Header image by Tyler Feder.

Hello and welcome to the weekly thread for Disabled Avocados! If you are not disabled, we ask that you just lurk & upvote.

The other rules:

–If you consider yourself disabled, you are welcome. Temporarily disabled as well as permanently. Diagnosed or not, visible or invisible disability, mental or intellectual or physical disability, this thread is for you.

–No ableist language, including “crazy” or “stupid.” Unless you are talking about your internal thoughts about yourself, in which case we ask that you warn and use spoiler text for this language.

–Do not police other peoples’ disability/ies or tell them they are not “really” disabled.

–Remember that the disability community is intersectional – there are disabled people who belong to other minorities as well, such as black, LGBTQ+, etc. As such, please do not say things about how disabled people have it “harder” than some other disability.

–If you are going to talk about thoughts of self-harm or suicide, please warn & spoiler.

–Do not talk about Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) in positive terms. Autistic people do not consider it beneficial, and in fact many consider it abusive.

Topic Of The Moment: (You can comment on this if you like, or not.) It’s almost the end of Pain Awareness Month (September). Yours Truly suffers from chronic pain thanks to arthritis (ankles, left foot, knees, hips, back) and several back issues. We definitely need better and more accessible treatments for pain, considering the side effects of opioids and how no one will prescribe them anymore, the pain involved in a lot of the other pain treatments available (trust me, I’ve tried them!), the rigamarole of trying to get your health insurance to pay for pain treatments, and the cost of anything that is “over the counter” and/or not approved by the FDA.

Comment away!