1/ On why I'm finally giving up: A thread about a breaking point for disabled folks in self-advocacy:
#AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter #ScienceTwitter #SciTwitter #Academia #HigherEd #Disability #DisabilityTwitter #DisabledInSTEM #DisInHigherEd #CerebralPalsy #TBI #STEM #Science

2/ I have long struggled with this notion of continuing to fight in academia. I have said I was quitting many times, and still pushed ahead. I believed what people told me. I believed that if I just kept trying, and kept talking about disability, things would get better.

3/ Yesterday, I realized, after what I now know, thanks to others, was sexual assault, and relentless bullying, a lack of accommodations, and a myriad of situation which left me struggling for survival, that things will never get better. Not in my lifetime.

4/ I could go on this huge tirade about how trainees with disabilities like mine are more likely to experience sexual assault or harassment. I could tell you that the number one reason disabled scientists quit, is lack of support.

5/ I could write a million paragraphs about how even when we explain our disabilities, even the people closest to us, still expect us to change.

6/ I could talk about how diversity doesn't include us, and assaults and microaggressions on disability are often justified as teaching, or help. Even if the aim is to change something that we as disabled folks, cannot change.

7/ I could talk about all the times I went home in tears. I could talk about the myriad of times that I fought daily with the impulse to end my life because I truly believed (I don't think wrongly) that although I had my own gifts, I would never belong in science. Or anywhere.

8/ I could talk about the PIs that told me I took up space that could go to able students, or the PIs that told me I wasn't smart.

9/ I could talk about the students that, even recently, asked why I walked weird, asked why my eyes are crossed, or made fun of the way I answered or asked questions.

10/ I could talk about the times PIs left me behind to focus on other trainees, because I wasn't what they wanted.

11/ I could talk about all the times I reached out for helped, only to be branded resistant, argumentative, or stubborn.

12/ I could talk to you for days about the tremendous, profound pain of waking up in the morning and knowing you've been trying to cram yourself into a community that doesn't want you.

13/ Or how painful it is to believe that you invited someone's inappropriate touch or assaults because of who you are as a person. I could tell you about the guilt, and the shame.

14/ But in the end, I have finally realized, that I'll never belong. That academia will always be toxic, and ableist. It will always exclude people like me. And there's nothing I can do to change it, or make it better.

15/ I finally understand that all the threads in the world cannot convince academics to invert power structures, or sacrifice their time and resources.

16/ On that note...I'm not posting anymore. I'm not continuing in science. I'm not "persisting", because there is nothing left for me to overcome. Yale and the academy have taken every bit of what was left of me and destroyed it, and I cannot do it anymore.

17/ I can't change my future, but the next time someone in the academy thinks, "There's nothing I can do for the student who was left behind."...I want you to stop yourself. And I want you to remember how much power PIs, committees, department heads and administrators have.

18/ At least, what you have over trainees. And I want you to think long, and hard about your privilege. I want you to remember this.

I could've been a great scientist. But people left me behind. People failed me.

It was preventable.

19/ So the next time you think of leaving someone behind, I want you to remember this. I want you to remember. And I want you to use your privilege, experience, and gifts-to throw the ladder down, and not pull it up. Please. Don't make this be in vain.

20/ I want y'all to see this in real time. It doesn't happen over night. It happens little-by-little, over years, until we just can't do it anymore.