Tag: Reality

There’s something I love about takeaways food.

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

What is your favorite restaurant?

Takeaways can actually be an accessibility tool.

A lot of people see things that make doing something easy as promoting laziness, but this just isn’t the case. I don’t believe that laziness exists and if you can do something in a way that is easier for you, you absolutely should. As someone who can’t cook, takeaways are how I cook. They’re both how I get to decide my own food, and contribute to the cooking in the house.

For me takeaways are an accessibility tool, though I love takeaways, even though I can’t always afford to have them. This can be seen as part of what is called as the disability tax, that is the extra money disabled people pay to have to live in such an inaccessible society.

For me it’s either takeaways, microwave meals or very basic oven meals. As I can not cook at all, and the person I live with has limited ability to do so. While society will tell you it’s easier and cheaper to home cook a meal, it’s not always easier (or possible) so the cheaper option isn’t always an option.

It’s also worth remembering the other areas of inaccessibility I face, such as my wheelchair or reliance on carers, that mean I don’t often go out to eat at restaurants. If I’m out I will eat, but I don’t think I’ve ever gone out to eat apart from with friends and family. So I’m answering this question from the perspective of takeaways rather than restaurants specifically, if that wasn’t obvious before.

My favourite takeaway has to be Mcdonalds I think. I like to keep it simple. But I also love a good subway. Something like Indian or Chinese is saved for special occasions like birthdays.

I don’t want to be disabled.

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

Someone made a comment on how benefits are spent, because they have a job and the person they were talking to does not. You know the classic, you dont work, I do, and thats what you’re spending my money on. I am one of the reasons this person isn’t working, so I feel guilty.

They then said they would like my life, to not have to work, and to sit doing nothing all day. I made the point that they would then have to take my disability from me. And I would rather have their job than my disability, so I could do what I want with my own house.

I’m sure you know by now you might have figured that this person is someone close to me, someone who should have known better. And yet they still think disabled people are playing the system.

I don’t know how many times I need to say it to have someone believe me. But I really want to work, and I don’t want to need to rely on benefits. To suggest otherwise is a harmful assumption, and is just unfair. To judge people on benefits for how they spend their money is cruel, to say the least.

If you want to have the benefits, and the perks, you also have to take the bad stuff, the reality.

You have to take the fact that you will never be able to help people as much as they help you. You will always need them more than they need you. Your control is conditional. Being viewed as an adult is conditional. You’re only a person when they want you to be.

Being disabled or being unable to work, is not a ride to an easy life. In fact the reality is the opposite. And I hope when you have to deal with this yourself, because disability is a when not an if, that no one makes you feel the way I was made to feel.

Please excuse this one, its a little more rant like than thought out. I don’t really have the energy for thought out today.

Clothes.

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

So I don’t have a hole today, but the reality is still the same. If I’m not comfy after the carers leave there’s nothing I can do about it. 

To say I’m not comfy today, is an understatement. But I’ve been worse, and I still have a day to get on with.

Worse, I’ve had to cancel my care call tonight so the person I live with can go out. So that means I’ll be stuck, being uncomfortable for 24 hours.

Its going to be rough.

What matters to me makes my life complicated, what I don’t want, I need.

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My fur babies are the greatest thing in my life. A lot of the time they feel like the only thing that gives my life meaning. That doesn’t mean I’m perfect in the way I care for them, but I always do my best.

I have to have carers, I hate having carers, I am never going to want to have carers. They feel like the bane of my life a lot of the time. They are so necessary for my existence, yet they make me feel incredibly disabled a lot of the time.

I’m going to admit that my babies aren’t the most well trained, particularly with oldest girl, she has a lot of accidents. I can’t and don’t criticise her for it because it isn’t her fault. But I’ve had carers in the past do that.

My house is clean, but sometimes things are missed for a little bit that’s the way it is. But my carers have complained before about this, and gotten me in some trouble with social services. Lets just say that recent events have made me concerned that they might end up doing the same again.

When you have to have strangers in your house, it can feel like the state of your house is judged a lot. My house is also there work place, particularly my bedroom. I literally have no space in the world that is just mine, and I hate that.

I can’t live in a house that’s a mess, without someone complaining, and I can’t do anything about the mess,. Additionally, what some would see as a major source of that mess, are the only part of my life that I would enjoy.

If I had to choose between my babies and the carers I would choose my babies, but making this kind of choice is something I know that I would suffer physically for.

The truth of the matter is I don’t want carers, I don’t want to have to live with anyone. I want to live on my own in the middle of nowhere, in a campervan, with my babies. But that is never going to happen. I’m never going to be able to be on my own. And I hate that.

So because I have to, I accept that I need carers. And if you don’t really know me that well, you may think that I’m perfectly okay with that. I always try not to cause more problems in life, and that includes complaining about a situation like having carers, to the carers. Honestly the carers I have could show me the same curtiousy, they spend a lot of time complaining about there job in front of me, but that’s beside the point. This politeness has been ingrained in me, and that’s another story, but it doesn’t mean that I’m okay with the situation. And i think I deserve to have somewhere where I vent the true feelings of this situation.

This blog, and my Tiktoks are places that I’ve found that have given me the space to be able to do that. That have given me the space to be able to be more open and honest with my emotions. And I feel like my carers recent intentional vialation and judgement of my me throug my Tiktoks have taken that from me. I checked by the way, she went back months to find dthe tiktoks she had issue with. For the record if it wasn’t obvious, I never include names of carers or companies in anything I record, write or say publicly, but you wouldn’t know that from the reaction I’ve had recently.

Now I feel scared to be open about my feelings publicly and to people that don’t know me. I feel like I’m back to pretending I’m happy with things I’m not happy with, just to make sure other people are not upset. I’m also worried that the carers can use the current situation to spite me and cause some real problems in my life.

For the timebeing I have privated my Tiktok account, and have made steps to block all carerers that attempt to follow me. One of them actually did add me, which I’m pretty sure is not proffessional. This is part of why I’m writing this entry. To keep opening up, and not letting people win, just because they have feelings about how I feel.

So I guess I just want to say, that just because things seem easy, because people have to do things, because they look like they’ve accepted things. Doesn’t mean any of that is true. Life is hard. Having no control is hard. Being judged is hard. These things, at least in my experience don’t get any easier.

I feel like I’d do life better?

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

This one’s going to make it seem like I’m a horrible person, and maybe somewhere I am. But I need to do something with these feelings so here goes.

I doubt I’m unique in feeling this, I doubt any emotions are really unique. But perhaps I’m the only one willing to say that I feel this way.

As someone whose existence has taken many opportunities from them, watching others mess up the opportunities that they have is hard. Not least because I know that I will never have those opportunities myself.

I know what people say, that it’s easier to see how things are done from the outside, and think you can do it better. And while I don’t disagree with this, that a lot of my confidence may actually just be ignorance of the difficulties others go through. But there are certain situations that I think it’s not novae to say I’d do better in.

The irony is I think I’d only do better, because I understand the steps involved. And I only understand the steps involved now because I am on the ouside of the situation right now.

One example to try to explain what I’m talking about, would be to consider those who loose things or have important things become damaged. I think that I’d be better placed for this not to happen if I were physically able to do so, but only because I have thought about it at length. And I have only thought about it at length because I lack the physical capability to do it. I hope this makes sense.

Maybe this post is simply me dealing with my ignorance and emotions. Maybe I really wouldn’t be able to handle situations as well as I think I could. But the truth is as I will never find in myself in the situation where I will be in complete control of such a situation, I will never know if I will be any good at it or not.

Trust me when I say this example is an incredibly simple one. This can be applied to more complex and life altering situations than not loosing something.

My frustration at never getting to try certain things, and watching those that get the opportunity to do so, sometimes feels never ending.

And I know that it’s judgemental of me to think this way. I would never put this on anyone I know, because that’s just not fair. I am also very aware that people are trying there best. But I still can’t escape feeling this way.

I’m sorry to anyone I upset with the post. That was not my intention.

Why does sustainability lead to inaccessibility?

On By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment
Image Description: A screen shot of a tweet from Natalie Bennett @natalieben. Text reads: “#GoodNews Well done Killarney. If you can do it, why not everywhere?
“Killarney becomes first Irish town to ban single-use coffee cups”
PlasticWaste #Plastic Pollution”

The tweet is linked to an article from The Observer, linked to theguardian.com showing a picture of a street with colourful buildings and outdoor seating presumably from a restaurant visible. The title of the article reads “’It was a plague’: Killarney becomes first Irish town to ban single-use coffee cups”.

The use of reusable cups in places is not something new, or something which I object to at all. Reusable cups are clearly great for the environment. The problem comes with how you wash them, and the fact that washing these reusable cups is a task left to the customer.

This can often make these reusable cups and inaccessible to disabled people like myself. meaning that we run into problems when trying to clean up so they can be refilled in places. Personally this is not something I am able to do, in my experiences places will not refill cup that has been used without your cleaning it first. I even explained that I would be very happy to have the cup simply rinsed out, yet they didn’t want to do this. And while I understand there reasoning for this it resulted in a reusable cup becomes a single cup for me. So then I wonder what the point on me even carrying a reusable cup is if I can’t reuse it?

I do understand the concerns with refilling used cups that are not clean, but if someone is unable to clean their own cup, I don’t see how you can have it both ways. How you can expect them to use something that’s inaccessible to them and not help them to use it.

Let me see if I can explain for those of you reading this who may not understand why I cannot wash a reusable cup. The biggest reason for me is the spoons involved in cleaning it. It is simply energy I can’t afford to use every day. Then we are talking about having to do this multiple times a day. Including finding somewhere to wash the cup out that is also accessible, it all costs more spoons I don’t have.

This is a bigger problem at least for me personally than it may appear. I have struggled for a lot of my life with chronic dehydration, and if I was restricted to the use of only cups require more spoons I can very easily see myself further restricting my liquid intake, and becoming more dehydrated.

If places are only going to allow the use of reusable cups instead of single use cups, this makes Ann accessible to someone who can’t clean their own reusable cup.

Ideas of sustainability seem to cost accessibility, the removal of plastic straws are a perfect example of this. A small improvement in sustainability that was implemented with little or no consideration for the impact on disabled people. It didn’t change anything for non disabled people so the argument was lost.

This example is more easily made accessible. Simply, allow restaurants and coffee shops to rinse reusable cups for customers. It’s not a perfect solution but it is a solution this could work.

All I am really asking is can we please consider disabled people in movements of sustainability. We often need single use products, straws, cups, ready cut fruit, to make the world accessible to us. I’m not asking for sustainability to be forgotten, but simply for accessibility to be considered as part of sustainability to. Disabled people live in the world to.

Childless not by choice.

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

My carers asked me the other day if I could have kids. I’m used to the questions about my condition people like to know and I like to tell, but I don’t like that one. I answered it, because it’s easier just to answer it. But I hate being asked it.

Technically, medically speaking there shouldn’t be a reason I can’t have children but life is so much more complicated than that. The question is just hard and I wish people wouldn’t ask it.

Sometimes I don’t thihk my disability effects me to much.

On By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

Besides the obvious lack of ability to walk, I forget how much my disability affects my day-to-day life, because it is just my life. Then I remember that I’m sat here alone (with the animals) with food just out of reach, and would rather fall asleep than eat, despite being hungry. Then I’m reminded just how much it affects me.

Don’t worry my sister will be back in and hour or two. I’m okay. I’m probably going to go back to sleep.

This is a hard question.

On By Katy DalyIn Writing Prompts1 Comment

What’s your go-to comfort food?

Due to my physical disability, no food comes with ease. The closest I get is food made for me by others, which to be fair most of my food is. This does not negate the effort it takes me to eat the food, which a lot of people don’t consider as for them the no effort part is eating the food. There is no, no effort part, for me.

All this aside I would have to say my go-to comfort food is anything with potatoes in it or made from potatoes. I love chips, crisps, roast potatoes anything.