they’re commmfy <33
July 8, 1927
Journals of Anais Nin 1923-1927
[volume 3]
hope is a skill
hope is a weapon you are trained to wield
favourite additions
You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.
It really bothers me that people think oppression needs to come in the form of overt personal prejudices in order to be ‘real.’
Okay, so the doctors I went to didn’t say “I hate you because you are a fat, African-American with no insurance (*cough*money*cough cough*)” but I still got sub-par medical treatment over the course of my life that led to me having multiple strokes and nearly dying.
Each individual doctor doesn’t have to give a damn who I am and what I do, but we live in a country where the system says that people like me are going to die from poor health.
So, -no- I’m not going to let someone tell me that “It’s not racism. It’s not fatphobia. It’s not classism.” just because the words “I hate you” were not spoken.
That’s not how oppression works.
No individual needs to be invested to be an accomplice.
By existing in a position of power & NOT actively working against that power, doctors are contributing to the genocide of our working poor, immigrant workers, people of color, etc.
Just for you, andredesanpaulo: A short history of my body since you’re so interested.
My mother was a physically fit nurse. My father was a physically fit mechanic. My mother lost 2 babies before I was born because she was giving birth at smaller, private hospitals that couldn’t handle the complications her children were born with.
I, as a premature birth, was a surprise. She went to the nearest hospital instead of the most comfortable. I was born in a hospital that could properly deal with the HEART ATTACK I had when I was born.
Funny thing about your heart, is that when you take your first breath outside of your mother’s stomach, the chambers start to close off from each other so that they can work individually but as a team.
My heart, having had an attack, didn’t do this. At the time, we didn’t know.
In any case, I grew up with what we thought was an immune disorder as a kid. I was always a little too weak. A little too worn out. A little too likely to pass out. I had memory problems. I had a randomly presenting speech impediment that never lingered. I could be really active for weeks at a time and then I’d have periods where I could barely move at all.
As I got older, this lead to a bit of weight gain. Not a whole lot. Just enough to make me visibly chunky. My (wrong) diagnosis of some unnamed-but-probably-immune-related disorder changed to the (wrong) diagnosis of being fat.
As a fat kid, tests were rarely done to see what ailed me. I was told that I was fat and Black and female. Lazy, probably trying to get welfare, and stressed. Even as a kid!
Anyway, fast forward to my adult life. I had 3 major strokes before doctors finally realized there was a hole in my heart that should have closed when I was born.
Most people with this health problem don’t make it to the age I was when they found it. I was in great health, on paper, but still visibly fat. My doctors were obviously torn between telling me I was fat and it was probably my fault and… shrugging at the fact that everything that had ever been wrong with me all came down to my heart trying to function with only one big open chamber.
They closed the hole.
I haven’t had another stroke, since.
Now, I’ve had some serious problems caused by the damage done by 3 strokes. But it has been 100% proven that my strokes were 100% preventable. Had I been a little richer doctors would have been more likely to run tests. After all, I would have had the money to pay for them. Had I been not-Black, doctors would have been more likely to really work to hammer down a diagnosis. After all, not many people would assume that a diagnosis would lead me to get some kind of government aid. Had I been male, doctors would have been less likely to blame my issues on stress and try to find a physical source.
My heart would have been checked when I was significantly younger.
I would have had it repaired when I was significantly younger.
I wouldn’t be sitting here wearing an eyepatch so I can see properly with my one good eye.
See, the problem with fatphobia is that everyone thinks they’re an expert. There’s a lot of moral posturing being paraded around as science. My fat was 100% a non-factor in my poor health, but when I went to the doctor it was treated as the ONLY factor. I nearly DIED not because my fat was killing me but because society’s attitude toward my fat made me less valuable and trustworthy as a patient. Anything I said and anything my tests said about my body was ‘obviously’ a lie because I was still fat.
That shit is dangerous and YOU need to quit cosigning it. Today.
House M.D. | 3x02 Cane and Able
@shanastoryteller you really didn’t have to.
Lmao
Diversity win: your arch nemesis accepts your atypical gender identity but shall never accept the evil in your heart
I payed tumblr 10 bucks to show you this picture of my dog
She's 9 years old and her name is olive, she's a Labrador and she's service trained but gets too excited in public so she only really helps me out when I'm at home
[ Text ID: And life went on. It was not the same. / But it went on. ]
ALTGregory Orr, from ‘Orpheus & Eurydice: A Lyric Sequence’
To guide someone
through the halls of hell
is not the same as love.
Sometimes you're gonna see a really stupid post and you're gonna have to keep your mouth shut online but you can always say "Shut the fuck up dumb fuck" out loud, they can't hear you when you do that.