Posts tagged disability
StopHatingYourBody
On a mission to live a body positive life
TRIGGER WARNING/TW: Mental/Psychological Disorders/Suicidal Thoughts/Abuse.
I was really inspired to post a picture here. This blog is incredible.
I’ve always been the bigger girl all my life. I grew up with a mom who couldn’t afford food that was nutritious, healthy, the like. I grew up eating whatever was around. Traditionally, junk. So, it’s rather embodied in my brain that eating is a way of comfort, to never eat the right things, drink the right things, make choices, live with them. It’s hard to break out of, this we all know. I didn’t have the best childhood, no father in the picture, I suppose he was disgusted and just high tailed and left, and my mother put me through 8 years of mental torment, constantly calling me fat in front of her friends, laughing at me, calling me a whore and a bitch.
Now I am 20 years old. No longer with my mother, my grandparents took the best of care of me, well. As much as they could.
At the age of 16 I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, Type 1. I suffer deep, deep depressions, I have been in one for 12 years. Small periods of high intense mania. Strong impulses, to shop, steal, use, lie, cheat, and eat.
But. I am high above those impulses. I am not letting my disorder define who I am. I am not letting my weight define who I am. I am a smart girl, who is artistic, lovely, incredible, and above all. Brave. To not succumb to suicide. To not go back to the Psychiatric Hospital. To not look at her arms and wrists and feel the urge, the stinging pain and succumb to it. No, I am not that person anymore.
I love this life I live. I love to wake up and look outside my window and see the light blue through my curtains and just know that another night has went and gone where I am still alive and breathing.
Today is going to be a good day.
In my life so far, I have felt the pressure from society to be thinner. I tried to deny my curves, and constantly felt bad about my body. In the last year or so, I have started to pay attention to all the wonderful things my body is capable of. I have a chronic illness (fibromyalgia) and I needed to stop looking at my body as a size/number and see it as a magnificient piece of machinery. It is absolutely crazy that we can do all we can do with our bodies, and through that fact I have come to love myself. I am a one of a kind piece of art, and I will not let society dictate how I should feel about all the magical things my body is capable of. Society keeps girls depressed and upset about their bodies so they will not fulfill their full potential.
To everyone out there, your body is an amazing thing. Focus on the things it is good at (mentally, emotionally, physically) and stop focusing on what it looks like to an outsider.
I mean, you only get one life and one body that is yours. Don’t let someone else’s ignorance dictate your life.
My name is Fallon. I took this picture the other night of my new tattoos. My right wrist has a Disney Princess crown on it with a cross in the middle.It says princess. My left wrist has a butterfly. There’s a treble clef in the body of the butterfly and it says beautiful. I wrote my poem Princess in 2009 about what it means to be a daughter of Christ. I have Cerebral Palsy and have never been happy with my body. When I was a teenager, I developed an eating disorder. Various experiences taught me I was absolutely worthless, but Jesus is teaching me I’m his beautiful princess and every day I’m closer to believing it. Praise God!
“You’re and athlete?”
Hi, my name is Rose and it doesn’t look like much, but posting a picture of my stomach here was a harder for me to do than I thought. It’s the strength and beauty of everyone here that helped me to do so.
I have a condition known as IC (interstitial cystitis), it’s not particularly well known yet there is no “cure”. It is a painful bladder condition, which limits what I can do every day; it causes me to desperately need the bathroom most of the time (with no relief) and basically follows the symptoms of having a constant debilitating UTI. I am only 19 so being diagnosed was hard for me to get my head around, knowing I will spend a large portion of my time ensuring I get to the bathroom on time and drink enough water and take my pain pills. But the biggest thing for me was telling other people who couldn’t empathize that I have a bladder condition, the most common reaction being. “Isn’t that like, for old people?” or “Eww gross! Do you have to wear diapers?”…the answer to that would be “So what if I did!” It used to make me angry how I couldn’t feel comfortable in my own skin, now I know just because I am different doesn’t mean I’m a freak.
Things looked up for my IC after I found running, it makes me feel better and although I may not look like an athlete, I am a runner, and I am a lover of health. I don’t believe you have to be a certain size, or shape to enjoy being healthy, I have seen “skinny” healthy people and “big” healthy people (I put myself somewhere in between); the most important characteristic we all share is happiness. Who are we to define health as a certain weight or lifestyle? People say that I can’t do things or to “Just manage the best you can”. I told them I was sick of “managing”… so I started living. I joined cross country and now I compete on the team, living everyday and not letting what others say get me down.
When people see my body they often seem surprised and say “Doesn’t running make you super skinny” or “for a runner you’re quite chunky”. I am not ashamed to say that, yes my abs are soft and smooth, but they do their job! I am proud of my strong thighs, as they can carry me 8 miles. I am proud of my calves that are thick and muscular, because they let me run every day. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
From birth we should be told “You are beautiful”…not “Where is your thigh gap?” To everyone who struggles, we should unite and worship our bodies for the beautiful creations they are, be who you want as long as you are happy.
Our bodies are not as some would say “perfect”, but they are perfectly unique.
Second time submitting, just wanted to say that I beat cancer and am doin okay!
This is a picture that triggers me tremendously. It was taken at a dinner where I was having a good body-image day. When I saw how I looked in the photos, though, I felt so much self-hatred because of the way I felt about my body’s size and shape that I ended up self-harming. I have a history with eating disorders, and have turned to binge eating after struggling with and recovering from anorexia. I also have health problems that have made me gain weight and have given me scars, problem skin, and hair loss. All of these things have hurt my self-esteem and have made me feel depressed. I’ve struggled with suicidal thoughts recently because of how I feel about my body.
But I have realized that I am worthy of love no matter what my size. I deserve to eat and to be treated kindly whether I am thin or not, healthy or not, “pretty” or not. My self hatred is only going to hurt my recovery from my eating disorder and my treatment of my illness. So I intend to get help, and I resolve to treat myself with the kindness I would show others like me.
The problem isn’t our bodies, but what society tells us about them and how we think about them. We can change that! <3
TRIGGER WARNING: OCD, FEARS PERTAINING TO STDS, INCEST AND INTRUSIVE THOUGHTs. TRIGGER WARNING ALSO FOR DEPRESSION, SELF-HARM AND SUICIDAL THOUGHTS
Hi my name is Kat and Im currently a college student in New York. I’m not so sure how to begin so I guess I’ll just jump right in: I struggle with OCD, depression and self harm and on top of all that I have a disability. My walker can be seen in the above picture (with my awesome cup holder of course). I’ve always been insecure about my disability and from a young age I always felt I was ugly because of it. I thought I would never find a boyfriend and that no one could ever love me (even my mother gave me up). Time went by and I decided to just accept it because it’s who I am. At age 14-15 I started cutting and skipping meals. The stress of high school became to much for me and I wanted out: I wanted to die. My suicidal thoughts also began at this age.
At 16 I began experience, what I know now to be, my first OCD symptoms. I began obsessively memorizing dates and times of things, obsessively trying to remember all details of things and always trying to make new “memories.” I was obsessed with time and memories because I was so scared of passing my teenage years by …. I needed control of my life and I felt that memories made up my life. I simply thought this was a really really really bad “quarter life crisis” so to speak and didn’t get diagnosed with OCD till I was 18
My OCD symptoms got out of control by then and I wasn’t coping to well with my depression either. I was overly afraid of STDS (i.e. from touching /hugging people etc.) and I couldn’t function because of it. I also had nasty intrusive thoughts about incest and other disgusting things that made me cringe.( sorry I thought I’d be able to go into more detail but I can’t :/ )
I am now currently on medication for my OCD and depression and I’m coping SO MUCH BETTER because of it . I still have my ups and downs but all in life has gotten so much better. As for my disability I have grown to not just accept it but EMBRACE IT and do disability modeling to show how beautiful my body is
Follow my personal blog to here more about me: InternetR0yalty.tumblr.com
Believe in Yourself
Never a truer word has been spoken.
Trigger Warning: Surgery, Hospitalisation
It’s taken me a long time to be able to believe in myself. But I’m slowly getting there. The amount of trauma my body has been through including 5 major operations and counting, numerous hospital trips and hospitalisations, chronic illness, disabling conditions… Yet despite all this, it’s come out fighting… It’s a little worse for wear… But it carries on and proves to me that I should have faith in my abilities despite everything that holds me back.
It proves to me that I can do anything!
So to everyone on SHYB - Believe in Yourself!
This is the body of a 21 year old woman with an invisible illness/disability called Cystic Fibrosis.
Since I was a child I have struggled with depression, self harm, anxiety, and my disease. I began cutting myself when I was 11 years old and am now a month clean of it, the longest I’ve gone since I was 11 was a whole 6 months. I’ve never felt normal or good enough. I didn’t start growing boobs until I was about 15/16 and didn’t have a waist until just this past year. I’ve always felt uncomfortable in my own skin. For a long time I thought I was should have been a born a boy.
My periods are exceedingly irregular because of the fact that I am -usually- malnourished, and once I went an entire 7 months without a period. In addition to that, because I am always on antibiotics I have chronic yeast infections. It’s gotten to the point where I sometimes wish I didn’t have a vagina, I just cry and scream in pain from the yeast infections. And I often feel as though I’m not good enough for my boyfriend because he could find some normal healthy girl who didn’t have these problems and could actually regularly have sex with him. My disease causes bloating in the abdominal region, and there has been numerous times people have asked me when I was due (as in they thought I was having a baby) because of the bloating of my stomach. Many people with Cystic Fibrosis, including myself are what they call barrel chested, which means your rib cage is a bit more round than others, which has always caused me to wear over shirts and hoodies to hide it.
I have also a port a cath in the right wall of my chest that people always assume is some sort of deformity, because society thinks only people with cancer have port a caths.
This picture I’m showing you is the first one I’ve ever seen of my body that I was happy with. I am 4’10”, and t the time of this picture, I was at a really low weight for myself of 97 lbs. I’m now up to a much healthier 120, and I’m having a really hard time looking at my body in the mirror again, because it just doesn’t seem to look right to me, I know it was an unhealthy weight, but I was finally happy with what my body physically looked like.
But my main reason for posting this is that THIS is what an invisible illness/disability can look like and that I think a woman with an invisible illness can be both attractive and sexy, regardless of what society tells them. I look like an average everday run of the mill person (well mostly). But there are days I can’t get out of bed, shower, do anything. I have to take MANY MANY medications and treatments each day to keep my lungs, pancreas, and liver working. There are days where I can’t get dressed on my own because my hands are so swollen and painful I cry when I try to move them.
This is me. This is the body God gave me. And I’m proud of it, flaws and all. It may not be a perfect body, and I may want to just give up because of all the struggles it gives me sometimes, but I’m learning to love it. A year ago I’d never publicly talk about my disease like this, let alone show a picture of my body like this. Tumblr, The CF community on here and Stop Hating Your Body have been big factors in my increased self confidence. So thank you! And I hope this helped someone else with similar body image issues.
And if you want to learn more about Cystic Fibrosis, check out CFF.ORG or my health blog at prettyclavicles.blogspot.com
This is me with one of my idols, Dylan Saunders from Team Starkid.
My name is Katie and last year I was diagnosed with a pretty serious and chronic brain condition. This picture was taken about two months after I was diagnosed.
Since my diagnosis, I have gotten progressively worse and have gone through quite a bit of depression because of it. I didn’t understand why I had this condition and wasn’t able to do the things my friends did because I wasn’t as healthy as they were. But I slowly started to realize that this is a part of who I am now and I need to learn to accept that or I will never be happy with myself.
It’s been a long process, but I am getting there and have learned that just because I have a disability, I don’t have to let that disability define me. I still have days where I’m mad that I have to deal with this condition, but they are becoming fewer and farther between. :)
If anyone has any questions or wants to talk, hit me up at my blogs!
Main blog: http://timeloronbakerstreet.tumblr.com
Where I blog about my health progress: http://timelordonchiaristreet.tumblr.com
tw: discrimination, ableism, insecurity
Hello beautiful people!!
My name is Felicia. I’m 18 years old, and accepting myself has been a long but worthwile journey. I was born 5 weeks early with very little chance of survival. Thankfully, I made it through and ended up being a happy, healthy baby. When I was two years old, I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Specifically, mild spastic hemiplegia in my right side.
I have never been directly insecure about my disability, however, I remember desperately wishing for a cure when I was younger. I had to wear a brace on my right leg and I absolutely hated it - not only was it hot, uncomfortable and inconvenient, it led to bullying which caused my parents to home-school me. My CP is so mild most just assume I hurt my leg somehow unless I tell them I have a disability. However, the reactions have always worried me. Far too often do I have people instantly treating me like I am inarticulate and incapable. I go from being treated like a grown up individual to a young child - and this has often made me afraid to “come out” as a person with a disability.
I feel like the term disabled can be misleading. I don’t feel like I’m at any kind of disadvantage. I do have some difficulties with everyday things, but they don’t decrease my abilities to live my life to the fullest. Normality is relative. My limp may seem abnormal to somebody else, but it’s how I learned to walk. I don’t have to think about how to walk - I just do. It’s a quirky trait, I think. I’ve been told it’s cute. I’ve also been told I would make a pretty darn convincing zombie. :P My point is, just because someone does something differently does not mean you should see them as at a disadvantage. Whether you are typically considered “abled” or “disabled”, you define yourself. Not the way you do things.
I’ve come to love my CP. Without it, I would be totally different. My personality has come from my experiences and even though I’m told I have a hard life, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Loving Your Body When it Doesn’t Love You (part 1)
Maintaining positive body image with disability, chronic illness, and chronic pain
Body positivity is especially difficult when your body is not a healthy one.
When you spend every moment fighting pain, struggling with basic tasks, and rearranging your life around your limitations, it can seem impossible to think of your body as anything but an enemy. Acceptance probably seems far-fetched, and love surely sounds like a joke; however, I’ve learned that it is crucial.
I spent the first eighteen months after my disabling accident desperately trying to cope with the changes in my body, and my initial focus was solely on recovery. I focused on research, diagnoses, treatment, and cures, and when none of the professionals could help me I slipped into despair. I had placed every single one of my metaphorical eggs into the “basket” of healing, and when I continued to decline I became completely lost.
It was not until I shifted my focus from healing my ailments to healing the relationship with my body that I found peace.
The journey is different for everyone, but I am going to share a few of the things I had success with along the way:
- Accept Your Body (in it’s current state, limitations and all!)
I am a very visual learner, and so for me this took a very concrete form. I created an art journal where I utilized many art therapy techniques which I learned in eating disorder recovery in my early twenties. I drew pictures of myself with exaggerated positives and negatives and I made collages about pain and disability. I wrote lists. Lists of things I was still physically capable of, lists of (reasonable) goals, lists of strengths, lists of positive things and things I love. I also wrote letters. Letters of love to my younger self, letters of apology to my disordered self, letters of recognition and appreciation to my current body.
For you this process may be less visible, but it is just as important. Unresolved conflict, grief, anger, and self-hatred cause internal turmoil and interfere with the goal of self-love. Attempt to identify where you have nagging, negative, emotions and figure out a way that works for you to resolve them.
- Accept Your Disability
This is similar to the first one, but different in that the goal is to focus on your limitations. As strange as that may sound, it is a vital step.
When I stopped obsessing over getting “better” I was able to make life so much more livable. Accepting the label of “disabled” actually opened many doors for me, because it enabled me to recognize my restrictions and then work around them to empower myself!
It is very difficult to sort our accommodations until you know acknowledge that you need them.
Instead of fighting your body, learn to listen to it and figure out what is needed to increase your quality of life.
StopHatingYourBody has it right when they call self-love a revolution; it will trickle into every aspect of your life and positively impact your relationships, your happiness, and even your health.
This Valentine’s Day, love your sick and disabled body, and watch as it changes your entire world.
Part 2 will discuss beauty and hygiene, and Part 3 will go more into relationships. Let me know if you’d like me to add a topic!
I MAY NOT HAVE HAIR OR MANY FRIENDS, BUT I HAVE HOPE AND A STRENGTH WITHIN ME THAT I KNOW WE ALL HAVE! <3
Stay Strong - Tough Times Don’t Last, Tough People Do! x
Hi I’m Hannah, I’m 18 and when I was 16 I lost ALL of my hair in just 10 days! It was a massive shock and with other issues as well, I let things get me down! (Weight Loss, Self-harm, Suicide attempts, etc,) until I realised that NO ONE but me can control my life, and although I can’t control my hair-loss or seizures etc, I can change my attitude towards life and also help change things for others struggling by helping/inspiring them! I make youtube videos helping with all sorts and always love to get video requests!
I AM ALWAYS HERE TO HELP AND CHAT JUST CONTACT ME! :)
Youtube: bouncybunny100
Twitter: @XLovatoLover1X
Tumblr: xlovatolover1x
TW: Talk of Abuse/Non-consent/ED
In my senior year of high school, I became very ill with Ovarian Cancer and began fainting all the time. I had no control over when I collapsed. My parents became impatient with my illness at the same time that I was becoming dependant on them and other people around me. I thought I owed my boyfriend tolerance for helping me when he did but, in retrospect, I was just sitting by while all of my relationships became extremely abusive.
At the same time, I was molested in a mall and, two years later, I still felt tainted. I threw out my clothes but I couldn’t throw out myself. I was blamed by my school counselor and by my conservative immigrant parents. And I believed them.
I believed that it was my fault that I was touched. My fault that I was sick. And I saw myself as poison, wanted nothing more than to be able-bodied and unscathed, to get a second chance in different skin.
Until, finally, I saw through my mother’s projected anorexia, my queerness, my wheelchair, my history of abuse, and a saw a body. Just a body. A body with beautiful little white and purple stretch marks like lightning bolts on my thighs that jiggle merrily when I walk. It’s got curvy arthritic fingers and oil under gray eyes. My hair falls out in patches now from treatment but it grows back thicker and even stronger. And for every unwanted touch I got, I got a thousand more from a womyn I love. I am beautiful and I am in exactly the right body.
A body can’t be ugly. It’s a body! We all have em. How can one be wrong?
This is me.
I suffer from Patella Alta, which means my knee caps are too high up my leg. I’ve been in and out of hospital for it numerous times over the last 11 years.
Recently I had a “relapse” and ended up back hospital, and have been told I have to have a fairly big operation to correct my defective knee.
It’s taken me so long to come to terms with the fact that this simple condition has disabled me. The fact that everyday I have to “walk on egg shells”, because I have no idea if my knee is going to dislocate and hospitalize me again. The fact that every time my knee goes, it gets even weaker and increases the risk of relapse. The fact that I can no longer lead a normal life because I can’t rely on my own body to support me. Even the smallest slip can send me to hospital. I can’t play sport, I can’t run, I can’t even kneel down.
But I sit here, and I think… That all my problems, all my conditions… They allow me to be a stronger person. Each time I overcome any obstacle my body throws at me, I feel victorious, I feel strong… That I’ve proved I am a survivor.
When I overcome these things, it gives me the confidence that I can achieve anything! I refuse to give up!
My body and all it’s faults has allowed me to uncover a strength I never thought was possible, and because of that I can’t hate it!
If anyone wants to know about the journey with my knee, I have a post here… Or you can visit my blog.
