: Re: How can I portray body horror and still be sensitive to people with disabilities? Building on my answer in Proven psychological or scientific means of scaring people?, I'm working on a universal

@Pierce369

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Having a villain lop off an arm or leg ought not offend someone who either was born without them or lost them due to accident or combat. Losing limbs is not desirable.

I have some disabled friends. One has told me on multiple occasions that he envies me my kidneys. One complaint I hear is people treat him differently. They treat him like he is disabled.

There are jerks and wonderful people who are disabled. Being dismissive of their status as human beings and treating them as though they are special is more likely to offend.

I have two things that some call disabilities;a permanently injured ankle due to a car accident and epilepsy. I am not disabled by them, so they are not disabilities.

Fears are valid themes. Hitchcock would take a single fear, so would Poe. Some fears were exotic, others more universal.

Fear of dismemberment can be more visceral than fear of death as it encapsulates a fear of losing one’s independence. With death, it is all over but anything less than that is survived and such survival and the adaptations required can be terrifying.

I knew a man who thought because he was in a wheelchair, his life was over. I told him it was just another way to get around - same thing I told my mother when she became wheelchair bound after a stroke and heart attack.

When I was recovering from the car accident, I was temporarily wheelchair bound. This man thought I was done for because of the wheelchair. Later, when I walked in to visit him, he did not recognize me. I was supposed to be in a wheelchair.

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