As you get older, proper rest tends to become an appointment you have to schedule. It’s something you have an abundance of when you’re an infant, but its presence steadily decreases in your life once school, work, and social engagements take up increasing space. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon among my…
Wandering the Lines
— Sherry Toh
Sherry “Elisa” Toh (she/they) is a journalist who lives in sunny Singapore. Her diagnosis of SMA type II was in 1999 at 13 months old. Kyphoscoliosis and chronic neuropathy later developed as complications. As a hopeless romantic, her loves include fairy tales, tea, and gaming — the last being the primary focus of her work. She has bylines in PCGamesN, NME, and more. In 2023, her essay “Virtual Progress: A Disabled Journalist’s Thoughts on the Video Games Industry” was published in Singapore’s first printed disability studies anthology, “Not Without Us: Perspective on Disabilities and Inclusion in Singapore.” She writes in hopes of offering community and catharsis. Find her @sherlisass on social media.
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One of my favorite tees to wear is navy blue and says, “INSTALLING MUSCLES. PLEASE WAIT …” Underneath the text is a bright red loading bar about halfway done. It was a gift from my mother, a token of her hope that I’d one day grow stronger instead of weaker.
I had different plans for this week’s column. As I write this, I have a spreadsheet open with my column schedule. Next to the deadline date I’ve typed “TFIOS column,” which stands for “The Fault in Our Stars,” a young adult romance novel by John Green that explores how…
Editor’s note: This column discusses suicide. Please find resources for help at the end of the column. I wish the call had been an April Fools’ prank. As readers of my column will know, I’ve been very vocal about the need for SMA patients here in Singapore to access…
Back in 2019, I signed up for an online women’s health and rights course by women’s rights activist and Stanford teacher Anne Firth Murray. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision; I’m not even sure I was truly interested in it back then. While I considered myself a feminist, I was wary…
How would you expect someone with a disability to react upon reading an account of a nondisabled man essentially telling a disabled woman she shouldn’t exist? Would you expect them to react with despair? Fear? Rage? I reacted by laughing hysterically. The chronic pain and increasing fatigue caused by the…
If Broadway’s Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a musical based on my column, the word “value” would be a leitmotif with its own melody. Anyone who reads my column regularly will know I talk about the value of disabled folks often, that it’s what every one of my arguments boils down…
Like all young girls, I was part of the target demographic for romance. Disney and Barbie movies, pop music, young adult novels, TV dramas — you get the idea. Romance was sold to me everywhere, and I bought it happily, if ignorantly. Hence, like all young girls, I grew up…
The morning of Dec. 4, 2020, my life changed forever. My best friend, fellow columnist, and work wife, Brianna Albers, burst into our private Discord channel. “YOU SHOULD APPLY,” she yelled at me through the messaging platform. Attached was the link to the application form for a columnist position…
“I’m doing good, I’m on some new s**t/ Been saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no.’” These lyrics opened Taylor Swift’s song “the 1” and her 2020 album “Folklore.” I thought them fitting to open my first column of the new year as well, since…
“Lord, what will become of me/ Once I’ve lost my novelty?” was the original lyric sung in Taylor Swift’s “Nothing New,” a bonus track she included with her recent remaster of her 2012 album, “Red.” Yet, for some reason I heard her sing,…
Let’s start this story about Evrysdi (risdiplam) from the beginning. About a year ago, the chronic neuropathy in my scalp that had been bothering me for three years worsened to a point of concern. It started as a mild and slightly nauseating throbbing from the back of my skull…
For someone who has watched many a sex scene in movies and television, the sounds were unmistakable, yet unsurprising. Netflix’s “The Witcher,” based on a fantasy book series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, pulls no punches when it comes to explicit imagery. Body horror, gore, nudity, and sex…
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