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• Posted by lilwatchergirl
• 7 Oct 07, 5:33 PM

I've been campaigning for disability rights for about twelve years. Not consistently, or in any particularly stunning way, and barely at all for the past few years. But since the age of about seventeen I've been quite keen on the Social Model (when it's applied in a balanced way), and generally impressed with the idea that disabled people should have equal rights and a fairer deal in society. So I did my little bit of campaigning, as far as I was able to. Which was fine. Except that, when my most immediate impairment was a significant mental health problem, I felt like the worst fraud imaginable. I would walk into conferences and feel guilty about being invisible, about calling myself disabled when surrounded by 'real' disabled people (whoever they are). I would believe people who told me that they were 'more disabled' than me because they needed to use accessible toilets, completely discounting the possibility that my life might be just as disrupted - in a different way - by bipolar disorder, various anxiety conditions including OCD, an eating disorder, a tendency to walk around all night planning the most efficient place to jump off a bridge under a passing train, scars on my arms that I still have to hide to this day if I want to be allowed to continue to work as a teacher, and an ability to think that everything is all about ME ME ME (which must be quite irritating to those people who are, well, not me).

If I ever thought about it at all, I assumed this would all be different if I were a wheelchair user. (There's always been a possibility that I would develop pain and/or mobility problems - I have a congenital joint problem that may or may not be at the root of the big mess of diagnoses I'm currently trying to get my head around.) And then suddenly I need a wheelchair and/or walking aids - and home care, and disability benefits, and dropped kerbs, and all of that weird stuff I never thought about before. So now I'll feel accepted, and a part of a community, right? Well, no. Because it turns out that I'm just not very good at this disabled thing. I can't buzz around in a stylish self-propelling wheelchair - I have to get other people to push me around (while I sit there grumbling, shouting at them to go RIGHT, I SAID RIGHT DAMMIT, and warning them that if they tip me out, they will be beaten to death with my walking stick). I'm too afraid to get on buses in my chair. I worry that my friends will judge me for using mobility aids. I often look rather ridiculous in the staff room at work when I get stuck trying to turn my wheelchair around, or when I can't work out how to carry two cups of hot coffee while using a stick. I want my life to be straightforward and as easy as possible, even if that means looking incredibly stupid by putting a cup-holder on my wheelchair (well, it's better than looking incredibly stupid because I've just spilled tea all down my trousers.) I say the wrong things: after more than a decade of understanding the Social Model, I still refer to 'disabled toilets' when I mean 'accessible'. Worse, I still disagree with one or two elements of the aforementioned Model, and stubbornly refuse to stop referring to my 'illness' - because, let's face it, that's what it is. I seriously dislike being in pain, being depressed, having panic attacks, having joints that suddenly go on strike and refuse to keep me upright, and having to carry on through severe fatigue - so much so that I would quite like a cure for all these things, if it didn't disrupt my life too much. I still absolutely believe in working towards a more egalitarian society where disabled people are not held back by either physical or attitudinal barriers. I'm just a bit crap at working out where I, personally, fit into that lofty ideal.

The wheelchair and collection of walking sticks don't make me feel any less of a fraud. Neither does campaigning, blogging, fighting for benefits and access, being a wheelchair user at work, or having a disabled person's railcard. But then, I don't think anything would. I've never been good at fitting in. I may not like everything about the Social Model, but I'm still sure it's the best tool we've got for persuading society to give us full access and equal rights. I may not feel part of 'the' disabled community, but I still know that there are enough of us who want change that we can make things happen, however slowly. So I shall continue to feel like a fraud and generally a bit useless, because it's better than the alternatives. I'm a crap crip, and I'm proud of it.

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