{"id":1901,"date":"2020-03-27T18:37:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T18:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/?p=1901"},"modified":"2020-03-27T18:37:03","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T18:37:03","slug":"graces-response-to-the-right-way-to-be-crippled-and-naked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/uncategorized\/graces-response-to-the-right-way-to-be-crippled-and-naked\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace’s Response to “The Right Way to Be Crippled and Naked”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u00a0When it comes to discussing disability and ableism it is important to pay equal attention to both visible and invisible disabilities. In Jonathan Mack\u2019s The Right Way to Be Crippled and Naked<\/em> it appeared as though the primary focus was on a visual disability, which was the absence of part of a leg. However, I believe that an argument could be made that more significantly than the leg itself is the impact it had on the author\u2019s mental state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As someone who is very open about my\nown mental health issues and has acted as an advocate for years, it immediately\nstood out to me that appeared to be an underlying mental health issue. Before\ncontinuing I would like to give a disclaimer that I am in no way qualified to\ngive an official diagnosis, but am rather using my education and experience to\napproach this topic. A lot of what the main character is experiencing mentally\nstems from his physical disability with his leg. Within the first three\nparagraphs Mack describes his life as filled with \u201cregrettable incidents.\u201d \u00a0As the letter continues, he speaks more on his\npersonal life and how it had been \u201cpromiscuous\u201d and filled with a lot of sexual\nactivity which leads me to believe these sexual encounters play a large role in\nsaid incidents. When someone is dealing with mental health issues there are a\nvariety of healthy and unhealthy actions they can take to try and make\nthemselves feel better. One of those actions is acting out with sex by having\nan exccesive amount of it. People will do this for a variety of reasons ranging\nfrom deep feelings such as the need to feel desired by someone, or just as\ngeneral erratic behavior associated with some cases of mental health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other mental health disorder I\nthought would be relevant to bring up in regards to this piece was a form of\nbody dysmorphia. This is when an individual cannot stop thinking about a\nspecific part of their bodies they perceive as flawed. It is like a constant\nstream of self hatred that can consume the way one lives their life as well as\ntheir overall opinion on their self worth. The main focus for Mack would be how\nhe views himself without part of his limb. Mack spoke about how he went out of\nhis way to shape his body to have a \u201cporn star chest with big erotic arms\u201d, and\nin his message at the end of the reading, he states one of his biggest fears\nwas that he would \u201cnever get laid.\u201d The human body is often sexualized, and for\npeople with body dysmorphia they will often times not deem themselves worthy of\nsex or love from another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though I am speaking more so on the\ndisability that is mental health, it is important to acknowledge how the\nphysical disability with the leg plays a large part in this as well. There may\nbe other social or personal issues the author had been experiencing, but it\nlooked like a majority of his dislike for himself came from his leg. It is\nmentioned in the passage how Americans are conditioned to suppress any negative\nthoughts which I found to be one of the most accurate things I have ever read.\nMen especially are given the stereotype of being tough that entails concealing\nall traces of emotion. Bottling up negative feelings and energy like this is\none of the most unhealthy coping techniques because eventually you won\u2019t be\nable to keep it in and there will be a spiral. Occasionally, this spiral can\nlead to clarity. You are at a point of an all time low, you hate how you\u2019re\nfeeling, and you cannot stand to live like this any longer. I feel as though\nthe entirety of Mack\u2019s letter, including his decision to become a Jain monk,\nwas well written word vomit consisting of all he had suppressed for the last 20\nyears or so.\u00a0 The result was hitting this\nbottom and being in a place where he wanted to make a real change for his life.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\npledge: Grace Bonaccorsy <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Word\nCount: 686<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0When it comes to discussing disability and ableism it is important to pay equal attention to both visible and invisible disabilities. In Jonathan Mack\u2019s The Right Way to Be Crippled and Naked it appeared as though the primary focus was on a visual disability, which was the absence of part of a leg. However, I … Continue reading “Grace’s Response to “The Right Way to Be Crippled and Naked””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcJhts-uF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1902,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901\/revisions\/1902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}