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Howdy!

For today, I am basically writing a letter to the disability community. This post is going to a very strong, opinionated piece. I have been keeping a lot of these thoughts locked up for a long time and I think it’s time to unleash them on here. So you’ve been warned!

I feel like the disability and feminist communities are fairly similar with the way people within it can be quick to judge you if you don’t agree with a certain subject. Everybody thinks we all should have the same feelings about the main topic that both groups discuss, like equality and you role as a human being. I’ve been thinking about the role and where I stand on the various topics that both groups fight for on a daily basis, but I’m mainly targeting disabled people.

I think I’m an army of one. I’ve always thought that, because I was kind of taught that over the years. The only back-up I have is my family and maybe some close family friends, but hardly any of them share the same feelings as me, especially about disability in general, because they’re not in my shoes, or maybe in this case we’ll say “wheels?” It’s not their fault by any means, and I’ve kind of learned to live with it. I’ve become more of a silent advocate for the community. I don’t join a lot of the discussions of bigger topics, like politics. When I was in high school, we were taught how to register to vote and if you already 18, you were allowed to go ahead and do it in class. When I was asked to do it, I said no. There was a lot of backlash for it, one person even told me that I wasn’t allowed to complain if a person you’re rooting for doesn’t win because I didn’t vote. Fast forward to 2016, after seeing the chaos, I don’t think my vote would have mattered because Trump had bewitched the public into letting him into the White House anyways.

The second reason why was because I was afraid of basically breaking rank in my household. My parents are strong Republicans and being somebody, who supports the opposite committee or person, is literally the worse thing you could possibly do. So, I try my best to stay far away from politics at home and even online within my own community. Despite the fact that the majority of the disabled people out there, hate our President as much as I do, there are some very extreme people who will do anything to “stand up” for their rights.

At the start of 2017 I think, I saw a video of a news channel filming people with various disabilities, some of them removing themselves out of their wheelchairs, lying on the ground, and being carried away by security and police officers to jail. I’ve never been in a position to feel like that was my only option, but I was conflicted at the thought of seeing how far people in different circumstances doing anything and everything to plead to people, even making a spectacle of themselves. However, whenever a bill that contains something about disabled people, I am concerned but all I feel like I can do physically is pray.

The next topic I’d like to discuss is about the death of Stephan Hawking. There was a cartoon drawing of Stephan ascending to Heaven, free of his wheelchair, computer, and tubes, and he’s shown walking up the golden stairs to the sky. I thought it was a beautiful drawing, but a lot of wheelchair users were really angry about it. Immediately, there were arguments being made about being in a wheelchair is a form of being “free” and that the drawing just added to the myth that once we die, we’re free of all of our flaws: disabilities included.

Again, this was another thing that I chose to stay out of, because I did not agree with the disabled community on two things. Throughout my childhood, I was told by various family members that when we die, our bodies will be transformed if you will. As I got older, I began to believe this more and have always looked forward to that possibility. And the other was, I don’t believe my wheelchair gives me my freedom. Am I mobile? Yes, but I am not free to move around for a long distance by myself. I feel like I have the most freedom when I’m on the floor. Why? Because there’s more space to spread things out, I don’t need everything right beside me at all times. There are issues with reaching for things that are higher than me, but I always find my way around it.

I know I’m going to be attacked in some form by the words I’ve said in this post, but I still stand by what I believe and that is, we’re not all supposed to have the same feelings and nobody is going to make me convert to their way of thinking, trust me, people have tried their hardest to do this for years! I’ve heard many different sides of these two subjects online, mostly on Twitter and so far, nobody’s said anything to divert me in another direction, the only thing I’ve learned to do is hold my tongue and I’m perfectly fine with doing that for the rest of my life.

How do you stay out of the drama with your family, friends and/or online? Are there topics you do not discuss at all?

It’s been a while since I’ve done a prompt for Free Write Friday, so when I saw this one. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do with it. It’s going to be a little different from from what you’re thinking, but if some of you know pretty well. Doing it like this, shouldn’t be that BIG of a surprise to you. I hope you try to enjoy it in someway.

Dear Myself,

You might not remember how you lost your memory or remember the people around you, but the more people who come around you, you start to feel the love you had before your memory was taken away from you. Your family and friends will give you the love and support you will need for the time being. However, there’s one thing that I should probably tell you as not many people know or even want to bring up to you. You have your fair share of hidden demons. For years, the thoughts inside your mind have grown so big that sometimes you wished you could go to sleep sometimes and never wake up. You are entitled on having your bad days and as people will get aggravated with you, it will be worse for you. As you won’t know what will make you feel better. I hate to say it, nothing used to make you feel better. You would get into something but it wouldn’t be enough for you to be happy.

You have become very guarded. Everybody that comes into contact with you at this time has probably at one time has left you for a long period of time. Nobody is truly your friend unless your parents can tell you otherwise. Majority of your friends from high school haven’t really talked to you or hung out with you in about a year or so. The ones on your social media accounts actually do care, even though dad may not agree with that at times. You started blogging in high school and liked it so much that you kept up with it after all these years. Speaking of high school, you never had a boyfriend. You had two boyfriends in middle school and I’m pretty sure mom will tell you about them like its nothing. You did like quite a few guys in high school though. Just one little thing though, none of them liked you back as much as you liked them. It wasn’t you fault, it was their loss. You were obsessed with baby names. You had your second son’s name picked out since you were a freshman. You love to make a list of names to your friends who are pregnant. You like to read, and hopefully you’ll keep want to read the same books I fell in love with too!

You are a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to your drawings. The only colored drawing is made of pastels and it took you two weeks and you actually hate it the most. Your ink wash drawing the “shadow area” on the chin and cheek and on the left side make it look like it has tumors growing on it. You are most proud of the drawing with the barbed wire on it, plus the “Legacy” drawing. Which is the one with the purple eyes. It was supposed to be the last drawing you were supposed to do. You basically retired from drawing for two years. On March 11th 2011, you completed your first drawing and while you were working on it, you got very discouraged about not making it as good as you knew you could. Your “Nikki Sixx” drawing is your favorite out of all of them though. You looks exactly like the original picture. Which is what you were trying to do. You never usually draw women because the one time you did, it looked like a two-year old did it. You only draw musicians, because they are always there when you need them. You are obsessed with anything from the genre symphonic metal. They are the reason why you have so much metal music in your iPod. It is also the reason why you always worked on your range, you never thought you were good at singing in choir, but this has changed your point of view.

You pray to God every night before it turns midnight. If you miss it, then you think that day never counted. Sometimes you wait until that night to pray and hope God forgives you for not praying for the night before. You don’t go to church, because of certain reasons. You think other people from around the world and their religions are interesting. You like different cultures and are obsessed with the History Channel. Another thing you’re obsessed with is the cooking shows. Especially in the mornings, you actually don’t get hungry when you watch them. I don’t know how to really explain that either so don’t go to mom for that answer. You have two shot glasses up on in your room. One’s purple and the other is pink. You got them when you went to the aquarium in Ohio for Girl Scouts. You were actually really sick when you went and it rained like crazy and had to drive your wheelchair up to the place. You were just thanking God that all that water didn’t kill your battery. You have titanium rods in your back and you’re missing a rib, but I’m pretty sure you already knew that. Because there’s a reason why you hate when anybody rubs the top of your back. Ice cream gives you mini back spasms. You can drink one Code Red Mountain Dew every six months.

I think that’s all of the little stuff that really means anything to you, me, whatever. My life has now become your life, whether you choose to take over and change everything that made me, me, you are allowed to create yourself. Everybody will just have to get over it. As long as you accept yourself and accept the things you cannot change, you’ll be okay. You’ll make your own demons, enemies, loves. and interests. Hopefully you’ll have some part of me always in you. Hell, you’re living inside my body. You get that. Oh, by the way, only you are allowed to make fun of yourself and you have a pretty wicked sense of humor. Plus, ramps will become your best friend.

Sincerely,
Meg(z)han