Disability Post
If there is something visibly different about you (as a disability often produces) it is incumbent upon you to put the room at ease with your difference some how. If you don’t, you will be rejected and ostracized. With Christianity this damage control needs to be done at a deeper level as well. Disability is one of the chinks on the armor of Evangelical Christianity because it’s a combination of the expression of the problem of evil which isn’t easy to ignore and the lack of autonomy and prosperity that gets you reviled in Conservative Christian contexts (just look at the Medicaid work requirement to see how these people think about our right to healthcare).
If you follow the Evangelical Christian system it’s almost imperative that you objectify folks with disabilities and project your redemptive suffering narratives upon them because the alternative works like an armor-of-God piercing bullet through the faith. In this context Wheaton’s Faith and Disability initiative the way it is makes perfect sense. One of the reasons the younger generations are leaving the faith in droves is more of them have disabilities and mental illnesses and the canned answers coming from Christianity are falling flat.
How We’re Treated
From the Realistic Autistic, Reading Implicit Attitudes:
This discovery can essentially be summarized as: “In general, and without better knowledge, people think other people deserve how others treat them.” So, if a family with an autistic child attends a family function, but the people around them already know their kid sometimes acts strangely or “misbehaves,” they may avoid that family, and others will notice and assume that family is somehow unpleasant, standoffish, or deserving of that avoidance. Same goes for an autistic employee at a work party, church function, or other gathering.
more poetry
stemming is meditating
for those of us who CAN’T FIND GOD
in our brain OR out of it
a cynic is someone who sees the world
with a level of accuracy
that makes others uncomfortable
people who say God is near
those his people are drawing away from
are lying
interactions after 40 are 4T, transnational
all but the luckiest of us has so much emotional baggage
that when we interact a good portion of the time it is transnational
one person emotionally giving, the other emotionally taking
and this pushes us away from wanting to interact with each other
a lot of intellectuals say God isn’t
well I say God is NT
the same soft skills used to interact with people
are used to interact with God
your emotions have to function a certain way
in order for any divine positive interaction to happen
plus you need the church to not treat you like crap
which is a rarity for those on the spectrum
poetry on the bride of Christ
if i were an organ in the body of Christ
it would be the appendix
because i make the rest of the members of the body so uncomfortable
they cut me right out
when the church abdicates the responsibility to care for the poor
and the government steps in and takes its place
Christians are livid and try to cut that government programs
while letting those affected by the cuts whither on the vine
if God was close to the people nobody talked to in church
they would be talked to in church
at best, Christians would say
suffering metabolizes personality into character
well guess what,
character doesn’t get you talked to at church
People with disabilities are kryptonite for prayer
We bring the total success score of the church’s prayers down
whether you are treated well in church
depends on whether you ADD TO God
or SUBTRACT FROM him
when the church, God, and the devil are all saying the same things to me
i know all thr33 fuckers are lying
(that’s why they don’t let me around 17 story ledges)
the part of the body of Christ that usually holds the power
is the asshole
6 Harsh Truths
One of the best summaries of conservationism I have ever read:
Oh, wait, did I forget to mention that part? Yeah, whatever you try to build or create — be it a poem, or a new skill, or a new relationship — you will find yourself immediately surrounded by non-creators who trash it. Maybe not to your face, but they’ll do it. Your drunk friends do not want you to get sober. Your fat friends do not want you to start a fitness regimen. Your jobless friends do not want to see you embark on a career.
Well I’m screwed. Thank you very much. Because of a visible physical disability as well as invisible ones my main avenue for showing my virtuosity is independent projects. Once I was promoting my Bible project and the people on the site tore me a new one.
holding territory
the lower you go
the more your life resembles war
your responsibility is to hold territory
and the rest of the world’s responsibility is to hurt you for doing so
I was meditating on this poem and thinking about how the more disabilities you have the worse you get treated. This isn’t just because you look different and don’t function as much but also because you are a net drain on the government’s resources rather than a net gain for it. Every gesture you perform is taking up space that is not allotted to you. Conservatives hate you and they rule right now. They’re constantly trying to take away your healthcare because they relish seeing you destitute and on the street because it makes them feel better about them selves.
Of course I made a mis (mister) stake today and went to church. There was a blob of people all congregating around a table that just ignored all of us and I didn’t go bother force myself upon them. I fucking hate religion but I need it to be true because I have nothing else. So I force it upon myself which (witch) does not do anything good for my mental health.
Noble Lies
One of the issues with those on the spectrum (including myself) is taking society’s noble lies at face value. This has been a cause of consternation in my life.
One of the noble lies I believed was that friendships would last forever (in some capacity) if both parties were close enough at a certain point in their life. Of course I lost my closest friend from college to low status-itus. I could have saved myself a lot of grief if someone had gotten it through my skull that most of the idealistic things people say are aspirational rather than actual. Noble lies are a way for a culture to save face while not changing things structurally in any meaningful way.
For example the idea you have innate worth. Pretty people didn’t like the idea that they were just getting by on their looks so they invented the idea that everyone had worth regardless of looks. Of course if a noble lie is true for you (you happen to be pretty) then it is easy to believe and transmit. But when you are on the bottom (like a good portion of those on the spectrum are) all the noble lies are definitely lies. You must keep frame of reference in mind because a noble lie is often true to the person telling it so they are behaving in a rational manner.
The bullshit of noble lies are like bacteria in your gut, some is needed to digest everything else. However those of us on the spectrum need extra help teasing out aspirational beliefs from the ones that actually hold true.
poetry, more
when God created a person with a disability
he stamped “I hate you” into their very being
so it’s no mystery that Christians’ politics
are so turned against those of us with disabilities
almost everything positive everyone believes is a noble lie
and how high you are in society
determines whether these lies work in your favor
(for example the idea people have innate worth
works well for pretty people because they would rather believe
it than the truth that they are just getting by on their looks)
noble lies are usually true for the speaker
and false for the recipient
Christians seem to think suffering is redemptive
well it can be
just like the lottery can be won
but crowing about either
does not make them happen any more often
I asked God for help
but I wasn’t there
synthesizing him being there
so I never got any
some people whose brains end up all over the wall
just had trouble fitting a whole church in their brain
those people sniveling and rejecting
telling them they were going to burn if they disagreed and felt different
blaming them for not seeing what they were told to
the God head has levers his people get to control!
that make him open and shut his mouth and romp around the earth
so what are you waiting for?
get up into that mech!
(The supporters of Trump
made the jump into JESUS!!!!)
waiting is our daily taste of death
The Supernatural
it’s difficult to believe in the supernatural
unless they’re going after you
I believe our brain blocks out the supernatural the same way a neurotypical’s brain blocks out extraneous stimuli. Of course this is offensive to philosophical materialists as well as Christians principally because I have a very negative view of the supernatural, it is like living on the street where predators notice you and will swarm. This helps make sense of why mental illness was seen as direct action by the devil or his charges in premodern times. Because when you are mentally ill the ability to filter out the supernatural breaks down so the worst of it are everywhere. It also explains why demon possessed people had more insight on the supernatural like seeing Jesus as the son of God. Of course I don’t think mental illness is demon possession, just that it makes you more vulnerable to negative spiritual forces.
From a philosophical materialist’s perspective there is concrete evidence that mental illness makes one feel like they are experiencing supernatural forces. That’s why I wrote the poem:
shaving is just cutting yourself in a socially acceptable way
just as religion is being crazy in a socially acceptable way
ideation
Great article on suicidal ideation.
At 27, I’ve settled into a comfortable coexistence with my suicidality. We’ve made peace, or at least a temporary accord negotiated by therapy and medication. It’s still hard sometimes, but not as hard as you might think. What makes it harder is being unable to talk about it freely: the weightiness of the confession, the impossibility of explaining that it both is and isn’t as serious as it sounds. I don’t always want to be alive. Yes, I mean it. No, you shouldn’t be afraid for me. No, I’m not in danger of killing myself right now. Yes, I really mean it.