Brianna Albers (she/her) is a crip cyborg storyteller living in Minneapolis-St. Paul. In 2016, she founded Monstering, a magazine for disabled women and nonbinary people. She consults as a patient ambassador for SMA My Way and writes the column “The Wolf Finally Frees Itself” for SMA News Today. She is currently revising THE SAINT AND THE SPIDER, an adult space fantasy with #OwnVoices disability representation. Find her on social media @briehalbers.I write a lot about the body. It’s inescapable in my line of work. I identify as disabled, and more than that, my disability is painfully visible. But my interests are rooted in the metaphysical. If I’m not writing about mental health, which has everything to do with physicality…
If you’re a member of the SMA News Today Forums, you might know that I trialed the JACO robotic arm a few months ago. When I heard that Numotion was servicing my area of the U.S., I decided to give it a shot. Why not, right? I’m already…
Let me set the scene. It’s 9 a.m. I’ve been awake since 6. My poor, sweet dad has been up since 5:30. We’ve been preparing for this gut punch of a medical appointment for weeks, but even so, neither of us are particularly thrilled with our lives right now.
Every once in a while, I get the urge to go to the hospital. I’m not sick. I’m not concerned for my health. But there’s something about hospital stays that, when the stars align, can be incredibly restorative. I recognize this is my privilege talking. For many marginalized folks, hospital…
I’m a big fan of mindfulness. In theory, at least. Mindfulness is associated with all sorts of benefits: greater tolerance, focus, and self-acceptance, decreased reactivity, an understanding of negative, self-sabotaging behavior patterns, and the ability to stay present, among others. It’s kind of a no-brainer. But mindfulness — specifically,…
Content warning: The following contains discussions of ableism and eugenics. I knew from the dedication that “Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century” would be healing. “To my younger self,” writes editor Alice Wong, “and all the disabled kids today who can’t imagine their futures. The world is…
The romantic in me wants to believe that dreams are portents, or windows to the psyche, or invaluable self-knowledge tools. But the therapist in me, who dabbled in clinical psychology for a time, is suspicious of anything resembling psychoanalysis. (I despise Sigmund Freud, but that’s a topic for another day.)…
My dad and I are night owls. We rarely leave the house before noon — and when we do, we complain the entire time, like a pair of sulky babies. My mom laughs at us, but it’s just how our brains are wired. We can fight it, and force…
Not everyone likes it. A while back, I was talking to a friend in Singapore who also has SMA. She mentioned that although she wanted to post something for SMA Awareness Month, she was struggling to balance her desire to advocate and raise awareness with her desire to, as…
When it comes to storms, I’m a dog with high levels of anxiety. Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain. A gentle rainfall is the perfect backdrop to at least half of my favorite activities. But storms are a different story. Storms are thunder and lightning and impending…
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