Employment

I've commented on this before, but it's something that really bothers me. Employment and being disabled. I don't want to get angry about it. But it does make me mad.

Image from disabled-jobs.org

I can only speak for myself, but I welcome any comments others have. Being disabled, or at least aquiring a disability through illness or accident is really difficult. Especially if you still have the awareness to actually know what's happened to you and the loss that you have suffered.

People look at me and make the judgement that I'm OK, even though I walk with a stick, my balance is bad and my speech is slurred. More often than not it's along the lines of "at least you're alive" or something to that effect. There are worse things than dying let me tell you.

Being aware of your limitations and working around them, learning to walk again, eat again, go to the bathroom, breathe on your own, speak, and the myriad other things that people take for granted, takes skill and patience.
And it's really really difficult. Balancing enough to enable you to walk is hard. Yet people take it for granted. Going into a shop with a step is impossible in a wheelchair. Yet it's taken for granted.

It's hard enough to get a job. It's almost impossible if you have any kind of disability. They talk about a stigma surrounding depression and mental health, but that's nothing, NOTHING, compared to the reaction you get from people and their dismissal of you if you have a disability. After time you begin to doubt yourself, and this deepens into a lack of confidence and self esteem. Depression sets in, and you're on a hiding to nothing.

I have to be careful what kind of work I try to get. I'm still sick. I don't look it but I am. Having arthritis and lymphedema mean that my immune system is very low. So low in fact that a cold becomes a major event, and could possibly put me in hospital. In fact arthritis or lymphedema on their own are called auto-immune diseases, so having them both together isn't great. And I haven't mentioned the physical aspects of of either conditions.

It's true to say that I'm lucky, but when and where is it determined that I've had enough luck? Who decides? And what gives them the right to make that decision for me?

I have the right to work the same as everybody else and although people show great sympathy and empathy for someone with a disability, few are willing to put their money where their mouth is and give a person with a disability a job.