The film begins with a reunion of Dr. Howard Schubiner’s first group of participants who worked through the program of how to release the mind of its pain producing patterns. I am hooked within the first five minutes and cannot look away for the next 80 minutes. The participants represent various parts of my life experience including pain, fatigue, headaches, and decreased ability to work. The participants also represent other experiences I do not encounter such as daily pain killers including narcotics and over-the-counter medications to attempt to alleviate the pain.
Inspiration porn objectifies people with disabilities. I’m all for celebrating the accomplishments of disabled people just like I’m all in on celebrating the accomplishments of non-disabled people. But that’s the thing – the accomplishment itself is what should be celebrated, not the fact that even a person with a disability can make it happen. And the message given either overtly or subliminally to able-bodied people to just try harder really just uses disabled people as a tool.
If you live with a disability, buying an existing home means you are either going to have to narrow your search down to places that are already accessible, or you will have to renovate and add the accessibility features you need. In this article brought to you by SPORK!, we discuss how to find a home that suits your particular mobility needs as well as how to modify an existing home to suit them. Use this information when searching through homes to make your home-buying experience easier.
The desire to pass increases the more others rank impairments according to a preconceived idea that some impairments decrease quality of life more than others. People with disabilities can speak out against this hierarchy and support each other without trying to one-up another's impairment.
I hate the term “special needs.” There, I said it. I know that statement is going to raise the ire of some people, but I have good reasons for my antipathy.
Let’s start with the term “special.” When I looked up the word “special” in the dictionary, the definitions were “better,” “greater,” or “otherwise different from what is considered usual.” Does that mean that the term “special needs” refers to needs that are better? Probably not. Needs that are “greater?” Quite possibly. Needs that are “otherwise different from usual”? Also, quite possibly and most likely.
It’s not a bad thing. It is simply part of who I am. I have been blind for the last 28 years of my life and visually impaired for 28 years before that. I have also been-in no particular order of priority-- a Jewish woman, a life coach, a Zionist, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, friend, daughter, sister, disability advocate and community leader. My son accepts all these aspects of my identity as well as my blindness because that is all he has ever known. He doesn’t think of my disability any more than my being his mom, being Jewish or any other of my identities.
Nothing changes your life quite like becoming a parent. Suddenly, you are responsible for this tiny human who needs your love and care. Anyone who lives with a disability knows that adaptations are a part of life, and adapting for this next stage in life is no exception. From safety issues to daily tasks, now is the time to get your life and your home ready for this big change.
In the spring of 2015 I started going to therapy for the first time. I was a couple of months away from going through with a pre-planned suicide attempt for my 25th birthday before, almost at the last minute, I randomly sought help. With a series of unexpected deaths and abusers that lined my mental oasis, the seeds of depression had bore the fruits of fear, self-harm and loathing. Making my peace with God, I counted down the days until I turned 25.
Non-verbal learning disability means that the verbal (especially visual) is easy for individuals like me to memorize and understand. Need me to write out and remember exactly how your long name is spelled? Honey, I got you. I’ll remember which vowels have the exact accent and umlaut over them.
The swift punch-in-the-gut of COVID-19 has hurled our wellbeing into a state of confusion, dilemma, and reflections. No longer do we wake up early to prepare for work, but change our top and plug the laptop’s charger to conduct remote working in the kitchen. Although it seems impossible, we have found ourselves more online to replace the in-person interaction at work, school, and personal lives. Besides such a leap of change, the news has flowed in with stories about death of loved ones, despair in isolation, and desperation for breakthroughs in news and research. While the gloom hovers in the air of the everyday living, a shift in narrative pervades.
