Tag: Inclusion

Pretty dull.

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Your life without a computer: what does it look like?

I know computers, the internet and social media can often get a bad reputation, mainly due to bullying. But in all honesty, for a long time, social media was how I accessed the world around me. For all the bad I struggle to see how computers can be anything more than a positive.

I’m fortunate both in my ability and living where I live, that I now have much more of an active in-person social life, than I did when I was younger. However, there were many ways to make friends online.

So to be honest to put it bluntly, my life without computers, looks boring and isolating.

Family gathering

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Much like the position I am in with the school reunion I have written about in a previous post, I don’t know a lot about the specifics of a family gathering that I was kind of invited to recently.

I say kind of because the specifics of the meeting were never decided, and I was quite clearly added as a second thought. We must invite her, that type of thing.

But when you’re disabled you can’t be invited to things as a second thought, they probably won’t be accessible. This I can tell you from experience, but I mean no malice. It’s just a fact that true accessibility cannot be an afterthought.

If I were to go to this family event, I would have to not get changed for the entire time I was there, we are talking more than 24 hours. This is not unusual for me to do in order to stay anywhere else other than my home but is something I am reasonably certain in saying that non-disabled people would be shocked to learn the specifics of.

The truth is if I don’t make sacrifices and do things that might seem weird to others, I would be excluded even more from the things which I want to experience.

Are you willing to be trapped in the event of a fire?

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I’m paraphrasing here, but words to this effect were said to me when I visited a museum this week.

They essentially said that they only allow people to use the lift who are able to us the stairs in a fire, which I am not. In order to participate I then had to accept the risk of a fire as my own and my own choice to be in the building.

Think about that for a second, I was told that I wouldn’t be able to evacuated if it became necessary and it was therefore my responsibility to participate under this.

Can you imagine if that’s how society worked daily?

If you were expected to not be safe when entering any building?

I don’t think any other group in society would stand for this. And it angers me that it’s just expected that disabled people will accept that there would is like this.

The building was viewed as accessible despite putting me in danger in the event of an emergency. As my safety is my responsibility. Yet they have procedures in place for the safety of those who are not disabled. For them, they accept responsibility, but I must expect my own.

I like this question.

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If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?

It’s not really relevant to anything on this blog, but I find it interesting nevertheless.

I would love to own a corner shop, a simple shop where I could play a small role in society. What I would sell exactly doesn’t really matter to me. Much how I’ve always said I’ve exactly what I teach doesn’t matter as much as teaching.

What I really want is a role in society, to be included. And I think a shop would be a good way to do that.

I would like the world to be more accessible.

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What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?

On the surface for me this seems like a simple question. But it’s actually quite complicticated when you remember that accessibility means different things for different people, and as such there is no one way that you could change the world to make it universally accessible to all.

Instead, I think the bigger change would come from a recognition that being different, particularly being disabled is not bad. That disability is something likely to happen to everyone at some point in their life. If you’re lucky it’s old age that disables you and nothing else.

We separate the aging of life from disability and that only furthers our lack of inclusion of disabled people.

If you spend time reading my rambles I don’t want you to feel sorry for me or be glad that you aren’t me or even to learn from me. I simply want you to recognise that I exist. And that a more accessible world in any and every way possible for it to be accessible benefits everyone.

If I’ll ever be ‘norml’

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What are you curious about?

It’s not that I want to be normal, or don’t want to be seen as disabled. But I do want to be treated as if I’m normal.

I’m trying to fight to be seen that way. To educate the world so I and others can be seen that way. But ultimately whether I will is not up to me.

Inclusion is just another thing that those in power have to be on bored with it for it to work.

This question is as simple as it is complicated.

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What would you change about modern society?

I would obviously make society accessible and inclusive to everyone. But in practice this is a lot more complex than it may seem.

Firstly I would have to determine which type of accessibility and inclusion I was talking about, as this would change practically what I would do to achieve that. For example if I was talking about physically including everyone in society, most of the changes I make would have to be physically to the area.

But social inclusion, while more worthwhile in my opinion, is a much bigger battle.

While nothing should be inaccessible to anyone, friends, people inaccessible causes a lot of harm over a life time. Social inclusion is vital for everyone in society.

For those for whom my words are not enough, let me try it this way. A more socially inclusive society is better for everyone. You don’t know how long it will be until you’re the one who’s excluded, so an inclusive society is better for everyone in that society.

This is a complicated and interesting question.

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Are you seeking security or adventure?

I’ve always said my body and my brain don’t agree with each other. I think my brain wants adventure and my body wants security. I want to be able to live an exciting life. But it’s so complicated, when my body needs security. When I physically need security, to try to live a life of adventure.

It’s so difficult when I don’t even have security, and sometimes it’s like I have nothing. Security doesn’t exist and adventure is to dangerous. But I’m trying and I suppose that’s all I can do.

Nothing reminds you how much you missed out on than photos

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I have written on here previously about my worries regarding a school reunion. Someone in the group for that recently shared a lot of photos from times outside of school. I was not in any of these photos.

I convinced myself that I had chosen not to be part of the social aspects of school, at the time, and that was why I wasn’t part of it all.

While I knew abstractly that this wasn’t true, and that I wasn’t involved in these situations because of social exclusion. Seeing pictures of groups of people meeting up in situations I wasn’t even aware of, made this more obvious to me. I didn’t even know the things I was being excluded from were happening.