hootOS

HOOT_OS - V.30

Stryxnine Amity Pulsatrix
(30/🇨🇦/Saskatchewan)
NACRS Organizer
esports broadcast producer
plural, autistic, adhd
disability & queer activist
hobbyist archival researcher
bylines in Traxion.gg
loves @kadybat and @traumagotchi and @kaceydotme

57RYX9 DESIGN - Visual FX and Graphic Design North American Cohost Racing Series organizer & founder
Big Muddy Archive News


MSN Escargot
hootwheelz@escargot.chat

When I got denied disability support, one of the key questions i hyperfixated on was "Do you struggle with tasks like putting on clothes and tying your shoes?" and i hyperfixated on it so much because my interpretation was that it was asking if i was physically and mentally capable of putting on clothes and tying my shoes at all. it made me think that the only people allowed to receive disability support are people who couldn't tie their shoes, period.

i just had a realization. i can't tie my shoes.

if you tested me - set shoes in front of me and asked me to tie them - i could demonstrate that I remember the steps to tie a shoe, and that i am physically capable of following those steps.

however, if you asked me to tie my shoelaces every time i put shoes on then untie them when i take them off? no, i can't. i tie my shoelaces once or twice when i get new shoes until they're tied in a manner i can slip my foot in and out without tying them, and then never again. and it's not just because it's more convenient, because tying my shoelaces that way means the shoe doesn't fit the way it should. the shoe is always loose at the heel, and if i don't wear socks i'll get blisters on my heel from the shoe rubbing against my skin. sometimes i even get blisters if i do wear socks, if i've been walking for long enough.

the first time i was asked if i struggled with tying my shoes, i said no. i was denied, and i appealed. i was told that, during the appeal, i would be asked the same questions with different wording. they didn't. they just asked the same questions. same wording.

so, now i have to apply again. start the whole process over again, because they were so vague about what a "struggle" meant in terms of tying a shoe that it leaves people like me - who are physically and mentally capable of tying a shoe, but never on any remotely regular basis - thinking they're asking if i'm crippled or developmentally challenged, rather than asking how my disabilities affect my life.

i purposely choose to wear skateboarding shoes because they have short laces. i don't wear boots because i'd be forced to meticulously untie, loosen, then tighten and lace up my boots. my feet are too big to slip them into a laced-up boot. i want to wear boots, but i don't.

my disabilities are affecting my choices in what apparel i fucking wear. down to the god damned shoes.


You must log in to comment.

in reply to @hootOS's post:

I actually fucking despise shoes with shoelaces whatsoever. They always felt to me like a "stop-gap" solution to actually tightening shoes, and over the years I got so fed up with how they'd loosen no matter how much you'd try to make sure the knot didn't come undone and suddenly you're running around with your laces getting wet and gross from a rainy day after coming undone.

I've been wearing slip-ons for the last few years now and I'd honestly never go back. If I were in charge, shoelaces would be illegal.

eh. shoelaces have an aesthetic to me. i love skateboarding shoes like Converse One-Stars because they look nice, they're low profile. but you're right, it is exceedingly frustrating when a shoelace comes undone. made me cry one time cuz it happened in the rain and my white laces got dirty.

heyyyy it's me I don't tie my shoes either, in exactly the same terms you use here, I keep them loose so they're slip shoes that look tied, and they always flop around. Annoyingly recently they keep coming untied and I've ended up tying roughly one shoe a day for a while now and it's such a mental burden that ~20% of the time I just deal with not having tied shoes, laces going everywhere, until I know it's going to cause a bad impression or I feel up to doing an extra act of self-care.

I have literally at times had such difficulty tying shoes that it drives me to tears. I don't even fully understand what the problem is, I don't know what's wrong, I couldn't pin this on anything I've already learned about myself, but I definitely know, tying shoes, probably one of the top twenty or so scourges in my life.

yeah, i feel your pain. it's just so hard for me to consider my disability as being a genuine, real disability because the reason i can't tie my shoes is because it makes me want to cry, but not because my muscles cause me pain when i move them or because i can never remember how to tie them. and it screws with me so much. but that frustration is real, the mental pain of tying a shoe is real because i feel it. it's a bug in my brain that can be replicated.