to continue using the disabled facilities at my local pool?

[HedgehogsDontBite]

Our new local pool has a separate changing room for people with disabilities. I was using them when I was there with toddler DS today. A member of staff politely told me that I should be using the family changing room next door. Now I feel bad for using it.

The reason I use it is because the family changing room is very busy and noisy and opens onto the big pool area which is also really busy and noisy and I can't cope with it. The other is small and nearly always empty and opens directly into the smaller not so busy training pool.

The disabled facilities appear to be geared up just for people with physical disabilities. Is it wrong to use them because I have ASD?

It is irrelevant that it is for 'disabled people'.

It is an accessible changing room that is equipped to allow more people to use the facilities. You are a paying customer, and you are finding the facilities to be more accessible and thus allowing you and your family to be able to use the pool.

As an adult, you are fully able to choose which facility you need to use and unless the staff member is a qualified doctor, how can they be so knowledgeable about your own personal ability needs? I mean it's great and all, so perhaps they could share their amazing skills with the NHS, it would save them a fortune.

I agree forever I think what this thread does highlight is that hidden disabilities still need more awareness.

The room may be designed for physical disabilities but that does not lessen the need if someone with a hidden disability to use it. You could just as easily argue that it is there for all disabled people and it is the logical place for facilities for the physically disabled.

An individual with ASD may or may not be able to use the regular changing rooms. If they are able to use them it may be with considerable difficulty and stress. The same thing could be said of a wheelchair user - how can we say that one has priority over the other for use of the facility????

OP YANBU - people need reminding that not all disabilities are visible or obvious.

YANBU. The changing areas are very challenging for my DS who has ASD - to begin with we often didn't manage to get into the pool as a meltdown was triggered (especially the hand dryers are hard for him). He is better able to tolerate them now he knows he will be swimming next, and he loves swimming (totally different sensory experience as others have said) but still often selfharms or hits out at me/sometimes random people if a hand dryer goes off (not hard because he's aware he shouldn't, but it's still awful when it's someone else and it's always difficult Explaining - some people are more understanding than others) - if there were an accessible room, I'd use it, but there isn't.

Perhaps the changing room needs a notice on the door making it clear it is for customers with disabilities/additional needs only. This would deter some people who shouldn't be in there from going in there. There may have been complaints from other disabled customers about people misusing it.

I use accessible toilets with my 3yo dd. she walks in and walks out and I know I get judged for it.

I'll be honest I've never even tried to administer her catheter in a standard stall as I know that even if there is just about enough room for me to crouch on the floor in front of the toilet that means my clothes and hair will be touching the bowl of a public toilet and absorbing other peoples urine. Which is a) psychologically gross,

And b) a contamination risk

Ffs,

A risk which I'm not willing to take.

So if the only accessible toilets where within the accessible changing area I would use them. Otherwise we can presently manage standard family changing.

Fortunately for me I am mostly a pig headed individual you can cope with strangers giving me funny looks without feeling like I have to justify myself to them

Unfortunately there are always going to be a few non-disabled people who will see people with invisible disabilities using these facilities and think "if they can use them so can we". Also unfortunately those same people are relying on the fact that people are reluctant to challenge other users in case of a hidden disability in order to get away with it.

There was a thread a while back where a MNer had challenged someone for using the disabled toilet when they weren't apparently disabled, the responses were a mixture of "well done" and "how humiliating would that have been for someone with a hidden disability", it's a tricky one.

My physical disabilities are minimally, so on a good day you wouldn't notice them.

My mental illnesses and sensory issues (mainly sound-triggered) prevent me taking my children swimming, or anywhere else I can't take my male partner with me as my carer. If I knew there was a quiet pool and that he could be with me the whole time (including getting to the changing rooms, I'd be able to cope.

... So YANBU at all to use tge facilities which enable you to cope

Could you write a letter praising the new changing facilities, say that your social worker recommened them to you and how pleased you are that you can now go swimming. Then just mention that on light of these new facilities being provided could there just be a littke extra staff training that not all disabilities are visible/apparent.

You can mention your ASD if you like but I don't think you would need to if you would prefer not to.

How can you cope with a noisy busy pool while in it, yet not when you are changing?

That comes across as a slightly cynical dig, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and take it as an attempt to learn and understand.

In a busy pool, you are never in as close proximity to other people as you are in a communal changing room.
The people in the pool are never naked.
The sensory input from being in the water is very soothing.
My son spends most of his time underwater, because of the sensory change that it offers.
You are swimming in a pool, not trying to negotiate and organise drying and changing in front of other people.

I don't have a physical disability but I do have an assistance dog. Obviously I don't take the dog to a pool but I use disabled toilets frequently because my dog simply wouldn't squeeze into a 'normal' toilet cubicle. No one has questioned me (yet) but I am of the opinion that disabled toilets are not just for disabled people in wheelchairs.

I have a kid with ASD. We use the disabled toilets as I know that no one is going to set off the hand drier and freak him out and we use the disabled changing due to his stimming and joy of jumping around naked.

Disabled facilities are there for the use of anyone, including hidden disabilities. My DS is no more able to cope with standard Loos than someone in a wheelchair, just for different reasons.

MrsMcColl, I don't understand why the disabled changing room being occupied occasionally stops you taking your child swimming? Surely all you need to do is wait till it's free? Or, if that isn't possible, talk to the staff about whether they can reserve it for you if you arrange to arrive at a specified time?

YANBU at all OP.

My 12 year old son is autistic and uses the disabled toilets when he is out as he simply cannot cope with the hand dryers. As he is getting older lots of things are improving and I suspect after a few more years he'll be able to use headphones and an iPod with music to drown out the hand dryer noise, once that happens he will be able to use the normal toilets (I hope). If he cannot manage this then he will always use the disabled toilets. People won't necessarily understand though as he is fully mobile. They might understand though if they follow him and me to a supermarket where he is increasingly very obvious as "different" given his age and the behaviours he exhibits to cope with the sensory overload (he paces, he head bobs and he talks to himself).
Jut walking into a disabled toilet though doesn't show that.

Perhaps the changing room needs a notice on the door making it clear it is for customers with disabilities/additional needs only.

And if the additional need is a space not teeming with shouty people?

There is a difference between finding shouty people annoying and finding shouty people distressing.

Having read all the thread, I must say i am dismayed at the poster who thinks that a physical disability trumps all.

If anyone challenges my use of accessible facilities when with my DD, they'll be enlightened pretty quickly.

Have to admit to being a bitby the implication in some posts that the disabled should not expect to queue for facilities - it happens at busy times and should just make it easier to campaign for more facilities. It is great that there are these facilities. The implication that there should always be facilities available without having to occasionally do what everyone else has to do (ie. Queue) is baffling.

Oh and people who leave their stuff in cubicles to reserve them gives me the rage - I have been known to report it and the staff have bundled the whole lot up and taken it to lost property.

pilgit

That was my point!

My being disabled (and you'll notice I have not clarified how as it's irrelivent) does not exalt me above the rest of the world where I don't have to be reasonable and considerate just like the rest of the world have to! Or are supposed to

When a facility is busy I wait when I'm done in a changing room I remove my belongings so other people can use them etc