I Am Not Broken

   November 6th, 2014.

   A revolutionary day, for me. It was that afternoon I travelled in the back of a cab down to Oakleigh, and shelled out almost $3000 in money raised by some exceedingly generous people online. $3000 is a lot to a person like me, who is used to eating one meal a day, who lost feeling in their fingers from the Melbourne winter this year. Hell, $3000 is probably a lot to any 20-year-old. At least, any 20-year-old I would want to talk to (because, as anyone who knows me knows, I don't like rich people).

   What does $3000 get a person in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne?

   A Pride R4 motorised wheelchair.

      My name is Cat. I'm twenty years old, and live with severe, debilitating chronic pain. I can walk, but it is very, very painful, and if I walk for too long, I will inevitably end up vomiting in a gutter from how much it hurts and how sick walking makes me feel. Not, I admit, my classiest moment, but for the last five or more years, it's been my life.

   There is an idea, pervasive in our society, about disability -- especially visually apparent disabilities. The mobility impaired are "bound to their wheelchairs." Visually impaired people are "forced" to use canes or seeing eye dogs -- and let's not even start about the obsession our culture has with fixing the Deaf and demonising the use of sign languages.

   When my stepmother, an ex nurse, found out I was getting a wheelchair, she said it 'made her sad.' She said that a young person (well, she said girl, but misgendering and belittling aside) such as myself shouldn't be 'bound to a wheelchair.'

   She was focused on what too many focus on -- this idea that a wheelchair, that the loss of walking, somehow destroys our quality of life. That is not the problem.

   The problem is, we live in a society that does not make it easy to have a disability. Most trams in Melbourne are not accessible for people in a wheelchair. Most buildings, including the one I live in, do not have lifts. It isn't the act of using a chair, or any other disability aid, that makes life difficult. It's the fact that society is set up to make it as difficult as possible for us to function.

   Along with that goes the idea that a person who is not monetarily productive is somehow useless or not worth living. Autistics, such as myself, are unlikely to receive organ transplants because, and doctors will fudge this and come up with lies upon lies to explain it, they simply do not view life with a disability as worth living.

   I am not bound to my wheelchair. My wheelchair is a symbol of freedom. My wheelchair is, to me, a sign that I can go anywhere. My wheelchair is both literal and metaphorical freedom.

   I am not broken. I do not need to be fixed. My autism, my severe visual impairment, my mobility. These things do not need to be fixed, because I am not broken. I am whole, and unique, and wonderful as I am. I will not be silenced any longer. I will not suffer through walking just because people think I should and because people are uncomfortable around the disabled. I do not need to be fixed. I will not be fixed. The world is broken. The world needs to be fixed, for myself, for other disabled people, and for the disabled people yet to be born.

   I am Cat. I am Autistic. I am very vision impaired. I have complex neuropathic pain. I am not broken. This is a blog about me, being me.