Tag: dailyprompt

Freedom

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability Truth, Writing PromptsLeave a comment

You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?

The freedom people get when they are not disabled will probably never cease to amaze me. The freedom just to answer questions like this, to not be stopped by who they are when they try to do so.

Many of these modes of transport aren’t accessible to me, and those that require planning.

As a full time wheelchair user, an airplane is not accessible to me, it is simply too risky. If you don’t understand what I’m talking about, then you are lucky.

While a train is generally accessible to me, with assistance. There’s no guarantee that all the stations I may want to go to are accessible to me. In fact from experience, money aren’t, and this often determines exactly where I will travel.

While buses at least in my area are accessible to me, they are only accessible to me if there isn’t already someone in a wheelchair on the bus. One day, the people that designed for which transport might learn that multiple disabled people can and often do travel at the same time.

Certain cars are accessible to me, but not many. I cannot just get a lift off anyone. And while I can learn to drive a specifically adapted vehicle, to do get the vehicle would cost me money I don’t have. This is before I even know whether driving is something I would be physically capable of.

I’m going to just say that we bike is concerned, I cannot ride one and we’ll leave it at that.

You don’t travel to a place on a journey, you visit that place as well. Accessibility doesn’t stop in modes of transport.

The world isn’t generally accessible for people like me in various many ways. I don’t really get to explore questions like this, without an element of ignoring reality. There’s a word for this, which took me as surprising amount of time to remember at 3:30 am. Cognitive Dissonance.

I think somebody’s gonna read this and wonder why did I take it so seriously? It’s obviously one of those writing prompts like what would you do if you won the lottery? Reality isn’t really supposed to be considered in these situations.

But I’m not really good considering reality when someone asks me these questions. I’m not really good at the cognitive dissonance. I’m thinking about myself and situations I might be in. My disability is such an integral part of who I am and the experiences I have. That it’s hard to separate myself from it, even in the situations.

I suppose I don’t really know what it’s like to think as a non-disabled person. I don’t really understand what it means to have that freedom on any level, whether that be thought or reality, it doesn’t seem to matter.

Maybe if I had a bit more freedom, in reality, it might be something that would reach my imagination, a little bit easier. Then perhaps I could answer these questions as they were intended to be answered.

The only way I reach this level of freedom in thought, as I am sometimes able to reflect in my writing, is to completely distance myself from the thought. In reality, my freedom is always limited by the world around me and there is nothing I can do about it. As soon as I put myself in the situation, my reality hits again, and I am limited by it.

Please forgive the state of this post as my sleep deprived brain is unable to reread it and make sure it actually makes any sense at all.

Listening to music.

On By Katy DalyIn Writing PromptsLeave a comment

What activities do you lose yourself in?

I could listen to music all day ever day. It’s a major form of escapism for me. The only one I can partake in when the fatigue hits.

While I can’t say I have a favourite song, I love music to much just to pick one song. I can say that my current go to song is linked below.

Music is amazing. But as much as I don’t like silence, if I want to focus on what I’m doing then I have to have tv on rather than music. If I have music on I will just get too lost in the lyrics to be focusing on what I’m supposed to be focusing on.

So if I’m ever ignoring you, when I’m listening to music, know that I’m not doing it on purpose. I’ve just got lost in a song or two.

What’s your current go to song?

This is a hard question, then it might seem, at least for me.

On By Katy DalyIn Writing PromptsLeave a comment

Which animal would you compare yourself to and why?

As you may have notice with these writing prompts, I might not always answer them the way they’re intended to be answered. But maybe that’s the point of the prompts.

So in order to answer this question, how I want to, I have to answer it to different ways. Reflecting my life, I suppose. The way I would answer it on instinct. And the way, I answer it as a disabled person. This might seem odd given the type of question being asked, but I think it’s just hardwired into my understanding of the world. And given the fact I’m disabled I think that’s fair.

My instinct is to go with an elephant. They’re clever like to watch the world go by. They seem to revel in the joys of an easy life, and sometimes that’s all I want.

Taking my disability into consideration I think I would be a good dog. Dogs are calm and loyal and they understand the needs of the people around them, believe me a say this from experience of my own doggies. I think these are qualities that my disability has taught me.

I would like to be a dog most of all I think. The calm relaxed lifestyle, the love, to never get bored of your food. All of it just seems better than being a human.

To my phone. 

On By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment

Where would you go on a shopping spree?

I know that online shopping has its criticisms, but for me it’s the most accessible form of shopping.

It’s a type of shopping I am able to do on my own. I can by whatever I want, with in my budget,  and have it delivered to my house.

I can manage in a standard shop, but there are usually some points I’m forced to ask for help. And I’ve worked on that to the point where my anxiety doesn’t stop me doing it anymore. But it doesn’t mean that I like to ask for help. So ways to avoid it are always good.

Names.

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability Truth, Writing PromptsLeave a comment

What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?

My middle names come from other family names. One comes from a grandparent and the othe d from one of my siblings who died before I was born, so yes that they do have a special meaning.

The same applies to my first name. My name is Kathleen, but I went by Katy for years, to the point where I didn’t know this was my birth name until later in life.

But the way Katy is spelt is also significant. Being born with Cerebral Pasly, meant that didn’t know if I would be able to read or write until I reached that age. The joys of the unpredictability of brain damage for you.

This makes the fact that I enjoy writing even more ironic, and I hope shows you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Disconnection.

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability Truth, My Writing, Writing PromptsLeave a comment

You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

A story that doesn’t quite fit together.

As a sentence on its own own, this makes no sense. Which I suppose could be said to defeat this purpose of this writing prompt. But to me, this just seems perfect.

It seems like the perfect way to describe a life that has felt like it never ended up with anything. My mind always seems and a different page page to my body, and I really don’t know where my heart is half to time. But it seems to be the prevailing theme of my life, that these areas, nor any areas will ever line up.

Did you ever play that game where you would draw the top half of something, a person maybe, or write the first sentence of a story. Then you would fold over the page and hand it to the next person to draw or write the next part. And so on until you had a completed, drawing or a completed story. Then you would read the story out loud, or look at the drawing, and laugh.

You would always laugh at them nonsense that would be produced. When the person before I had no idea what had been written drawn. When the next step seemed to be off kilter with the previous.

My entire life, kind of feels like that.

I can’t say I have a bad life. There are some really great parts. But I always get a sense that I’m living a life that was never supposed to be mine.

I don’t mean that in the sense that I believe someone else should have had to deal with my difficulties. I’m frequently glad that while those around me have their own struggles, they aren’t the ones I have.

I mean it in the sense that it feels like I mind or a soul like mine wasn’t built for the life I have no choice but to lead.

Does that make sense?

Does it sound selfish? Is it selfish? I honestly don’t know.

But that’s where I got the opening sentence for my autobiography from. Or more accurately, I suppose the opening idea.

Interestingly, even my sexuality found itself fitting into this area. Despite that being a lot more difficult to figure out in many ways. And yet it sometimes feels like the only part of my life that makes any kind of sense, and as in any way within my control. But I have to be very careful with exploring that as I can easily get sidetracked.

While I know that my life will never slot into the life I feel I should have had. I can only hope that one day it at least slots together, and begins to feel like one life. That I begin to feel like one person, rather than several parts of a person that will never quite meet.

I don’t like questions like this.

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability Truth, Writing PromptsLeave a comment

What were your parents doing at your age?

My parents were doing a lot more than me at my age. They were doing a lot more than I probably every will, depending on what you class a lot as.

By saying they were doing a lot, it makes it sound like I’ve been doing nothin, and honestly, that’s not true. But it is fair to say that my parents have done things by my age that I will never do.

Times have changed and situations are different. Comparing generations and people is unfair, as it doesn’t recognise this.

I may not have achieved as much as my parents, but I believe I have worked harder for what I’ve achieved than they ever have.

I’m supposed to say my wheelchair, right?

On By Katy DalyIn Blog, My Disability Truth, Writing PromptsLeave a comment

The most important invention in your lifetime is…

So I’m going to answer this question in terms of what invention I feel has had the most important impact on me personally. Not necessarily the most important global or social invention of my time. Basically I’m not doing any research, I’m just answering the question based on my life.

If you looked at me now, you’d think this was the most logically answer. And while I am grateful for the invention of the wheelchair, and in my case particularly the electric wheelchair, there are in fact other more important inventions to me.

I don’t think I’d be answering this question properly if I didn’t consider the inventions that undoubtably saved my life when I was born. Like many with my condition I was born extremely prematurely and should’ve died. So a small nod to the inventions that are the reason I’m alive.

Then it’s important to remember the ones you’re more likely to see me in, my electric wheelchair. There’s my electric bed and air mattress that I need to sleep, as well as my electric blanket which has to be the best pain killer for me personally. My comfy chair which just gives me somewhere else to sit and my shower chair, which I hope by the title is self-explanatory. Then you’ve got to remember the hoist, that gets me from a, to b, to c and sometimes d.

But the ones that I feel are the most important thing to me are those like the mobile phone, the internet, the computer. Now I know this sounds very millennial of me, if I’m getting the terminology correct. And someone’s somewhere is going to judge me for my reliance on the internet. But just remember where you’re reading this blog.

The internet, social media and the technology that exists to use them on. Provides me access and inclusion to the world around me in a way my wheelchair cannot do in such an inaccessible world. Steps do not exist on the internet.

I know social media gets a bad reputation and I understand why. But I always say it’s the way people use technology, not the technology that it is bad. While this doesn’t apply to things like guns which don’t have a good use. It applies to things like knives which clearly do, and in the case of this post, social media.

Social media lets me be the me I wish I could be in the real world. It lets me meet new people near and far, and learn all about them. It lets me keep in touch with people, that would be even more difficult to do without social media due to my lack of mobility. The internet truly is a wonder. And phones can do so much, provide so much access beyond what I use them for.

Inventions truly are a wonder. They can often be used by people in ways the person who invented them likely never imaged. They are never to be underestimated.