This morning, I’m asking myself: What will it take for people to actively get behind and support the fight for equality, human rights and needed services for profoundly disabled people and their families?
I spend far too much time on Twitter advocating.
I spend far too much time writing emails to change the system.
I spend far too much time sitting alone dwelling on the precious years of my adult working life which are never to be retrieved.
I spend far too much time worrying about how I will survive financially into the future as I near enter my late 50s.
And I spend far too much time trying to figure out what it will take for people – yes you, the person reading this blog piece – to actively, and I mean ACTIVELY, get behind and support the fight for equality, human rights and needed services for profoundly disabled people and their families.
So, I ask you, what will it take?
Do I and other families need to put out videos showing the struggles, the “ugly and raw” aspects of our daily lives so to make your heart ache as ours do?
Do we need to stop showing only the smiling, cute, or heartwarming photos of our profoundly disabled child / adult child, instead showing you the reality of what we see more often than not?
Do we need to have our advocacy work be more appealing, more “fashionable”, for the public to take it on board as they do other trendy causes which actually don’t even relate to their own person lives, just as profound disability probably doesn’t either?
What will it take?
I can only dream of a massive public response where people take to the streets in droves like they’ve done for Marriage Equality or in support of Ukraine or the Yes campaign.
Where are you all now?
Ask yourself if you’re doing enough to help. And then remind yourself of this fact:
Disability is the world’s largest minority group,
and the only one that any of us can become a member of at any time.
Think about that, please, and then help us fight for what our profoundly disabled loved ones, and ourselves, need to support their very challenging lives.
