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flower crown crip

@flowercrowncrip / flowercrowncrip.tumblr.com

Echo (He/They). Severely disabled in need of 24/7 care. Non binary trans guy. Disability fetishists aren’t welcome here.
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Hi, My name’s Echo, my pronouns are he/they, and I’m 25.

I have multiple conditions resulting in severe disability. I’m a full-time powerchair user and transfer using a hoist. I need 24/7 care to keep me alive.

Typing using a phone or keyboard it's difficult for me so I use dictation software a lot. This can lead to some weird typos, please be patient and kind.

If you need anything I say to be clarified or put in simple words, just ask and I'm very happy to do that for you.

I try and add image descriptions to everything I re-blog, but this is harder using dictation software so please bear with me. All images I post are described.

I’m not comfortable around disability fetish blogs –especially the people stealing random disabled people’s photos to post to porn blogs. If I see you, I will block you

Header image description: a digital painting of a row of brightly coloured sporty anyway mushrooms.

Profile image description: a digital drawing of Echo, a white person with green glasses and long brown hair and a beard sitting in a green electric wheelchair with a four point chest harness.

Devotee/ diaper fetish blogs DNI

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Ableist things non wheelchair using disabled people/ occasional wheelchair users have said to or about me as a full time powerchair user:

Not being able to walk makes you privileged over other disabled people

I’d kill myself if I couldn’t wipe my own arse

Yeah but you’re not like regular disabled so you shouldn’t expect to be accommodated

You’re so lucky to have carers with you all the time

At least I’m not like him

Why don’t you use a folding powerchair instead? Then you wouldn’t look so… disabled (answer: because I can’t sit up or breathe properly in chairs that aren’t supportive enough).

Of course they talk to you like you’re five years old… you look well… y’know

You shouldn’t be taking over people work chronic pain just because you can’t walk (said to me while I was talking about my own chronic pain)

*talks to my carer about me*

*refuses to acknowledge my presence in a group*

I just want you to know that I’d support assisted suicide for people like you.

Again, because it’s important, absolutely all of these are from disabled people.

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wheelie-sick

people way underestimate the needs of wheelchair users.

there's a lot of what I'll call walkism (bias towards pedestrians and against wheelchair users) among disabled pedestrians (people who primarily walk, assisted or not, as their means of mobility)

diminishing our needs is walkism.

people within the community see us as ableds minus legs. they see our disabilities as simple- just can't walk, it's that easy. they see us as having low accommodation needs and as having the accommodations that we do need met. they see our access barriers as being as simple as ramps and curb cuts.

Something I wish "clicked" with a lot of occasional or part time wheelchair users is that obligatory wheelchair users don't have the choice to leave their chair at home when the terrain sucks or it's wet outside or whatever. I still remember a post where someone was asking how to manage keeping their legs dry in the rain because they had to choose to "suffer" walking instead because they couldn't tolerate having wet legs. And like, while the OP was not wrong for wanting to be dry, obligatory wheelchair users just have to deal with it and either have wet legs or never leave the house in the rain. We can't choose to walk even if it hurts and is hard to navigate in a wheelchair, we *have* to use our wheelchairs if we want to do the thing. It doesn't matter how bad it hurts or how hard it is to navigate those hills, we can't decide to walk it.

I'm not saying they're not trying hard enough or giving up or whatever ableist crap people give ambulatory and occasional wheelchair users, I'm glad they use their wheelchair to live a fuller life, I'm just asking people to remember that not everyone gets to make that choice.

(Using obligatory wheelchair user instead of "non ambulatory" because sometimes people are what I call "part time pedestrians" and still mildly ambulatory, but can't leave the house or do their ADLs without a chair. They deal with a lot of the same problems completely non ambulatory wheelchair users do.)

‼️‼️

this is a lot of what I was trying to get at with this post. I don't exclude part time and occasional wheelchair users from this post (hell, I currently am a part time wheelchair user) but a lot of this was inspired by my experience as an obligatory wheelchair user. the post is mainly referencing people who use a wheelchair at least the majority of the time (why I left that note at the end)

the experiences of part time and occasional wheelchair users are real but the needs of either are very different from those of obligatory wheelchair users.

I also think that as lower use wheelchair users gain more awareness and attention it's shifting the view of wheelchair users towards that. I know I've had many experiences now with doctors who look at me and assume I can stand on their scale or walk to their bed. I can do those things (currently) but many people cannot. these assumptions are growing more and more common among everyone.

I've had someone tell me I have "ambulatory vibes." (what the fuck does that mean?) he saw me as a young wheelchair user, had maybe noticed that I move my legs and then came to the conclusion that I had full walking ability. he at one point assumed I could climb stairs. for the record, this was another disabled person who used a cane. there's a reason I came up with the term walkism instead of just using the term ableism; disabled pedestrians are often the perpetrators of it. this person perpetrated walkism in many other ways but that's somewhat irrelevant to this reply so I'll omit it in the name of keeping things short.

lower use wheelchair users have made themselves the default in the community and are slowly making themselves the default elsewhere. because lower use wheelchair users outnumber obligatory wheelchair users so greatly it's shifting the views of wheelchair users and of our needs. people feel more entitled to deny us accommodations because they look at the predominant lower use wheelchair users and use them as justification. "well they don't need this accommodation so why do you?" -- just to be clear, this is not the fault of lower use wheelchair users; it is the fault of walkists, but this shift has made this form of walkism more aggressive.

it's a collapsing of all of our needs into the lowest support needs category. even as a part time wheelchair user it's frustrating. people collapse my needs into those of people who only need a wheelchair in the mall. I've had my psychiatrist make disparaging comments when I brought my wheelchair in to his office for the 4th or 5th time (he forgets I use a wheelchair, somehow) remarking that I "don't need it" because I am a part time user and therefore should only be using it at the mall.

the range of needs for wheelchair users is a large spectrum and people, wheelchair users and pedestrians alike, are all guilty of cutting out the needs of obligatory wheelchair users and especially high support needs obligatory wheelchair users

hopefully this makes sense, sorry this ramble got long

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reblogged
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wheelie-sick

people way underestimate the needs of wheelchair users.

there's a lot of what I'll call walkism (bias towards pedestrians and against wheelchair users) among disabled pedestrians (people who primarily walk, assisted or not, as their means of mobility)

diminishing our needs is walkism.

people within the community see us as ableds minus legs. they see our disabilities as simple- just can't walk, it's that easy. they see us as having low accommodation needs and as having the accommodations that we do need met. they see our access barriers as being as simple as ramps and curb cuts.

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It’s looking like a pain and spasms kind of night. I’m in so so much pain right now. Time to rewatch some plant documentaries in the dark

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My body has decided it hates me for the crime of “sitting fully reclined in my comfy chair instead of lying almost horizontal in bed”

Disability continues to be a thrilling journey of discovery

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If you use wheelchair users as an example of the default "person who gets automatically accommodated and treated with empathy and respect" then I'm going to hunt you for sport.

A lot of wheelchair users end up needing to make a whole new group of friends when they start using wheelchairs because suddenly you're viewed as captain buzzkill when you don't want to be carried up and down the stairs by people you KNOW don't lift.

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I absolutely love it when I find small/ community businesses which are more accessible than big chains.

I recently discovered that my rural town’s community cinema is 100x more accessible for me as a wheelchair user than any of the big cinemas a few towns over. The best part is that I can sit at a table with all my friends, including other wheelchair users rather than being in a row with just one other seat with everyone else sitting in the row behind.

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dabwax

It just feels like there are maybe ten intersex bloggers for every thousand trans bloggers on here, and that'd be fine if we had more allies, but it's so overwhelming trying to convince people that no, I'm not saying you are bad or harmful inherently or that your existence or transness is hurting anyone at all bc it isnt at all and you could get stranger with your gender if you wanted honestly cuz we all should be doing that, I'm saying trans people could be our best allies if they shifted language to include us and took the time to learn about our similarities and differences, and to have people react en masse as if I'm saying trans people are inherently evil and bad and are hurting intersex people by existing is fucked. It's overwhelming coming from a genuine place of desperate connection and being avalanched with "your request for solidarity is harming me, personally." I feel desperately alone all the time and see other intersex people scrambling for solidarity the same way I am. Sometimes with better mental health and control than me, sometimes not. It's fucked.

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Is it too early to be thinking about outfits for Pride? Definitely not, I don’t know what you’re talking about…

So anyway, for Pride this year I’m hoping to do a look based on these iconic photos of Aaron Rose Philip.

ID: two images of the model Aaron Rose Philip. She’s a Black, disabled woman with short blonde hair wearing a pale floral suit. The first photo is a close up of her face with a large green orchid flower. The second is a wider ship and shows that her powerchair is adorned with flowers, mostly orchids and roses. /end ID.
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I was lucky enough to visit cliffs with a large seabird colony today and the noise from all the birds was one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard in nature. 10/10 would recommend

Amazing wheelchair access too given that it was literally a cliff.

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Your severely disabled friend isn’t being too picky about clothing causing pressure sores. Not when they ask someone to check their clothes aren’t bunched up under them, not when they refuse to wear tight clothes or jeans with buttons or studs on the back. Not any time.

A bunched up sock might be a minor annoyance to most people, but my sock was unknowingly folded under my splint overnight and it gave me a pressure sore. Now I can’t wear shoes or my splints again until it fully heals.

This sore is mild and being on the top of my foot makes it easy to remove pressure from so it can heal, but please don’t forget that serious and infected pressure sores are a huge killer of people like me.

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