Madmouse's open letter to MNHQ about the treatment of those with disabilities on MN

Badvoc, what would you like to see? What boundries do you think should not be crossed on mn?

I think its Disablist to ask without respect another posters medical history when they are not posting looking for help ideas on their medical condition.

Except..it can make them bad sometimes because there is no real excuse for treating others like shit because you have had a bad day, no matter how hard your life is IMO. It happens but then apologies should be made.

I x-posted with you there.

I do get what you are saying Thumbwitch.

Spurious "and" in the first paragraph, sorry. Should write shorter sentences.

It shouldn't be two sides, with us or against us, even if it is emotive.

I have a DD with SN yet get flamed for not conforming to some militant anti-disablist stance. Doesn't mean I have no understanding or empathy for people affected by disabilities.

I'm not trying to take sides here but I think it may be that some people fail to understand (as I would have before being educated about it) the relentlessness of the bollocks attitudes that people dealing with disability/ SN have to put up with on a daily basis. So that a seemingly innocuous comment on here might be ok for most people but for the person who has had to put up with it day in, day out for years and who may have had a particularly shite day that day (or week) and it might have been the last straw for them.

Doesn't make them bad, nor does it mean that they need to be shouted down and told that "it's all about them" - because, just perhaps, it isn't. But - equally - perhaps some days they themselves need to take a step back and realise that they've had a spectacularly shite day and are reacting more strongly than they normally would.

And I've probably pissed off both sets of people now, sorry.

fabulous, heartfelt post, MummyinSpain, thank you for sharing your experiences, I'm sorry you have been through so much illness and pain in your life.

I think it is understandably an emotive subject for those who live with this issue day in day out, rather than it being an interesting moral debate point for half an hour or so.

Perhaps we should get ourselves a lawyer? :)

Same old same old isn't it?
Some posters think they know better than us what we should find unacceptable....sigh.
Free speech is great yadda yadda but that doesn't alter the fact sn/sen is the only area that is so lightly moderated.
Can you imagine posts about the mccanns and gina ford being so lightly moderated "in the interests of free speech"?
No.

I was ridiculed abroad and in the UK when asking for special assistance wheelchair service at the airport apparently I didn't need it. I cried abroad in the UK I suffered the humiliation of explaining the extent and complexiry, he felt bad after the damage was done by then and I again was in tears.

Yep, I´, the same silly phase. I have to use wheel chairs for large areas, like airports. But the rest of the time I struggle on with my morphine etc to stay up right as long as I can.

I am stubborn, and was told to just go into a.wheel chair too, I wanted to keep going as long as I can. I do use a mobility scooter sometimes.

I am sad there were unpleasant exchanges yesterday.

I hope we can move on and find a solution.

opps just reealised I missed something.

I am able to be stubborn and not give up my crutches even though it would be faster, easier and safer in a wheelchair. NOT everyone is that lucky.

ok, I have not read the whole thread, but can i just say a couple of things.

People with disabilities are still people, we have feelings and we desrve respect.

The problem with it is sometimes the worst disabilites can be invisable to "normal" people.

When I was 19 I had a chronic infection in my heart. (Please NOTE we have heart desease in the family and this went on for 3 years, I thank my lucker stars at the moment it has been whipped into submission) My then BF and I went on holiday as the docotors thoughts some sun and rest may help. I HAD to use the buggy through the airport as I could barely walk. We got spat at, jerred at, and generally made to feel like I should not exsist. Right up untill the point that DB asked the buggy to stop and stood up, he was 6ft 8, everything stopped dead, he was riding we me as I needed support to sit up right.

I had a very bad car accident many years ago that has left with broken veterbra (now a total of 7) in my spine. For the first two years, I walked in horrific pain, as the "docotors" told me that "there is nothing wrong with your back it is all your head" they pushed me to the point of insanity (almost) I was eventurally diagnoised after another fit (of yep got epilepsy from the car accident too) by a lovely orthopaedic surgen who was FAB! I walk very slowly with crutches cause I am too dam stubborn to give up and use a wheelchair.

The thing is maybe my parents brought me up better, but I would have stood up on a train or bus to let the elderly, pregnant or those appearing to stuggle, from being 3 or 4. In fact the last time I was back in the UK I did stand up to let a pregnant person sit as NO one else BLOODY would. IF you where on the train I hope you felt ashamed, (not the por pregant lady with high Blood pressure on her way back from the hospital)

The problem is simple being disabled make everything a task in its self. You want tea or coffee there are aids to help you make it safely, IF you can afford them and if you can use them. but you will still probably have to stand at the counter to drink it.

So yes we have access to funded payments, they are there to help with the ADDITIONAL cost disabled people to have to Bear. LIKE aids to make coffee, special cuttlery, wheelchairs, special foot ware, medication cost (if NOT elible for free prescriptions) the extra petrol of having to drive to the hospital 2 a week for appointments. Mum or Dad not being able to work as round the clock care is needed.

We do NOT get free cars, the car is paid for out of a funded payment, so it is no different to you financing your car, the only thing is these cars as specially adapted to help normalise our lives.

Disable spaces are not their to be close to the shop, they are there to help with getting people in and out of the car hence the reason they are extra wide. Yes it is an annoyance when disabled people use Mother and child. But remember it is Lot more annoying to be stuck in your car as you can´t get out, as someone is using the disabled spaces.

Oh and please think before you report one of us, for claiming fraudulently just because you can´t see a problem does not mean it does not exsist. DO you know the lenght of the forms, the docotors reports, the medical assesments the invassion of privacy from having to lie nacked on a bed whilst a "HCP" with no medical qualifications determins if your 20 docotors, consultants, nurses, etc might be being decived by little old you? But you can´t see it, so it must be a lie right? Try talking to us, try asking us, try thinking for a spilt second that disability fraud is below 0.5%! which means you need to report 200 disabled people to POSSIBLY get 1 person doing something wrong. But in the mean time thoses 199, have had to stop carers comming in, have had to cut back on medication, have had to the worry of being "interviewed", all to find out that they did nothing wrong.

Above all, remember everyone is one car accident, one stroke, one bad infection away from life being defined not in terms of the interlect, personality or gifts. BUT in terms of there walking aids, their funded payments, their disability. We stop to exsist in the eyes of everyone we become the disabled. Not so long ago it was the "black" now it is the disabled. Both are borne through predudice and lack of eductation, but we educate people everyday, could we please be entitled to a little peace, tea and sympthy in the evening on MN.

We are not The Disabled we are people who have a disability, try imagining what it must be like.

Do you think she should do nothing?

I don't know, but the resultant behaviour odd some posters hasn't helped any.

Perhaps she did Lougle
Perhaps she didnt get anywhere

Now what is she supposed to do

Lie down and take it?

I felt so strongly about this that I emailed MNHQ to say that, while I agree that they often don't delete enough posts which are disabilist, the thread in question wasn't one of them.

The treatment of the original poster is diabolical, in my view. She wasn't being 'inflammatory' when she posted her 2nd OP. She was responding to her critics.

However,a is often the case, parents of children with disability not only shared how people like her were 'disablist' but also went on to suggesting things they could do, to make a point. A thread was even posted asking why people were jealous of people who used wheelchairs, which clearly was intended to inflame.

You know, when people start acting for oppressed groups in society, they always say 'slightly just wasn't to be treated equally', then, inevitably, some bright spark decides that because that group of people was treated badly in the past, they really deserve to be treated better than everyone else.

Suddenly, if you disagree with someone who happens to be disabled, of an ethnic minority, a woman, etc., then you are disabilist, racist, misogynist. Well, maybe. Or, maybe you disagree with something regardless of that.

I am grateful that people have campaigned for equality in our society I am grateful, for example, that I had a choice between mainstream and special school for my DD1 with SN. I am not grateful when people refer to special schools as babysitting services and are offended that SS still exist.

The militancy shown on these threads has, IMO, undermined the SN community.

Madmouse, I admire your intention with this thread. I wonder if you would have been more effective emailing MNHQ directly.

Badvoc and all the other ladies who this whole thing cuts so deep. I really wish there was a magic wand that would be waved to make all of this stop and your frustrations with people's attitudes would simply melt away because it would all stop. I'm really sorry if I have offended with my suggestions to help. I was looking for a suggestion to make to MNHQ because how things stand right now is clearly not enough. You need to not go through this again and again, but as I said people still do need to be educated, otherwise in rl and online it will never end. But my ideas have only come from a place of goodwill and a wish to see your frustration be abated in some way.

Too nasty for me to dignify with a response tbh.

She means me..guess I must have hit a raw nerve to get such a nasty response :)

Sorry about typing

This as all gone a bit unneccesariy personal.

HQ cannot delete questions because they're deemed by some to be too stupid to be asked. By that logic there's a whole pile of stuff I'd like deleted and plenty of my posts that others would delete.
2shoes - I'm sorry I know you're having a bloody awful time with this - but singling people out, hinting not naming so she can't answer back and saying you'll remember what they've posted is pretty shabby. Perhaps you might want to withdraw that post and of course I'll do the same with this one. What do you think?