The Anxiety Ninja

I have a personal story to share that encompasses invisible disabilities, mental health, and ableism. There was this time where I went to hospital emergency with my best friend because I was clean out of places to go for professional support for my anxiety, and was told that the hospital would be my best bet because there was one right beside campus where I lived. 

While in the waiting room, someone who was dressed as though they were a convict (orange jumper, handcuffs, and was accompanied by police officers) appeared. My friend and I were chatting, and ended up commenting amongst ourselves about how his shoes looked like Crocs. We made some joke about how being forced to wear Crocs was pretty serious punishment. This stranger who was passing by must have caught our conversation, because she commented something along the lines of: 

“Shouldn’t he be sent to the mental health ward?”

(I can’t remember the exact quote as this was several months ago, but it connected the convict to “the mental health ward”)

After this person departed, I leaned over to my friend to try and make a joke about the one thing that was on my mind: “Hey, but isn’t that where I’m going?”

This stranger didn’t know that I was there for mental health help. She didn’t know why the convict (if he even was one) was there, either. Yet the assumption was made that he had a mental illness and I did not. I catch people nearly every day making comments like these that completely ignore the fact that there are disabilities and mental health issues that do not present visibly. Furthermore, to assume that someone has something on the basis of a stereotype, appearance, or symptom, is equally as problematic. 

So stop making jokes about wanting to kill yourself. Stop using “depressed”, “insane”, “OCD”, “anxious”, and ableist language as adjectives. Stop bringing up suicide like it’s juicy gossip that doesn’t hurt the people around you who hear it.  Although being invisible can be a real privilege at times, there are other times where people will invalidate you directly for not looking the part, or make hurtful comments your struggles without even knowing that you have them. A piece of advice I hear all the time is that you have no way of knowing anyone’s full story and struggle. It’s time for people to start thinking about that more when it comes to issues such as this. The message of this story is also exceptionally important regarding the similar way that sexuality and gender are not visible, but are heavily stereotyped or attributed to specific behavior.

Anyways, this hospital story luckily ended in me having a doctor that had a jawline so sharp that I bet it could open a letter, my pronouns being well respected, and my friend was able to finally get some studying done without being distracted in the waiting room. Plus, I got this fantastic story to help me explain invisible disabilities and mental health.

TLDR individuals with invisible disabilities are essentially ninjas and we will hunt you down 

story time: sex ed in the U.S.

frank-myhero-iero:

gavelenvy:

I don’t have a belly button - it was surgically removed in the process of treating Crohn’s disease that progressed to life-threatening peritonitis about four years ago.

This isn’t a story about a belly button, or about intestines or any lack thereof. This is about the United States.

As part of a ‘getting to know you’ exercise a few weeks ago, a group of people and I were playing ‘two truths and a lie.’ For my turn, my lie was ‘I used to live in Canada.’ I was called on immediately after the game was over for confirmation that my statement ‘I don’t have a belly button’ was true.

I complied immediately, revealing a set of long purple scars that stretch across my abdomen - one of which crosses through the midline, no belly button in sight.

I gave a condensed version of the story and the general consensus was ‘bro, sick.’ Except for one guy, who looked utterly horrified.

“Wait,” he said slowly, something clearly dawning on him, “how are you going to have kids?”

This threw me for a second, but I’m used to being asked that question - my abdomen is full of scar tissue, I’m missing some key organs, the medicine I’m taking to stay in remission is a known abortifacient and I may well not be able to have children. I’ve discussed it before, but generally not with strangers.

“Uh,” I replied. “Well, that’s a complicated question. There are a lot of factors and I don’t really know.”

“No, no,” he insisted. “You don’t have a belly button.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that how the baby… you know, eats?”

“I’m sorry?”

“So like, the baby couldn’t get food. Because there’s nowhere for the umbilical cord to connect.”

“Wait,” I said, deeply confused. “Like, how was I born? This is recent, I was born with a belly button. I lost it like fourteen years after being born, there wasn’t a conflict.”

“No, I get that, but if you had a baby, there would be nowhere for the umbilical cord to connect and it wouldn’t get food. You don’t have a belly button so there’s nowhere to connect.”

I paused for a second, the realization dawning on me that this guy had a winning combination of no boundaries and literally no idea how pregnancy worked.

“Dude,” another guy cut in, “that’s not how it works.”

“That’s how babies get belly buttons, man,” the first guy insisted.

“The umbilical cord is a source of nutrients, yeah, but they’re stored in the placenta,” I offered. “That’s a totally different organ.”

“Then why do the mom and the baby both have belly buttons?”

The second guy was getting kind of upset, but I was totally beyond that - this guy had graduated high school and was heading off to college to study political science and didn’t have a clue where babies come from. It was actually comical.

I decided to interrupt and change the subject before anything got heated.

“What do you want to do after college?” I asked the first guy.

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I just want to be a politician - like, public policy, that sort of thing. Run for office, you know.”

And then the entire exchange made sense.

holy shit esther.

giovanniespinuevaa:

bootsi:

this was so cute lma o and made me giggle

This makes me happy haha