Important Events – My Inaccessible Life

So I spent the weekend with my boyfriend, with an interim visit home to walk the dogs and to receive personal care. And with his permission, I’m going to explore the Inaccessibility and the Accessibility with adaptations of staying with him, and by extension anywhere that isn’t my home.

It’s honestly difficult to list every adaptation an element of accessibility I implement to stay somewhere other than my home. I’m just so used to do it without thinking. So I’m going to cover a few of the adaptions of the way I adapt while staying out of my home. But the chances are I will miss some, still, I’ll do my best.

In order to stay anywhere other than my own home I have to spend the night in my wheelchair. That’s the first adaptation. While it’s not particularly comfortable, it’s my most comfortable option. My chair tilts which does help comfort wise, and my chair is the second most comfortable position I could be in outside of my bed. So it logically makes sense that I’m somewhat comfortable staying in it.

The second adoptions I make to sleep somewhere other than my home is to go without my personal care. This can make me incredibly uncomfortable or it can be barely noticeable depending on what state I’m in, without being to personal about it. This is something I’ve done on several occasions, and while I can’t say always gladly I can say they’ve been worth it. But just think for a second is this something you would be willing to do to do what was necessary or something you enjoy? It’s become the norm for me. I’m almost used to it.

Another adaptation I make is not changing my clothes. While this would be in someway possible, it would require help and would not be completely possible anyway.

This leads me to another adaptation I have to make, accepting help. This has always been a struggle for me, despite how much of it I need. To accept the help of others when I need it. I accept the help of my family and carers, reluctantly, but as a necessity. I do it. That said I still do struggle even with taking this help. And accepting the help of others in general is still very difficult for me.

Staying with the person I stayed with meant that I needed there help to plug in my chair. And also that I had to remember to bring my chair charger which I thankfully did. Though they were more than willing to do this one small thing for me, it still felt like a big problem. I still worried I would get in the way.

I think this in part my biggest problem with accepting things from others. I get used to my help coming from certain places and certain people. Changing this feels like I’m somehow putting myself in the way.

These are just a few of the small adaptations I had to spend a night or two away from home. To live with some sort of freedom from my care and I suppose my disability. And I can say with confidence that the specific time I stayed away from home that inspired me to write this, was definitely worth the sacrifices I make.

So this event happened a week ago. After a day out shopping I came home to find a street near my home, a main street, which also happens to have a cemetery on, had the pavements almost completely blocked by cars. As you can see in the video, I found crossing the road at the crossing very risky due to a car actually being parked on the crossing. So I attempted to go down the street, passing all the cars while doing as little damage as possible, to the point where I couldn’t. This pooh was a pole. A normal obstacle on the pavement that without the cars wouldn’t have caused an obstruction to me, but it did. So I had to turn back, and attempt getting back passed the cars without causing any more damage to the cars or damaging my chair. I then attempted the crossing despite the risk.

As I have said, the street is very near to my home and I know it well. Therefore I know that going the other direction would not only have taken roughly 20minutes to get back to the same position on the other side of the road, but would have also posed it’s own dangers to me. I don’t often used that side of the road, until after the crossing that I attempted to cross at, apart from when the bus drops off there.

I know my usual routes well, for a reason. It’s a necessity of existing in this inacessible world. Were I to go back up the road on the side I was on, I would be going against my usual routes. One route that I did that I did know, as it is part of a different route for a different task, was to go down that road. As I attempted to. My back up plan was blocked.

I was able to deal with this situation with the help of my sister, but I am really not sure this is something I could have dealt with on my own. I found this a very overwhelming situation.

Now at the time I posted this to my social media platforms, and while I had a lot of support, many people were insisting that I had to give the people leway as this was clearly an important event. A funeral. And while I recognise that, and I did at the time. I had to remind everyone that I am still disabled when life events happen.

Another interesting note is that a funeral took place today, and the pavements weren’t blocked. So this isn’t an excuse to block pavements, the blocking of pavements does not happen every time a funeral takes place. It is not a necessary and unavoidable part of a funeral. It is simply careless, and not thinking of others.

Others still matter, regardless of the event. I am still disabled regardless of the fact that this is someones funeral.

As a disabled person, I am always the one expected to be aware of others situation. As if I am always in the way I should try to limit the impact I have on other people. This translates to me not wanting to be in other peoples way, which is something I subconsciously try to do in my daily life. I am now actively trying to do the opposite.

To me, accepting that the rest of the world has valid reasons such as funerals to not include me, is purpetuating ablesim. And I don’t expect the world to change around me. But I’m done being quite about the fact that it won’t.

I deserve to exist. I deserve my place in this word. And I deserve access to the rest of the word, regardless of what is going on within it. I deserve to matter.

I deserve to be able to go out, without risking my safety and on this occasion possibly my life, to simply get home again.

My Inaccessible Life

Tag: Important Events

Staying anywhere else.

Important events don’t mean I am no longer disabled.