When Ableism Leaves A Mark... Part 1

 

(and no, this isn’t about somebody being a shit to me when  I was ten, either. Getting rejected(actually mostly just ignored) by people you don’t think you’re much like is probably only tragic if it’s your parents)
This isn’t really the post I’d hoped to write, though, about the formation of our Disabilities Issue Team. I mean, I know it would be early for victories already, greedy bitch that your Bohemian Crip tends to be.

I’m learning a lot right now all the same, though it seems to be about hard things.
I kind of expected that having somebody notice an untapped skill of mine(And I’m still optimistic enough to believe that he has) would be a bit more like Buffy using that pencil as a stake that first day rather than…I don’t know, finding a leftover in the freezer…It’s *probably* still good, but it’s not the thing you brought home from the store, just in case. You are going to need to warm that thing up and prepare it.

I went to a lot of fake meetings.(Well, okay, the meetings existed…I didn’t make them up in my head, despite making up a number of whole families and even towns in my creative capacity.) But I was window dressing or a photo op a lot of the time.  Yes, I became, and remain, good at Telling My Story from doing that. Which is clearly a skill I’m employing *right now* and it’s fucking great. But a lot of times, the people I did it for? Didn’t really care that much. They just knew it would look better to invite disabled people and try to listen to us.(The invisible perks I got from being A Cute One Who Speaks Well.  Don’t worry…this ruined me thinking I’m cute about 80% of the time…which is still a step *up* from me about ten years ago…perhaps another post in the series.) Anyway, they took down my thoughts on the mission statement or the blue-ribbon commission and nobody heard again.

The window dressing thing messed with my mind, but the unfortunate thing about this is it made me think “Wow, you know, I’m Good At Meetings.” Maybe, maybe not. It’s only been recently that I’ve been asked to places that might use my suggestions. It’s different when they matter; I’m not sure what to do all the time.

Expectations may be another place where the foul finger of ableism sometimes ends up in all our noses. Sometimes I can not flub a list of phone calls and damn near want a parade, because I Survived. Again.

Sometimes I get haunted by  a small mistake and give myself hell, because the least  I can do is get ‘The thinking parts” right, since there are so *many* areas where my participation is a source of struggle.

But I spend too much time looking for direction(and not just because I feel like the intern, but we have one this year…a very nice guy  named Simon, who, like most mortals, makes calls better when he, you know, gets the lists I *delegate*(which is not special treatment or purposely not doing stuff I can, but being in a team, and stuff.) for him to call with.