People get all up in arms when I describe myself as a crip because what they hear is the word 'cripple,' and they hear a word you're not allowed to say anymore.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I identify very proudly as a disabled woman. I identify with the crip community. I didn't invent the word 'crip'. It's a political ideology I came to in my late teens and early 20s.
Although there exist many thousand subjects for elegant conversation, there are persons who cannot meet a cripple without talking about feet.
I hate the words 'handicapped' and 'disabled'. They imply that you are less than whole. I don't see myself that way at all.
I'm not much of a crier but it is mildly soul-destroying and exposing to do something physical that you are terrible at in front of other people.
I'm socially awkward in life, and that's one of the reasons why I do what I do. I'm more about interpreting other people's words.
For me, disability is a physical experience, but it's also a cultural experience and a social experience, and for me, the word 'crip' is the one that best encapsulated all of that.
It never really occurs to me that I'm doing cringe comedy. It's something that people tell me afterwards, and I say, 'Again? Really? I never set out with that intention.'
I'm not like a champion of profanity. I write what I hear, and the characters that I write, that's how they talk. That's how I talk a lot of the time. So I'm not trying to advance a social cause.
People are incapable of stereotyping you; you stereotype yourself because you're the one who accepts roles that put you in this rut or in this stereotype.
Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!