Our society forces disabled people to be superhuman — Paralympian or not

Bang! Two players collide, head-on, at speed. Wheelchair basketball is fast and ferocious. The players tear around the court, crash and are regularly thrown to the floor. I feel myself nudging my wheelchair closer and closer to the TV screen. Adrenaline coursing through my body, I am taken back to my childhood. For a second I am there on the court, screeching down the line, ready for a pass.

“Hello.”I am rapidly returned to reality, as my carer arrives to take me to the loo.

“There’s no such thing as can’t.”But the thing is, there is. Disability inevitably means accepting the can’ts. As motor neurone disease progressively paralyses my body, I must constantly adapt to life within ever greater limits. It is my reality. To pretend any different would get in the way of enjoying the things I can do.

“superhuman”might seem positive, it unhelpfully suggests success equals beating disability. It paints a partial, rose-tinted picture of what it really means to be disabled. The reality is all disabled people are forced to be superhuman — Paralympian or not — because of the inaccessible world and anti-disabled attitudes we must battle every day simply to exist. The taxi driver who refuses to pick you up because you are in a wheelchair. The restaurant up a flight of stairs. The pub with no accessible loo. Day after day, that takes record-breaking resilience.

“Yes I can”will change that — boy, I wish it could.

Gordon Aikman is a motor neurone disease patient, campaigner and One in Five ambassador.

To donate to his campaign to fund research into a cure for MND, text MNDS85 £5 to 70070 or visit

http://www.gordonsfightb ack.com

This article in The Sunday Times on 2 October 2016.