Saoirse Connolly: Some Day Soon

“I would like to report that in progressive Western democracies disability was an un-interesting fact about a person. Not something that determined their worth or their place in society, but rather something that informed their life experience and as such made their perspective valuable to nondisabled people.”

I would like to report that in progressive Western democracies disability was an un-interesting fact about a person. Not something that determined their worth or their place in society, but rather something that informed their life experience and as such made their perspective valuable to nondisabled people. I desire nothing more than the average person to see me for my accomplishments and my character and not my disability. Alas, my disability does define me but not by my own choosing. Society has decided that with all its progression, it is not progressive enough to fully include those of us with disabilities. As much as it pains me to say this, we are the modern-day lepers. The nature of my disability means that people do not instantly realise I am disabled, and as such, I experience the contrast as I like to call it. What I mean by the contrast is how they treat me when they think I am one of them versus how they treat me when they discover I have a visual impairment. It is night and day, and what is worse, it can happen in the exact same conversation. I will be conversing with said person, and on learning of my disability, their tone and demeanour completely change. It is almost as though said person thinks I cannot pick up on the abrupt change in their body language or their tone of voice or perhaps more insultingly that they now believe they are conversing on my level. Even though five seconds ago, the conversation was going well. What is more, said person does not pick up on the change in my body language as I register the complete awkwardness of the entire engagement, thanks to them.

This happens far more than I would like to admit, but it is nothing compared to the next social faux pas nondisabled people commit. Let me set the scene, I will walk hand-in-hand with my partner into say, a loan office or a doctor's surgery; basically, somewhere you would not take your average friend or family member. We proceed to sit down, and in these settings, I do disclose my disability due to needing to sign documents and so forth. Then it happens, said professional will say something like "it's lovely that your brother/brother's friend/family friend/father (yes that actually happened!) was able to accompany you here today." It appears to not even cross their mind that the man I walked into said office hand-in-hand with is my partner. I have asked around, and this does not happen to nondisabled people with their partners. In fact, many report having their best male friend being confused for their partner far too frequently.

"We must lead by example and show the entire world that we have worth, we have value and we can contribute. Words are meaningless, and action is everything. Someday disability will no longer be a dirty word."

These two common social occurrences in my life lead me to the following conclusion. Disability is still very othered even today, and much work must be done to remove the stigma from disability. The idea that disability isn't a dirty word is a noble one but not reality. That is not to say that we will not get there, we will! Like all struggles for inclusion and equality, us passionate advocates will fly the flag for disability inclusion. Like I have described in this blog post, instances of ignorance do occur but can be used to educate and inform. I would like to believe that my own perseverance, character and achievements have helped many nondisabled people I have encountered in my life to see their errored judgements of those of us with disabilities. We must lead by example and show the entire world that we have worth, we have value and we can contribute. Words are meaningless, and action is everything. Someday disability will no longer be a dirty word.

Saoirse Connolly

Member of the National Student Disability Advisory Group AHEAD & USI

Chair of Cumas (Ability) Society NUI Galway

Twitter @SaoirseConn1