For disabled people, social media can be both a lifeline and a drain

“I would never have called myself ‘disabled’ if it hadn’t been for Twitter, if I hadn’t realized that the umbrella of disability was much larger than my understanding of it was,” says Lauren Allen.

The Saskatoon-raised theatre artist and social media professional regularly shares her experiences of complex post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety online. She first got immersed in disability-centred social media spaces by following writers like Alice Wong (@SFDirewolf) and Imani Barbarin (@Imani_Barbarin).

One of the more insidious mindsets that Ableds quietly promote through their pandemic behavior is the belief that disabled people don’t have lives that we want to get