To ask people with disabilities to explain what discrimination they have faced?

[Givenuptotally]

Two horrific threads on disabilities this week. Can I ask any disabled person reading this to name and explain the discrimination they experience on a day to day basis? What are your experiences? I really do feel that so many need their eyes opening to what people with disabilities face.

My son has a disability. When diagnosed, his teacher refused to do additional training to be able to effectively support him. Many parents of children with the same condition end up having to attend school discos or residentials so their child gets the same experience as other children.

I have to attend parties with my child as he has anaphylactic allergies.

He also has ASD and struggles with social communication. I had the mother of another child call me after a play date and tell me that because he struggled with eye contact in her considered opinion he was a sociopath. Apparently she wanted to break it to me gently.

When my child was diagnosed with ASD and we were in the meeting with his teacher and the ed psych the teacher said 'Oh today autism is in the news because of this [teenager in the news] who has autism who killed his neighbour. ''

Thank you for that contribution.

My son has been followed, manhandled, possessions stolen, girls from a neighbouring school trying to get him to take rude photos of them ( in full view of the security cameras we had to install privately because after more than forty separate reported incidents the Police's view was " why do you let him out of the house? (he was then 15)") our house targeted with stone and egg throwers, and his brother had cigarettes burned out on his leg for verbally defending him. This in a "nice" market town in the SE.
As a disability social worker, every one of my clients without exception had experienced multiple acts of abuse and discrimination just going about their daily lives.

I have slight hearing and speech impairment. I am regularly referred to as a retard or mungo (I apologise for repeating those slurs) and sometimes by people I am related to. Often the butt of jokes I.e "speak up" "you talk too much" (usually when I am anxious I won't speak as much and they're trying to be funny 🙄) "oh there is chatterbox" (pointing at me, same arseholes trying to be funny! ). I've experienced this from family, former friends and also former colleagues. I guess some disabilities must be hilarious to see for those who have never had to live with them. Regardless of the shit, negative comments, I have had a successful career to date, travelled a fair bit, am financially stable, am working hard to get a first class degree at the end of the academic year and am fairly happy otherwise. I never explain this to anyone unwilling to hear me out. Fuck em, they're not worth me putting in the effort.

Sorry to other people who have to put up with this shit.

When my dc attended a mainstream school for a year:

• Locked out the classroom with 1:1 when lessons were happening
• Shut in the classroom at lunch with 1:1 so not allowed by teachers into hall for lunch
• Wasn’t allowed to go on school trips unless I drove DC in my car even when I said I’d go on the bus with them

Needless to say we went to court over it and pulled our DC out. It was reception year so should’ve been a nice year. The above is just a few examples of their vile behaviour.

I’m severely deaf. I had a lot of support in primary school but was pretty much chucked and left to my own devices in secondary.

Eventually, little too late, accommodations were made around GCSE time but I did struggle a lot with teachers. Especially ones who would turn around and write on the board whilst talking.

Or standing and holding a book over their face.

I need to lip read and I would tell the teachers that, and they would apologise and do it again.

Then they would get cross with me because “I wasn’t listening”. No. I couldn’t hear you. There’s a difference

I recognise many of these as being actions for students who need to be excluded from the class because of their behaviour. Where does your dc go to school now?

@Sometimeswinning dc wasn’t even given a chance to fail before school had ruled they didn’t want him. The above happened almost immediately within the first two weeks. Members of the Sen team from the council weren’t allowed in and give any advice. We wanted our son to have a chance in our local mainstream school. We appreciated it might not work but he’d been in a mainstream nursery. The head said to me almost as soon as my son started that my son wouldn’t be attending his school in Year 1.

The experience was so poor we moved our son to another school and he now attends another mainstream school which has a Sen unit attached.

When my autistic DS was in mainstream, another parent clearly didn’t want him in her DD’s class. She made a complaint to the school about DS attacking her DD in the playground. DS was off sick the day she claimed it happened.

People have made fun of my son’s vocal tics in the street.

Family members can’t be bothered to try to understand him when he speaks.

I could be here all day listing incidents like this and I know we’re not unique. In general, people are great but there are enough arseholes in the world to make things difficult.

The school took all the class on swimming lessons and left my daughter behind at school, the worst part was they didn’t even tell me that she had swimming lessons or that they didn’t want to take her, I only found out because she came out of school one day crying about it.

My disabilities are invisible.

Here are just a few things said or done to me.

You don't look deaf
I'm amazed that people would think I'm lying.

Talking to my back. Mumbling. Looking away mid sentence.

Being left out. Told never mind, I'll tell you later.

Shouting or drawing out words
CAAANN YOOUUU HEAARRR MEEE NOWWW

Oh hey I sign too,
While making random hand signs

You speak so well!
You can talk?!

So... you lipread

Do you drive?

Have you thought about getting an implant?

Loads of 'minor' examples of being mocked.

Not so much discriminatory, but dismissive and rude. Confided in two of my closest friends when I received my Autism diagnosis. Both said exactly the same thing "well, we are all on the spectrum, aren't we?" 🙄 Both Male. Both went on to take over the conversation about their mates blah blah (all factually incorrect anecdotal drivel) not once did they ask how I felt etc. I don't bother with either of them now. No doubt they both think it's because I've 'turned odd' aka distanced myself socially as I can't cope anymore. Nothing to do with either of them being severely lacking in self awareness of course. and generally being offensive twunts

My mother in the 70s, pushing my sister around in her pram. So many people used to stop her and ask "what did you do wrong in your pregnancy to get 'that'?"
My sister had Downs Syndrome.
People really were cunts back then. It's getting slowly better.

I attended a hospital appointment 4 weeks ago, that I’d waited 10 months for. The consultant had a strong accent and wore a mask. I explained that I am deaf, could she please remove the mask so I could understand her. She refused. Appointment was very confusing, with her shouting (this doesn’t help as I have mid range hearing loss) and getting cross that I was answering the wrong questions. I don’t use BSL, my hearing loss started in 30s. I can hear some and lip reading fills in the gaps.

aftwrwards I felt so stupid and rubbish about myself that I cannot access healthcare like other people and that I potentially missed important information. I received a feedback form afterwards (it was a clinic outsourced to Virgin), I filled it in but they haven’t even got in contact.

Being excluded from events due to the belief that I won't want to go because it'll be too difficult with the wheelchair. Friends, family, and acquaintances. They always made it sound like they were doing me a favour.

Now I just don't bother with many friends. Disability can be very isolating.

Alertthecorgis
When my dc attended a mainstream school for a year:

• Locked out the classroom with 1:1 when lessons were happening
• Shut in the classroom at lunch with 1:1 so not allowed by teachers into hall for lunch
• Wasn’t allowed to go on school trips unless I drove DC in my car even when I said I’d go on the bus with them
Needless to say we went to court over it and pulled our DC out. It was reception year so should’ve been a nice year. The above is just a few examples of their vile behaviour.

I recognise many of these as being actions for students who need to be excluded from the class because of their behaviour. Where does your dc go to school now?

Fuck me you are a classic example of discrimination! Child gets excluded and somehow it must be them!
Even if behavioural mostly this is due to abusive behaviour by the other pupils and teachers they have had to put up with and are reacting to.

Same happened to my sons, and lo and behold once he move school and all the abusive shit stop his "behaviour" no longer challenged in fact other than the 3 months in the abusive school environment where they claimed it was his behaviour that was the reason they did what they did... his entire school career has been incident free, he is now doing his A levels at college and thriving.

Homeschooled ASD DS was asked not to return to tennis lessons. He had had one lesson, before which I had explained very clearly that he needed 1-1 and wouldn't cope in a group lesson. So what did they do? Put him in a group lesson. So what did DS do? Have a massive meltdown. He was only 6 and I will never forgive the coaches for the way they handled it.

Oh Christ I forgot about swimming lessons.

There’s the teacher teaching students. And there’s me with a dumb look on my face cos I can’t understand a word she’s saying

God yes swimming lessons.

DS1 has dyspraxia and cannot tie shoelaces or swim a single stroke despite the fact he has been in lessons since he was 4(He is now just shy of 13 and his lessons only stopped during covid)

year 7 swimming gala at his school and I explained to his form teacher he could not swim. She said (And I quote); 'See, I would have said that was a parenting failure'.

I had a word with Head of Year. But not before I went home and cried my eyes out for a few days.

My college had never heard of my disability (there's a charity for it and we have Google) so decided they knew more than my consultant. And tried to label me as Dyslexic. My ed psych report said no. And it's normal to have the reported difficulty as a visually impaired person.

I've been told I won't be supported because I've just been diagnosed so it can't be that bad. Except you can develop so many conditions as an adult. And getting diagnosed isn't always that simple

Ohhhhh....

Big name (within the industry) conference insisted they must charge my PA a full ticket price for attending with me (she would not have been in the lectures/seminars except the ones that were scheduled over the mealtimes, but they had scheduled stuff over both lunch AND dinner, on each of the three days!)..

I offered to pay for her food as it was at a hotel far from civilisation and obviously I needed her to not leave the venue so she'd struggle to buy food elsewhere.

After months of battling this, they eventually came back to me and said £50 a day - for two goes at buffet food - she could have had steak in the hotel restaurant for both meals each day for less than that but it wasn't open for lunch and was in a different location to the conference. DWP Access to Work would only have covered £20 of that so that would have left me paying £90 more than any other attendee.

I ended up having another attendee act as my PA which is not what I like doing as they're there to do their own thing, not mind someone else! And this '£50 a day buffet lunch and dinner' turned out to be dire and absolutely no more than £10 per head.

Even worse, the organisation behind this conference is meant to be absolutely beyond reproach on animal ethics and welfare and kindness and all that shiz... but happy to fleece a disabled person.

Another massive national annual event run by a very old organisation... does not have press seating for disabled members of the press - to their credit they were MORTIFIED about this and asked me what I wanted to do and what solutions were suitable and we came up with something that worked. They do now reserve some of their accessible seating for disable press (And, it is used by people other than me, because it turns out I am not the only one!)

I have been turned away from chain restaurants because of stupid things like 'we don't have the key to the other half of this double door, the assistant manager has gone home with it and we're not serving to our accessible seats upstairs today... ' (the accessible upstairs floor was up the hill with a second entrance door, I'd already been in there first and been directed out, down the hill and in the bottom door...). I asked if they could serve me up there... no, apparently not.
Very humiliating as all this took place in front of other diners in the main entrance.

When I used a manual chair, I have been MOVED by randomers, without asking me... both times I was browsing stuff on a rack and suddenly I am moved away and then someone gets in front of me to look at what I was looking at - the second time I had had one hand on a wheel and my fingers caught in the spokes so I let out a very loud swear word and the woman TOLD ME OFF FOR SWEARING.. and said I was over reacting, she just wanted to get in front of me!...

Twice I have had people allow children to climb on my powerchair when I have left it parked in a restaurant somewhere 'not in the way' and transferred to a normal seat (this is because my chair is generally too high for restaurant tables) - on both occasions the parents were busy beaming at their precocious child and objected strongly when I asked them to remove child. On one occasion apparently it was OK because the NHS loan me the chair so 'in effect we've paid for it'... (they hadn't, it was my privately funded chair, not my NHS one but even if it had been... ugh!).

Chatting outside whilst waiting for a lift, after a fair bit of polite smalltalk, a lady asked if I was 'waiting for a responsible adult'... I was confused at first as no one would refer to my OH as 'responsible' and frankly 'adult' is pushing it... and it didn't dawn on me for a few seconds what she meant!

Yelled at on a train because I objected to the wheelchair area being filled with baggage - and then yelled at a LOT more when I started chucking peoples bags out the door, I don't think they expected quite the upper body strength I had at the time (I certainly couldn't do it now). Train staff were RIGHT THERE but were wishy washy useless efforts who would happily have taken me OFF the train in favour of some peoples suitcases but by this point on that particular day I had no fucks left to give and I lost my cool somewhat! Three suitcases hit the platform before people realised they really were in danger of losing ALL their stuff and started moving it out of my way!

Yelled at on a train BY train staff... because I horribly unreasonably wanted to get off AT my stop... and as no one showed up despite assistance/ramp being booked... I blocked the doors so the train couldn't leave. Apparently I should have just put up with it and stayed on the train all the way to wherever the hell it was going and then sought assistance. I'd have missed my connection and had to go straight home but hey ho, who cares about what the disabled person is trying to get to!

I was in hospital in secondary school because of my mental health. The school didn't really want me back and refused until a psychiatrist confirmed in writing that "the school community was not at risk". There was never anything to suggest I was violent. On the other side, the organisation that paid my fees (private school) immediately agreed to pay for an extra year and emailed me to wish me a speedy recovery.

A school teacher made me read out an article about anorexia in German. The class was disgusted on my behalf. She replied, "what's the issue? Everyone knows she doesn't eat".

Unable to rent privately due to income being solely benefits.

Almost had a job offer rescinded because the manager didn't think I could do the job when I disclosed my mental health condition, despite having doing a very similar job with excellent references and a good sickness record. I withdrew my acceptance because no way could I have a manager with that attitude. OH have never had an issue clearing me to work.

My adult son does not have a mental health condition but was sectioned and sent to a hospital an 8 hour drive away from home because there was no-where for him to live. You can do that with people with learning disabilities if they have ‘challenging behaviour’. I suspect my behaviour would be challenging if I was given 13 days notice to leave after my home was bought up by a large corporate.

(Yes he did come home to us for a bit but his younger brothers had to move out - they were in year 11 and year 8 so it could not be long term).

He spent 16 months at the end other end of the county - had never been away from me for more than 2 days before being sectioned.

A lot of people have been ignorant over the years but probably outweighed by the nice people (in our orbit) & pales into insignificance compared to the above or the institutional difficulties - eg accessing healthcare.

I have PTSD and severe arthritis. I don't think I routinely experience the level of discrimination that many people with disabilities do, but largely because I am a strong and independant woman who has no problem calling it out - and I honestly think that that kind of confidence is "visible". But even with all that said, I find it wearing at times, and it's often the stupid "little stuff". For example, I have lost count of the number of times someone holds a door for the person behind them (me!) and then realises that I am slow (I walk with either two sticks / critches or a rollator, so my hands are both "busy") so they let it go to slam in my face because they are in a hurry to get somewhere. People who question my service dogs existence because I am not blind. The people who will still talk to the person I am with about me because they assume they are my carer and I am too stupid to talk or to know what I need.

These are not the "big" discriminations that so many people routinely face in life, but sometimes I just wish they were because my life is exhausting enough without the "drip, drip, drip" effect of the small routine stupid stuff on a day to day basis.

Then there's just the "life stuff" - the steps everywhere that I struggle to manage. The doors that need a hand (or even two) to move when you have no hands free to use. The supermarket "disabled" scooter that assume that I only want to buy six items because that's all that fits in the basket (thank God for deliveries because I haven't had to deal with this one in years now!).

Despite everything I try to get out and about daily, I work (mostly from home now) and I do "things" - I try to stay active and as fit as I can. But by God there are days when I feel like sitting down on the sofa and bingeing on box sets for the rest of my life, it's all so tiring.

Mainly just assumptions about what I can or can not do or cope with, and more assumptions about my personality and character based off nothing other than generalisations and stereotypes. Also people insisting that I do certain things a certain way, that perfectly healthy 'normal' people can do but are completely unrealistic or impossible for me. The last one is really a failure to accommodate and make reasonable adjustments, but I still encounter it from time to time in people who are inflexible due to ambition or a lack of any sort of empathy.

The thing that probably irks me most though is how often I encounter people making disparaging remarks about my particular diagnosis while they are completely oblivious to the fact I'm one of the people they are busy slating. It's common to all invisible disabilities, and when you have more than one it means you come across this even more frequently because your bullshit radar picks more of it up.

@WiddlinDiddlin omg. I am so sorry you have experienced all that. The shoving you out of the way in your wheelchair is particularly…..arrgh! I have no words for it. Love you started throwing things around on the train. Thank you for sharing. People need to see these experiences because at some level, I suspect we’ve all been guilty of doing something awful at some time, albeit unwittingly. It is easy to miss that bigger picture sometimes. The key, I think, is recognising when you’ve got it wrong and learning from it.

I had forgotten about the dyspraxia - my eldest has it. Swimming was a nightmare for him. Off the class would swim, all as fast as they could and my poor boy would be left behind….however, he would just turn around mid-width to enable him to finish at the same time as the rest of them! Nothing if not resourceful. It took him years to find a sport that works for him - he now weightlifts at 18 and although he falls up/downstairs on a very regular basis, he has very much learnt to manage it at some level.