Is there anything you feel too old to do anymore?

To be seen as the cute disabled child. Which to be honest I never really wanted obviously, but it had it’s advantages in this innacessible world.

To be emotional. I’m not a child therefore this is apparently no longer allowed. Even when my emotions are valid. If I am emotional in any way when I make a point, my point is almost immediately dismissed. Though I cannot work out whether this is ableism or sexism.

Be given access to the help and support that I need. The world changes when you’re an adult. When you’re a disabled adult, people often stop trying to make it accessible for you. As if you should have just been able to figure it all out by yourself by that age. What’s almost worse sometimes is how much help you get as a child doesn’t always make this process easier. Sometimes it means you to from receiving a lot of help, to no help at all, with no idea how you’re supposed to function without it. I’m not saying disabled children need less help, but that Disabled adults and honestly adults in general need more of it.

I’m almost sorry for writing this post, because I suspect the prompt was looking for something along the lines of playing with friends in a play ground, or something like that. But you see that’s not something that was ever completely accessible to me anyway. So while I do miss it of course, it’s interwoven with memories of the things I was unable to do, like playing on the slide.

It does nothing for me to dwell on missing these happier types of times. What would actually be helpful for me is to be able to live in a world that saw me a worth providing access to, like they did when I was a child. While this wasn’t flawless and came with it’s own share of problems, infantilisation and lack of control. At least getting people to care about me and my life and my right to exist wasn’t so much of a fight. Even if that was primarily because no one wanted to be the person that left the disabled child excluded from a situation. By the time they’re an adult, by the time I’m an adult, I’m just supposed to have accepted that this is the way my life is and will forever be.

This is part of why it can be so difficult to get access in society. This is why I have to convince people that I need and deserve access in society. This is why there’s a fight where there honestly shouldn’t be one, because I’m just supposed to be okay with my lot.

They let me get away with it as a child. Away with being upset, because I hadn’t gotten used to it yet. And for awhile I did get used to it, for a while I stopped fighting. But now I’ve decided to fight again, it’s to much for people to handle.

I’m braking societal expectations of my silence as a disabled person, by speaking out against it.