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.
The problem with relying on people and technology is things can simple go wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Yesterday my wheelchair died when I was miles away from home. It died because it hadn’t been plugged in the night before. Even though I am not the person that plugs it in at night, this is of course my fault because I should have checked they had done it. It’s just one of those things that usually gets done correctly and so I forget that I should check on it. To be fair they had plugged it in just not switched it on at the wall.
Either way it didn’t charge and I was stuck. Which I am actually somewhat relieved about because yesterday I wasn’t sure if my chair was broken and that’s why I was stuck. It having no battery is an easy problem to deal with.
The only way for me to get home then was paying £145 in a taxi. As when my chair has no power everything that was previously accessible to me, like trains, my planned way to get home, becomes inaccessible. And because I can’t just get into any vehicle, no one could come and pick me up, so a taxi was the only option.
Now taxis have to be up there with the least accessible mode of transport for me, alongside other cars. While it is possible to find accessible taxis, like I did yesterday. This can be very difficult to do.
Many taxis say they’re wheelchair accessible but will only take people who can get out of there wheelchair and fold it into the boot. I cannot do this. So for me this is not a wheelchair accessible taxis. I have even had taxis come and then refuse me, despite specifying before hand that I wouldn’t be able to do this. But you know how people love to blame you when they don’t listen.
Accessibly means different things to different people and companies.
Emergencies happen, things go wrong and get forgotten. But when they go wrong with my chair it’s honestly terrifying.
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.
So my family tend to go to a cafe every Monday. My dad picks everyone up, and drives them there. Apart from me and my sister who get the bus.
Now she gets the bus because I get the bus, on the times I haven’t gone, my dad has picked her up.
But the reason I get the bus is because my dad’s car is not accessible to me. This is a choice my dad has made. When I was a child he had accessible vehicles for me, but as soon as I was able to use public transport for myself he got rid of them because he didn’t want them. And I didn’t need him to get around as I good do it myself now. This was his understanding of the situation, not mine.
The annoying thing is it isn’t wasn’t even that stupid, and I think that’s what makes it stupid. All I was trying to do was trying to ring the bell to stop the bus, and the way I had to move my arm to do this ended up twisting my shoulder.
While I am able to get on to buses and this is a step forward in accessibility, there’s still ways that things can improve. It’s not unreasonable to want to be able to use public transport, especially without being injured.
Accessibility should not cause pain.
Speaking personally I am reliant on public transport due to my disability. Therefore it being accessible to me is more important.
So today I finalised some plans for upcoming short trip with family. And when I say short trips I mean short the longest one is overnight.
Now going to the majority of places leads to some element for an inaccessibility for me, I actually think that’s being generous. I don’t have the time energy or willpower to write down every instance of an accessibility I face. Honestly I think I would get bored. But the point being whenever I go anywhere I have to make the decision as to whether I’m willing to accept the inaccessibility that that will inevitably involve. There is ultimately something I have to sacrifice, if I didn’t I would never get to do anything. I’ve decided that it is worth it for these trips.
Most of the sacrifices I make surround my incontinence and personal care, for one particular trip it is no different. For the overnight trip I have to go without care for 24 hours, experience unknown inclines and access to properties, sleep in my wheelchair, and tackle the public transport in an area unknown to me.
The final part of this might not sound like much of a difficult thing to do. However growing up and an inaccessible world I know that it is possible that I may not be able to use the public transport that is supposed to form part of the journey I will be taking. In this instance this is actually the backup plan to getting a taxi, which I’m even more concerned about being accessible to me.
Now as I’ve said these are all things I’m willing to do, and to be honest there are things I try not to think about too much. I tried to focus on the fun I will be having, particularly this time, as both of these are for family parties. It is difficult though, and in many ways I am not looking forward to these events as much as I am looking forward to them.
Just remember you can never be sure of how much effort someone has made to attend something. What inaccessibility they might have faced? What they might be giving up? I’m not writing this to spread guilt. They have made the decision fully knowing what it would cost them and they still wanted to come. Consider it a privilege that everyone who can attend has. And don’t blame those that can’t, for not.
So tonight I went to an acoustic concert, very nice and a different experience. But this post isn’t about the concert, it’s about getting to the concert.
As this was at a venue that they had not been to before, I had to follow maps in order to get there, as you do. But once I found out where it was, I realised that there was an easier way to get there. I understand that this is the case a lot of the time when you simply follow google maps. But when you’re disabled this can be a lot more complicated.
The route that google sent me had me going on the road, and on an even pavements that I nearly tipped on. The route that I figured out on the way home had pavements that were a lot smoother and a lot wider.
I’m not exactly sure how this would be done, but I feel like Google Maps needs a feature that highlights the accessibility of areas better. it has gotten better by giving accessible routes at least in my area over public transport. But this does not seem to apply to roots that you would walk.
The takeaway from this post is, is of course to leave for the venue if you have not been before, well before the time you need to be there in order to make sure you’re not late. in keeping with a past trend on social media, you may want to call this disability math. Or at the very least disability time management.
It was a very long day today which being disabled made more difficult. Or to rephrase how I’m supposed to say things like this in society, societies inaccessible made things harder for me today.
Though I went on both trams and trains, the most complicated part of the travel was in a taxi. Taxis don’t are so inacessible.
I don’t really have the energy to explain more than this. I apologise.
My Inaccessible Life 