I am seeing a lot of tweets about oleander extract. People just saying 'don't take it.'

I've said that before. It never gets through. Let's think about the WHY

Thread

Everyone comes into the world with an approximation of their own risk for disease - determined by upbringing, culture, socioeconomic status, and your relationship with your body.

This understanding can change as sickness and disability occurs in yourself and those around you. We also each have our own 'stiffness' with regards to our disability identity - how much we understand that this identity can change.

I often talk about this when describing how so many abled people have difficulty understanding the likelihood that they will become disabled.

But it can go the other way too. I'd be kinda shocked if I woke up tomorrow with a new skeleton.

But what's really key here is to realize that the way people handle medical decisions, especially those around risk, is strongly affected by this same flappability.

If you can't imagine yourself disabled, you're not gonna act with the same level of precautions.

So when I hear people talking about homeopathy, oleander extract, or swallowing lightbulbs, I know that I have to evaluate those statements and actions within the context of the speaker's ability status.

If you have never felt what it is like to be on death's doorstep, you can afford to be casual, flippant even, with your health.

Ok I'm going to sleep now and will continue this thread in the morning. Thanks to @RyanMarino for the inspiration.

https://twitter.com/RyanMarino/status/1295168679450222592?s=20

Where were we?

Very often, the discussions around alternative methods of treatment, especially for culturally 'big' topics, revolves around avoidance of risk.

"I don't want to try something drastic."

"I'm not sick enough to need chemo yet."

"My friend told me this is pretty mild."

Let us be very, very clear: the avoidance of so-called "intense" treatment modalities is not necessarily an innocent patient choice.

Too often, it is based in fear over the identity of sickness or disability.

IMO, the more we separate treatments into mild and intense categories, the more we stigmatize disability and medicine itself.

And I'm not even going to get into the stigma and interpersonal harm that is caused by these arguments. The people who have DIED because their friends and neighbors convinced them not to get chemo, against their wishes.

And let me be very, very explicit here. I am not, nor would I ever, begrudge someone's personal choice for themselves about their treatment plan.

I will tweet-to-the-death, however, about people externally manipulating patients to hold up their own abled identities.

For an in-depth exploration of this issue, I highly recommend 'Unwinding of the Miracle' by the late, great Julie Yip-Williams.

You may have noticed that in the beginning of this thread, I focused on non-judgmentally trying to understand how people's identities lead them to seek out these modalities.

And in the second half, I gave my opinion.

Why?

In general, with discussions like this, I begrudge society but not the person.

I blame schools and the government that doesn't prioritize science education for the lack of health literacy, not the people who were brought up in that system.

What's the exception?

The few dozen trolls I've met on this bird app who refuse to engage in conversation and self-reflection.

*pauses*

If you try to push your own mistrust of medicine on others in order to feel safe or superior, you can never earn my respect back.

"Countless lives are entirely dependent on contemporary medicine and other recent innovations." - @ARPWEL https://proteanmag.com/2018/12/30/ableist-logic-of-primitivism/

Oh look at that so relevant https://twitter.com/slooterman/status/1295431812098011136?s=20