Where disability politics, feminism and craft collide.
It’s been a shit few weeks. Months, really. My health has been irreversibly fucked up by my ill-fated trip to Geelong, yet I’ve still had to deal with every crisis life wants to throw at me. Continue reading “Trauma is the blurst (and so is the NDIS)”
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself when I’m dealing with government agencies. “It’s their job to put you off.” “They make it so difficult you’ll give up – don’t let them.” “The systems are designed to exclude you, you have to fight for your rights.” But sometimes, it’s just all too hard.
Don’t expect this to be one of those “plan ahead for your international long-haul flight, try not to see too many amazing attractions in one day” kind of posts. This post is for those spoonies who can barely make it 1 hour out of the house, let alone travelling to another town; for whom a few hundred km’s may as well be around the world. (Toni Bernhard has an excellent article about how minor holidays become massive trips with chronic illness on Psychology Today.) Continue reading “Tips for travelling with chronic illness (when you’re barely well enough to leave the house)”
If you are housebound/bedbound due to chronic illness, you will be well aware of the limitations placed on yourself and others like you in accessing adequate healthcare. However, it is an issue that largely goes unnoticed, as the medical system and broader society either do not want to know or choose not to care about people in this situation.
Continue reading ““Just Invisible” – Medical Access Issues For Homebound/Bedridden Persons”
May is ME Awareness Month (along with literally every other illness, it seems). I’m too despondent to write something new, so I figured I’d recap my top 6 posts regarding ME/CFS and chronic illness in general.
Recently, I did something which I thought impossible. I went away for four nights, for the first time since becoming chronically ill 8 years ago. It was to the closest city: Geelong, 2 hours away, with my mother/carer/also chronically ill buddy. You might be wondering, how the fuck did you do that, Siobhan? I’m as shocked as anyone else! One night I just felt, for the first time well, ever, that I could do it. And by that I mean, do something, get sick, but not get permanently worse (which has been the norm these past 8 years).
Content warning: suicide, murder
Is it better to be dead than disabled? It might seem a shocking question, but the idea that death is better than disability is one that is promoted all around us, from fictional stories to news reports. It’s certainly a question that journalists grappled with when (clearly) struggling to write about Stephen Hawking’s recent death, in media coverage that can best be described as an “ableist garbage fire.”
