Disabled Coronation Street star reveals prejudice from taxi drivers, doctors and public

I see disability much differently than you do.

The general public who are not disabled view disability as something to be afraid of, feel sorry for, make encouraging faces at, and, most importantly, hope against hope that it never happens to them.

Because that would be terrible.

It’s not, in fact. Please don’t take my disability away from me; I’m OK this way. I’m pretty happy with it. It makes up a large part of who I am and my identity.

Being disabled has taught me a lot; yeah, it has come with some hardships, but it has also helped me to develop my patience, acceptance, and sense of self.

I can more easily perceive people’s spirits when I see how they connect with me at first.

We quickly resolved that issue since I know that if someone is going to write me off because my legs aren’t strong, they won’t ever really be a wonderful buddy when the going gets tough. Phew!

The majority of people still view disability as a charitable cause, which is the biggest issue with how people view it.

Why do we not receive the same level of societal support that everyone else does?

Why are our children being used to evoke sympathy or get others to reach into their pockets?

And what in the world is that teaching the youth in my neighborhood about their worth?

My life is constantly plagued by barriers that prevent me from attending the same events or locations as other people, including taxis turning off their lights when they see me, doctors ignoring new symptoms as not really worth looking into, and assumptions that I can’t do many of the most basic tasks.

None of it makes me disabled; instead, it’s other people’s attitudes that make me the most disabled.

How quickly your expectations have decreased. the pleasure humans derive from performing the most basic tasks.

I’ve received numerous unprompted cheers from people when putting the wheelie bin away over the years.

To be fair, it is a lovely wheeling duet dance. I’ll pass somebody lugging four drinks back from the bar, and they’ll be amazed.

The joy and pointing as I pass at a festival while hauling EVERYTHING for camping. I’ve also occasionally received praise for simply being somewhere.

In addition to access, that is the issue we struggle with the most: public expectations. I got it.

This attitude of disability as something to be pitied is something we have all inherited. We may feel uneasy around it because it’s still related to charity and we don’t want to say the wrong thing.

We must work together if we want to alter this. We are all just people and exist in all cultures.

It’s challenging because we all need to let go of the attitudes we’ve all inherited—attitudes that, tragically, most of our media still reflect.

We make up 20% of the population. We make up one in five people, thus we are common.

Let me explain the background of this bias. I would be confined to a nursing home in the 1980s if I had my present access requirements, and I would not have been able to lead the independent life and profession I have. My bedtime would be determined by someone else.

In the 1990s, if I were riding a train, I’d probably be in the guard’s van, and if it were night, I’d be in the pitch black. I didn’t have a legal right to a university education until 2000.

Even now, the rights we fought so hard for are being compromised. We no longer have the care support we once did; in recent years, people who are not incontinent have been forced to wear incontinence pads, forcing them to decide how long they can hold out before having to sit in their own bodily fluids; this government reduced care visits to 15 minutes at random times throughout the day, and full-time care for the majority of those in need has been eliminated.

Our kids compete in a lottery for their education that affects whether they get accommodations or even be taught to read (it is not against the law to not teach non verbal disabled young people to read, some of us are only merely taught in pictures, our main form of communication therefore taken away from us).

Usually, the media doesn’t report on our news. Where were the sign language interpreters when COVID first began?

The book that learning-impaired persons can easily read? Our community’s members were disregarded and kept in the dark as the pandemic and the threat of death developed all around them.

You can learn a lot from the fact that 2/3 of individuals who died from COVID in this country had a disability.

that during the pandemic, hospitals gave “Do Not Resuscitate” orders to disabled patients.

I was in the hospital, blissfully oblivious to the order written on my notes next to my bed.

It’s “only” the old and the vulnerable who are at a higher risk of dying from covid, according to the repulsive word “just” that we heard being used everywhere to explain away the risk of Covid. as if we were unimportant.

Since wearing masks to protect others has become unacceptable in our culture, millions of people who are at higher risk for COVID remain cooped up in our houses.