{"id":56058,"date":"2024-07-12T15:24:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T14:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/?p=56058"},"modified":"2024-10-24T09:56:29","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T08:56:29","slug":"this-disability-pride-month-im-showing-people-what-i-can-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/blog\/this-disability-pride-month-im-showing-people-what-i-can-do\/","title":{"rendered":"This Disability Pride Month, I’m showing people what I can do"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Katie<\/strong> is 22 years old. She\u2019s studying for her degree, and over the summer holidays she\u2019s been horse-riding, visiting Edinburgh Fringe and volunteering on Sense Holidays! Katie is also a full-time wheelchair user. We caught up with her to talk about Disability Pride Month<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, Disability Pride isn\u2019t about whooping and cheering about being disabled. It\u2019s about showing people, \u201cI\u2019m disabled, and look what I can do. Look at what I\u2019ve overcome to be where I am now.\u201d All that sort of thing, that\u2019s what it is for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I became disabled in my late teens, so I\u2019d already had a long stretch of time to decide who I wanted to be. That didn\u2019t change when I became disabled; it\u2019s just been adapted. I\u2019m still see myself in the same way, but everything I do is a bit different.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one should feel ashamed of who they are<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also about not being ashamed to be disabled. And there\u2019s a nuance there because there\u2019s a difference between like, \u201cThis is great\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m not ashamed.\u201d That\u2019s important. No one should feel ashamed of who they are, and what they can and can\u2019t do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think feelings of shame can creep in when you notice people looking at you differently or asking silly questions. There are all sorts of other things that can make you start to feel uncomfortable. Like, when shopping for mobility aids, all the adverts are just old ladies with pearls. I find that difficult. When I was looking at stairlifts, the brochure was totally geared towards well-off old people \u2013 that just isn\u2019t me. It\u2019s not a nice feeling, to be so unrepresented. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also aspects of disability that are still quite taboo. I do have issues with fatigue and things like circulation and digestion. Things like continence, it\u2019s not really talked about but it\u2019s something that a lot of full-time wheelchair users will struggle with. We\u2019re not made to feel like it\u2019s something we can talk about, and that can leave you feeling ashamed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut you\u2019re in a wheelchair\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, I volunteered on a Sense Holiday<\/a> at the Avon Tyrrell activity centre. I was definitely nervous because it was my first one \u2013 and you\u2019re sort of thrown in at the deep end \u2013 but my anxieties had nothing to do with accessibility. It was quite nice, in a way, to have normal concerns like, \u201cWhat are the people going to be like?\u201d rather than \u201cAm I going to be able to go to the toilet?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought it was interesting that the holiday makers, who were young adults, were very unconvinced that I could be a volunteer. They\u2019d say, \u201cBut you\u2019re in a wheelchair, how can you do that?\u201d They didn\u2019t think they could be supported by someone who was disabled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was good to possibly help change the way they think a little bit, and quite interesting from my perspective. I felt pressure to show them all that disabled people can do! But it was nice to show them that, actually, disabled people can be independent.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n \"Steven\n <\/figure>\n \n
\n

\n \n What Disability Pride Month means to me\n <\/a>\n <\/h2>\n\n \n
\n\t\t\tJuly is Disability Pride Month. This year, it\u2019s prompted me to think about what \u201cdisability pride\u201d means to me.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Katie, Disability Pride isn\u2019t about whooping and cheering about being disabled. It\u2019s about showing people, \u201cI\u2019m disabled, and look what I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":56059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"display_author":[1328],"class_list":["post-56058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","display_author-katie"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56058"},{"taxonomy":"display_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/display_author?post=56058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}