One Month Before Heartbreak

Today’s post is written by Carl Thompson who is the man behind the fantastic blog Working At Perfect. Carl is from Victoria, Australia, and describes himself as “Wheelchair User (Cripple), Writer, Student, Music/Audio Nerd, Gamer and Cricket Tragic”. He writes regularly for the new ABC Ramp Up site and for DiVine Victoria.

I first came upon Working at Perfect a few weeks ago and since then I’ve enjoyed reading Carl’s thoughtful and humorous posts, and I am really happy that he will be contributing to DisCo over the coming months.

A little background to today’s post... Have you heard about One Month Before Heartbreak? It’s a Broken of Britain event organised by some UK bloggers including Emma Crees who as you will remember has guest posted here before. One Month Before Heartbreak is a “blogswarm” event, similar to Blogging Against Disablism Day, involving people getting together to blog about a subject or theme during a specified time period. The “swarm” of blog posts should attract attention and raise awareness.

So why is it called One Month Before Heartbreak? On Emma Crees’ blog A Writer in a Wheelchair, in the United Kingdom there is an ongoing discussion about DLA reform ends on 14th February 2011. Emma explains that 14 February is “Valentine’s Day, traditionally a day for love but which could severely affect disabled people if DLA reforms aren’t handled correctly. We need to ensure that our voices are heard. We’re holding this event a month before the consultation ends in order to raise awareness of the consultation and give people to chance to respond to it if they wish. Bendy Girl came up with the name of this event.”

I hope you enjoy Carl's post. It's fantastic to see how much unity One Month Before Heartbreak is demonstrating both in the UK and across the world. (Thanks Carl!)

Carl Thompson

Luckily for me, I'm not an English citizen, and I'm not facing drastic transformational change in every facet of my life in the coming months. I have stability, I know that I am eligible for my much-needed disability support pension payments, I know when I will be paid and how much I will receive. For me this is clear. Unfortunately, for English citizens under the Conservative government led by David Cameron, all people with a disability, their carers, families and friends will be profoundly affected by a proposed drastic change in the degree of financial support they will receive.

As mentioned prior, I'm not an English citizen. I don't claim to know the ins and outs of their welfare system or their political structure. Here I will not waste words trying to explain to the letter what the changes will be - it would be much wiser to read the ‘One Month Before Heartbreak’ entries written by actual British citizens if this information is what you seek. What I do know however, is that English men, women and children are facing the repercussions of the implementation of multiple government policy changes that aim to pull their country out of a recession - seemingly a noble cause.


The question is how should this be done? Well, according to many governments around the world, the answer is by introducing spending cuts. Cutting wasteful spending and cutting discretionary services are two common methods of tightening a nation's budget. So let's think about that for a moment, and try to relate it to be problem this whole piece is about. In what conceivable way can money that is directed to supporting millions of Britons living with a disability be deemed wasteful or discretionary? This money is used for these people to survive, and survive being the operative word - This money is not surplus to their needs, it's barely enough for them to live day by day. So why is the government even considering making regressive changes in this ever so important area? I don't know the answer, if you do, please tell me.

So let's assume the money has to be cut from somewhere and inevitably someone has to lose out - we can't all be winners now can we? But doesn't it make sense that the government should implement cuts, or perhaps raise taxes on those who can actually afford to cope with the changes? Admittedly, I'm not an economist, but I'm also definitely not a socialist. I do believe in commonsense though, and the slashing of payments that are vital for keeping people with a disability afloat does not make any sense in my mind - none at all.

But wait! On the other hand, it does make sense – if you have to disadvantage someone, if you have to cut money from an interest group somehow, why not cut it from those that the government perceives will make the least amount of noise? How about we make spending cuts affecting those who won't be able to fight back or make a fuss? People in the deaf community won't hear about the cuts on the radio and those with a vision impairment may not be able to read about them in the morning newspaper. Users of electric wheelchairs would not be able to climb the steps of Parliament house to protest their governments' changes and the bedridden are of no risk of protesting in the streets. Now perhaps, the cruel motives behind these cuts are starting to become clear.

There is hope however, and that is the Internet. To be honest, if their archaic policies are anything to go by I'm not sure the Conservative party in Britain quite have a grasp on how the Internet works just yet, but hopefully they will find out soon enough. I'm told that I personally spend too much time online, and many of my online friends with a disability have similar Internet habits. So what does this mean? People with a disability can protest, we can type - be it via Voice recognition or otherwise. We need to use our strengths and rally together as one.

The Conservative party of Britain will realise that people with a disability do indeed have a voice, an opinion, and maybe more importantly, a vote

Emma Crees featured in Disability Now

Our WONDERFUL blog contributor/writer Emma Crees has had an article featured in the Disability Now magazine and website. We are very excited for her wonderful work as a writer and feel glad that people are beginning to realise her great talents in the public world.

Hopefully we will be able to share many more of her inspirational words with you all! Please visit her lovely article titled 'People Say The Strangest Things'.

I Love To Laugh

Emma Crees has been a writer for this blog for a while, but I have to say this has to be my favourite of her blog posts. I think that everyone should be able to laugh at themselves sometimes. I know that I do it. It is definetly a point of concern for people who do not have a disability about whether or not they can make a joke in relation to that person's disability, however it is common for someone to make a comment about somebody else because they have red hair, giant eyes or a big nose. Even today one of the people within the office who has vision impairment responded to the comment "You were standing right beside a fellow staff member and you didn't see her"....Her response was "I don't see anything!". If we can't crack a joke towards aspects of ourselves, then how can we truly ever be comfortable being who we are?

Please check out Emma's blog site at http://writerinawheelchair.blogspot.com.


Emma Crees

I make jokes about being disabled, and specifically about myself and my disability. It’s just what I do. I refuse to see being disabled as a bad thing and somethings just are funny. Other times it’s a case of if I didn’t laugh I’d cry and laughing is definitely more fun. People don’t always know how to react to the jokes, disability being such a serious and horrible thing that they don’t know if it’s ok for them to laugh. Or perhaps they just don’t expect it.

I’ve frequently made jokes about my chair. I’ve convinced people that I’m not disabled just lazy. And once that a miracle had occurred because I stood up. When I last had a blood test the nurse commented that my veins were moving. I said “well, at least part of me is.” I thought that was hilarious, she didn’t even smile.
I’m not the only person who jokes about their disability. I know a couple of others who do. I also know a few people who can’t or don’t joke about it. I respect that but for me I need to laugh. I’ve even got a few able-bodied friends who now make crip jokes to me. Usually with the comment “I know I can say this to you…”
I want to share a moment from this evening. I’m really hoping it isn’t one of those “you had to be there moments”. I was really amused by it anyway.
I take a creative writing class. It started again this evening for the new term so we had a few people who’ve been before and several new members. We were just getting started and the tutor made a comment that he thought we had everyone or at least he hoped so because we didn’t have enough chairs for anyone else.
Me being me I just sat there and cracked “maybe if someone else comes they’ll be as organised as I was and bring their own chair.”
And just as I said it the door opened and another wheelchair user came in.
That, my friends, is why I make crip jokes. Because once in a while something happens that just makes it even funnier. I can cope with my life and my disability? But a world or even a life without laughter? I couldn’t cope with that.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Today I am offering you a posting from a regular guest blogger who we haven't actually heard from for a while. Emma Crees has always been an amazing blogger, wise with words and wise with thoughts. I really enjoyed her blog post today, it's quite interesting to realise how children see the world. I think this blog is one for mothers with a connection to disability, as we can all understand that sometimes the dandiest things come out of the mouth of a child. (Please check out Emma's blog site which has recently been renovated, at http://writerinawheelchair.blogspot.com.)  

Emma Crees

A good friend of mine has a four year old son. I’ve known her (and him!) since he was about 16 months old so he’s grown up knowing me.


I use a manual chair a lot of the time and that’s the chair I prefer. But I also don’t drive due to my CP (spatial awareness problems meant when I tried it wasn’t a good idea and I’ve never been back) so I have a powerchair as well which I use most of the time I’m out and about. R (my friend’s little boy) has seen me in both my chairs although I think he’s probably more used to my powerchair.

If you ask him about my powerchair, he’ll tell you it’s a wheelchair. He’ll also show you where the horn on it is and he frequently climbs up for hugs. But if you ask him what my manual chair is? That’s a wheelbarrow. He’s called it that several times even though we correct him whenever he does. It’s really cute and more than a little bit funny.

Then the other day I was talking to someone I volunteer with. She’d taken her granddaughter (I think she said she is 6) camping. Said granddaughter had been desperate for the loo so they’d parked in a disabled space. She said to me that there were about six free disabled spaces and it “wouldn’t matter” (I would have said something about that but you’ve got to pick your battles). Anyway, apparently she asked her granddaughter if she knew what disabled parking spaces were for or who disabled people are or some such, I forget exactly which. And she replied “those people who go round in wheelbarrows”.

I really, really love the way kids see disability and the way they react to it. It’s so refreshing. I wish more adults would take a lesson from their kids and realise that disability is different. But that’s not a big deal, it’s OK. Some do but not many.

And the “Wheelbarrow” comments I keep hearing about (if two kids saying it can be called keep hearing about) do amuse me and make me smile. I can’t remember the last time a TAB adults random disability comment made me smile and laugh like that. I wish I could.

Opportunities for Living

Emma Crees

I was recently asked to take part in a survey which is being conducted on behalf of the government (I think) called The Life Opportunities Survey. My understanding is it’s a new ongoing thing which started last year. It’s designed to “help shape Britain today or tomorrow” or at least the front of the leaflet I have tells me that’s what I’ve been selected to do. They selected 100 thousand some odd households at random and I came up. Well, my house did but as I live alone it’s much of a muchness. So I wasn’t selected to give the “crip perspective” which made me very happy. Until at the end of the survey when I was told that some people get asked to re do the survey a year later to see how things have changed. Which is fine. However it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’ll get asked again. Because I’m disabled. I don’t mind at all, but I just knew that the “crip perspective” was going to come into it somewhere!!

They sent a man round to my house and I spent an hour answering questions. Apparently the more people you live with the longer it takes so I’m glad I’m just me from that point of view! They gave you a big folder full of cards with numbered answers then for each question you’re told which to look at and have to give the number(s) which apply to you.

First you give general information like your date of birth etc. Census type stuff, basically. Then you move onto the questions specific to the survey. I believe based on your answers they filter a bit – the “if no, move to part F” type thing you see on paper forms although this was a guy with a laptop.

So he said to me “now, this might seem to be a strange question based on your condition” (he meant the fact I was sat in front of him in a wheelchair) “but how would you rate your general health?” The options were very good, good, then three others I can’t remember – a neutral one and two negative ones.

I said very good. And my health is very good in my opinion.

He didn’t say anything but based on the way he worded the question it was obvious that he considered my health to be bad. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say he expected me to use a negative choice.

I’m disabled, though. I’m NOT sick!! They’re two very different things. And, being disabled is not a bad thing. I don’t “sufferer from CP” I have CP. It’s a part of me, part of what makes me who I am.

I refuse to see having CP, being disabled, using the chair, whatever part of the whole crip thing you can think of as a negative. It’s not – it’s just a part of my life. But obviously the guy from the Office of National Statistics thought that it was hard, terrible etc.

The fact of the matter however is that it comes down to choice. I could see at all as bad, terrible, woe is me. That might be easier in some ways. But it would be a lot harder and I’d miss out on so much. So I see the positive and embrace life. It’s not a challenge or a daily conscious choice. It just is.

And just in case you need convincing, here’s a picture of me when I went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Friday night (see my blog for more on that!). Do I look like someone who is suffering and having a bad time of it or like someone making the most of opportunities for living?

Introducing Guest Blogger Emma Crees - Just the Way I am

I would like to introduce a new guest blogger. I found the words of this inspirational woman on her own blog 'A Writer In A Wheelchair' and just had to see if she would come across and do some blogging on the DisCo site. So for my readers and followers, we are in luck, Emma Crees is now a marvellous contributer to the content of this blog. Emma has Cerebral Palsy and the great thing I like about her own blog posts is that she doesn't let this define her as a person, but at the same time respects this as part of her (and in fact wouldn't change it if she was given the chance). I feel lucky to be able to get the support from such wonderful bloggers and have them really share their experiences, attitude and methods of dealing with change and their lives. I hope that the readers and followers of this blog can appreciate their words and even relate to them in some way!

Emma Crees

I’ve been asked if I want to guest blog over here occasionally and as someone who loves to both write and blog I couldn’t really say no!


I’m Emma and I’m 28. I live in Oxfordshire, in the UK. I’m a volunteer advice worker, a knitter, a sailor, and a reader. A writer, a sister, a daughter, a friend and a swimmer. An advocate, a mouthy girl, stubborn, tattooed and colourful. And lots of other things.

I’m also a wheelchair user as I’ve got Cerebral Palsy (CP). Those other things are the more important things – I’ve used the tag line on my blog before that I’m “So much more than ‘that girl in the wheelchair’” and that’s true – I definitely am.

But it’s my writings about my disability over on my blog that inspired Alyssa to ask me to blog over here on DisCo. Or at least I’m not sure what it was if it wasn’t that! I would describe my blog – which is called A Writer In A Wheelchair – as a bit of a mixed bag of everything. I talk about what I’ve been up to, things I’ve been thinking about or have done. I talk about having CP and also about having depression (I’ve been on and off of anti-depressants for about 7 years). I have a bit of a running series on there called “You know you’ve got CP…” I write about my attempts to lose weight, my hobbies, my hopes and dreams and anything else that comes to mind.


A lot of it does end up being about my disability. Either totally or just in passing. That’s because life is about disability when you have one. Or at least it is in my opinion. Being disabled doesn’t stop me doing stuff but it does influence the when and the how of doing stuff. Occasionally it also influences the what of what I get up too. But you have to think about if there is access to places you want to go – will I manage to get in, get around, be able to use the loo, or get a drink etc. It actually becomes second nature. Sometimes I do it without thinking. Sometimes I’ve been to a place so many times I no longer need to do it

I don’t think that having CP is a bad thing. It’s all I’ve ever known and I wouldn’t change it. Should I wake up tomorrow morning and be able-bodied or “normal” or whatever you want to call it I really wouldn’t know what to do! In fact I’d turn down a cure if I was offered it. I realise that’s something of a controversial viewpoint but it’s how I feel. And really, there is no such thing as normal. Just average, and average is boring!


Currently the tag line on my blog is “What more does a girl need than the ability to write and some wheels?” and that’s even more true I don’t think I’m suffering in anyway being a wheelchair user. Of course there are things I’d like to have in my life – more money, a paid job perhaps, an all expenses paid holiday somewhere. But the ability to walk? I neither want nor need it. I’m fine just the way I am.