As I mentioned in my first post, I was blessed by being able to work on the General Assembly (GA) Accessibility Team as a volunteer. I was very excited to be able to do this work after my experiences over the last year facing challenges directly related to accessibility.
Before I post about what that experience was like, I would like to share a bit of my story - it will help provide some context for that experience.
At the 2011 GA in Charlotte, North Carolina, I first encountered accessibility challenges and was so thankful for the GA Accessibility Services Team (for helping me) and the Equual Access booth (for educating me). My first full day at GA included me sitting on the floor, crying from the pain, hobbling around the convention center with tears in my eyes, and adamantly telling my hubby that the scooters were for other people who really needed them. I ended up being forced by the hubby to get a scooter for the remainder of our time there. I spent the week learning more from being in a scooter - and experiencing marginalization resulting from it - than I did in any of the workshops I attended.
I grieved after being diagnosed with arthritis and chondromalacia (the femur rubs against the knee cap). I grieved that I would never again walk up stairs, or do so many things that had marked my life as "normal" again.
I realized that I have my own set of assumptions and prejudices around disabilities and age. I realized just how many prejudices I had been carrying around that had been unchecked - and how I had been marginalizing others for so long. I thought arthritis was something that "only old people get". I'd ignored the congregant in the wheelchair who repeatedly complained about the nursing station in the accessible restroom as impeding her ability to get in and out. I'd ignored the grumblings I'd heard about the dead batteries in the listening devices we have in the sanctuary. For so long, I'd look at those people with disabilities, and defined them by their limitations - not bothering to ask their stories, not asking what I was doing to marginalize them so that I could correct it. I pitied them. I looked upon them as if they were inferior and didn't even realize that I was doing it. I had been part of the problem and ignorant of it. I was able-ist and age-ist.
It took me seven months of depression, grieving and education, to accept that I am a person with a disability. I came to terms with the idea that my life as I knew it was gone, and that I (along with my family) needed to adapt. I realized that I needed help managing the pain that was so severe I was taking dozens of over-the-counter pills just to try to minimally function.
As a youth advisor at my congregation and at Southwest Unitarian Universalist District events, many of the youth (and the adults who work with them) in our district have come to understand some the mobility challenges that I have faced. I've often marveled at how included I've been in youth events, even as I struggle feeling that elsewhere. Our local youth group cheered when I managed to plug in my own laptop into a power cord on the floor, and when I sat on the floor with them for the first time in a year. Last year's district youth camp auction was to help raise funds to get a golf cart to increase the accessibility of U-Bar-U, the retreat center where camp is held every July.
I don't use a scooter except at GA; I don't use a walker or even a cane in my everyday life. If you saw me in my normal environments, you'd likely think that there's nothing different about my abilities than any person who's fully-abled. That inclusiveness and sharing in the joys of major accomplishments when I'm with the youth - I don't always find that with "the adults". When I'm not standing for hymns because it's a bad day, I get looks of disdain from those who don't know me. When I'm limping through the hallway, people think that it's perfectly fine to ask why (it's not - if I want you to know, I'll tell you!). It's frustrating to go to the worship committee and ask for wheelchair cut-outs in our sanctuary and be told that they aren't necessary (they are - and we now have them).
So with this being my experience over the course of the past year, I looked to the 2012 GA in Phoenix with both trepidation and anticipation. Stay tuned for the next post....
Update: Post on Accessibility at General Assembly
Before I post about what that experience was like, I would like to share a bit of my story - it will help provide some context for that experience.
At the 2011 GA in Charlotte, North Carolina, I first encountered accessibility challenges and was so thankful for the GA Accessibility Services Team (for helping me) and the Equual Access booth (for educating me). My first full day at GA included me sitting on the floor, crying from the pain, hobbling around the convention center with tears in my eyes, and adamantly telling my hubby that the scooters were for other people who really needed them. I ended up being forced by the hubby to get a scooter for the remainder of our time there. I spent the week learning more from being in a scooter - and experiencing marginalization resulting from it - than I did in any of the workshops I attended.
I grieved after being diagnosed with arthritis and chondromalacia (the femur rubs against the knee cap). I grieved that I would never again walk up stairs, or do so many things that had marked my life as "normal" again.
I realized that I have my own set of assumptions and prejudices around disabilities and age. I realized just how many prejudices I had been carrying around that had been unchecked - and how I had been marginalizing others for so long. I thought arthritis was something that "only old people get". I'd ignored the congregant in the wheelchair who repeatedly complained about the nursing station in the accessible restroom as impeding her ability to get in and out. I'd ignored the grumblings I'd heard about the dead batteries in the listening devices we have in the sanctuary. For so long, I'd look at those people with disabilities, and defined them by their limitations - not bothering to ask their stories, not asking what I was doing to marginalize them so that I could correct it. I pitied them. I looked upon them as if they were inferior and didn't even realize that I was doing it. I had been part of the problem and ignorant of it. I was able-ist and age-ist.
It took me seven months of depression, grieving and education, to accept that I am a person with a disability. I came to terms with the idea that my life as I knew it was gone, and that I (along with my family) needed to adapt. I realized that I needed help managing the pain that was so severe I was taking dozens of over-the-counter pills just to try to minimally function.
As a youth advisor at my congregation and at Southwest Unitarian Universalist District events, many of the youth (and the adults who work with them) in our district have come to understand some the mobility challenges that I have faced. I've often marveled at how included I've been in youth events, even as I struggle feeling that elsewhere. Our local youth group cheered when I managed to plug in my own laptop into a power cord on the floor, and when I sat on the floor with them for the first time in a year. Last year's district youth camp auction was to help raise funds to get a golf cart to increase the accessibility of U-Bar-U, the retreat center where camp is held every July.
I don't use a scooter except at GA; I don't use a walker or even a cane in my everyday life. If you saw me in my normal environments, you'd likely think that there's nothing different about my abilities than any person who's fully-abled. That inclusiveness and sharing in the joys of major accomplishments when I'm with the youth - I don't always find that with "the adults". When I'm not standing for hymns because it's a bad day, I get looks of disdain from those who don't know me. When I'm limping through the hallway, people think that it's perfectly fine to ask why (it's not - if I want you to know, I'll tell you!). It's frustrating to go to the worship committee and ask for wheelchair cut-outs in our sanctuary and be told that they aren't necessary (they are - and we now have them).
So with this being my experience over the course of the past year, I looked to the 2012 GA in Phoenix with both trepidation and anticipation. Stay tuned for the next post....
Update: Post on Accessibility at General Assembly
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