Read on Twitter
Ableism is so deeply ingrained that even the nicest, most well-meaning people I know are tweeting things like “do your best not to get ill right now” without thinking about how stressful it is for disabled or chronically ill people to constantly read those takes
We don’t need to read that we’re a burden on the NHS. We need healthy & abled people to do their part not to spread the virus so that we can access the vital services that keep us going. We certainly don’t need the message that what we’re going through is a choice.
The problem when you tweet about a thing loads of people are saying is then lots of people feel personally subtweeted. So to be clear, this wasn’t aimed at anyone. I’m just ground down by the relentlessness of ableism at different levels.
It’s a really shitty time to be at higher risk & be vulnerable in other ways. At worst, the takes are that it doesn’t matter if people like me die. The next level down is shut people like me away (as if we haven’t already been shut away for the whole year)
Then, having been shut away for months on end, we see low-risk people constantly mingling, breaking the rules & making normal everyday things unsafe for us. That isolates us even more. We either have to endure it or be seen as sticks in the mud.
It’s just a lot to constantly get the drip-feed message that in whatever ways, you don’t matter. To read that you shouldn’t pursue help you desperately need through no fault of your own is just the straw that breaks the back. I’m tired. I know I’m not alone in that.
