Good morning all and this is going to be a bit of a different post as most of my viewers/ readers will know I have been very unwell, to the point I have been spending far too much time on the internet for my good. But I needed to heal, and as part of this resting, I have been watching YouTube for those who don’t follow my channel. I have had covid and then I developed bronchitis, and I am not looking after myself as I also have a chronic illness I do have support but I am finding that I am not great at being on the internet as I have been watching YouTube short’s and one was a robot talking about content that was taken straight from Reddit and this wasn’t at the start as it’s not original content.
The topic was from Ask Reddit about someone not being very smart and that was the topic what was the signs that someone isn’t very smart I made the epic mistake of wandering down into the comments section as one of the comments was not knowing the difference between a reason and an excuse and we see that there were people who where trying to prove a point and saying that all reasons are excuses.
I then made mistake number two about saying that I was genuinely curious about it so if a disabled person needed help and they asked and couldn’t do the thing is that an excuse or a reason? I haven’t responded but I see that they made out that they knew better than me and they said that I had a logic that would make a rubber band proud and that I just needed to get to know some disabled people.
I haven’t given them the dignity of a response as they said that this post was designed to call people like myself out people who just needed to try harder and I then realized that these internet strangers have probably not ever spent time with a disabled person or even if they had it was for their gain and I realized that I needed to do two things.
Get off the internet and find something else to do, and I am in the process of getting well enough that I could have a part-time job again or go to my community access teams day center a lot more and get organized as I am still really not well, and it was then I realized that they don’t really have a clue what it is like to be disabled and to be perceived as younger and needing care and to have the potential that you have been used and abused by a care giver and I have been verbally abused and taken for granted, but I am seeing in my housing provider a change as they are realizing that I do need help and care and that is why I am in the housing situation I am in and I am working from the bed as I write due to the fact I am so dizzy and tired, partly that is my fault because I couldn’t sleep last night and I was on my phone despite me being concerned about the cost but I haven’t been able to go anywhere or to do anything and I needed the out.
So this post brings me back to some videos that I did around internet safety and I see that the big one for me is twofold, being safe online so not providing information that could harm me or others, telling the truth in the blogs, etc and being able to understand what is happening in my life is sometimes out of my control but understanding that some things are out of my control as well.
Things like being able to go where I want when I want technically I can but it is harder due to the fact that I would get lost and I won’t remember to eat and at this point in time I am concerned about me spreading what I have to others, as I am recovering from bronchitis brought on by Covid and that has lead to further fatigue and I am not sleeping well at all due to some neighbours behaviours and I do have an on going internet addiction that I am working on stopping as well but I am building a business on the internet but I see that people need to be aware that these things are still happening that we have people that are still very ignorant of what people with disabilities need help with and how to help them I at times don’t need as much help but am learning to accept it much more and I still struggle with disordered eating as well and wanting to “keep” up with others when sometimes my body is crying out for rest so I am struggling to navigate between two worlds due to the fact that I have worked and have a work ethic and others in my life that have disabilities haven’t and they seem to not understand work and having to work for things or to even have to weight for things and they are then able to understand what is happening in my life as well.
I have been lucky in my housing situation it has been rocky at times but now it is starting to settle into a good routine as well and we see that sometimes people need to be able to understand that there is a long range of disabilities and that disability isn’t always what we think it is and that sometimes the difference between a reason and an excuse isn’t always clear cut as we think it is and that is the point.
We also see that the internet is a bit of a wild place and that it can be really cruel to people as well and that we need to be able to have compassion I think that those internet strangers where just looking for a fight and they have commented several times trying to get me to bight but the biggest power move I did was when they asked did I know any disabled people and I disclosed that I am disabled and that I have wrestled with internalised ableism and that they needed to go out side and touch grass we see that there was no going back for them they realised that they couldn’t recover from that and that my logic wasn’t flawed it was there ignorance about disability was and we see that this is an issue time and time again that people need to be aware of that people want to be able to see what is happening and feel that they have the upper hand but we see that often they just want attention and I admit that I am the same I at times just want the attention but it’s the internet so we need to ask at what cost.
For me, I have decided to be on the internet but what about those who can’t be and who it might not be safe for to be on the internet at all we see that when you don’t feed the trolls they try and bite harder and then it gets worse because people want you to bite but I have found that my mental health is so much better when I don’t bite or am in communities that monitor comments and that don’t excuse troll-like behaviors as well and that we understand what is happening in someone’s life a lot better as well and we start to seek out kinder places on the internet and I feel that I am starting to get noticed in what I am doing online as well so I am trying to make things better for myself and others who have disabilities but are falling through the cracks so I am trying to make things better.
Sometimes I fail but I feel by at least having a go I am trying to make things better for myself and I can then tell my story as well.
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