have, a constant rotation of clean clothes was my “splurge.” One afternoon in 2021, I was having my usual happy exchange with the man I have saved in my phone as "Laundry Uncle” and handing him my bags of clothes. When I was relapsing or having a flare-up and too physically weak to hold things or climb my stairs, he would carry those heavy bags up and down each time.

(avoidance, fear or restriction of certain foods)

Now, he climbs the stairs when I’m too sore from weight training or gardening. I’m only alive to have made this shift because this was the very first thing I did to release the pressure valve of an entire lifetime of unmet needs as a neurodivergent child. He doesn’t know what it means to me, but one day, I’ll be brave enough to tell him.

So needless to say, even back in 2021 - I DON’T PLAY BOUT HIM OR ‘BOUT MY LAUNDRY AS A DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION.

Why am I telling you this?

I was recently lifting my bags down the steps to him one afternoon and was pretty proud of how far I’ve come in my recovery. And I also remembered a time two Black women failed a version of me who had yet to understand that I was disabled.

A housemate who could not stand me — but who I suspect was dedicated to pretending we got along because we were Black women and she was projecting that ‘you’re like my little sister’ thing on me — sat in the house I paid most of the bills for and “jokingly” called me bougie for getting my laundry done. Another Black woman (a person I cared for) joked with her, and when I was visibly hurt and confused, I got a “just kiddingggg.” I tried to explain why it meant so much to me, and they talked over me and laughed harder. I fumbled over my racing thoughts.

“Wait, no. I’m not bougie. I—”

(finding it hard to say how you feel)

(emotional hypersensitivity)(aggression)(sensory overload)

Imagine.

Brokie #1 calling another Not-as-but-Still-Brokie #2 whose house she’s living in (who is paying the bills by the skin of her teeth so Brokie #1 can be a brokie in brokie peace) bougie, while the other person laughs at me (her friend?). When I said that made me uncomfortable, they implied I was being defensive. Afterward, I literally adjusted the days of my laundry pickups just so I’d never have to hear them comment again.

(challenges in social communication and interaction)

I never forgot. Eventually, when that became a single bullet point on a long list of ways that living situation had me fucked up, I ended up removing myself from the dynamic entirely. But it took me years to figure out why that shit actually…

[BOOOO. You should’ve knocked her in her shit so hard the only Grand Rising would’ve been the knot on her big ass fo’head.]

….hurt my feelings.

That was the very first time in my life I made a choice like that for myself, and I couldn’t even have it in peace. It had taken me YEARS to accept even the possibility that I am disabled, and that was the FIRST thing I “asked for help” with. I was in the throes of years-long burnout brought on by professional abuse (my friend knew that), recovering from a massive physical illness (they both knew that), and the ONE THING I did for myself, you made it weird. And when I tried to explain that what you were doing wasn’t funny so you’d stop? You laughed in my face. I was SICK and in a body at war with my mind, so excuuuuuuse my ✨bougie✨ ass for paying a family in Queens for the services they literally sell.

It’s taken time, space, and distance to realize how many people’s casual ableism puts me in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn without me being consciously aware of it. I’d spent more than a decade of my life clenched up, punished for being myself, not even CONSIDERING I was neurodivergent for real — not just traumatized — and unconsciously self-soothing. All to prevent meltdowns.

I was tired. I still am.

I spent my entire life having my boundaries steamrolled over in dozens of personal relationships because the high-masking version of me thought that was the only acceptable way to exist within community. I went to places that caused me pain and distress. I sat through the jokes in the movies or on TV. I’ve seen your mischaracterizations and stereotypes of autism and ADHD online and in the media. I’ve raised myself and two other AuDHD children when our (also undiagnosed imho) parents lacked the resources and emotional maturity necessary to understand us.

(Eldest daughters who’ve made their capes into a picnic blanket, feed your spirit today.)

I’ve had my requests for help, and my vulnerability flipped back on me as a character flaw. I’ve had accommodations and systems I’ve tried to create for myself destroyed by people’s lack of care and planning. I’ve seen the way you treat other neurodivergent Black women. I’ve been the one to absorb other (male, white, thin, queer etc…) neurodivergent people’s harm. I don’t find it “hard” to be neurodivergent as much as I find it hard to find places and spaces and communities that would at least recognize the ways in which they make it hard to be a neurodivergent person. If I grew up in a home where I was punished (inadvertently or not) for being neurodivergent and rewarded for masking, where could I finally relax? If, as an adult, I couldn’t even be in my own grown-ass, Black ass home where I pay bills without someone (inadvertently or not) being ableist to me………

WHERE IS SAFE?

When I’m unwell, I be feelin like God’s shakiest chihuahua in Her tiniest purse, the tiny purse, AND God Herself tryna raise the aforementioned shaky chihuahua. The world is already mad loud and smelly, and on top of that, people be putting me in Situations where I have to WORK to stay in my body. All while enduring somatic comorbidities.

(generalized joint hypermobility) (light and sound hypersensitivity)(aversion to touch)

SO YOU DAMN RIGHT I AM UNCOMFORTABLE IN SOCIAL SITUATIONS. Y’ALL BE MAKIN’ THEM UNCOMFORTABLE! OUTSIDE BE UNCOMFORTABLE AS HELL!! IT CONFUSES ME, AND THAT MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE!! I’M SUPPOSED TO PRETEND IT’S NOT UNCOMFORTABLE?? AND PEOPLE CAN BE SO MEAN!! I CAN’T TAKE PRETENDING LIKE I DON’T NOTICE IT ANYMORE!!

People hide knives in their words and actions, and then go HA! YOU PEOPLE CAN’T READ SOCIAL CUES.

I’d argue that I actually see TOO many layers in the things people do and say. That’s why I get all squirmy when I can clock there’s a second or third meaning I’m not privy to. Because if you say something but I hear something else in the context and tone of what you said, I’m immediately like, “……………..now hollon.” I’ve seen the sidelong glances people exchange when I and others speak. I’ve noticed when you stop listening. I’ve noticed the number of times “it’s just a joke!” has become a camouflage for abusive interpersonal relationships in “communities” and “safe spaces.” I’ve counted the number of times I’ve tried to make sense of it all, tried to help my traumatized body unclench in relationships, and have been met with a lack of understanding. If your response to me trying to give you a glimpse into why something is not landing kindly in my body, emotions, or mind is to tell me I’m “too sensitive”, “overthinking”, “defensive”, or “emotional?”

Thank you soooooo much. Please see the reception desk on your way out to sign the guest book. Exit is to your left. Please take a goodie bag as you leave.

And nah. I don’t believe people when they do that “just kiddingggg” shit no more. Not everything is a joke, and I genuinely think culture would benefit from a reminder that what you are okay joking about, other people are not. Mi tiyad.4

That old housemate wasn’t actually kidding — she knew it was kinda embarrassing (for her) that she even had something to say about my laundry and wanted to throw a shady little stone and hide her hand. We’d already had pretty significant clashes by then. She’d BEEN aggravated at me, felt comfortable ‘joking’ with my friend (damn), and doubled down even after I expressed that I disliked it.

(IF I WAS STILL DOIN BROKE SHIT WIT YA BROKE ASS THEN YOUR BROKE ASS WOULDN’T WANT BEEF.)

I was too tired to react to ableism in real time before, but now?

Even at my most triggered, I’m a Big Dog, bitch; can’t Lil Sis me. My healing, shadow work, community building style, and anti-ableism means I might still rage-cry when I do it, but now I’ll hit you with a ten-slide PowerPoint presentation of where you had me fucked up at. WITH peer-reviewed sources. I will color-code it. You not finna catch me off guard being ableist around me or to me and think I’m stupid or less logical because I got emotional during the “argument.” I’ll send you discussion notes afterward, too!

Gone are the days when a woman who was living off my check by knowingly avoiding paying her half of the bills, and someone who would laugh with her (knowing what she was doing to me!) would make me slink into my bedroom to cry in frustration at being misunderstood.

Can’t be “teehee I’m a mermaid” autistic all the time.

My shit also comes with a (REDACTED).

Ableist?

Consider this a diss track in the making.

Onward.

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

God forbid a neurodivergent, traumatized Black girl not be cute enough for you people. God forbid she not be small enough. God forbid she go through things in public. God forbid she opens up about it.

God save her if she’s not entertaining enough while doing it.

If I said that how (nasty) people speak to and about Meg is not just misogynoir, colorism, etc… but also ableism, would y’all be mad? Just kidding, don’t care — it is.

I started writing this entry before that Easter Island-looking mfer cheated on her, but the conversations about her since have only proved my point.

Walk with me.

Alongside my other fave Demi Lovato, Megan is a staple of my Healing on the Mic playlist. Her (DEEPLY UNDERRATED IMHO) album Traumazine is MY FAVORITEEEE. I consider it a perfect pregame for Megan and Megan II. What I deeply enjoy about Megan is not only is she a gifted writer, but she really puts it all on wax. Starting with Traumazine onward, you can tell she was really invested not only in challenging herself as an artist but also in being honest about what she’s going through. She lost her parents and her grandmother. She lost friends, and was violently attacked by a man she trusted. She admitted to being sensitive and anxious and suicidal. She told us her pain plainly. And we made a circus of all of it.

ALL WHILE ALSO DISCOUNTING HER RAW TALENT.

WHEW, GIRL. To be victimized in public over and over again, have your pain misunderstood constantly? To know that your current systems of coping aren’t the way, and admitting to this vulnerability with this level of skill and storytelling as an artist?

AND HAVE PEOPLE STILL PLAY?!? Y’all won’t let her be ill or traumatized or vulnerable or heal or be great in peace. Ableist.

A lot of the music from 2021 onward came with her righteous anger and grief, and I LIVEEEEEEE. I remember posting Not Nice on my Instagram story as one of my earliest realizations that no amount of masking to appear nice or good would stop the world from being violent to me or keep people from playing with my life or misunderstanding me. Like, is it a diss track or is a Black woman just tired of you playing with her? She owed many, many people a cuss-out and the songs that have come out since?

PERFECTION.

Anyway, stream my girl and stop playing in Black women's face. Ah. 👅

A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

I got to spend my birthday with one of my favorite people doing one of my favorite activities: MEETING A NEW BODY OF WATER + PLAYING IN AN AQUARIUM.

So grateful to have greeted Mishigami <3

Enjoy a couple of photos from that trip. These are such a huge addition to my ever-growing portfolio, and I’m falling in love with photographing wildlife more every single day. I’m so happy I chose to go all in on this. <3

Just a final thought.

If we (as in our entire species) were all built the same re: our brains, abilities, and cognition, we would not be who we are. I think it’s freaking awesome how many ways there are to be human.

I’m personally manifesting the end of ten-part carousels on how to be aware of autism or accept disabled people on Instagram. Literally just….listen when we speak, duh. And if you’re not gonna support the neurodiverse and otherwise disabled people around you, at least stop being annoying about it! We don’t have time!

It was a hundred degrees a month ago, and it killed a lot of people; disabled people including our elders die in wildfires and floods; the genocide in Gaza is a mass disabling event; they left us to die during COVID, another mass disabling event — we don’t have time to explain to people over and over that if they aren’t locked in on disability justice in conversation with everything else, we’re not gonna get anywhere fast.

As always, blowing a kiss to other neurodiveregent/neurodiverse people reading this. Disabled baddies — keep making that art, keep resting, keep resisting. You’re perfect.