December 6th 2012 marked my 8 year anniversary free from drugs.
The day was almost uneventful. Even after all that I have learned about staying in the now, and just for today, I somehow felt that once I made it to this day, this very tough year that has passed would all make sense. But it was just another day. Another day in my life. My clean life, free from the clutches of chemicals controlling every part of me, everything I would strive for, everything I would do.
The value of life, the value of your life, is one that will be questioned in variables and determined by the abundance of self help books with anonymous authors who will tell you a few basic things. These things, as I have learned through the many books “gifted” to me or sent to me in depressive episodes are this;
A life worth living, a life worth value, consists of:
This is based on my own experience as a Disabled, Trans, Queer, Autistic activist. In compiling this list, I consulted other Disabled activists as well. Most activism I’ve been involved with has taken place in Queer, Radical, & Academic communities. I’ve been both a grass-roots activist and a student activist. I do not claim to speak on behalf of Neurodiverse or Disabled folks–or any group for that matter. Here are a few ideas I’ve compiled on how to be a better Ally to folks who have been left out of social and political movements/communities:
I have been thinking a lot about drug culture lately and how many medical communities’ and societal groups’ abuse of the “quick fix” solution for everything creates fear and sickness in so many people. I think of how it fits in with the fast paced, competitive capitalist culture many of us live in, resulting in more time for working to get more or to survive and little time to heal oneself. As many readers know, one of the first solutions to many health issues we are offered is medication. We are bombarded with medication ads on television, in waiting rooms of doctors offices, and often from the doctors themselves (at least in the U.S. where I live). However, it is not simply the advertising that factors in. It is the fear. A culture of fear that teaches us if we stray from the mainstream medical solutions for all illnesses- drugs and expensive procedures- at best it will not work and at worst we will get far worse and die. This is not reality.
Fat panic. Ever heard of it? I like to think of it as the extreme mindfuck our society is preternaturally preoccupied with. It is one of the systems of oppression men and women find themselves targeted by whether they know it or not. It is the phenomenon that causes people far and wide to become so obsessed with the idea of being thin – or being fat – that they will stop at nothing to expend all possible resources – time, money, energy – to either lose weight, or to ensure they never get fat. Because of course, there is nothing worse in the world than being fat: this is the central theme associated with fat panic.
Triggers: r-word mention, suicide, trauma, abuse, bullying
Anti-authoritarian spaces like to pride themselves of being anti-oppression. But, so many of us never talk about what that means internally. At least not enough. How often will some radical folks rush to the streets to defend a cause or jump to their computers to write about it, then become suddenly inactive when they see an internal conflict? They call-out someone new who makes the wrong comment about [insert oppression here], but when that same person is being bullied by one of their own- silence.
Most of us can recognize homophobia in everyday life in certain situations: derogatory remarks, violence in newspapers, magazines, and headlines, perhaps something that has been done to us personally, like bullying, loss of a job, friends, family, or exile from communities and homes. In a lot of these cases, it is pretty clear what is happening and why. But when some of this stuff happens as a child, or can have another context put to it that makes the lines a little blurry, it’s more difficult to separate fact from fiction, and to identify behaviors and incidents for what they really are.
