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My perception of disability is entirely different to yours.
The non disabled world sees disability as something to fear, pity, pull encouraging faces at and, most of all, to hope with all their might that it never happens to them.
Because wouldn’t that be awful?
It’s not actually. I’m quite happy being disabled, please don’t take it away from me - I’m alright. It’s part of my identity, it’s who I am.
Being disabled has taught me a lot; it’s given me some rough deals, yes, but it’s taught me so much patience, acceptance, true identity.
It helps me see peoples’ souls easier by the way they initially interact with me. I know if someone is going to dismiss me because my legs don’t work well then they’re never really going to be a great friend when the chips are down anyway, so phew - we fast-tracked that situation!
That’s the main problem with peoples’ perception of disability, the majority still see it as something that is a charity cause.
Why are our needs not met like everyone else’s in the usual infrastructure of society? Why are our young rolled out to provoke empathy, to get people to put their hand in their pocket? And what on earth is that teaching the young people in my community about their value?
My life is smattered with not being able to get into the same places / events as other people, taxis turning off their light as they see me, doctors dismissing new symptoms as not really worth investigating and people presuming that I’m incapable of many of even the most basic of things. None of that is my disability - it’s other people’s attitudes, and attitudes are the thing that disable me the most.
How suddenly less is expected of you. The enjoyment people get from doing the simplest of things. Like how putting the wheelie bin away has gained me many spontaneous rounds of applause from passing strangers over the years. To be fair it is a wheeled duet dance of beauty. People will marvel as I pass them carrying four drinks back from the bar.
The delight and pointing as I pass at a festival carrying ALL the camping gear. And sometimes I’ve been congratulated for just being there, anywhere!
That’s the thing we battle the most besides the lack of access - peoples’ expectations. I get it. We’ve all inherited this way of looking at disability, as something to be pitied. It’s still connected with charity and it’s something we can get uncomfortable around - in case we say the wrong thing.
The only way we can change this is together. We’re just people, we’re everyone, we’re across all cultures. It’s difficult because we all need to shake off the attitudes we’ve all inherited, the ones much of our media sadly quite often still portray. We’re 20% of the population. That’s one in five people, we’re part of the norm.
Let me give you some context for this prejudice. If I had my current access requirements but we were in the 1980s, I’d be locked in a care home, I would not have been able to enjoy the independent life and career I’ve had. Someone else would be deciding my bed time.
If we were in the 1990s and I was on a train, I’d most likely be in the guard’s van and if it was night, I’d be in the dark. I wasn’t legally entitled to university education until the year 2000.
Even today our hard fought for rights are being eroded. We no longer have the care support we did - in recent years people have been placed in incontinence pads even though they are not incontinent, having to choose how long to hold on before having to sit in their own bodily fluids; as this government cut care visits to 15 minutes sporadically throughout the day, and gone was full time care for most who need it.
Our children are in an education lottery which determines whether they are accommodated or even taught to read (it is not against the law to not teach non verbal disabled young people to read, some of us are only merely taught in pictures, our main form of communication therefore taken away from us).
Our news stories aren’t usually in the media. When covid started, where were the sign language interpreters? The easy read document for learning disabled people? Members of our community were ignored and left unknowing as the pandemic and the threat of death unfolded around them.
The fact that two thirds of those who have died from Covid in this country had a disability tells you a lot. That disabled people were give ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ orders when in hospital during the pandemic. I, myself, was in hospital, blissfully unaware of that order on my notes at the foot of my bed.
That abhorrent word ‘just’ that we heard everywhere explaining away the risk of Covid - it’s ‘just’ the vulnerable and the elderly who are at higher risk of death from covid. As though we didn’t matter. The fact that millions of us considered higher risk from covid are still locked in our homes because the common decency of wearing masks to protect others has been removed from our society.
To read more content from our week-long series on Disabled Britain click
here .
All that aside, we are beginning to be seen as part of society, we are beginning to be allowed a voice. I’m here writing this.
What is exciting about the now is we’re the most accepted we’ve ever been.
So look around you, if we’re not in your teams, your groups, your communities, why not? That’s no-ones fault - we’ve all inherited this situation but now we can look at it differently.
Everyone can do their bit to notice when things aren’t accessible to others or if people haven’t been invited. Please do that little bit extra and ask us. We can help.
