Category Archives: equality

Legacies

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Today, as my husband slinked into the sitting room to eat his dinner in peace, something unusual happened. Within thirty seconds he’d come back out into the kitchen and said in a casual tone certainly unfitting to the matter at hand, ‘There’s a bird flying around the sitting room.’

I closed my eyes as I imagined our black leather couch now covered in those trademark yellow and white stains. ‘You’re not bloody serious?’

‘Afraid so. We shouldn’t have left the front door open.’

Now, if you asked me if I was afraid of birds, I’d normally say no. But you’d need to contextualise. For example, I have no problem watching autumn migrations or gatherings of birds in the garden. Hell, because my daughter is a nature fanatic, I often have to follow them around the park, driving my wheelchair as slowly as possible so that it doesn’t ‘click’ and frighten them away. But the thought of one trapped in our sitting room, flying frantically, trying to escape, filled me with trepidation.

Walking softly towards the sitting room I peered in to see a little robin, with a fiercely red breast, casually exploring our sitting room. My husband and I looked at each other and smiled slightly, and I recognised something in him I wasn’t expecting, a softness. Normally, we would both be sort of like get that bird out of our sitting room before he shites everywhere, but this was different.  It felt like a presence, like an unexpected but welcome visitor. One of our mothers, perhaps, or Maisie, my mum’s friend who, before she closed her eyes for the last time just two months ago, gave me a green card with a little redbreast robin on it. The card simply read Thinking of You.

‘We have to guide him out, before he has a heart attack,’ my husband finally conceded, before gently herding him towards the front door and closing it.

For the superstitious among you, I’m sure you know that a robin is meant to represent a loved one since passed, and its presence symbolises that he/she is thinking of you, that he or she is near. For me, however, robins represent childhood innocence, dependability. Growing up, we had a conservatory at home and one morning, a little robin hopped in through the open doors while we all watched silently. He explored a little, he sang and he left. Soon, that same robin (or so we liked to think at least) came back every morning, let himself into the conservatory and made himself at home. It became routine, a ritual, and when I saw that robin this evening I was instantly reminded of it.

That association with robins is a legacy left to me by my parents. It’s funny how, even though that era is now gone, I remember not so much the robin, but how I felt when we all saw it for the first time, over twenty years ago. The wonder. The quiet respect.

I’ve been thinking about legacies lately, not least because on Saturday, over two hundred activists will come together in Mansion House to remember the influence that disability activists, both past and present, have had over our lives. That space will allow us to reflect on the achievements of the past, and to be thankful for what has been achieved in the name of people with disabilities thus far. But it’s also an acknowledgement that once Saturday’s event is over, we need to continue looking forward, keep striving towards true equality, ensure that our voices are always heard.

Like the robin from my childhood, some of us thought that these people were invincible, that no matter what, they would always be there. My memories of those who I will be remembering on Saturday are sometimes the only fuel that keeps me involved in activism. Sooner or later, we are going to have to look at the future, and it can be scary when someone we looked up to, be that a parent or sibling in the literal or figurative sense, is no longer here to guide us.

When it seems that all the greatness of the world is slowly disappearing, will we be able to find the courage to look within ourselves. to see what we can offer? And if we can’t trust ourselves to do this, who can we trust to educate our legacies to our children? That’s why we need to tell them about the past, the robin. We all need to know where we came from.

And sometimes we need a reminder, so that we may create meaningful legacies for them. We need to remember the past, not to live in it, but rather to use it as a blueprint to make our own mark in history.

 

 

 

 

 

Flying Low

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Readers, this summer my husband, the little ‘in and I decided to ‘staycate’ in Ireland. We spent a lovely week in Galway and then the two of us went north for a wedding towards the end of July. It’s been a nice summer, but now my husband wants to go abroad later in the year. And while I’d love to, part of me couldn’t be bothered with the rigmarole. Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with flying with our  five year old daughter – she’s more sensible than the two of us combined – but rather the worry about bringing the wheelchair with us.

Don’t bring the wheelchair, we’ve been told before. Rent one instead. Well that’s all well and good, but the truth is I like my wheelchair. I’m used to it, I personally don’t think it’s overly bulky or heavy (125kg),and it means in the airport I can take my time, if I check in early. Admittedly, however, I’ve only brought it once, when we went to Salou in 2015.

This was with Ryanair.

I am not exaggerating when I say I rang their customer service a thousand times to give the specifications of the wheelchair – the weight, make, dimensions and the fact that it had a dry-cell battery. Oh, and the fact that the back folded down. And it was, after all the phone-calls and emails, a hassle-free experience.

I have an Invacare Kite. The same wheelchair as my friend Dani McGovern.

Dani was in my house last Wednesday. She’d called over with her husband John and son Logan and we chatted about how excited she was about little Logan’s first time on the plane (they were going to Birmingham for the weekend with her sister, her brother and their kids). They’d only been away as a couple in Lanzarote  a few months before so they had no reason to believe there’d be any issues this time either.

But when I read Dani’s sister Sharon’s Facebook status yesterday afternoon, I immediately felt sick. The story, which Dani shared with the Irish Independent today, was that there was no issue with Dani’s flight over to Manchester, but on the way home she was asked for the voltage of her battery which she was unsure of (Neither of us have been asked this before. You’re normally asked if it’s a dry or wet cell battery. Wet cell = no flysies. Ours is dry cell). She was given the option of flying without the wheelchair (Dani can’t walk, unless she’s harbouring a secret I don’t know about) or getting off the plane.

Can you imagine being told that your legs were going to be amputated or somehow decommissioned? I’m talking shite now, aren’t I? That’s how much sense flying without Dani’s wheelchair made. So really she had no option but to disembark the flight, leaving her husband and her young son (who, like any two year old, went beserk without his mammy in his eyeline) and wait for the next flight, an hour later, where by some miraculous intervention her chair suddenly wasn’t a ticking time bomb and she could fly! Makes sense, doesn’t it? (Just like my handwriting).

What wasn’t detailed in the article was that this isn’t the first time Dani’s been messed around when flying. We went to Mallorca in 2007, Dani, John Paul and I, and we’d brought Dani’s manual chair for me because taxis over there don’t take electric wheelchairs of the size Dani’s was at the time so we thought we’d have her small one for taxis (and for me if I got tired). Good thing too, because when we landed, the cabin crew arrived with the manual chair but there was no sign of the electric one! Panic is not the word, lads – it was like we’d lost a limb. Eventually it reappeared on the carousel – how it got there I haven’t a clue. In the meantime. our accessible taxi had threatened to leave without Dani, in a foreign country where we knew no-one.

Dani never went to the media about that, and she was within her right to. But if she had not gone this time around she would’ve inadvertently been saying that this treatment is ok, that it was somehow her fault. But it isn’t, and was not.

In short. Dani is more than ‘a girl in a wheelchair’. She’s a college graduate, a woman who’s been living independently since she was nineteen, a woman who’s worked hard to prove herself in every way, and in spite of some negative running commentary is a fantastic wife, loving mother, loyal friend and passionate advocate. She certainly didn’t deserve that treatment.

And in telling her story, she is reminding us that none of us do.

My Dystopian Life

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Guys, this evening as I sit here on my laptop, I’m starting to seriously doubt myself. When I started writing a novel two years ago now, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing or how to plan it out. And man – now it’s a mess. I can still see merit in the story, and I am a hundred percent sure what I wanted to achieve. But another story has beckoned over the last number of months, and it’s a dark, dystopian fiction (but kind of similar to the one I’m writing now in many ways).

In my fourth year of college I was introduced to the world of dystopian fiction by a professor who urged us to  read the novels and afterwards to question everything, to draw similarities between the fictional work and real life. After all, dystopian novels draw from our history. Look at 1984, for example. The use of propaganda (I.e. Hitler) to brainwash the public into trusting the ‘government’, the deliberate rewriting of history to suit a warped political agenda, the destruction of language so that the ‘proles’ have no means of expressing anger towards the Big Brother regime (any of this ringing a bell? Tuam Babies? Garda Corruption?) These are all ways in which people are worn down and forced into a narrative they do not want to partake in. And of course, rebellious Winston is forced into Room 101, where he is tortured into submission when faced with his darkest fear: rats.

Watching the television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale has reawakened my fascination with the dystopian form, and it’s interesting to watch my husband’s outraged reaction to the show every Sunday and to point out to him, just as we did in Apocalypse Class ten years ago, the similarities between Gilead and the world we live in now. Of course, we don’t live in the nightmarish worlds of these two novels. But I definitely feel trapped in some kind of dystopian nightmare.

I live in a country that is deliberately denying me my human rights, in a world where I constantly have to prove myself in order to have any kind of credibility. A world in which disability is seen as a medical problem rather than a social one. A world where my voice and the voice of many disabled people are dismissed as trivial or unimportant. The problem is that speaking openly and honestly about disability isn’t seen as ‘cool’ or interesting unless your views are endorsed by some random celebrity or politician, who has no idea what it’s like to be viewed as an inconvenience by your own government.

I believe in something called the philosophy of Independent Living. It was originally an American concept, its birth coinciding with other major political movements originating in the US in the 1960s. Basically, many people, including disabled people, were sick to death of being discriminated against and denied their basic human rights. And so they fought. They protested. Above all, they made it quite clear that the only real authority on the subject of disability were disabled people themselves.

Fast-forward almost sixty years, and what’s changed? Sure, things have improved. Access has improved. Disabled people even have careers and families now. But don’t be fooled: these things haven’t and still don’t come easy. We still have to fight, fight, fight.

But what’s the alternative to fighting? What would happen if disabled people sat back and said ‘sure what’s the point? What can we do?’ Well, I’ll paint you a picture, shall I?

If we continue to allow organisations to represent us instead of us representing ourselves, sooner or later we won’t be trusted in our own opinions at all. We won’t ever challenge ourselves and we will become complacent, so much so that we won’t even notice our human rights being stripped away, one by one.

If we don’t actively promote the social model of disability and be adamant and unwavering in our belief that it’s the society we live in that’s the problem, we will always be seen as patients to be improved, fixed or cured, and future generations will fail to acknowledge that there’s nothing wrong with us.

Today, across Ireland, so many disabled people in Ireland do not get a say in what time to get out of bed, when to eat dinner or where they live. Many are stuck in hospitals or in their parents’ homes where they have no control over many aspects of their lives. This is not okay. Please don’t shrug your shoulders and say ‘oh well that’s just the way it is at the moment, what can we do?’

Imagine if you had to justify every single little decision in order to be able to do what you wanted.

Imagine having to prove yourself every single day in everything you do, and be expected to do so with a smile.

Imagine having to downplay your abilities, almost to the point of degradation, and having to expose your vulnerabilities before getting the basic help you need to live independently.

This isn’t a dystopian novel. This is Ireland, right now.

And for many, it’s a scarier place than any fictional dystopian world ever created.

 

National Carer’s Week 12-18 June

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This week  (12-18 June) marks National Carer’s Week, which is an initiative designed to give recognition to the estimated 180,000 unpaid carers across the country. These people are hailed – and rightly so – as heroic. Many carers have given up dreams of marriage, having a career, maybe juggling caring with raising a family. It’s noble and admirable, yet I find something deeply troubling about the narrative surrounding carers in Ireland.

I probably don’t have any right to be writing this blog.  I’m lucky insofar as my care plan doesn’t currently involve intimate personal care, just help with things like tying up hair, doing buttons etc. I mentioned before that one of the things I value most is my independence. That, and not being labelled a burden.

As a mother of one little girl, I’m ready to plop myself on the couch by eight o’clock in the evening. I love being a mother more than I ever thought I could, but sometimes it can be exhausting – answering incessant questions, doing role plays, going to the park. And this is without having to take care of toileting needs, inserting feeding tubes or anything like that. BUT I would hate to be in that dangerous position where I would view my own daughter more as an object of care than her own little person.

Traditionally, when a disabled person has a child, it is often assumed that the child will take on the role of a carer. Well, let me tell you – Alison has her little chores for which she gets rewarded, but she is not a carer. I have an excellent personal assistant service (not carers) that enables me to be the best mother I can be. I myself direct the Personal Assistant in what I need, and doing so allows me the energy during the day to write pointless blogs like these and spend some quality time with my daughter in the evening. And it allows my husband to enjoy an existence separate from me. I don’t have to worry about him harbouring resentment for me, because I’m not completely dependent on him. We are very much an average husband and wife.

It is harmful to reduce the identity of a person who has ‘high-dependency needs’ to an object of care. Everyone has the right to personal autonomy, to choose how and where they spend their day and with who. I know if I had ‘high dependency needs’ I wouldn’t want my parents, my husband or my child caring for me. I’d want someone fresh, not so emotionally involved, someone who could appreciate my individuality as well as know how to meet my needs. These sort of people are hard to come by. A FETAC Level 5 in Healthcare Support is useful from a practical point of view, but there is a danger that service provision is becoming overmedicalised, with less emphasis on finding out what the person actually wants and more about ticking boxes and providing a basic care plan and often wholly inadequate service.

If this government really cared about the needs of disabled people and their carers, then they wouldn’t dare contemplate cutting the Personal Assistant Hours or the hard-to-come-by Respite Grant. Instead of having a tokenistic approach to unpaid carers by dedicating a measly week to them, the government could alleviate the workload of carers by looking after the needs of the disabled person themselves and, as the late Martin Naughton suggested, allocating them funds so that they (and their families if appropriate) can choose the services they need. Martin called this putting disabled people ‘in the driving seat of their own lives’.

I’ve spoken to people over the last number of years who regard the possibility of acquiring a disability or impairment as ‘a fate worse than death’ and who, like me, would hate to become a burden on their families. But this attitude is a dangerous one. Centuries of conditioning has led us to believe that it’s our impairment that is the problem, and it’s not. It’s the manner in which Irish society and our healthcare system are constructed to make disabled people feel like they’re somehow ‘wrong’, problematic, inconvenient. We are now the only EU member state that hasn’t ratified the UNCRPD. In the UK, disabled people who cannot work are labelled ‘scroungers’ and I can see that attitude creeping in here now. I now believe that positive change is not progressive, and can be undone more quickly than it happened in the first place.

To all of you unpaid carers across the country: I salute you, and keep up the good work. You deserve recognition, not only this week, but every single day. But can I ask a favour? Please join us in challenging the system. Please don’t resent your loved ones for the care they need. They are not at fault. All of our lives would be so much easier if the dignity of disabled people and their carers were upheld through the provision of basic human rights.

 

Enda the Line

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Finally, after what seems like an inappropriately long wait, Enda Kenny stepped down as party Leader of Fine Gael at midnight on Thursday 18 May, and a new party Leader will be announced by the 2 June.  And predictably, many people in this country, including myself, are reflecting on the work (or damage, depending on who you’re talking to) he’s done over the course of his time as Taoiseach. Many of us will not be sad to see him go, especially the many people with disabilities that he’s let down so badly over his term.

Now, I am not saying that by any means that Enda had an easy job. Nor am I denying the fact that his predecessors, Bertie Ahern in particular, left a massive mess behind that Enda would have to clean up. However, during Enda’s time as Taoiseach, I have witnessed a frightening change in the narrative of disability in this country. Perhaps it’s merely age-acquired wisdom, because I don’t remember feeling this trapped as a disabled person during the early noughties. I went to college, I found it easy enough to find summer work and for a very brief period, I was even naïve enough to view myself as equal: willing to contribute to society and worthy of respect for it as a result.

I was just watching an interview activist Joanne O’Riordan had with Gay Byrne’s RTE series The Meaning of Life, in which Joanne discussed her experience with Enda Kenny. Kenny had promised her that the funding for P.A. (Personal Assistant) Services would remain untouched, and then turned around and delivered the blow that a whopping €130million would have to be taken from the HSE Budget, including a €10m cut to the P.A. budget. This soul-shattering announcement demonstrated how little our Taoiseach thought of our lives. This announcement drove activists with disabilities to sleep out in the cold for three days outside Leinster House until these cuts were reversed. It was both a victory and a slap in the face for people with disabilities, because although we were listened to, we realised that we would always have to take drastic measures to have our voices heard.

I worked in the area of Independent Living for seven years, and Enda Kenny was Taoiseach for four of those (since 9 March, 2011). Part of the reason I made the tough decision to leave my job in 2015 was because I found it too difficult to watch, as I saw it, the degeneration of the Independent Living Philosophy. When I joined Offaly CIL first, I was told to have passion. I was encouraged to get excited about equality for people with disabilities, to see the Personal Assistant Service as the key to achieving this equality. I was told that Independent Living was about freedom, control, choice. It was a liberating service with its own unique history and philosophy.

For me, Enda Kenny’s government destroyed all of that. Suddenly, service provision was about a hierarchy of needs, and the service became more about covering the basics rather than encouraging ability and individuality. When I spoke to people about this great ‘philosophy,’ I felt I was lying to them. I would ring my fellow Leaders and ask them to come into the office for a coffee and a chat, and they would tentatively ask me ‘are my hours going to be cut?’ I have to hand it to Offaly CIL, they did and still do resist cutbacks and they go above and beyond to protect Leader’s hours. But it infuriates me that because of Enda Kenny’s nonchalant attitude towards disability that my fellow Leaders continue to live in fear.

I’ll never forget reading the coverage of the three-day protest Martin Naughton led outside the Dáil in 2015 (unfortunately, I was out of the country at the time – yes, I really am just an armchair activist). Martin was asking for the opportunity for people with disabilities to have more control over their own lives by allowing money normally paid directly to service providers to be redirected to the experts, the person with the disability. The protest bore little results apart from a lot of negative press about Enda Kenny, with people by now being so annoyed with him that the focus from the public was more about what a complete tool he is as opposed to what Martin Naughton was asking for (the right for people with disabilities to truly experience Independent Living, in case you’re in doubt). And yet, even after talking to Martin and other disability activists, the future of our lifeline – the Personal Assistant Service – is constantly in jeopardy.

Oh, one more thing – some of you out there think that Leo Varadkar should take over as Taoiseach. And perhaps he should, but I’m personally a bit wary. Aside from the fact that our health system is currently a shambles, a report entitled ‘Make Work Pay for People with Disabilities’ recommends that people with disabilities keep their medical card, as well as raising the current cut-off point of €120 before they start to lose their Disability Allowance. Now, don’t misinterpret me – this is great progress – but given that a report from Inclusion Ireland in 2014 estimates the weekly cost of disability to be €207, it seems that there is a long way to go before people with disabilities can expect a decent quality of life. Also, there is a fear that this system could force people into work that they are genuinely incapable of, a bit like what’s happening in the UK at the moment.

So goodbye, Enda Kenny. Undoubtedly you did many great things for many people across Ireland during your time. You’ll have to forgive the disabled population of Ireland for struggling to remember exactly what they were.

And a quick message for your replacement, whoever you may be: We as people with disabilities have put up with enough shit over the last nine years to last a lifetime. We definitely are not in the mood to tolerate any more. Just thought you should know that.

Cripping Up: Useful Exercise, or a load of Crap?

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Earlier today my daughter, who is growing increasingly aware that her mummy is different to other mummies, asked me if I could walk properly when I was a little girl. ‘Nope,’ I told her, ‘My walking was pretty rubbish when I was a child too, but I didn’t need a wheelchair.’ She was silent for a second, then she said, a tint of sadness coming into her otherwise unblemished face:

‘Some of the girls in my class make fun of you. They say “ha ha, your mummy can’t walk properly.”‘ For a second, my heart stopped. This is the conversation I’d dreaded having with my daughter since the day she was born.

As nonchalantly as possible, I prodded. ‘And what did you say?’

Alison shrugged. ‘I said “don’t make fun of my mummy, it hurts her feelings” but they didn’t stop. I didn’t like it mummy. I would never do that to anyone.’ She was so absolute in her defence of my that it made me want to cry. ‘Mummy,’ she continued. ‘You know I don’t care if you can’t walk properly, or you’re in a wheelchair. I love you and you’re the best mummy.’ I sat, reeling. Where the hell had all this come out of, all of a sudden?

‘School,’ my friend said when I told her the story. ‘Kids learn all sorts from each other at school. They learn to see things differently, to question things, and most worryingly of all, they trust what each other says.’ This isn’t my first encounter with schoolkids of course; once upon a time, in the very same school in fact, I had the honour of dealing with this sort of thing first hand. And while some of the comments hurt (and they did, because I was an impressionable child, just as Ali is now), others were downright hilarious. One particular time I caused grievous injury to a classmate who was enjoying imitating my walking and consequently whacked herself off a door. ‘I never do that,‘ I laughed. And bingo, humour became my new method of self-defence. To be fair, it’s lasted pretty well.

But what has always interested me, even from my prepubescent years, is how people tend to be so fixated on my impairment and how they see it as problematic. ‘Do you ever wish you didn’t have Cerebral Palsy?’ is a question I’ve been asked more times than I’ve had hot dinners. My answer has always been the same, but it’s only in recent years that I understand why I’ve always said no. Cerebral Palsy, and any other disability for that matter, only becomes problematic when others are uncomfortable with it. Impairment and disability are different things. Impairment is a condition or diagnosis, and disability is the collective term for physical and attitudinal barriers facing people in society. I’ve lost you now, haven’t I? Allow me to explain.

My impairment wasn’t the reason why gaining entry to mainstream school was a battle, but the lack of supports available was.

My impairment didn’t stop me reaching third level education because I was enabled through Assistive Technology and Personal Assistance to do so. I used these as tools to unlock my potential.

I built a ramp on both sides of my home so  that I could consequently get a wheelchair to enable me to be independent and get out of the house. A lack of ramps would hamper my freedom, not my impairment.

My heart always sinks whenever I hear the words ‘disability awareness training’ because it often involves so-called ‘able-bodied’ people ‘cripping up’ to try and get a feel for what the world is like for a wheelchair user. With all due respect to those  of you who think this is a good idea, it’s not. Often, it involves able-bodied people using oversized or unsuitable wheelchairs and trying to navigate a physical environment. It’s an unrealistic portrayal because wheelchairs for full-time wheelchair users are designed for their specific needs. While doing something like this, you get a flavour of what it’s like to use a wheelchair to get around and the physical challenges involved. However, you cannot possibly be expected to know what it’s like to carry the burden of a history of hundreds of years of neglect, discrimination and degradation.

It creates awareness, as Kathryn Thomas did on The Late Late Show on Friday 7 April. Everyone knows her face. She was selected to create awareness of the barriers facing wheelchair users in Dublin. It got a great response from many people, saying that it was great to see this issue being highlighted at last. The reality is that people with disabilities have been saying these things for years. And yet, many wheelchair users, including Louise Bruton, who reviews access in Dublin for her blog, Legless in Dublin, was not asked to participate. She wrote an article for the Irish Times before the Late Late aired in which she said: ‘These pieces are a gimmick and if they help change the minds of a few people, then that is great, but they remove us from the discussion. By doing this, we are passing the baton and the opportunity to go deep into the experiences of a wheelchair user is missed.’

Blogger John Doyle was more direct in his criticism of this approach, saying in his blog: ‘Would your celebs paint themselves black and claim the understand racism? No they would not. Did John F Kennedy mimic being a different ethnicity to highlight racism? No he did not. He acted with legislation because he lived in a country that had one rule equality for one section and a rule of inequality for others’. We still haven’t ratified the United Nations Convention of Rights for People with Disabilities, which would mean so much more than a celebrity endorsement.

And why do we need celebrities to highlight the issues that we disabled  people have been discussing for years? The answer is simply we don’t – but for some reason our voices seem to only matter when they’re endorsed by politicians, celebrities and the likes. I wonder is this because people don’t want to know about the nitty-gritty of the discrimination disabled people face, or is it because they feel they can relate to an able-bodied person better? If that’s the case, will our voices, our own voices, ever be heard?

Because I don’t want my daughter answering questions about her ‘different’ mummy forever. I hope that one day she will be wise enough to say ‘You have a question about my mummy? You ask her yourself. I don’t speak on behalf of her, or anyone else.’

Locked away

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For as long as I can remember, I have had an irrational fear of being institutionalised, or more specifically, living in a residential institution or a hospital.

I remember being eight years old, an age where my sense of self-awareness was growing rapidly. I was beginning to sense that I was different from my classmates. They had to tell me that I walked and talked differently, because I’d always assumed that I was no different to them. They didn’t use a typewriter. They played in the yard at lunchtime while I sat watching them. I remember complaining to my parents about it. ‘Count yourself lucky,’ my dad would say, ‘you can do so much more than other people with Cerebral Palsy.’ What the hell is Cerebral Palsy? My mum told me it was a kind of brain damage; that all of the body’s messages come from the brain, and that’s why I did things a little differently to others. That was that.

Then one night, my parents and I watched a documentary on the institutionalisation of people with disabilities during the Second World War and in the 1950s. Horrified does not describe how I felt as I watched how people were locked away by the Nazis, never to be seen again. I heard stories about people who were hidden in their parents’ attics for decades, and I thought: I am lucky. I am lucky.

That year, I would stay in Clochan House, a local respite centre, for the first time. My parents told me it was a sleepover summer camp, and indeed it was lots of fun. We did art, went on trips shopping and to the cinema, and had singsongs in the evenings. Don’t get me wrong, I have very fond memories of my time there, but the first time I stayed there I was convinced I was going to be left there, even though my mother went to great pains to tell me this wasn’t the case. That week, I learned to use a tricycle, which would be my main mode of transport for many years. It gave me independence, liberated me. I would later cycle to school and into town on a trike. I loved freedom. I lived a pretty bog-standard life. I did my Junior and Leaving Cert, went to Uni, got a degree and started working. Nothing remarkable there.

Unfortunately, not everyone agreed. In my school, I became a role model for people with disabilities and got told that I was great. I decided to compete for a place in Trinity, but knew I’d have to work hard, to the point where I made myself sick. ‘Remember that you can only do your best,’ teachers would say, their voiced tinged with concern. ‘Like it or not, you do have a disability so you will face challenges no other student would face.’ I refused to take my eye off the ball, afraid that my future would be full of endless computer courses and day centres. I have nothing against either, but that’s what you’re automatically supposed to do, as a person with a disability. You’re supposed to partake in a pre-formulated narrative. And if you do manage to fight the system and get a degree and a full-time job, then you’re great! Absolutely fantastic altogether! A real example of triumph over adversity! A pre-formulated narrative in itself.

I often think about what it must be like to live in an institution. According to the latest figures, 1,000 young people are living in residential institutions and hospitals. This is outrageous in 2015. Cuts to the adaptation grants, household benefits and Personal Assistant Services have all contributed to this problem. But institutionalisation is not just about your living arrangements. In my view, institutionalisation is spreading into the wider community. It manifests itself when business premises are not accessible for wheelchair using clients. Hate crime is also on the rise, that is, people with disabilities (including myself) being attacked because they are perceived as being vulnerable and ‘easy targets’. In my case, being attacked forced me to leave an affordable council house in Portlaoise and move back into the private rented sector. I felt I had to move back to my home town in order to have emergency contacts in case something happened to me.

I wonder how many more people out there feel held to ransom by circumstances beyond their control.

I wonder how many people are trapped within the four walls of their own homes, day in, day out, because they have to use their Personal Assistant hours for Personal Care or household duties. I wonder how many don’t see anyone else from one day to the next.

I wonder how many people, despite being in their homes, still don’t control what time they get up and go to bed at, or who is going to help them with these tasks.

When I had Alison, I had to start fighting before she was born. Fighting for the help I’d need to care for her. Fighting against the misconceptions of my parenting abilities as a mother with a disability. But most difficult of all was fighting against the negativity that I myself had internalised over the years, mirrored from a society that want to define me, keep me in my place. What if you drop her? the voice would say. What if you can’t look after her properly? What if she resents you for having her? What good can someone like you be to her?

Alison has recently started to ask ‘Why?’ about everything. ‘Why does it rain?’ ‘Why can’t we eat chocolate for dinner?’ I never want her to stop asking why things are the way they are, and as people with disabilities, we should never stop questioning things either. Yes, having to be continually vocal about your rights is exhausting. Yes, sometimes it feels as though the Disability Rights Movement is going around in circles. But if we stop challenging injustice, then not only will we be institutionalised in our own homes, but also in our minds and in our way of thinking.

And this kind of institutionalisation is the scariest and most debilitating of all.

A Crip With A Chip

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My name is Sarah Fitzgerald, and I have an awful confession. I think I have turned into an angry person with a disability. A ‘crip with a chip’, I believe we are referred to.

I hate ‘angry crips’, or at least I thought I did, until recently. I’ve come across many people in my life who I would’ve dubbed an angry crip at one stage. They are portrayed as believing that the world is against them. They seem to moan about things all the time, but yet they don’t do anything about anything, because they think it is pointless. I used to think it was laziness, selfishness, that they wanted everything handed to them. Yes, I am ashamed to say that I used to view the angry crip as some sort of moaning Michael.

As life changes day by day, so too does my perception of the angry crip, because I’m starting to think that maybe an angry crip has every right to be angry. Maybe it’s old age, maybe it’s cynicism. I personally think it’s I-don’t-think-I-can-take-more-of-this-crap … ism.

In my previous blog, I wrote about the expectations we have of ourselves and how we sometimes go to extremes to meet these. Some of these expectations come from within, but there’s no denying that society and consumerism create them too. When my daughter Alison sings ‘Let it Go’ and particularly ‘don’t let them in/don’t let them see/Be the good girl you always have to be,’ I cringe inside. I know Elsa sings them with irony, as a reminder that society expects women to act a certain way. I just don’t want my daughter to feel pressured to become anyone less than who she is inside.

I must confess that over the years I too allowed myself to aspire to perfection. A grade-A student in school, who from the outside struggled through adversity and completed the Leaving Cert. Teachers would look at me in awe; I would look at them like they were demented. ‘But you still get on with things, despite everything, aren’t you great?’ they would gush at me. My parents never said this to me and I love them for it. I went to college where, let me assure you, I never heard how great I was once. I wasn’t treated differently at all, and it was there that I gained a sense of what it was to be equal.

And then I was flung back into the real world. A world where people stare at you while you’re having your lunch, having full-blown conversations about you (‘the one from the telly’), your walking (‘she’s very shaky, God love her’) and your disability. This used to not bother me at all, but now it’s difficult to resist the urge not to go over and say ‘I’m sorry, can I help you? introduce you to the art of whispering perhaps? Because I can hear what you’re saying from the other side of the restaurant.’ But I never break my resolve, and you know why? Because I don’t want to be known as the ‘crip with a chip.’

My resolve has been tested so much over the last few months. I watch as people can’t access education and employment because there are too many obstacles. I was in a queue in the bank recently, in my wheelchair, and a woman said to the person who was ahead of her ‘I need to hurry up cause I have my mother in the car in the wheelchair space so I wouldn’t need a ticket.’ (When I told her this was wrong, she ignored me.) And you know, the usual that all of us put up with at some stage or another: the taxi man asking my friend who was putting me into the taxi where was I going (I didn’t know, apparently); a shop assistant taking my wallet off me, looking for change because I was taking too long to find it; a woman asking me where my mother was as I dropped my handbag and started scooping up all my change (‘Who is with you?’); people talking over my head (‘she wants the chicken roll’). And you are expected to keep schtum and smile. Well, sorry, no. I’ve had enough.

Two things tipped me over the edge today into writing this ranty blog. The first was seeing an interview of two veteran disability activists from the US, Ed Roberts and Judy Heumann (who I met in 2011). The interview took place in 1984 and Roberts and Heumann were talking about the need for people with disabilities to have more control over their own lives. ‘There is a lot more to life than being physically perfect,’ Roberts said. Judy Heumann said, ‘Disabled people have to fight harder in order to be able to make it in the system… if they want to live the life that they want.’ In their opinion, people with disabilities need to be seen in positions of power in order to be taken seriously, and they need to work together in order to achieve this. Judy adds: ’I question whether disabled people have achieved democracy and solidarity’. Although this interview is thirty years old, it is unfortunately still relevant today.

Then I opened the local rag to reveal the headline, ’24 hours’ notice required if assistance needed to get on train’. For a moment I thought I’d entered some sort of time warp, but no, this was an article written in 2015. I was outraged and posted this on Facebook immediately, to which some of the responses included, ‘yeah, this has always been standard practice in our local station.’ Eh, really?! How can anyone think this is okay? Have we become so complacent as a society that we not only witness discrimination every day, but think that it’s to be expected? That it’s now just a part of our psyche, part and parcel of having a disability?

No, sorry now, but from where I’m sitting I’d rather be perceived as the angry cripple and be vocal about these very real issues than give into the status quo and say nothing. Because if we don’t start channelling this anger into making real changes in our society, then we might as well watch all of our human rights slowly disappear. And if we don’t start making these changes, us ‘crips with chips’ will always have something to be angry about.

Equality for all

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It’s the night before the Marriage Referendum. I’ve read articles and stories from both sides and I’m ready, as the slogan urges us, to vote Yes for equality. But being who I am, I can’t turn off my thoughts about the word ‘equality’ and what it means in 2015. And here’s why.

I know that I use this blog to prattle on and on about the importance of disability rights. I am aware of how one-dimensional some of my posts may seem to those of you who know that I am more than my disability and am proud to know Sarah (this isn’t directed at any dads in particular by the way). But here’s the thing: despite being periodically frustrated by my limitations, I have embraced who I am. I know that I try to be understanding, accepting and tolerant of all others, simply because that’s how I expect to be treated, even though it is not always the case. I laugh off the insults, the condescension, the ignorance because at the end of the day, it shouldn’t really matter what people think of me. I am who I am, regardless of the labels people throw at me.

Over the last few months I have listened, watched and read arguments in favour of, and opposing same-sex marriage. You haven’t been able to avoid it unless you live under a rock; it was even on the front page of the Tullamore Tribune this week. Politicians, celebrities and ordinary citizens talking about which way they are voting in the Same-sex marriage referendum. People sharing their experiences of what it’s like to be gay in twenty-first century Ireland. It’s amazing how this referendum has forced people to face such a taboo subject head-on. To examine what it means for people living in shame of who they are. To explore people’s anxieties and deconstruct their misconceptions. To hear both sides argue their cases so passionately.

Ireland has progressed so much, people say. But allowing same-sex marriage won’t stop homophobia or hate crime. And although so much has been done to ensure that Ireland is becoming a more accepting and understanding society, I have to admit I still don’t feel it.

In the last two weeks two separate incidents involving people with disabilities made the headlines. The first was a man who was left on a train when the ramp was not provided to let him off the train. He was let off twenty minutes later, and he commented that never before had his disability made him feel so vulnerable. The second one was a woman who was denied access to a Dublin Bus because a buggy was occupying the wheelchair area. One wheelchair space for fifty-odd seats seems a bit discriminatory anyway. These are not isolated incidents, as I know only too well from working in the disability sector; everyone has a story to tell about public transport in Ireland.

How can Ireland be viewed as being progressive if there are still people in society who cannot even access basic services such as transport? Why are we still highlighting the same issues over and over again?

I thought I was being paranoid, so I decided to do some actual research. According to a report by the National Disability Authority in 2011 on attitudes towards people with disabilities, the number of people who believed that ‘it is society that disables people’ fell from 62% strongly agreeing and agreeing in 2006 to 57% in 2011. Not a significant drop, but a drop nonetheless. Furthermore, there was a decrease in the number of people who think that people with disabilities should be treated more favourably in certain circumstances (i.e. when their disabilities prevent them from doing things that a person without a disability could do) from 80% in 2006 to 68% in 2011.

It occurs to me as I read these statistics that the changes in the attitudes of those who partook in the study may be due to the onset of the recession. Since 2008, funding that was once earmarked for disability services has been restricted and the needs of people with disabilities have had to be prioritised. Every year disability organisations make pre-budget submissions, outlining how further cuts will have devastating consequences for their clients. When you have a disability, you become costly; a report launched by Inclusion Ireland in September 2014 estimates that the extra cost of disability is roughly €207 per week. That’s not even provided through our (means-tested) disability allowance. And because of this people with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty; many are caught in a welfare trap, afraid to move into employment in case they lose their secondary benefits such as medical cards and travel passes, and consequently they are either seen as spongers or dependent on the state.

How is this equality?

Tomorrow’s same-sex marriage referendum will come and go, and whatever the outcome, one thing is for certain: this referendum has given so many people a platform on which to relate their personal experiences, voice their opinions, and persuade the people around them of the merits and disadvantages of same-sex marriage. Giving the Irish people the opportunity to vote for same-sex marriage empowers the people and puts the potential of equality for same-sex couples in their hands.

Imagine, this time tomorrow, the right to marry your partner regardless of gender could be a reality.

Maybe, one day, equality for people with disabilities could be a given, too. But in order to achieve this, we need to be more vocal, more visible. We need to make sure that our voices are always heard. Not just around election time but every single day. Only when true equality exists should we fall silent.

PS Yes Equality!

Owning my limitations

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I have a confession, and anyone who knows me will appreciate how difficult it is for me to say these words. I think I may have some limitations. When they read this blog, my husband and my dad will probably read the italicised sentence a few times, just to make sure they read it correctly. I hate admitting I can’t do things. Quite frankly, failure makes me feel weak and pathetic, and instead of learning from these experiences and moving on, I persevere until I’m certain it can’t be done.

Alison has recently started nagging me to teach her how to use a skipping rope and hula hoop. As I have serious coordination issues, I can’t do either, and it makes me feel stupid. I fob her off with ‘someone else will teach you’, but sooner or later she will want a straight answer to these questions and just like that, I will be forced to once again accept my shortcomings while hating myself just a little inside.

There was, of course, a time when I was completely oblivious to what my limitations were. Here are some of these times. Rest assured that I am sitting here blushing behind the glow of my laptop screen.

  • I love writing, as in writing things down by hand. To feel the pen glide (or dart when you have involuntary movements) across the page is one of my guilty pleasures. Alas, my handwriting makes the doctor’s worst scribbles easily legible. As a child, I loved writing in notebooks and diaries (as all little girls do) and fought tirelessly with my parents because I couldn’t see why I couldn’t write like the other kids. I wrote all of my Leaving Cert notes by hand because that’s how I remember things best. My parents cruelly forced me to use a computer and laptop instead. Sure, doing so enabled me to go to university after doing my Leaving Cert, but that’s not the point. I will never admit they were right (pig-headed, moi)?
  • I spent about a month when I was eight trying to cycle a normal two-wheeled bike with stabilisers that Santa had brought me. It was only after about seven falls, countless bruises and a deep scrape that went from my thigh to my ankle that it dawned on me that this wasn’t going to work.
  • I tried both skipping and French skipping in the playground. These trials didn’t last long as I didn’t know how to jump. After a while, I gave up, but I wasn’t very happy about it.
  • I was never good at knitting or sewing, but I kick ass at weaving, as I discovered in second class. The teacher gave me a weaving loom, and with that I wove a scarf, a headband and a purse. However, when I took Home Economics in first year in school, I was given the task of making a collage while the other girls did their cross stitching and used the sewing machines. The experience scarred me to the extent that I can’t bring myself to make a collage with Ali.
  • I remember getting brochures in school about really cool summer camps that included activities such as skating, bungee jumping, Qazar, water fights, football, basketball and hurling. My parents would look at each other and my mother would say, in a suspiciously bright voice, ‘How would you like to go to a better summer camp, where you can even sleep over?’ This place was Clochan House, a respite centre for people with disabilities just like me. They couldn’t go skateboarding either, but once I overlooked the fact that I hadn’t gotten my own way, I enjoyed myself and even nabbed meself a husband! Best camp ever! (bet you’re sorry now, eh dad?)
  • I took guitar lessons in TY much to the amusement of my classmates. At the end of a three month course, I could play E minor. I’m ashamed to say that in my family, at least four of us can play the guitar. I am not one of them.
  • Much to my disappointment and relief, I will never be a slave to fashion. High heels and me = disaster. In an effort to look elegant I wore high –heeled shoes to my school grad. They came off within ten minutes as I fell over for the fiftieth time. I looked pissed, and I desperately wished I had been, but no.
  • I think my mum wet herself the day that I announced that I was going to try and get a weekend job in the Bridge House or something, as a waitress, to supplement my college income. ‘Er, your studies are far more important’, she insisted through her tittering. Hmmph.

There are times when having so many limitations can be a real pain in the ass, and it does get me down sometimes, especially when Alison asks me to skip, climb and run after her. But then I think, no, I’m not exactly like every other mum in the playground, why should I be? Time to focus on the positive:

        • I have a handsome husband and beautiful daughter
        • I can work, write and spend time with my family (although I’m still working on the balance)
        • I have a degree from Trinity College, where I learned to live independently
        • I love, and am grateful for, my life at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong, the way I am wired means that I’ll probably always be pushing the boundaries, trying to achieve the most unrealistic goals. If I achieve them, I will be delighted, and if I don’t, I’ll come to terms with that too.

But I won’t know until I try.