I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll post this one do you know or it’ll stay in my drafts. I guess if you’re reading this I’ve made my decision.
I love my dogs. I love dogs in general. But as I’m sure every dog parent will tell you, and they would be right, my dogs are special. But the thing is I can’t do everything that my doggy needs me to do for them because of my disability, and sometimes I feel guilty. Guilty that I can’t be the parent they deserve.
But the thing about dogs is they love you anyway, you do the best for them and that’s always enough for them.
Thank you girls. For making me a mum. For making me enough. I love you.
Image Description: A picture of a photo collage of my 3 furbabies.
The first picture is the largest one of my yellow labrador Immy, lying on my bed.
The second picture to the top is of my caviler king charles Bella sitting on the floor. They are both looking at the camera.
The final picture is of Ellis my grey cat with white patches who is side ways on to the camera.
The text above the pictures reads: “Thank you to my babies for making me a mum 🤎💛🩶”
Having no children, and knowing that that’s not possible, makes Mothers Day difficult. The older I get, the more of the people around me have children and move on with their lives, the harder it gets.
But the furbabies make it easier.
Sometimes I think I’m not allowed to feel the feelings today, because disenfranchised grief like this is never understood.
And it’s even harder for me to explain or feel because of that. So today I just did my best to ignore it all.
But if you’re feeling these feelings I just want you to know I see you.
Losing my mum has made this day even harder.
I’m sorry if this post doesn’t make a lot of sense. I feel very frazzled writing it.
So when the person I live with is out, I cancel my care call because the dogs are difficult for me to deal with on there own.
They were out tonight, so I got in bed a lot later than usual, and spent most of the night in my room with my fur babies.
Unfortunately, they knocked off the bed, which I use as a sort of table when I’m not in it, a lot of my things. And as I was home alone I was unable to pick them up, so they were stuck on the floor. This and a combination of me getting caught in some of my charger wires, meant that I was stuck in the same place in my room until they got home.
Now I can’t hold this against the person I live with, they obviously deserve a break. But it highlights to me just how much I need the person I live d with, and how inaccessibile living on my own would be.
Now the easiest answer if I wanted to live on my owm, would be to not live with dogs. But I would rather give up this small form of independence, for my doggies.
Some things are worth giving up independence for. They definitely are.
And it is best for me, and my babies, and also the person I live with funnily enough, that we live together.
Below I have included a picture of my girls that was taken tonight.
Image Description: Bella, a brown Caviler King Charles, lay asleep on a bed next to Immy, a golden labrador who is also asleep. There is a flag on the wall which can partially be seen behind them, and a pink cost next to Immy on the right of the photo.
My response to someone’s Facebook post in a CNBC group that I’m in. I became really emotive while writing it and I thought maybe I’d share it with you all.
I know where you’re coming from I think. The idea that people thing any life is obtainable because you don’t have children is so deeply untrue. I’m disabled and poor. The entire world is built against people like me. Less than 100 years ago. I’d have been left for dead. So no I can’t just live my best life without kids. But even if that were possible, even if everything else lined up in the world to allow me to do that, none of it makes that the life I wanted. Any life I live, even if it one day becomes a good life, even if by comparison to others it is already a good life. Will never be the life I dreamed of, the life I wanted to lead. And there’s an element of grief involved in that. Feelings that need to be felt. Feelings that go without respect. Because at least you can…. No. I can’t. And thank you very much for just pointing out something else unreachable.
This is your reminder, and my reminder of a few important feelings. It’s okay to grief the life you wanted, it’s okay to have bad days where that’s all you can think about. Feeling how you feel doesn’t undo the good going on in your life now. Find ways to let it out. You deserve to be allowed to grieve, just like everyone else. You don’t need to be happy all of the time just because the rest of the world wants you to be. Your happiness is not something that exists to make everybody else feel better about their own life. Your happiness and your emotions are about you and no one else.
My carers asked me the other day if I could have kids. I’m used to the questions about my condition people like to know and I like to tell, but I don’t like that one. I answered it, because it’s easier just to answer it. But I hate being asked it.
Technically, medically speaking there shouldn’t be a reason I can’t have children but life is so much more complicated than that. The question is just hard and I wish people wouldn’t ask it.
As a write this Mothers Day in America has just passed, and due to well the internet, the American holiday is actually harder for me than the UK holiday, which passed several weeks ago. Writing this post, I cannot decide whether I will post it, but if you’re reading this, it means that I obviously decided to. It might be a while though.
While I have in passing mentioned this term on this blog before I have not mentioned it in any level of detail as to how I personally relate. This is what I am going to attempt to do in this post.
While there are many reasons that a person might be Childless Not By Choice, which I hope is a self explanatory term, mine specifically can be said to relate to inaccessibility that I face.
My disability itself is the primary cause of why having children is not a possibility for me. Getting pregnant, in itself, is something I don’t know if it were possible, and then having and caring for a baby a whole other questions that need to be answered. Its a complicated situation to say the very least.
A situation that I would perhaps be better able to navigate the way I want to, if I had the money to do so, so that is one barrier. But there is an obvious other barrier that even if I had the money to have a child, caring for theme would be a difficult thing for me to do speaking physically.
I don’t know how to deal with this all the time, and I don’t honestly know if I ever will. To be completely honest I’ve been really struggling with this all lately.
I don’t really want to go into any more detail on this, right now. It’s all very personally and honestly difficult for me. But I hope this post, whenever I post it and whenever you see it. Reaches someone who needs to see it.
I’m sorry that this post kind of trails of a little bit. I had a better idea of what to write when I started writing this. I have kind of lost that now. I might return to this topic in the future. But I honestly don’t know.
I hope, if you know how this feels, that you understand that you are not alone. That’s all I really know how to say on this for now.
Image description: A white van on an open empty road, entirely blocking a pavement, next to a lamp post and an open patch of grass.
So I posted again on my local Facebook group. This post is now a few weeks old, but I still think it’s important to share.
I shared the above picture of a vehicle parked blocking the pavement with a patch of grass next to it. Explaining that if the space left by a vehicle is grass this doesn’t mean they have left accessible space for a wheelchair user to pass. Now I’m happy to discuss this issue further in a seperate post if anyone would like but what I really want to talk about here is two of the comments I received on that post.
Image discription: Facebook comment reads “Go argue with yourself. Have a good day! I’m going to block you, you’re boring the living shit out of me!”
This comment annoys me, because it is very clear to me why I’m posting, and why I continue to post, to educate others, not to argue. Not to entertain them.
I also don’t understand why people need to announce the fact they’re going to block me. If they really want to clock me why can’t they just do it without announcing it.
The final part about me being boring, I really don’t honestly just tells me that I need to keep posting, because people obviously find inclusion boring. So I need to keep educating and pushing for it.
Image description: Facebook Comment reads “If your not happy now work is constructed in your area move. Your only here for the Schools. I meet your type all the time but drive 4×4 to protect our Children. Hmmm.”
Firstly this persons comment highlights that they really didn’t read my post, as the post was on why leaving space next to a vehicle when it’s grass, does not mean that the space you’ve left is accessible.
Secondly the reason I wanted to talk about this comment is that it insinuates a lot of choices that I as a non disabled person do not have. Now taking this person at there word it seems they really believe that people have this level of choice. Which means they really don’t understand that not everyone does. And while this isn’t only specific to those with disabilities. It speaks to a complete lack of understanding of the lack of control that other people have in there lives.
While I recognise that I am looking to have the housing that I have, it’s far from a choice that I’ve made. I live where I live because it was where I was told to live. I didn’t choose this. And even if I did choose where I live, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to complain. We are allowed to say when we don’t like where we live.
I also found they comment on me being in the area simply for the schools particularly difficult as someone who is Childless Not By Choice. But this is something I can talk about in other posts if anyone would like me to. Just remember before leaving comments like this on someone’s posts that you don’t actually know a what people are dealing with, so you shouldn’t assume anything, or you could really end up upsetting someone.
All this to say that no matter whether others don’t like my posts, and continue to leave comments like this. I’m going to keep educating people, on my experiences whether they like or not. As I am part of society and my voice deserves to be heard.
Edit: Upon reflection on this post I have cropped the photo.
My Inaccessible Life 