If you’ve been around for a while, you may have noticed that the site has changed and that Dungeons & Disabilities now redirects to Nerd Out of Spoons. I wanted to take a few minutes to explain why this move is happening and why I haven’t been around as much recently on this blog.
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November tends to be a hard month for me. Between day light savings time, the changing weather, and NaNoWriMo, I frequently end up feeling a bit worse overall. This is where my emotional support dog, Princess Buttercup Puppers III, helps a lot. She can help calm me down when I’m feeling overstimulated, be a companion when I’m hurting, and help brighten my day with her presence. This prompted a discussion with my child about service animals and why I don’t have one, along with what my dog being an emotional support animal actually means. I realized there are a lot of myths and misinformation about service animals, emotional support animals, and therapy animals and how they differ so I looked at some of the most common myths around service animals and emotional support animals and explain the truth behind the myth.
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I have spent the last few weeks buried in paperwork of various forms. Most of it has involved preparing for my disability hearing later this year. But as I went through all my records finding the ones that show my situation best, I realized there are a lot of reasons it’s important to keep good records. Like how taking notes at the table can help you remember the name of npcs or figure out puzzles easier, I found 10 ways that keeping good health records improves your life when you live with a disability.
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This morning I woke up to find Twitter abuzz with excerpts of JK Rowling’s latest book, The Ink Black Heart. In this book she makes harmful and sweeping generalizations not only about trans people but also about disabled people. Some of that is existing in Britain where access to healthcare is more available than it is to the average American but some of it was blatantly harmful views being spewed from a highly revered platform. I wanted to take a bit of time to use this platform, not to signal boost her hateful rhetoric but to provide you real talk from an actual disabled person about the power of accepting that you are disabled and what allowing yourself to accept that label can unlock in your life.
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In my last blog I talked about preparing for a writing conference. Now, I’ve come back from that writing conference which was centered on the idea of using writing to change the world. While I enjoyed the conference and will probably share insights I learned in coming weeks, I realize that being able to go to the conference took a lot of effort to overcome the issues my disability provided. I ended up making choices multiple times between taking part with everyone else and taking care of my health. Because of that, I wanted to cover ways we can overcome the barriers our disability creates so we can take part in more things that matter to us.
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Self-care is a booming industry, especially as many people are facing burn out. While many of the things that first come to mind with self-care are expensive, there is self-care that is inexpensive and helps us to care for our needs. This is especially true when you live with less energy available to you. That act of self care is learning to set boundaries. Most people aren’t taught how to set boundaries and may even view it as a selfish move that moves them away from others. However, when you set good boundaries, you can actually allow yourself to be closer to others without sacrificing yourself.
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