We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 117. How to Love Your Body Now with Carson Tueller

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

1. The question Carson’s sister asked that made him radically reimagine his life.   2. Why Carson is having the best sex of his life. 3. How Carson received sign-off from his Mormon Bishop for his first queer date.   4. The accident that left Carson paralyzed from the chest down at 23. 5. How ableism hurts us all.   About Carson:  Carson Tueller is a coach, speaker and activist whose work provides people with the tools they need to live authentic, fulfilling, and powerful lives. He identifies as queer and disabled. Carson grew up as a Mormon in a military family moving around a lot before settling in Utah. His own journey into powerful living began in 2013 when, in the same year, he came out, and was then injured in an accident that paralyzed him from the chest down. Since then, Carson has brought his work to international nonprofits and presidential campaigns – and when he isn’t coaching or speaking, Carson can be found at the gym, reading non-fiction, or playing Pokemon with his niece and nephews. TW: @carson_tueller IG: @carson_tueller #disabilitypride #disabilitypridemonth

Well, hello, welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Okay, listen. Here's the thing that's important to us about this pod that you may have picked up. I'm sure you did. So we didn't introduce you to Aloak several episodes ago so that you could learn to be an ally to trans or non-binary folks. We introduced you to A loke because since Aloke has done the work to free the himself from the gender binary, Elope can teach us how to free ourselves from the cage of the gender binary that every single one of us is in. In that vein, what does in that vein mean?

Who knows? In that vein, we are introducing you to Carson Tuller today. We are not introducing Carson so we can learn how to be allies to disabled and or queer people. Not just for that, Okay. We are introducing Carson to the pod squad because since Carson has done the work to know in his soul that his body is complete and whole exactly the way it is, he is able to share that good news of body freedom with all of us, with every last one of us who are caged by the lie that our bodies are not good enough. As Carson says, talking about disability is talking about disability is talking about the nature of human bodies. So it includes everyone.

Yay! Yay! Yay! Okay. Carson Tuler is a coach, speaker, and activist whose work provides people with the tools they need

to live authentic, fulfilling, and powerful lives. He identifies as queer and disabled. Carson grew up as a Mormon in a military family moving around a lot before settling in Utah. His own journey into power

living began in 2013 when in the same year he came out and then was injured in an accident that paralyzed him from the chest down. Since then, Carson has brought his work to international nonprofits and presidential campaigns. When he isn't coaching or speaking, Carson can be found at the gym, reading nonfiction, or playing Pokemon with his niece and nephews. First of all, it's July happy disability pride month. Carson. Yes. Thank you. Isn't that so exciting that that's a thing?

Yeah. It's terribly exciting. It's terribly exciting and important. Can I just preface by saying how grateful I am to be here, A? And two, also I need to clear that like maybe I'm going to just be emotional a lot through this. I was like prepping and I was already just like, oh, just like moved. by what Glennon said at the top, right?

This is about freedom. Yeah. It's freedom. It's like freedom to be with one's actual self. And so when I was like prepping, you know, I go back to places in my past where that wasn't available and how much suffering was there. And so I'm just like really in the presence of that. And I just want to say that before I start. So thanks for letting me just be me with you.

Carson, what is that like for you when you said that it made me think of having to go back all the time? Like, I feel like I'm in this good place and I'm finally free in many ways and I'm happy. And then I go back and it's very like going back into a haunted house over and over again. Like, do you feel as free when you come out of the backward trauma to prepare for things as you did before you went in? It's a really good question. Okay, so the truth is that I am in and out of the haunted house of my body stuff really frequently. I think that's kind of why I feel raw coming into this is because like I was in the haunted house for two weeks, two weeks ago. Okay.

I had some health disruptions and that always brings up the whole like, what if this wouldn't have happened? What if I never would have been paralyzed? What if I didn't have chronic pain? What if I could just drive to my friend's house and go inside for a hangout? All these little things where there's like grief and anger. So I think I just have tried to develop the freedom to just be like, I'm going to go to the haunted house and then I'm going to be in like the pretty castle of whole incompleteness or whatever it is.

I just kind of go in and out of that actually. That is so freeing to me to hear. hear that because sometimes we can feel like when we go back into the haunted house that that's failure or backward motion. But what you're saying is life is just this eternity loop back and forth from the haunted house to the castle. I know. And I so badly want to tell everybody and all the listeners, no, no, you can leave the haunted house forever. That's just not my experience. And so if someone has like that trick, send me a DM. We wouldn't have them on Carson because we wouldn't believe them. No, no, so I have like, I just have like multiple residents, I guess, in that space. But there is a freedom about just knowing that when I'm in that space, I know how to leave. And sometimes it takes time. And sometimes I just have to let my like physiology chill out, cool down.

Because I get spooked. And then just I'll ease my way back into it. So I have like a strategy for doing that, like talking to people. and writing and all the things. Do you think that the fact that you so freely and often go back into the haunted house or go back to that feeling of not feeling good enough or not, or magical thinking, what if not this, what if not this? That's why people love you so much because so many people only show us the after.

And then they talk to us about their old self who struggled. And like the struggling self is never present. So we can't relate. We can't feel less alone. But your struggling self allows itself to be seen sometimes, and that makes us all feel connected to you. So thank you for that. So I mean so much to me. So I had a friend when I became injured when I broke my neck.

Spoiler. That was doing all the updates for my family. So my family wasn't bombarded with keeping people up to date. So we started a blog. But there came a point where I was like, well, I have something to say. about this, I'd like to share something. And there's this pivotal moment of me going, like, am I going to really say all of it in this hospital

about to like bring in everybody into what it feels like to not know who I am anymore, to wonder if I can do this the most human raw things? And there was a moment of like, yes, and here we go. And once I do this, there's no going back. This is going to be my thing that I give to the world is to say, this is what's up. I have such an aversion to hearing like that, like, I beat it story. That's why when anyone calls me a motivational speaker, I'm like, I'm not.

I'm just going to, like, tell you the truth. And for me, that means learning how to live a powerful self-expressed life inside of a lot of suffering and inside of a lot of joy, but that I get to choose who to be, whether I'm in the castle or the haunted house, I get to kind of choose how to show up. That's really what I care about. Because I think that's real life. It's beautiful.

Okay, we're going back. We're starting when you're a little queer Mormon kid. Because that's a super easy place to be, I imagine, being a queer Mormon kid. Haunted House Castle, I'm not sure what that is. But you come out to your sweet parents, who I'm sure were then put in an equally easy place. What you're talking about at the castle in the haunted house reminds me of the story where you were trying so desperately to figure out. You were in the place in the Mormon faith where you had to choose either, okay, so be a gay man.

And if you do that, you will be disconnected from your entire family and community, not only in this life, but for all. all eternity. So you had to decide that was your decision to make it. So you were grappling with that. And tell us about that time, that period where you were going to church, kind of doing your inventories and trying to like smell the devil out. Because that reminds me of the castle and the house where you were navigating all of that. I had kind of told my parents in high school, sat them down and was like, I'm watching all the other boys love girls. And that's just not my experience. I don't know what's happening. I don't know if I'm a late bloomer. At that point, I wasn't like, and I'm attracted to men.

So I just like left it there, put it on the table. And then they're like, okay, we'll see how things go after your mission. I went to Chile for two years, served a mission. It was great because I was still in this like suspended reality where my sexuality actually didn't matter so much until it was time to get married because that's the path. Come home from the mission. You get married in the temple. And that's like the next step. So that's when I couldn't be me and stay on the path.

It started by just actually saying, okay, I think this is a part of who I, these are my words then. I think this is like a for real part of who I am and not some phase or some feeling or tendency or whatever we wanted to call it back then. I think this is actually like kind of written into who I am. So that's when it started. But then the twist was I was like, I'm gay. but I'm not going to be gay. You know, like I'm going to be...

Turn it up like a light switch. Great news. I'm actually not going to be gay. I'm just going to feel gay. Right? So good person. This was my way of being authentic, but also getting to be with my family in the next life,

which is like always the big thing. It's kind of like this really special part of being Mormon is like this idea of an eternal family that happens under very specific conditions. And so we like sing songs about eternal families and living together forever, which is complicated for several reasons, including like if you don't like your family. Yeah, that could be hell. Is this heaven or hell person? Exactly, exactly.

The castle or the haunted house? Right. What is this really? So sat them down, was like, okay, I'm gay. And my plan, but I said homosexual at the time. I'm homosexual. I have homosexual, whatever's. And I'm going to stay a member of the church.

And I think I'm going to try to marry a woman because I think I could probably pull that off. What happened was, you said, smell out the devil, I think is the phrase you use it. Like, it's such a great way to describe that because I was like, okay, I'm going to do this thing. I'm obeying God's commandments. You should know contextually that I was like a really good Mormon. I was not a Mormon for fun. I was like in it to win. It made its way into every single part of my life.

As I chose to be alone and started considering that I would have a life without a family, possibly. Because after a while, that whole idea of marrying a woman just didn't seem sustainable or helpful or anything that I wanted. I was like, okay, I guess I'm going to just kind of self-revelling. eliminate from the dating pool and from any kind of romantic relationships or sexuality, like all of this. And things started to get really dark. I was confused because I had learned from the scriptures that when you are on the right path, that you reap the benefits, like the fruits of the spirit, Galatians 5, right? That's right. Galatian 5. Yes. Peace and long suffering. Right? But I'm not, I'm not feeling any of this. So like, some things,

up. And so I started very, very slowly introducing some new experiences and ideas. I even went to my bishop and I was like, look, I'm telling you, I'm going to go on a date with a dude. We're not going to do anything that would disqualify me from any of God's blessings. And I'm going to feel it out. So I went on a date and I come back to church. God bless you. You got your bishops blessing and permission before your date? Oh my gosh. I kind of told him, to be fair. I was like, what you're going to do about it? Because I'm not really breaking any rules. That's right. I'm just going on day. I found the Mormon loophole and I am rushing through it. Exactly. So then I went to church and I sat there and I was like, this is good. I feel bigger, like more expanded. The lights turned back on.

And then I went on another date. I had my first. kiss, right? Like all of these things. And then it was just like my life lit up and expanded in all of those fruits of like goodness and and all of the things you look for showed up. And it was in direct contradiction. People were predicting I would, you know, like I'm creeping into the chapel after having good with a man. And none of that happened. Like I was more like Jesus than ever. You're like Galatians. Gaylations. Gaylation. Sister crushing it. Gaylations. It was very deliberate.

It was very deliberate and just like piece by piece by piece to make sure like, yeah, this is right. Beautiful. Beautiful. And then I told my parents and they were good. I don't ever remember them like shaming me or, you know, they were just kind of like wanted me to be careful and cautious and thoughtful about my decisions. And then they had to grapple with having an actual gay son, not just one in theory. and, you know, and then they did that. Did they remain in the Mormon church?

I'm always so interested in that when you have a situation like that and your family remains part of an institution that does not believe in you, does that feel like a conditional acceptance of you? Or is it like each of you are radically accepting the other? Let's both. At first, it felt like betrayal. I had never thought. I thought I wouldn't talk to my parents again for a period of time.

I was angry, like slamming fists on the table, fighting, especially there was a policy that came out. We called it the exclusion policy. It's now been rescinded. But it specifically targeted queer families inside of the church. When that came out was like when I had some serious huge blowups. Now, this was all very complicated because I was like, mom, dad, I'm gay and I can actually be gay. And then I broke my neck. And then my parents were literally keeping me alive through this entire period of time.

So there was kind of like this forced exposure, which made things like very complicated. This show is brought to you by Alma. When I first tried to find a therapist, it felt like a scavenger hunt with no map, pages of names, long wait lists, voicemails that never got returned. I remember thinking if this is what it takes just to talk to someone, no wonder people give up. So when I found Alma, it felt like someone finally turned the lights on. Alma, ALMA, is this beautifully simple way to find licensed, in-network therapists without all the runaround. You can browse without even making an account and you can filter for what

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netsuite.com slash hard things. The guide is free to you at net suite.com slash hard things. NetSuite.com slash hard things. Tell us about that time. So you'd been living out your galation self for six months, feeling like the fruits were there. And then what happens? And then I was December 30th. I had just decided that I was going to leave my pre-med studies and just focus specifically on flute performance because that's what I was studying. and five days after Christmas, my family decided to go to a trampoline park because I loved

trampoline parks and I had tumbled all growing up but I'm six five and so now like I can't pull the same things on the floor so I love to trampoline. So we went and got my wristband and ran straight to the tumble track. It was just my favorite part of the of the park and I bounced on it and got my bearings and went to the end of the end of the park. the pit and bounced in and my plan was to pull like a tight triple front tuck because you could just into the pit and I did but I like sailed through the pit past the foam and then into the trampoline at the bottom where I hit ground and I hit the back of my head and I heard like a little like a little pop it wasn't that painful actually um felt like a tweak

the most powerful tweak of all time. This little tweak. And then I tried to move and just jump out of the pit. And it was like nothing. It was just silence. It was like I'd been unplugged, like the vacuum. You know, like you're flipping the switch and it's just not happening. And I eventually realized they could kind of move an arm.

And so I put one of my arms up because my family had watched me tumble into the pit. And so put my arm out. My dad came into the pit and I said, Dad, I think I'm paralyzed. And he said, I know. And then all he said after that was like my boy, my boy. And I was actually trying to consult him. And I was like, Dad, it's going to be okay.

Wow. We're going to see how this goes. I had a very poignant moment actually in that pit that I think is worth mentioning. that I don't share often. And that is that when I realized I couldn't move, I was like, this is the thing. This is the thing you see in movies. This is that word, like paralyzed,

the worst thing that can happen to anyone. Like, we've all heard about it, right? What if that's this? Is this forever? Is that, you know, there's just like this panicky thing. And then it was like something like intercepted. And I had this like very clear thought that was, I have people who love me.

I have people I love. And that's all I need. And then there was nothing but peace after that for a very, very long time. Until I came home and started reintegrating myself, but it was a very peaceful situation because I felt just immediately like, okay, it's about love and I don't need my legs to love. And so they got me on the helicopter, put me on the stretcher, sent me out, and I went and got two.

spinal fusions and thus began my journey as a disabled person. So for a long time you called that day, your death day. So I imagine the peace that you had, that piece that we Bible people call the transcending all understanding that piece that came to you from the GOD, that passed. And then things got very, very hard. And you actually referred to that as your death day for a long time. And then your sister said something to you on June 16, 2018. Yeah.

That changed things. What was that that your sister said to you? We went on like a little brother's sister date to get pretzel bites at the strip mall. She's 13, right? Your sister's 13 at this time? She's your brother's 13. Yes. Yeah.

And we come home. And I can't remember why I. referred to the day of my accident, and I called it the day of my death, dark humor jokingly, to elicit a response. And she said, what if we call that the day of your rebirth? I just like, no, we can't call it that. But as I drove home, like, it stuck with me. I was like, well, who's to say? Am I right? Is Kate right? And over the course of, like, three, three hours, I literally had this powerful paradigm shift that ended in my realization that the only thing that happened to me was that the bones in my neck moved.

They hit my spinal cord and my body now works the way it does the way it doesn't. No drama. No brokenness there. That's all that happened. and I have added all the rest. And so that left me with the realization that I can create the meaning around all of these events that I thought had some fixed meaning in them. And I left the gym that day saying, that's the day of my rebirth. That's the day of my rebirth.

That's the day that the stars aligned. and I became exactly who I was supposed to be. This is plan A. Is it true? No. Is it false? No. The day of my death, the day I was devastated, the day that I lost,

I veered from the path I was destined to be on, is as true as this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. This is my plan A. But living inside of either of those produces very different results. That's right. in a very different way of being. And like suddenly, when I claimed this as plan A, I had access to whole new ways of being and acting

that were like unprecedented. I started going on dates. I started taking risks. I started telling people to carry me up the stairs. I started doing all of these things that I wasn't doing before because I was broken. I was this tragic hero. And it all changed just by,

changing the, the story or interpretation about the actual event and my body. You had all of those years living inside of a religion that told you that you were irredeemably broken as a gay person and having to decide that you were in fact not, that you were perfect and that was plan A for you. Yeah, yeah. Do you think that that process, over so many years prepared you to, even though ableism says you're broken, to get to the point where you were so quick to see that that was just as much horseshit as the religion telling

you you were broken? Yes. It was totally prepared me because the principles are the same. And if I were to describe them, I'd say coming out is about hearing yourself and then saying, hmm, that wasn't me. And I have now realized that wasn't me. This is who I am. And kind of this reclaiming of the self that requires like listening to your knowing, right? And so when I became paralyzed and suddenly I felt all of the same like, it had the same texture, that feeling brokenness, unworthiness, no one will love me.

It was a variation on a theme, but it was the same thing, which is unworthiness. I was now prepared to like, you said, call, call bullshit. I know that myself, the self, will never tell me I'm broken. That is always from something outside of me. And that knowledge alone had me be like, okay, so what is it? where is it? And then I found it, and it turned out to be ableism, this idea that there are such things as good bodies and real bodies and that disability is a broken version of a good body.

But to answer your question, yeah, it prepared me because I was ready to like not believe those feelings because they'd betrayed me before. So you go from this heady understanding. this spiritual, heady understanding, but of your wholeness. But then you have to go into the like gladiator world of freaking dating and sex, which is where you test all your theories of like how where all the haunted house comes up. We can believe that we're whole and so, ugh. But then we have to go into date.

Yeah. And we forget everything we know. So like how, tell me about that first date and then I'm dying to talk about sex with you because I just, I feel like the work you're doing in that area for people is so mind-blown. You said of yourself back then that you were thinking no one's Prince Charming is in a wheelchair. In my mind, the best I could hope for was that someone would settle for me. How did you get out of that mindset and tell us about the beginning of dating for you? Like your first date after this.

Okay, first. I'm not sure I actually ever got out of that mindset. before I started dating. It was kind of like, that's my fear. But that's not how I want to show up. So I'm going to do this anyway. This is something that I do a lot in my work as a coach and inside of kind of transformational education and things,

is that I get to choose who to be in the face of my fears and stories and things like that. So that was really the process was the moment where I was like, no one's going to love me. And then I was like, okay, I'm not going to take any. action inside of that. I'm going to take action inside of someone will love and adore me, even if I don't feel that way. So that's what I did. It was terrifying, you know, because at some point I'm going to have to pee and I have catheters in my backpack and I'm going to have to hope the restaurant is accessible or we might hit a space where I need to push and I'm meeting

this person for the first time and have to immediately engage in this intimate act of literal physical support, right? And I just didn't know what to expect. I didn't know how people were going to respond to me. So it was really terrifying. And I had really come into dating with all of this, having watched in the media and heard all of these stories about like when people get paralyzed, then people leave them or they want to die or, you know, it's just always worst case scenario. And so I think that's why I came into it being like, people are just going to have to settle for this version of me. The first date itself was actually someone who knew it was my first date.

And I hadn't dated like in a year. So he knew. And he was like, I'm not asking you out. You know, because he knew I needed to like, so I asked him out. Oh, excellent. Yeah. So he set it up. And then I was like, will you go out a date with me?

And he was like, yes. And so he had like rented some like suburban thing and like helped me transfer into the front seat. We went to this Mexican restaurant and had a good time. But he he made it particularly easy to just kind of have that first experience. Love it. It was very sweet. Okay. And so now can we please talk about sex?

Yeah. I love talking about sex. Well, you have reading everything that you write and teach about sex. Okay. just confirms what I feel like about how sex got ruined for me, which is, well, what we say on this pod over and over again, that the thing that screws us up most is the picture in our head of how it's supposed to be. So here you come to sex. There was no way for you to get sex ed. Well, by the way, there's no way for any of us to get sex ed. But for you in particular,

you had to figure it all out yourself. Nobody was talking about disabled queer sex. You had no models, no representation. So that sounds like bad news. But was that the best nudes ever because you weren't mimicking something that someone else was telling you to recreate in the bedroom, right? Is that sexual freedom? You say, disabled sex is so much better than abled sex. Tell us why, Carson. Can I give you just a little couple of things of context? You can do whatever you want forever. Okay. So another important piece of information is I did, I have, have never had sex as an abled person. I didn't have sex before.

So I didn't have ever like a, this is how sex is supposed to feel, look, never did it because I was, again, such a good Mormon. And I have mixed feelings about that because sometimes I'm like, but maybe it would have been nice to feel this particular thing. So Bishop, what I'm saying is. So good. Yeah. The other piece is that because I was such a good Mormon, also, I did not consume any pornography. Wow.

Wow. Actually zero. My God, you're like a science experiment. Right? I isolated all these variables via mostly trauma. Sorry. Yeah. It was trauma the other way, too.

That's right. Too much. Too much sex, too young. Also traumatic. Exactly. I just didn't come in with any ideas of sex. So then I'm hearing this body. I don't know what it does.

I have heard it can, like, be very pleasurable. Mostly from straight people who are like, oh, yeah, I could, like, do these things with my nipples. I've changed these erogenous zones. And so it's like, okay, I've heard that there are some possibilities here. And I got to figure this out. And so I would just kind of set up situations with people that I trusted, where we could just kind of start trying things out. And it was just like this slow experimentation of starting very small

and with like kissing and with touching and like a lot of foreplay-esque kind of things. I started to have moments of like, oh, whoa, that felt. Very special. That was a treat. Let's just like, let's like go there. And slowly I found like all of these really incredible ways to experience pleasure and orgasm in ways that weren't available to me before. I did, I did masturbate before my injury, like a handful of times. Again, good Mormon.

This was different. The orgasm was like I could repeat it. It could be so powerful that I almost couldn't stand it and I'd have to stop things. And my sexual partners would often say this is basically like the, kind of like, this is the best sex I've ever had. Just say it. Just say it. But it was. I be shouting it from the rooftops.

Okay. So let's just tell you. Repeat what Carson just said is my sexual partners would always say this is the best sex I I've ever had. So just go ahead. I just want to make sure everyone got that. And my hypothesis is it's because there were no rules, no expectations. It was truly just like explore, discover.

There wasn't like a you're going to come. Am I going to come? Are we going to like do it? Yeah, it wasn't that. No acting. It was just like, yeah, uh-uh. I think that's why it was like fulfilling. And it also required a lot of communication because no one's going to come into

the bedroom with me, me, unless they've done like extensive homework, and be like, I know what to do to have Carson have a great experience here. Also, it's not always predictable now for me. The trick that worked last time might not work this time. And I don't know why that is, but it requires this new level of communication. It just makes sense, right? Like when I'm telling you what feels good and doesn't, I'm just going to get a better result and vice versa. instead of like being like, oh yeah, this is how I'm going to go. And you're going to make the sound when I do that. And we're going to like perform together.

I mean, Carson, okay, I'm going to say this. Abby, at one point when we were trying to unlearn everything that we've learned and like acting and all the shit that you're saying that you, it's almost like erase, it's coming to sex with beginner's mind. Like the Buddhist beginner's mind, right? But at one point, Sweet Abby was like, honey, what are all those noises you're making? Did you hear that?

somewhere? Like, did you have... Is that when Harry met Sally? Did you just memorize that shit? I was like, I don't know. I just feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Like, I'm supposed to be making these noises. Yeah. Oh, my God. It's just so beautiful the way you talk about it. If everybody could approach it that way with their partners, the way you talk about it, it's how every single one of us could have true sexual experiences. And that's why I say, able people could have, could have so much better sex if they just like adopt this idea. Yeah. But they have to drop some things, right?

You have to drop like the like the role, right? That might be comfortable for you because sex can be vulnerable when you're like, this feels good and this doesn't. So it requires a whole new level. So you don't get to like hide behind your like dom top mask, you know? You've got to like actually show up and be like, so this is actually what I want. and then it's like whole new levels of connection, pleasure, and all of it's there. Carson, it's so freaking beautiful.

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on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's QI-N-C-E.com slash hard things to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hard things. All right, I want to read part of the DM that you sent me. Okay. You said, I became paralyzed at 23 and I found that most of my suffering and sense of unworthiness was a product of ableism, not paralysis. I have become deeply committed to spreading the good anti-Ablist words since it's so rarely discussed even in the most progressive spaces. I believe that it is the link to freeing human beings in their bodies, whether it's liberating people from the stigma of depression and anxiety or from the narrow definition we have of, quote, the good body. Carson, talk to us about what ableism is and how it causes suffering for all

of us. Yeah. I am just so grateful to be with you too. I'm just going to say that one more time. Same. There was a point where I was starting to get better at living in a wheelchair and was still dealing with like really intense brokenness. And I told my mom, I said, I can survive being paralyzed. I can't survive feeling unlovable. And I think that captures my experience, which is like being paralyzed. I'll speak for myself. And by the way, it's so important for everyone to know people listening everywhere.

Disability is a huge range of experiences. There are a lot of disabled people who don't experience grief in their bodies, who don't experience pain as a part of disability, who really feel totally at home and in love with their bodies, as they are. And then some people experience a great amount of pain. Some people who acquire a disability experience a lot of loss and grief. And so this is only my experience. And the experience is that I was dealing with the grief and the loss,

but that started to kind of wane over time as grief and loss do. You miss something, you long for something, but then, you know, two years later, it doesn't have the same frequency or the same intensity. And so I could deal with that pain. And slowly it became more natural for me to use my wheelchair and to push. and do that first transfer in the morning. And I realized that all, like, the majority of my suffering, especially once I had kind of recovered after those two years,

was all socially constructed. It was all about feeling like something was wrong with me. It didn't have to do with the fact that it was hard to transfer or that I have constant burning nerve pain. Like that kind of just became part of life. But the brokenness piece, the abelism piece is what caused. this unnecessary suffering because I just had the experience of not belonging, not being worthy of sex or intimacy or romance.

So while I still experience pain that's specifically due to disability, and that is true, most of it still comes from some form of I'm not good enough, something's wrong with me, I don't belong in this world, and additionally, the world has not created space for me. I lived in New York for two years, and I literally left because, actually, because I was reading untamed. And I realized that everything inside of me was like, New York has not earned disabled people. And I have to acknowledge the privilege that I have of being able to leave and having a family

who could take me in for a short period of time and all of that. But New York is under, like, so many lawsuits. about discrimination against disabled people because the subway system is only 20% accessible. It's the only way to get around. At the time, my boyfriend, Ryan, we would just go to restaurant to restaurant and bounce around and go in

and they'd be like, sorry, we don't have room for you. And I'd just go to another one. And we would sometimes just be there like at midnight, sitting there feeling so rejected and out of place, right? All of that is ableism. That's right. Yes. Because we could have chosen to create a world that had space for all bodies on the spectrum,

including the fact that even able-bodied people become old. If you have the privilege of aging, you will likely get a disability. And we could create a world that is prepared for that whole journey, but we've decided to create it around the peak of ability. It was arbitrary. It's arbitrary. It's arbitrary. It's arbitrary. It's all abelism. It's not the disability that causes the suffering. It's the abelism. It's not the queerness that causes the suffering. It's the homophobia. It's not the blackness, the brownness. It's the racism. I love what you said that New York hasn't earned. That's how we felt about Florida.

Florida has not earned our queerness. You're lucky enough to get the hell out of here. So we're getting out of it. It was like a boundary. Yes. It's like a boundary. That was so profound to me when you said I was 10 times more paralyzed in New York City than in Utah. It just shows that it's the decisions that that place has made that tell you what you can do and can't do. It isn't your body that is setting up those parameters. It's the structural systemic decisions that have been made in private.

and non-priorities that have been established that make you 10 times more disabled in New York City than in Utah. Yeah. So perfectly said. What you just described is the difference between like the medical model of disability and the social model. The medical model says disability lives in your body and like lack of access lives in your body. And the social model says disability only exists in relationship to its environment. So if we have a fully accessible society, people are not functionally disabled. Well, because Carson, isn't that inherent in the word disabled?

Like, I am not able to do. I'm only not able to do what the structure has set up for me to be able to do or not. Right. Right. Right. And again, there's this caveat here because, you know, chronically ill people or people with mental illness would probably also, and it's so important to acknowledge, there's some inherent suffering in certain pieces of disavit.

disability that have nothing to do with the social model. They're just painful. But I think just the majority, even of like the stigma around mental health and the stigma around, it just compounds at all. And I just believe if we didn't stigmatize it and people could just exist as they are in their minds and their bodies, that they could flow in and out of that space with so much more ease. Yes.

Because you can talk about it. Carson, do you just love it when people call you an inspiration? Do you just love being a target of inspiration porn? Let's talk it through. Yeah. It's an important PSA for the world. It is. It's so important.

Yes, I have such strong feelings about inspiration porn, mostly because it's so insidious. And it presents itself in such a feel-good way that it, like constantly slides under the radar. But it carries with it the most ablest messages. Stella Young coined the term. She was an Australian disabled activist. And inspiration porn is when disabled people's stories or bodies or activities are used by abled people to create a sense of inspiration or sometimes pity or the sense

of, wow, that is so hard. If they can do it, I can do it, right? If their life sucks so bad, then, like, I can deal with my moderately sucky life. It's so gringy. Sometimes people literally come out to me and say that in the flesh. They'll be like, I can't imagine. If I were you, I'd never get off the couch. My problems are half as bad.

I can do anything if you can. get out of the house. Right? And I'm like, thank you so much and fuck you. Thank you and fuck you. Yeah. But also sometimes I want to be like, bitch, my life is better than yours.

Of course you do. I have a beautiful life. This is sometimes what I have called the miscategorization of disabled suffering because people want to kind of categorize what they see as difficult or hard always to my body. instead of categorizing it as ableism or an abelist structure.

So if I'm struggling at the gym, it's probably not because my body is because like the piece of equipment that I have. There's like nothing at the gym that's made for me. But then people look at me and they go, his life is so hard and he's such an inspiration. So it's just, it's always diminishing and it paints disabled lives as tragedies. You'll see this just everywhere.

You'll see, again, in really progressive spaces. sometimes someone will post a meme. And it's like a person in a wheelchair doing pull-ups and like it says, what's your excuse, right? Or that kind of vibe. That's all inspiration porn. And the reason it's so insidious again is because it makes people feel like they're complementing the strength of disabled people.

But the truth is that in order to actually know what a disabled person is dealing with, you have to know that disabled person. You can't come up and assume. that this is what's hard for me or this is what's painful for me and I think able people, because I did it too when I was able to look at someone

and think like, oh, if I were in that situation, this is how I would feel. But that's just not accurate. You'd have to ask to really know. And it most likely wouldn't be appropriate to ask. Right, exactly.

So don't do that event. Yeah, exactly. What do well-meaning people get wrong? I heard you say that you do not appreciate when people first meet you the first thing. Dude, what happened to you? Where is the line?

Because I think there's probably also the reverse where people are like, I'm not going to acknowledge this part of your personhood because I don't see any of this. I don't see color. I don't see wheelchairs. I'm colorblind. I am real blind. I don't see any of it. Real blind.

Yeah. Yeah. What do people do? Well, meaning that you're just like, please, y'all stop. Stop doing that. Or start doing this. I think people want to connect over. They see the disability as a like a little bridge sometimes for connection or to be like,

oh, I've also been through something very hard. Again, not knowing if like this is actually hard for me. Someone yesterday in the gym, a young guy was like, hey, I see you have like a scar, like a spinal fusion. What happened? Were you born? Just asked all the questions. And then later.

he disclosed that he has drop foot from an accident. And so sometimes people want to connect over that. And disabled people, I'll be honest, have different responses to this. Some people actually don't mind it. And some people do. But anytime you are treating a disability as like a hard thing or a tragedy, it's a moment to stop and just say, what is this person presenting to me?

I would just defer to the disabled person. And like, if this person wants to talk about their injury, then let's talk about it or their disability. But if it's not a relevant part of the conversation, I wouldn't ask either of you like, hey, so like, tell me the most intense piece of your medical history. I got out of the blue. At the gym. At the gym. It's just not relevant. You're like, so I'm here to work out.

And my name's X. Yeah. Right? And that's usually what I do. I just go, I'm here to work out. I'm Carson. How's your workout going? Interesting.

It's well-intentioned, but it still treats me like I am a story. I am a thing that happened. Yeah. Yeah. This show is sponsored by Midi Health. Parymenopause and menopause aren't personality flaws or phases. They're medical transitions. And yet, nearly three out of four women who actively seek help are sent home with nothing.

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your personalized insurance covered virtual visit. That's join midi.com. Midi, the care women deserve. All of this work you're doing to free so many people. How does, if it does, internalized homophobia and ableism still live in you? In lots of ways that I'm currently really working on. I'm just going to say this feels vulnerable to talk about. So one of the things that I deal with, and when I was preparing for a conversation, one of the things I was thinking about a lot was my struggle with masculinity as a disabled man. and feeling just all sorts of things about it

because I still have this pull to want to fit the role of a man. I think because I've just assimilated those values because sometimes I do stop and I'm like, wait, what is a man anyway? You know, and I pause and kind of go there. But the first experience, like the first wave is like, I'm not a real man. I remember very clearly within the first year of my injury,

I was sitting in the passenger seat of my mom's van. She was going into Walmart to pick up something. And I said I didn't want to come. Just didn't want to. At this point, I didn't have an accessible vehicle. So she would have to bring out the wheelchair. And I was just like, just go. And as she walked across the parking lot, I had an image.

Like, you know, those thoughts and fears of like, what if something happened to my love? loved one. Like I was like, what if my mom, I was like, I hope she's safe. It was dark. She's walking across the parking lot. And that is when I realized, like, if something happened to my mom right now, I would have to sit and watch. I could do nothing. And this is right on the heels of having, this isn't, I mean, and this isn't just like a man thing, right? Because like all of us have this impulse I'm sure to like go and rescue someone or intervene or something. I could like yell or call someone and watch.

And that was the moment where I was like, what does it mean for me to be a man? If I can't help the ones that I love who are closest to me, or like, you can't see, but there's not a cover on this light bulb here because I can't reach it. Just taking care of things, being strong, being capable. So much of masculinity is about what your body can do. And I can't do a whole lot.

And so I struggle with that. I struggle with that. And I struggle with that in the context of dating queer men also. There's such a, and I don't want to speak in too broad terms, but my experience is that sexual prowess is important. Like what we were talking about earlier. Like, can you play the role? And we have names for the roles. Yes, we do.

And we ask each other what those roles are. It depends on what spaces you're in, but it happens pretty quickly. And if you asked any, like, gay man, most of them will be able to tell you those roles. So that's also a place where I've got this like internalized abelism and homophobia where, like, I want to be man enough. And I feel shame for even wanting that. And I just have to pause and be like, Carson, you picked this up from someone else. And then this is where I get to choose who to be, how to describe manhood or masculinity.

Or we're also not because I'm also really being like, What does that even mean? And so often I don't want to experience that. Or like, I'll use he-him pronouns. And I'm like, is that right? Like, is that? Am I, am I a he-him? Same.

Same. Yeah. What is that? What is it? Yeah. I don't know. I don't either. I'm not, I'm just watching it.

Yeah. Yes. Same. That was so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I felt every word. Can you, Carson, give us a next right thing for our pod squad that is something that they could do to free themselves in the way that you have? And we're not saying you live in the castle because you're an honest human being, but you are freaking, you're pretty castley.

What do we do to get a little freer from our body shit, Carson? I would start by saying, consider that you, your capital S self will never tell you that you're broken. It will never tell you something that's wrong with your body, whether that's its shape or size or or, or, or color or anything about it function, that is never coming from the self. So the next right thing that I could offer would be to listen for that voice that is the self. And I think that there are a lot of ways to do that.

I think therapy can be really helpful. I think coaching can be really helpful. I think journaling, writing. But I want to convince everybody listening that there is a you that is present and always speaking. And there's like no greater task or more important task in this life

than to know how to find that and hear it and then live consistently with it. And like I said, I think there are lots of ways to do that, but that has proven to be the most, absolutely the most important thing I've ever done with my life. I mean, I love you, Carson. I am going to put my phone number right here in the chat, and the next time you're in the haunted house, would you please just text me and tell me you're there? And I'll remind you of the outside and then vice versa.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. For all of you listening, I just hope that this conversation was as freeing for you as it was for me and comforting and all the things. Just feel like what a guide, what a teacher. Thank you for being you, Carson. Thank you so much for being you, both of you. And also for trusting me with your people, your loved ones. It means more to me than I can say. I'm just so grateful. I'm just so grateful. We are grateful to the rest of you. So, Sissy, did you want to say something? I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that I'm still back in the sex part of the conversation.

I mean, I've been listening to everything, all right? It's all been really good since then. But you're capital S. is just very, very strong and courageous. Yes. Because when you talk about just saying, like, this is what I want and this is what feels good and more of that and less of that with no expectations, like you're just in there saying the stuff?

I mean, I'm going to be thinking about that for a while. I mean, honestly, that's a little bit of inspiration porn. Come on, Carson. I didn't know how to respond in a way that wasn't like, I. Put that on an upworthy meme, all right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Because my brain can't even understand how to operationalize that. And I think it's so amazing and you're absolutely right. Like if every, any kind of body that is listening could even do that one thing. This is what I'm not. Like have the courage to identify and say and. and like my God, how much life would change. It's amazing. We will meet you back here next week or tomorrow

or whenever the next we can do hard things is. Okay? We love you so much. Thank you, Pod Squad. Talk soon. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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