Waiting for the right time to ...

Recently I saw a post from one of the influencers in the field of disability to post a "call to action" for the non disabled community to support the disabled a.k.a eradicate ableism. I asked a question publicly, how do we make the majority to listen to minority? It seems that almost no one wants to listen to us? How do we create this need ? Since then I see that either the post or my comments were deleted, because I can't find it anymore. That kind of tells me that maybe I struck a cord with my question.

We can scream and shout at the top of our lungs that this or that is needing to change. If there is no ear to listen, there is no action out of it. Status quo prevails.

I discussed with one of my friends that I still don't get the barriers people have to employ people with disabilities. She just sighted and said to me: "Lydia, at the end of the day, what matters is, how much results/impact etc you can deliver." I agree. I am watching a guy with autism who is obsessed with cleaning Midwest Magic Cleaning. He even employs 3 people and cleans the houses for free ( earns from YouTube ) He probably knows himself pretty well and can work with it. However not everyone can figure the job for themselves on their own. I love the Stephen Wampler Foundation. Everyone however created the opportunity for themselves...

I've listened to a podcast where a woman mentioned that her husband lost vision before their son's are born. The children knew he couldn't see without the mother even discussing it with them. The father asked child where is he on the playground and he dropped a rock to make a sound. When they said look at my toy = they put their toys into father's hand etc. She described it as if the children knew another language.

So is this a "language" barrier ? Is the resistance because we don't understand each other ?

Imagine someone fresh out of school, without work experience, how much that person would be developed professionally if they don't get the chance to even enter the workplace ? Not much, right ? The years go by and maybe that person has very short and scattered work experiences. Well the older they get, the less valuable they are for the market ( that's another stigma of a hiring process which I won't go in to).

I feel like recently I am like a broken record here. Bringing all the repeating issues. Overall there is very little progress and improvement. The reason for lack of progress is in my view, that there is no conversation. There is only few rare occasions where someone somewhere, who is directly impacted by disability and begins to change things.

I know a lady who has a disability, but when it comes to social justice, or bringing any kind of diversity discussion to the table, she rather chooses to discuss LGBTQ issues. I am not saying it's wrong. I just don't understand it. She keeps now mostly quiet about the disability, even though she used to be vocal ( many years ago). Now she is vocal only about LGBTQ issues as a straight ally. I didn't get a chance to ask her what made her change the focus. I however believe we have so few people who actually make the change, that anyone we loose .. we feel it as a community. It's easier to stand up for something what is not impacting you directly, than to stand up for something what has direct impact on you. If it's not personal, you can walk away from it. If it's personal, you can't ever run away. Therefore my assumptions is ( although it can be incorrect) that she is not talking about her disability because she doesn't need to (it's not apparent disability) and she doesn't want to disclose weakness.

I had a discussion with new friend of mine who also has a disability, found out about it pretty recently. She prefers to keep it quiet, because there is still a lot of people who don't understand diagnosis, what does it mean and if it even has an impact on the workplace e.g. if you have a wheelchair user, you need to adjust the office to be without barriers. This new friend of mine showed me examples where someone's disability/ illness was weaponised against them. I understand, it's not fair, nice or pretty. It is the reason however why I speak about mine. Because this way no one can hold it against me. The people who turn away from me, because I don't do bouldering ...not many, although no one who knows me is not going to invite me for it. There may be people or potential employers who turn away from me, because I burned out once. Maybe someone considers me "damaged goods". I can proof otherwise. I am now the best version of myself I've been so far ever in my life. I intend to scale it. There are going to be people who choose to be with me, or not.

Back to my original goal of this article and that is: How do we spark an interest for conversation with the rest of the world ? What would you suggest to me to go, so I don't create with this blog my little bubble, where my readers either agree with me and tell me, or disagree and just quietly disengage ? ??

I think I'll be too old to wait until we take over the world, although it may happen sooner than later with increasing age of population, mental health issues and better diagnostics of neurodivergence. Maybe the problem "solves itself" ?