Tag Archives: disability rights movement

The H Bomb

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Trigger warning: This blog uses the word handicap which may be triggering for some readers.

Having a thirteen-year-old daughter is tricky. She’s constantly pushing for more independence, and her friends are the most important things in her world right now. So, whenever she agrees to spend time with me, I grab it with both hands. Last week, I planned an impromptu trip to Dublin, just for a wander. We were at the Jump Juice counter in the Ilac Centre on Henry Street, and I’d just ordered when, in the corner of my eye, I noticed Alison storming away without me.

“Hey! Where you going?” I grabbed her arm and she swung back around to me.

“That lady called you a smelly handicap.”

“Eh? How do you know that?”

“I heard her. She said ‘oh, I wouldn’t go near that smelly handicap.’ So I thought I’d follow her and punch her lights out.”

A large part of me brimmed with pride. Alison is embarrassed by me, because I am her mum, and cool teenagers are not supposed to admit that they have parents, and certainly not “special” parents. Yet, she was willing to throw herself in front of me to protect me from attack. Little did she know she’d picked up a sword to join so many of us in an ongoing battle to be recognised as equals – God, to merely exist.

I first heard the word “handicap” before I started primary school. Mum spent hours nattering on the phone to her golfing buddies, going on about pars and handicaps. She’d naively hoped that I’d always be oblivious to the negative connotations – the shadow of “cripples” begging during the Middle Ages, “hand in cap”, their survival dependent on the generosity of others. She could have warned me that people would call me names, or that they wouldn’t accept me, but I might not have believed her. I never got any special treatment at home; my favourite expression from my childhood is “No disability will ever excuse you from emptying the dishwasher.” My parents always expected me to do my best at everything I did. But the other side of that was that they taught me that I did not deserve to be treated less favourably. It was not okay to be othered, and to tolerate it was to show people that I deserved this treatment. They encouraged me to speak up for myself.

Granted, having been born a chatterbox, I’m not sure how much encouragement I needed. In first year of secondary school, I was advised that I would not be allowed to partake in PE, or the practical elements of Home Economics. After attempting the basketball drills, I conceded with the PE teachers, Ms Ganly and Ms Healy, that I was probably better off sitting the classes out, but I really wanted to do Home Economics. What I saw was the probability of having to do meal prep in the future; there was little doubt in my mind that I would someday live independently. What my teachers saw, I imagine, was a wobbly girl with shaky hands dancing around boiling pots and sharp knives. In fifth year, I told the teacher, with all the confidence I could muster, that I would be doing Home Economics and partaking in the cooking elements. By this stage, I was already cooking lasagne and pasta dishes at home every week anyway. Impressed (or frightened) by my insistence, she agreed. Soon this smelly handicap was bringing home dinner from school for the family every Thursday evening. The Chinese stir fry was a particular favourite, and now it’s one of Alison’s favourite dinners, too!

But hearing the words “smelly handicap,” thirty-six years after hearing it for the first time, made me feel sad. Like many of my disabled family, I have always fought to dismantle the man-made, societal barriers that block me from accessing my true potential. Yet hearing the word “handicap” the other day brought to mind early Junior Infant days when I, having just learned how to walk, used to meander towards the toilets, and the kids in the older classes would dig each other in the ribs and walk beside me, as if they were trying to trip themselves up. Now, I had no concept of walking any differently, so thankfully the other kids were around to tell me. My friend Peter pointed out to me that, like me, he did not know he had Cerebral Palsy until it was pointed out to him. In fact, he told me, Cerebral Palsy (CP) was initially named “Little’s Disease,” so-called after the doctor who “discovered” it for the first time.  However, Peter pointed out, CP has always existed, alongside many other conditions and impairments, and this fact remains constant throughout the ages. What has evolved (a little) is how we label and consequently perceive and treat disabled people.

For me, hearing the word “handicap” throws me back to a time when I believed there was something wrong with me, and that I had to justify my place in the world. I spent my teen years believing I was not good enough, despite the academic results showing me otherwise. Going to Trinity and seeing how many resources they put in place to enable me to live independently, offered me a valuable perspective I’d never considered before. Learning that I was not a burden lifted a weight of responsibility from me that I hadn’t known that I’d been carrying. 

However, whether we like it or not, our experience of life colours our outlook. And even though, from an outsider’s viewpoint at least, I’ve achieved great things – a university degree, a job, marriage, our child – all of these blessings were underpinned by an inner belief that I didn’t deserve them, that I was just an imposter, waiting to be unmasked.

I’ve written about internalised oppression before, and my stance remains unchanged: I think it is one of the toughest barriers to true equality for disabled people. All our lives, we are constantly told, by a society that purports to know better, what we can and cannot do. We are told that we are a burden. We watch as those who tend to our needs, family members who we crave a relationship with on an equal basis, become burnt out. The dynamic shifts; we cannot possibly ever be equal in that position. People pity family carers, yet the governments still fails to understand that when our human rights are granted, pressure on those who love us also eases.

No parent should ever vocalise a wish to die before their children do. This has been an issue for decades, and the discussion is always the same. In order for the lives of disabled people to improve in a meaningful way, the government must commit to taking a rights-based approach. The government must change how disability is framed in our society. This won’t come naturally to a government that left an eleven year gap between signing up for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and its ratification. There’s always a great deal of conversation around the provision of disability services, but the government rarely address groups of disabled people themselves (or Disabled Persons Organisations, also known as DPOs) in making these provisions.

And I cannot help but wonder if it’s this lingering culture of seeing us as “other,” as those “smelly handicaps”, that prevents us from being seen as equals. Othering us makes it easier to deny our rights, to keep us separate from the mainstream. If you have not experienced this “othering”, you cannot imagine the effort it takes to try and come across as “normal”. How we sometimes try to hide the “unsavoury” realities of our impairments in the hope it leads to acceptance. How frightening it can be to ask for assistance, personal or technological, for fear that such a request may lead us to be seen as incapable. Kudos where it’s due: many aspects of our towns and cities are becoming more accessible to people with all kinds of impairments. Disability awareness training seems to be more commonplace.

However, until our human rights are truly recognised and met, the legacy of the “smelly handicap” will always be hiding around the corner, ready to take us by surprise.

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.

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!