I ran away to the Ukrainian mountains

31st Aug 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

As many of you have seen on social media, I went back to Ukraine this summer to work as a summer camp counsellor for a month, and if any of you are prOper big-time stalkers (*cough* I mean, ‘followers’…) of my work, then you’ll know that this wasn’t my first rodeo: I did the same job at the end of my year abroad two years ago. And what’s funny about coming back from doing anything for an extended period, is that people ask you how it was: some ask you out of politeness when they’re not really that interested, and others ask you because they truly want to know. But then when it comes to it, there’s no way you can effectively concentrate a month’s worth of experiences into one conversation, so you’re left with the ‘oh yeah, it was really fun thanks’.

I wanted to go back to Ukraine for two main reasons. The first was that I wanted to go to a different country because I like seeing other places, and because this year pretty much everyone on the planet has had the urge to leave their home country ever since being literally confined to it by law. The second reason related to the first, but was distinct in that I wanted to go somewhere else because for so long I felt stuck. I’d thoroughly enjoyed my second year at university but a pandemic, online learning, and the basic fact that I don’t really enjoy my degree made it so that I had this feeling that I was waiting around for something to happen only I had no idea what that something was. So I guess if we want to psychoanalyse it, I was eager to go back to do something I’d done during my year abroad since that was the time that I’d felt the surest of who I was and what I was doing.

The pandemic threw everyone for a loop, we know this, but my feeling lost and directionless at times can’t be wholly attributed to Ms Rona: it must also be a side-effect of our school systems telling us all the way through our adolescence that we need to know every step of our lives at least five years in advance. If you don’t plan, and if you don’t know, then you’ve done something wrong, you’re failing at adulting.

For the longest time, I knew I wanted to go to university and study Japanese Studies. So, then when I got there and realised that not only did I not enjoy it, but that the teaching had beaten my confidence down so much that I started to genuinely believe that I’m a bit stupid, it came as I nasty shock. And though I’d never really thought about it before, I now acknowledge that when situations or people stress me out, make me feel embarrassed or upset, I prefer to just run away and hide so I have time to make sense of it in my head. Hence the trip to the Carpathian mountains to fuck about doing dance routines and eating grechka with some kids for a month. Grechka, by the way, is this buckwheat thing and whilst I love some Ukrainian foods, grechka isn’t for me…it’s just that consistency in between needing to chew it and not needing to chew it…kinda gross. But anyway, back to the analysis of emotions.

I’m not about to criticise the part of my personality that likes to hide sometimes, because I don’t see why we need to change every little inconvenient part of ourselves, but I will say that I need to be less hard on myself right now. Yes, once you leave school and move out, you become an adult and there are lots of responsibilities associated with that, however, that process doesn’t automatically come with knowing exactly what you’re going to be doing at every stage of your life. Therefore, we should start cutting ourselves some slack for feeling a little lost sometimes. Especially considering we just lived/are living through an iNtErNAtiONal pANdeMIC.

On that note, coming back from Ukraine to see people no longer afraid of standing near strangers, of hugging, of going to a festival, of dancing in a bar, has really helped with dampening all those intense anxieties building up in me for the past 18 months. Let’s not be silly and assume that the stresses have completely gone – I’m still a languages student with no real semblance of a year abroad – bUT (!) as everything relaxes, and musicians release new music, life feels like it’s moving again. And thank fuck for that.

You free later?

18th Jul 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve written many a blog about romantic relationships, men, flirting, sex: all those topics which easily draw a crowd. But often my writing shows, as I’ve said before, the more logical part of my personality. I conveniently omit moments when I’ve failed to follow my own advice because everyone likes to present the neatest version of themselves to the internet and honestly, I can’t see myself regurgitating every detail of my life on this blog or my social media pages any time soon. This isn’t because I’m trying to mislead anyone, it’s because I’ve no obligation to and it’s nice (healthy, even) to keep some things private.

Obviously I’m going to tell you about something today though…

For over a year, I was subconsciously slut-shaming myself every time I slept with someone and I didn’t even acknowledge it. The logical, feminist, part of my brain always knew that it was a misogynistic and nonsensical thing to do, given that every time I’ve had sex with someone it’s been consensual and feeling guilty about it afterwards was never necessary. I never cried about it or said really hurtful things to myself; my method of slut-shaming was way more insidious than that. In the days after having sex I’d low-key pretend that it didn’t happen, give in to embarrassment, and avoid any contact with the boy ever again. But doing that started to feel silly after a while.

I’d realised what I was doing through the conversations I was having about sex with the young women around me, and decided it was time to stop partaking in this form of psychological self-harm. I know why I was doing it though; it was because I’d really rather not sleep with different people, so every time I did, I felt guilty straight afterwards. I’d have this stressful internal monologue of not regretting the sex, but wishing it’d been something more interesting than just that, with someone I knew better. However, I don’t know anyone I’d want to date yet, so does that mean that I should numb all urges I feel for physical interaction until prince charming comes along? No, that doesn’t seem right either.

The ideal situation for me earlier on this year was to engage in a good, old, friends with benefits relationship. Yet, there are so many unspoken rules when having sex with a person that the idea of sending the ‘you free later?’ text just made me cringe. Frankly, I thought I didn’t have the personality to ‘pull that off’ – an idea no doubt derived from the patriarchy suggesting that it’s abnormal for a woman to want to have sex simply because she’s horny – something I recognise as complete bullshit, of course. But we’ve got a lot of internalised patriarchy to undo here on the daily, so yes, when I texted a lad I trusted asking if he was free later for the first time, it felt weird. No regrets after doing it though heyooo.

I know that I’m fortunate to have so many sex-positive people in my life and that it’s a luxury not everyone has. There continues to be countless women out there who spend a stupid amount of energy telling themselves to stop feeling what they’re feeling. But you’re not only horny when you’re in a relationship and you should never make yourself feel guilty about when or who you want to have sex with. It’s a toxic way to waste your time, and even though stopping doing it hasn’t made me want a relationship less, it’s made sex a lot less associated with guilt and embarrassment in my head. Which is definitely a win. So go get your kicks with whoever you want, whenever you want, and start taking better care of yourself by taking control of your sexuality.

Oh, and if you and a couple of your friends order vibrators at the same time and split delivery, it’ll be cheaper.

See you later!

4th Jul 20214th Jul 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

As I write this, it’s 30th June 2021, and it’s the last day of mine and my housemate’s tenancy for our second year of University. When we first moved in, it came at the end of an intense 5 months for the entire world; we’d been robbed of our third term of first year by the coronavirus pandemic, and we were moving in not really knowing what our second year would look like. Some of us came straight away, but it took until September/October for us to have pretty much a full house. First term was absolutely riddled with lockdowns and being ill with coronavirus, though we still managed to have some hectic nights-out before everything shut and make our university house start to feel like our home. We even cooked a Christmas dinner and got all dressed up to feel some semblance of normality – shout out to Rish’s brief stint as a mixologist. Then second term came and we had to STUDY. There were countless library trips, hours spent staring at laptops, withering attention-spans, and a whole lot of delirious laughter in between some snowball fights and getting lost in the woods as we searched for some alpacas. Obviously, we also had plenty of seshes, but that’s standard Lavender House activity.

Finally, we got our first summer term at university together. The exam period was exhausting, but it came and went pretty quickly overall, and I must say that sitting next to each other as we all attempted completely different exams was surprisingly enjoyable…Though not as enjoyable as when we finished and were able to just relax and spend time with each other.

Completing a year of university during a pandemic has been a real struggle for my friends and I at points. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I’ve felt moments of intense physical and emotional exhaustion, boredom, despondency, and isolation. But through all of that, we managed to laugh together every single day.

I was speaking to one of my housemates the other day about it, and we were saying just how strange it is that we come to university and we meet all of these people, and make all of these memories, then we all go off into the world and it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see each other again. Here, I probably sound super dramatic, and you’re probably wondering why I’m getting so sentimental when I haven’t even graduated, but next year is my year abroad so a lot of my friends will graduate before I come back, and also a little sentimentality wouldn’t hurt the English once in a while. After all, as much as we shy away from deep or intense emotion, it is true that we may never know what becomes of these people we’ve come to really care for in the past couple of years.

For me, if it weren’t for my university friends, then I don’t know how much I would’ve kept up with these blogs, or how confident I would’ve felt in making a podcast or being on the radio, and I most definitely would NOT have walked on a stage in front of everyone at our college fashion show. They’ve helped me to stop slut-shaming myself if I get drunk and feel like sleeping my with someone. They’ve let me cry to them about how difficult my degree is more times then they probably could’ve been bothered with, and they’ve forgiven my occasional tendencies towards passive aggression. But most of all, they’ve made me feel safe and loved, and they’ve made me laugh until my stomach hurt.

So whilst I know I will see many of you again, I wanted to take a second to give you some love as we all move out and go on to the next bit – whether that be a final year at university, a year abroad, a placement year, a masters degree, or the start to life as a university graduate. Regardless of how often we see each other again though, I’m going to steal the words of a friend I met and said goodbye to in Ukraine two years ago, and say that in the moments when I miss seeing you all the time, it’ll cheer me up to know that you exist somewhere.

See you later my loves x

What I can’t see can’t hurt me

27th Jun 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’ve always thought I was fortunate to have not suffered from intense anxieties and insecurities in my teens. Granted, there have been times where I thought I looked fat or any of the other standard moments of self-criticism, but generally speaking, I was happy with who I was and what I looked like. The only thing I ignored in order to continue being comfortable in my own skin was how I look when I walk. I didn’t look when I walked past shop windows or any reflective surfaces, and I asked friends to delete videos where you could see me walking; I just didn’t need to know what that image looked like.

So naturally, when my university friends were like ‘do you want to do the college fashion show and walk on a stage in front of hundreds of people and have the whole process videoed and posted on social media for even more people to see?’, my reaction was ‘uhhh no, not really’. But the second I told them why I didn’t fancy doing that, I got bombarded with accusations of hypocrisy because as they quite rightly pointed out, I can’t be on here sporting for diversity and inclusion if I’m not going to practice what I preach. Thus, I took my disabled arse up onto a pretty big stage and I stomped along it in front of hundreds of people. And I even did a walk in my underwear lol, since if you’re gunna do it, you may as well go all-out, right?

I’ve said many times before that I don’t know if I’m proud to be disabled, and that a lot of what society encourages me to do is to blend in; I’m told by the abstract powers that be that I should shut up and get on with it, and try my utmost to pass as able-bodied to get by. I know that I don’t love being physically disabled – it’s a bit of a pain – but I am disabled, and I don’t want to change that because god knows what I’d be like if I wasn’t. However, the way I feel about myself doesn’t change the fact that society rarely gives me examples of a disabled body being deemed as beautiful without there being some subtext of pity. And even though I’ve got an ego, I can’t say I’ve got a burning desire to use my body to change the way people understand disability. But I would like to trust that strangers could find me interesting, and clever, and sexy, knowing full well that I’m physically disabled; that they won’t go from respecting me to patronising me the second they hear my medical history.

What I’ve recognised though, is that I can’t keep blaming the abstract idea of what ‘society’ thinks for my insecurities. Yes, disabled people might not be plastered all over billboards and well-represented in films and TV, and yes, disability might be something the world wants to hide away and forget about. But when it comes to individual people, I’ve met so many people of all ages and backgrounds who accept me as interesting, clever, and sexy partly because I’m disabled. So maybe it’s a me problem; maybe I’m the only one who’s judging the way I walk and the shoes I wear.

Love letters

30th May 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

You know, it’s come to my attention that sometimes I’m not very kind to myself. And I’ve also just realised that that was a really deep way to start a blog… 🙂

Over the last decade or so, it’s become very fashionable for people to recognise when they’re being really hard on themselves and to rectify those moments. We start to do yoga, we meditate, we go on holiday (lol, imagine), we buy an adult colouring book, we have a good cry, we talk to each other. But still, no matter how self-aware we are, and no matter how many affirmations we say to ourselves in the mirror – although, I’ll be honest and say that I’ve never personally tried the talking to yourself method…seems a bit intense to me, but anyway – humans still don’t seem able to escape from those self-criticism shackles.

I was speaking recently with one of my housemates about this and we both noted that for each of us, part of growing up has been coming to terms with who we are: the good and the bad. Generally, I’m very comfortable in who I am and I like to think that I’m a pretty decent human being, but I know that every trait I really like about myself does have a side effect. For example, when I care about things I really care about them: I work really hard for it, I’ll spend hours on it, I’ll do everything I can to make it work – whether that be a friendship or my degree. However, the flip-side of that is that if I can’t control it and if something goes wrong, I lose my shit. I pin part of my self-worth on the success of that one thing, and if it fails then I get angry and I’ll probably end up sobbing until my eyes swell-up and the colour of my skin resembles Clifford the Big Red Dog. It’s intense.

Another thing I like about myself is that I’m pretty good at rationalising situations: I can be objective, and am decent at understanding why I’m feeling the way I do. Still, my overactive brain is very skilled in ignoring and doubting my own rationalisations, so I’m also pretty bad at practicing what I preach. Therefore, sometimes when I write a blog and I’m able to give what I hope is decent, pragmatic advice, that’s me writing a love letter to myself. Obviously, I’d love to always be as calm and measured as I can make myself out to be, but these words are carefully considered and they’re not always a reflection of my actions. But then, do any of us always follow the advice we give to our friends? Probably not. Do we know that we should? Yep. So why don’t we? Fuck knows.

I suppose I’m saying this because the more blogs I write, and the more advice I inadvertently give, the more I realise that I’m setting myself up for a fall when my friends see what I do and say ‘do I have to send you your own blog?’. (Which, though cutting, is always kind of hilarious when it happens.)

These blogs are the times when the rational part of my brain is able to take over and make sense of everything; to try and keep my anxieties and insecurities at bay. But, in this age of crafted opinions and convenient omissions, I’d like to make the disclaimer that I’m 21 years old and whilst I may know something is the right thing to do, that unfortunately doesn’t mean that I’ll always do it. What’s important, is that we each at least try to take care of ourselves as much as we can, and that we identify when we’re not doing such a great job of it. But as Hannah Montana wisely said: everybody makes mistakes, everybody has those days.

Enjoy the sunshine! Xx

Grind don’t stop

18th Apr 202118th Apr 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

What have I been thinking recently?

Not a whole lot if I’m honest. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts. Pretending the sun is way warmer than it actually is. I went oUt oUt on Thursday; that was exciting. I watched The Little Mermaid yesterday.

I’ve been kind of tired.

We’re in the very last stretch of the university year and intellectually, I’m exhausted. I’m not walking around like a zombie, sleeping 15 hours a day – though I do generally need 9-10 hours of sleep a day to function, but that’s besides the point. I’ve been having a great time over the last couple of weeks, seeing and spending time with my friends and family and getting excited about restrictions easing. But during all the laughs there’s still this constant nagging in my head reminding me that I’ve got work and deadlines, and it’s making me really tired.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy my degree, because I honestly do find researching and writing essays, and speaking foreign languages incredibly fun. But this last academic year has been so taxing and I’m just bored of looking at screens. I don’t want to have to open up my laptop and sit for at least 5 hours a day doing vocabulary, or grammar exercises, or researching and writing essays. I look at the blank digital pages where my 2,500-word essay should be and though I’ve never struggled to have opinions, I feel like I have nothing worthwhile to say anymore. So I avoid it, but that only makes the process longer.

It’s just that the sun’s coming out, and restrictions are finally lifting after the most stressful year of pretty much everyone’s lives, but those deadlines still beckon. (!!) And I know that it might sound like I’m complaining about nothing but my friends and I have had a year of online university-learning and it’s been really hard. Just last term, we would each walk around the house letting out short screams or hysterical laughter or mantras of ‘can’t be arsed, can’t be arsed, can’t be arsed, I can do it, I can do it, don’t wanna do it, have to do it, gunna do it’ from the kitchen all the way back to our laptops, on our desks, in our rooms. And whilst it was always kind of funny to hear who was ‘losing it’ today, the stress and lack of motivation have been rEAl this year.

Nonetheless, even though we’re all burnt the fuck out, there’s really not that long left now: last push and then we can spend a day not studying, without feeling guilty about it or reaping the consequences the next time we sit down at our desks.

So, back to the laptop screens we go, but just for a few more weeks this time kids. Deep breaths.

I’ve changed my mind

4th Apr 202130th Nov 2022 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to do something brainy when I grew up. (This was obviously briefly interrupted by the oh-my-god-when-I’m-16-I’ll-go-on-The-X-Factor-moment, but then we don’t really need to give 7 year old me that much attention here…) I always knew that I was good at academia, and that I’d probably go to university and end up being a professional nerd. But as I’ve gone through the education system and I’ve learnt to hold my own as a young woman, I realise that I’ve been listening to those good old societal constructs again in telling myself that a profession determines my level of intelligence.

But before I go on to my potentially sickening motivational speech where I tell you to fOlLoW yOuR dReAms and dO wHaT yOu lOve, I’ve got to first acknowledge how successful we are at convincing ourselves, and our children that we need to know exactly how our life is going to play out from the first time someone asks us what we’re going to do after school. And it’s not that I think we should stop asking children these questions, it’s only that we take their answers way too seriously. We categorise careers and people according to what subjects they were good at at school, or their ability to write an essay, or to solve an equation. Yes, certain jobs require a level of academic ability for you to succeed, but intelligence isn’t limited to your academic success.

Before I started my degree, I was convinced I knew exactly what job I wanted to go into. I thought I was going to come out of Durham University and somehow weasel my way into a job in translation in the music industry – don’t ask me how I expected to get there, but that’s what I wanted to do. However, I’ve come to realise that I don’t want language to be the overriding aspect of my future career. Don’t get me wrong, I love languages, and I hope to continue learning new ones for the rest of my life. But I realise that I’m 21, and what I love doing more than anything right now, is writing these blogs, making my podcasts, and interviewing musicians on the radio.

So even though it’s not a ‘conventional’ choice, or something the education system taught me exactly how to get into, it’s something that I have a real passion for, and without indulging in my ego too much, it’s something that I know I could be really good at. Oh, and it’s kind of ideal for the whole physical disability situation because standing for long periods of time or walking long distances isn’t really a problem when all you have to do is sit behind a microphone or a laptop…so you know, it’s kind of a medical choice? But I digress.

I might only be really young, but my age is my power, because I truly can decide to do whatever I want to do with my life. Maybe I’ll get it completely wrong, but if I do then at least I tried! Plus, if it does all go tits up, then I’ll always have that cheeky Durham University degree in Japanese Studies with a bit of history, history of art, and Korean thrown in for extra spice on the CV.

So f*** it, let’s give it a go.

For all the Sarah Everards

17th Mar 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

It’s been two weeks since Sarah Everard disappeared, and a matter of days since she was confirmed as murdered. Sarah Everard was a 33-year-old woman who decided to walk home from a friend’s house at 9 pm on a Wednesday. Her murder has forced society to talk openly about male violence and street harassment, but as we have these conversations we shouldn’t forget that this ‘body’ we discuss belonged to someone with a name, a face, and a life. Sarah Everard died because someone else decided she should, and as women, we live with the knowledge that what happened to Sarah could happen to any of us.

When I discuss this with the women in my life, the fact that we’re constantly in danger isn’t what has surprised us; what we’re surprised by is that men aren’t able to see what’s right in front of them. We know that women walking at night are vulnerable to being abducted, attacked, and killed – so much so that that is the basis of pretty much every crime drama we’ve ever seen on television. Yet, no matter how many faces we see of women who’ve been taken, raped, murdered, or a combination of the three, still, society persists with asking why the woman was out so late, or what she was wearing, or whether she was drunk, or why she didn’t stop it. There are even those who will roll their eyes and shut down when they feel the inevitable ‘would it be the same if she had been a man?’ coming along. But it’s a privilege to be able to roll your eyes, because if you can do that, then clearly you’ve never had to seriously imagine the situation.

It wouldn’t be the same outcome if Sarah Everard had been a 33-year-old man walking home from his friend’s house at 9 pm. Nor is it likely to have been the same if Sarah Everard had been a younger man walking home at a later time, or any other variation of the time or age because those aspects don’t matter. What matters, is that women are not safe and we are frightened, and the whole world knows why but it chooses to do nothing about it.

Like every instance of oppression and discrimination, those who are automatically grouped as part of the ‘oppressor’ excuse themselves because they don’t think they’ve personally committed blatantly oppressive or discriminatory actions. But that’s not the point: you don’t have to have killed a woman to contribute to the patriarchy. Whether we like it or not, our gender, our race, our sexuality, everything we are born as, affects how we are treated by society. So even if you think you are a ‘good’ man, if you are male you benefit from the patriarchy, and thus, you are safer than your sister and your mother and your female friends.

There are things that women do every time they step outside of the house, that men wouldn’t even begin to think of. For example, my version of the checklist for going anywhere at night is as follows: I don’t walk anywhere alone, I keep to main streets, I don’t use headphones, I stay hyper-aware of everyone around me, I check if anyone is following me, I don’t walk anywhere near a woodland/a river/a canal/backstreets, I regularly text someone my location, I keep my keys in between my fingers (sharp side-up), if I’m drunk then I pretend to be as sober as I can, I don’t walk too close to men I don’t know, I don’t make eye contact, I don’t respond to anyone who shouts at me if I don’t know them, then when I’ve finally made it home, I unlock the door and get inside as quickly as I can, making sure to text someone that I made it home. I do all of these things without thinking and still, my decision to make it home safe is never completely my own. If a man came after me, my physical disability makes it such that I couldn’t even run away: I would have to go wherever he took me.

This is what women live with every day, and we can’t stop it. It’s the responsibility of men to wake up and realise this part of the female experience and to acknowledge that it is they who have the power to stop it. I am a strong, independent female and it pains me to ever feel weak or vulnerable, but I know when to ask for help and I don’t want to die because of my gender. So please ask the women in your life what you can do, and don’t forget about this the second Sarah Everard’s face leaves the news, because there are so many Sarahs , and all they want to do is go home.

Age is just a number

21st Feb 202121st Feb 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

In the months before I started my second year at Durham University, I decided that I wanted to know more about the place where I was living and studying. Already, I’d spent the best part of a year as a Durham City resident and even though I was born here, I hadn’t really explored the town at all – at least not sober or in daylight teehee.

However, I didn’t just want to go on more drives or go into town more often – although I have done both of those things – I wanted to meet more of the people, and feel like a proper part of the community. Plus, I’m acutely aware of the fact that I attend a very rich university with lots of very privileged students – some are even part of that 1% we hear about so much. But that institutional and familial wealth isn’t reflective of the North-East; like a lot of the north of England, County Durham is no stranger to poverty. So, for all of these reasons, in October I started to volunteer at a foodbank every Friday morning in Chester le Street.

But there’s this really funny thing about volunteer work: publicly announcing that you do it, can make you seem like a self-righteous tosser. And I didn’t really fancy having that description in my bio, so I haven’t really been telling people about this part of my weekly routine. Even though it has made me look forward to Friday morning every week.

At the foodbank, I volunteer with three other people; two older gentlemen, and one older woman. We wait for people to walk in, ask them if they have a food voucher, pack food parcels to last them three to four days, give them the parcels, and then we sit down to wait for the next ‘customer’ – I always found this a strange turn of phrase for the context of a foodbank, but we won’t analyse vocabulary just now…

Obviously, handing these food parcels out is very rewarding, but I’d have to say that it’s been the moments when the other volunteers and I have just been sitting and chatting that have been the most interesting for me so far.

I was always raised to give older people the same respect that I wanted to receive. I was encouraged to treat everyone – no matter their age – like a person, and to try to refrain from assuming an individual’s personality just because they look or sound a certain way. But no matter how much this was drilled into me as I grew up, I was influenced by the media and politics, and became very aware of the fact that in this country, people from different generations are encouraged to alienate themselves from one another and sometimes, to hate each other.

So it’s no surprise that the second I walked through the door and the other volunteers saw my age, that they assumed I was just another student looking to have something righteous to add to their CV. I was going to come for a couple of weeks, stand about on my phone, not contributing, and then eventually I’d just stop coming. Not only did I see these assumptions on my colleagues’ faces, last week they literally told me that that’s what they had thought. Thankfully, I’ve proven to them that not all students are lazy or entitled. Although, they do take the mick out of me for coming in hungover, so I don’t think I’ve broken the ‘students drink too much and too often’ stereotype. But hey, I still show up every Friday at 10:30am and get involved.

Then on my part, it’s become so much clearer to me that British society completely writes off older people. After people get to a certain age, we deem them irrelevant and stuck in their own ways: they’re almost dead, so why should they be listened to? But this is such a damaging narrative and it’s only helping to alienate people from each other more. Yes, the older generation grew up in a different time, and there are so many ways our society has progressed positively which may be against what the baby boomers have always known. However, just because we assume this, doesn’t mean that we should assume we already know what every person in this generation thinks.

Over the past few months, I’ve spoken to the other volunteers about a whole host of subjects. We’ve discussed ageism, sexism, homophobia, racism, classism, ableism, politics, the coronavirus – to name only a few. And in many ways, we’ve been able to have these conversations with total honesty because we’re not related, so there’s absolutely no pressure for us to agree on everything just to ‘keep the peace’. There were disagreements at times, but more than anything, hearing the perspective of someone at the opposite end of their life has been really beneficial for us all to be able to understand each other more. Youth has always been the time when people seek and fight for change, and when they criticise the shortcomings of everything that has happened before them, but people age, and life is complicated, and it’s important to understand and listen to every perspective – not just that of your peers.

Volunteering at this foodbank is one of the best decisions I’ve made at university so far, and it’s made me realise that we really need to stop hating everyone before we take the time to get to know each other. Old people aren’t just interesting because they’re old, they’re interesting because they’re people with thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Obviously they deserve respect, but once again that’s not because of age, it’s because it’d be nicer for everyone if we just started relationships with respect for each other.

Age is just a number, after all.

It’s exciting being disabled, isn’t it?

7th Feb 2021 by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 1 Comment

As some of you may know, next year I’ll be studying in Japan for my third year at university. This is obviously very very exciting, and something I’m really looking forward to. However, the prospect of going to live on the other side of the world for a year when you have a physical disability isn’t ever going to be stress-free.

Now, you might think that my already having been on a gap year should make this a piece of piss, but the part I fail to mention when speaking about my year abroad, is that each trip was never that long, and I came home for respite and hospital appointments in between all of them. Thus, fully moving somewhere for months on end poses different issues to the ones I had to deal with when I was 19.

For example every few weeks, I go to visit one of my doctors and she treats my foot. It’s not complicated treatment, nor is it particularly specialised. So, you might assume that it’ll be pretty simple and easy for me to go to Japan and find a doctor there who can do the same thing…Well the problem with seeing a random doctor in a completely new country is that that medical professional isn’t familiar with my biology, and my ability to maintain a healthy condition of my feet does hinge a lot on my doctors knowing exactly how far they should go with the treatment. Therefore, trying to communicate that to a doctor who’s language I don’t know inside and out won’t be an impossible task, but it’s still pretty daunting.

Another fun thing I have to sort out is my university accommodation for when I’m in Japan. Tediously, I can’t walk very far and considering the fact that I won’t be able to drive whilst there, I’m going to have to be hyper-aware of how far I have to walk to go anywhere. Therefore, I have to make sure that I find accommodation close enough to my lectures and public transport so that I don’t end up getting a blister/infection in the middle of my year abroad. This isn’t an easy task when you can’t visit the place beforehand to figure out whether the website’s version of ‘it’s a 5 minute walk’ is actually true or not…but we do our best.

The main activity for this week though, was travelling down to Leeds for a hospital appointment to discuss how the hell I’m going to have access to new pairs of shoes when I’m 5,833 miles away from Leeds General Infirmary. Thankfully though, my doctor is a bit of a legend and he’s already started the process to order 6 pairs of shoes, 3 pairs of insoles, and 2 pairs of callipers, so that I can go to Japan with enough footwear to (hopefully) see me through the full year. This will then mean that I shouldn’t have to worry about my shoes breaking when I’ve got absolutely no way of getting new ones. So that’s already one part of the puzzle solved – well, it will be when I’ve actually received all the shoes and have confirmed that there aren’t any problems with them…but baby steps people, baby steps.

I don’t often mention these parts of my life because I can’t imagine them being interesting for anyone else to hear about, when they’re definitely not very interesting to me. But then when I’m having a stress-rant to my housemates about the hundreds of things I need to sort, they make it clear to me that these are the parts of disability that the wider world rarely gets access to. I shroud what I find tedious in euphemisms like ‘oh, I just deal with it’, or, ‘I’m disabled, I have hospital appointments all the time’, and then I never actually give you comprehensive information about how Spina Bifida affects my life on a day-to-day basis. Obviously, I prefer the discussions relating to self-identity or societal perceptions because they’re more enjoyable for me. But clearly, if I’m asking the able-bodied to help make my life easier, then I should give you a helping hand by telling you what I’m actually dealing with.

I can’t promise the tales will always be exciting though…but hey, maybe if people know more about the tedious parts of being disabled, then someone will want to find ways to design or invent something to make that tedium go away. And that’d be pretty cool.

An Indelible Friend

Author: elizabethmdouglas