I didn’t Know I was Disabled

For the longest time I didn’t realise I was disabled.

When I was ten, I was off-rolled from my school. This is when a school deliberately removes a student because they think that student will bring the grade average down, and it happens to ill children a lot. I spent more time out of school than in it, attending hospital appointments, or lying in bed, or sometimes just sitting and waiting for hours on end in A&E trying to figure out what the heck was going on, wondering if I was dying, sometimes hoping I would. I was only 10. That’s so much tinier than I felt at the time.

Despite being in so much pain I couldn’t walk some days, I carried on, taking my exams as a homeschooler, and enrolling in secondary school. On the second induction day, I was on crutches, to the confusion of many of my new peers. ‘What happened between today and yesterday?!’… well nothing. Nothing I could explain. Only that my foot hurt so much I couldn’t put weight on it anymore. Only that A&E wouldn’t give us a wheelchair so my Mum had to carry me there and back. Throughout secondary I missed many lessons, I was bullied by teachers and students, but still I carried on. I did Silver DofE with the help of physiotherapy (bad idea), I took my GCSEs and cried through the pain in almost every exam. And I think it was then when I realised I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help being late every morning, and not handing my prep in on time every class. I couldn’t help being in pain, I couldn’t just ‘carry on’. But it wasn’t until college that I realised I didn’t have to. I started to think maybe, it wasn’t my fault after all. Because suddenly I was receiving help, acceptance, and compassion. Suddenly my problems weren’t impossible to deal with...

It was only easy to call myself a liar rather than disabled, because it was easier for other people to ignore my needs rather than to help me.

It was easier because it meant I was the problem, not my environment and certainly not the attitudes of those around me. But that’s not true. I’m a person, not a problem. This is The Social Model of Disability.