Image Description: A photo of a cinema screen showing the BBC Doctor Who logo with “interval 15 minutes, special message commences in” written on it and a timer counting down.
So this is another backdated post. Yesterday turned out to be quite busy day. After I posted a similar post to my recent Train post on this blog, on TikTok. That got a little popular so I mainly spent the day replying to those comments and getting ready to watch Doctor Who.
No, this is not a blog about Doctor Who so I’ll just say it was an experience and I recommend you watch it. I will definitely be watching it again.
And I don’t really have the energy now to write about the backlash I have faced from the Train post. But I wanted to sort summarise some things up.
First of all, children are optional. You choose to have them, or you choose to keep them. if you are in a situation where this is not optional for you this is because the option has been taken from you not because the act of having children isn’t optional. If you disagree with the statement, I don’t think this blog is for you, and that’s okay.
Second of all, wheelchair spaces are not also also buggy spaces. They can be used by people with buggies if no one in a wheelchair needs them, but they are intended for use by people in wheelchairs therefore they should and often do in policy get priority in these spaces. They are certainly not storage spaces. Again, if you disagree with this, this isn’t the blog for you.
If anyone would like me to share more on this issue, let me know. I’m happy to share links to my posts on TikTok if you would like to see them.
There was yet again, many things I wanted to post about today. But fatigue decided to beat me as it often does.
I know that I shared on hear a post recently to be honest with you I think it was yesterday, but I’m not sure about accessibility in Doctor Who. and the one thing I can bring myself to write about right now, is that again.
I think it shocked me how much I’ve had to fight people on this ramp being needed in the Tardis. The excuse for why it’s not as probably an unusual one. they say that given the tardis is always adapting, it should be able to adapt not to need a ramp. they’re overlooking the symbolisation of having the ramp present, whether it technically would be needed or not. And just so you know it is needed.
That’s all I can really say on this one. I apologies for the sporadic nature of this post, but I need to go back to bed.
This is such a monumental moment, that I had to share it here.
“For every disabled kid who couldn’t get into the Tardis, this ramp is forever yours.” – Ruth Madeley
If you don’t understand how big this is, how much this matters. Then I don’t know if you understand what it really means to be denied access everywhere. To simply not be thought of for something you can’t control. To feel like you cause a problem just by being. The ramps inside were one thing. But there’s no denying what this is. No denying who it’s for. No denying we all matter.
I’ve gotten snappy at people poking holes in the Tardis having a ramp. I get it. They’re just asking the question. But this has been insanely validitating for me. Like I have to force myself not to tell random people. It makes me incredibly happy to be seen. And having people point flaws like with K9, who they obviously didn’t think about at the time, like that’s why they changed cameras. Or how the Darleks can get in, like making something accessible means you make bad things possible, is just completely missing the point. This isn’t some cool feature of the Tardis for me. This is access to space and time. This is what it means to have people see you as important enough to be included because they want to, not because they had to. Shirley didn’t even get in the Tardis. They didn’t at all need to have that scene. And yet? They did. Even if we never see it again, which I really hope we do, its there. And I just….. please.
If you’ve got some flaw in the ramp can just not
💙💙
Image Description: Ruth in her wheelchair next to the big blue Tardis with a ramp coming out of it. Ruth is wearing a black jumpsuit and her hair is tied in a chignon.
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
I really wish I had a better for this question, but I just don’t.
I want to say it maybe it’s the first time I made a phone call, and I didn’t even ask my dad if he would do it for me. Phone calls are always something I have struggled with, thank you very much anxiety for that one.
Maybe it was the first night I spent in my own flat, though that just seems like a cliche, and honestly as I write this I can’t even remember it.
Maybe it’s the first time I got lost, and didn’t need to call my parents to get home again. In fact I have to say that didn’t cross my mind.
It’s weird being a disabled adult, having grown up as I disabled person. At least in my experience, you are told one day you’ll be an adult and be able to do what you want whenever you want, while constantly being reminded that you’ll always need help from others.
It’s bizarre to know that there are some people in the world that will never see me as an adult, just because of my disability. To be in situations where people still look to my sister or whoever else I am with, before me.
To know that no one expects me to be a proper adult. That the idea of being seen as one is inaccessible to me. And while you might see the term, a proper adult’ and think it is nothing more than a social construct. You are right, but so is an adult and adulthood, and I promise you the idea of proper adult is just as real as the idea of any adult. Take it from someone who has to fight to be seen as either, who the world still wants to see as a child. Adulthood feels inaccessible.
It’s extremely difficult to know that the only way I’m going go be seen as adult is by believing I can be one and therefore acting like one. While at the same time definitely not feeling like an adult. No one but me is pushing me to be a proper adult, and that makes it hard to be anything close to an adult sometimes. Honestly no one would care if I stopped trying to be seen like an adult. So I have to care.
That said, I don’t know if I’ll ever truly believe I’m an adult. For that matter, does anyone? Do you, whoever you may be reading this, believe you’re an adult? Do you think that you’re own belief in whether or not you’re an adult, effects whether you are treated like an adult? Proving that you yourself are not from a infantilised minority, like those who are disabled, I can’t see how it would, but I would be interested to know.
I don’t know if I’ll ever truly believe I’m an adult. But I know that I owe it myself now and to my younger self to try to believe it. To act like an adult, so I’m treated like an adult. To act like a fully formed person, so others see my value as one.
Was it Shakespeare that said “all the world’s a stage”? That is a genuine question, don’t be mad at me but I really can’t be bothered to look that up right now. But I think what that means is that everything’s an act, that everyone is acting. That everyone is pretending to know what they’re doing in life. When really none of us know anything at all.
So maybe we’re all just secretly children pretending to be adults. I know I feel that way most of the time. But my life has taught me that it’s more important for some of us to be better actors, to perform on stage better, than others. Though maybe if we’re all aware that we’re acting, there might just be a little less stage fright.
My Inaccessible Life 