Some things I have (un)learned about disability and friendship

Hello,

Long term readers of this newsletter will know that my very favourite things in life are, in no particular order: books, cheese, the social model of disability and my mates. I bloody love my mates.

I count myself extremely lucky when it comes to my pals. I am in a funny position now where younger or more recently disabled people come to me for advice (a lovely and bizarre thing), and one of the things I notice is how badly a lot of them are treated by the people who supposedly love them. People well into their twenties are ignoring their disabled friends’ access needs, leaving them out of stuff, or not helping when something horrible and ableist happens. It makes me really sad and really angry. But it doesn’t shock me, because I have absolutely been there.

The problem is that, just like with romantic relationships, ableism can convince us that we’re not really worthy of proper friendships. Lots of disabled people experience outright bullying at some point in our lives, so when someone appears to like us it can be really hard not to just accept the scraps of friendship we’re offered. It takes time to unlearn all that - but it can be done. In the past, I definitely allowed behaviour I wouldn’t now. I had to learn my own red lines and how to enforce them, and I lost some ‘friends’ along the way. But life is much better and happier for it.

Before I go any further, let me state for the record that I do not have it all figured out. Even though I have great friends now who wouldn’t dream of treating me badly because of my disability, the truth is that establishing and maintaining disabled-non disabled friendships is really hard. Even now, on firm ground, there are still things that are tricky for my friends and me; nothing like the problems above but more the difficulties that arise from living in different realities, one shaped by unremitting ableism and one not.

Get yourself some pals like these

Still, I think we have all learned things along the way. So, in case you are one of those disabled people really struggling with this stuff, here are some things I wish I’d known about friendship:

• Real friends don’t see access needs as a burden or blame you when you can’t do something

• You shouldn’t be responsible for planning everything to ensure access

• Yes, there is a lot of love in an ‘I checked and it’s accessible’ text, and you are allowed to feel that, but please don’t think it is anything more than what you deserve

• Sadly, if you have explained what you need and your friends still invite you to things that aren’t accessible, they aren’t really you’re friends. Ditto if they don’t invite you ‘because you couldn’t come anyway’. If a group is getting together, everyone in it should be able to go if they want to

• However, you do have to have actually explained what you need! And you have to have said if those things aren’t in place you won’t be going. And, I’m sorry to say, you have to stick to that. I know, I know, you probably could struggle your way through, but that just says it’s fine when it isn’t