PDF Brittle Joints

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Brittle
Joints
Description
Brittle Joints QAwith Maria Sweeney How
do you navigate a
healthcare system that so often doesnt seem
designed to meet your needs? There is definitely
ableism within the healthcare system in this
country, and the disabled community is faced with
that all the
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time. I believe disabled people are the best
decision-makers regarding their own treatment and
needs. Advocating for those needs requires
developing skills through a constant, demanding,
life- long learning process. And it can be
incredibly exhausting. Why did you decide to
share your story in this graphic novel memoir?
The disabled experience can often involve
isolation, because social and economic systems
are not designed with disabled people in mind. We
are prevented from being a part of communities,
and so our stories and experiences are silenced,
and the cycle of exclusion is perpetuated. So, I
felt a need to express the grief and
inaccessibility that I and other people in my
disabled community face on a daily basis. Tell us
about your creative process and how you get
started with a book like this. I visualize my
comics pages like a movie, so I start by creating
loose panels or shots to shape the rest of the
scene. From there, I move into thumbnail
sketches, sourcing reference images like specific
places where Ive lived or topical events from a
certain period of my life. And then I consider
how these elements have been woven into my daily
experience as a disabled person. What are you
hoping readers will get out of this book? I hope
that by sharing my experiences I can help my
loved ones within the disabled community feel
that their pain, joy, grief, and desires are
being seen. This book is also a call to my able-
bodied loved ones to work alongside us to help
create accessibility in this world. Disability is
an inclusive community. Most people will one day
grow old and will find themselves in this circle
of disability. So, it is in everyones best
interest to work toward a disabled-centric world!