Disability's Infinite Loop
Today I wanted to talk about how hard it is to have a disability in Brasil, particularly one that comes from a progressive condition. Because chronic illness apparently is so easily forgotten that the law didn't even predict our existence, and when I apply over and over for financial aid, the interviewer wants a date, they need the date of when I became disabled, and I try to explain that I don't have a date, that I just grow a little more disabled every day, but the law needs a date, they need me to have suffered an accident or contracted a virus.
And as a result, I need to pay my caretaker with the salary I don't have, hoping my parents can still afford my physical therapy, because the government decided disabilities are none of their business, and rich people somewhere decided to profit off wheelchairs and other devices I can't buy, keeping me and millions of people dependent forever, keeping us disabled in the literal sense of the word.
I wish my page was bigger so that the whole world saw what goes on here, and I hope someday someone brighter than me knows how to fix this for me and for all of us freaks.
