A Disabled Artist Rant

Why does everything always feel so out of reach?

As a disabled artist, everything feels impossible.

I’m starting from scratch. I had to drop out of college and spent twenty years of my life in and out of hospitals. At the time, art was all I had. It was a coping skill to get through the daily torture. Hell, it still is for that matter, but now I want more than that.

I work hard at what I do!

My art and photography have been hung in galleries around Boston and homes around the world, I’ve performed spoken word and rapped over beats and live music, I’ve written, edited, and designed the covers for several books, made a website, wrote and illustrated a children’s book, and I am in the process of designing original tarot cards. I sell shirts, prints, stickers, magnets, greeting cards, bookmarks, books, and original art. Occasionally, people buy something. Most of the time they don’t. Most of the time, people don’t even like or share my art when I ask them to, but they’ll share their WORDLE and the fact that they’re watching “Stranger Things” every day. Right now everyone is sharing a book called, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” by a famous former child star who was abused by her mother, and everyone is talking about how powerful a book it is, and I’m sure it is, but I just published a powerful book about abuse that only about 100 people bought, and maybe 50 read. Twenty of them gave me 4 or 5-star reviews, but it got me nowhere. It was called, “I Write the System To Fight the System So I Might Right the System.” Almost no one shared pictures of it on their Facebook wall or Instagram, saying they were reading it the way they are with, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” which has gone viral. I’m a nobody, so my story doesn’t get seen and doesn’t get talked about. I know that’s the way of the world, but it’s rough to start from the bottom while disabled on top of it.

I don’t have much money to advertise. I take any money I make from my art and books and put it back into my art in some way, whether I have prints made, stickers, shirts, business cards, or pay for a book promotion like on Goodreads or Reedsy. All of my money goes back into my art, but I’m not making enough that I can do anything big. I can’t advertise for more than a week or so here and there, a few times a year, I can’t pay to submit to competitions or for an editor or cover designer for my books, etc. I can’t take classes unless they are free and through the internet, I live on less than minimum wage, and I’m struggling to get by on my own.

Some things make me furious as if the world is just looking to make things more difficult for the disabled.

The fact that a 20-pound container of kitty litter is $12 but an 8.5-pound container that I can actually carry upstairs is $19. Why? I have so many inconveniences already. It fucks with me and pisses me off. I’m always in pain from my arthritis, I can hardly breathe from my allergies, and I’m dealing with severe mental illness due to being traumatized regularly for most of my life. I’m stuck. I’m afraid to go out because I don’t know if I can take care of myself if something goes wrong. If I twist my hip and can’t walk and can’t breathe or I have a panic attack, I could fuckin’ die, but God forbid I miss an important event. Then I’m just making excuses.

At least, it often feels like people are judging.

It’s hard to see my artist friends who started out doing art around the time I did or even years later than me, who don’t have chronic pain and severe mental health problems, getting their art seen by more people while I still battle to get out of the house. I work on my art and writing all day every day. If I’m not working on my art or writing, I’m working on self-care in some way, but for all the work I do, I don’t have a cent saved. I can’t save money anyway, because I’m on SSI and am not allowed to have more than $2000 in my bank account. That’s disabled life. I have to pay for medicine and medical supplies on top of the regular daily needs of the average person, but with less money. I don’t even care about money that much though. I grew up middle class, but I’ve always been at the bottom. Money never seemed like it was the magic answer to my problems, but I’d like to be able to support myself and not be dependent on others, especially the government, as a trans person in America, which is being run by “right-wing pigeons from outer space,” as the Dead Milkmen put it.

My new book, “Good Catholic Kids,” is coming out at the end of August or by early September at the latest. It would mean a lot to me if people gave it a try. I know I’m not the best of the best that’s out there, but I’ve lived a hell of a life and have some fascinating stories to tell. This one is fiction, but strongly based on a true story, and the few people who read it before it was published loved it. I just need it to be seen. How does that happen as a nobody who’s fighting to do a hundred side jobs just to keep up to the bare minimum?

It would mean the world to me if you consider helping out your fellow disabled, transgender artist by reading and maybe even promoting my book. It could help free me from this disappointing life I feel so stuck in. I love to promote my friends’ art and books. I take joy in knowing it helps them and makes them happy. I get frustrated that so few people do the same for me, but a few people do show me love, and I appreciate them a lot.

This is the blurb on the back of “Good Catholic Kids”:

Karen A. Rogers was not what most would consider a good Catholic kid. At only fourteen years old, she already had a troubled past, an odd sense of humor, and was battling addictions and other demons. In the Summer of 1993, she was invited on a bus trip from Salem Massachusetts to Denver Colorado with a youth group that was attending the World Youth Day festival to see the pope. Karen practiced witchcraft and hardly knew who the pope was, but she desperately needed to get away from home. What she experienced made her question her gender, the kind of people she was attracted to, and whether or not those things made her a sinner the way the Catholic religion said.

The ten-day trip was full of self-exploration and the kind of fun that only a troubled teenager could have.

Thanks for listening to me rant. I was inspired to do so by a writing prompt from “Queerly Trans”: