Becoming Disabled

For my body, disability is a profound overwhelming experience that controls my capacity. I have no capacity in and of myself outside the capacity which I can reclaim through the labor of others. It is through the care I recieve from those in my home that I am able to be who I am outside the home. I am a disabled man and I would not be able to survive without care from those in my home. I state this here and proudly because I see the care my family gives as valuable. 

I want to share something very recent and very disabled. I was at the Kuna Trunk or Treat. 

1. I told my mother, hey, I want to make little comics in the shape of zines. And my mother drew a comic by hand and ai made it colorful and ornate for her. My mother carries the same disability I do. 

2. I told my father I wanted to have a live raptor. My father took my truck and put a live dinosaur (chicken with raptor arms) and made a gravity chute for candy to make it like metoers. He made my idea reality with capacity I did not have. 

3. My sister took the comics to school after my mother labored over printing them out. And my sister spent a day with her friends folding and cutting out zines through class and lunch and after school even. 

4. On the day of my body made us late and my family loaded the car without me and when we got there they set it up while I walked around to introduce myself to all of the other business owners and community members. 

5. Then they sat in the back of the truck behind the raptor enclosure and my props and I stood in front of my props and interacted until I was too tired . Then I sat on the tailgate in front of my raptor and enjoyed interacting with every family that walked by. I handed out over a thousand dinosaur zine comics. I asked over a thousand times if a person would like one. I said over a thousand times what it was. I asked over a thousand times if people would take one. I spoke my gratitude over a thousand times as well. And then my family packed everything up, took our dino home, and we ate. And then I fell asleep for 15 hours. 

My family thinks I did all the work to make it happen. I do not share that belief.  I know my family views me differently than I view myself. And I view them different than they view themselves. I would not be who I am without their care. And I am thankful the care I get to provide to others exists because of the care they provide to me. 

I am telling you this story because I want you to understand that living with a disability is not wrong and that becoming disabled is not wrong. 

I am adept at paperwork and navigating systems you may have never had to seriously interface with before. Like doctors. Who knew people actually just go once a year, or never. That's actually been me now that I think about it. So interesting. But, yeah, my mom was medical administrator and my father is a social worker. I grew up disabled and involved in the medical system. Advocacy was not just delivered to me it was taught to me as part of my upbringing. If there is a system you need help navigating I am there. 

These are topics contained within the above text:

• Living with Disability 

• Social Model of Disability 

• Crip Theory & Political Resistance 

• Chronic Illness 

• Physical Disabilities 

• Invisible Disabilities 

• Accommodations & Inaccessible Systems 

• Case Management and System Navigation/Advocacy