[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:01.61 Jala Hello world and welcome to Jala-chan's Place. I'm your host Jala Prendes and today I am joined by Lance (he/him) How are you doing today Lance? 00:12.39 Lance I'm doing pretty good. How are you. 00:19.30 Jala I'm going to call myself out at the beginning of this episode. So I At one point said hey I'm going to put the pronouns of the people that are on the show every time in the beginning and I forget so often like the last several times I have forgotten So I'm calling myself out that I did not say the pronouns for everybody in the last several episodes and that is my bad I don't put mine. 00:33.15 Lance So what about yours. 00:38.56 Jala And I guess like I I guess I should be saying mine to she her I will have to edit the intro I will have to edit my intro and I will have to adjust it now. So yeah, okay okay okay I got called out twice. Okay by myself and by Lance and that's fine. 00:41.80 Lance So why? yeah. 00:49.17 Lance Ah, every episode of yours I've listened to I've thought that same thing. 00:58.12 Jala We are rolling with it that you know like this podcast is all about learning and growth and whatever and I was calling myself out because I am definitely imperfect and I will work on it I will adjust this intro and I am going to tape it I'm going to write it down on a piece paper and tape it to my mic stand and then it's going to bother Dave every time he comes in to do his podcast because he's going to be just right? There's just he's staring at it the whole time he's recording. So anyway, that's how I'm doing that is okay that is okay. 01:25.76 Lance Don't worry I'm sure I'll stick my foot in my mouth today. You won't be alone. 01:31.65 Jala So if you've got that much flexibility more kudos to you like that is that is a feat. Ah ah I did a bad bad pun sorry you didn't even groan. Wow. 01:42.67 Lance I oh sorry I'm just trying to make sure I mute myself because I like I mean I am in a house with 4 children. So like Iny I don't want to give Dave a lot of work to do. 01:50.77 Jala Ah, yes, yes, yes. 01:54.33 Jala Yeah, yeah, I'm sure I'm sure he appreciates it. So anyway, today we are talking about disability and ableism. So this has been kind of like a sort of a long time in coming. It's hard when I have just 2 episodes a month to fit in everything because you go down rabbit holes and like after I did um the gender and identity kind of performance and identity episode then it was like listeners are like oh but let's talk about x y z and then like it was just like gender gender gender gender gender and it's like I have other things I want to talk about too. But I only have 2 episodes a month and one of those is the topical one and the other one is about media. So you know there's more of this coming? Yeah oh yeah, well and that's the thing it's like I I try to. 02:38.52 Lance Ah, yeah, most things are multifaceted and have a bunch of different angles to approach them from. Yeah. 02:48.86 Jala Kind of work through as best I can a topic to like a satisfactory level I mean like there's no end to it but to a satisfactory level before moving on to the next thing so it's like I really could just camp out on. We're talking gender for the next year in every episode I'm going to have different people on and we're going to have a slightly different you know way of talking about it. But I really wanted to have an episode about disability because it is something that is often overlooked when it comes to talking about equality and belonging and you know. All of that stuff and just recognizing it and how do how do you talk about it. What even is it. You know those are the things I want to talk about kind of like an intro chat about disability and I myself am not disabled I have a chronic condition that. Caused me to be temporarily disabled for about a year and then I had to work through a recovery period and gain my you know capacity back but eventually this condition that I have will eventually lead me down to permanent disability. So I am only. Temporarily non-disabled at this juncture. But lance you have the unique situation of having been non-disabled and then becoming disabled and we will get into that a little bit later after we do a little bit of intro about. 04:23.29 Jala Subject matter. So let's talk about what is disability in the first place. So a disability is defined as any condition of the body or the mind that makes it more difficult for the person with a condition to do certain activities and interact with the world around them. So according to the world Health Organization Disability has 3 different dimensions. There's impairment in a person's body structure or function or mental functioning that would be like a loss of a limb loss of vision loss of memory. And activity limitations such as difficulty seeing hearing walking or problem solving and participation restrictions in normal daily activities such as working engaging in social and recreational activities obtaining health care and preventative services and. Boy like we I'm sure we're going to camp out on that one. But um I know I know I know if if you want to stop me at any point and insert some more information in there feel free. So. 05:17.82 Lance So yeah, I'm in the I'm in the middle of one of those fights with my insurance. So I have things to say. 05:33.92 Jala You know, definitely like speak up raise your little hand hand icon or whatever. Yeah, you got a hand button and I can I can look at that and I can see that and we can stop me from rolling on on. So anyway, although. 05:37.91 Lance Ah, yeah I do have a hand button. 05:50.39 Jala People with disabilities sometimes refers to a single population. It's a diverse group of people with a wide range of needs. So 2 people who have the same condition will be differently affected by it. And that's due to culture that's due to severity of the condition that they have and so on and so forth their um resources and all of that always makes a difference to how much you know of a challenge that it is for them to. Participate in society and do all these other things. So some disabilities also may be hidden and they could also be just not easy to see you can see it but you have to really be paying attention. So. Because this experience of disability is so different for every person and because disability can be found in every single population disability advocacy is very very complex. It's a challenge because the needs and concerns of this broader umbrella term for myriad physical and mental differences. Are so varied. It's hard to present a unified front because disability is everywhere. It's in every population. It's in every culture and it's at every age group. There are disabled folks everywhere. So um, it's it's not like it's. 07:17.21 Jala Ah, something like everybody from this particular um skin color culture. Whatever is ah considered a minority because they have brown skin or black skin or whatever and you know therefore they can. Have a unified front of having the same culture and having the same experiences and things like it's as previously mentioned disability affects people differently and there's folks everywhere and their concerns are going to be different too like the way that they even see themselves is going to be very different. So. That's why it's really tough to be a disability Advocate. So Lance Do you want to talk a little bit about how not to be an ableist asshole. 08:05.44 Lance Oh ah, sure. Ah well I thought okay is that your whole intro. It's just I was sorry to be faced it I don't know well it just because Theability's hard. 08:16.79 Jala Didn't say whatever you want go. 08:22.24 Lance Because it's what you said like we're all, there's Dis ah disabled members of every different like community every different culture and whatever. So and there's so many different kinds of disabilities and some are really visible and some are not and. 08:40.29 Lance I Don't know I mean how to not be able is like I wish everybody would just stop like just because you have a thought or a curiosity. It doesn't It's not my job to respond to it I don't exist to listen to your questions about. 08:57.72 Lance My assistive devices or my situation or what happened to me so I um mind your own business. That's a great way to just not be an ableist like. 09:09.56 Jala Yeah, he. Yeah yeah, there's there's um, a another podcast that I listen to that I absolutely recommend folks who are interested in this topic listen to called bad attitudes and um Laura from that podcast. Is in a wheelchair and she has had people come up to them come up to her and just try to push her wheelchair and stuff and like no like that is absolutely no, you don't do that. Ah. 09:33.83 Lance And gosh when I heard that because see now like I'm I'm an upper limb amputee. So I don't have mobility issues but when she because she was talking about how her chair. 09:50.91 Lance Becomes like it's like it's an extension of her. It is her and I can relate to that because you know I have prosthetic devices and it's like my prosthetic is me. It's not you know it's not a tool. It's it's it. 10:07.74 Lance Especially because you know I work in blue colllar. So like we all have tools and equipment and all this other stuff and a lot of people will treat it like it's just like it's just a hammer. It's just a thing and it's like no this is part of my body like I wear this thing anywhere from 10 to 18 hours a day like it is part of me. 10:27.40 Lance Do not touch me so when she said she's in part of that she said somebody she's sitting at like a crosswalk and somebody just like leaned on her chair I like the the rage I was filled with I I don't I haven't reacted. 10:33.61 Jala Yeah I remember that and that's just. 10:45.51 Lance That harshly to something I've heard somebody just describe in a while and I was so mad I wanted to just start throwing punches. 10:51.60 Jala Um I know and just the the times where she's talked about and we're referencing this other um person and their situation because you know obviously neither one of us we've already stated you know we don't have mobility issues. We are not in a wheelchair so we can't. 11:08.79 Jala Speak to that but she had situations where like ah her and her mom were doing a five k because I think her her father was doing a marathon or something and anyway um, they were doing a 5 k and then all these people just kept on coming up to. Both of them and just talking specifically to Laura and going like oh I'm so glad you're out here in just all this other mess and it's like um, yeah, just again I think you said it best just kind of mind your own business like let that person you know you wouldn't say that. 11:35.20 Lance Gosh. 11:39.51 Lance Yeah I don't. 11:44.30 Jala You wouldn't just go up to a random person and be like I'm glad you're out here if they didn't have a wheelchair you would leave them alone. You know so like you need to treat them. You need to treat people who have assistive devices or whatnot or who have disability like other people I mean recognize yes that they might. 12:02.31 Jala You know have certain needs or whatever but like they're accustomed to getting up that ramp or whatever like you don't have to push their chair. You don't have to you know like if they need help they will ask for it and that is something that Laura has said multiple times on her podcast. So. That is a good tip. 12:24.14 Lance It's my problem with it's it ties into like the inspiration porn and like people with obvious disabilities are treated like our primary. Reason to exist is to kind of serve the non-disabled in a way where like we exist to either inspire them or to feed their curiosity by answering their questions or you know like if we need something then we're ignored. And kind of disregarded particularly when it comes to you know those of us who need help with accessibility like nobody cares about those topics other than us. But the times when we will get attention is when our existence can serve them to make them feel better. 13:16.91 Lance Or as I said to feed their curiosity and there's some kind because I always kind of grew up like with this understanding that you don't just ask strangers random questions or you know, just just go up and ask them personal questions but I don't understand why all that. So. 13:35.74 Lance Sort of like manners just kind of goes away just because the person that you see is disabled and has some obvious you know disability because that's the thing that I just the other day I was at work and like I work a physical job that. 13:52.59 Lance Most people would think cannot be done unless you have 2 hands and I was just I was just working on my equipment and this guy's just standing there and he's been staring at me for like 20 minutes and I'm just waiting for this for him to come up and do the stupid thing because they all do. 14:11.91 Lance And he comes up and he goes. Yeah, you really just don't let anything stand in your way. You know it's cool to see you out here working and it's like what the fuck do you think I'm supposed to do like what am I supposed to do like I Twenty Twenty six percent of 14:30.51 Lance Americans with disabilities live in poverty and the attitude from the non-disabled people is that most of them do that because they quit because they don't try or something. There's no consideration so they see me out there working and they're like good for you and it's like dude what I got kids to feed. 14:50.00 Lance I Don't have a choice I didn't have any time after I got hurt to do anything other than figure out how I was going to pay the bills. There was no break. So I just I gets I get salty. 14:59.46 Jala Um, no, oh yeah, you were you were a thousand percent plus allowed to be salty about this because there is a rampant injustice rampant. Ableism people who are non-disabled will just as as you say kind of like treat people who are disabled as being there to just serve the curiosity to serve the feel goods like oh this um kid with down syndrome did x y z like would that. Even. Be a story if it wasn't for the fact that that person has down syndrome like you know. 15:38.74 Lance Yeah, the curiosity about the curiosity about my prosthetic devices. You know like every stranger thinks they need to tell me how cool they think it is and it's like dude like I used to have a left hand and not instead of this. 15:55.20 Lance You know piece of machinery that breaks down all the time like it's not that cool just because you think it's cool. It's not cool. 15:58.39 Jala Um, yeah, yeah, well and that's a thing that we have talked about in my Discord ah previously or rather you have specifically been talking about in the discord and we've all been partaking of it. Um. How the cool cybernetic arm slash hand thing is just so rampant in media. 16:20.83 Lance Oh yeah, the amount of Reddit comments I've seen of people going oh like referencing it is like if it's an upgrade like they would willingly go get their hands chopped off so they can get some cool robot hand and it's just like. 16:39.65 Lance Ah, it triggers a lot of feelings because like for like for 1 the actual accident that I had was traumatic like losing my hand was it was a long process where I was pulled into a running piece of machinery and. 16:55.41 Jala Wow. 16:58.39 Lance Trapped in it for it felt like a really really long time but you know how so dangerous situations can lengthen the way time feels so who knows how long it was but it was running I was alone it was running and it was for an extended period of time and I had to self. 17:17.73 Lance Rescue basically and like so people going. Oh you know this is so much better like you're better off now and it's like no no, you know. 17:27.88 Jala Ah, Wow. Wow. 17:34.28 Lance Yeah, it just and because none of the devices work as well as they're supposed to. They're all incredibly expensive. It took it took me ah an argument with my workman's comp insurance. It was. 17:51.58 Lance Something like eight months just to get them to approve a prosthetic and then and then it's and then every time they break down or anything. It's another argument to justify getting them to pay to. Repair. It. So it's this constant fight to have this thing that I kind of need to live to well to live outside of poverty and you know a big portion of my life is spent just just justifying and rejustifying. 18:29.26 Lance My need and then you know and it ties back into earlier of the people you know going? Oh well at least you're working and it's like if I was a disabled person who had a disability that was less visible. You know nobody can question that I don't have a hand but. 18:48.85 Lance You know it's something that just makes it. That's you know invisible but makes it more difficult for me to be mobile or whatever I can't like I can't imagine the amount of accusations that somebody would get the assumptions that people would make about oh you know you're faking it. So it's. 19:01.58 Jala Yeah, yeah, something like right Now. There's so many people that are affected with for example, long Covid and that is a disability and there isn't like an end for that that anybody can foresee at this juncture. And there are a lot of people who are dealing with that and struggling with that because it you know has onset of chronic fatigue and a bunch of other stuff and there are lots and lots of folks in all over the world. At this point who are now becoming disabled via Covid. So. 19:33.47 Lance Well, that's that's the thing that always like makes it just frustrates me is I don't understand why it's so hard to get people to like care at least a little bit about issues of disability because if you live long enough. You're probably going to wind up disabled. You know what? I mean just just old age is disabling. So it's like this is a thing that not only could any 1 of us walk out the door and suffer a tragic accident like I did and become disabled but we all will eventually. Anyways. 20:10.58 Lance So why is it so hard to just get people to care a little bit even just just a little bit of. 20:16.46 Jala Well and something to bring up bad attitudes podcast again. Um Laura was talking about how making things accessible would you know would not just benefit folks who are disabled because. You know when a disabled person isn't using that ramp the delivery guy with the big heavy load is using that ramp and you know the the lady who has several kids and a stroller is using that ramp you know what? I'm saying and things like that. So. Accessibility isn't limited to just folks who have like assistive devices or something like that it is you know like a broader topic that makes things better for everybody. 20:55.15 Lance So for yeah, for sure I mean because something that's accessible is easier for anybody to access. Even if you don't need the accessibility. 21:02.92 Jala And for example, my podcast I started doing the transcript and I don't have time to I started that on episode 6 and I don't have time to in depth edit them. Unfortunately it would take far too many hours. You know far too much chime that I don't have but I do offer a transcript but 1 of the first people to use that Transcript was a person who doesn't have and like a hearing disability or anything. Um, they just wanted to be able to read it because they prefer. Reading over the audio format. So you know that's an example of right away even something that you know, um that I have on offer for my podcast is utilized by people who are not just you know folks who need that. 21:58.43 Jala Accommodation. 22:02.19 Lance Yeah, more options for everybody seems like a win-win doesn't it. Ah. 22:04.21 Jala Yeah I know and it's like and again I think part of the problem is that just there's there's so many different little disability nonprofits. That are for specific things specific needs or specific conditions and as a result, there's not like a larger overall unified front to go to lawmakers and things like that to have a large amount of clout to you know, pull weight and. 22:29.81 Lance Yeah, yeah, oh yeah I understand that even in the Amputee Community I am a I'm like a minority of a minority of a minority does that makes it because it's like you know disability. There's is this. You know a small group of people and then. 22:48.83 Lance Amputees are a smaller group of people and in that group upper limb we are. We are much smaller where there's so many less of us than there are lower limb and so most of the efforts in like helping aputees or you know the advancements in. 22:58.89 Jala Um. 23:08.60 Lance Prosthetics assistive devices. You know whatever is aimed at lower limb upper lamb where just you know there's a lot less development of things to help us and it's you know because there's only like I think there's only like 200 and something thousand of us in the whole country. 23:26.52 Lance So We're a small group and we don't get serviced and it's It's what it ties into what you're saying is disability is some you know most of the focus is just kind of on if there's any focus on Accessibility. It's on you know people with mobility issues which makes a lot of sense like I'm not detracting from that. But ah. The rest of us are just I don't know not acknowledged so much. It's weird. 23:51.38 Jala Yeah, and especially these days like we're we're so right now trying to do the catch up if you will with um, kind of doing some kind of due diligence to the like. Neurodiverse Community you know, um, and and trying to recognize that and even get people treated like even folks in my own family. Um, you know some folks that ah are in my family had kids and their kids are being diagnosed with conditions and then when. 24:25.43 Jala You know the parents are looking at this information on you know, like these questions and stuff they're like huh I think I might actually have that same condition but I was never diagnosed and and I never got any treatment. Yeah yeah, and so there's a lot of undiagnosed mental. Um, you know like mental. 24:35.60 Lance That's what I did yesterday. 24:45.24 Jala Neuro Atypical kind of you know Neuro divergent stuff going on that like was totally missed in in our generation for the most part and you know it's only now with the little kiddos that we're starting to recognize those that doesn't mean that there's any concessions or anything being made for those folks. 25:01.73 Lance Oh yeah, no way. 25:05.10 Jala I mean um, as as it stands like I have um, a some folks in the family who have something like autism or whatnot and they. Once they hit like 7 or whatever the age is there's a cutoff and where like you know they get the therapies and stuff which it's a battle to get those in the first place and then once you get all the therapies and you finally get you know, get the kiddo enrolled and they do all of this stuff. They have all the support they have the therapies they have the whatnot until they hit. 25:37.33 Jala The graduation from the program age and then they're just dumped into regular classes and they're just like oh well, you know their grades are good so they're fine and it's like no that doesn't have anything to do with like all of the other aspects of their life that they need continued support on these things you know to to progress and. You know, get along as well as they had been when they were you know fully serviced. You know. 26:04.58 Lance Yeah, my um, my wife worked at a school for kids who you know had like a variety of problems but they just couldn't function in like a normal public school setting and she um. 26:21.32 Lance Um, you know she was assigned to 1 kid and she was just you know would just help him I forget what I just totally forgot what the label. The job title is but um, but she would regularly have to there would be like social work cause it was the. school district would pay for these kids to go to this school and then every few months they would send people over to go. Okay, you know you need to justify why this kid needs to stay in this school and it's like after you've kind of jumped through that hoop once shouldn't it kind of be over. 26:47.81 Jala Oh lord. 26:56.38 Jala You would think like because it's not like ah you know their situation is you know like they if they have a a condition a diagnosis of some sort that's not like suddenly they're going to be cured of the Diagnos like it that doesn't happen. No we know it's. 27:08.32 Lance Yeah, this stuff doesn't get better. Oh yeah. 27:14.40 Jala It's a lot. It's a lot so we will definitely be ah hitting Neuro divergent stuff. Um at a later date I already have it kind of slated on the schedule for some time in the spring. So um. 27:23.77 Lance I As soon as I told my wife that I was doing this with you. She was like well does she want to do one on on mental Health I Want to do it. She was like well yeah, she's excited at the idea of doing it if you if you're interested in a in a guest. 27:30.68 Jala Oh yes, oh yes, absolutely. 27:39.86 Jala Well, it's kind of what how these kind of workout is that like I'll do one with one person that I've already lined up and then other people come out of the woodwork and go hey I have things to say about this topic and that's how we end up down that rabbit hole. So I mean perfectly fine. 27:57.54 Jala You know we'll get there when we get there I'll slate it in when we can and we'll go from there but um, yeah, so disability is a difficult thing to kind of um, advocate for in the sense that it's.. There's so many different things to advocate for that. Even folks who are disability advocates can't have have trouble Um, considering every single aspect that you know somebody might possibly need. You know? um. Because like they have their own experiences of disability and you know they know their own disability best but they don't know everyone else's disabilities and everyone else's Needs. So You know it's It's tough tough stuff. But that's why it's important for everyone to have kind of like a baseline education about it and a Baseline awareness and also to know how to talk about it in General. So We mentioned the word ableism and I'm going to go ahead and talk a little bit about that. Unless you've got ah other things you want to say lands before I continue. Okay so so ableism is when people discriminate against people with disabilities and that is whether they mean to or not. 29:04.76 Lance No you you have great research. You're go. 29:19.27 Jala You can be ableist without intending to be ableist. It's you know, completely possible just like ah how we talked on the deib episode where you can be racist and not even realize that you're being racist because you know like there's microaggressions and things that you do that You aren't even aware of and your biases. Unconscious biases play a ah big part big part in all of that. So ableism itself is just part kind of part and parcel of our society. It's just everywhere and. Even disabled people engage in Ableist Behavior sometimes inadvertently because of social conditioning and because of their lack of awareness of everybody else's situations as mentioned previously. So. 30:05.00 Lance And on due to conditioning disabled people. Do it to themselves. 30:08.54 Jala Yeah, yeah, there's definitely that as a thing I've listened to some memoirs different writings that disabled folks have you know transcribed down or whatnot and there are so many times, especially if you are in something like a minority culture. Um, like I I listen to some stories by folks that are like from the Philippines or whatever and they don't even think of themselves as having a disability or you know putting that label on it because that's just in their culture. That's not what you do and. You know you don't consider yourself like that you don't do that because then that basically is like unfortunately like shaming your your family. Yes, lance. 30:57.56 Lance Oh yeah, I just that that it's interesting because I remember so there was this talk because like my wife was was with me through this whole process. You know it was like a traumatic accident that happened over three years ago now and there is a point where I just kind of said out loud like like I'm disabled and my wife who's been great, but her first reaction was this kind of like shock and like to kind of denial of it. Of acknowledging it because because like in our culture it. That's bad. You know what? I mean like it's a thing to avoid. It's a thing to not be It's negative and admitting. It is like a failure kind of. 31:50.65 Jala Yeah, and historically there are so many instances of people killing you know their small children or or you know committing infanticide or whatever. 31:59.47 Lance Oh yeah, because we are just a burden. 32:07.93 Jala And also of just like how ah forced sterilization was a thing for black and brown people. It was also a thing for and even I think it still even happens today. Yeah, it is still happening today with disabled folks that they are forced sterilizing disabled folks even today. So. 32:15.97 Lance It still is a thing. 32:27.55 Jala You know that is ah, an aspect of reproductive rights that. 32:28.67 Lance And doing and doing puberty blockers not in a therapeutic helpful way. But in a to make them easier to care for way not and not their own choice. But. 32:39.24 Jala Yeah, yeah, you are correct on that. Yeah yeah, and that is not treating them like humans. That's. 32:47.45 Lance Forcing it on them to make them easier to care for. 32:57.65 Jala Not treating them like other you know conscious beings. Yeah yeah, so it's. 33:00.00 Lance Treating them like livestock like hogs. 33:08.39 Lance The it They it's as somebody because there's this thing in like the amputee like kind of world where the the focus mostly is on getting back to. Essentially kind of not being disabled like that's the focus is you know prosthetists would be like well you know I can give you this you know device this this and it's all about how to get the ammputee back to. Kind of living life like their accident never happened and that it it's not I don't I think it's like extremely unhealthy because we we aren't given we aren't given space to. 34:04.84 Lance Understand our loss and our situation we are just it's you know and it's it's references back to what I said earlier of how like I didn't have time to do any of that I was just forced back out into work to avoid poverty for me and my family and it's There's no,, There's no so. Support for any sort of mental or emotional health or anything. It's just you Knowability is bad. You don't want to be disabled. These are the things that you need to do to be the least disabled possible and that's it's ableism because it's like I don't know like my body is different. 34:42.34 Lance In some ways. It's less functional but like if I don't accept it the way it is then that I just I don't know I don't know if I have the right word for it. Yeah yeah. 34:52.86 Jala That's self-ate that's self-h hate that. That's like denying who in like who denying your situation denying who you are and you know in this moment and you know what you've got to work with and that's that's Self-hate. That is that is self self. Yeah. 35:08.51 Lance Ah, yeah, and there's a lot of times when I just can't accomplish something the way I want to or whatever and it's like the attitude of but needing to be less disabled. It turns that into a negative you know view of me from me. And like that's not good I don't need to be blaming myself for failing every time you know I can't do something that requires 2 fricking hands. 35:33.83 Jala Yeah, and there are there are other cultures in history who have been a lot better about disability than ours you know, um you know for example, um, various native American cultures. Um, you know indigenous people cultures. 35:41.58 Lance Yeah. 35:51.44 Jala Ah, were a lot better about that kind of thing. But then again they were kind of better about gender and a lot of other things too like in in Earth shepherding the earth and everything. But. 35:53.44 Lance So cold. So are you telling me that cultures that weren't entirely focused on your ability to make money were better towards people who might have had their yeah they might have had their ability to earn money limited. They didn't treat them partly. Got it. 36:05.70 Jala Ah, yeah, that weren't capitalist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah revelation I Know this is a revelation I've just dropped some facts. 36:13.56 Lance That's a freaking revelation. 36:21.80 Jala Yeah, but but yeah and that's that's definitely a thing too. It's like um, just the another thing here I'm going to have to keep referencing it. Um, bad attitudes podcast when Laura was talking about. Um how it's just. 36:30.60 Lance Yeah, yeah. 36:39.69 Lance The Exoskeleton and the cures when the episode she did about curing disability. It's That's the focus is is ending. It is not being this way is yeah, that's the way that people want to pay attention to us is here look we can fix this and. 36:58.25 Lance It's a way that we can serve them so they don't have to see us anymore. Do you know what? I mean it's just it's erasing us and our experiences is you know to fix it. Yeah to fix people I feel like this relates to other issues that you've talked about on the podcast you know, just. 37:17.90 Lance The the whole problem of like you're outside of our box and we are going to think up ways to fix you and put you back in here. 37:23.26 Jala Well and the people who are making those prosthetics are people who don't have prosthetics for the most part you know they are. 37:33.31 Jala They are ah non-disabled individuals who are making these devices for disabled individuals but they are not themselves disabled in that same way and therefore they can't actually know what that feels like you know like I ah. 37:47.38 Jala Kind of delayed and in wanting to do this disability episode because I am not currently disabled. Um you know I've only been temporarily disabled and yes I care for disabled parents. But that is a billion miles away from actually knowing what I'm talking about you know. 38:03.57 Jala I Did some research and I was like Lance Do you want to come on and talk about this because you you are um, a credible source. So. 38:11.41 Lance Well thank you? But ah, you see because what you're saying about the people who don't understand aren't actually disabled or building like aids and devices that's kind of it ties into part of the reason why. Like for upper lamb amputees the devices that get the most attention and are really pushed on us are the ones that look like hands now. The ones that look like hands are also the least effective and the most fragile and. 38:48.20 Lance The most expensive but like the hand that I use cost $75000 now. That's not you pay $75000 and you can use this thing. That's you paid $75000 and you can attach this thing to. Ah, socket that you also paid $15000 for and the hand it doesn't it's not that useful. It doesn't do that many things but it looks like a hand so it's the least offensive. It's the most you know it. 39:26.69 Lance You can blend in the best with it because from a little distance. It just kind of looks like you have a hand and you're wearing a glove. You know what? I mean but that's pushed on us. Even though when it comes to quality of life and being able to accomplish goals and tasks. It's. 39:45.17 Lance The worst compared to my other devices that don't look human that look like clamps or hooks or whatever that are better. Not only are they better, but they're cheaper but they are to be avoided because they don't look human because they make you stand out and look different. 40:05.17 Lance And it's just you know I don't I don't know like I feel really bad for other amputees who are really focused on needing to get like silicone covers that like flesh-toned silicone covers to go over their devices and everything to try and hide and mask and like. I and I like I really relate to them and where that feeling comes from but it just I feel bad for them because that that ableism that they've kind of internalized and that fear of being a little different and the fear of the negative attention that you get from being different. Is forcing them in a situation where they are using um worse they're they're worse off because they're using devices and things that are less capable because they will mask because they mask their parents. 40:56.87 Jala Yeah, and talking about that reminds me of when I was doing the marathons and Ultra marathons and things like that every once in a while I'd see you know like an ultra marathoner or something who had ah a prosthetic and it was a prosthetic that looked kind of like. I Don't know how else to describe it but like a scoop I mean like it was just instead of a of you know a it looks like a lower limb with a foot attached to it I don't know what is called running blades. Okay there you go? yeah. 41:21.87 Lance They're called. They're called running blades the ones that look like kind of springy blades. Yeah, yeah, they're called running blades That's like the that's the term. So it's yeah I know you are trying to be safe. 41:30.47 Jala Okay I didn't know what they were called Cool cool. So I would yeah I Whatever those things are called the running blades. So now I know running blades so that makes sense Practical Yeah, but um I I would see people like that and you know like they're using that and they're not. 41:37.75 Lance Ah, careful. Yeah yeah. 41:50.50 Jala Pretending that they don't have a prosthetic they are just you know going with what is best for them in you know to do that. But I don't know what their resources look like they probably have a lot of money to be able to buy to buy that. But you know yeah yeah. 42:00.86 Lance I Yeah yeah, just depends on but because yeah I mean it it with it when it comes to resources and access like it's it's It's also complicated. You know, like basically any apputee that doesn't have insurance is. 42:20.17 Lance Kind of shit out of luck like you can't really, there's nothing. You can really access because everything is just is priced so beyond a normal person's ability to afford it. Even if you're even if you're like pretty well off in you know the Us. Like you can't do it on your own. You can't access any of these things on your own and the process for see the the process for legs like lower limbs to get approval through the insurance. It's not like. 42:53.50 Lance You request a running blade and they'll give it to you. They have this whole categorization thing that like I'm now kind of thinking about it in this other context but where they get graded based on their physical fitness and their perceived ability to make use of different. 43:11.63 Jala Oh lord. 43:12.60 Lance Levels of devices and if you are say overweight then you get a lower grade and you are limited in which devices your insurance company will will is willing to buy for you. So like it's it's. It's k 1 through 5 is the is the grading scale if I remember correctly. But so like somebody who gets approved as K five. They were extremely physically fit before their disability. So. Like in this instance, you're extremely physically fit if you suffered an accident and you know had had a leg amputated. You could get approved to be K 5 So you would have access to devices that somebody who say was you know overweight and worked you know a sedentary job or whatever had you know any number of different reasons why they just weren't as physically fit as you Maybe they're just busy. You know they need and just can't access to can't go to the gym all the time. 44:23.13 Lance They would get a lower grade and that that would limit you know the insurance company's willingness to buy a running blade or any other thing. 44:31.10 Jala And and and let me also take a minute to add in there too. Um, different reasons Why folks might be overweight and have that issue not have time would be that they already live in poverty and they are. 44:45.60 Jala Or they are a a you know like ah a person of color in the middle of an area that is a food desert and they don't have anything but you know and the process Super highly processed bad for you foods. 44:53.89 Lance Or or they've just they've been stuck in you know immobile for a while because they are an autt. You know what? I mean like if you're if you have mobility issues and you can't access devices that you need to be mobile. 45:10.48 Lance Then of course your physical fitness is going to suffer and then so it's it's it's ah you know this perpetuating cycle of you know, just kind of cooked downgrading and going down and down and down you know and even if you get approved to be K five if you get you know? ah. 45:30.48 Lance Old or older. They'll want to start? you know? are you still you know, can you are you still really this fit or if they get injured and they're you know, kind of sitting on the sidelines for a little while waiting you know nursing a injury are you still you know K 5 can you see you know do you still deserve these. Kinds of equipment and it's it just yeah, yes exactly and because you know like when I wanted to get my my device which is it's called a myoelectric and it's um. 45:53.24 Jala Yeah, because they're doing that whole reassessment thing that you were talking about earlier. 46:07.80 Lance It's funny because it's treated like it's this groundbreaking earth-shattering science just because most people don't know it exists but the first myoelectric device was built in 1959 so it's not like this is new stuff. It's really simple. It's it's. 46:24.89 Lance Basically there's a socket that my arm goes into and it has 2 sensors that are no different than the kinds of sensors that they stick over your heart in the hospital to read your heartbeat all they do is notice when muscles that are underneath them fire. So. 46:34.84 Jala Yes. 46:43.87 Lance The sensors are over 2 different groups of muscles I flex them independently to make my device open or close. It's not that complicated the fact that my entire prosthetic setup cost over 100 something thousand dollars is madness. But. 47:01.45 Lance So So the reason that they didn't want to buy me 1 initially is because ah, there's a high abandonment rate in upper limb amputees with myelectric devices and this ties into what I was saying earlier is amputees being forced into wanting to mask their equipment so they go so they get pushed into devices that are less. Ah. Effective because they look more human and so there's this high abandonment rate because people get these myoelectric devices and oh what do you know these things suck. They don't actually work all that Well so insurance companies pay. It's so it's a cycle of. 47:39.26 Lance Prostatists suggest things that will kind of avoid ableism societal and internal ableism and encourage them to look and be more human and then they'll get a device that doesn't work for them. Barely and then the insurance company will pay a lot of money for it and then they'll get it. It'll suck and they'll go Oh I don't want to use this anymore and they won't and it and so first I had to prove to them that I was going to use it then once I I used it. 48:06.74 Lance Using it a whole lot causes it to fail mechanically because it is simply a you know it's just a little machine and then they go Oh well, you're using it too much so we don't want to pay for you to be able to continue using it I. 48:24.80 Lance I know that's because I had to have a I had to have a physical therapist come out to my work on Thursday and watch me work because 1 of my devices has been at ah the shop you know it's I had to send it in because it's it's three years old 48:43.28 Lance It's a complicated piece of machinery that has no real way for me to do any kind of maintenance to it like I can't you know grease it or lubricate it or do anything like you could for say a car. Do you know what? I mean or anything else with bearings and moving parts. So it needs like it's out of warranty and it's not even broken. 49:02.49 Lance It just needs some wear parts replaced but they're expensive and it's been sitting at the service provider for they've had it for going on six months and for the first like at first you send it in. And they'll send you a loan or device because they just have older devices that they'll send out to you and go you know we're working on your device. We'll send you this loan or device try not to break it and then we trade so we just trade. But then after they've had my device for sixty days and my insurance hasn't approved them to repair it yet. They. Demand the loaner back. So I have to send it back. Obviously you know I can't keep it and then I get to go through this whole process for the following four months of trying to convince my insurance company that I do indeed need the thing that I've used so much that it's broken. And that I'm not actually abusing it but it is in fact, a delicate piece of equipment that is now three years old and gets used a lot so it needs maintenance and they had to send a physical therapist out to watch me work and we had to strategize. On how we were going to convince the insurance company to pay for my hand and it's just like. 50:19.11 Jala Um, oh mug. So okay, so your device is at this place. They're still holding it hostage and you had to send the loner back. Do you have another? What do you have a different device that you're Hu. 50:27.26 Lance I have two I have 2 because see I have 2 different device because like part of the thing with it's you you know you saw that those guys with the running blades. Those aren't those aren't the normal. 50:44.81 Lance Limbs that they use on the regular there's because it's basically like the basic structure of a prosthetic is a socket that your limb. Ah you know arm or leg goes into and it covers you know up to the next joint usually and then it has a. And adapter on it either in my case, it's a wrist in you know, a lower limb Case. It might be a knee or whatever but it's a post and then you attach other things to it that will that are either specialized for a task or you know just offer you different Functionality. So The guys with the running blades when they're done running they take they detach the running blade and will attach you know a more normal looking leg I Guess I don't know normal is a bad word I don't like having used that word a more leg looking lake. 51:41.30 Lance But for just normal walking around and it's the same thing so I have one that looks I have one device that looks basically it looks kind of like a clamp I mean it looks kind of like bender from Futurama's hand and it's clamp and it's super useful and it can do all kinds of stuff but it's not waterproof. 52:00.40 Lance It's not dust proof. So my job I do have to do a lot of washing my equipment. You know there's a lot of exposure to moisture and dust and dirt that that device I need to you know, kind of shield from so I have another device that's a hand and it's waterproof and. 52:19.65 Lance Dust proof. So I go back and forth. But so one of yeah and I send them into the I try and so not never have them both down at the same time. So I always have one of them and you know the clamp I absolutely have to have. 52:38.54 Lance To do my job. The hand is really useful but I can kind of survive by just doing all of this stuff that would expose the clamp to things that would injure it one handed literally doing it one handed put my put my prosthetic behind my back. Or some other way get it out of the way and do everything else one-handed So like I have a device but the other one that I need that exists primarily to help me not break my really important device has been gone for a long time and if. 53:14.76 Lance The clamp broke during this process because they won't let me have my hand back they so they wouldn't care they it would just be another fight to get that thing repaired if you know what I mean I don't know what started that rant but I rant a lot sorry. 53:26.92 Jala Oh it's it's an important one that everybody who isn't dealing with this needs to know about because that I I can bet you dollars to donuts that every other disabled person who has to haggle with insurance or. Physical health providers has to deal with the same thing and also like ah again Laura on bad attitudes was talking about going to her physician and her physician always mentioning her weight and it's like Laura's like I have oh i. 53:56.41 Lance Oh God my. 54:03.53 Jala And I am in a wheelchair and I have medications that make me prone to gaining weight. Yeah, like you know so. 54:07.99 Lance I Really dislike doctors I'm mad at doctors. 54:15.90 Jala So Anyway, like the whole point is like there's insensitivity and lack of understanding even within the medical community. Especially I would even say in a lot of cases within the medical community. They should know better in the medical field about this particular topic because it has to do with people's wellness. And they don't and that's like a failing another way that our our um overall Health care system is failing So and. 54:44.60 Lance Oh for sure. Yeah, because like for me the insurance company. They only care about the opinions of doctors primarily like every once in a while they'll ah trust the opinion of like a physical therapist or an occupational therapist. But typically it's only doctors and in my experience doctors do not know anything about prosthetics. They do not know the simplest facts about how they how they work how they're designed how they function and it's because they don't I mean I don't blame them for not Knowing. It's not.. It's not part of their job. There's a special you know, ah job like the the people who have who do design build and provide to Amputees prosthetics are their ah they're totally their own thing. They're not Doctors. So. Don't blame doctors for not knowing but the fact that my my insurance will only refer to doctors and primarily a committee a special committee that they have to make decisions for amputees that's eight doctors. There's not a single proslytus. Physical therapists or occupational therapists on this committee. It's to say doctors and they make all these decisions that are completely stupid and I'll write them letters over and over again trying to explain how my equipment works the components that make it up like everything and it it. It never accomplishes anything they never learn. 56:12.63 Jala And that's the thing like people who don't have disabilities need to listen to people with disabilities tell them that the how it is because okay, we've already covered. It's hard to know all the different aspects especially if you are not yourself. 56:23.54 Lance Um, oh yeah. 56:32.40 Jala Dealing with them. But you can always refer to someone who is dealing with that to ask them and if you have like say you're a doctor and you have a patient and that patient has a prosthetic. Okay, well if that patient is telling you xyz about this prosthetic or about their experience with whatever or whatever their challenges are. Or in the case of Laura with her. Oh I you know she's telling you I've got all of these things that are factors maybe think about that before you start writing down something about my weight on my you know thing like you know that is it like that should just be part of it that should be part of it. 57:06.48 Lance I'm lucky I'm lucky enough that the doctors who I've had to interact with directly to actually like provide care for me and have have been ah, human enough to acknowledge that they don't actually know anything about my situation. 57:24.46 Lance So like when it came to getting doctors to write letters to to help me convince the insurance agency of the kind of prosthetic device I needed I had doctors who would just go I don't I don't know you tell me what you want and I'll write it down and sign my name on it. You know which is which was great and but it was it was stupid that they. That the insurance company decided that these people who didn't know anything about this were the ones who were going to essentially make the decision but you know that was that was I was lucky but then the committee that makes these these these other decisions about paying bills and whatever for me I've never met them I don't ah you know I don't know them. They are because my insurance is not private insurance. It's a government agency essentially in North Dakota because my injury was at work and the state of North Dakota is 1 of 2 states that has a government. Kind of single-payer ah Workman's comp scheme. So so so much of it is just kind of written down in law or it's it's that it's that kind of poisonous bureaucracy where it's like a bunch of nice people together. 58:41.19 Lance Committing just like terrible acts of evil upon people so because like everybody I talked to is really nice and they'll go oh you know I I Totally agree I understand you know but I can't you know I there's nothing I can do This is just the way it is. 58:57.39 Lance And then there's just this committee of 8 people who just kind of who I can't access I got I got yelled at for trying to email one of them 1 time. So I'm like forbidden from accessing them. They're completely removed from the situation and they just look at. 59:14.32 Lance You know charts and numbers or something I don't know they just they seem to just look at how much something costs and then something written down from somebody like I don't know where they get their information from they make decisions based on but it's not for me and then they just make decisions and go Oh no, let's make this guy jump through some more hoops you know and that's like the worst. 59:34.16 Lance The worst bits of like ableism and people just kind of throwing up barriers in front of me that I've had to deal with are directly from our government which sucks like because you know another aspect of it was part of my job is I have a commercial driver's license. 59:52.33 Lance You know I have to drive my equipment to a job site before I you know, operate it. Whatever and I've had my cdl for 17 years so before I was injured I had already had 14 years 01:00:08.82 Lance I have driven large vehicles well over a million miles no tickets no accident no nothing my record's perfect I've driven literally anything you see on the road I've driven something similar and I basically had to redo the whole process to get my license. Except harder because I'm now an ampute and I um I've worked as ah training other people to get their license and doing like. Certifications and stuff rechecking making sure you know because a lot of companies just because you have your license doesn't mean they'll just stick you behind the wheel or something they want to make sure that you actually know what you're doing because you can get your license and be terrible. You know what? I mean so I would do recertifications on guys who have their cdl as far as the government's concerned. 01:01:02.50 Lance Are legal to drive. Whatever the hell they want and they were terrible and dangerous and I was scared to be in the passenger seat grading these guys ah me but they and they don't have to do anything extra. They just have their license. That's it they they will never have to worry about it again. As long as they pay the. 01:01:21.71 Lance The money to renew it every few years but me a guy who in my estimation is way better and safer and more effective than they are has to work and then but I have I have to go. 01:01:30.33 Jala Of course because you're the 1 doing this this testing. So of course you've got some some driving chops. 01:01:40.90 Lance And re-certify and literally redo the whole thing with extra steps and because I've got hurt because I'm now disabled and what's worse is it took them four months so I was essentially in a position where I was not allowed to work waiting for the government to approve me to work again and it's like well now we know why you know 26% of disabled people are in poverty. Do you know what? I mean because how am I supposed to avoid. 01:02:08.58 Jala Exactly. 01:02:15.20 Lance You know, basically bankrupting myself and my family if you just go no, you just can't work. You just can't do the thing that you've been doing for the last almost fifteen years because we decided you need to redo this whole process and we are going to make sure it takes forever. 01:02:27.71 Jala Yeah, yeah, because the bureaucratic engine. It does not run at any kind of a speed but snails pace. 01:02:36.24 Lance No, because there was one guy. There was 1 guy who did the tests who covered who covered a quarter of the nation I had to wait for a special ah put for him to come up like he had to fly. You know from states away like it was this whole thing like it was just there's like justs like 5 offices that do it that cover the whole country or 4 no they downsize now there's 2 they downsize to now there's 2. 01:02:56.24 Jala That's a lot. 01:03:06.92 Lance Cover 1 covers one half and one covers the other half and there's you know a handful of inspectors and it's just like like I'm lucky I'm lucky my family managed to keep a ah home and groceries and all that you know. 01:03:21.36 Jala Yeah, for sure for sure. So I do I do want to circle back. Um, all of the things that you are talking about are very important and needed to be said oh it's fine. 01:03:29.94 Lance I Know you just you say things and it just starts going. 01:03:35.91 Jala And because like ah originally the structure of the episode was going to be let's talk about some intro topics and then we'll get into your experiences but we're just mixing it. That's fine. Yeah, yeah, it's fine. 01:03:41.48 Lance Yeah, that's why at the beginning I was so quiet I was just waiting. Well. 01:03:47.22 Jala And and no like I I was ah I was only just starting the very beginning of the the little intro and then I was going to go over. There's still a bunch of notes of stuff to talk about? No we haven't we haven't gotten to all of those things yet, but we will. We will So um, but the thing is is that. 01:03:56.27 Lance I'm sure we haven't answered any of those questions you sent me. 01:04:06.93 Jala Of the 2 of us that are currently on this podcast. One of us has the disability and can speak to this directly the other one just does research and is facilitating so you know if you want to talk you are more than happy you are I'm more than happy. 01:04:19.62 Lance Oh yeah, I know but you've probably done more research than I do I'm here for emotions I'm here for feelings about how and you're here for facts. 01:04:26.57 Jala Yeah, well, it's Moving. It's it's moving and I'm you know like it's stirring and in whatever and it's like um of a course I've already heard some of this stuff a little bit of it anyway from just talking to you in our discord but you know at the same time.. It's a lot.. It's it's more informative and um frames things a little bit differently when you have the voice behind it and you have the Fuller story not just what you can type out you know in between your break or whatever you're doing so but so. 01:05:04.32 Jala Talking about disability. We've said the word a lot but disabled is not a bad word when you use like there are a lot of folks and I was um, definitely one of those people who used ah differently abled at one point in time or something or challenged. 01:05:23.20 Lance Nope Euphemisms are bad. 01:05:23.22 Jala I yeah'd use those they are bad. They're bad but the reason why I did is because number one I was ignorant number 2 um in terms of how I framed my own experiences with disability I preferred to consider myself more as a challenged individual that is just a personal perception. Ah. 01:05:39.48 Lance So yes, that makes sense. 01:05:42.59 Jala Because like ah in my case I couldn't use my arm or turn my head and so I lost complete mobility in one arm and I could not move my head I could not look down I could not look to the side I could only basically look forward and so um, having that situation. I Found ways around everything just using my other hand but you know like for several months there was just like a period where a lot of things that I did were shut down and and whatnot So Anyway, long story Long story Short. It's due to my perceptions plus ignorance that I used these terms but I will freely admit that I did. 01:06:09.95 Lance Trying to butter toast. 01:06:20.55 Jala But ah, using those or special or handy capable. That's the worst but well I'm one of the worst ones at least to me um, are these are different ways that nondisabled people refer to disability because it makes them uncomfortable to say disabled and and. 01:06:39.88 Jala Because like I I guess thinking of the term ableism if you say somebody is disabled and you're saying you know like I guess people just kind of get into a little rabbit hole in their own head if they are nondisabled about like questioning what the best term is and the best. Term is just disabled just say disabled. 01:07:00.61 Lance It's It's a question of like value judgments because there's there's like a a value judgment associated with the word disabled where because of ableism. The automatic assumption is that to be disabled is to be worse to be less. 01:07:17.74 Lance Less than so if somebody's like well I don't you know I don't want to make somebody feel less than so I'll make up this this kind of this you know euphemism that kind of masks that but that doesn't you know it doesn't actually help it. 01:07:34.62 Lance Because it's it's kind of erasing our us and our experiences because like I mean my perspective obviously like as a person who used to be non-disabled and is now physically disabled like. 01:07:53.90 Lance I am a like I I'm kind of worse off in some ways than I was before you know like I'm there's there's there's ways I'm less capable so to change it to differently abled is ignoring. 01:08:12.60 Lance My reality It's see racing my reality of you know, not not being able to do things I used to do or at least being able to do you know having to because like the big challenge like a big challenge for me was like having to relearn how to live my life. 01:08:28.42 Lance So to go Oh you're just differently abled or you're handy capable or any of those things is just like taking like all of my struggles of my experience and just going you know none of that kind of matters. It's you know it's erasing it. 01:08:40.90 Jala Um, and it kind of boils down to like Ah, another reason why I I would say you know what I did is my self-perception my ignorance and also I didn't have a disabled person on hand that I could ask because that's the the next thing Why don't you just. 01:08:56.83 Lance Yeah, yeah, probably by their first name I know I know I know. 01:08:56.85 Jala Ask somebody who is disabled what you should you know refer to the how did they prefer to be referred to that is it? Yes, but I mean like if you're talking if you're trying to talk about disability like you can ask somebody who is disabled like how do I of course. Mr. Google. Yeah. 01:09:13.10 Lance Just don't just make sure it's not a stranger just somebody who knows you. 01:09:16.25 Jala Yeah, yeah, oh no, no, no, no strangers. No well and even then even then asking somebody who is disabled it like if you have that kind of rapport with them. That's great, but it's kind of the same thing as like when it comes to ah racial issues or other things like that like. 01:09:34.29 Jala You know it's not their job to explain it to you. You can go do your own independent research which is what I did I did a bunch of independent research I went and I found books and I found podcasts and I listened to things and I was like oh shit I was terrible and I I need to not do this thing and it's a process just like it is with. 01:09:53.64 Jala Other de I b learning and like trying to become more conscious and mindful of other folks. It's a process to unlearn years and years of doing whatever you've been doing but. 01:10:02.17 Lance I Have to say just just to reference that episode I was impressed that a disability got brought up because usually we don't so that was great at just the de I P episode. 01:10:14.60 Jala Well and I wanted I wanted to bring up more. But again I do not believe that. Um. 01:10:20.44 Lance Credit Jalla take credit take credit. You did a good job a disabled listener thought it was wonderful and I was surprised so take the credit. 01:10:31.48 Jala Thank you? Well I'm I Thank you I will say Thank you because like to to graciously accept is is part of what you need to do? So Thank you I'm trying I'm trying so. 01:10:40.60 Lance And you're doing the more now see you know, but you are. 01:10:48.45 Jala Well I say I'm trying because you see another thing about um, talking about disabilities mental disabilities. We are that but like I said before um neurodivergence and stuff. Ah, we are still trying to play catch up in a lot of ways on that and so words like. 01:11:06.67 Jala Crazy or the r-word or lame or mad or freak or spas or psycho among very many others. These are all offensive. They are offensive and they are normalized in everyday speech but they are hate speech. They are hate. 01:11:19.57 Lance Yes, my first experiences with disability as a child like the word retard was what was used to describe my aunt who because it it was in this context it was like the medical term. 01:11:38.43 Lance It was the way the doctors presented it to you know her parents and to her sibling who was my father and then it was that was given to me and like describing her as severely mentally and physically retarded was just the normal. You know and then of course there's the whole cultural aspect of we just throw that word around to insult anybody who makes any kind of mistake or does something dumb and there you go. 01:12:08.27 Jala Yeah, well and then too. It's just it's ah it's a way of condescending and belittling and othering and otherwise just you know completely just you know again being hateful about people who have some kind of mental disability and. 01:12:25.52 Jala I will say that I have been trying to weed out. For example I use the word crazy quite a bit and I am trying to get rid of it and you will still hear it I am still saying it I am sorry I am working on it. Um, it's just it's everywhere and it's so hard to. Ah, weed it out, but it's something that it needs to be done I mean who else is going to do it if you do not do it Today. You know who else and when if you don't do it Now. So and I'm I'm working on it I'm trying to get better about it. 01:13:00.23 Jala Ah, trying to find different ways to to phrase things that maybe aren't ableist and Horrible. So um, the opposite of disabled is non-disabled saying something like somebody is able-bodied or they are Able. Or whatever connotes that disability is a bad thing because the ah kind of accepted goal is to be quote unquote able-bodied and that gets into that whole belittling of folks who have a disability so we don't want to say that it's terrible. 01:13:31.87 Lance Yeah, the focus on curing curing fixing undoing getting rid of because it's it's up to me to decide whether or not being disabled is bad. It's not up to you to decide for me. 01:13:42.27 Jala Yes, exactly disability in and of itself is not good nor bad. It is just what it is. It is what it is and you know that is up to whoever has that situation to figure out how they frame that. You know that's not for you to frame That's for them to frame So A lot of ableism stems stems from non-disabled individuals considering becoming disabled to be the worst possible outcome but there are so many different times in which you can like I've definitely heard people say oh well. If instead of being blind I would just I would have to die or something like they they get super melodramatic about oh I Just can't oh to you too? Um, yeah, yeah, that will that did never. 01:14:24.13 Lance Oh yeah, to me to me I don't I don't know if I could live if that happened to me. Well thanks and I Just yeah, sorry so. 01:14:40.50 Jala Never never say it to somebody who has that disability just turn to them and be like I would die like what? what's ah. 01:14:47.45 Lance That's the thing is the filter I don't understand people's loss of a filter. You know, somebody looks a little different and they're like okay all of my you know sense of manners and all that is gone. 01:14:58.60 Jala Yeah, well and it's because non-disabled individuals pity disabled people and they're uncomfortable with disability and that causes them to try to dodge discussion of disability including of course. Indulging in inspiration porn and going out of their way to Acknowledge. Somebody's disability that is. 01:15:22.49 Lance That's a thing that I'm having a hard time dealing with is still is like feeling bad for like I don't I don't know it's It's a weird because it's like there's this, you know because like I have a window into. 01:15:38.30 Lance Different types of disabilities that aren't you know the one I have because there's not like to compare my experiences to somebody else who has a different experience but there's like a bit of like these are kind of like a like yeah looking through a window like I can kind of understand things a little bit because ah when it comes to. 01:15:57.57 Lance Particular kinds of mobility issues or you know physical capability issues and it's just I don't know it's hard I don't know what it's like it's internalized kind of ableism I guess of just like this feeling of sympathy or something and I don't know what to do about it. 01:16:12.41 Jala Yeah, well I think for me I've kind of just accepted disability is just it is what it is because in my situation I have been living with and caring for my disabled parents for 7 years and I've just seen like when my mom can't open a jar because she has rheumatoid arthritis that's really severe she finds other ways to to get around. Do it if she can't grab something because her hands don't work. She will use her teeth or she will position it x way and like you know. My parents will puzzle through and find ways to do things and they you know they and I tell them hey I can help you and they're like no I want to do this on my own and I say okay, cool. You know I'm here if you need me if you don't ask me for help. You know, cool. 01:16:57.87 Lance Trying to be the part like I I can understand your struggle of wanting to help but not wanting to be annoying or frustrating or you know, overbearing or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:17:11.30 Jala Well I don't want to take away I don't want to take away their agency that is for them to to sort out and if they want me to help I will help ah the part of the problem that makes it complicated is that it's my parents and so they try to not. 01:17:25.47 Jala Quote Unquote Burden me which I do not think of it that way I do not think of them as a burden I do not think of their disability as a burden they are at a certain point in life. This is their situation I am here I'm here and I can help if they need it, you know and if they don't then I let them do their thing I mean. 01:17:39.48 Lance Yes, and in my case I'm a husband and father who has grown up in a world of toxic masculinity who is not supposed to ask for help and has to had to learn to adapt to asking his wife and even his children for help with. Simple tasks. Very simple tasks. 01:17:59.10 Jala Yeah, and and the thing is is that you know my dad's an old Cuban man and so he grew up in a world of toxic masculinity. He doesn't want to ask me for help and my mom doesn't want to. 01:18:12.77 Jala Quote Unquote bird in me so they try not to ask me for help and that is why sometimes I offer do you want some help with that they say no I say but sometimes when I say do you want some help with that they say yes, but they weren't going to ask me because you know there's there's complicated psychology and like. 01:18:28.43 Lance Ah, how do you? How do you know how often to offer because so half the it's half the time. 01:18:29.31 Jala Ah, relationships at work there. You know. 01:18:36.34 Lance You offering is frustrating to the other person and the other half the time they really needed the help and they weren't ever going to ask so you needed to offer and they needed the help. It's it's impossible human humans getting along together is the nightmare. But. 01:18:42.65 Jala Well well well and the good news is that I'm pretty good at reading body language and I can tell like by the the body language and by like the way they breathe even or the the look on their face. Whether or not they're potentially needing assistance or not and so you know like I've I've gotten really good at doing that just being a caretaker for as long as I have been so um, but yeah, like respecting people's Autonomy. You know that's that should just be a normal given thing. But ah. For some reason. It's not anyway, all of these things um going out of your way to acknowledge somebody has a disability indulging in inspiration porn trying to dodge talking about disability or whatever. All of that is a microaggression so too is doing which you know people have done to Lance you know. I would die or you know, asking questions personal questions that are not your business like don't ask folks questions like you don't just turn around and just ask a random person you know, intimate details of their sex life right? So like why are you trying to ask about this person's you know, prosthetic. 01:19:56.19 Lance Ah, if you feel like you need to preface your question with can I ask you a personal question. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 01:19:58.91 Jala Device you know like but. 01:20:05.40 Jala Shut up shut up. Don't even open your mouth. Yeah, so um, there are 2 different forms of speech when talking about people and people being disabled and having disabilities. There's 2 different forms of speech there's person first language or Pfl. 01:20:22.97 Jala Which emphasizes the person before the descriptor such as saying people with disabilities employees with Adhd Etc then there is also ifl identity first language and that is. For example, saying the deaf community rather than people who are deaf or I am an amputee rather than I am a person with an amputation. So um, it's important to establish what form of language a given disabled person prefers and to match that language preference and you don't necessarily have to ask. Ifl or pfl like you can just just listen to them talk about themselves. How did they say? So yeah, yeah, and like that's because like this is this is more recent that people are actually developing and and paying attention to it. You know so. 01:21:02.11 Lance I Yeah I didn't even know those things existed until you sent me the notes. Ah. 01:21:16.20 Jala So yeah, and like you know, yeah if somebody is unconsciously you know when they are talking about themselves. They they say okay well are they saying I have a prosthetic or are they saying you know, um, something else like I am a person with a prosthetic. You know there's a difference in the way that that language is formed and that's important because it's it's it's kind of like with gender identity and other forms of identity where um if you are. Using the wrong word like the wrong pronoun For example, then that obviously is going to affect that person and the same thing happens here where it's talking about Disability. You know like what is the emphasis on. Are you emphasizing the the disability or the person themselves. You know and different people have different preferences about that so you need to keep that in mind just like you would your pronouns or anything else. So and then when planning events like if you are planning an event. You should always check with all of your and attendees. To see if they have any unique needs if they have different. Um you know, like nutritional needs if they have accessibility like mobility needs that kind of thing you have to take that into consideration as well. And if you're unclear about any aspects of that need then you need to ask that attendee. 01:22:42.90 Jala Directly for some clarification so you know what you need to be doing you know, um, don't pretend that you don't just assume that you know or take a wild guess you know a stab in the dark or whatever ask ask for like okay, what? what? exactly do you need I I don't understand exactly what you need you know, give me a little bit more. Information if you could please you know? so so yeah um that is kind of like my little primer about talking about disability an hour and twenty some odd minutes and we already we already covered. A lot of the experiential stuff because like you just jump right in. You were very excited to talk about it so you know very impassioned. So yeah let's let's go ahead and kind of shift on to a hundred percent let's just let lance go? ah. 01:23:33.73 Lance Oh what by I mean I might need props I don't know yeah I know I have answers so you ah you asked me 1 of your questions that you sent me was what was it like when you were growing up. 01:23:36.77 Jala Okay, well, that's okay I've got a few questions written down on this wonderful notepad that I'm sharing. So. 01:23:47.68 Lance Did you know many disabled people and I I feel like I might have an experience because this is when I was not disabled that I kind of relate and that I feel like gives me like has put some of this internal kind of ableism into me so I talked about my aunt or I mentioned her briefly earlier who is. 01:24:07.55 Lance Like I don't know I don't know the right way to describe like levels the right language to use for kind of like levels of disability because there is kind of a hierarchy I guess or I don't know severity. 01:24:16.40 Jala Yeah, yeah, a so severity or I don't know intensity of condition. However, you would like to say. 01:24:22.20 Lance Yeah, so she couldn't she absolutely could not care for herself in any way like she was deaf and blind and her body didn't develop correctly like she you know she had to be in a home. Where she was cared for twenty four seven and um, as a child this would like I would be taken to visit her which was in a facility with ah people of you know, similar problems. And for a kid when this wasn't explained to me because there's a lot of you know it's loud. They're yelling. They're not. You know, a lot of the people are like they can't communicate in any way. That's you know that I was used to so it was. 01:25:20.16 Lance Like a really scary situation because I didn't like you know I didn't understand why you know like what was going on so to me as a kid. These people were terrifying which and that like. 01:25:38.35 Lance Kind of colored and of course none of the adults around me were emotionally capable of talking to me about this or helping me in any way even to even they didn't even notice that I was experiencing anything so there was no like follow up. 01:25:57.47 Lance There's no like how are you? you know there's no explanation. It's just we're taking you into this crazy environment that you have absolutely no like no way to compare it to you've never experienced anything like this So I grew up like pretty scared of disability in general like in a. In a different way than just being scared that I would one day be disabled, but it's but like seeing a disabled person like in a wheelchair or you know like is like a powerchair whatever and feeling like this kind of a recoil inside me that was like. You know, obviously it had nothing to do with them. It was all internal to me. But it's just like this reference to this thing that I went through as a kid that would just like kind of screwed me up in this topic and this you know and it just like that kind of. Shaded this feeling of like being disabled is bad and worse than and like weird thoughts about you know the thing that we talked about whether or not like it's worth living or whatever and it just like toxic unhealthy stuff that now I'm just like oh no. You know this stuff is in there and I need to do something about this. 01:27:13.52 Jala Well it it would have helped if literally anybody had sat down with you and said hey this is what's going on. This is what the situation is you know like you know that now you can understand like. 01:27:17.63 Lance Oh yeah, literally anybody. Yeah, it. 01:27:29.21 Jala Just being dropped in the middle and not knowing what's going on and not understanding like you know these people communicate differently. These people have you know X condition or whatever like that. No. 01:27:41.86 Lance Ah,, there's no idea on what any of that meant you know what? any of it was. It was just you're in this environment where there's a lot of like yelling people who look really different from other people that you've seen you know their bodies are shaped differently. You know they're. Just their mannerisms are completely different and and like Alien to you I don't know if that's ah I Guess that's is that an okay word to use and that's and it's such Ah I don't know. Yeah i' I hope I can't think there you go? Yeah, that sounds good. 01:28:07.57 Jala I don't know foreign foreign. Um, you know some it So unfamiliar Unfamiliar There's a good word there you go. So. 01:28:16.26 Lance Totally unfamiliar to you and they're not ah you know there is no threat. There wasn't even anybody to tell me that there was no threat So it. 01:28:21.25 Jala Yeah, and that's that's the thing is that like dropped into a situation like that you you know a small child will face alarm and not know what's going on like you know like a basic tenet of all creatures is that. We see everything around us hear everything around us and assess our threat level and that you know is just kind of part and parcel of evolution and survival so you know like a little kid can't be expected to just you know not have a reaction. You know that's not that's not a thing. 01:28:56.82 Lance Yeah, exactly did did you know many disabled people growing up. 01:29:04.21 Jala I Had some folks in my family who had like mental mental Conditions Neuro diverse situations but they weren't ah like there was my dad is ah diagnosed with manic depression. Um, but like he. 01:29:22.24 Jala Other people in my family also had other conditions and never got diagnosed with those. Um there were people with different physical disabilities. But those primarily came from like um ah work accidents and things like that like um, my theo e padrio Eddie he. Had a really bad work accident that left him um with some physical impairments and things and he lived with us for a little while. Ah and we lived with him for a little while at some point in time. So um, you know I had those kinds of situations. But. Ah, by and large when it came to stuff like school I was in like advanced placement classes and things like that and there weren't anyone. You know there weren't children in there that had a visible disability that I could see. And like in schools in general. They do a really bad job because they quarantine basically ah, all of the folks who have disabilities for the most part they quarantine them into their own little sector and then like you never see them because they're like over there in that one portion of the school where the those you know the. 01:30:32.34 Lance Yeah, they're treated as ah, there are others. 01:30:34.80 Jala Classes are for those folks, you know? Yeah, they are completely othered and kept separate so like my access to you know, get to know folks like that was pretty low but I have this. Longstanding history of being around people who had physical impairments you know became disabled and also had some kind of neuro neurodivergent kind of situation so that is about the the breadth of it I do not have a um, ah. Neurodiergent situation that I am aware of and I was as I said temporarily disabled but that was in adulthood so like growing up I didn't have any exposure to that for the most part other than just like limited bits in my family and the neuro divergent stuff like with my dad and his manic depression. We none nobody my dad nor anyone else had any idea how to go about handling it. We didn't have any vocabulary for it. We didn't he had some medications but they you know to this day. They don't work a hundred percent of the time you know like a hundred like there's periods where it's more severe and harder to. Ah. You know, kind of get a wrap on and then at others and so you know like there's there's ah, constant cycles through. Yeah. 01:31:55.73 Lance It's so that's it mental Health is so challenging because like I'm thinking about it I'm not even sure that diagnosis exists anymore. So it's just so weird to be. 01:32:02.77 Jala Yeah I don't I don't even know. Um. 01:32:07.37 Lance Like the situation of be like I'm just trying to think of somebody who like was diagnosed with that and then how do you deal with it when like your condition doesn't exist anymore. It's now something different. Do you know what? I mean like the way it's defined and and recognized or acknowledged and dealt with but I don't know. 01:32:16.30 Jala Yeah. Well I will say that my dad didn't even have medication for it until I was in College. So the entire time I was growing up and he didn't have his diagnosis until like around that time so like growing Up. We just knew that he had really severe mood swings and like we couldn't. 01:32:40.77 Jala Understand It's like my dad is a very loving and you know like caring parent and stuff and bighearted and stuff at certain times and then like he would go through some some you know chemical changes in his brain and stuff and then. 01:32:59.43 Jala Boy Um, it was very rough it was it was like um whiplash and I couldn't understand what was going on and like why suddenly out of nowhere. You know this this switch happened and it was very hard to understand and so you know it was. 01:33:11.80 Lance And there's nobody around to explain it. 01:33:14.77 Jala And it was an undiagnosed like it was dealing with an undiagnosed untreated largely until like later on in life situation. So you know that's that's the bulk of my experience like I had some friends that had like muscular dystrophy or things like that. But. By and large it was like not as as often that I came across like I also have a couple of friends who have like Ms and things like that. But but again it's it's kind of um it wasn't like oh yeah, my best friend had this it. My dad had a chemical and has. 01:33:52.29 Jala Continues to have um you know the chemical imbalances in his Brain. He has some kind of Neuro divergent situation. But um, you know that's about it for me. But do you currently know. Very many disabled people. 01:34:08.88 Lance I Actually don't I was thinking about it because you sent me those questions and I'm like you'd think I'd know more now. But no I because but part of the problem is I'm just so busy I don't really know anybody. 01:34:20.97 Jala Yeah, you you don't have time to well and then two like a lot of what I find is that I'm friends with people online I don't know I talk to people online every day but I don't I don't know their situation and unless they decide. Yeah, like if. 01:34:28.63 Lance Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly like if you if you went through your Discord server and interviewed everybody and Asked. Do you know anybody who's disabled most of them would think In. They're real in their life and their you know. Whatever at whatever you call, not the internet anymore. But and they'd probably be like no maybe you know a lot of them would because they just don't but they do they know me and we just don't think about that the same way because we don't see it. 01:34:47.80 Jala Is it. Right? And like well and and then too like I think I have a larger volume of Neuro divergent friends than anything because there's so many people who have gotten diagnoses of these things. 01:35:11.35 Lance I swear I swear Neurotypical doesn't exist and it's all just whether or not you've had a diagnosis or are aware of yourself enough to acknowledge the ways that you're kind of different from you know some other people. 01:35:11.94 Jala You know since that's that's been. Yeah. 01:35:24.18 Jala Well people are not made cookie cutter everybody like everybody's legs. Are you know one leg is a little shorter than the other different people like just like how your facial features different from now are different from everybody else's. The way you're wired is going to be a little bit different than everyone else's and that's just how it is. It's kind of like that's the way you need to also look at people who are born with disabilities. They are just they they came out that way. That's just another way that they differ you know, different people are different. You know we are not 1 person. So yes, they they come. That's it. 01:35:59.65 Jala And that's just their situation. You know so. 01:36:01.62 Lance I Would like to talk I'd like to it would be cool I Just just fantasy world to to do a conversation like this with somebody who was born disabled because I don't know our experiences are different enough that like I'm I'm really interested now you gave me something to do. Something to go seek Out. You know an educational opportunity because there's I don't know there's just so there's got to be a lot of differences between being born a you know and being born disabled and then being born nondisabled and then be having fate. Force a disability on you. You know? So I'm just I don't know that just sounds like a good date wait think way to learn something. Oh for sure. 01:36:42.24 Jala Well and then two. There's so many different types of disabilities like is someone who has you know and muscular dystrophy or what have you is going to have a different experience from someone like you know Laura from bad attitudes. Who has oi who is different from somebody who has you know this other condition. You know so you know each each individual person is going to have their own experience and that. That's what's important to understand and it's it's the same way with stuff like race and everything but you still have in when you're talking about like being a minority or being of a certain gender identity or whatever like there's a group of people who all have this whole identity that can get together and they have. Usually you know they have some common ground. Yeah there's more cultural or like outlook kind of shared shared. Um so aspects of of themselves. You know, whereas it like. 01:37:31.29 Lance This more shared experiences. 01:37:48.26 Jala Because Disability is everywhere it is in every culture. It's not going to have that same automatic. Oh everybody's experiencing it the same way kind of feeling you know or a similar way. Yeah. 01:38:01.70 Lance Um, and I think a lot of us kind of become shut in. 01:38:05.54 Jala Yeah, and I think too that just because advocating for yourself gets to be incredibly tiring like it's automatically tiring so to then turn around and become a disability advocate for other people. 01:38:12.34 Lance Now Guys it's Spoon theory. 01:38:22.81 Jala That is a lot of energy that a lot of folks just don't have and especially if you are one of the 26% of you know americans with disabilities who live in poverty like you also don't have resources to go and and advocate you know, actively. 01:38:40.88 Jala Even if you have energy which energy is ah you know a premium. So. 01:38:47.69 Lance There's a there's a lot of lack of it I like this spoon theory is really good. You should include an article about it in the show notes. But do you want the right one I'll give you the right one because I got it I got it from ah ah. 01:38:53.97 Jala I will I will I will have to pull it up and do that. Okay, you can. Yeah, Laura. 01:39:05.60 Lance Bad attitudes I I just forgot her name. Yeah I got it from her I got I emailed her and I got the right article about it because I didn't like any of the resources I'd found on my own about it. But it just there's just a lot of because. 01:39:13.60 Jala Oh good good. You'd emailed her cool. So. 01:39:22.38 Lance You know disability it just adds. There's a tax. There's an energy tax to it. Everything's a little harder like it's just I'm less likely to leave the house because I don't I don't feel comfortable leaving without my prosthetic on because I do not. 01:39:39.98 Lance Like the way I am looked at or treated when you know with just my residual limb. So I don't feel like leaving if I don't want to wear my prosthetic and I don't always feel like wearing my prosthetic so that I just I Just don't this way because you're like do you know, many disabled people. It's like no but I don't go out. 01:39:59.16 Lance And know nearly as many people as I used to and there's this kind of underlying like like ah like a threshold like the energy level that I need to have in order to want to do anything is like higher than it used to be because there's just an extra burden placed on. 01:40:10.92 Jala Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I was going to say for listeners who don't know what the spoon theory is they can go read the article but in brief. Do you want to talk about it or do you want me to say something about it. 01:40:17.22 Lance Everything that I do. 01:40:26.50 Lance You you? you're the researcher. You're great at this. You're freaking pro. You're great at it. 01:40:33.48 Jala Ah I read things. That's my power and my superpower is I read. Anyway. So um, basically spoon theory is more or less like disabled folks come they start every day with a certain number of spoons. Okay, and every. Thing that they do everything that they do including things that non-disabled people. Um take for granted every single thing takes energy. It takes extra energy for Laura to get out of bed for example and to get dressed. That takes a lot of energy to then go and make breakfast to cook food takes energy every time it takes energy. It takes away one of those spoons and so the amount of energy that any particular disabled person has gets constantly drained by everything. Every single action taking some extra amount of energy from them and so at the end of the day. How many spoons do they have left. You know how? how can they ratation their spoons so that they can accomplish the things that they need to do and where do they have to just. Make do or find like a convenient workaround or you know employ the help of someone else to assist with something because they are out of spoons. So and. 01:41:58.59 Jala Those spoons are taken away not just by physical actions. But also by the emotional stress the mental stress that comes with just having to go outside and have everyone judge you because they're staring at your you know limb or your wheelchair or whatever. So. Every interaction takes spoons so keeping all of that in mind you know it's like it's it's more taxing overall on 1 person's yeah, your your energy reserves are are tapped out a lot faster. So. 01:42:24.16 Lance Resources are more limited. 01:42:34.40 Lance I feel like you let me get out pretty much everything I wanted to get out today. Felt like a good therapy session I feel good. 01:42:44.86 Jala Well, that's good. But I Do I do want to ask though. Um because you kind of mentioned when you were little how you know you were kind of terrified of disability and so you were were non-disabled previously. And then you became disabled how did that change your perspective like overall I know that you said that you kind of had like this period of denial. 01:43:09.41 Lance Yeah, well, there's like having to train myself to get rid of the the value judgment associated with it. Um, because the you know like the the instinct or whatever is that like acknowledging. 01:43:26.94 Lance My situation means acknowledging that there's something wrong with me which you know isn't true, but that's what that's what was like programmed into me and then the way other people act reinforces that. 01:43:44.95 Lance It makes that it makes that a harder thing to you know, overcome because if everybody's acting like you know the the sympathy the sympathy like the first like the first time some or the first time somebody told me I was in I was an inspiration. It was the first day I went back to work. 01:44:04.18 Lance And all I was doing at the time when I went back to work was just going to sit ah behind a desk and do like office work which personally I hate a lot so I was going back I was like. 01:44:19.78 Lance Pretty unhappy I was going back to do something I really didn't want to do because it's outside of things that like I choose chose to do for work and I'm just walking into an office to do what to me is like nothing. Not. Diminish people who work in an office or whatever. But what I was going to do was literally going to be a largely nothing and this guy is walking out and he goes you know you're an inspiration and I'm like ah what he's like get to see you back at work This is inspiring I'm like are you. 01:44:51.34 Lance Fucking kidding me like I'm doing this thing that I like I hate I don't want to be here I don't want to be doing this thing and it's inspiring to you Well I'm glad I could be of fucking service to you sir you know. 01:45:09.78 Lance And it's just that like it's that it's it so and it just ties into me to to like the value judgment like it's like I'm less than now. So any little thing I do is like a big deal for somebody else. Oh you know good for you. 01:45:29.11 Lance And it's like you know to getting that out of getting the deprogramming myself from like agreeing with that or thinking that or being scared of disability or disabled people is you know it's ongoing work and it's been a lot and it's like. Thing that I've really needed to kind of deal with of not hating myself when I fail to accomplish a task that I used to be able to accomplish or you know hating myself when I need to ask? you know my fricking six year old daughter for help doing a a simple something. 01:46:06.97 Jala Well and that just I need to like count how many times I have referred to it at this point. Ah, but ah Laura on bad attitudes was had ah an episode I know it's it. 01:46:14.25 Lance She. At this point. It's almost an episode of her show. 01:46:23.39 Jala So about her without her. Oh I Want to have her on my show I did reach out to her at some point but she was very busy I Hope to maybe have her on in the future on the next time I do yes yes I'm the point the point about this is go listen to her podcast So you. 01:46:30.62 Lance Well, we both think she's Great. So Hopefully she's extremely flattered. Yeah,, don't listen to us. 01:46:42.35 Jala Yeah, well yeah, you can listen to both. You can listen to both? Um, but I mean like about this particular topic. She is the the one who um, you know has has a lot of very well thought out and concise ah episodes that are very short form and that's great. 01:46:57.46 Lance Okay. 01:47:00.60 Jala Like they're the little bite size bits but they are about a bunch of different topics that are important to know about disability and and disability concerns. Anyway, um, the thing is is ah Laura had an episode about independence and interdependence and you know. 01:47:19.40 Jala You are not truly independent if you are non-disabled because you still get your water and your food from like the grocery store and from the pipes and the from whatever like you're not everyone is interdependent. We all depend upon each other that is like to the goal of oh you have to be you know like. 01:47:39.40 Jala Someone making a value judgment of whether or not Laura or you are an independent individual with your disability like that's that's nonsense because nobody yes that's that's kind of the thing I wanted to say like. 01:47:48.21 Lance It in a possible part clear. 01:47:56.23 Jala You know? yes I know it's frustrating to you Yes I know that you feel this way because of the pressures of toxic masculinity which we've talked about a little bit on the show but we will I'm sure have another episode in the future. Um, Lance has already got it planned out folks. Yeah yeah. 01:48:04.67 Lance Yes, yes, we will. Yeah I'm not letting you get away from it. 01:48:16.80 Jala So ah, but anyway even with all of that in mind you know also keep in mind you weren't ah independent before anyway like it's it's it's it's nonsense. You know like it's a fabrication like a mental fabrication because our society in America. 01:48:32.26 Jala Is so much into this you know hellbent on this you know, independent rugged individualism Stuff. You know? So but that's like ah oftentimes like say during Covid Pandemic The rugged individuals who refused. To wear masks for the safety of other people to consider other people and make sure that they you know, ah don't catch kooties from you know them like that. That's a lack of blatant lack of concern and Blatant. You know selfishness on their part that. 01:49:07.42 Jala Is detrimental to the rest of society like it is healthy and good to have an interdependent relationship with other people. So just because you know okay at times you might need a little bit more help with this because of your particular situation. Well that person that is helping you. Is also going to need your help at some point with something that they need and you can just pay it Back. You know? Yeah yeah, no I mean like overall it it. It all comes out in the washes I guess kind of where I'm trying trying to go with that like. 01:49:26.49 Lance It's yeah, it's more like I just I just need help with things that other people might not usually need help with but it's not actually different on the face of it. You're correct. Yeah. 01:49:43.20 Jala You know? yeah I know you feel bad about it. But I'm also kind of like talking I'm talking to you but I'm also mentally talking to my parents I'm trying to send the the vibe and into my parents' house right now so that they can you know my mom won't my mom nearly cried yesterday. 01:49:45.55 Lance No I Appreciate what you're saying. Yeah. 01:50:01.19 Jala Because she asked me to run her her some some of her errands for her and I was like Mom is no big deal and she was literally just starting to cry because she didn't want to quote Unquote Burden me and it was just like no, it's okay, it's fine. So. 01:50:14.48 Lance I Understand the feeling that I understand what she was feeling but you're right I appreciate I do actually really appreciate the way you you phrased all that I think that was excellent. All right. 01:50:24.46 Jala Yeah, well thank you and I thank you for taking the time to be on this show to talk about your experiences and I've learned a lot. So thank you so much I know I know and I was going to say so. 01:50:31.77 Lance Oh yeah, this is great I do have to go see him though. So. 01:50:40.42 Jala Where in the world can people on the internet find you if you can be found somewhere on the internet. 01:50:41.89 Lance I don't know I can be found my name's Lance and I'm in your discord server if I'm going to plug anything. It's not me I want to plug the able gamers charity a b l e g a m e r s dot org ablegamer dot org. 01:51:01.13 Lance They're fricking awesome and they are all about bringing video games to you know, ah disabled people helping them with accessibility devices. You know Xbox Adaptive controller special just ah like they they figured out ways to hook up powered ah powered wheelchair. Controls to video games. So people you know who otherwise use a powered wheelchair can use those controls that they're already familiar with to play video games and stuff like all kinds of things. they're amazing and yeah they're great so that's that's my only plug. 01:51:30.94 Jala That's awesome. Awesome. 01:51:37.22 Jala Oh that's a good plug. That's the but I know this is like terrible but I'm going to say that's the best plug I think I've had on the show. So my plug for this episode is Laura Stinson at badattitudespod.com so I will definitely link that in the notes because we referred back to Laura so much. So anyway, um if if you care to see me talk about anything. You can find me @jalachan in places including jalachan.place so 01:51:58.10 Lance Oh yeah I know so. 01:52:06.84 Lance She's jalachan in places. Um, this point I've heard you say that like 300 times so 01:52:14.91 Jala At least I think I've done more than 300 episodes at this point of something with my 8 years of podcasting. Yeah well anyway, anyway, that is all for now folks. So until next time take care of yourselves and remember to smile. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/Jala. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]