I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for your support, it is truly humbling the last 24 hours to see so many of you offering support. Being on disability benefits was not the life I'd envisioned, nor a life I'd wish on anyone. It's a life where dignity is stripped away through and by the very systems meant to support people.
The life I had envisioned, the one I'd worked for despite disability and illness until I couldn't anymore in 2018, that life disappeared. I lost my beautiful home which had been my safe haven due to being unable to afford my mortgage anymore. I lost everything. I went from owning a split level 4 bedroom home with gardens and a sun room filled with with plants to renting a room.
I don't hate my life. It's just different. I adapt every day in a world unwilling to adapt for people like me and manage to find joy in the little things, and find joy through community. Economically though, that's the hard part. The cost of living has changed drastically since 2020 and the fight for better systems and financial stability for disabled people in this country became an even steeper uphill battle for all of us.
No one should have to fight for survival. Being disabled and chronically ill should not mean a life of legislated poverty where we're left asking for help to survive. Where we're forced to take up part time jobs regardless of health status to pay for the things that aren't covered only to have it clawed back to ensure we stay below the poverty line.
I've been advocating for almost my entire adult life for better accessibility, for systems to change even though I wasn't yet in need of those systems. I had family who had survived them.
When people ask what radicalized me, it was my grandmother. Her fight to ensure her son, my uncle had the support he needed, her fight to break the stigma around autism, intellectual disabilities, and cognitive disorders. It was her fight to end institutionalization for people like my uncle. Her fight for his human rights. It was her. She is the reason I keep going. Carrying on her legacy of fighting for what is right, for justice. It's why I'm so vocal, why I'm not afraid to talk about the hard things, the things people don't want to hear about.
This wasn't meant to be my life story, it was meant to be a thank you. Thank you for your kindness, for being nonjudgemental, and for being here! Most of all, thank you for being you.
This community we've built means the world to me, not because of any financial help or help with food, it means the world to me because you're all a part of it, encouraging each other to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep learning and growing in a world trying to silence those who work towards true liberation and justice.
I hope you know, I love each and every one of you! Thank you.