Normal Sucks

People with differences get services in school, their struggles are recognized, but only if they are willing to pathologize themselves, emphasize their problems, downplay their strengths, and claim differences as deficiencies.

When you hide, not only do you live in fear, but also in shame.

advertising industry seized on the idea, too, because if you want to sell something to someone, tell them something is wrong with them and you’ve got the thing to fix it.

This was, according to the Third Reich, an “American-model sterilization law.”

systemic ableism?

the “social model,” which posits that disability is caused by the way society is organized, its structure, values, and attitudes, rather than by a person’s limitations, impairments, and differences.

unhealthy.

normality is a problem to be struggled with, to be resisted, and ultimately, an idea to be rejected and replaced.

“holistic perception,” which encompasses a tendency to see the big picture in situations, stronger peripheral vision, higher than average visual-spatial skills, strengths in deciphering patterns, and the ability to “interact with their auditory environment while drawing upon their wider spatial attention,” enabling them to recognize patterns others