"I'm sorry I can't do that, I'm disabled."
Its a phrase I say all the time and I suspect many disabled people say it. It is an empowering and liberating experience to be able to state your limitations and be able to confidently assert the reasons why. It usually gets the desired effect, either by sheer shock value or being to scared to counteract it.
However, in my life the word cant has been equally disabling. Its as easy to say I can't as I can, and in all honesty its only been in this last 10 months that I have been saying, well maybe I can actually, despite my impairment being disabling. Being able to recognise my limitations has actually been liberating. The daily constant of you can't do this because of your impairment and the way society works slowly got to me and I started to believe it for myself. Its a big cycle, once you get into it, its easy to get other people to do it for you, or just not do it at all. The excuses become easier, and more believable, even realistic. I do it out of protection sometimes, so I wont get hurt.
In the last ten months things changed. I started to take a very slow step out of my comfort zone. I went to a hardest hit protest in Leeds. By myself. On a train. On a saturday. I felt like the character that Jim Carey played in Yes man. He goes to a motivational speaker who encourages everyone to change their lives by saying YES to everything, no matter the consequences. I was saying YES I can for the first time. I survived by taking photos and becoming a bit separate from it all. As a result of that I made a friend who introduced me to student activism, and I learnt the power of I can. I went on to do amazing things, and I am still doing things that I am scared of daily just to make sure I can still say yes, despite everyone and everything saying no. (I always was a bit of a rebel)
However, over the last 3 months since stopping university for the summer that I can't attitude has slipped back into my life, and now it feels like its here to stay again. What has made it become a permanent resident in my vocabulary has been the dreaded ESA50. Although the governments promise to change the system to look at what a person can do, it is inherinately going to be focuing on what a person can't do.
Having to write I can't do this because of this is really hard, because I have started to believe it. Now I am not saying I am lying on my form, because I genuinely can't do all the things I say I can't. However, because I am only writing about what I can't do, it puts it all into sharp focus that I can't. Even the things I can do aren't up to a normal persons standards. Normal people can catch a bus all the way into town without having to get off, but I can't. However, I have to remember that the fact that I am even willing to try is an achievement in itself.
But its hard. That constant nagging of I can't comes back, and then I start to not do things, because I can't and I can't actually tell anymore what I genuinely can't do, and what I am just saying I can't do because I am convincing myself that its beyond my capabilities. It is a really hard balancing act and its one that I was just about managing until my ESA50. To be able to come out of an I can't situation having worked out a way that I can is a real achievement for me, and one that I'm strugglnig with at the moment.
Of course, I can does come with sacrifices. I went to a training day the other week in manchester. I went with people who know me, so the train wasn't so traumatic (and we had booked seats) but despite saying that I can get to the event, I only lasted until 3pm, and had to get a train home. I spent the next 5 days completely wiped out. But there I am again, using that as a reason not to try it again. As a disabled person things do cost. But, despite only being able to attend 2 thirds of the day I still say it was worth it. I just have to re find the attitude of can do, even in little things and slowly start to build back up to saying I can do, or how can I do to a lot more things.
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