July Is Disability Pride Month
After Pride, this is an extremely quiet affirmation (includes monthly prompt)
Ironically, I hadn’t got my prompt piece written for the beginning of this month because I have been struggling with my health.
At the risk of repeating myself (again) to those who are already familiar with my work, I personally live my life with a variety of chronic ailments both physical and mental in nature, all of which are a constant presence but fluctuate in severity on a daily basis.
For those who like specifics, consider me an open book. When I say “a variety”, I mean: - Generalised Anxiety - Clinical Depression - Panic Disorder - Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - Endometriosis - Ovarian Cysts - Umbilical Hernia - Fibromyalgia - Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - Costochondritis - Arthritic joints (due in part to hypermobility) - Asthma (under control, but serious)
And that’s just me.
My partner is also disabled through long-term illness. Despite all my own issues, I am my partner’s main carer. I have been for 14 years now.
My 21 year old is healthy, but has a severely life-threatening, anaphylaxis ‘triggering within a bargepole’s length’ allergy to peanuts and other nuts (plus various other lesser allergies, intolerances and sensitivities).
The first time he nearly died from this was when he was twelve months old, when he put his fingers in some peanut butter residue (from a small friend’s plate) and wiped it on his face; at which point his face blew up until his eyes were swollen over and he began to struggle to breathe. That was how we discovered his allergies.
As you can imagine, the last twenty years have been one long, continuous moment of hypervigilance and tension for me.
Living lives controlled by chronic pain, chronic fatigue, life-threatening reactions and disability has been challenging to say the least. It took me a long time to work out how to embrace and accept the limitations, learn to truly appreciate the small blessings of our daily lives and make the most I can from what I have. Being at home 95% of the time has it’s downsides, for sure, but it’s a blessing as well as a curse because it also gives me the potential of building a writing life; and creating a whole community of writers I can help, edit, publish and promote here on Medium.
Being here with you all has kept me going over the time I’ve been here. Thank you for the community and friendship I’ve found here.
Of course, much as they might be in somewhat dire straits (not the band, no) in recent years, the UK National Health Service — now in it’s 75th year — and Welfare State have been our saving grace. I know all too well that, had we living in the USA for example, we would have struggled so much more. I don’t think I would have lived this long. I may not have survived long enough to give the world my greatest gift, my beautiful, gentle, kind hearted child.
The Prompt
For this month, being as the whole prompt piece is Disability Awareness dedicated, that’s your brief from me and your Counter Arts prompt for July (or, what’s left of it, sorry about that).
You could write about any aspect related to the general subject, for example: illness; disability; health; allergy: disease; infection; COVID; accessibility; healthcare; medical aids; homecare; surgery; short-term health issues or long-term health issues; mental health; therapies; therapists; age-related issues; dementia; learning disabilities; the autism spectrum; recommendations or reviews of disability focused literature (either fiction or nonfiction); language around the subject; service dogs; your own experience of illness, or of caring for someone else/observing a friend or family member…..or an essay which delves into a welfare/benefits system, or observations on an aspect of disabled life (such as parking perhaps).
The choice is yours, but as ever I’ll be looking forward to reading your submissions.
For some work already published around this subject, see below:
More from me:
From the marvellous Allie Funk:
Thanks Allie!!
Anyone can submit a prompt response, so feel free to share this around. For anyone who isn’t yet a writer for Counter Arts but would like to be, please just leave a comment saying so (submissions guidelines can be found here).
**inserting a quick edit to say that you are always welcome to write fiction or poetry about any prompts I publish on Counter Arts, but please send those to our associate publication Rainbow Salad (and thanks again Raine Lore for the nudge!)**
Thanks for reading, as always you are greatly appreciated.
Anyone like to kick us off?
Jess the Avocado — Jackie Olsen — Reece Beckett — Marc Barham — Chuck Haacker — Raine Lore — Allie Funk — Janice Harayda — Pam Saraga — Lance R. Fletcher — Sieran Lane — Laura Halls — Jeff Hayward — Kristine Harper — Kaylin Hamilton — Terry Barr — Nathan Chen — Mira G. Eliodora — Priyanka Sarkar — Margie Willis — Anisa H.
Stay safe. Stay well. Keep writing. With love — Sadie