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12:47pm April 14, 2014

Someone recently recommended my tumblr to someone.

And the recommendation was supposed to be about disability rights blogs that aren’t ‘spoonie’ blogs.

I think the difference between the two isn’t so much about whether you have a 'disability’ versus whether you have a 'chronic illness’.  Because there’s really no clear dividing line between those two things.  If you look at many famous disability rights people, like Cheryl Marie Wade, she had a chronic illness, so did Nancy Mairs, etc.

The difference is mostly in outlook.  This is a gross overgeneralization: Spoonie blogs tend to look at chronic illness as an individual problem solved by medical means, and tend to focus mostly on that.  Disability rights blogs tend to look at the political and social aspects of being disabled.

Of course there’s plenty of people who do both.  And being focused on disability rights does not mean neglecting medical treatment and medical issues.  It’s just a different focus.

I’m not totally sure which focus comes out more in my blog, but as far as how I view the world in general I’d be very much in the realm of disability rights.  And that has nothing to do with what kind of medical conditions I have, it has to do with my outlook on life.  I’m far more interested in changing political and social situations surrounding disability.  And I actually have a really hard time connecting with the 'spoonie’ community, because I find some of the underlying ideas people usually have, very hard to swallow.

And it doesn’t matter that I have 'medical’ conditions like adrenal insufficiency, gastroparesis, and so forth.  It doesn’t matter that I write about my personal experiences with them.  That has nothing to do with what my outlook is on disability rights.

Of course, I have no idea whether my blog is what this person is looking for, or not.  I write about a lot of things and disability is only one of them.  But I’m definitely not a 'spoonie blog’, at least in my own eyes.