Plenty of extra’s are coming to Diary of a Disabled Person, starting this Thursday when I will be releasing the script for my TEDx Talk on Disability in Education & Employment.
If you don’t already make sure you click that subscribe button, or follow me on social media (Facebook & Instagram: @diaryofadisabledperson, Twitter: @WheelsofSteer), and you won’t miss a thing!
Just a quick reminder that I won’t be posting tomorrow due to the small matter that is my honeymoon. However, if you don’t already, you’re definitely going to want to follow me on Instagram (@diaryofadisabledperson) because my feed will be straight fire all week!
Next week I’ll be heading to London for my honeymoon, so for the first time in Diary of a Disabled Person history, I’ll be taking a week off from blogging.
Diary of a Disabled Person will return on Sunday 10th March with brand new content!
In the meantime, you can keep up with everything I get up to on Facebook & Instagram (@diaryofadisabledperson), & Twitter (@WheelsofSteer).
Don’t miss me too much!
In a couple of days this blog will have been a part of my life for two whole years. Two. Fricking. Years. For some reason I have been unable to fathom, people keep coming back for more, and who am I to deny my readers what they want? Except for being, you know, the author.
A year ago I did a recap of all that had happened in Diary of a Disabled Person’s initial year (https://diaryofadisabledperson.blog/2018/01/14/diary-of-a-disabled-person-one-year-on/), ending with a whopping 68,000 views, 80 followers, and 400 Facebook page followers. Now it’s time to reflect on what’s happened since then.
My total view count is nearing 80,000 views, which admittedly means that my blog has been viewed far less this year. This is partly due to my issues with Cracked.com and the fact that I haven’t published anything with them for a long time, but I fear changes to net neutrality may also have had something to do with this. However, while my view count is lower my WordPress following has shot up, reaching 200 just a few days ago. Similarly, the fan base I have accrued is incredibly loyal, never failing to show their support for me. This is reflected in particular in the 5 awards my blog has won in the past year.
I also took time to purchase a web domain and give my website a makeover, using a template to keep it professional-looking, while improving menus, accessibility, and friendliness for phone and tablet use. I created an audio page and went through the entire backlog of posts, making a recording of myself reading them aloud for those who prefer to listen rather than read.
A burst of inspiration also led me to start writing short stories which featured disabled protagonists in farcical scenarios, predominantly to entertain and make people laugh, but also to raise awareness of the issues disabled people can face on a day-to-day basis. These turned out to be incredibly popular, and over the course of the year I published 13 of them.
On social media my Facebook (@diaryofadisabledperson) page has seen some growth, and I set up an associated group as a place to share polls and news articles relevant to disability. I also set up an Instagram (@diaryofadisabledperson) account, which mostly consists of pictures from local wrestling shows and various selfies.
However, by far my biggest success on social media has been setting up a Twitter account (@WheelsofSteer). I am shamelessly explicit with my language, and frequently share anecdotes of both good and bad things happening to me that make people laugh and think. I’ve even taken to adapting famous song lyrics to make them about disability instead. Clearly my sarcastic comments resonate with the Twitter community as I am fast approaching 4,000 followers.
Looking forwards there is still plenty of room for Diary of a Disabled Person to grow. I am working on turning my blog into a book, a complex and time-consuming process but one that will be extremely rewarding. I can also confirm that a further 6 short stories have been written and these will be released soon. I am also thinking of starting some vlogging on the side, something which many of you have requested, as I have found some video editing software that would allow me to do this.
Let’s hope that I have as much positive news to share with you again in a year’s time, when I look back on the third year of Diary of a Disabled Person.
Social media is frequently lambasted as being anti-social, unwelcoming, and full of arrogant over-sharers who feel the need to share every last second of their lives with the internet (let’s not forget the self-important bloggers who take this to a whole new level). It’s been blamed for crimes and radicalisation, and is associated with spreading fake news and false evidence that backs up conspiracy theories such as the world being flat. I can assure you that the world isn’t flat because if it was, it would be a damn sight easier to navigate from a wheelchair.
All social media sites have faced their fair share of criticism, whether it be for selling personal data for profit, or altering photographs so significantly that the people in them look more like tall Barbie dolls than they do actual human beings. Perhaps the site that has been the subject of the most controversy though, is the one that allowed the president of the United States to discuss the ever-important issue of covfefe with the public. I am of course referring to Twitter.
I didn’t set up a Twitter account until February 2018, mainly because I had heard so many stories of horrendous trolling and abuse that I didn’t want to become embroiled in the supposed melee. However, I decided reaching out to Twitter would be a cheap and easy way of introducing more people to my way of thinking, so I set up an account while mentally preparing myself for an onslaught of far-right conservatives telling me I would burn in hell for the heinous act of finding Jennifer Lawrence attractive. I was pleasantly surprised.
What I found on Twitter was not a bucket-load of prejudice and malice, but a large, supportive community of likeminded individuals who all banded together to help those around them, even when living on opposite sides of the planet (another one for the flat-Earthers). A lot of wheelchair users and chronic illness sufferers soon climbed aboard the Diary of a Disabled Person train, the only train where you don’t have to pre-book a ramp several years in advance to then play an adrenalin-rush inducing gambling game of whether said ramp will even materialise. I also had people with other disabilities and learning difficulties follow me, as well as a large LGBTQ+ community, some medical professionals, a few academics, and somehow I seem to have attracted a reasonably large black community, which is uplifting considering I’m so white that my skin peels upon exposure to moderate sunlight.
It is undeniable that I have faced plenty of trolls, my particular favourite calling me an unemployed scrounger living off of other’s pity, clearly having never bothered to actually read my blog or refer to any of my social media history. He shut up pretty quickly after I had pointed out the fact that I was responding to his Tweet on my lunch break while sat in the office kitchen. I have also been told that disabled people should be left behind in the dust as a result of natural selection, obviously having failed to consider that many disabilities are developed later in life and are not genetic, nor understanding that humans evolved the trait of intelligence, not the ability to walk far.
However, when I compare the number of trolls I have encountered to all the positive support and encouragement I’ve received from everyone else, particularly during rough times, I’ve come to realise that social media is not the ugly dog-eat-dog situation some people would have you believe. It is, from personal experience at least, a useful tool for connecting with others and learning about our differences, and is a great platform to advocate for social change.
If you don’t already, please do follow me on Facebook and Instagram (@diaryofadisabledperson), and Twitter (@WheelsofSteer).
I’ve noticed my follower accounting steadily increasing over the past two weeks, and I just wanted to say thank you and welcome to all the new followers! I hope you enjoy my content and find my blog posts entertaining.
If you have social media and don’t already, please feel free to follow me for more jokes, comments, and insight into my daily lifestyle!
Twitter: @WheelsofSteer (be advised: frequent profanities used).
Facebook: @diaryofadisabledperson (this page also has an associated group where you can chat with other fans, share and discuss relevant news articles, and create polls).
You can also get in touch with me using the contact tab in the menu; I usually reply within 24 hours.
Please feel free to share Diary of a Disabled Person with friends, family, colleagues, or anyone else you think would enjoy my content.
Welcome to my blog.
All the best,
Emma
Outside of school I had progressed to using a manual wheelchair, and I requested permission to use my wheelchair in school. After three months of arguing that they couldn’t accommodate another wheelchair on top of the few wheelchair users already at the school they relented; I could use my wheelchair on the school premises but was refused assistance to push the wheelchair, and access to the disabled toilets. They claimed this was because the paperwork that would allow them to assign me a care assistant wasn’t in place, despite having initially claimed that this paperwork was not essential to receive support. I had to rely on my peers to push me around school and I became a job that needed doing, losing friends.
As my final GCSE exams approached I requested special conditions to accommodate my illness, such as a scribe and extra time to compensate for the pain I endured when writing quickly. The first set of exams had been and gone before the school even dealt with the paperwork and eventually it was decided that I could have extra time, but not a scribe. I was also refused a room apart from all the other students and this meant that I had to sit in the main hall while the others exams were collected, being called names and having things thrown at me because of my “special treatment”. The incessant chatter of all the students who had finished their exam was so loud I couldn’t concentrate, rendering the extra time almost entirely pointless. By the time I had completed my exams I couldn’t get out of the school fast enough.
It was during that summer break that I attempted suicide.
I relinquished all responsibility for my education, leaving my mum to pick up the pieces. She searched for other schools or colleges where I could sit my A-levels but either their courses were already full, or they weren’t accessible. Left with no choice but to return to the same school mum decided to speak to the head of the post-GCSE team.
How mum managed it I don’t know, but when I returned in September I had a carer to push me around school, access to disabled toilets, and was permitted the use of a separate, quiet room for exams. What I do know is that mum had to attend many meetings and sit through many heated discussions. She presented medical evidence from the doctor and the physiotherapist, she showed them how it was physically impossible for me to push myself in the wheelchair, and she spoke with the most senior members of staff at the school to force their hand. I was denied access to hydrotherapy, one of the only medical techniques that genuinely helped me, which was offered to every other disabled student at the school. I was still denied a scribe for exams, but I was too relieved that I wouldn’t have to sit my future exams in a room full of hatred to complain.
We were denied access to transport to get to and from school and since dad was working and mum was sick, we had to rely on local friends to push the wheelchair. I was told that no one at the school was insured to push a wheelchair off the premises and they refused to help us, while still demanding my attendance. One of the teaching assistants noticed my plight and told the administration team not to be so stupid; eventually she took to pushing my wheelchair off the premises, insured or otherwise.
Inside the school some of the carers were excellent. Some were not. I was regularly late for class because carers failed to turn up on time, if at all. Approximately once a week I would be left in the disabled toilet while my carer wandered off to have a break, and I had to sit there until someone noticed me waiting. When I spoke to the head of the care team about this, I was reminded that there was no official paperwork saying I needed support, and therefore all support could be withdrawn quite easily. My silence on the matter henceforth was for fear of what support might be relinquished otherwise.
Since I was studying the sciences, practical work and experiments were inevitable. The school argued that they were not insured to provide support in these cases, and that meant that I was expected to walk around a laboratory doing my own experiments. Fortunately these were not a frequent enough occurrence to cause me major issues, and soon enough my teachers began to provide what support they could while simultaneously keeping an eye on the class.
It was also expected that students stay behind out of school hours for extra study, and those who didn’t were penalised. However care support did not exist outside of official school hours, meaning I was expected to attend extra-curricular activities alone, including on one occasion an assessed chemistry experiment. This resulted in further exhaustion and pain but I could say little to those managing the special needs department out of fear.
Finally I managed to gather the funds to buy a second-hand powered wheelchair, giving me the freedom to travel to and from school myself. I still needed a little help getting around the building, but I was not as heavily dependent on this as before. Given my past experiences I did not ask the school permission to use my powered chair, but simply turned up in it. They couldn’t turn me away without the attendance team tearing them to shreds.
By the time my school days drew to a close I was so sick of the place that I would have given anything to leave. On results day I was so relieved to know that I would be progressing to university that I almost cried. I went and said good bye to the students and members of staff who had helped me, and ignored those who hadn’t.
It is perhaps no surprise why leaving school was one of the best things ever to happen to me.
