"Some of the [historic] strategies used by the system to exercise violence are sterilization, incarceration or even murder. These strategies have evolved as the capitalist system has evolved. These strategies arise from the need of capitalism to create and promote the idea of an efficient body, capable of producing maximum economic and social benefit. Since industrialization, what prevailed was the body understood as a source of labor. The efficiency of the body, linked to health standards set by medicine, looked for the body’s functionality. The medical standard defined the expected efficiency of the body, and thereby linked bodily health to economic productivity.
With consumer capitalism, production becomes so consumer-driven, that advertising, visual and aesthetic ideals take precedence. Social success, therefore, gets linked to the physical, and social ascent, will reflect how well your body conforms to aesthetic ideals, to the norm...Medicine under consumer capitalism will be responsible for promoting health linked to the aesthetic field, bodies that resemble the idea of consumer beauty will be considered healthy. Which in turn leads medicine to standardize bodies in order to achieve both health and beauty, creating the ideal of healthy, beautiful, good, slim bodies. Bodies will be adapted to fit this standard, which legitimizes the non-genuine."
- Itxi Guerra, The Fight Against Ableism, article from a fanzine, translated from Spanish 5/9/23.
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I am thankfully not sick like that anymore all the time but I am mostly housebound as well which is why I don't have many friends either, I can read but I seriously don't have will to enjoy anything and these people ALL the time saying "enjoy this" "enjoy that" like mf I can't I barely have any outlets of joy and I can't take on anything new, you know why? Because I am exhausted.
I know the feeling, I'm exhausted too. That's why it's so annoying, when I post a mutual aid request I usually get people ignoring the "no unsolicited advice" rule, and writing lists of alternatives for me to try, like different organisations etc. I've already tried them all, found I'm not eligible and each time i write a mutual aid request I have to answer these replies with a list of why their suggestions aren't suitable for me. Even when I've had therapy for depression the so-called therapy is just a list of nonsense to try, which is exhausting and pointless. All the medics who treat me, like the physiotherapist, neurologist, etc insist on me keeping detailed diaries of my daily condition, almost daily medical appointments, regularly fighting disability claims, daily worries and struggles to get the basic things I need, I can just never rest. You'd think someone with cancer and recovering from a stroke could just be allowed to rest, but no. There can be no rest, ever.
People love to give unsolicited advice to people they think below them, like if you can't help move the fuck on, yes we tried to learn maths, we tried to go to college, we tried to have a small job, we tried to talk to ngos, many of us have hit rock bottom and many of us are exhausted because of trying to avoid rock bottom and rest are barely holding on. Leave us alone. I sometimes want to write a disability separatist manifesto, I might post one in bad posting as a joke
I think it's a mixture of virtue signalling, wanting to look like they're helping without actually having to help, and annoyance that people are asking for help. There have been a few people even here who've wanted to sabotage my efforts to obtain help, who've strung me along with fake promises or posted irrelevant advice that makes it look like help is available to me when it is not. It's happened so many times that I don't even believe offers of help any more until the help has actually been received. I've even had people clearly trying to phish for my information with false offers of help. But yes it does make life even more exhausting dealing with all this.
It really is, I don't get what's going on in people's head when they say or do all. It's truly exhausting and honestly people should first try to fix their habit of giving unsolicited advice instead of giving anyone advice about fixing themselves.