Anatomy of a Depression Episode

What follows is a description of a depression episode as I experience it.  This was written on the tail end of an episode very late at night.  With a few changes, it is exactly as I wrote it during that depression episode.  It is important to note that this is not how everyone experiences depression - my depression is intertwined with anxiety, which complicates things.  As they...

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Why I Can No Longer Fully Support the Social Model

I am tired of feeling ashamed to be disabled. Or not disabled, really, the social model makes that distinction.  I am ashamed to be impaired. Disability, in a nutshell, is what society imposes on you.  Impairment is the biological condition that causes society to disable you in the first place. Here's the thing:  Not everyone who is considered disabled by society has an impairment...

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No, It Is Not Okay To Grieve (Because Nobody Died)

Parents of children with disabilities are often told, when their child is first diagnosed with a disability, that it is okay to grieve the loss of a "normal child".  I've even seen it taken a step further, with suggestions that parents of children with disabilities go through the same five stages of grief that people go through when someone dies - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. I...

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This Is the Week Autism Speaks Meets Its Downfall

"If three million children in America one day went missing – what would we as a country do?" What would we do if three million people in the United States were being told that they are missing? Missing from where, I'm not sure.  Missing implies that there is a place that they are supposed to be.  Missing implies that something is lost.  The remote control can go missing.  The...

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An Open Letter to the Staff of the Long Island Doctor Who Convention

To Ken Depp and the Long Island Doctor Who Staff, During the weekend of November 8th - 10th, 2013, I was thrilled to attend the Long Island Doctor Who convention at the Clarion Hotel and Convention Center Ronkonkoma.  As an avid Whovian, I was eager to go to my first convention and meet like-minded people. I was not prepared to find that the convention was inaccessible to me. I was...

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