Tag: society

It gets a little too loud

It gets a little too loud

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A few days ago, I lay down to go to sleep but couldn’t because all I could hear was talking. I tossed and turned and I tossed and turned, but the whole time I felt like I was trying to go to sleep in a crowded room full of people talking, laughing, and arguing with each other. Then I realised that all of that noise was in my head. So I breathed, and I calmed it, and I went to sleep.

Now before anyone refers me onto a psychiatrist, I don’t suffer from any mental health problems which would mean that I hear voices; the only thing I suffer from is trying to constantly keep myself busy. I fill my days with activities to avoid being bored or feeling like I’m squandering my time (or that I’m alone), then in my head I plan, organise, and evaluate everything. Once I’ve thought about all the things I’ve done, or need to do, the next brainwave is all of the internal conversations about my friendships or boy tediums, and if I’ve exhausted all of that (and am nearing the days of my period), some cheeky insecurities will pop up to say hello.

It gets pretty noisy.

All of this isn’t to say that I’m unhappy, though; coming back to a more normal version of a university life this year has been something that so many of us really needed, and I’m glad to say that I’m pretty content at the minute. I no longer need to worry about the stress of a year abroad, or the fact that my degree makes me feel stupid. I’m able to get out of the house, go to lectures I enjoy, and socialise with people without breaking the law or having to cover half of my face. I’ve had insanely exciting news which has made me feel like I’m actually going to be able to have a career doing something I love – and I’m not going to go into details about it in case I jinx it. I get to see and laugh with my friends all of the time, and I feel like I’m getting pretty good at this whole adult-ing thing. But even the good times are mentally trying, and it pays to recognise this before something happens and your brain goes bang and you end up crying on the floor eating ice cream.

As is the case with many things, I’m not an expert in how to help yourself calm down and relax because I’m constantly trying to find something to fill my time. However, yesterday when I was doing my eye make up, I realised that I’d forgotten to breathe because I was trying to make my eyeliner perfect, whilst also thinking about an argument I wanted to (but never would) have with a lad. Needless to say, (once I’d remembered to exhale), it was clear that I need to work out how to slow down a little.

When I was younger, my granddad used to take me and my brother camping in the Yorkshire Dales a lot. I think of those times with an immense amount of fondness, but possibly the most influential part of those trips was the fact that when I get overwhelmed, I feel an intense need to go to those hills because of the silence. It’s so quiet up there that it kind of hurts your ears. But as much as I want to, I can’t be driving an hour to the middle of nowhere every time I feel a little claustrophobic: I’ve got a dissertation to write. Thus, I drive half an hour to the beach to look at the sea, I go home to sit with my parents and watch TV, or I read a book I want to read (not one that’s been assigned to me); I play guitar, I listen to music, or sometimes I just sit and stare at the wall for a bit. Although, that last one does sound like something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest…again, I don’t need a psychiatrist, I promise.

Whatever it is, and whatever age you are, all I can say is that you should probably find something that gives you a moment of respite not just from other people, but from yourself too. Otherwise eventually, as everyone’s mum used to say: it’ll all end in tears.

Is physical disability really that much of a turn-off?

Is physical disability really that much of a turn-off?

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I remember in my first year of university, I was asked by one of my friends whether I thought that my physical disability had ever meant that people found me less physically attractive. (He had perfectly sound intentions by the way, and knew that that type of questioning wouldn’t offend me, so we’re good.) My short answer was yes; not because of any insecurities, or because I was fishing for pity-filled compliments, but yes because I’d seen it happen right before my eyes. I’ve seen lads begin to chat me up, then at the mention of a disability, turn the other way, and I’ve consistently had more success on a night out when I wear trousers to cover my shoes, or when the place is too full and too dark for anyone to see.

As real as they seemed, these were still always just suspicions derived from body language and facial expressions. So I’d wonder. Could it really be true that the sight of some metal bars on a young woman’s shoes is enough to intimidate? Is physical disability that much of a turn-off?

This week I read an article where George Robinson (the actor who plays Isaac in Sex Education) spoke to the BBC about sex and disability: two words you rarely see mentioned in the same sentence. I won’t summarise the article here as I’d prefer you read it yourself, but one part which really hit a nerve for me was when the reporter wrote that in 2014, 44% of the British people asked said that they wouldn’t consider having sex with someone who was physically disabled. And I emphasise ‘consider’ here because that wording is particularly cutting.

I could go on and on unpacking this statistic, but what I’d like to first draw your attention to is the fact that the term ‘physically disabled’ describes a hugely diverse group of people, and yet it seems that society associates it exclusively with paraplegic wheelchair-users. That in itself is mad and highlights so many issues in society’s narrow understanding of disability, however, my main concern today is the suggestion that physical disability strips a person of their sexuality. If you’re disabled then you have no sex drive, you’re unable to have sex, or whatever type of sex you can have isn’t normal and is shrouded in stress and embarrassment, and you’re not sexy.

Frankly, I never thought I was sexy. And I attributed that to the layers of misogyny which group young girls and women into the boxes of cute, pretty, sporty, or sexy. (We can unpack those toxic elements of the patriarchy another day). But now I realise that it was my being disabled which contributed to the surprise and disbelief I felt if someone called me sexy. I’d just never known that I had access to that word because no one who looked like me had ever been described as it. At least, I’d never seen it.

Thus in my late-teens, when talking to boys and developing crushes on them, I’d always envisioned that my disability would be peripheral in our relationship and it’d be something that I’d prefer him to ignore as much as possible. I’d want support when I really needed it, but if I had ever gotten a boyfriend then I’d wanted him to treat me like a ‘normal’ girl. Depressingly, hindsight makes me realise that 17-year-old me was equating ‘normal’ with able-bodied. Then when I went to university I started speaking to a lad who never once asked about my disability, after months and months of talking. I found myself conflicted because it was sort of what younger me had always wanted, but older me didn’t see how we could ever start a relationship if such a big part of my life was going to be ignored: it didn’t seem practical.

So now I’ve decided that I want something truly radical: I don’t only want a romantic partner to be interested in and tolerate my physical disability, I want him to find it attractive. I want him to look at my surgical scars and find them as beautiful as he does any other part of me. I don’t want to have to reject my disability in order to feel sexy. But as any reader of my blog will know, I’m yet to experience much more than a casual relationship with a lad so I can’t end this on a Disney note where I say I’ve found everything I’ve ever wanted and here he is *ta-dah*. Nonetheless, there’s one specific experience I’ve already had where I got a glimpse of what it might be like.

One morning I woke up next to a young lad I’d slept with a few times before. I cared for him, and enjoyed his company, but I didn’t have any romantic feelings towards him. I was used to him being affectionate by moving my hair out of my face as I slept, or kissing my shoulder, but on this particular occasion he took it further, as I woke up to feel him carefully tracing the curves, indentations, and lines of the lump on my lower back. That lump is the root of my disability, and it’s been something I’ve tried my hardest to look at as little as possible, let alone touch. So as I woke up, I realised what he was doing, and I lay there as he gave the most emotionally and physically vulnerable part of my body more love and attention than even I had ever given it. It was nice: I felt safe.

That young lad, even though he probably had no idea what he was doing, emphasised just how important it is that when I find someone I want to be with, they have to understand and love my disability as much as they love every other part of me. It’s not something to be ignored, and it’s not something which strips me of my sexuality: people and prejudices do that. But I don’t believe that the 44% statistic is rooted in malice; rather, it’s rooted in ignorance and a misunderstanding of disability. We all want love and to feel wanted, but I don’t see why my physical condition should decide whether I qualify for that or not.

I’m physically disabled, I have a sex drive, I enjoy sex, and just like everyone else, the details of how I like to have sex are only your business if I decide that you can make it that far.

London: it’s a love-hate relationship

London: it’s a love-hate relationship

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 4 Comments

Whenever I’ve travelled to a different country or have met people from around the world, in the first moments of us getting to know one another, they hear I’m English and they inevitably ask me if I’m from London. I tend to laugh in response, and then we begin the charade of me saying a city they’ve no idea about, and then I try to help them place me by talking about football teams – most of the time we settle on Manchester. Which, of course, if anyone knows anything about the war of the roses and the subsequent beef between Yorkshire and Lancashire, they’ll know that there’s a whole lot of difference between the two areas. Not least in accent.

I don’t mind at all that people from different countries have never heard of Bradford: why should they care? What cuts a little though, is the amount of times I’ve had to have this exact conversation with people from the south of England. Some of them don’t even know what I’m talking about when I mention Leeds! Leeds is a big city!!! And it’s not just that many people don’t know where cities in the north are, it’s the bitter pill that the only place which seems to be of any significance to them is London.

But why care so much?

Well, I care because of the huge economic differences between the north and south of England, and the consequences this has on the lives of the people in the two areas.

I’d never really had much to do with London and the south growing up, other than seeing the London schools on CBBC getting the random celebrity visitors, or knowing that London was where the Queen lived, and that it was really far away from Bradford – in more ways than just distance. But this isn’t the part where I say I grew up in an impoverished household, where my parents had to work 3 jobs for us to eat , because my ability to see the wealth-gap between the north and south isn’t reliant on my family’s economic situation. My parents know what it is to be on the dole, and they have never had any savings, but I’ve never been poor. That doesn’t mean that I don’t know what it looks like, though.

Poverty isn’t just about the money you have, but a secure financial situation gifts people and communities so much more than you might first think. If a family is wealthy, and thus money isn’t something they have to worry about, then they have so much more time, energy and resources to do other things. For example, they can buy books, or go to a different city or country, or buy a membership to a gym. They have the ability to see value in investing in cultural capital: learning to play an instrument, or reading a book is no longer deemed as a ‘waste’, and so many more things like going to university or moving to a bigger city to do an internship seem attainable. Money gives people time and opportunity, and economic stability allows people the freedom to think further than what they need to survive.

So no wonder when I drove into central London last week, the majority of people I saw looked healthier and wealthier than those I’d seen in Shipley earlier that morning. You could see economic stability in the fact that their skin colour didn’t look tired and yellow; fewer people were overweight; more were nicely dressed, in clothes they’d carefully picked out to suit their bodies; all of the shops were open, and around every corner there was a museum or a gallery or a theatre. You can literally see the differences, if you’re bothered to look.

Unfortunately, the last time I spoke about a north-south class divide, was when I wrote a description of my experience as a northerner at a Russell Group University. I did my best to not be overly critical of people, but still that blog was reported by at least 100 members of my university’s Facebook group, and it helped to get me blocked from the page for over a year. So, it would seem that this desire to ignore and neglect the uncomfortable parts of our society we blamed on older generations, persists into psyche of the ‘progressive’ millennials.

It gets very tiring very quickly to be stereotyped as a stupid northerner, from the middle of nowhere, when you know that those stereotypes are rooted in blatant economic inequality. So no, I don’t find it very funny when I sit on a delayed tube and make a joke saying ‘none of this in Bradford’, and a super healthy, well-dressed, young girl with a southern accent says ‘is there anything in Bradford?’. Because regardless of how she intended it, or whether she’s a nice girl or not, it just doesn’t sound very funny coming from a stranger with that accent.

I’d like to finish this blog with clarifying that the north of England doesn’t need pity or to be patronised, and that obviously I’m aware that the south isn’t full of only privileged people. There’s plenty of culture, history and privilege up here, and there’s plenty of poverty down there. But it would be helpful for everyone if individuals started to take more notice of the disparities and the inevitable effects those disparities have on communities. After all, government and institutions will only start to spread the wealth out more, if people (especially those from the side with more) are seen to actively want that to happen.

Economics and equality are complex topics, and there’s no way I can put the world to rights with one blog entry. Nonetheless, I know that there will be many of you reading this who had never considered why a southerner taking the piss out of a northerner might sting a little more. And maybe my northern peers don’t feel irritated by it in the same way I do, but I felt like I needed to say it – especially in the divisive political climate of the last 10 years. I don’t hate London; in fact, I love it because it’s exciting, and the buildings are beautiful, and everything’s there, but then again, why does everything have to only be there?

I ran away to the Ukrainian mountains

I ran away to the Ukrainian mountains

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?

You free later?

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.

What I can’t see can’t hurt me

What I can’t see can’t hurt me

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.

I’ve changed my mind

I’ve changed my mind

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.

Age is just a number

Age is just a number

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?

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

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.

The vibes are immaculate

The vibes are immaculate

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

There are times when I come onto this site, and I feel pressured to write something with a serious, moral bottom-line. This can lead me to feel like I need to address some intense issue or some moral question, so that then in the moments when I feel really good, I end up thinking that I’ve got nothing to tell you.

Feeling this way probably stems from the fact that the act of writing or publishing something for people to read, comes with the added pressure of trying to ensure that whatever you say, is interesting for others. But this week, I don’t want to be analytical or complicated, I just want to show my housemates some appreciation because I love living in this house. Without meaning to sound like a total wet-wipe, I’m very aware of how lucky I am to live with 6 people who all make me feel so loved, safe, and valid. This isn’t a luxury everyone gets because the people you choose to live with, in your second year of university are often the first friends you made in a completely new place, and sometimes those friendships don’t end up being as fun as they first seemed. But if anything, the vibes in this house are so immaculate that we’ve become way closer friends than any of us ever were last year, and I want to make sure I give a little love to that.

So, this week, I’ll keep my point short and sweet: no matter how annoying or stressful life is, make sure that you take a second to recognise and appreciate the people in your life who make you feel good. Then once you’ve given them some love, you can go back to taking the piss out of them. Ah, the circle of life.

And if any Lavender kids are reading this – as I’m sure they are, since they’ll love the ego stroke of having a whole blog devoted to them – then big love to you, kids xxx

Oh and Jai, please will you come downstairs and mop the kitchen floor?