“All bodies are unique and essential. All bodies have strengths and needs that must be met. We are powerful, not despite the complexities of our bodies, but because of them. All bodies are confined by ability, race, gender, sexuality, class, nation state, religion, and more, and we cannot separate them.”
From “What is Disability Justice” (Adapted from Patty Berne’s “Disability Justice – A Working Draft”, Published in Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People, A Disability Justice Primer, Second Edition.
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“Disability” is an umbrella term which encompasses physical disabilities, emotional/psychiatric disabilities, neurodivergence, intellectual/developmental disabilities, sensory disabilities, invisible disabilities, and more. You do not have to have an official diagnosis to consider yourself disabled.
Mask up, love one another, and stay alive for one more week.
I finally got a letter from Dignitas, asking for bank statements to show I’m on a low/no income, to see if they’ll give me a discount/free service. I’ll have to wait a few weeks until I get my next bank statement before I can send it off though.
I’m so glad my landlady’s daughter is leaving today. I really think she’s the most horrible person I’ve ever met. Despite being asked not to spray perfume around and being informed it gives me migraines, she just keeps doing it. I also heard her loudly insulting my appearance, not even trying to keep her voice down. Like, sorry I don’t look like a supermodel but I’m kind of ill, you know? I was upstairs ill in bed for several days and not one of them even knocked on the door to ask if I was OK or needed anything. And when I felt well enough to come out, the daughter said, as I walked past her, “You old witch.” Totally unprovoked, I hadn’t said or done anything to her. She even trained her kids to call me Scary Mary instead of my name.
This horrible woman wastes so much food, too. When she’s here, every day she goes to the supermarket and fills the fridge with a ridiculous amount of food, most of which gets thrown away. She doesn’t even ask if I want any before throwing it in the bin. I remember once she was going to throw away a whole, unopened rotisserie chicken as she hadn’t used it and was going home and didn’t want to take it back in the car with her. I asked if I could have it and instead of simply saying no, she screamed in my face, telling me what a worthless waste of space and beggar I am, and how dare I ask her for favours. The next time she was on the phone to my landlady, she had the cheek to pass on a message for me, asking if I could lend her £900 so she could buy a puppy right away as she didn’t want to wait until payday! I don’t even have money to lend, but if I did why would I give it to someone who throws food away in front of me and insults me continually?
And she is making her children very obese and unhealthy. He elder son is only 11 or 12 and already so obese he can hardly move. She just lets him sit on his device all day and drastically over feeds him, she doesn’t care about his health at all. She wastes money on nonsense constantly and then pressures my landlady, who is in debt and living off a pension, to take out more debt to give her money. Just an absolutely terrible person.
An absolutely terrible person on all fronts, I’m amazed these people actually exist. Sorry you had to deal with her again
I hope dignitas don’t take too long to reply when you send them the next bank statement.
Thanks. It’s really my landlady’s fault for making her such a selfish, spoilt brat. I guess when someone’s life is too easy and everything is handed to them on a plate, they never develop any empathy for others.
I’m kind of resigned to the fact that dignitas is going to take a long time for everything, and maybe be unsuccessful though. Right now it’s just like something to hope for, for the future. Depending on how bad I’m feeling, how much pain I’m in, sometimes I do feel desperate about accessing it soon but other times I feel I can wait for however long it takes. I have about three weeks till my next bank statement, so I can prove lack of income and capital, then if I send that off and they get it a week later, then I might hear from them a couple of weeks after that if I’m lucky (but it might take longer if they have to spend time making a decision on my finances.) If, after all that, they are willing to do it free, then I have to gather medical evidence, and go through the process of getting accepted for the actual death on medical grounds, which they say usually takes up to 4 months. Then after that raise money to pay for all the necessary ID documents, send off for them and wait. Then the whole fiasco of having no relatives to accompany me and will they not go through with it because of that? Then raising money to travel. The whole thing is kind of overwhelming when i think about it like that, and the lack of relatives seems like it will be a huge stumbling block. So I will just keep on doing whatever i can towards it whenever i can.
It is a lot, hope you’re doing okay considering everything. Sounds like the apple didn’t fall far from the tree with Landlady’s family. At least they’re gone now.
Thank you.