Hello out there

The thing is, I've been thinking and talking about disability for a while now, and I don't have a singular place to keep these thoughts in order.  So, hello.  Welcome to that place.  I'm Maddy, I'm 20, I'm from the DC area and attend college outside of LA, and I have a chronic illness called Dysautonomia.  I came to the online disability community through tumblr, but I don't want to use that as a public blog because people who are interested in disability and/or Dysautonomia may not also want to know how much I appreciate the Bel/Freddie relationship on The Hour or share my significant enjoyment of hedgehogs.  I also help run the Young People with Dysautonomia tumblr, but that is not a personal space.  I have a twitter, but I've been jonesing to do some actual writing lately, so that is no longer sufficient.  Thus, this blog.

I've been sick for over five years now, since the beginning of my sophomore year of high school.  I didn't really go to high school after I got sick, taking classes at home for the most part and spending most of my days in the basement watching tv.  I started college part time, eventually going to full time as my health improved.  I've certainly gotten a lot better over the past five years, but Dysautonomia and its accompanying gifts (fatigue, brain fog, orthostatic intolerance, etc.) are still a very big part of my life.  I started a student organization called the Disability, Illness, and Difference Alliance (DIDA) last spring with some friends, and have spearheaded that effort ever since, facilitating discussions, meeting with administrators, and generally doing whatever I can to make disabled students and our concerns more visible on campus.  I also did an independent study in Disability Studies last semester, which was an incredible experience that only increased my desire to fight for disability justice.  Disability advocacy is looking more and more like what I want to do as a career, which is an exciting prospect.  I feel so much better about myself and my circumstances since I started learning about disability in a social, rather than purely medical, context, and I want to both extend that empowering feeling to others with disabilities and raise awareness in the general population.

I'm not quite sure what this blog is going to look like yet.  Right now I'm imagining a smorgasbord of my personal experiences with illness, thoughts about disability issues generally, and maybe some chronic illness advice.  Having begun to study the systems of oppression behind disability, I'm not really a "doctors always know what's best for you" or a "just talk to your professors, and everything will be ok in class" type of a person, but I'm committed to finding a balance between healthy anger at the way disabled people are treated and overall happiness in my life.  I guess we'll see how it goes!