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It was a mistake to cry today after masking up for errands on Wednesday!!! Masking up hurts my lungs (I have exercise-induced asthma atop already severely scarred lung tissue from a post-Hurricane Katrina mold infection that almost killed me) but ableist asshats everywhere are...
...attempting to abuse disability laws to avoid having to mask up despite being fully capable of it, so people like me who could go maskless if everyone else actually followed the rules to create a controlled environment cannot. Ugh.
I hate the mask discourse so much. If you must comment, just say: "If you can wear a mask and you choose not to, you're a jerk!" Plenty of people can't mask up, actually. Or have to suffer extreme pain as a consequence, like me. Your words matter. (And they make you look bad!)
So far everytime I have to mask up in public, for 90min or less errands runs (mainly Rx medications that don't qualify for delivery) once a month, it's hurt my lungs for a solid week afterwards. My lungs burn like I just coughed up seawater, basically. It's extremely unpleasant.
I hoped my lungs were getting better used to masking because they didn't hurt as much last month, but I think perhaps I was being overly optimistic about how effective doubling my cardio workout during the pandemic can really be when my maximum ceiling for it is just so low.
I did half as much physical exertion as I normally do each month on this Wednesday's outing so my lungs were feeling better than they normally would, so of course I got screwed over by crying today. Too much stress! Struggling to get my breathing under enough control to sleep.
The mask discourse has given license to people who previously only shot me dirty looks for being too young, too fat, too female, etc. to "really" be disabled to now actually come out and feel justified verbally assaulting people in public. No way that improves post-pandemic.
People who previously only thought hateful things about disabled people now have an excuse to openly harass us over mask rules and feel fully justified without second thoughts because they can convincingly tell themselves they're only doing it for the greater public good.
There's so much anger, hate, and hostility in the "just wear a fucking mask" rhetoric. I'd interject the story of my own painful mask situation in strangers' masking threads to educate others more often if I thought it might actually be worth it. But it's consistently not!
"They're just trying to protect real disabled people like you!" No, they really aren't. I'd bet all the money I don't have that most people saying "just wear your fucking mask" now haven't ever previously tweeted anything either against ableism, or in favor of disability rights.
"You know who they're actually referring to is people who can mask up but choose not to!" Their imprecise language choices do make it about disabled people like me, actually. I'm not a mind-reader. If you mean X but say Y, then get mad I didn't divine your subtext, that's on you.
If you mean X, say X. If you mean Y, say Y. I don't understand why people have such trouble being precise in the meaning of what they say. Words mean things. It really shouldn't be so hard not to fail at mask discourse. Especially when tweets threads exist to elaborate with.
I'm disgusted by fellow asthmatics playing the comparison game, saying: "If I can mask up, so can you!" It's not true. Your lungs are not identical to those of every human being on Earth! Your asthma's triggers and severity are not the same as in every other asthmatic on Earth!
I'm used to rampant ableism from medical professionals because it's so often literally written into the textbook, but the pulse oximieter videos are especially gross. Of all people, those in the medical field should appreciate the vast variance between individual human bodies!
The Republican Party's default stance for over a decade now has been to reject science, so I don't understand the point of "just wear your fucking mask"/"if I can wear a mask with asthma, so can you"/"masks don't meaningfully lower oxygen levels" posts to begin with.
(I mean, I understand "just wear your fucking mask" posts as an expression outlet for the helpless rage we feel when we witness other people doing things that are so willfully dangerous and easily fixable. But I don't understand people who think these posts change minds.)
Have y'all actually convinced anyone who could wear a mask but refused to, to change their mind and mask up? Did any actual "evidence" like the asthmatics wearing masks or nurses wearing pulse ox videos work? Or was it just relational guilt based on you, the person asking them?
I'm genuinely interested in hearing those stories, if they exist. Because so far, I haven't actually seen evidence of these callout posts actually changing anyone's behavior. (I mostly hear disabled and chronically ill friends fighting to get their relatives not to kill them!)
All I've seen these callout posts do is harass actually-disabled people. And the ferocity of it genuinely scares me, to the point that even if we return to a pre-pandemic lifestyle, I fear the harassment will only get worse.
I'd love to be wrong. Please let me be wrong!
I'd love to be wrong. Please let me be wrong!
