Humans are a communal species that have banded together and cared for their sick, disabled, and elderly since before we were ever modern man. Resources were shared even as skills specialized.
Capitalism isn’t natural. A community should not have members dying of starvation or exposure while there is an abundance of resources. That isn’t how it works. That isn’t how it’s supposed to work.
ok so my roommates are anthropology students and their favorite example for debunking the ‘survival of the fittest’ bs is shanidar 1. (x, x, x)
shanidar 1 is a neanderthal who, at a pretty young age, was hit in the head hard enough to blind him. this also led to that side of his brain shutting down and withering his right arm, and possibly crippling his entire right side. not only that but his skeleton also shows that at some point, he broke a bone in his foot and, in addition to the other factors, resulted in a noticeable limp. there are some sources which say he likely had degenerative diseases. (arthritis was really common in neanderthals)
going off of widespread ideas of “”primitive”” (no longer the word used in anthropology/academia to describe early-modern humans) societies, shanidar probably died really young, deliberately abandoned or killed. i mean, he was severely crippled, blind, etc., he couldn’t contribute anything, he would have been a “”burden to society””, right?
except he lived to be between 40 and 50 years old. (about ~80 in human years)
this means that his social group had to have taken care of him for a minimum of two or three decades without his ‘contributing’ anything significant to the group. this discovery (and Shanidar III’s) was huge because it basically proves that early humans had a concept of hospice. early modern humans cared for the sick and the elderly, greatly extending their lifespan, simply because they cared.
tl;dr: the concept of someone needing to be ‘’useful’’ or ‘’’productive’’’ in society in order to be valued and cared for is a very modern concept and our quasi-predecessors would be ashamed
Also, Shanidar I was buried with flowers. They cared about him after he was dead, too.
Story: *is supposed to be about creepy/bizarre/horror/paranormal things*
Me:
Story: *is actually just about an inaccurate representation of a mentally ill person who is experiencing symptoms of mental illness, written by someone who obviously has never experienced those symptoms first hand and is just trying to be edgy*
There’s this ableist idea that the default is for people to have zero disabilities
and mental illnesses. That’s why there’s a concept of there being
“too many diagnoses” – because people totally assume there’s like, a Perfectly
Normal Human to begin with and that that idealized body has zero brain
issues or disabilities.
And that’s so wrong. That’s just as wrong
as assuming non-intersex, cishet middle-class white guys are the
Perfectly Normal Human of which everyone else is an imperfect copy.
We’re not made from a mould. We have endless variations
and they aren’t divergence from some Perfectly Normal Copy,
they’re literally the way life functions. There is no perfect copy. There are only variations, some of which have the privilege of being normalized.
But privileged people
see themselves as the default, and “too many differences” can seem “made up” to them, because they’re not used to relating to people who are different. Unfortunately we mentally ill/disabled
people absorb this idea too and it’s really hard to unlearn it when
we’re stuck in a society that’s constantly reinforcing it.
We
have to be gentle with ourselves and with each other and work on
normalizing variations like mental illnesses, disabilities, etc., so the
focus can be on meeting the needs of people who have them instead of
just surviving ableism.
So one thing I spoke about with my therapist today is the fear of recovery.
Like, there’s this expectation that mentally ill people WANT to “recover” from their illness. That they want happy, healthy lives, that they want to be like “normal” people.
But that’s not always the case. At least, not emotionally. Logically, I know that I want to have a normal life. But emotionally? That’s freaking terrifying.
To me, right now in the middle of this depressive episode, I don’t want to get better. Getting better involves work, getting better involves facing my fears, it involves conforming to these societal standards that I care less and less about each day. Often there is this little voice in the back of my mind that just says… “Don’t get better. What other people think doesn’t matter. Just stay sad. Just stay in bed. This is easy for you. This is what you’re used to. This is your status quo. Why change?”
So I just want to let other mentally ill people who sometimes feel this way, I understand. You’re allowed to have days where you don’t want to get better. That doesn’t make you a “bad” mentally ill person or lazy or anything else. You and your illness are still 100% completely valid.
Okay I want to add to this, because I’ve seen people mention it in the tags and because it’s something I myself feel, is that a lot of the time this feeling of “I don’t want to get better” comes from a fear that you’re faking your illness.
There is this huge attitude in non-mentally ill people where they don’t tend to take these illnesses seriously because they don’t see actual evidence. Therefore often people will mental illnesses begin to feel like, “I have to be bad, I have to show this” to prove to the world, and themselves, that their disorder is real.
So once again, if mentally ill people are reading this, you don’t have to prove your disorder to everyone. If you’re “functioning” or “recovered” or just in a good stage, that does not mean your illness doesn’t exist or that you were faking it.
I hate how every time someone dares make a post saying that people with personality disorders are not automatically abusive, everyone starts yelling about how people with these mental illnesses CAN be abusive, and Don’t You Forget It.
because like…..we know!! that’s why we have these posts in the first place – because do you know how damaging it is to constantly be told you’re incapable of meaningful relationships, you’re abusive, you’re manipulative and should be avoided, JUST because of your mental illness??
someone: Telltale Games is flawless and beautiful
me: the entire catalyst for the 2nd Walking Dead game was the idea that *certain people get too ~broken~ and are a physical danger to themselves and others and there’s nothing to change or work towards in that scenario, every other character repeatedly says how scared they are of the mentally unstable guy and never wonder if they themselves will ever experience neurodivergency, to the point where in a severe environmental hazard with zombies and a newborn baby, the *mentally stable* character risks this unreasonable and completely petty decision to intentionally provoke a man into an emotional breakdown just to prove a -point-, not to mention the whole existence of the preteen Sarah character who was written to show many autistic and other developmental disorders/illnesses, who the player character is required to beat her in order for her to survive, which doesn’t matter bc she dies in a completely unceremoniously and horrific way just a few hours later, and Telltale Games have literally said they hated her
whitemanning critical 