Book Club Log #18
This month's book was Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew, which I had suggested. Bookstore Employee didn't initially seem to have the highest opinion of it after having read it, and the most common critique was, "This is very introductory," but I actually thought that was a good thing in case we got any new people into the club. Also, it being so short meant that basically everyone finished the book for once.
Luckily, it did seem to introduce some ideas to people -- there was a survey about if we had known about the social/medical model of disability beforehand, and about half were "No," which means that the introductory text was good after all.
I wanted to talk about the whole disabilities in space aspect of it, but despite how fascinating I found that section, it didn't seem to spark a lot of discussion when I brought it up.
Given that we have like 5 people in the teaching profession, the conversation steered towards disability in school and how the environment and standards are not serving disabled kids. Since I had ended up in a pair share with Teacher Guy before the main group share and he had been vulnerable with me, I decided to take a stab at being vulnerable and spoke about having had selective mutism and being punished for it in school. Immediately, when I was recounting, even in the vaguest of terms and with my dissociation reaching like 90%, I couldn't control my body and it started crying in its own. Goddammit.
Teacher Lady gave me a supportive note after I had finished sharing. I sat there and waited for the tears and snot to calm down, but they didn't, so after a few minutes I got up with some tissues and had a small walk outside. That seemed to work for the most part.
Socialized a little bit afterwards. Ah, well. I wonder if speaking about it will ever get easier.
Started making me think again that if I'm this traumatized despite the therapy and everything, maybe I really should go to a disability support group and see if that can rewire my brain. I keep telling myself that one day my mental illnesses will be under control and that I'll be "functioning" then, and if that's true, maybe thinking of myself as disabled is stolen valor, but some forms of disability are indeed temporary (like an otherwise able-bodied person breaking a leg). I think I know that there will probably never be any community that truly makes me feel accepted if not for one that's disability-adjacent, though. Though I also wonder about my capability to truly accept others. I guess I won't know till I try.