Rebecca Weger

Quality of Life
Here’s the thing about having a really disabling chronic illness. It’s unpredictable. And very difficult to plan for the future. While I have several conditions, the one with the most dramatic impact on my life is ME/CFS. I could improve. I could worsen. There’s no way to predict. It’s not […]
Disability and Assistive Devices
We are not shown many examples of disability in the media, and the ones that we are shown are often portrayed as tragic, or in the realm of inspiration porn. People seem to have an idea of disability as being black or white or in extremes. Like, someone is totally blind or totally deaf or their legs don’t move. But […]
Signal Boost: What to Do When You’re Bored With Your Routines
Blame hedonic adaptation: the tendency for us to get used to things over time. Source: What to Do When You’re Bored With Your Routines One of the things that gnaws at me a little is how much my life has drifted into routine as my illness has become more severe and I spend more time at home. I’ve never liked most routines. […]
Reading List: A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
Wow. I just finished this novel, and it was intense. It hurts to read. It hurts to imagine. And it hurts in moments where it is relatable, despite my culture and privilege differences from the characters. Etaf tells a story of women’s obligation and pain through the lens of culture, specifically a Palestinian lens. A […]
Signal Boost: On Disability and on Facebook? Uncle Sam Wants to Watch What You Post
The Trump administration wants to use Facebook and other social media to help identify people who are receiving Social Security disability benefits without being truly disabled. Source: On Disability and on Facebook? Uncle Sam Wants to Watch What You Post I understand the desire to reduce fraud, but… My social media feed […]
Signal Boost: No. 1 Pacing Tip: How to Unlearn the “Completion Compulsion”
Pushing ourselves to complete a task is the most common pacing mistake most of us make. “The next step is choosing a different action. Sometimes even with awareness, we can think, “I know I’m running out of energy, but I really want to get this done.” When this happens, it’s because our old programming is tempting us with […]
Reading List: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasi‘s novel “Homegoing” is a masterfully written historical novel. It begins in Ghana, and tells the story of the progression of two lines of a family tree over eight generations. One branch stays substantially in Ghana with a complex relationship with power and complicity with the slave trade. The other […]