Posts

I’m starting a virtual peer support group for people with disabilities…

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 Hi all, I recently found out about a new Internet platform called  Forum that is making it possible for peer counselors to offer various groups. Here is what I am offering! People who choose to join the group will pay a monthly fee, but there are various levels of discount for folks on disability, etc., Please help me spread the word. This web platform was started by a doctor whose father suffered severe burns as a child and went through life feeling very isolated by the disfigurement and disabilities he sustained. So, when Forum.s cofounder, his son, realized becoming a doctor was not enough to help his father heal,  he started looking at the strength of peer support groups and now here we are. It’s a great passion project story. Here is the link to join my group, Live Well with Disability.  Feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any questions.   https://app.joinforum.com/partnergrouppage/live-well-with-disability-gpid1535 Image description: The flyer has a block of text t
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Re-Emerge, Spring 2023

My guide words for 2023 are: wander, receive, open, free. Each a mineral I need not just to grow, but to just to live with uncertainty  and a sense of being trapped after big health lows and losses. 2021 was all about weathering the pandemic and getting sober, some thing I'll write more about in the future.In the fall of 2022, I had to turn away from the surgery I needed to maintain the strength and steadiness in my left leg. In the very operating room, I realized that the PTSD--from anesthesia and intubation problems with previous surgeries was too much, I could not continue. Using my voice and getting off the gurney gave me a huge sense of agency, paradoxical as it was. Leaving the hospital meant meant using my wheelchair and the complications that brought to my daily life.  December 2022 arrived and looking out of my one seeing eye changed abruptly. It was as if I was wearing sunglasses and could never take them off. And there were new, even thicker areas of gauze across my sigh
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the bod poe in 2021

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  Not knowing when the dawn will come/ I open every door --Emily Dickinson As we leave 2020 behind--the year of a global pandemic, Covid deaths, job loss, isolation, racist murders and the uprisings that have followed, an election season that has revealed how truly divided the US is--I am grateful for the doors that have opened in this terrible time, hopeful entryways into 2021 While people were social distancing and staying in quarantine, I was finding that I had more access to work, friendship, art practice, and activism than I had ever had before. The culture of Zoom and other virtual meeting platforms necessitated by Covid has created these openings. As a person with multiple physical disabilities that make it difficult and riskier for me to navigate the built environment, I can now attend gatherings or join meetings whether or not it is safe to take an Uber, whether or not accessible public transit exists, on days when my remaining eyesight is extremely blurred due to illness, and
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Be in touch

amberdipietra@gmail.com
415-867-1124
@thebodypoetik
IG_thebodypoetik