"Hey, look, it's a nifty and interesting site - thanks, Stumble!"

Within moments, I'd fallen in love with Dorinda Fox (the math homework entry) and found something highly quotable for the site where I usually write my shit ("Thinking About Math and History While CLeaning the Bathroom). Then I discovered "Placebostudman" and Net Love happened.

 I read an interview someone had written with him as their subject (Sorry, no source for that one - when Net Lurve takes places, Link Saving stops), and I did that thing I always SWEAR I'll never do again, but always end up repeating anyway: I wrote him.

" I'm new to all this.

Not just OS but Disabled Land, too, even if my passport there has "proxy" written on it.

My family doesn't -do- disabilities. When I was diagnosed with depression a decade ago, it was bad enough - under-the-rug-type of embarrassment followed causing a schism that eventually lead to my bitch mother stealing my first child and me decisively breaking contact with every member of ym family who stood by and watched.

And that was just depression.

Then, life happened and, suddenly I've got another child who is Different To Everyone Else and - without even as much time to wonder how I feel about this - I'm having to suddenly (and ironically) fight to get his disability recognised.

It pisses me off enormously that the disabled have to be judged and tagged by the well-bodied and -minded. How the fuck are they meant to know anything about anything? Fine, the facts are all there, the list of diagnostic criteria is available. But, like the male midwife who figured he'd give giving me a lesson in breastfeeding discovered, what the fuck does anyone KNOW unless they've been through it themselves?

The "Abled" (The abbreviation I'll use for those with allegedly sound bodies and minds from now on) have a spectacular luxury when it comes to their wholeness, aside from the patently obvious "Everything works - hoorah!" point of view. They can't know what it's like for something [i]not[/i] to work, and the Empathy Bus only goes so far before people have to get off.

My son is 4 and autistic. However, he's lucky / unlucky enough to have an obvious case of Asperger's Syndrome. Lucky, because he's, at least, highly intelligent and high-functioning. Unlucky because he's just not quite odd enough for those of the professional medical persuasion to want to hurry up and diagnose him so that we can start getting the help we need.

And yet, these Abled folks - to whom disability has become somewhat passe - flatly refuse to acknowledge that a 4-year-old can be in nappies while explaining to them how the Gulf Stream works. Worse, they don't see his extreme obsession with geology and astronomy to be a disability at all.

This is because they have the luxury of not having to. And this, more than the constant battle I've had for the last three years, more than the way it's still suggested that my bad parenting has somehow MADE him autistic, more than the way my opinions are ignored and my involvement never sought, pisses me the fuck off and starts me off on the "The Abled are Utter Cunts" road, which I invariably hit at full speed and drive along until the tarmac runs out.

Then I find your blog.

I still feel like an interloper - I'm not disabled myself, though (perhaps I offer this like foreign currency to a taxi driver at an airport) I'm not a stranger to pain with my severe endometriosis, but I'm still essentially Abled. It's an oddly uncomfortable place to be when you've seen the alternatives and struggled with the Abled to get any kind of recognition.

However, when strangers in the street start approaching you to talk about your child's autism, it becomes pretty fucking clear that the Abled Doctors and you don't really share the same point of view anymore.

Your blog seems to "get" this, though you're a long-time resident of Disabled Land. But, the truth is that the Abled are a bunch of granted-taking fuckers for most of whom a little more compassion and imagination wouldn't be lost on. I'm grateful for the words you've written (expect another incredibly long, dull, oddly-bitter letter to follow when I've trawled through your archives and have collected more quotes), as I am for the honesty you type them with. Oh, we're ALL ABOUT being aware of the disabled, the elderly, the ethnic minorities... but that doesn't lead to acceptance because, still, the Abled are able to refuse to consider what life is actually like for people who HAVE to deal with this shit instead of simply choosing to.

I tried writing something similar on a site I occasionally visited a while ago, and the reception was largely "Oh, Shel, you do like to make a fuss over nothing. We KNOW that life for the disabled sucks!"

Abled fuckers.

With that kind of love you can only get from an admiring stranger,

sheling x"

 I try to take life brightly and happily, but, seriously, sometimes you just HAVE TO LET IT OUT.

 Anyway. Conversation ensued and I wrote a profile (which makes me look like a Crazy Person) and then I wrote this, my strange introduction to a community that invited me to raise my game.

Hullo!

 A final note - it's mindblowingly awesome to have lots of little formatting buttons at the top of this window here, though I apologise in advance for the length of time I'm going to need before I start using them fluently and stop doing things like capitalising and using BBcode to convey my sentiments. But it also present with a strange contradiction - the bio section offers no formatting options whatsoever. So my wonderfully formatted, carefully crafted bio ends up making me look as if I can only run-on-sentence and then end on a non-sequitor rant.

 While this tends to be true most of the time, I was so hoping it wouldn't be that obvious form the get-go.

 I look forward, hugely, to reading more of the articles and entries on OS - it's so refreshing to find a group of people who can write AND think at the same time - a challenge I frequently fail to live up to.

 Shel x