Someone literally just said to me “I’m not as bad as you but”… They were complaining about a really bad medical problem that apparently was ruining their life, while still seeming to function pretty well. I know you can’t judge what someone is going through by how well they’re able to function. But you’re working, you’re walking, have some perspective. At the very least don’t use me as your reference for it could be worse to my face.
This is why it’s hard to have Pride, because my existence in life is always going to be someone’s idea of it could be worse.
So as I’ve said I’ve been posting online about issues of pavement access inaccessibility and poor parking. But the my post the more people seem less concerned with the law that I used to back the things I say in the posts and often the things I post about. Apparently if you simply have an opinion people don’t like, whether it is backed up by law doesn’t matter.
Today I posted about a vehicle parked in a bus stop. Vehicles parks in bus stops restrict access for the bus to park close enough to the curb so that’s a ramp can be used by those who need it. It is also generally not allowed by any vehicle except for in specific circumstances legally speaking. After posting this vehicle alert that they were apparently part of a company that maintains bus stops. However I could not find anything that legally supported that vehicles right to park there, as long as the bus stop was still in use, witch it obviously was as at the time I was waiting for a bus.
Despite supporting my post with research and doing further research when questioned. Many people think me having a different opinion and perspective on the issue makes me wrong, despite the fact I am able to support mine with evidence and they can’t.
It is just interesting to me that no matter how much I back up my opinion, legally or with other valid sources. There are people that will still think I’m wrong because of a social acceptance of a matter.
For example if I post an obvious working vehicle the assumption is that they have the right to block access, restrict a pavement or park inconsiderably are even illegally, simply because they maybe working. I would like to add that I’ve never knownly posted the vehicle of someone who is obviously working in the moment in which I post it.
If something is accessible it is inaccessible it is inacessible whatever your reason maybe for making it inaccessible. And the law is the law.
Frankly if you think I’m wrong for following or asking about a law on something I don’t really care about your opinion on the matter.
Resulted to this is something I may talk about at a later date. Someone once questioned why I was so interested in the law, and suggested that I might be Autistic because of it. I honestly found this very offensive but it is something to return to in a different post.
So apparently the posts I’ve been sharing in my local Facebook group are apparently derailing the whole group. And honestly I find how dramatic everyone is being hilarious.
But also at least they’re talking about accessibility. That’s a win in my book and literally a large part of why I decide to tacle this over social media.
I’m tired of being told disabled spaces are the only places we can talk about disabled issues. And I guess that has now changed. And honestly I like that. For however long it lasts
Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.
As a disabled person, existing in an inaccessibile world is a DIY project.
I have to solve all the problems in my life. I have to fix all the cracks and all the leaks with very little help.
I have to find accessible ways to exist in as much of the world as I can.
My life is basically trying to stop the house falling down while ables shoot at the house with cannons.
You see people offer to help, and sometimes I need it. But the help comes conditions.
It comes with schedules and rules that I must live by in order to be worthy of there help.
So in some ways I have to engineer the best version of my life that I am able to.
And yet it or perhaps when it fails, I am somehow responsible for it.
So I try to control what I can and hope it doesn’t fall apart. And somewhere in that live my life. Always knowing the rules of the game could change at any time.
What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?
I lost my mum last year. Like everyone who looses a parent, I never thought I would have to say that sentence.
My mum has always been a big part of the work I do. She spell checked everything, she let me explain it to her 100 times. She was always behind me.
You may have noticed there was a spelling mistake in the web address for this blog, I fixed it now. But if I had my mum that would have never been there.
So my mum was a big help with the start of my masters dissertation, but I’m really struggling to get it finished without her. In all honesty I’m struggling to find the motivation to even try.
But what does this have to do with inacessiblity? I wouldn’t be writing about this here if it was unrelated.
As a physically disabled person, who is academically capable there is a lot of pressure for me to do well in academia. I’ve had this pressure from able people who say I shouldn’t let my disability hold me back. And from disabled people who say I owe it to the disabled people who can’t succeed in academia, to succeed in academia.
Both sides of my life, both halves of the whole, mean well and they just want me to succeed. I want to succeed.
But sometimes that’s a lot of pressure.
One of the reasons I was initially pushed away from active activism for disabled people when I was young, was because of the pressure.
But without my mum sometimes it feels like I’ll never be able to navigate the pressure again.
I used to pride myself on never having missed a deadline. But when mum got sick I obviously took a break. And that break meant that I missed the initial deadline. I missed a deadline and the world did not end. And honestly sometimes that feels a little rude. The world should have ended when I failed as a disabled academic, when I missed a deadline. The world should have ended when my mum died, right?
But it didn’t, and this deadline still looms over me. I don’t want to fail when I’m so close to succeeding. I really hope I won’t but I’m honestly not sure right now.
If the world were more accessible to me I wouldn’t be forced to put all my eggs in one basket like this.
My deadline is the end of April, wish me luck please. I feel like I need it.
Since I’ve started posting on Facebook I have had varied responses. One of the most boring responses I get is people telling me that I could have gotten through a certain gap or down a curb that I’m raising awareness to.
If I’m raising awareness to it, I have already made the decision that whatever the risk is, it is not worth taking. This means that the risk is not worth taking.
It’s my decision to decide what risks I take while I’m out in my wheelchair. No one else’s.
I have been driving a wheelchair for 23 years, and independently out door for 11. I know how to navigate the world around me. And I know what risks are worth taking, and which ones are not.
All this is ignoring the fact that I shouldn’t have to take any risks at all, while simply living my life, no one should. But I certainly shouldn’t be taking any that a non disabled person does not have to take. That is not equity.
So I guess what really bores me is when people think they’d be better at driving my wheelchair, at living my life. They have zero respect for my ability to lead my own life and to know how to do that.
And I guess I’ve had that said and implied so many times to me from ables, that rather than being annoyed by it, by this type of reaction to my abilities. I’m simply bored by it.
The interesting thing about this prompt is a started writing many versions of it. Many things bore me. Ableism, Exclusion, Wilful Ignorance, Inacessiblity. It is all very boring really.
My Inaccessible Life 