“So tell me what you want, what you really, really want, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want”

First lets define disability and impairment. Susan Wendell uses disability activist’s and United Nations definitions explaining:

For some people the limitations they face in day to day life isn’t based at all on impairment, but rather how society disables them. And even for people who are looking for treatments to make life more livable, society is still a huge disabling presence. Some examples of how society can disable include, uneven sidewalks, broken or lack of elevators or in general poorly made and maintained spaces. Those are some of the more obvious physical barriers. There is a larger social barrier that people with disabilities face and that’s prejudice. Especially for those with invisible disabilities the strain of people assuming they are fine, that they are “faking” and don’t really need the help they are asking for, causes such an intense mental and sometimes physical strain.

From personal experience people don’t trust that you know what’s going on with your body and with what you are able to do. When covid was really bad I got sick, but not in such a way that I needed to go to the doctor. During this time going to a doctor if it wasn’t necessary was not just looked down upon but also dangerous. When I told my professor I couldn’t come to class I was asked to get a doctor’s note, which I was unable to produce and ended up getting points marked off in the course. Another time I was hospitalized and the doctors told me they contacted my professors. Either the professors didn’t care or they weren’t told because when I came back most of the professors said I couldn’t make up the work and should just drop the class and take it next semester. Instead of preparing and trying to figure out a way for me to make up the work. Not only did I lose thousands of dollars in tuition, I ended up going under the credits needed to be full time and I was kicked out of my housing. This whole time disability services didn’t do anything because they said “We can’t do anything retroactively”.

Recently someone asked me if I could change anything about my university to make it more disability friendly what would it be? There’s the obvious: fix the sidewalks, routine maintenance on elevators and doors and changing certain stairs into ramps, but there’s also making professors have recorded lectures or accessible online materials. I’ve had multiple professors that use pre-lecture videos to prepare students for class discussion, and while going to class is important, in times of extremes like hospitalization these pre-lectures are wonderful supplementary materials. I’d also like to see disability talked about more and normalized not just in the university setting but in the work place too. So hopefully that answers the statement: “tell me what you want what you really really want.”