Category: Columns

Pain Chronicles: Being Fat Isn’t a Disability, but Society’s Attitude to it Can be

Post author By Caroline McDonagh-Darwin
Post date 17 September 2021
3 Comments on Pain Chronicles: Being Fat Isn’t a Disability, but Society’s Attitude to it Can be

Pain Chronicles is a monthly(-ish) column from Caroline McDonagh-Darwin about coming to terms with living with a chronic illness. It will include funny stories and brutal honesty, with some thrown in chats with her mum Shaz, and other friends too, along the way.

For her 50th birthday, I took my mum to see Matilda in the Palace Theatre in Manchester. We were all the way up in the heavens – having to pay £2 for the tiny binoculars fancy women have on sticks in films set in the early 20th Century. But we didn’t let that stop us having the time of our lives.

Before booking, I’d scoured the access information on their website (which was, and still is, limited). I knew the lift went to the rear circle and there would be almost no steps for our back row seats. I knew they had a disabled toilet.

What I didn’t have is much information on the seats themselves.

Tags fatphobia, sofie hagen, theatre

all Columns features opinion Pain Chronicles

Pain Chronicles: The Additional Cost of Being Disabled

Post author By Caroline McDonagh-Darwin
Post date 26 July 2021
4 Comments on Pain Chronicles: The Additional Cost of Being Disabled

Caroline’s note: I’ve written this month’s column along with my mum, Shaz. You can find my bits in regular type, and hers in bold (because she always is). Hope you enjoy.

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I’ll always remember the doctors’ note I got at university so that I could type in exams rather than handwrite. The doctor mentioned I’d been doing the same in ‘A’ Levels. Inverted commas and all. I can’t quite remember how much it was, I think around the £30 mark. £30 so I could access the same education as my classmates. And disabled students’ allowance may have covered that, but the forms were arduous and I really didn’t have it in me to do it.

Tags additional costs, cost, expenses, expensive, pain chronicles, poverty

all Columns Pain Chronicles

Pain Chronicles: Right Now, I Need the Sunflower

Post author By Caroline McDonagh-Darwin
Post date 6 July 2021
1 Comment on Pain Chronicles: Right Now, I Need the Sunflower

When mask wearing became mandatory in July last year, I was mostly still not leaving the house. We’re a high risk family, and I felt the government were too hasty in unlocking everything.

When I did have to pop to the shops, I’d don a reusable mask (trying to combat waste) and more often than not I’d only just finish my shopping before having to run outside to fresh air to stave off a panic attack. Face shields were slightly better, although they did elicit some funny looks, and there was still an issue with allodynia where the sponge rested on my forehead.

Tags back to normal, covid-19, fibromyalgia, heat intolerance, hidden disability, invisible disability, mask exempt, mask wearing, masks, pain chronicles, sunflower, sunflower scheme

all Columns Disabled and Sexual opinion

Disabled and Sexual: Disabled LGBTQ+ People Deserve to Feel Welcome in Queer spaces

Post author By Hannah Shewan Stevens
Post date 29 June 2021
No Comments on Disabled and Sexual: Disabled LGBTQ+ People Deserve to Feel Welcome in Queer spaces

Disabled and Sexual is a monthly(-ish) column by Hannah Shewan Stevens which will explore all the challenges, comedy, and fun that disabled people experience as sexual beings, even while we are desexualised by a predominantly non-disabled society.

If you took one look at a Pride parade or any of the capitalist Pride advertising during June, you’d be forgiven for assuming that disabled people are almost non-existent in the LGBTQ+ community.

Tags ableism, lgbtq+

all Columns Disabled and Sexual features opinion

Disabled and Sexual: How Internalised Ableism Gave me Sexual Imposter Syndrome

Post author By Hannah Shewan Stevens
Post date 17 May 2021
No Comments on Disabled and Sexual: How Internalised Ableism Gave me Sexual Imposter Syndrome

Disabled and Sexual is a new monthly(-ish) column by Hannah Shewan Stevens which will explore all the challenges, comedy, and fun that disabled people experience as sexual beings, even while we are desexualised by a predominantly non-disabled society.

In daily life, the words ‘I am an imposter’ play on an interminable loop in my head. Most of the time, I shrug them off and dive back into whatever I’m doing, but when those words pop up during sex they are much harder to ward off.

Those words are also the reason you’re reading my second column a lot later than I intended. The original theme of this month’s column was very different and although you will still read it in June, these words just had to come first.

Every time I sat down to write, I felt like the word ‘imposter’ was emblazoned across my forehead.

Tags ableism, sex

all Columns Essays opinion Pain Chronicles

Pain Chronicles: Rosie Jones and Straddling the Intersection

Post author By Caroline McDonagh-Darwin
Post date 29 April 2021
No Comments on Pain Chronicles: Rosie Jones and Straddling the Intersection

Pain Chronicles is a new monthly(-ish) column from Caroline McDonagh-Darwin about coming to terms with living with a chronic illness. It will include funny stories and brutal honesty, with some thrown in chats with her mum Shaz, and other friends too, along the way.

Rosie Jones and I have a few things in common. We’re both Northern. We’re both pricks. We both have gigantic tits. And we’re both disabled lesbians.

And when I saw her walk on to the set of The Russell Howard Show and said she couldn’t process those ideas, she could only fit one “different” thing in her life, and therefore she believed she wasn’t gay, I understood where she was coming from. Sort of.

Tags fibromyalgia, intersectionality, lgbtqia, rosie jones

all Columns Disabled and Sexual Essays features

Disabled and Sexual: How the Historical Desexualising of Disabled People Still Impacts Our Sexuality Today

Post author By Hannah Shewan Stevens
Post date 6 March 2021
2 Comments on Disabled and Sexual: How the Historical Desexualising of Disabled People Still Impacts Our Sexuality Today

One of the most pervasive myths about disabled people is that we’re either incapable of or disinterested in sex. As a result, society desexualises us because people genuinely believe that no one could possibly find a disabled person sexy. Well, I’m here to tell you that they’re very wrong.

Tags ableism, relationships, sex