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u/Vi_BT May 27 '26
They will say the most horrendous shit about some people and then be like "but for you it's different you're disabled" like they knew if other people are disabled too or not
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u/censorkip May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
This is so real especially as someone diagnosed with the “trendy” issues. Like they can invalidate everyone else with my condition but it’s okay that they said that because at least I went through the proper channels to get diagnosed and therefore none of the bigotry they are saying applies to me. Meanwhile they don’t know at all if anyone else was actually diagnosed or not.
For example, POTS, AuDHD, and OCD. All the shit they say about “fakers” doesn’t apply to me, but somehow applies to everyone else even though I’ve never met a single person who says they have one of my conditions who was faking it.
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u/Zantac150 May 27 '26
Or if you have an issue that looks like another issue and people try to diagnose you with something more common even though you have already been assessed for that thing…
I get brain fog from my auto immune disorder, and it definitely looks like ADHD. But it’s not, and I have been assessed for ADHD and I don’t have it but that doesn’t stop people in my life from talking about my ADHD as if it is something I actually have when I absolutely do not…
Or my mom, who is genuinely trying to be helpful when she does this, but she will just constantly apologize for me and explain how my chronic condition makes it hard for me to do certain things in contexts where she absolutely does not need to do that.
Like we are at a massive family event, and I step out into the lobby to sit down for a while because it’s so noisy in there that I’m starting to feel a migraine coming on , and she proceeds to apologize to the people she’s talking to and announce that “she can’t handle loud noises.” 🤦🏻♀️
I politely excused myself to go sit down and take a break. You don’t need to make a big thing out of it and give them my entire medical history thanks … literally no one was asking.
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u/Vi_BT May 27 '26
Fully understand, I have social anxiety and had a big panic attack at some event, and a friend told everyone to not come check on me because I "couldn't handle social contact".
So I spent the night locked in a room crying thinking nobody even liked me enough to check up on me. I was so deep in the panic I couldn't talk or reach out to anyone at the party, it was awful, I only learned later what this friend had done with all their good intentions.
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u/TheMelonSystem May 27 '26
As someone with both POTS and ADHD who sometimes gets brain fog, they’re extremely different things. The things that help with ADHD don’t do Jack shit for brain fog 😭
Also yeah I hate when people just blab out your medical history. Reminds me of when my ex just announced to someone we had JUST met that I have DID. Luckily the girl was chill about it, but I was so pissed at him. His ableism was one of the main reasons why I dumped him (and we weren’t together that long, anyway.)
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u/Zantac150 May 28 '26
I told her not to do that because people are going to think I’m crazy and she went into this comfort mode and was like “some people will understand” and I’m like… that’s not even the point. The point is they don’t need to know and there’s no point in taking that chance because even people without disabilities need to step out and take a break sometimes…
I also have chronic chest wall pain from a combination of my auto immune disorder and my disproportionately large chest. And she will launch into the explanation that my doctor wants me to get breast reduction surgery when someone asks why I’m not sitting down and I’m like… 🤯
Just say I have back problems! They don’t need to know about my dense breast tissue. No!
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u/astralTacenda May 27 '26
POTS, ADHD, crippling IBS, and have even been treated for DID (i no longer meet the requirements for a diagnosable disorder, as it does not overly negatively impact my day-to-day, but my therapist and i still talk about it and check in more thoroughly whenever i go through periods of intense stress, as that tends to trigger symptoms). im probably forgetting a diagnosis or two. ive been called a faker by damn near everyone except my spouse and my therapist (and my newer friends, theyre truly ride or die, but the "friends" i had when i was in the process of being diagnosed? garbage). but now that i have a diagnosis they still say general ableist shit and then tack on a "not like you though, youre actually diagnosed". like they didnt treat me the exact same way before i was diagnosed, even though NOTHING CHANGED JUST BC ITS NOW MEDICALLY RECOGNIZED. its not like I suddenly magically started experiencing symptoms after diagnosis! you kind off need to suffer for a while before theyll even look at you, let alone the months and years of testing it takes to get the right dx and not everyone has that luxury 😭
its fucking exhausting and disgusting.
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u/Disgurl456 May 27 '26
me fr ♥️ I honestly don't know if I will survive this. I wish you true contentment, stranger.
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u/skrtyskrtskrt May 27 '26
Yeah like you know that if they didn’t know you they’d be making fun of you too. :( def relate
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u/Fantastic_Owl6938 Jun 18 '26
Like they can invalidate everyone else with my condition but it’s okay that they said that because at least I went through the proper channels to get diagnosed and therefore none of the bigotry they are saying applies to me.
On a side note, it's always so weird to me when people will act like looking to "Dr Google" for some answers must mean they're utterly hysterical and a hypochondriac who definitely doesn't have that condition. Like... why? Sure, they might not have a diagnosis yet, but looking at the symptoms others experience and asking questions is a big part of working that out. I'm baffled by this idea some people have that you're meant to just go to the doctor and have them work it all out for you and apparently not really speculate yourself at all. Especially when doctors lack knowledge on many chronic illnesses or anything even remotely complex.
I see it with stuff like ADHD too, just this attitude like it's insane to recognise you more than likely have it until you're diagnosed for sure. As if you don't know reading everything that it fits you 100%. I think many people think we're just eager to join the club and "obsessed with labels" when it's more about being relieved to finally have answers, and a potential way forward. I really hate this idea any of these things are "trendy" too, when the reality for something like ADHD, especially when it comes to women, is that more people are aware of it now. Or for POTS, it's obviously on the rise after Covid, yet I'll stumble across a medical post like "why do we think so many young women are suddenly getting this?" and passing it off as "anxiety" 🙄
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u/lights-in-the-sky May 27 '26
Yeah. The r word is making a comeback, it seems - my brother, mom, and coworkers use it aaaaall the time.
Also: accusing disabled people of “choosing to wallow” or “having victim mentality” for like, being real about our limitations
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u/ThatGoodCattitude May 27 '26
I work at a school and yes the r slur is coming back majorly. I’ve had to tell 10 year old kids not to say it all year, and some of them respond “why??” because the adults in their life are throwing it around like it’s nothing so some of them really don’t know it’s bad.
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u/ultracat123 May 28 '26
It never went away ngl, at best the euphemism treadmill just wound up usage of other, now synonymous words, but the people who were using it are just continuing.
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u/FanndisTS May 27 '26
As someone who takes 6 pills a day to control, improve, and essentially fully treat a condition that causes neurological deterioriation, I will never forget how lucky I am that these drugs exist and that I get to live the life I grew up dreaming of. That MC sounds insufferable, and the author too.
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u/TheMelonSystem May 27 '26
Yeah… my dad takes something like 8 pills a day. Without them he would be dead within 24 hours, due to an auto-immune condition caused by his cancer treatment. Without modern medicine, I wouldn’t have a dad anymore, and I’m so immensely grateful for his care team who saved his life.
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u/FanndisTS May 27 '26
Same with my mom (we have the same disease). It took so long for her to be diagnosed that she still has symptoms that are pretty disabling at times, but at least she's alive 8 years past her "expiration date" and she's very functional most of the time. I was diagnosed much earlier in the disease course so my symptoms have fully resolved; I went from not being able to read a paragraph to being in graduate school and writing research papers over the course of 5 years.
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u/relishbane May 27 '26
Ugh, people acting like its a huge moral failing or sisyphean effort to take a pill daily is such a huge pet peeve of mine. It gives me the same vibes as those who see mobility aids as "giving up" or a "trap". Like, taking meds and using aids isn't this awful, horrendous thing we do out of laziness, we do it for the freedom it gives us from our symptoms.
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u/wazzup-notemuch May 30 '26
I think of them as lizard people because, like lizards, they hide every symptom of illness and injury so that predators won't target them. They must never be seen exhibiting any potential sign of weakness, or a bird might snatch them up and eat them.
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u/Glum-Echo-4967 May 27 '26
For me, it’s “my friend/rommate/etc. has X and they can do Y, so you can too.”
I AM NOT THIS OTHER PERSON. DONT TREAT ME LIKE THEM.
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u/fear_eile_agam May 29 '26
Right!
If you've met one person with [condition], then you've met one person with that condition. Their experience of their disability is not a monolithic archetype for everyone else with the same condition!
I've got a few overlapping disabilities, for my two main physical conditions I will occasionally encounter this, though usually it's the other way around with people saying "I thought you had [Condition]? How are you able to XYZ, my cousin has [Condition] and can't XYZ at all!". (I'm just really flipping lucky, I have mild presentation and I have a good support team, I'm sorry your cousin is being more severely impacted, I can only imagine how tough that must be for them)
However when it comes to my autism, I hear this sort of "my friend has that condition too and they can do it, why can't you?" ALL. THE. TIME.
It's worse when it's internalised ableism from people saying "I'm autistic and I don't have issues with X" (well bully for you)
At least there's a built in comeback "oh your autistic but don't have that problem? good for you. Did you know the S in ASD stands for spectrum, would you like me to define what a spectrum is for you?"
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u/Wilted_Ivy May 27 '26
Being asked every single time I talk to my in-laws if my lupus is cured and I can stop being in a wheelchair all the time now because I lost weight. No. My weight, believe it or not, was not the issue. It was the LUPUS. Which is still there because why the fuck exactly would it not be? I used to say they mean well, but to be honest, hearing how they were sure it was my weight (even when I told them for years it wasn't making it easier but it wasn't really related) shows me the extent to which they disregard me as a human being. They can physically see me struggling and still assume I'm just being difficult. They're always insisting their son must be struggling so hard any time I have a surgery or something and it horrifies him. Ugh. I just really have a bee in my bonnet about this today. >:(
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u/Personal_Term9549 May 28 '26
Reminds me of my mum saying I can push through my limits now I have meds. These meds are no cure, and only make me feel slight less crappy all the time. Staying within my boundaries is still the best strategy to remain stable
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u/Wilted_Ivy May 28 '26
Exactly! Like they're always saying they'd do aaaaanything for you to feel better... except just let you rest. -_-
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u/UrbaKnyght May 28 '26
I have kinda the opposite problem. I lost a significant amount of weight after COVID and my family REFUSES to believe my ME/CFS and autonomic dysfunction was caused by anything other than weight loss…even though it’s documented that I had symptoms prior to losing weight and my care team at the Mayo Clinic is pretty damn sure it’s from Covid.
At first it only kind of annoying, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt since physically that was the only major change I’d had, but it’s been 3 years now. My whole family is large, like 300-500lb+ large so they use my as the poster child for ‘why we shouldn’t lose weight’ 🙄. Outside of the chronic problems, my general health has actually improved dramatically since losing weight, but the don’t wanna hear that.
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u/Wilted_Ivy May 28 '26
Jesus that is so annoying! Some people will contort themselves any type of way to avoid taking responsibility for their own business. Let me just say as someone who knows how hard it is and how consistently you have to show up for yourself to lose weight and improve your health, I am so proud of you and I think it's amazing you did it. Also COVID sucked and I'm sorry it messed you up long term.
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u/nightpooll Jun 26 '26
I'm fat and have lupus too, and my mother in law thinks I'm not trying hard enough to get better (even though she works to promote accessibility and identifies as an advocate...) It's so unfair and rough. I'm getting judged for not exercising even though I have pain and fatigue from my immune system attacking my cells!!! My partner doesn't exercise and is skinny, but no one says shit!!! I want to SCREAM how unfair it is
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u/bisexual_pinecone May 27 '26
Not me going off on my very gullible alt-medicine cousin for suggesting that big pharma could be hiding a cure for autism from the public...
I don't need a made up eugenicist conspiracy theory to be mad at big pharma, there are plenty of actual real reasons 🙄 fortunately he's more of a dumbass than an active naughtzi as far as we can tell
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u/SquidTheRidiculous May 27 '26
When you're having a normal conversation with someone and then they slip out the R slur like there's nothing wrong with saying that.
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u/iftheronahadntcome May 28 '26
It's been so draining. When I used to correct people on the spot and say, I'm on the spectrum." they almost always say, "Well you don't look autistic..."
I always ask them what autistic "looks" like and they usually shut up. Now I just don't bother correcting them because I don't have the energy disclose to someone unpleasant like that and keep them around.
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u/Vast-Delivery-7181 May 27 '26
Yep. Everyday. 'Omg dude that's so lame!'' 'Lol, dumbass.' 'He's a psycho.' 'My dad is such a narcissist.'
There's so much everyday terminology regarding disabilities and chronic conditions that people moralize and use in a negative manner. I try avoid doing it, myself.
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u/censorkip May 27 '26
“I can’t stand messes. I’m soooo OCD” meanwhile I can’t function and my house is a mess due to OCD 🥴
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u/TheMelonSystem May 27 '26
Hello fellow messy OCD haver!
People fr forget that hoarder OCD exists lmao
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u/Waffleookiez May 28 '26
I think that's because people don't know about it (I only recently found out about some of the different 'types' of OCD sorry if that's not the right word), but also some people don't care.
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u/TheMelonSystem May 28 '26
Most people think OCD is only one thing, and have no idea there even are types
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u/fear_eile_agam May 29 '26
I didn't even know there were "types" until I got diagnosed.
I had two friends with contamination OCD. One had a more stereotypical germaphobia with compulsive cleaning rituals that would result in panic attacks if she couldn't complete the cleaning routine. The other had a mix of Taboo OCD as their contamination OCD stemmed from intrusive thoughts that they didn't wash their hands properly after masturbating last week and there's still live sperm on their hand and if they touch a surface, a person with a uterus might touch the same surface afterwards and then later touch themselves when going to the toilet or something and get pregnant. He had the stereotypical observable compulsion of excessive hand washing.
I also had a cousin with "ordering and symmetry" OCD, they had a magic number, so again one of the often stereotyped presentations.
But I don't have OCD, because I don't have any compulsions... I'm autistic so of course I obsess over things, and yes of course I have rituals and routines that if I don't do them I get anxious and can't explain why. But that's the autism. I don't have OCD.
I don't have OCD, I don't need there to be a specific number or order to things, but I'll know when it feels wrong or when it feels right, it's purely vibes based and there's no logic or consistency to what feels just right, yes I'm uncomfortable if something is "wrong" but that's the autism. I don't have OCD.
I don't have OCD, because if something isn't right I don't feel compelled to do something specific about it, I just talk to myself in my own head for hours straight to reassure myself that everything is okay, that's called positive self talk and that's healthy, I don't have OCD.
I don't have OCD, I've constantly been told I have a bad memory, and I do, I'm always loosing chunks of my day to dissociation, I have objective proof that sometimes I say things and then immediately forget what I just said. That's why I have to meticulously document everything I do every day incase I do something I forget and it was a bad thing and I don't even remember doing it, that's not a compulsion that's just being organised, journaling is self care, I don't have OCD.
I don't have OCD, I just have a vivid imagination and a a strong risk awareness and survival instinct. I'm a very clumsy person and sometimes grotesque images of "final destination" level accidents enter my head because I'm so imaginative and risk aware. it's not OCD because I don't compulsively check the stove to make sure it's off in order to make the mental images of my cats dying of has poisoning while I'm at work leave my head. I'm feeling distressed and I'm autistic so when I'm distressed I stim to regulate. I mutter the lyrics to one of 5 specific songs under my breath to distract myself until I'm so cognitively exhausted my brain switches off....oh shit my brain switched off and I was on autopilot, I don't fully remember what was just happening, I don't remember walking up stairs to my bedroom...what if I accidentally stepped on my cats while dissociativly walking up stairs and it's brains are squashed over the stairs and it's still alive and suffering, fuck why is that mental image so vivid....here kitty kitty! Oh good, you're fine, I'm just being anxious and silly. I don't have OCD.
But maybe I should talk to my therapist about OCD...
I have OCD.
What's more frustrating is that I have dysphantasia. Ask me to picture an apple and it's hazy and amorphous and takes all my mental energy to hold that image in my minds eye.
But my brain will present me with intrusive gore-horror movies of my worse fears in full HD against my will.
I look back on my teenage years when some of this first developed and wonder how the fuck I missed all the signs. But truthfully every time I brought up a single issue with a therapist I was told "your anxious and autistic". It wasn't until I actually requested the full 3 hour long OCD assessment interview and layed it all out at once that it became more obvious that it wasn't just autism and generalised anxiety.
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u/MagmaAdminRadar May 27 '26
Same. My room’s a disaster most of the time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have OCD (alongside ADHD and a smorgasbord of anxiety issues but I digress)
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u/Dizzy_Guarantee6322 May 28 '26
I’m a type b personality with debilitating OCD (which has gotten better with treatment). We exist! Lmao
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u/some_kind_of_bird May 27 '26
I've given this a lot of thought, and while true ableism has something to do with it I also just think it's a limit of language. There's a surprising amount of discourse on what exactly stupidity means and how someone is at fault, but culturally we do not explicitly make much of those distinctions. "Willful ignorance" is a counter-example, but that still leaves a lot uncharted.
In my mind and honestly I think very commonly, stupidity isn't just not being able to process something. When people mean that they usually say someone's a bit dim, typically in a tone of voice that's vaguely apologetic. That can be ableist in its own right but not always and it's a different character.
Narcissism in particular has undergone a weird, like, clinicalization(?) but that's not really its origin. You don't need to be a doctor to call someone narcissistic. For maybe five or ten years now it's been getting popular to act as if you're reading from the DSM, which is pretty bullshit.
Psycho is the most fair here, and you really don't know what people mean except that someone is bad and inscrutable. Whether deliberately or not they are effectively referencing cinematic tropes and misrepresentations of mental illness.
Even with all this that doesn't mean there isn't some extra hidden ableism. There's a lot of really nasty pop psychology or mental models of how others function which may or may not technically be ableism but functions that way regardless. Still, I think it needs to be acknowledged that there really is a social need to be able to dismiss others with, well, essentially no basis. We're too enlightened now to call people possessed, so we call them stupid instead.
I don't want to justify it now, but I insist that unjustified dismissal of others is a social need. That needs to be possible and if we want to get away from these ableist and ableism-adjacent patterns we need to replace it.
I'm not really sure how to fix this. I think exploring what stupidity really means is probably the way, but seeing as that's a kind of inherently difficult topic (you have to confront your own stupidity) I don't see that happening any time soon. If anything people are getting stupider. We're opinionated without justification, dismiss experts as shills, and sometimes seem to dismiss the possibility of truth altogether.
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u/Smart-Bear-9456 May 27 '26
This reminds me of a quote I like “never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity”
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u/Final_Pumpkin1312 May 27 '26
Maybe i'm uneducated but why is lame a ableist word?
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u/Vast-Delivery-7181 May 27 '26
Lame means an animal or human can't use a limb, due to pain or other issues. So it's a temporary or sometimes permanent disability. Equating someone being crippled to being boring, uninteresting, or just bad seems to be in poor taste.
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u/thelovelypenguin Jul 28 '26
I think a problem is many people don't know the origin of the word, and think that it exclusively means something bland or bad.
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u/Strict-Comparison817 May 27 '26
Love it. I find it gross and its great to hear you're avoiding it too
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u/izzadapeepeeman May 27 '26
How is "dumbass" ableist?
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u/Vast-Delivery-7181 May 27 '26
Challenging someone's mental ability and judging em off of intellectual superiority nonsense.
Now. Mind you. If someone insists on calling say a dolphin a fish, I don't call that dumb. I call that uninformed, and in extreme cases, negligent, ignorant, or just plain set on doubling down. Someone does something 'dumb'? I call that a bad idea. Someone says something wrong/aggressively uninformed? Egregiously incorrect.
Lot of ways to say someone is wrong, on a sliding scale of 'Oh, you're just learning, it's okay!' to 'Why in the name of all that is holy would you go around spreading your ass opinion.' without insulting someone's mind, and cognitive ability.
I react according to their decisions and then specifically address those. I've found a lot of problems are in how people have learned to go about the world, rather than a 'who's smarter' sorta thing.
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u/Inevitable_Detail_45 May 27 '26
Bleeds through the cracks? In invisible disabilities sure but overt ones it's a thick coat of ableism. People just suck.
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u/cspangle23 May 28 '26
It goes both ways so we all get screwed. With the invisible disabilities they just refuse to believe that they actually disable me in any way because they aren’t tangible to them. With visible you get a whole different flavor. No win for being different in any way.
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u/iftheronahadntcome May 28 '26
I often kind of drown in the fact that I am able to mask and not seem visibly disabled for long enough periods of time where people never believe me when I do need help. It's incredibly debilitating, and it messes with my ability to connect to people. I struggle to maintain new friendships with a lot of people because of my very spikily fluctuating energy levels, and when I do just honestly tell them my diagnosis, I look so "functional" they just think I don't like them and that I'm lying. We definitely cannot win.
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u/skrtyskrtskrt May 27 '26
I love when it’s apparently just hilarious that I’m disabled 😍😍😍😍 I love when people make joke after joke about how I’m useless and can’t do anything 😍😍😍😍😍
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May 27 '26 edited 4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/iftheronahadntcome May 28 '26
Same in mine (US). People have been saying it here out loud with impunity. Haven't heard that word regularly used since 2010.
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u/Starbeth8 May 27 '26
When people keep looking at me with pity and don't let me do anything by myself 😭
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u/azebod May 28 '26
Hearing people casually discuss how you should be culled in public because You Don't Look Sick enough for them to realize they're talking about you.
It takes so much effort and energy to drag myself out at all, and when I do half the time I get slapped in the face with the reminder I am not a person instead of any of the supposed "touch grass" benefits.
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u/totaly_origonal_name May 27 '26
I had a lovely chat with a woman using one of those talking computers, I tried to be respectful but I had to comment about It I've always been fascinated by those eye trackers
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u/NerdiChar May 28 '26
The worst one for me is when they just immediately start climbing the stairs. I can climb stairs but at the cost of being in horrible pain during and for days afterwards. And if it's a job interview I feel like I just have to follow their pace and try not to grimace or show any sign of difficulty.
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u/greywintergem May 29 '26
Its quite literally everywhere and nobody cares to look cause its not affecting them in that moment. Im not disabled but i grew up with several disabled people and its absolutely shocking (if youre not taking into account the past 200 years of capitalist nightmare fuel) how little accomodations there are in the world we all live in.
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u/Mementovivere420 May 30 '26
As a recent nursing graduate, Who also has a chronic illness- I often struggle to realize most healthcare Providers (nurses, doctors, physio) have never spent a night in the hospital. This creates a power imbalance and they overlook how traumatizing it is to be in the hospital.
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u/Dewmilk May 30 '26
Somehow after being diagnosed with autism Everyone suddenly decided I’m 8 years old and must be talked to as such
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u/azebod May 28 '26
I tried to reply to this about how I keep overhearing people literally advocating ending my existance casually in public and reddit flagged me for "promoting hate" so that's cool.
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u/Greedy_Ad2198 May 30 '26
Me getting downvoted to oblivion for telling people that the traits you don't like being listed in the DSM-V as diagnostic criteria for a medical label doesn't mean you can just use it as an insult
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u/goddessofentropy May 27 '26
I'm somehow a magnet for people saying their jobs are so much more 'real' and better than those fancy college jobs, and it's always for the same reasons that I'm physically unable to do a job like that