“Can’t you just try harder?”  ‘Why can’t you just be normal?” “Can’t you just not be anxious?” 

A life played in the mode of ‘most difficult’ is to play a game that is rigged, and not in your favour. There are no prizes to be won. There is another way.  

I’m a disabled woman; at this point in time, there are 8 different conditions present, at various stages of diagnosis, in my body. I have been disabled since birth; it was a decade ago that I was (finally) diagnosed as Autistic, and I have since found it’s likely I also have Dyspraxia. The usual micro aggressions abate too often, as if I can suddenly turn myself inside out. My neurology is not a choice however - but an acceptance, a sense of all but texture. Would it not be a boring world if we were all but the same? 

 

Find people like you 

In coming to AccessAble I came to find people like me - a ragtag rebel group who were like me. Shame followed my diagnosis, and it stuck to me like glue. Some days it can rear its head. But here was a space where I was welcome, firstly; the sparks generated by my brain were embraced rather than ridiculed, too. Disability, in all of its forms, was just a fact of life, a cause and a calling. Instead, this was something to take pride in. You are allowed to ‘just be’ - and we are all to be afforded a dignity in that.  

 

The meaning of accessibility 

Accessibility to meet my needs was not something I’d considered before; to be diagnosed as Autistic means you simply receive the ‘what’ of ‘what makes me different’, but never the ‘how’ of ‘how to cope’. To have such a groundbreaking concept explained broke apart my universe, and for the better. Ignoring your own access needs is an impossibility no one should have to deal with.  

The cadence of email can throw me at times, as well as phone calls; they are almost impossible. Anxiety is a daily companion, its talon wrapped oftentimes around my brain. Detail can be made in mind numbing documented detail - enough that I was once nicknamed the ‘detail freak’. Sarcasm and the nuances of communication, faces, elude me. Trying to battle on as if to conform to an inherently arbitrary standard is exhausting. But to be allowed another way forward is another way that is healthier, more productive, as well as creative.  

 

Why I take Pride 

Autistic Pride Day falls on the 18th of June each year. Another trip around the sun, so to speak, may mark time - but it feels like another throwing down in the sand, another 365 days lived in acceptance. Autism is just a part of me, it is not a superpower, or something to be commodified by the workplace.  

Signalling a participation suggests to me that an organisation takes my community into account, and actually even care about us as consumers. I want to be a part of this world; I also have the capital to spend. Access should be the priority of any commercial organisation for a start; to not have this at the forefront of anyone’s mind shows an elitism. As our founder said to me earlier this year, why aren’t more organisations on board?  

Inclusion is something that benefits every single one of us. Asking for equitable rights, to be treated the same, is not special treatment; it’s human decency. But there is also the by-product of inclusion for all - in taking apart arbitrary barriers. Stairs can cause issues for everyone, not just if you’re disabled; if electronic signs at a station fail, having another provision could help anyone in an emergency. It is a kindness to exercise to every single one of us, for a fair and equitable society.