So this is Christmas

In Brazil, Christmas starts earlier every year. At least for our shopping malls. Inspired by them, I'm also going to consider it's already that time of the year.

Too many people get really sentimental. I think it's natural for several reasons. Main one is that everything stops, and dust settles on everyone's life, no matter how busy it has been during the year. Then it can hit you: the fact you've spent most of your time at work, solving somebody else's problems instead of being with your loved ones and helping them out. And if that was the case with you, it means you were lucky enough to have a job, to be able to sell your time and skills for money, and to buy yourself a slice of descent life.

Anyhow, feelings may emerge from that change of pace, and you may actually remember a lot of things you so successfully managed to forget during almost all the year. When that happens, some people write beautiful messages to their loved ones, full of good wishes and hope for the future. I don't have anything against this approach and I really endorse demonstrations of true feelings. I think if you're able to tell your dearest people you love them, you should really do so.

But this year I'm going to break this tradition and address people I despise first. Why? Because I believe even being just a few, these folks can make too much damage. So if my wishes to them come true, everybody else will be much better off.

I need to take a step back and briefly describe these folks. They are unfair, opportunistic, power driven, and coward. It's common for them to take credit for others' work, since they don't do much themselves. They are not really smart, in intelligence or knowledge terms. Maybe because of that, they are great at selling certainty to others. If they were smarter, they'd naturally be aware of their own ignorance, which would prevent them to impose their arrogance to others, usually taking advantage of privileged conditions and better opportunities. They are very good at defending those better results they get as a consequence of their hard work and skill. Many of these folks won't even reproduce and pass over the genes they consider so superior to everybody else's. Still they are capable of creating great negative social impact, despite being logically so insignificant.

What I wish for this people is simple: I want them to go back to where they really belong. I think this usually happens sooner or later. The problem is that when later is the case, others will suffer. More so when for some reason they don't have adequate means to defend themselves. I don't want these horrible people to necessarily die or suffer, although I have to confess sometimes these desires populate my dreams. I really want them to be disarmed, to lose the means to do harm in their own best interest. If this happens, they will also automatically stop taking ownership of resources that they haven't even helped producing. This will certainly reduce inequality, which is bad by definition, but even worse because of the way it's unfairly produced.

With that, all my beloved friends and family will have a truly Merry Christmas. Not only them, but everybody else struggling to make a living while high class parasites stand on their ways, covered in idiotic certainties. That's my dearest wish for Christmas, New Year and for everyday we all have the privilege to inhabit this blue planet.

Sincere question

This blog has been created mostly to allow me to share some answers about which I had been thinking for so long and finally got to a descent level of clarity on. Depending on how you look at it, I've got to admit it's quite naïve. But it's also so like me. To get deeply inspired by new feelings, ideas and experiences and think that it would be so wonderfully possible that other people could be part of a chain reaction, bringing about collective enlightening, so to speak. Well, today I think it's already safe to acknowledge this hasn't happened. At least yet (I can't help it!).

Anyhow, today I'm coming here to get an answer from someone, God, the Universe, you name it. Or at least a sincere attempt to get to one. The question is tough and despite practicing a technique that could lead me to skip this question, to avoid burning out, I feel I want a second opinion. Here's the deal: all my factual observations, both of myself and scientific research have pointed out to a quite uncomfortable and unfair realization. Maybe society doesn't do it on purpose (most people certainly don't), but the fact is there's a sharp asymmetry between the amount of effort and dedication required from a disabled individual to achieve material outcomes that can be considered ridiculously small if you keep all variables constant, changing only disability (I know, I've repeated that ad nauseum).

My question is, what's the correct attitude towards that? I've learned with my own experience that acceptance has a great power to reduce suffering. It's totally obvious that from a subjective perspective, that's the way to go. But then there's a small detail: when I accept something like that, automatically the level of sacrifice I'm willing to make is drastically reduced. Because I know I'm not going to make it getting remotely close to where I theoretically could. What's happening to me right now, and I think quite logically, is I've just stopped valuing all those earthly things that I've tricked myself with to prove I was a perfectly capable and normal human being. Now I know I'm a perfectly capable and normal human being, but I also know there will be cumulative barriers on my way that will make it appear otherwise to the average external observer.

Should I enjoy the fruits of my painfully acquired wisdom to limit my useless suffering? Or should I act like a hero of some sort and face the world head on, knowing I've already lost? Both answers appeal to different parts of my deepest soul. Justice is a word that albeit usually biased and distorted, is still resonating with some primal desire I've got, which makes my blood turn to steam. On the other hand, I know physics, and it's pretty clear to me what happens when someone tries to stop a train with bare hands.

There are days in which my patience is gone and I get so sick of being treated as something I know I'm not that I just want everything to end, because this is what's going to happen eventually anyways (to everyone, by the way). But then something else emerges like a stream of lava and makes me crave facing all that as if there was a really large reward somewhere. Is there a right answer here?

Saddest thing

Don't wanna indulge in sadness. There's hardly any good in doing so. But this aspect is relevant, and maybe its awareness can improve someone else's life. Disability can bring a very special kind of loneliness. It's not that being disabled implies in not having friends, although this can happen as well. Loneliness I'm talking about is a much deeper one. So much so, that if not acknowledged, it can really destroy someone's life.

What does being together mean? What are the reasons behind our social nature and our almost constant attraction to other people?

Maybe all of them spring from our animal basic needs such as food, sex and shelter. We're one of the species that rely the most on social groups for these needs to be satisfied. In primal settings, a single human hunter was a very easy target to better physically equipped predators. Not only that, but these fellows could also be an easy pray to other humans. Total intra-species competition would make the whole humanity weaker and more prone to be extinct. But our huge brains have allowed us to drop this idea of total war and join forces collectively, thus becoming a very powerful multipurpose machine. Somehow people realized the results of fighting the environment and other men at the same time would yield less average benefits than collaborating.

But this has happened thousands of years ago. What about us? How do we relate to each other in this hypertrophied highly specialized society? Maybe all this sophistication we have today is just the natural historical evolution from a very well coordinated hunting machine.  Maybe the basic principles that have made us stick to each other are still out there, but they just have a different external appearance, exactly because of all this sophistication and complexity.

In any case, it seems to me that the most fundamental ingredient for these social systems to work is that individuals have the ability to see themselves in others and in the whole society at large. When someone sees herself in another person, they are no longer two entirely different entities. They become a new organism, that will act on its own needs which in turn will get individual needs satisfied as well.

This is true for a group of friends, for a family, a city or even a country. In all these cases, people need to identify with each other, so they can collaborate to reach common goals. Trust is born from the awareness that the person in front of me has similar feelings, desires and needs (empathy). Therefore we have a common ground upon which we're going to build a collective existence together that is much more interesting and richer than what each of the individuals could provide for themselves in isolation.

Interpersonal bonds are stronger when people share a larger common ground. This can potentially maximize alignment and make agreement something more natural. It's not impossible to have a good friend that lives a totally different life compared to yours. But in this case, identification is different and mutual exchange can be limited and asymmetrical, making bonds weaker (at least friendship ones). This is also truth in terms of distance. It's usually much easier to maintain friendship with people that are physically close to us, because that facilitates the sense of availability we feel from them, and enlarges the common ground we have with each other. Very often people are close friends during school and grow steadily apart as they get engaged in different social environments.

Besides being physically close, common experiences are hugely important to build affinity. Maybe because of the evolutionary background mentioned above, we tend to feel safer and happier when we can share our experiences. Not necessarily because others can actively do something about a problem we're facing (although that can also be the case) but because sharing makes us feel stronger and more capable to tackle all the problems in the world.

This might make up for a good explanation about why rehabilitated disabled people can feel so bad and lonely, even being in much better absolute conditions than the folks that never went through this process. Rehabilitation is hard work. It hurts, it can suck all your energy, but usually it delivers a great deal of functional improvement compared to doing nothing (depending on the nature of the underlying condition).

Issue is we are social beings. It is rarely enough to perform better in daily activities. Performing them differently (in time or fashion) from the way most people like us do means losing the possibility to share similar experiences. Of course it's better for me to be able to move slower and with a cane than not to be able to move around at all. It's quite stupid not to acknowledge that. But this doesn't take social needs into account. So it creates the surreal experience of being a massive success and a huge failure simultaneously. The "mere physical issue" thesis is blown away at this point. Someone can be smart enough to make it in all intellectual tasks that generally lead to some degree of material success. But then there's common ground. While this person can theoretically perform all the necessary activities in a job description, the perception part and also the self-motivation part are usually not fulfilled.

This adds up to the unequal quality of the world we inhabit. You can indeed train a somewhat disabled person to perform all the tasks needed to live a good life in society. But the fact they will be done differently and thus won't let easy identification happen will create a gap that theoretically didn't necessarily have to exist. In other words, the worst thing about disability may not be disability itself, with all its pains and difficulties. It may well be loneliness. Because maybe you're able to do so many things but at the same time you are too different. Your life is very different and because of that you can't really see yourself in others and usually they can't see themselves in you either.

Making the huge effort for being capable and capability itself make you go only a small part of the way. The rest of it, albeit physically possible is socially unattainable. This is the paradox of rehabilitation and, in my opinion, it's the saddest thing about disability.

Luciano Huck não morreu. Ele apenas foi assaltado. [Pop post from my old blog in Potuguese]

O apresentador de programa vespertino da rede Globo Luciano Huck é um sujeito muito empreendedor. Além do seu salário Global (que não deve ser nada baixo) Luciano também toca uma longa série de outros projetos bem rentáveis. Em decorrência disso, conseguiu ficar bastante rico. Bem, não como Antônio Ermírio de Morais ou o finado “jornalista” Roberto Marinho, em cujo império de telecomunicações hoje trabalha. Porém, Luciano faz parte do diminuto grupo de brasileiros que podem se dar ao luxo de ter um Porsche ou vestir Armani (coisa que aliás não sei se faz, visto que não leio a revista Caras).

Ainda que Luciano tenha méritos e talentos indiscutíveis, que o conduziram em sua ascensão social meteórica (coisa que não se pode dizer tranqüilamente dos papas da mídia no Brasil), pode-se dizer que os mesmos talentos não se aplicam à escrita de artigos em jornais. De fato seu artigo na Folha de São Paulo do dia primeiro de Outubro não tem nada de mais à primeira vista. A não ser pelo fato de transparecer uma certa falta de traquejo. Tudo bem, dado que o apresentador não está pleiteando um Nobel de literatura e sim fazendo um desabafo sincero em um dos jornais de maior circulação aqui de Terra Brasilis.

Aqui começa a parte interessante dessa história: Luciano se recusa a andar de carro blindado “por filosofia”. Desde Nietsche a filosofia não era assim tão perigosa. O fato de um sujeito apenas rico agir assim já seria suficiente para que fosse considerado doido. Mais ainda no caso de Huck, considerando sua visibilidade e conseqüentemente a de seu dinheiro. Porém, publicar essa decisão de dispensar a blindagem em um dos jornais de maior circulação do país é praticamente eutanásia. A não ser que nesse mesmo dia ele tenha desistido da militância nos "sem blindagem" (MSB). De qualquer forma, tomara pra ele que a tese daquele Antônio Carlos de Almeida esteja mesmo correta e que os sequestradores não sejam capazes de ler e compreender o jornal.

Luciano se diz indignado com a violência na cidade de São Paulo. E ele tem razão. O curioso é que a maioria das pessoas com seu poder econômico já resolveram seus problemas de insegurança há muitos anos. Como? Através do uso indiscriminado de SUV’s que rodam com diesel subsidiado, placas de Curitiba (para não serem importunados por multas ou IPVA extorsivo) e blindagem à prova de mísseis intercontinentais e minas terrestres. Como se não bastasse todo esse aparato, está na moda entre os ricos pagar escoltas armadas para segui-los aonde quer que resolvam ir (se bem que com esse trânsito não é que possam ir mesmo muito longe).

Outro dia mesmo, por exemplo, tive a infeliz experiência de me interpôr entre Ana Maria Braga em sua Mercedes-Benz S600 de 800 mil reais e sua penca de capangas particulares em um Toyota Corolla preto. Eu tinha acabado de voltar de um ano vivendo na Europa. Lá ter um carro como esse Mercedes não quer dizer muita coisa. Por isso não dei a mínima importância ao veículo prateado naquela ocasião. Na verdade eu queria apenas ser gentil com uma senhora que estava já sem esperanças de conseguir passar no maldito cruzamento sem farol perto do Panamby. Depois dela e outros quatrocentos carros passarem na minha frente, percebi que aqui em São Paulo não dava pra ficar pensando muito no civismo e nos bons modos, senão quem não saía do lugar era eu.

Mas antes que avançasse com o meu carro e bloqueasse o fluxo na perpendicular, a maldita barca Mercedes se enfiou na minha frente como se fosse um Smart. Depois da peripécia dessa outra funcionária da Globo, tive cinco minutos de terror com aquele bando de maníacos piscando farol e colados na minha traseira como se eu fosse um criminoso, sequestrador de celebridades e tivesse furado o comboio do presidente Bush. É que ao contrário de Luciano Huck, é assim que a imensa maioria dos ricos leva a vida aqui por essas bandas. Felizes, satisfeitos e cada vez mais ricos e de bem com a vida, já que dinheiro atrai bons fluídos como o petróleo do tipo light e Veuve Clicquot.

De modo análogo, os moradores das favelas (gente predominantemente muito boa ao contrário do que diz o tal Almeida aos ávidos leitores de fim de semana) também estão dando o seu jeitinho pra se defender dos criminosos. Porém, muito menos glamuroso e eficiente que o dos ricos. Tratam-se de milícias, ou seja, grupos de foras-da-lei armados até os dentes que são pagos todos os meses, como o carnê do baú, para proteger os moradores dessas comunidades. Isso acontece porque a polícia está toda nas mãos dos narco-traficantes que operam dentro e fora das cadeias.

A classe média por sua vez tenta em vão reforçar suas guaritas com seguranças e colocar dois ou três portões elétricos em seus edifícios, além de câmeras e circuitos internos de TV que oneram muito os condomínios. Há prédios em que você pode inclusive acompanhar ao vivo a chegada do seu convidado, desde a entrada do prédio até à porta da sua casa por um canal da TV. Mas em matéria de segurança, digamos que o artífício é mais eficaz no controle do namorado da sua filha do que dos outros bandidos que por ventura resolvam invadir o condomínio.

Por isso, a sensação de insegurança ainda é grande demais e parecemos estar sempre um passo atrás do crime. Em face à inépcia ou conivência do Estado, a população de todas as classes sociais está se virando para levar a vida de maneira relativamente normal. Desnecessário dizer que os piores efeitos dessa guerra civil se fazem sentir nas favelas e não no Jardim Europa. Desnecessário também dizer que as reclamações vindas do Jardim Europa são escutadas com muito mais atenção nas altas esferas do poder público.

Então, lendo aquele relato melodramático do heterodoxo filósofo Luciano Huck (é normal ser meio piegas quando alguém te põe o cano do 38 na cara), tive uma idéia. Quando você e seus amigos são assaltados e levam seu relógio da Diesel, ou o laptop que você nem acabou de pagar ou o iPod que seu primo trouxe de muamba da Disney, não há espaço para chorar as pitangas em um quarto de página da Folha de São Paulo. Na verdade a página no jornal é apenas uma minúscula amostra do que o descontentamento dos ricos pode fazer. Imagine se o Sílvio Santos não pudesse mais ter segurança particular e carro blindado. Certamente ele não mudaria correndo de país. O país é que teria que mudar correndo. Por isso, seria muito benéfico que todos os ricos saíssem de suas bolhas de vidro à prova de bala e caíssem na nossa real. Também talvez fosse interessante que a classe média-alta saísse um pouco de trás do celofane preto dos vidros dos seus sedans médios e fosse dar um rolê em Heliópolis, caindo na real dos favelados.

Claro que se isso aqui fosse uma democracia de verdade, não haveria a necessidade de todos nós termos o tipo de prerrogativa que tem o Huck e sua turma com os meios de comunicação, porque de quatro em quatro anos todo mundo tem, em tese, exatamente a mesma chance de escolher aquele pessoal de terno e gravata que nos representa no congresso, nas assembléias legislativas ou na câmara de vereadores, blá blá blá....

O caso é que apesar da razão de ser dessas instituições ser a de nos bem representar, os lobbies, as negociatas, a corrupção e o tráfico de influência nos distanciam cada vez mais dessa gentalha. Apesar do benefício aparente, isso não é bom. Daí o que a gente faz é tentar resolver as coisas como dá, de preferência do modo mais rápido, indolor e privado possível. Ou seja, se a gente é classe baixa, a gente paga a milícia, a polícia e o traficante. Se é média, a gente não pára no farol depois das 11 da noite, evita deixar o carro muito limpo, evita trocar de carro, anda de janelas fechadas cobertas de celofane preto. Se a gente é rico, a gente anda de Audi blindado e tem uma porrada de seguranças armados na porta do nosso prédio. Se a gente é banqueiro, anda de helicóptero e passa boa parte do tempo fora do país onde se sente de novo o doce gostinho da normalidade.

Porém, no final das contas, por melhor que seja a blindagem, o celofane, o capanga ou o portão de ferro de que pudemos dispor, melhor seria não precisar deles em primeiro lugar. E para isso não adianta inventar cópias pirata da ROTA ou tratar ainda pior os suspeitos de crimes por serem pretos e pobres ou desrespeitar os direitos humanos dos presidiários como sugere Luciano ao conclamar a tropa de elite, indignado com a perda do seu Rolex de 5000 dólares. Huck não sabe que a prescrição fascista das tropas de elite da vida não vai resolver coisa nenhuma. Mas não precisa. Luciano não é especialista em segurança como espera-se que seja o Secretário de Segurança Pública do Estado de São Paulo. Por isso, o que ele tem que fazer é convidar os amigos high society a também torrar bem o saco do Governador, do Presidente e de todo mundo que realmente tenha poder pra mexer as peças desse tabuleiro.

Discordo daqueles que criticaram Luciano pelo seu artigo. Eu o aplaudo e peço que todos os ricos comecem mesmo a reclamar. O começo da solução de todo esse imbróglio está mais nas mãos deles do que nas nossas, sem querer tirar o meu da reta. Os ricos têm que chorar, gritar e espernear o mais alto que puderem, como fez Luciano na Folha de anteontem.

Conclusão: a solução para o problema da segurança nas grandes cidades brasileiras é acabar com os carros blindados. Mas é claro que também não faria mal nenhum investir uns 30 bilhões de reais em educação e pagar aos professores de todos os níveis um piso salarial de 10000 reais. Garanto que fazendo isso, em 10 anos a violência urbana iria minguar no Brasil como gelo na sopa quente.

How much bullshit can someone tolerate

That's not very motivational. If you're looking for that, you're going to be disappointed. I'm just going to quickly mention the curious fact that a idiotic physical disability can expose you to a whole new level of apparently unrelated bullshit in life.

Maybe that only has to do with the fact the world is mostly made out of outer meaningless shells that people manage to preserve because of information asymmetries and too much self-interest. If you have any issue that messes with that, damage is really disproportional, as what has always happened in my life.

Today, more than craving normality and a reasonably good and safe future, I pity these pathetic mechanisms, celebrating the fact in the end everybody will die the same, and all this visibility and appearance crap will be reduced to dust.

Let's switch gears here. This is to my fellow CP population.

Some months ago, I've retried to do something I had already experimented with when the first social network came along in Brazil. This time, I went to Facebook to try to find people with similar life situation compared to mine, so maybe we could exchange some thoughts, impressions and experiences and hopefully reach collectively a better place.

My first attempt back in 2006 was a total failure. The community I've created has attracted all sorts of people, some related to Cerebral Palsy reality, but extremely rarely someone that actually had it as well. I felt really frustrated. But at the same time, my level of acceptance of this condition of mine was very low at the time. So frustration was somehow balanced with the feeling I was pretty unique and maybe I didn't need this kind of social context to build my own identity.

Then I've lived in Scandinavia, and I traveled all western Europe. And while places were beautifully different, all of them had something in common among them and also with Brazil. I was still an outsider, and it was impossible to blend in.

I'm not saying I didn't have a great time, or that I didn't make good friends or nothing like that. But it has become crystal clear I wasn't a regular guy my age, sex, education, economic and cultural background. I was something else. And even if I wasn't only that, this is what others would think of me in general and treat me accordingly.

I don't want to talk about the kind of suffering I've had because of that. I think I've already written too much stuff on that part. As I've said in the title, this text is not meant to foster awareness of abled bodied people. I'm targeting disabled folks. Especially the ones in similar conditions to mine. Let's just say I wasn't happy at all.

It has become clear to me that this suffering had one single root cause. And the reason why I feel I can make this claim is because it has ceased since this piece of the puzzle has dramatically change. Let's go for it.

Humans are true social creatures. They sometimes don't know that, but most of what they do is referenced in social groups, including their expectations for themselves, their lives and their future. This lack of awareness justifies with perfection why I wasn't able to get support from friends and why psychotherapists have done nothing to make me feel better. In both cases, we were not using the same social references. Therefore their advice was useless for me at best.

This suspicion has compelled me to look for people like me. And this is the same thing that makes similar people cluster together and be the context of each other's life. But of course nobody does that with great level of consciousness, so in general they feel there are lots of coincidences in their recurrent affinities.

As I've mentioned earlier, in 2006 this search effort was a huge failure. But then I've tried again a few months ago. This time, things were different. I did find some people that had probably being diagnosed with something very similar to what I've been diagnosed 33 years ago. Not in Brazil, because here I suspect general social conditions wouldn't allow someone with my level of disability to get close to where I got in life. But I thought maybe in the US that could be the case.

On the other hand, I had read a bunch of articles and participated on a project as a researcher that had pointed to the fact there was a huge socio-economic gap between someone with or without a disability, keeping the other demographics constant. According to this scientific literature, I wouldn't find people competing at the same social play field. The reason for that is really simple. Disability represent a disadvantage on every stage of one's life. In each of these, there is some degree of loss in growth potential (social, emotional, and also economic). So, in the end, the gap gets really wide as time passes.

The curious thing is that, although this fact is backed up by serious scientific research, I'd have a surprise when I've started having conversations with people with CP in this Facebook community. Apparently the conditions in which these people lived were at best similar to mine, never significantly better. Despite of that, they would systematically deny the reality we've all lived in and as I was absolutely convinced they were wrong, I wouldn't change my mind without putting my hands on trustworthy data that would prove I was wrong. I must say that, in this case, being wrong would make my life and my future outlook incredibly better.

The guy responsible for the community, who was also incapable of tolerating a well backed informed opposed position has then expelled me from the forum, which is very compatible with someone without good arguments. But he has also completely eliminated his very poor chances to prove me wrong, but also make me very happy.

Today I dedicate this text to him, and I reiterate my challenge of outsmarting my conclusions about life outcomes from people with medium cerebral palsy diagnosis. I have to confess I don't even remember his name, and I don't feel like searching for it to put it here. If he's right, I don't have to do that, because somebody else will come to this blog and show what I'm saying is BS.

I'm assuming this is not going to happen for the time being and I'll close this text based on this assumption (that I promise to change if anyone brings good info that justifies doing so): I think that guy was in denial. Maybe he's happy like that, which I honestly don't believe. My take is that he isn't, because denying these differences and disadvantages (which I've also done for most of my life) implies in feeding unrealistic expectations, which in turn leads to chronic unhappiness and confusion (which was also my case).

My journey of getting rid of these illusions of normalcy has been tough, I'll never tell anyone otherwise. A friend of mine told me something analogous about ending a relationship. You need to bury the memories, but more importantly, you must bury the future you've dreamed of living together. This was exactly what happened to me when I gave up on normalcy. I've had to let go of the future I've dreamed for myself based on the false assumption I was like everybody else.

The fundamental difference in this case is that sadness can be finally overcome since changing expectations will effectively destroy the illusions feeding chronic unhappiness because of what was supposed to be. And I can guarantee to my CP fellow that this was the best and most liberating event that has ever happened to me. Thus, although him proving me wrong could potentially improve my concrete possibilities in life, he or anybody else will have to do a killer data analysis job to accomplish that. The challenge is on!  Good luck.

Abusers' weapons to get away with bad conduct

Abusers have the talent to turn justice safety mechanisms into personal shields. They also benefit from the fact people in power receive better treatment (although everyone prefers to believe this is not the case or to justify that by some sort of illusional merit). 

Let's look at some of the examples:

1-When you get abused, you need to prove it's happening. It's only fair as from this perspective the abuser is presumed innocent. Issue is they certainly know it and will do a great job in not producing evidence that would make them get busted.

2- If you manage to collect some evidence, then they will use another super common mechanism that works perfectly for those in power: they claim to be ignorant of the fact that turns their apparently harmless conduct into abuse. This works well from presidents to low rank managers.

While they count on these weapons mentioned above to deal with external monitoring, they use their power over the abused person to create cognitive confusion about what situations really are, making it super hard for the harassed person to even be sure about the nature of what's going on.

I'm surely not uncovering anything new here. That's happening everyday, in everybody's face. But while people in power will use organizations and institutions to protect themselves, I want abused people to use this knowledge to do the same.

It's not easy, not fair and ugly. But this clarity can at least bring you some inner peace to deal with those nasty situations that are so common in the world of disability and discrimination.

Apparently logical decisions can be tough

There's a myth or a hope that once you accept your own condition in this world, things will get much better. It's definitely true, but shortcomings still keep coming. Because person/external world interaction is dynamic as the references one uses to evaluate her own condition. Thus, despite of living better on average, times of recurrent crisis still take place. Then there's a large temptation to relapse into old thought and response patterns. Resistance has to be active and must be in fact constant. For some reason the mind resembles stones being eroded by water. After a while, all water will run through the same paths over and over. It's tough but necessary to actively divert thoughts to a desired and healthier path as many times as we have the ability to in order to reverse damaging patterns. And at least in my experience, meditation is the only reliable tool to promote that change.