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Disability, Differences, and Chronic Illness
Disability, Differences, and Chronic Illness
Its important for us to discuss all the ways that understand our bodies can benefit us; many of us as children didn't understand our pains and aches when we first experienced them. If you are experiencing more pain than usual or having different perception, it can be hard to determine that for yourself at a young age. For this reason many learning differences and disabilities, chronic illnesses, and other medical issues go on noticed for a long period of your youth. Some Chronic Illnesses and Disabilities force people to grow up a lot earlier than they expected to, and have difficult conversations about health and benefits of possible treatments. Just because someone may not appear to have a disability or difference, doesn't mean they don't have one. If you are an abled bodied individuals it can be hard to take this kind of respect or understanding into context, because you haven't experienced it. That is okay, but it doesn't mean it is okay to disregard the people impacted by Ableism around you. Many social systems have several forms of ableism build into them, we saw this as the pandemic made many businesses and their employees learn how to work from home and adapt to different environments in the hope of preserving life.
It's also key to rememeber that the differences that any individual may experience may change the ways in which they choose to experience sexual pleasure, comfort, etc. So it's important to keep really good communication when engaging in any sexual acts, but even more when you are navigating a body or feature that you may not understand yet.
Disability, when faced by inequitable accessibility, becomes an oppressed identity. The barriers disabled people face are not inherent to their bodies or minds, but are produced and sustained by social systems. A lack of sensory or accessibility awareness in a space, sometimes purposefully, lessens or erases disabled people and their partners from those spaces. In an accessible world, many impairments would pose far fewer obstacles to a enjoyable life. However, disabled people often encounter environments, institutional systems, and policies/practices that exclude them. Disability is not seen as natural part of human diversity because at its core many people are unable to comprehend or are afraid of what being disabled means. This creates a system in which being disabled is socially constructed to endure neglect, discrimination, and structural inequity.
Accessibility in our common spaces is a key site where this oppression becomes visible. When public transportation lacks ramps or elevators, when websites are not screen-reader friendly, when classrooms or workplaces fail to provide accommodations, society signals that disabled people are an afterthought. Or worse, that their participation is conditional on their ability to conform and engage in able-bodied norms. These structural barriers limit independence, employment, education, healthcare, and civic engagement, reinforcing the idea that disabled people are less capable or less deserving. In this way, inaccessibility functions as a form of systemic exclusion, similar to how racism, sexism, or classism operate through structural oppressions.
Inaccessibility is often justified through cost, convenience, or tradition, which shifts responsibility away from society and onto disabled individuals themselves. This narrative reinforces oppression by treating accessibility as optional rather than as a fundamental human right. When disabled people are forced to advocate repeatedly for basic inclusion, they expend emotional and physical labor simply to gain access to spaces that others enter freely. Recognizing disability as an oppressed identity means understanding that oppression is not rooted in disability itself, but in the social systems that fail to accommodate diverse bodies and minds. When accessibility is prioritized, disabled people are not burdens; they are full participants whose inclusion strengthens communities. dismantling these systemic barriers is essential for achieving genuine equity and social justice.
Different ways Disabilities or Differences can be experienced:
Different ways Disabilities or Differences can be experienced:
Please note that these types of disabilities can be experienced together, at the different times, or even be sourced form the same condition.
Learning Differences/ Disabilities
Learning Differences/ Disabilities
Learning Differences refers to the ways that the brain can function differently during childhood and adulthood due to the surroundings our society provides. These differences can be neurological conditions, language barriers (ASL, Braille, etc.), and other differences. It is vital that we remain aware of the ability these individuals have, and the accessibility we don't provide to allow them to do so. Many differences or disabilities have been referred to in the past in degrading and horrendous ways.
This makes it our responsibility to allow these individuals an accessible environment to thrive in when it comes to work, social places, etc.
Mobile Disabilities
Mobile Disabilities
Mobile disabilities are a likely more noticable to people who are able-bodied. However, mobile disabilities can be contracted at any age for a long list of reasons. All of us at any time may face a disability, in which we would face inaccessibility due to the constriction of disabilities out of the public in the past.
A majority of our cities and public areas are still not updated to be accessible for all.
It is never our place to judge or discuss someone elses modes of assistance, as daily needs may change.
Age is never a constraint on the physical disabilities someone may have.
Functional Disabilities
Functional Disabilities
This refers to a type of disability that affect a person in such a way that functioning in their daily life has become hindered in any way. Many times this can occur from a life event; where one type of lifestyle was accessible at some point, and now that accessibility has changed. This can be caused by a disease, physical accident, mental health, or condition worsening over time. This kind of disability is often overlooked, due to the ways that loss of lifestyle and daily actions can be overlooked by medical staff.
Functional disabilities can affect anyone in anyway and it's never our place to intervene unless someone is seeking help or you ask to help first and they agree.
Not everyone chooses to use assistive devices, but when they do they often cost a lot of money even with medical insurance. It's important that we keep our minds open to other's experiences instead of assuming what we would do given the situation.
Certified Service Animals
Certified Service Animals
Service animals come in all shapes and sizes.
When present with someone who has a Service Animal, it is Not Appropriate to:
Ask them why they have a service animal.
Ask them for documentation that the animal is a service animal, such paperwork does not exist.
Talk about need or requirements for service animals.
Touch their service animal without their distinct permission or request.
Engage their animal in anyway, even if this means redirecting children.
When present with someone who has a Servce Animal, it is Appropriate to:
Explain to younger children (if they are with you) as to why that animal's job is important and we have to give them the space to do their job. (Make it an awesome learning moment!)
Stand up and Speak up if service animal (and their owner's) rights are being violated by others.
Ask the service animal's name if you have been given the opportunity to interact with the owner.
When you believe or know there is any emergency due to an Alert from a Service Dog:
(At any point you are no longer needed, remove yourself and don't openly discuss the event. Call 911 immediately or ask for assistance from bystanders to call 911.)
Immediately assess the owner for injury, unconsciousness, seizure, pulse, breath sounds.
Alert management of the establishment.
Politely ask the people near by to clear the area for some more personal space.
If the owner is unconscious or unable, find the name of the service animal and talk to them about how things are okay.
You can reassure the service animal and assist professionals as needed.
(If you are in a place where help is taking a little more time) Stay with the person and Service Animal, until help arrives, & ask if anyone around you can provide professional medical help.
If a person is unconscious please elevate their head/chest and make sure their air way is open.
Remind yourself that this may seem traumatic or sudden to you, but their service animal may be providing them with this support regularly. It is not our place to make more or less out of a situation that is not ours.
Why is it important that we discuss the relationships we have with other people when it comes to the hygiene of our immune system and body? Well there are many reasons, but to start: we share our microbiome with our closest community members. When we share food, space, bodily fluids, etc. with our community, we are sharing our microbiomes. If you live with other people, you share dominant parts of your microbiome with them. We all share many of the same biometric make up in our microbiomes without directly sharing those microbes; however, the specific types or mutations can vary person-to-person.
When we are sharing our enviroment with others we have to ask ourselves if the environment were in is conducive to good hygiene practices. We are aware that many people don't have readily access to safe hygienic environments, due to the criminalization of homelessness and lack of access for most health conditions. We have people in our community who have to take their health very seriously, and for these individuals, thinking about their community support can be hard without us all having access to microbiome education. It's vitally important that we remember disability, and immunocompromisation is not someone's choice, they are forced to live their life under those regulations, because if they don't they are at a higher risk of death.
There are many good microbes, and as we've learned there is one microbe-cell for every human-cell in our bocies. We know that our personal, communal, and regional microbiomes are a big piece of our health and hygiene puzzle. When we are moving long distances, or changing our environment all together, we are more likely to experience exposure to microbes that could become pathogens for us.
Sharing space with community should be fun and without social pressure to risk your health, thats why having shared-community-values can help people feel better about sharing that space. We know that the more we lack strength in our community values, the more we are likely to be exposed to things we didn't consent to. Having a good sense of your community, through conversation and criticism, can make one feel a lot better about the potential risks of being in that shared space.
Viruses affect the immune system in complex ways, both during the initial infection and over the long term. In the short term, viral infections trigger a strong immune response (often felt in form of symptoms but can be asymptomatic).
However, some viruses can lead to longer-lasting immune effects. Even after recovery, people may experience lingering inflammation or immune imbalance, as seen in post-viral fatigue or long COVID. Certain viruses can cause a temporary drop in immune cells like lymphocytes, weakening defenses against other infections. In chronic infections such as HIV, hepatitis B or C, the virus evades the immune system, causing long-term inflammation, immune exhaustion, and in some cases, organ damage or cancer. Latent viruses like Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) can persist in the body silently but reshape immune cell populations over time, contributing to immune aging or “inflammaging.”
In some cases, viruses can even trigger autoimmune diseases when the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissues. This may happen due to viral proteins resembling human proteins, as seen in EBV-related multiple sclerosis or emerging links between SARS-CoV-2 and autoimmune disorders. Over a lifetime, repeated or chronic viral exposure can alter immune system function, reduce vaccine responses, and increase vulnerability to other diseases, especially in older adults.
Long Covid:
Long Covid:
THIS IS ACTIVISM, recommends that people mask for the protection of their community and themselves. We personally use KN-95 Masks whenever we are in common public places, large events, and crowded outside areas; however, masking is beneficial in all environments where other people are present to share water-droplet and airborne pathogens. It's important that we know that people who mask in public, are not sick; often times these individuals are protecting themselves and their community from the further spread of germs. Just because a person is wearing a mask, does not mean that they have a precarious health condition. While that could be the case, it's never our place to ask why someone is wearing a mask. Often times people in community with immuocompromised individuals participate in masking to protect their loved-ones.
When you are around someone who is masking, and you want to make them feel more welcome the best thing for you to do, is to see if you can wear a mask as well and encourage it of other people at the event of in that group. This provides strength in numbers and can allow for greater protection of your community's health.
Taking Our Hygiene More Seriously:
Taking Our Hygiene More Seriously:
Do you know how your body works?
Do you look at your body frequently? Is there anything that you feel that seems new?
Do you know if you have checked your skin recently for any irregularities?
Does anything seem different than it was in the past?
Brushing our Teeth Regularly
When it comes to brushing our teeth and keeping our dental hygiene good, know that you can start at any time! Many people struggle with good consistent dental hygiene, and many don’t have access to reasonably priced dental care.
Brushing our teeth, two times a day is the recommendation, but doing it as often as you remember (more or less) is the best practice when you struggle with a dental cleaning routine.
Flossing our teeth and using other tools than just our toothbrushes, to clean our teeth.
Washing our Bodies
Do you wash all the parts of your body regularly?
We know sometimes bathing ourselves can seem hard to do, especially when we have trouble with our mental health; however, it can also be relaxing and regulating for the body.
Do you know about the microbiome your body has, and how to keep it healthy?
We should not use anti-bacterial soaps to wash our bodies regularly; it can cause serious damage to our microbiome and cause other infections of the skin and body.
Discussing our Health with Others
Discussing our health with others, consensually and with consciousness for our health’s impact on one another during the viral season.
Checking for Breast Lumps
If you are concerned about any of the abnormalities you find you should reach out to your doctor, or make an appointment to a Planned Parenthood for a Breast Exam.
Food Consciousness
How can we be better about fueling our bodies with food and clean water, if we have access?
Are we using the proper food protocols when storing and cooking foods we plan to eat and/or share with others?
Are we protecting ourselves and others from pathogens when cooking and handling our foods?
How can we provide meals and clean water to those in our community that are struggling with access to them?
Hydration/ Electrolytes
When you drink liquids are you getting enough water into your body?
Are you making sure that when you are drinking liquids including water, that you take into account how they affect your body’s electrolyte system? Are you getting enough salt in your diet to match your water intake?
"Dysautonomia is an umbrella term used to describe several different medical conditions that cause a malfunction of the Autonomic Nervous System. The Autonomic Nervous System controls the "automatic" functions of the body that we do not consciously think about, such as heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, dilation and constriction of the pupils of the eye, kidney function, and temperature control. People living with various forms of dysautonomia have trouble regulating these systems, which can result in lightheadedness, fainting, unstable blood pressure, abnormal heart rates, malnutrition, and in severe cases, death."
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There is more research being done to finish this page, please be patient with us.
There is more research being done to finish this page, please be patient with us.
If you would like to help us write about commonly silenced areas or personal experiences you may have with these topics, contact us at thisisactivism2023@gmail.com or fill out our Comments page. We want our website to be a continuous growth of knowlegde to share with each other in a positive way. There are so many things we don't talk about and we should!
If you would like to help us write about commonly silenced areas or personal experiences you may have with these topics, contact us at thisisactivism2023@gmail.com or fill out our Comments page. We want our website to be a continuous growth of knowlegde to share with each other in a positive way. There are so many things we don't talk about and we should!
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