May 24, 2022
In a Time of Mass Mourning, Grief Stories Are a Lifeline
In our constrained culture where public, raw grief is not socially acceptable, I fear that grief stories are being asked to do too much.
s.e. smith is a National Magazine Award-winning Northern California-based writer who has appeared in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Bitch Magazine, and numerous other fine publications.
In our constrained culture where public, raw grief is not socially acceptable, I fear that grief stories are being asked to do too much.
While someone’s disability may not be evident to you, it still affects their life—and how they’re treated within and outside the disability community.
We speak of the radicalization of disabled people, but so few have that experience. So many never even know us.
What’s terrifying about Spears’s situation, for a certain kind of disabled person, is that we are a razor’s edge away from joining her.
It upsets cure evangelists to see evidence of disability, right there in front of them.
Beds transmute into a form of policing while simultaneously being promoted as an alternative to policing.
In listings for old pottery that was not intended to be crazed, sellers will disclose what they see as damage: ‘Some crazing.’ Sometimes that’s how I feel. Some crazing.
There are entire lines of therapy that basically boil down to “learn self-control so you never upset the sane.”
Everyone’s experience of a diagnosis is different. Here is mine: A key opens a lock I didn’t know existed, sending a door swinging wide.
When you attribute someone’s evil actions to their mental health status rather than their actual root cause—like white supremacy—then that evil is no longer presented as a choice.
