Dignity

Depression and Suicide Do Not Come Standard With the Progressive Disability Package

/ Ingrid Tischer / Leave a comment
A few weeks ago, Alice Wong asked me, a fellow person living with a progressive neuromuscular disease (NMD), how I would respond to someone with an NMD who was saying they wanted to commit suicide.  This was my answer.

Depression is not a standard feature of living with a neuromuscular disease (NMD) or other progressive disability.Depression & Suicide Do Not Come Standard With the Progressive Disability Package Depression is not a standard feature of living with a neuromuscular disease (NMD) or other progressive disability. Do people living with disabilities also experience depression? Yes. Anyone can have depression and you are no different in deserving treatment and relief for it. Thinking that you alone can help yourself with your depression through suicide is a tragic form of “overcoming.” If finding the right treatment for your depression proves difficult, it’s not proof that your disability makes you different from other people. It’s not proof that, for you, suicide is a rational choice. No. It’s proof that depression is difficult to treat for vast numbers of people. Like you. It's free and confidential to contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline anytime. You are not a medical prognosis or a checklist of functional abilities. You're a person. Who is in terrible pain now and deserves relief. Like everybody else. If you're in crisis: 1-800-273-TALK (8255), 1-800-799-4TTY (4889) https://www.facebook.com/800273talk/ @800273TALK © 2016 talesfromthecripblog.com

Do people living with disabilities also experience depression? Yes. Anyone can have depression and you are no different in deserving treatment and relief for it. Thinking that you alone can help yourself with your depression through suicide is a tragic form of “overcoming.”

If finding the right treatment for your depression proves difficult, it’s not proof that your disability makes you different from other people.

It’s not proof that, for you, suicide is a rational choice. No. It’s proof that depression is difficult to treat for vast numbers of people. Like you.

It’s free and confidential to contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline anytime. You are not a medical prognosis or a checklist of functional abilities. You’re a person. Who is in terrible pain now and deserves relief.

If you’re in crisis:

1-800-273-TALK (8255) , 1-800-799-4TTY (4889)
@800273TALK
 

What #CripLit Means To Me (and How It Differs From #DisLit)

/ Ingrid Tischer / 9 Comments

Crip Lit Let disability entertain you www.talesfromthecrip.org

Crip lit entertains you. It doesn’t explain disability.

Too basic?…

What #CripLit Means To Me (and how it differs from #DisLit) 1. In #CripLit, at least one main character has a disability and the narrator is aware of its political dimension. 2. In #CripLit, living with a disability can be described through the narrator's point of view, not just the character's, and this can provide stylistic opportunities. 3. In #CripLit, a disabled character can be deeply flawed, unlikable, or foolish, and is not obligated to be an advocate, inspiration, or role model in fictional clothing. 4. In #CripLit, an anti-hero can have a disability that is integrated into their character. 5. In #CripLit, the story does not seek to educate the reader about the mechanics of living with a disability and does seek to describe a fullness of experience, whether wholly or partially imagined. © 2016 talesfromthecripblog.com

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Pride and Prejudice: Part Two of Why I Oppose Assisted Suicide Legislation

/ Ingrid Tischer / Leave a comment

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a neurodegenerative disease must be in want of an early death.

 My dear Miss Cripple,mr. darcy

Madam, in vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I pity you and plead you to accept my assistance  in hastening your death.

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The NotPeople Magazine Rationalest Man Alive Interview: Peter Singer Gets Notpersonal With A Respironics Bi-Pap S/T

/ Ingrid Tischer / 6 Comments

Parody People magazine cover announcing NotPeople's Rationalest Man Alive! Peter SingerAs part of Tales From the Crip’s new series, Imaginary Interviews With People Who We Wish Were Imaginary, our own Respironics Bi-Pap S/T sat down with philosopher Dr. Peter Singer, Princeton’s Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, whose anti-crip, pro-swine agenda argues that infanticide of babies with disabilities should be legal up until the 28th day after birth, that health care for people with disabilities should be rationed, and that the consciousness of some pigs doesn’t get enough respect. These fascis — fascinating ideas are just the tip of the iceberg of why Peter Singer is gracing the cover of NotPeople magazine as the Rationalest Man Alive! 

RBPS/T:  Welcome to the United States, Dr. Peter Singer, and all Bruces from Australia.

PS: G’day.

RBPS/T: We’re going to have a rational discussion!

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  Rational.

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  You’ve been named NotPeople’s Rationalest Man Alive 2015. How does this make you feel?

PS: Rational.

RBPS/T:  Any plans for keeping the title in 2016?

PS: I don’t make plans more than 28 days ahead.

Coming Up in the Interview! 

Peter Singer as you’ve never heard him!  

“Your bizarre stereotypes about Australian people are getting in the way of me explaining why infanticide is the rational choice for parents of disabled infants!”

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Better the Rights I Know: Part 1 of Why I Oppose Assisted Suicide Legislation

/ Ingrid Tischer / Leave a comment

All of us know that our healthcare options are limited by the boundaries set by a for-profit healthcare industry. I’m justifiably skeptical of proposed assisted suicide legislation that was written and supported by the healthcare industry. Particularly when they are marketing it as a civil right that just happens to be the $300 alternative to more costly options.

Assisted suicide legislation, modeled on Oregon’s law, is once again up for a vote in the state where I live. I look at assisted suicide legislation as a public health issue that will affect thousands of people in the state of California alone. Consider just three factors in combination:

1) California’s fastest growing demographic is people age 60 and up.

2) Elder abuse is on the rise while investigating agencies such as Adult Protective Services (APS) caseworkers are already dealing with unmanageable caseloads.

3) A physician is not required to be present when assisted suicide drugs are taken but an heir may be present and help administer them. (“Self-administer” is a term that does, in fact, allow for assistance in taking the drugs.)

This is the real-world context where proposed assisted suicide legislation would be implemented. All of us know that our healthcare options are limited by the boundaries set by a for-profit healthcare  Continue reading →