Being a member of a group that is open to being targeted for irrational hatred, just for existing is quite enlightening. That might seem like a strange statement, but it really does show you the psychology of the average human. For example, somebody will make a ridiculous statement about disabled people or benefit claimants more generally, and I will counter with my experience and give examples of how these untruths affect my daily life. And the response I usually get is actually quite fascinating, they go for the old: “Oh of course I didn’t mean you“ approach, the subtext being, I just meant all the other people, but definitely not you. When of course the reality is they do mean me, but having read my situation, they can’t defend that point substantively, so they just pretend that I, and people like me aren’t the people they are talking about. The truth is, it shouldn’t be acceptable to talk about any group in such disparaging terms, nobody ever chooses the life I end up in and many of us would much rather things had turned out differently, (I certainly didn’t choose to be born 11 weeks early) Having said that though, I wouldn’t change anything about myself now, (except maybe if I got the opportunity to acquire moderately useful hands) because without my disability, I would be a completely different person and would’ve had a completely different life. For example, I wouldn’t have gone to the same secondary school. I might not have gone to the same uni and I definitely wouldn’t still be needing to rely on mam and dad for the basics. Which brings me onto to my final point. In the media, you often hear about people saying of disabled people: you shouldn’t let your disability define you. And that like there is what I like to call the privilege of an imagined choice. Whereby non-disabled people seemingly think that if you haven’t adapted enough to the non-disabled world, it’s because you haven’t tried hard enough. No! It’s because the world isn’t built for us and nobody with any real ability to do anything about it has The will to do so. The idea of not letting disability define us just seem quite noble, but in reality it can be deeply toxic because sometimes it’s just a code phrase for : why don’t you just try not needing all the support you clearly need? You see, the narrative about overcoming isn’t really about us at all, it’s about non-disabled people wishing that we would fit into need little boxes because it would be more convenient for them if we did. Unfortunately for them, it’s impossible for me to play that game , and to be quite honest, I wouldn’t do it even if I could.