In this episode, I had an enriching conversation with Sonja Plitt, whose eloquent honesty impressed me. It was particularly powerful to hear their journey with gender, and with national shame.
We talk about national perpetrators and victims, intergenerational trauma, gender, labels, how language impacts and shapes reality, cultural shame, mental health and much more.
Content note: mental health, Holocaust, intergenerational trauma, sexual assault, ableism and transphobia
If you need support after listening – you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia. If you’re anywhere else, you can find support here: https://www.befrienders.org
Yesterday at work I got to critique an Australian health campaign for its accessibility. The video focused on cervical screening, and ended with ‘It saves lives’, although it doesn’t actually save lives. This made me reflect on how this euphemism is used, and who gets to be labeled as ‘life saving’ in our cultures?
Medical health professionals are the first to be labelled as ‘saving lives’. It makes sense – doctors literally re-start hearts that stopped beating and prescribe life-sustaining medication. But we also use this phrase for tests, or even when a friend babysits for us. Today I’m proposing to expand your idea of life-saving.
Life isn’t just about staying breathing or having blood pumping through our veins. Despite what medical, ableist TV shows tell us, it also isn’t about being able-bodied, or funciniong in a spcific body shape. Life is about feeling things that make us human, and still want to get up in the morning. It is about grieving the loss of loved ones, or rip in anger and still keeping faith that humans are worth saving. It is living through intergenerational trauma and thriving through hatred, and all the isms around us – sexism, racism, antisemitism, ableism. It is about speaking up, learning, loving and birth and deaths and so much more.
Because life is about all of those things, our definition of ‘life saving’ should drastically change. I have spend countless hours of my childhood in hospitals – under anesthesia, in rehabilitation, in check ups, in cast building. Despite this, my life wasn’t saved between those cold hospital walls. My mobility was the only focus of the medical health professionals.
When I was discharged, after the major treatments for my leg were completed, I felt ashamed. I was hiding all the time and felt worried about what people thought when they saw parts of my body. I dealt with shame and stigma in silence, and I judged myself for being me. I craved acceptance from others but I couldn’t give it to myself.
Only when I started reading and listening to the stories of others like me, was when I could feel all the feelings, thrive inside my body, and feel truly and fully alive. My life was saved by Laura Hershey, Vassar Miller, Carly Findlay, Imani Barbarin, Eliza Hull, and other disabled creators and activists. Their stories and words was what allowed me to live in this body without shame, acknowledge the pain, and find a home in the world. Their poems, books, articles, songs and sentences have helped me finally embody an essential truth – that I am enough.
Of course we need blood in our veins and oxygen in our brains to function, but none of that would matter without stories, feelings, aches, joys and pleasures. Regardless of what our bodies look or feel like, connecting with other humans and feeling good about ourselves is what makes life worth living. Knowing that we belong, that we are accepted, celebrated and loved, is living. Helping any person to feel a little more safe, a little more loved or a little more whole, is saving a life. And as the Bible says, saving one life is like saving a whole world.
Stories save lives. [Image description: a children’s section of a library. Bookshelves are filled with colourful books and behind them a bright orange wall is panted with a tree, flowers, starts and birds. By the bookcase stands a colourful armchair.]
The spaces, the value, the money, the prestige that we assign to health professionals and creators are all too divergent. The work of a musician, a poet, a filmmaker, an artist, or an advocate, are just as important as the work of those keeping us physically alive. Who would have survived 2020 without movies, poetry, music, podcasts, or books?
In a world were hatred is still rife, where many of us don’t feel safe in our bodies, countries, or homes, hope lives in our stories. Through stories we can learn about ourselves and each other, and through stories we can create empathy, equality, and safety for all.
So I urge you to contemplate – who is saving your life, who is making your life worth living? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Walking into a shoe store on my crutches, I looked around for sparkle – preferably blue or green. I scanned the shop several times, while the saleswoman chatted to my mother, who explained what we needed. Not what we wanted, because she couldn’t sell us a normal-leg-to-fit-any-shoe. She offered boots – with zippers, or laces, sometimes both. My mother got pretentiously excited about an ugly-looking boot, or a military-looking one. My leg with its brace, cast or splint couldn’t fit any of the beautiful girls shoe options.
I prayed to God to give me beautiful shoes – the regular kind, that goes up just above the ankle. Perhaps even sandals or flip-flops. That was never going to happen. I grieved that loss every day of every summer of my young life. Especially those super thin and shiny ones. What wouldn’t I give to slide a feminine perfect foot into a Cinderella narrow shoe?
Throughout the years several doctors, podiatrist, cast-makers and nurses would comment on my need to wear custom-made shoes. I shook in disgust. Why would I want to look even more different from everyone else? Adults around me never got the point that I didn’t fit in already. You might as well hang a sign above my head with words kids used to call me– freak, disabled. That would be better than wearing shoes everyone could see were made especially for my damaged leg.
When I finally found a shoe to shove my bulky splint into, relief would wash over me. This overly-priced item would help me look a little more like an able-bodied kid – a normal kid. I marched around feeling proud of the boot, a regular fashion item anyone could have picked, avoiding telling my peers it was the only option that could cover my splint. Combined with long jeans and a trendy top, I was almost looking as if nothing was wrong with me.
I’ve always worried about what shoes I’d wear on my wedding day, discouraged by the options in shops’ windows – all high heeled, narrow, unsteady. Nothing for my small foot, fused ankle and unsteady knee. As the day approached, I’ve decided to go with custom-made shoes. Regular shops had nothing for me, and my podiatrist’s wall displayed a picture of a client on her wedding day – looking gorgeous and happy in her white custom-made shoes and sparkly dress.
The podiatrist made me fabulous shoes – made of white leather, a little elevated and perfectly made for my feet. I walked so much easier in them. My leg responded well to the padding and bouncy technology to compensate for the diffused ankle. I was a few centimetres taller than usual. I danced and felt beautiful. My wedding day was magical. The shoes remained in use until they fell apart. Walking with the right shoe for my body was freeing, as close to flying as I’ve ever felt on the ground.
Wearing custom-made shoes meant I could walk steadier, safer and with less pain. It became easier to live the life I wanted to live. Letting go of the need to be like everyone else freed up space to write, create, love and laugh. Shame and embarrassment about not being ‘normal’ have been ingrained in me for years. Connecting with the disability community, reading and reflecting, has changed my relationship with my disability. I no longer aim to be ‘normal’ or hide my difference. These days I celebrate being unique. My disability, and my life, have made me who I am today.
Right before lockdown I’ve donated a pair of those splint-hiding boots, which has been out of use for years. Saying goodbye to these boots, which never made me feel good, felt like removing a bar on my personal prison cell. It was another step for me accepting who I am – telling the world I am happy to be me. I have no intention again to select shoes based on how ‘normal’ they look, only on how comfortable they make me feel in my own skin.
No longer needed – cast-covering boots. Image description: A pair of brown tall boots with long laces stand on wooden floors.
CW: ableist slurs, ableism, ignorance. Note: I will be censoring slurs throughout this post in respect to people who may be affected.
As a kid I heard slurs a lot. One of my classmates’ favourites was crip*. When I’d tell adults about names I was called, the advice was to “Just ignore it”. The bullies who used the slurs, or others’ right to shame and dehumanise me in this way was never truly challenged. In combination with physical barriers, medical and historical ableism, internalising that I was less than an able-bodied person was to be expected.
Despite working in mental health and being involved in the disability community, I still hear many ableist slurs around me. Sadly, sometimes this comes from disabled people themselves. It’s understandable considering we rarely talk about this in our disabled community or wider society.
What is an ableist slur? It is a word or a phrase used degradingly to exclude, marginalise and discriminate against disabled people.
Fine, I’ll admit – as a kid I was told that those things were not true and that I shouldn’t listen to it. But it is extremely difficult to ignore degrading comments when those are being repeatedly drilled into you. Especially as a child forming your sense of self. If you are privileged enough never to have experienced such repeated abuse or bullying, just close your eyes and imagine someone telling you over and over again degrading comments about something you cannot change about yourself (people from marginalised communities – don’t bother, you know what I’m talking about). It is inevitable that you’d end up believing this “truth” about yourself.
Why should you care?
Ableist slurs are one tool by which society deems different bodies and minds as subhuman, therefore leaving the power outside the hands of disabled people. Using ableist slurs reinforces the status quo of disabled people being marginalised, excluded, shamed and discriminated against in our society. Ableist slurs therefore, work to further disable people with bodily impairments, cognitive difference, or who are otherwise considered “nontypical”. Historically, people who have been labelled with words such as “crip*” “craz*” or “blind” have been physically ostracised, abused, neglected and killed. Unfortunately, that still happens under our watch to disabled children and adults in Australia.
You know that time you had a busy day at work, and you said to a colleague it was “craz*”? Imagine that this colleague has a mental illness you didn’t know about. How do you think that would make them feel? Add to this how often this person would be hearing a word previously describing mental illness used to describe an unpredictable, difficult to manage or stressful times. Using slurs as negatively descriptive words yells out – that person is unworthy, the other – subhuman. They do not deserve to be respected, or equally participate in society, because they are different.
Almost one in five Australians live with a disability, many of these are invisible or dynamic, so you wouldn’t be able to tell simply by looking at a person. If you believe everyone deserves to develop a healthy sense of self, to feel proud of who they are and to be included in our society, then avoiding ableist slurs is a simple way to start your contribution. If you’re still not convinced, remember any able-bodied person can unwillingly join the disabled community tomorrow by means of an accident or illness.
How to avoid ableist slurs?
Ask yourself the following basic questions: Does this word relate to a bodily/cognitive/information processing or other impairment? Has this word been used as a negative description of something (an object, person, behaviour etc)? Has this word been historically used to shame or dehumanise people? What context am I using this word in? Would I use this word if a person with the associated impairment was in the room?
If in doubt, be cautious and choose an alternative word. Learn from the disability community (and other marginalised communities) about what constitutes a slur.
Reclaiming disability language is something only the disability community can do. This happens when a marginalised group owns back a perviously degrading phrase and creates new meaning to it by purposefully using it. For instance, using the word “disabled” as a way to express one’s feeling of being disabled by society or affiliation with the disability community. If you aren’t a disabled person reclaiming a word – avoid using it if possible.
Where to from here?
We all make mistakes and have the potential to evolve. If you’ve used a slur and then realised it – apologise. Learn, and let humility be the guide in improving your respectful communication. If you hear or see others using ableist slurs – call it out. Just like you would if people use racist or sexist slurs. Educate your network and share this information. Think of your words – they do count.
Until next time,
Liel K. Bridgford (yes I have a first name!)
P.S. If you have comments or questions – feel free to leave those below.
