My experiences over the last week have really shaken me. To provide a working background, I had a seizure in the middle of Rite Aid and as a result have been diagnosed with epilepsy. I know that many people who have the condition I do are mistaken as mentally ill, addicts going through withdrawal, and many other negative stereotypes. Combining these thoughts with the topic of the class, has resulted in some dark ruminations.
I am a white woman so in some ways there’s a slight chance that such stereotypes might not be the first destination of bystanders of the next event I have, but the fact that that makes a difference and the fact that it is such a dramatic difference is a little depressing to me. What would happen if I was Asian American and had a seizure in the middle of Rite Aid like I did the other day? Admittedly my friend was with me and knew what was going on but what if they hadn’t been? Would the onlookers have given me the benefit of the doubt and assumed that I was having a seizure because of a medical problem, or would they have called the cops assuming that I was an addict going through withdrawal or having some kind of mental health breakdown?
The intersection of race and disability is one that ends up shorting so many people. The church that I go to here in Centralia runs a soup kitchen and intentionally conducts outreach to the homeless populations in the area. It is terrifying to me how many people I have met at the soup kitchen who are on the street and turning to illegal drugs because of disabilities such as mine. It’s also disheartening that a significant proportion of homeless people I have known both through my current church and from my experiences these last three months on the public bus system are not white, and are also disabled. The idea that my inherent appearance, something that I can not change gives me an advantage in my disability makes me feel slimy.
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And here is A snip it that was in the “paper” section. This week is full of choping.
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My efforts in making an entry in the “paper” category this week are going to require some inventiveness on my part. I missed every day of class this week because of my new health diagnosis of epilepsy. I still can’t deal with this. But what I can do is some independent self evaluation of my rough draft.
Writing my rough draft actually was a little bit easier than I thought it was going to be. In many ways that made me nervous however, as I’m still not sure if I’m doing it right at all. But I’ve definitely figured out where I’m going with this paper now. The article that I found and that I talk about in the “rock”section this week really gave me a solid direction. Before the site really been struggling to find a way to put into words some of the ideas that I was thinking about, but having read that article the connections that I was making my head between two seemingly unrelated topics started to make slightly more sense. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep everything I have currently, but I have to admit what I have created so far is usable and I think at least parts of it will end up in my final draft. The exercise at any rate has not been without purpose.
So while this is not what I really wanted to be putting into this entry this week, I guess this is better than nothing. I will continue to attempt to keep up and I will continue to try to find relevant things to put into this category even if I have to keep missing class. Even without direct input from my peers, I know that I can at least evaluate myself and take notes on my own progress.