Tag: Sphere Life

Written by Bailey Patterson

Online spaces are an important aspect of the disability community. Thanks to the internet, connection is more accessible and widespread than ever before. This has led to the creation of many online communities where people with disabilities can share their experiences and meet other people. This Disability Pride Month, we explored some ways online disability communities make an impact.

Friendship

The most obvious benefit of online communities is making friends. For some people with disabilities, in person interaction may come with barriers that online spaces may mitigate. Especially in disability-oriented spaces, additional accessibility features such as tone tags and role reactions facilitate easier communication between people who may struggle with social cues or have certain needs within interactions. 

Friendship is a source of happiness and comfort and has a positive impact on mental health. For this reason, online friendships can improve the lives of those who find connection in this way.

Crowdsourced Solutions

People with disabilities may face unique challenges across a variety of spaces. In online disability communities, people are able to share problems with accessibility, health, or daily life they may be experiencing and get a variety of perspectives from others who have had a similar experience. 

This sharing of expertise is especially important for people with disabilities who are in new life situations, such as attending college or joining the workforce. Hearing from other people with lived experience can make a major difference when it comes to facing a challenge, and can help make someone feel less alone in their journey. 

Cross Disability Solidarity

Cross Disability Solidarity occurs when people from different disability groups come together to support one another. For example, Deaf people can find solidarity in people who use mobility aids or neurodivergent people with people with chronic illnesses. Cross Disability Solidarity is important because it increases awareness of needs between different disability groups and allows for better advocacy overall as one disability community. 

With the sheer scale and reach that online communities are able to achieve, Cross Disability Solidarity can be successfully facilitated and used as a jumping off point for movements bettering the lives of people with disabilities everywhere. 

Organizing

Online communities can be a starting point for real life organization or be spaces for advocacy efforts. For example, organizations such as Neuromancers use entirely online spaces to organize and facilitate peer support groups for people with highly stigmatized mental health experiences such as psychosis or Cluster B personality disorder diagnoses. Being online can make offerings like that more accessible for people who cannot access the outside world and are most safe and comfortable within their homes. 

Mutual Aid

Online spaces are able to host large numbers of people, and therefore crowdfunding is possible. In some online disability communities, it’s common to see people raising funds and helping others for things like accessibility aids or medical expenses. The ability to rely on an online community for needs like this can ensure people get the help they need and want who may otherwise not have access to that support in their own in-person community. 

Online spaces are a vital aspect of the disability community, offering opportunities for connection, support, and empowerment. The internet has made it possible for people with disabilities to share their experiences, meet others, and build communities that transcend geographical barriers. How are you connecting this Disability Pride Month?

Written by Bailey Patterson

Every July marks Disability Pride Month, a time for people with disabilities to celebrate their identities and connect with their communities. 

College and university students are becoming evolved versions of themselves while furthering their education. Students with disabilities may face barriers to connection and celebration they would like to participate in. With this in mind, here are ways college students with disabilities can celebrate Disability Pride:

Find your Disability Community

Many colleges have clubs or organizations where students with disabilities can meet each other and find friends with similar experiences. At the University of Kentucky, this organization is the Disabled and Ill Student Coalition, where students with all types of disabilities and allies can create community, learn, and advocate. 

Other students may be at colleges or universities that don’t already have these types of organizations. These students may use resources such as their ADA Compliance Center, disability resource center, or local organizations in their cities or towns to meet other students with disabilities and begin meeting friends.

Get Connected Online

There are many online resources for students with disabilities to get connected. Beyond social media, many disability organizations have online servers for their communities. There is a national server for college students with disabilities called the National Disabled Student Coalition, where you can connect with students with disabilities all across America.

Get Creative

Art is a great way to express pride. Reflecting on your experiences and feelings as a person with a disability can be a starting point in the creative process. Create a poem, take a photo, make visual art, write a song, piece together a collage, perform a monologue or anything that feels authentic to your expression of disability pride. 

If you want to share your creativity with the community, share your post to instagram using the hashtag #CreateDisabilityPrideHDI and you might be featured on HDI’s social media!

Advocate

Channel your Disability Pride into advocating for a cause! In this year, the 34th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there is still so much more to be done in terms of Disability Justice Advocacy. Connect with local or online groups and contribute to ways in which they are furthering the human rights of people with disabilities both locally and worldwide. Uplift the voices of other people with disabilities when they speak about disability rights causes. Use your own voice to highlight the ways your experiences inform a need for change.

Learn

Learning disability history and theory can be an empowering way to get in touch with your disability pride. There are many websites, content creators, books, and films that contain educational content about disability history and theory. 

Ask your university or local library what disability-related books are in their catalog. Search your favorite online database for articles and journals such as Disability Studies Quarterly. One way you can learn with HDI is by signing up to view a free documentary about disability rights activist, Arthur Campbell, If I Can’t Do It It Ain’t Worth Doing. For more information about the screening, click here. 

Other Resources:

Disabled and Ill Student Coalition Instagram

NDSC Discord

The University of Kentucky Human Development Institute

If I Can’t Do It It Ain’t Worth Doing Documentary Screening RSVP

Written by Bailey Patterson

Mad Maps are a crisis intervention and personal expression tool created by and for people with lived experience of psychiatric disability. Mad Maps are a way to externalize elements that affect someone in a crisis state and can act as a guide for their future self who might need some grounding. They include things that give the person who created them joy and a road to feeling better.

Mad Maps were created by the Icarus Project. The Icarus Project was a collection of peer support networks and advocacy groups made up of people who identify as Mad, mentally ill, and/or neurodivergent. This group eventually evolved into the Fireweed Collective, which it is known as today. 

Mad Maps are intended to be a more personal alternative to traditional crisis plans. In The Icarus Project’s guidebook, “Madness and Oppression: Paths to Personal Transformation & Collective Liberation”,  readers who intend to create Mad Maps are asked to think deeply about the types of oppression they experienced and how that oppression affected them and their mental wellbeing. This guidebook encourages readers to connect ways to manage and dismantle oppression through coping methods. Through this, Mad Maps acknowledge the systemic factors that lead to crisis and distress within individuals. 

How to Make a Mad Map:

The medium for Mad Maps can be as traditional or as expansive as you choose. A map can be created with pencil and paper, an online document, with collage, in a zine, in a sculpture, or other mediums. 

The actual elements of a Mad Map can include anything but typically include information that would be good to have accessible in a crisis or state of distress. 

These elements might include daily routines that are useful to your mental health, signs that a crisis might be coming on, and your wishes for friends and family for how they can support you at this time. 

Practical Information to Include

For this information to be helpful, it is important to add details. You might want to include: 

• Names and phone numbers of support people, 
• Specific medications or interventions you consent to and those you would not consent to
• Recipes for foods that are easy to manage when experiencing a crisis

These pieces of information can act as a lifeline if you need direction and specific help. 

Other Things to Include

Map Maps should also include sources of joy and inspiration that have been helpful to you in the past. This could include:

• Names of your favorite songs
• Shows and movies you like to watch
• Quotes
• Pictures of pets and friends
• Anything that helps you navigate a difficult state 

All of these elements can be connected visually or in any way that makes sense to you. This is your roadmap for navigating your own body-mind, so make sure to make it personal, easy to use, and something you would want to use. 

Everyone is constantly evolving and changing, so leave space on your Mad Map to add new things as time goes on. Over time, you will learn new skills and find new sources of joy you might want to include in your map. 

Overall, make sure that your map is true to you and helpful in the ways that you need. Modify, add on, or rewrite the narrative to suit you.  

For more information and inspiration, check out these additional resources and guides about Mad Mapping:

Fireweed Collective Madness and Oppression Guide

Icarus Project – Mapping Our Madness