Victoria S

Some days being disabled, especially hidden disabilities, can be so difficult to navigate. To a little quaint nearby country village today for a treat bus day-trip. Been trying to find a disabled toilet but lots of old buildings so most of the toilets are either upstairs or downstairs. And the public disabled toilet was locked, second one today, even with my radar key the staff forgot to unlock those public toilets for some reason. And as it's a public toilet it's not like I can ask a staff member to open them, there aren't any around. Who even is responsible for opening those public toilets? Even when opening times for said toilets is posted on the doors and we're in the middle of the day like ffs. 😤 And why do the disabled ones get forgotten about so often. It's hard enough to find a disabled toilet as it is, and they're often further away and take longer to get to than the normal toilets. Heck half the disabled toilets aren't actually designed for actual disabilities, like you can tell disabled people weren't involved in those plans. When I did finally find a toilet the door was so heavy I thought I might break my wrist.

Anyway, walking out of the second cafe in this little town after finding they don't have an accessible toilet, they suggested trying a pub down the road cos it's new so should have disabled toilets (it did thankfully) but as I was leaving, one of the customers loudly says "being obese isn't a disability" and I did nothing My need for the loo outweighed my need for fairness, so tired of having to defend my accessibility needs to strangers, but it really hurt.

It's hard enough to manage weight when on low income cos we don't have the money and time for 1950/60s style homecooked meals everyday. Add to the that different meds I'm on to help my disabilities, that thousands of others in the same boat as me are also on, that makes you retain water, give you bloating and make you gain weight. The reason disabilities are often comorbid with obesity is cos managing disabilities is a herculean task and so is keeping weight off when you've a limited budget for healthy foods and limited health to prep n cook said foods while combined with meds that make loosing weight difficult. Which is also why obesity is higher on low income groups, cos food is a luxury these days, especially healthy food and the time it takes to cook them when we're all so stressed and burntout as is.

But it's all part of why the word feels like such a hostile place for people with disabilities, especially those with hidden disabilities. The public services that are supposedly there for us (like curbs, ramps, accessible toilets, etc) are often out of the way and require extra travel to find and access, if you can find them at all as many businesses don't bother, especially in older buildings where they can get away with not putting disability measures in place. Meaning also many shops and businesses aren't accessible to chunks of the community. Theres a DV support group I used to attend but it's steep stairs with no disabilities access and as my disability has gotten worse it's been impractical for me to go. So there's another service unavailable to a chunk of my community. And they wonder why we're so unhappy and depressed. It's a wonder to me suicide rates aren't higher than they currently are honestly.