how disability gave me four legs and why it kicks ass

_{(originally posted to Dreamwidth)}

(NOTE: This is an older post from when we used a different mobility device! Now we've upgraded to forearm crutches, and I plan on writing an update to this at some point! Stay tuned! ~10/21/2020)

So, wei recently learned that dual-wielding regular canes is absolutely possible and decided to go out and get some new ones.

The difference in both muir mobility and species dysphoria is astounding, actually.

See, what a lot of people who dont use mobility devices don't understand is exactly how much that device becomes an extension of your body, and grabbing them or taking them or otherwise touching them without consent is the same as doing so to my arm or leg. My canes are two extra legs and I walk like they are. Ever since I picked them up and started walking with them I've been a complete natural, and even muir therapist said that exact word - "natural" - when discussing how wei walked with them.

It honestly just proves to me more that this body wants to walk on four legs. My hips have twisted and my joints have given way and I've broken my ankles all trying to walk unassisted on two legs muir whole life. Even just one cane was wobbly and felt off-balance and incomplete despite being an improvement. Four canes, though.

I can distribute my weight more evenly across the four legs like I've always felt I should and it relieves the pressure on my knees and hips so much. When one of my ankles gives way or I trip, I have three extra legs to balance me out and I know how to use them instinctively despite being generally clumsy. I can walk at a faster pace now than even the able-bodied people around me where before they had to slow down an wait for me! :D And also a bonus: I can walk down the stairs on four legs now. Because canes. You know how much I wanted to be able to do that when I was younger and would imitate my dog all the time? It's great. Lifelong dream recognized. :V

But here's yet another place where muir nonhumanity overlaps and intersects with other things, in this case muir disability.

I honestly can't just completely shake from my mind that while, no, maybe my body isn't crippled because Im meant somewhere in my DNA to be not-human or whatever, there may be something mentally that influenced my two-leggedness to break down. Of course I was predisposed to physical disability for a lot of reasons that gave me an ever-increasing chance of problems that I definitely have now, and of course scoliosis and joint problems don't necessarily mean anything. Not on their own anyway.

But that doesn't mean that I can't give it meaning. And to me it absolutely means that I was destined for four legs.

It's cripplepunk and voidpunk, since disability causing or furthering nonhuman feelings in a social/political sense isn't separate from this. Despite my literal nonhumanity, its also inherently politically charged to combine nonhumanity and disability in my identity,and there's a history of "dehumanization" and social messages that can't be ignored just because I wish I had been raised far from humans and was never called one.The rejection of humanity on a symbolic level is as important as never having been human to begin with.

And it's a rejection of the idea that having to use my mobility devices as a bad thing, that they're something "unfortunate" that complete strangers on the regular wish to my face I didn't "have to use." Something that means those same know-nothing strangers will go on to give me unsolicited advice about how to "get better," get excited and congratulate me when I'm not using them because they think it means I'm "getting better," and generally seem hellbent on making sure I don't use them because they can't seem to understand why anyone would want to.

Able-bodied people cannot possibly grasp why I would love my canes and never give them up nor my disabled body. And honestly fuck them, my canes are sexy and I can run circles around 'em with them.

It's also obviously very alterhuman. As both alternative "humanity" and fulfillment of nonhumanity on multiple levels.

And of course it is, as always, boring and medical and wei're in pain so constantly it's background noise which is why wei ended up with the canes in the first place. But whether the chicken came before the egg on "did my brain slowly sabotage my body" or "did my decline of two-legged ability just accidentally help," I have to say that it meshes perfectly on literal, mythical, and political levels with my nonhumanity and having four legs is pretty fucking sweet. (Just gotta make a utility pouch or something, I had to trade hands for those legs wwww)