Graduation, but then what?

14th Jun 202214th Jun 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

In my head, I think that I’m pretty good at hiding my emotions…but then every time I’m even slightly upset or angry, it usually takes my friends, family, or colleagues about 0.5 seconds to notice. So clearly, I’m slightly deluded. However, whilst it may be true that my overall mood is very easy for others to discern, I am that person who takes on a lot of things and eventually snaps when all of those things have piled up in my head. Then it’s in the moments when I’m close to snapping that my mood goes down, I’m tired, and I’m likely to burst into an ugly cry if anyone hits me with the ‘are you okay?’.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to confess to the internet that I’m in the middle of having an existential crisis…Though I will say that I’ve had a pretty intense last few months which have gifted me both good and bad stress, resulting in a few days when my mood hasn’t been as chirpy as it is normally. And one of these stresses has been something that I know many of my peers are overthinking right now: what the hell are we going to do after graduation?

For me, my graduation from university mostly brings a sense of relief. The last 3 years have been a lot of fun in parts but I’d be lying if I said that I don’t feel ready to leave; I’m tired of being confronted by the same annoying problems brought to me by Durham University, and I ache to leave the education system behind for a second. I mean, I’ve been in it for 17 years! That’s a long time. Granted, I had a year out before university but I did work in 2 schools for 6 months of that…then I taught in 3 of the 4 countries I visited…So no matter how much I know I’ll continue to study something for the rest of my life, I think I’d like to give formal education a rest for now.

It’s scary though. I can see it in my friends’ faces when we actually sit for a minute and talk about what we each want to do after uni: everyone masks the apprehension at being thrust into the adult world with talking about ‘panic masters’, internships, job placements, and the classically vague ‘maybe I’ll go travelling’ statements. The fact is that many of us have absolutely no clue what’s next or where we’ll end up, and it’s stressing a lot of young people out that they’re expected to have their whole life mapped out when just a couple of weeks ago we were sitting our exams.

I’m a lucky one in that I do know what I want to do, and I have made moves towards that, but even I feel like I haven’t had a second to breathe before I have to sort the rest of my life out. Also, there’s a stigma against the graduates who choose a different route from the traditional ones. For example, I know I’m moving to a new city and I know what I want to do there, but a career as a radio presenter doesn’t exactly have a cushty grad scheme for me to apply for, so whenever I tell people my plans, they inevitably sound half-baked, and that makes me self-conscious. Even though, we don’t all have to work in an office straight after university if we don’t want to…

Sometimes everything feels like it moves so quickly that there’s no way you can keep up, then other days it’s easy – occasionally, even a bit boring. I’m definitely not qualified to be giving advice on what to do in these situations given that I’m part of those going through the experience, but what I have said to my friends when we’ve been in the car or in a living room, stressing about the future, is that the best approach to have is to do whatever makes you happiest. That might be another year of university, working abroad and travelling, moving to a new city to start a new job, or having absolutely no clue and needing a couple of months of nothing to figure yourself out. Obviously, money is a factor in this and it’s not always easy to do exactly what you’d ideally want to do, still, try not to put so much pressure on yourself to have everything mapped out right now; take a minute to breathe.

Truly, there is no rush.

A Big Weekend for Accessibility

7th Jun 20227th Jun 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Just over a week ago, I went to BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Coventry with my friend. I’d won the tickets because a few weeks before the festival, I’d been to the Student Radio Association’s conference where during a talk on how to put on a live event, I’d asked the speakers how they were trying to make festivals like Big Weekend more accessible to disabled people. Originally, I wasn’t going to ask the question at all because frankly, no matter how much I share with the internet, I do still feel incredibly lame every time I bring up disability in front of a crowd. So, sitting there, in a room full of strangers – many of whom, I was trying to impress – my instinct was to avoid the topic for fear of tokenising myself. But then again, as my Mum and Dad say: if I’m going to do this disability representation thing, then there will be times when I have to fight my ego, and just ask the question.

I’d never been to a music festival before. That wasn’t because I’d never wanted to, it was just not something that I thought I’d be able to do, given that the two main taglines for my Spina Bifida are that I can’t stand for long, or walk far. So, I just learnt to compartmentalise the jealousy I felt when I saw friends posting photographs of each other covered in glitter in the middle of a crowd, dancing to the tunes of some of my favourite artists, in the same way that I’ve accepted I’m never going to go ice skating. But, as many disabled people are likely to tell you, I’m excluded from experiences such as these not by my ‘condition’, but by society not really bothering to try and get me involved. However, there are plenty of people who want to change that and it’s not always useful to base the conversation around accessibility on all the things the able-bodied world does wrong.

Obviously, I completely loved Big Weekend: I danced for hours until my legs ached, I pushed my way to the front to see an artist I’m not even that fussed about, I ate greasy food from a burger van, and I got a bit emotional at the beauty of sharing all those experiences with strangers in a field. But, I’m disabled, so it was unsurprising that I also had some not very nice moments during the weekend.

The festival had lots of things put in place to try and make it accessible, and when it came to the company and the people working within it, I have my hand on my heart when I say that I felt like they were sincere in wanting to make everyone feel welcome. However, individual people work these events, and it was the individual’s understanding of disability which created issues for me. For example, on the first day of the weekend, I wore trousers which covered my callipers – something I know makes people totally unaware of my disability. On that day, because I don’t look ‘disabled’, each time I asked to cut through barriers so that I wouldn’t have to walk all the way round or if I could please be directed to the accessibility exit closest to me, I was consistently doubted and questioned – even after saying it was because I’m disabled. Whereas the second day when I wore a dress so my callipers were on full display, I didn’t even need to finish my sentence before barriers were lifted, no questions asked.

This kind of experience wasn’t unique to BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend, though. I get this everywhere I go, whether that be in an airport asking for disability assistance from one terminal to the next, or simply driving into a disabled space outside the shop. I’ve had people tut at me, roll their eyes, knock on my car window to ask me what I think I’m doing; people have told me ‘no’, accused me of ‘stopping people who need this help from getting it’, and I’ve even had my name removed from accessibility lists because someone took one look at me and assumed that it must’ve been a mistake.

So yes, I love love loved BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend and it did make me feel for the first time like I’m also invited to music festivals, and I do trust that the BBC has every intention of improving the accessibility of its events and internal structures. But when I speak about accessibility and disability inclusion, I’m going for more of a paradigm shift: I want everyone to change the way they understand and perceive disability. It’s a hefty task, it’ll take a hot minute, and it’s as much the responsibility of the individual as it is of the institutions, but I’m an optimist, so I think it’s possible.

This is about individuals engaging with their preconceptions of disability and how they react to situations – both passively and actively. How do you see me? How should I look? Why do you think I’m lying? These are the questions we need to ask each other because organisations can put provisions in place, but those provisions are useless if the people with the power to let me access them are going to make me beg.

So,you think you’re a sl**

24th May 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

At this age, lots of us like to sit with our friends and rip into each other for all the times someone has been a liiiittle questionable when it comes to their romantic relationships – whether those relationships be purely sexual, on the road to something stronger, or somewhere in between. Maybe you’re the prolific dater, maybe you’re the type to get with someone then change your mind the second they start to like you, maybe you really enjoy flirting with people but you’re too picky (*cough* scared *cough*) to commit to something serious. Or, maybe you’re like me and you’re a combination of a few… 🙂 ! Well, whatever you are, as long as you’re not being awful to people, then I don’t see much harm in it. And, the chaos does make for a good drinking game.

I’ve posted enough blogs by now for you to know that I’ve never been in a relationship, and that the lads I attract tend to be a whole lot of talk and very little walk…HoWeVeR, I have been the third wheel for enough relationships (and been involved in enough situationships) by now to be able to say something about how we’re treating each other. And the main thing that I’ve noticed is that people are so terrified of being on their own, that they stay or get themselves into situations simply because it’s comfortable, and/or because out here in the single world most people are screwing each over left right and centre. I mean, the sheer lack of respect I’ve heard (and seen) demonstrated by some single people when they’re talking to or getting with someone on a night out is ridiculous. And there’s just no need for it!

I’m not saying that we can all come out of every experience looking like the good guy, because no matter how hard each of us might try, there’s always going to be a few moments when we’ve messed up and we just have to swallow that. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t at least try to not be a d*ck, though. Yes, this age is probably the best and most convenient age to get with as many different types of people, in as many different situations as your heart desires because it’s a time when we’re free to put effort into figuring out who we are and what we want, but be aware of what you’re doing as you do it pls.

I’m a big believer in the power of surrounding yourself with sex-positive people who don’t feel the need to apologise for their sexualities because as much as I’m also very sex-positive, there are times when I can fall victim to the voice in my head that likes to give me a cheeky slut shame when I’m hungover. And it’s never about how many people you get with because I know lasses who feel rubbish about the 1 or 2 people they’ve slept with or texted again when they shouldn’t have. It’s about the fact that lots of us aren’t allowing ourselves and others to just have a little bit of fun.

Personally, I’ve not been hurt by a lad in quite a long time now but that’s just because I got bored of being disappointed and making all the moves, so I’m leaving it up to the lads to have the balls from now on. But me having that perspective right now, doesn’t make it inevitable that I’m going to start being rude to a lad who I kiss in a bar by ignoring his texts or playing with his emotions. It also doesn’t mean that I wake up the next day and tell myself off for kissing someone I don’t intend to date. And finally, it most certainly does NOT give me an excuse to judge and shame my friends for having a different approach to romance than me.

So if you’re going to take anything from this week’s ramblings, let it be the acknowledgement that even though it’d be impossible to never be the bad guy in relationships, that isn’t an invitation to always forget about respect. Ask out who you want to ask out, kiss them if you’re both into it, try and be nice about it if you’re not, and go on, have a bit of a FLIRT!

Something’s wrong with my face today

3rd May 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Do you ever have those days where for some reason none of your clothes seem to fit you the way they did the last time you tried them on? You’re getting ready for the day, or for a night out, and your face just doesn’t face the way it should, you’re clothes don’t look right, your hair won’t do what it’s told, and the time is starting to run away; you’re going to be late to whatever you’re supposed to get to, so you start to get a bit hysterical and self-critical until you just wish you could crawl back into bed, hit a reset button, and try again tomorrow when everything hopefully does what it’s supposed to.

Just me?..

I’ve written before about how people shouldn’t let their insecurities control them, and I wondered whether I should write about this topic again when I could just reshare an entry I’d written a couple of years ago. Except, my body, and a whole lot of other stuff, has changed since then and I don’t really see this as a problem that can be fixed by a few hundred words.

So I’m going to give you a few hundred more! Yay!

We each know the power which comes with feeling confident, but like many other feelings, confidence is unfortunately very brittle. Just the other day, I’d woken up feeling pretty good about myself but it only took a few silly things happening throughout the day to leave me with a mind full of self-criticism by the time I was getting into bed for the night. And the frustrating thing is, that the moments which chipped away at my confidence were so minor it was stupid: I saw my reflection in a full-length mirror and I didn’t like the way my legs in my callipers looked, then a friend took a photograph of me and another friend and I thought my arms looked fat, and finally, the hot weather made me tired and subsequently self-conscious about how obvious my Spina Bifida was whilst walking through town.

Not one of these things is important, nor are they anything anyone else would take any notice of, let alone care about. But that’s what insecurity is: getting stuck inside your head about silly things which in the grand scheme of things, do not matter. Only, they matter to you and sometimes they matter so much that you torture yourself over thinking about them.

I’m lucky enough to be able to keep my insecurities at bay most of the time. But the times when I can’t – which do tend to be either when I’m drunk drunk, or experiencing the boozer’s blues the day after drinking – in those moments, I can’t do much except let myself just sit in it. I eat loads of snacks, or I cry to my friend, or I watch a film, or I stare at the wall whilst listening to my sad playlist. And I know that if a psychologist were to read those coping mechanisms, they’d probably say that they’re all really unhealthy – disclaimer: I’m definitely not about to make a case for you to do exactly what I do. However, I do think that my generation tries to psycho-analyse themselves far too much and that we need to just feel whatever it is we’re feeling for a second, without self-diagnosing. Obviously, there are limits and lines where a person needs help but it’s also okay to feel naff for an afternoon. In fact, surely it’d be worrying if we didn’t feel like rubbish once in a while?

I’m not going to patronise you now by listing all the reasons why we should be kinder to ourselves because I’m not a motivational speaker (shocking, I know), but also because we all know this already and knowing that I shouldn’t criticise myself, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that I won’t from time to time. It’s about being able to strike that balance where you allow yourself to feel what you need to, whilst also making moves to pick yourself up out of any ruts you encounter – it’s not always easy, and I’m not a pro, but we do our best.

So if you do wake up and your face isn’t facing, or your body isn’t bodying, and although you know it’s just in your head you’re still feeling meh, then that’s alright! As our lord and saviour Hannah Montana once said: everybody has those days.

So if it’s not your fault, then whose fault is it?

26th Apr 202226th Apr 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I had six operations as a child but I only really remember the last few, and even then the images are hazy. I remember the fever I had when my foot got infected so you could see the bone from the outside, but what I remember more is when my oldest brother (a teenager at the time) was late to meet his friends because he climbed into my tiny bed with me to watch The Road to El Dorado, as I shivered from the fever and waited to go to the hospital for another operation. I remember crying every time my parents told me I’d have to go to school in a wheelchair, but then I also remember all the laughs once I got there and my friends would run through the halls pushing me as they went. And I remember that even though I felt myself shrivel every time I had to climb into that wheelchair seat, I didn’t mind it so much when we went down a sloped pavement because my Dad would always make me laugh by letting the handles go and running alongside me.

Whenever I’d have to go to the hospital for operations (which, was not as often as it is for some children), I’d get excited because I’d be skipping school. I remember those workbooks with the ridiculously easy exercises, and I remember finishing the whole thing in about twenty minutes and then spending the rest of my time drawing or watching cartoons. I also remember fighting the anaesthetic before the operations even when I knew I wouldn’t win. Naturally, I never liked being in the hospital gowns or waking up with stitches in my feet, but I don’t have any trauma from it either. In a weird way, it was kind of an adventure.

I’ve consistently thought against sharing the more vulnerable experiences of my disability because they play too neatly into the stereotype of the weak and passive disabled life; the image of me being in a hospital bed with a cannula in my hand rather than in a Year 2 art lesson strokes society’s ego too much. Nonetheless, I’m telling you a handful of these memories now because I want you to see that even in the moments when I fit into the DIY SOS trope, I didn’t feel like this image of the poor disabled little girl. I just felt like a little girl – one who was cracking jokes all the way through because I mostly didn’t care about my Spina Bifida. (Which defo contributed to a few blisters along the way, but oh well 😀 ).

The point is that I only ever truly feel disabled when society disables me – and it’s important that able-bodied people understand that because if they don’t, then it’s easy to think that disability has nothing to do with them.

In the last few months, I’ve felt really excited about my future because I’ve been working really hard to get myself started in the radio world. But in the midst of all that, I’ve had consistent problems with my feet where they blister, then they heal, then they blister, then they heal, then they blister. The reason that this has been happening isn’t because I’ve done something I shouldn’t have, instead, it’s because the factory which makes my shoes spontaneously decided to change the lining of my insoles last year. The new lining was tougher than the old one, it caused my skin to harden quicker than normal, creating a blister which then never really healed. You’d think that this would be easily remedied by asking for the insoles to just go back to what they had been for years, but I did that, and still every new pair I’ve received has been wrong in a different way – even though my insoles require about three modifications. So at this point, I’m convinced that whoever’s making them is completely ignoring the prescription.

I understand that the pandemic and Brexit, and a general under-funding of the NHS have made it so that resources are stretched and waiting times are enormous, but these things don’t change the fact that I need the insoles and shoes to walk. I am patient, and I don’t kick up a fuss until the very last minute because society tells me that I should be grateful for whatever I receive, but what I’ve been receiving for the last six months has been making my condition worse. What I’ve been receiving is forcing me to need more from the NHS; requiring them to spend more money on production and distribution than they would normally have to, just because somebody isn’t reading my prescription correctly. I have wasted materials in my house that I can’t use but I could’ve if someone had followed the design. Who knows! I might even have somebody else’s design and now they’re suffering too because we have each others’. But I bite my lip, strap my foot up, and I don’t start any arguments down the phone about this stuff because apparently, it’s nobody’s fault. The worst part isn’t the anger though, the worst part is being at the mercy of other people and them not seeming to take that seriously – like when I asked the receptionist if there’s any way my shoes could please be posted to me without being lost in the post. She laughed and nonchalantly said yes but if they’re lost then they’re lost. She laughed and I cried.

I think it’s easier for people to sympathise with, or pity, you when you’re a young girl in a hospital gown because most people identify a level of tragedy there. It doesn’t matter that I was a happy child, who didn’t feel disabled – operations or not – what matters, is that I looked vulnerable in that wheelchair. But half of the times I was in that chair were caused by the system’s incompetency to supply me with the basic materials I need. So yes, I smiled through the not-so-fun disability moments and I had a beautifully happy childhood, but there were times that I didn’t need to be in that chair.

So as uncomfortable as it might be for people to understand, it is a fact that this society disables me far more than my Spina Bifida ever could, and I don’t want pity for that, I just want my shoes.

Is it really that embarrassing to be alone?

19th Apr 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 2 Comments

Now, I am a lot of things: some of them good, some of them not so good, but one of the not so good things about myself which I have been trying to change is that I don’t do so well with being alone.

I’d thought that travelling to various countries on my own in the months before I started university had been a decent way to combat this in preparation for moving out. What I hadn’t considered though, is that yes, I went through the airports and across the countries solo, but once I’d arrived wherever I was going it only really took me a couple of minutes before I’d found people to pass the time with. So, I was never alone for that long. This meant that when I found myself sitting in a room on my own at university for hours at a time, week after week, trying to find my feet in my degree, and surrounded by people I’d known for two minutes, I struggled. But those achingly lonely moments at university aren’t the ones any of us are supposed to talk openly about because these are supposed to be ‘the best years of your life’ where you come out of your shell; you’re not supposed to retreat back in.

In our first year, every single one of my friends experienced moments where they felt overwhelmed by it all, but I know that the thing missing the most for me was the safety you get when you’re around people who completely understand you. Like all of us, it takes me a second to totally relax and ‘be myself’ with people; in fact, I think that going to university has made me take longer to do that than I ever did before. Yet even after forming some of the closest friendships I’ve ever had, I still struggle with the fact that nobody truly understands me because they don’t understand my physical disability. My friends from school kind of got it since they saw me in a wheelchair for months at a time when my foot acted up, but even then they didn’t really engage with it because we were kids and me potentially having to be in a wheelchair for a bit was just something that happened. Then even though my closest friends at university do try to support me with my feet, they could only really do that after my foot had gotten bad and again, even then it’s just not really something anyone else can help me with unless they’re with me all the time. So, I had to accept that I have to do it on my own, and for the first couple of years since that realisation, it felt really lonely.

But being alone doesn’t need to have as many negative connotations as we like to give it. (I think) I’ve now fully accepted that all the disability stuff is pretty much a solo mission, and there will be times when I cry about that because it gets really difficult, but that’s just how it is. We each have to accept that there are always going to be certain things we can’t get from people. For example, you’re always going to have that friend who’s a right laugh in person, but you definitely couldn’t rely on them in an emergency; that doesn’t mean that the friendship isn’t worthwhile, or that the person doesn’t care for you, it just means that we shouldn’t expect every individual to be able to give us everything we need because if we do that, we’ll only be disappointed. Besides, that’s a lot of pressure to put on every relationship we have with someone. In practice though, it is difficult to accept this and I should know, because I’ve relied heavily on people and ended up disappointed by them more times than I could count, and I’d be lying if I said that I’ve completely stopped doing this. Nonetheless, I am trying to become more self-reliant because it’s just not healthy to allow the actions of others to dictate your happiness.

Stopping myself from doing this is an active effort, given that everywhere we look in popular culture we’re hounded by the impossible image of a perfect life where we’ve got a perfect relationship and perfect friends who never falter and are there for every second and every ounce of what we need. I don’t want to suggest that my friends and family aren’t brilliant because they are. Instead, the point I want to make is that we each have to learn how to be good on our own because no matter how amazing your friend, partner, or family member is, they could never be everything you need, or understand you completely.

Since I’ve started to be comfortable in doing things on my own like going to the cinema or to a gig because I want to and can’t be bothered to convince another person to come even though it’s not something they’re super into, it’s clear that there’s an unnecessary stigma around doing things in public on your own. For some reason, we’re telling people that they have to be with someone else, otherwise they look like a loser who nobody likes – and that kind of social rejection seems to be a fate worse than death for many of us. But seriously, when was the last time you saw someone walking around on their own and you thought ‘wow, what a weirdo, imagine being alone and not in the house, they must be a psycho’ ? Who even cares that much?

And if you do judge people like that then get a new hobby because that one’s lame.

Thus, the moral of today’s blog is that I think you should do whatever the hell you want to do and not rely on other people for your happiness. After all, when you lie down at night, it’s just you in that head of yours, so you’ve got to make sure that you feel comfortable being there.

My dissertation was about sex! :o

5th Apr 20225th Apr 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 2 Comments

Considering that quite a few of you took part in the research, it won’t come as a surprise that I wrote my dissertation on whether physically disabled women are perceived as sexy by the societies they live in. (Big big thank you to everyone who took part btw). I don’t really fancy plagiarising myself here though, so I won’t go into the minute detail of the dissertation, but since so many of you contributed and were interested in the topic, it’d be rude of me to not give you the low-down of why I chose it, and what I discovered. So buckle up kids.

If I’m honest, my diss was partly another effort to understand why my love life insists on being so dire. In my first year of university, I wrote a blog about how a friend had asked me whether I thought my disability had ever hindered lads from asking me out or taking things further with me, and what I said then remains true for me now: yes, it has, but I’d be shocked to see anyone admit it. From all my research, and from what I’ve literally seen, able-bodied people are tentative to date or be intimate with physically disabled people (whether maliciously or not), and for the ones with the disabilities, this has at best resulted in being ignored or passively rejected, and at worst just straight-up abused.

The work that I’ve done so far is minuscule when compared to how much work needs to be done. I looked at ‘physically disabled women’ in particular but even that phrase is kind of hollow because it doesn’t even begin to describe the vastly diverse group of people it’s trying to categorise. Furthermore, I didn’t have the words or time to study the impact of race, gender, economic background, type of disability, and all the other aspects which would inevitably influence the experience of sexuality for individuals. I also didn’t have the opportunity to talk to disabled people directly; I used a tonne of literature, but nothing can come close to hearing the words from the ones who feel it. So, whilst my work was informed and (I hope) useful, to call it the tip of the iceberg would be a huge understatement, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I continue to write about this for the rest of my life.

Nonetheless, the overarching theme of this dissertation was one of acceptance and optimism from most of the people who answered my questions. What I will say though, is that often your optimism was naive; it was comforting, but it didn’t really line up with the reality of the world. People gave the correct response by saying that it shouldn’t matter if you have a disability, and it shouldn’t matter how that impacts sexuality because anyone can find love, sex isn’t a fixed thing, and disability shouldn’t ever threaten a person’s ability to experience pleasure within relationships. Only, saying that something shouldn’t happen, doesn’t make it not happen.

For months, I’ve been exposed to the disabled experience on a level that I’d never seen before: for the first time, I was reading and listening to things that felt totally relatable rather than 85% there. The fact is that like all of the ‘isms’, ableism is so ingrained within our society that just because I have a disability, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have prejudices against the disabled community. There’s plenty to unpack there, but I think I’ll leave that for another blog (or two, or three…). But to generalise, the truth is that we’re so concerned with looks and frightened by what we don’t personally understand, that the disabled body has been persistently and systematically defined as undesirable and in need of a cure. To put it even more plainly: I’m disabled, so that means that my body is wrong, so it can’t be pretty and it definitely can’t be sexy, and if someone does find it pretty, then that’s not because of the disability, it’s despite it.

Obviously, there are grey areas here, and each individual can (and is) judged to be beautiful, desirable, and every other positive adjective by individual people. But finding one disabled person gorgeous doesn’t a perfect society make. There need to be some HEFTY changes when it comes to what ‘society’ and individuals understand disability to mean because for pretty much all of history, it’s equalled a mistake that we should ignore and just wait until it dies (or kill it before it lives).

So…how did it feel to write this, when I was sort of writing about myself? Well, it wasn’t great to hear that disabled women are far more likely to experience abuse (psychological and/or physical) within romantic or sexual relationships than able-bodied women. Nor did it feel amazing to read countless experiences of disabled people like being asked to leave restaurants because their appearance might put people off their food, or being persistently pushed to the side and dismissed as irrelevant and pointless. It also almost brought me to tears in the library to read women say that it’d been easier for them to tell people who’d assumed that they couldn’t have children because of their disability that they were right when they weren’t actually right because they could have kids, but the support for disabled women just isn’t there since everyone assumes that they can’t have kids anyway and if they can, then they shouldn’t in case they pass their disability on. But again, that’s not even scratching the surface.

Disabled people aren’t the weak, infirm victims history and modern culture paints us out to be and there are so many examples of fulfilled, happy lives with a disability. However, I share the sentiment that I read basically all of the disabled community expressing, in that the worst of the ‘struggles’ I’ve already had and the ones I’ll continue to have aren’t because of my Spina Bifida, they’re because this world is doing its absolute best to ignore me until I croak.

The thing is though, I’m a loudmouth who’s got a loooot of years left and I plan on making people talk about this because, regardless of whether you’re disabled or not, it has everything to do with you. I hope that in some small way, my blog or whatever else I do in the future can contribute to disabled people actually being listened to and valued because we deserve your attention.

If I can manage that, then that’s a win really innit?

P.S.

Can we all pls manifest that I get a good grade on my diss lol IMAGINE

Peace to Ukraine

1st Mar 20221st Mar 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Every day, devastating things happen across the globe; some make the news for a few days, whilst others go completely unspoken of because public news stories only ever last as long as people’s attention spans – which, if you need clarification, isn’t very long. But at the minute, if you’re in Europe, then pretty much the only thing being shown by news channels is the Ukrainian-Russian War, and because I know that there’s no way of telling how long Ukraine will keep the attention of the continent, it only felt right that I say something on a platform where I know that some people will listen.

Right now, I’m being reminded of the extent of my privilege as a white, English, young woman because I’ve never known what it is to have friends or family in a country suffering persecution and war. But this time is different. I worked in Ukraine for 2 months in 2019, and for 3 weeks in the summer just gone, so whilst I may only know this country on a very small scale, it’s frightening to be texting friends who’re hearing bombs and hiding in metro stations when just 6 months ago we were sitting and laughing together, as they taught me Ukrainian and teased me about my accent.

The concept of invasion by a foreign power is not something many Brits have any understanding of, given that for centuries this nation was the threat and not the other way around; conveniently protected by oceans. This has largely meant that we can’t fathom what it would be like to live in a country where you’re never safe from invasion. We don’t really have the cultural capacity to imagine what it’s like to be told that you’re not what you thought you were, that the language you speak is no longer allowed, or that your home is now not the safest place to be. Hence, I can’t truly be an empath for my Ukrainian friends right now – no matter how much I might want to – but what I can do is draw as much attention to their voices as possible.

This isn’t a time to be passively ‘upset’ about what you’re seeing on the news, because as much as feeling sad or frightened is totally valid right now, my friends need more than that: they need something tangible.

So, listen to what the Ukrainian people are asking for and donate to their armed forces, go to a protest where you live, and keep talking about how blatantly wrong it is that these imperialist actions are still able to happen in the 21^st century. Even if I couldn’t put faces and personalities to this crisis, what’s happening in Ukraine right now is an unforgivable violation of human rights, which should never have been allowed to go as far as it already has. This historical event isn’t unprecedented, and it isn’t something unique to Ukraine. But surely, this happening so close to home should emphasise how people need to actually learn from history, rather than ignore it and then hopelessly repeat it until we all kill each other.

My words don’t feel sufficient right now, but they’re the best I can give to help my friends. Thus, I hope for them, that the rest of the world pulls through and that this insanity can end soon so that they’re not robbed of anything else.

All my love to you, and peace to Ukraine.

Be my Valentine

14th Feb 202214th Feb 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’ve thought long and hard about how I want to address that. Earlier in the week, I’d toyed with not mentioning it at all and just posting something else I’d written; I thought about how I don’t want the only two themes of my posts to be relationships or my disability, even though I know that those are the topics my readers gravitate towards. But Valentine’s Day is a big deal for lots of people (whether they want it to be or not), since everyone is so aggressively brainwashed to believe that we each need a romantic relationship to experience true happiness or success and that this is the time when we get to show off that happiness and success. Or, we get to not, and then have it implied that we should be sad about that.

I remember when I was about 18, talking to my mum about boyzz, and saying that I thought the reason I’d had disappointing experiences was because I trust people too easily. She scoffed at that, asked what I meant, and said ‘you don’t trust anyone’. That makes her sound really brutal – she’s not brutal, but she is honest, and she made me realise that I like to tell myself that just because I’m extroverted and kind, that that equates to me being super trusting of others. Except, what she said to me when I was 18 remains true as I type this as a 22-year-old: romantically, I don’t trust lads as far as I could throw them.

This lack of trust isn’t founded in some intense trauma; I might have had some bad luck in romance so far, but I’m fortunate to have never suffered that badly from it. Honestly, the worst thing that’s happened to me in that arena is that the very few lads I was really interested in have hidden me. The first boy I ever really liked actively kept me a secret, by asking me to do things like turn my Snapchat maps off if I went to his house so nobody knew I was there, he’d never post me on his story like he would when he was seeing other girls, and he’d only be out in public with me if it suited him. Then there were the other couple of crushes who preferred a kiss behind closed doors and us to never mention it again.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: all of that’s awful and I don’t seem like someone to stand for that ridiculously toxic behaviour with the things I say in these blogs. You’re right about both of those things. I tolerated all of that sh*t when I was younger because it was subtle, I was desperate to be a part of the romantic relationship world, and we don’t always practice what we preach when we’re in the situation.

If I were to describe how I’d feel about being in a relationship now though, I honestly think that my main feeling would be terror. (I laughed when I typed that though, so don’t read this as if I’m crying about it.) I guess I’m scared of being with someone because I have absolutely no idea what that’d look like in my life: I’ve seen others do it, but I don’t know who I’d be in that context. So, the prospect of that degree of new experiences and emotions is ridiculously exciting, yet I can’t help but be scared of it as well.

I think that Valentine’s Day is a funny one because it’s nauseatingly commercialised, and it’s one day of the year when people seem to be obnoxiously happy or obnoxiously bitter or ambivalent about the whole thing. We all know that in the grand scheme of things it matters very little if you get a bit of cardboard through the door saying ‘be my Valentine’ or not, but at the same time, many of us can end up feeling pretty low when the 14th February is like any other day. That’s just because we’re human, and we want to experience love.

So, even though we know Valentine’s Day is pretty pointless, be as obnoxiously happy or sad or anything in between as you want. Plus, it’s Pancake Day soon!

Wait, but I thought that I was supposed to hide this?

1st Feb 202214th Oct 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If there’s one thing that I always hate hearing from people as a young, disabled woman, it’s ‘oh you do so well’. I’ve heard it whilst sitting on buses, walking down streets, in the waiting areas of the doctors or in airports, from the mouths of my parents’ colleagues and those of my teachers, and plenty of times from strangers when they simply don’t know what else to say. And I know that the intention is often pure; people want to show some level of appreciation for the fact that my physical existence may not be as simple as their own. Only, most of the time it just comes across as a bit bloody patronising.

The flip side of this, however, is that I spend so much time coping with my disability whilst doing whatever I want to do, that I’ve been guilty of disassociating myself from the fact that I’m physically disabled and that these things I’m doing are impressive. I am also English, though – Northern at that – so I suffer from an acute inability to talk about my successes without the embarrassment setting in.

But when I really think about why I don’t acknowledge ‘how well I do’, it’s because ableist aspects of our western society make it such that I’m supposed to blend in. Therefore, if I make any reference to how it might be really bloody impressive that I’ve done things like travel to, and live in the middle of the Nepali jungle without any access to medical care for 3 weeks on my own when I was 19 even though 3 weeks before that I couldn’t even go into work because I had an infected foot, then doing that doesn’t make me blend in. It brings my disability to the forefront, and I stick out in precisely the way society has told me that I shouldn’t.

So this is the part where you, my lovely reader, (hopefully) think ‘yes, of course, that’s impressive! You shouldn’t want to hide who you are’. And just like I’ve said to every person who has had genuine kindness in their eyes when they’ve told me ‘you do so well’, I want to thank you for saying that.

But drawing attention to my physical weakness is hard.

Last summer whilst I was in Ukraine, I found myself in a situation where I knew I had to mention my disability in a very public way, in order to avoid awkward run-ins later on. As always, when arriving at a place full of strangers, I chose to wear an outfit which covered my shoes to avoid any judgements before people heard me speak, but then I remembered that summer camp counsellor is a pretty active job and when the kids arrive tomorrow, if people see me sitting down every now and then, then they might think that I’m lazy or slacking off. So, to save face, I sat next to my friend from the first year I’d worked there and I announced my disability to a group of around 35 people. I’d never done anything like that before, and it was awful; my voice shook with every word I said, and I was very close to tears. But people were lovely about it, as they often are, and my announcement actually created the space for individuals to feel comfortable and slightly obliged, to ask me specifically how my legs were doing during our intense working days – something no one except my parents had ever asked me.

However, every single time someone asks about my disability, or I have to explain how it limits me, it’s emotionally draining in a way that I can’t effectively explain. That’s not to say that people should stop asking – definitely don’t stop doing that. I just want to communicate to you that back to back disability explanations don’t come free: it’s new for me to meet people and my disability to be one of the first things we talk about, and it’s new for me to have to talk about it this much.

One of the most heartwarming things I experienced after my announcement in Ukraine was towards the end of the summer. I was walking back from running an activity for some of the kids when 2 girls asked me if I could please explain to them why I wear my shoes. For the first time ever, I turned to someone who’d asked me to spontaneously offload personal details, and I said ‘do you mind if I tell you tomorrow? Because it’s 11am and 25 people have already asked me today.’. 25 isn’t an exaggeration by the way, I’d counted. And at that moment I realised that I’d always answered people’s questions straight away because I’d never wanted anyone to get embarrassed or feel upset about asking me. I also realised that subconsciously, when people see something as physically obvious as a disability, they think that on some level they’re entitled to an explanation. This, of course, is problematic.

I did explain it to these girls though since they asked so nicely, but they had to wait a day.

So, I’m in a weird spot now because I’m seeing myself doing things I never would’ve done two years ago, like walk around my university library with my callipers on full show and mentioning how I’m physically disabled in the first few moments of speaking to people. Meanwhile, the stubborn part of me which never wants to be defined – positively or negatively – by my Spina Bifida persists, and it occasionally dismisses my physical successes as just what everybody does.

And I know that my writing style leans towards a nice, neat conclusion that pulls all of this together, but not today my friends. My relationship with my body is complicated, and that’s just it.

An Indelible Friend

Author: elizabethmdouglas