On edge

The mental calculations disabled women make to keep ourselves safe - and what happens when we don't have to

Hello,

You notice things in the absences, don’t you? Some parts of life are so normalised to you that it’s only when they’re gone that you realise they were there at all.

One of the things I tried to convey in the book was the extent to which, as a very visibly disabled woman, I am always slightly on edge. I have to pay attention. I have to know if the person on the dating app is really as ok with disability as they claim. I have to know if the friend of a friend is annoyed we couldn’t do the activity they suggested. If the editor is going to insert ableist language into my copy or the producer is going to cut me because of my speech.

I have to know if the woman smiling strangely is going to ask me what’s wrong with me so loudly the entire pub turns around. I have to know if the member of staff getting the ramp is going to be pissy about it all night. More than anything, I have to know whether the man staring at me in Tesco is purely ignorant or whether he has that particular hardened look in his eye that says he’s going to get in my face.

I have to know. And I do know, because a lifetime of calculating the tiny tells - the inflection that doesn’t match the sentence or the head tilt that spells trouble, the slight startle when I start speaking or the quick glance around to see if anyone else is watching - has etched its answers into my subconscious so that I don’t even know I’m doing it. It’s as reflexive as turning at the sound of your name; automatic, instinctive, and sometimes a matter of survival.

Which is, if I’m honest, one of the reasons why I always have someone with me. Yes, I also just need a lot of help, but my PAs or my friends provide a sense of safety and protection; a buffer between me and a world that can feel hostile or, sometimes, scary

In the book and in this newsletter, I’ve written about how it was the freedom of community spaces that made me notice how on edge I am elsewhere. It was only when I wasn’t making all these mental calculations that I realised how much energy I had been expending on them. And, as I’ve written before, being freed of that obligation to be hyper aware has made me both braver and more myself, able to enjoy people and experiences in a way I didn’t really know was possible before I experienced disability- or queer-specific spaces.

Recently, I did something I never thought I’d do.