ableism

Seasonal Affective Disorder, a common mood disorder that was first described by Dr. Norman Rosenthal in 1984, is mostly discussed in terms of how it affects people in winter.
When I found out about summer SAD a few years ago through some online sleuthing, I felt relieved. I finally knew what was going on with me.

As storytellers, disabled writers have thousands of stories inside of us, some related to our disabilities and some not. Some of us are lucky enough to have some sort of outlet for our words — in public and/or private spaces — while others still struggle to find the voice that lives within.

Imprecise, hurtful language is a problem, because it legitimizes other people’s use of the c-word. This perpetuates the stigma around mental illness, because if a mall full of people, or a rampaging toddler is “crazy”, that re-enforces the image that mental illness isn’t real disability. It says “crazy” just equals chaos, impulsiveness, or the inability to get your life together.

When Clinton dismisses her women critics as merely whiny, she also dismisses their concerns, and exemplifies the exact single-issue mainstream feminist thinking that many young women and intersectional feminists oppose her for in the first place.

There are few feelings better than experiencing a piece of art for the first time and realizing that it will stay with you forever. Watching Gaelynn Lea's Tiny Desk Contest submission was one of those moments for me.

You can swear up and down that you meant it some other way, but the reality is that “crazy” and “insanity” refer to a lack of sanity, which will always circle back to and affect mentally ill people, especially when it’s used in ways that diminish or sensationalize our experiences.

One hopes that the tweet was composed by a 19-year-old intern who thought it would make his frat buddies laugh when he goes back for the fall semester. One also hopes that an adult sent said intern packing the minute he clicked “tweet.”

What Paul and his sympathizers fail to recognize is that there is a crisis facing Social Security disability, but it isn't fraud.