Tag: Anxiety

The best I can do isn’t always what you ask of me.

On By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment

I’m getting my hair done over the coming days, and I’m worried.

I’m worried because I can’t follow the guidance exactly how I would like to. But I’ve tried my best. I can only wash my hair on certain days in the week and in the evening, due to my carers. But this isn’t something that someone would know about me without me saying. And don’t know how I’m supposed to bring that up to people who don’t me.

When you need help to do things, doing things when you want isn’t always an option. But I do my best.

I have to deal with the anxiety of this alongside the anxiety of having someone new cut my hair. This is the first time I will be paying for someone to come to my home to do it. As the family members that usually do it are unable to do it right now, or ignoring me.

I don’t want to risk going to a standard hairdresser as I’ve done this before and it’s been difficult due to accessibility.

Once I rang a hairdresser to ask if they were accessible, and they assured me that they were. However, when I got there, there was a step outside the building.  I questioned this and their answer was that once so was inside the place was accessible. I pointed out that I couldn’t get inside due to the step. Their solution was to give me a free coupon for that Salon, the one I couldn’t get in.

So I don’t want to risk that again. This is why I’m using a mobile hairdresser. But it doesn’t come without concern for me, nothing seems to come without concern.

I have told them I am in a wheelchair, but I worry that they will just forget that. That they will say they can’t do it because I’m in a chair, or for some other reason I haven’t thought of. 

Logically I’m sure it’ll be fine, but I’m still worried.

Anxiety sucks.

And I just wish that I was able to go into a regular hairdresser and get it done somewhere where I wouldn’t be a problem. 

It’s difficult when dealing with a world that’s so inaccessible to you, to not blame yourself for the reason things are so difficult. Logically I know this is not my fault, but emotionally which is the side that always seems to win, its so much more difficult to deal with.

But getting my hair done seems worth it. After it’s done I just feel like I can breathe, if that even makes sense.

All this said, wish me luck for tomorrow. I honestly feel like I need it.

Concert day anxiety.

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Last night I slept for 12 hours so I feel ready for the concert I’ve got this evening. But knowing my luck I’ll be tired by the time actually comes around. Sometimes my own body doesn’t want to make fun accessible to me.

Though my body is not my biggest concern on a concert day. I feel better once I’m in the building and I know no one is going to try to make me leave. It’ll be worth it I know it will be, but there’s a lot of anxiety involved in going to a concert for me.

I really want to see that it baffles me that society hasn’t thought of the need to make concerts accessible to disabled people. But in order to say that I would have to be naive and forget that he just doesn’t care about disabled people. We’re not allowed to have fun.

I really just wish having fun was more accessible, it’s always so complicated, and has so many moving parts. So many that I find myself unable to deal with them and leave sorting the accessible to the person that goes with me. I just got too angry to see it with a clear head. I can’t get past the fact that it shouldn’t be this complicated to go to concerts if you are in a wheelchair. That when the venue itself is accessible, there’s no need to make it as hard as many venues do.

That said, I hope this will be a fun experience. And I actually get to meet the artist (hopefully), which makes it even better. When I say hopefully I do have a ticket to meet the artist, but whether they will actually let me do that is another question. I’ve never done this before so I’m slightly nervous that my disability might make this complicated as well. Or I should say that the venue will use my disability to make this more complicated. But I hope it will go well.

The reality is I don’t know how this will go until I am there. So I will just have to wait and see. And try to focus on the best part of all of this, the music.

I love music. It is a tool that makes me feel part of society, mostly. I feel the same as the others who listen to it. It’s only when I go to concerts that things can get complicated. But music itself is the least complicated way for me to be part of society.

People.

On By Katy DalyIn Blog, My Disability TruthLeave a comment

I can’t avoid them forever and I know that, when I’m with them I don’t even want to.

But when I’m on my own, thinking about meeting with people, leaving the house just seems like to much. It’s always worth it in the end, and locally I know that, but it doesn’t make it easy.

I don’t know if this anxiety comes from growing up disabled, or if it would just be a part of me anyway. It’s impossible to know having grown up disabled, which parts of me or my experiences would be different if I wasn’t disabled. But I suspect or maybe some part of me hopes, that it would be.

Growing up in the world, that is an accessible to you, can often feel like you’re growing up in the world that was made specifically to be inaccessible to you. Your existence in that world is nothing more than an annoyance to those around you. That’s a hard thing to deal with every day of your life for the rest of your life. It’s one of those feelings, that’s always there, even though it’s usually in the background and I can ignore it. but I do have a feeling that the residual existence of this feeling is what causes the anxiety that I’m left dealing with at the moment.

Either way I’m stuck what I have now. And let’s just say that’s a dislike of being around people, and sometimes even leaving the house.

I really wish I didn’t feel that way, that I could just go out without feeling like I didn’t want to. That I could want to go out.

But either way I will, and I know, I will have a good time when I do it. It’s just the feeling leading up to it, the anxiety, the fear of being judged, that I have to learn to deal with.

Sorry people. I’m trying.

Sometimes I just don’t want to leave the house.

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So today I was supposed to go and see a friend of mine. And I had an appointment this morning. After the appointment I did everything that I needed to, I walked my doggies.

But then it came to the thing of seeing my friend and I just honestly didn’t want to leave the house again.

I know that sounds bad. I feel bad for it. But the thought of going outside is just so much worse.

And I’d said I’d go, so I should go. But I just really don’t want to.

I know that makes me a horrible person.

But outside is cold.

And I would rather be on my own in the warm than go out in the cold to be with someone.

I’m sorry.

Anxiety sucks

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Sometimes I can’t help but think how might life might be better if almost everything I try to do didn’t make me anxious. The part that snnoys me most is that I’m not always anxious about doing things. It’s like I get bouts of confidence in doing something, where I know if I act now, I’ll be able to get it done. But these bouts of confidence never bappen when i can actually do the thing that needs to be done. It’s like my brain, emotions and being adult can never be on the same page.

Right now I need to make a phone call to get proof of my disability to renew my bus pass. But I cannot make the phone call until tomorrow. And even though I know that I’ll be fine making the phone call I know waiting until tomorrow is just going to cause me more anxiety. I just want to get it done.

Phone call drama.

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So I had some interesting experiences with phone calls this week, and I am the type of person who struggles making phone calls. As a disabled person, who has various different appointments and things to deal with, struggling to make phone calls, can make things complicated. So every time I am able to do this, it feels like a little bit of a win for me, my independence and my inclusion in the world.

On Monday I had to make a phone call to get a repair done on my wheelchair and to be honest as phone calls go that went very well. I had to leave a message, and they go back to me, thankfully my wheelchair is now fixed.

The second phone call I had, happened just moments before I wrote this post. I received a phone call from my social worker, asking me if I would accept a male carer as a regular carer with this new company that has apparently agreed to take one of my calls if I agree to these terms. I of course said no. The fact that this was even a question honestly bothers me. I have nothing against men as carers, and as having a male carer when needed to cover my call. But I would honestly really struggle with this being something regularly. I was able to stand up for myself with this, but it left me feeling guilty as I refused a possible solution to a problem.

It’s difficult, knowing I need care, but not being able to get the exact care that I want. Striking that balance is incredible difficult but is something that I will have to do for the rest of my life. Frustratingly now my care as it is seems to be going okay, and the need to change companies isn’t so apparent as it has been. Hopefully a solution for my care will present itself soon enough, I just hope this isn’t as complicated as it has been for the rest of my life, because honestly things have been bad.

To anyone reading this I am proud of you for whatever you managed to achieve today, try to be proud of yourself as well.

Getting a Job

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Getting a job is something I’ve wanted to do my whole life, but as a disabled person this is hard to do for several reasons. The exact area of my job is almost irrelevant, having a job is something I just want to say I have done, and also some extra money is nice.

But the world we live in makes it difficult for disabled people to get a job. For me specifically, my area of study is education, so the ideal job I would get to take advantage of my qualifications would of course be a teacher. Though I often feel like this is one of the most inaccessible areas for me to gain work in. But it is my passion so I try.

The inaccessibility of the education system (and the rest of the world) honestly explains why I do not have a lot of experience in teaching, (and by extension many things in the world). This leads to a lot of anxiety when I do actively try to do do things in the ‘real world’ including getting a job because I simply have not done it before. I often feel like an adult with the confidence of an child, and yes I’m aware this is self infantisation, but it is also the truth.

So when I had a phone call a few hours a go from someone asking me about teaching roles, my experience and what I was looking for, to say I had mixed feelings about it all is is honestly a bit of an understatement.

I obviously want a job, but the every time the possibility of obe gets closer, I become terrified yet again. And I know that the only way too overcome these feelings it’s for me to actually get a job, as with much in my life I won’t know how I deal with it until I am dealing with it. But unfortunately that doesn’t make the thought any less scary.

Somewhat related to this search for work it might be worth mentioning that I’ve also been looking for online work, while this is in particular what I initially wanted it is work that will definitely be more accessible to me and that does less than some of the anxiety evolved.

All of this is of course without considering the effect on the benefits I receive. I of course need to make sure that I am knocked in a worse position financially simply because I try to work, as odd as the sounds it can and has happened to some people on benefits, so I do have to be careful.

This is to say the least a complex journey as many things are in life, particularly when you are disabled, We will just have to see where it goes. And while I don’t know where I am with this yet, but hopefully it will come to something and before too long I will be earning my own income in one way or another.