rosie abigail

Whoa, what a statement! No-one tell the politicians, they’ll say it’s DEI gone mad. But I’m proud to say that I meant what I said. Right now, disabled and chronically ill people are being hit with nonsense left, right, and centre – in more ways than one.

The government is reducing Personal Independence Payment, politicians are fighting to remove work from home options, and local public transport systems are being scraped. These are all essential and basic inclusion options to ensure disabled and chronically ill folks can work, thrive, and well, survive. There seems to be a big hate parade against anyone who isn’t abled bodied. It’s starting to give… eugenics…

I’ve been chronically ill for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I was in and out of hospital with my asthma and gained a severe nut allergy alongside it. Then as a young adult, I developed an anxiety disorder that has also stayed with me and has no signs of letting up. Now I’m also living with PCOS and endometriosis on the daily. Sure, the last two years I was disabled by the endometriosis, then had a life-changing surgery, but it’s going to return. And that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

The one thing I have found to bring me joy amongst the blood tests, oxygen masks, and surgeries, is the wonderful disabled and chronically ill community. Online and in person, it’s truly a ray of light, especially when thing get tough. One of the common denominators most of us folks have is that we have at some point felt unsupported, pushed back, or ignored by workplaces because of our conditions. I don’t think it’s too far of a push to say we deserve to be treated with the same respect as every other staff member. And you know what? We even have some exceptional skills we’ve built on our experiences that can definitely be used in a professional setting.

Resilience

“Some are born resilient, some achieve resilience, and some have resilience thrust upon them”. I think that’s what Shakespeare said, right? Well, us in the illness community have resilience thrust upon us. I mean, we have no choice. Resilience is having to get out of bed during a flare day, masking at work so no-one thinks you are falling apart, dealing with medical negligence during a lunch time doctors appointment, making sure the washing up is done when your body is on fire, and still making sure you don’t over do it.

If I can brush my teeth during a day when my internal organs are fusing together, then I can definitely adapt to someone changing the date of a meeting to a busier week.

Resilience is having to get out of bed during a flare day, masking at work so no-one thinks you are falling apart, dealing with medical negligence during a lunch time doctors appointment, making sure the washing up is done when your body is on fire, and still making sure you don’t over do it.

Work-life balance

It used to be praised if you would work until all hours of the day to get the job done. But with mental health awareness rightly at the forefront, most workplaces prioritise making sure their employees have a good work-life balance, so they can be the best they can be during work hours. Well do I have some excellent news for you – us disabled and chronically ill folks are masters of the work and life split.

You might think you know what your chronically ill colleague is feeling – maybe they’ve dropped a “I’m doing good!” or “just a bit tired” in conversation that day. But you won’t know the half of it. We keep the struggles with the new medication, the medical gaslighting, and lack of spoons for our time at home. We know how to put on that work-face mask to get the work done so we can leave it at work, and not have those worries follow us home – we’ve got enough on our plates, thank you very much.

Seeing things in different ways

To some people and businesses (bad ones, in my humble opinion), accessibility is just a buzzword, a tick box exercise. But to us, it’s our life. We’ve already made changes that you might not even clock – different working patterns, mobility aids, occupational health reviews. The list could go on and on. But here’s the tea – we bring all of that knowledge, and more, to our work environments.

For example, I work in events. You just know that my events have accessible maps, quiet and ASD spaces, fully briefed staff, and video captions. A lot of that is because I have that lived experience and my friends have a variety of lived experiences. It means ensuring accessibility is part of the work I do, it’s not an ‘add on’.

Accessibility is part of the work I do, it’s not an ‘add on’.

Communication skills

When you interview for a job, they love to hit you with a “give me an example of when…” When you dealt with a difficult situation, when you ran an event, when you had to work as a team – so on and so forth. Well, I think living with a disability or chronic illness is a hero example in so many ways, but especially in “give me an example of when you had to utilise good communication skills”.

Advocating for yourself can be beyond tough, especially when medical professionals or peers just don’t want to hear it. We have to prep essays on our symptoms and experiences just to bring to a ten-minute medical appointment so we don’t given the “come back with a diary of symptoms/when you’ve lost weight/when you’ve got more sleep/when you aren’t stressed”. We have to convince that doctor, who is already overworked and tired, in those ten minutes that we need help and support, sometimes even bringing the resolutions into the room with us, just so we can get referrals or medication or next steps. Now that’s what I call and example of good communication skills.

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Despite it all – the experiences, the qualities, the background – you should hire us because we are just like every other employee. We are hard workers, we have our credentials, we have our priorities, just like every able-bodied person. It just so happens that we excel in the above skills because we have no choice. And a lot of the time, we excel despite those circumstances. Can you imagine what we can do with all of our skills and expertise, together with proper support and adaptation? Just think about that. Now that’s why you should hire more disabled and chronically ill people.

It just so happens that we excel in the above skills because we have no choice. And a lot of the time, we excel despite those circumstances.

Rosie x

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