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Transcript:

0:00

Allan:

And even more fundamentally, we’ve discussed this many times, the very nature of the word disability, it begins with a negative prefix. 0:09 So what you’ve discovered is that society constantly sees disability as a negative way of life.

0:17

And for you, I guess COVID sort of brought it all to a head, didn’t it? So you experienced lockdown, huge isolation, huge problem with mental health as a result. But you got through that and it inspired you to write this book, didn’t it? Samantha: Yeah, it did. Yeah. That was the one thing that got me through lock down mainly- writing the book.

0:52

So yeah, I think for you, you’ve never perceive yourself as a victim, have you? You’ve always said I’m just a young woman just like any other woman. I just happen to live with CP.

1:08

But the perception of experience from outside being almost the opposite hasn’t It is you’re somebody with CP and the fact you’re woman is just sort of just by the wayside, isn’t it?

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Allan:

1:19

So the book was a very first hand account of what it is like for a young woman living with CP in a world that sees it very, very differently.

1:32

A world that isn’t really willing sometimes to see it, or sometimes just isn’t able to. Samantha: Expect equality really, that’s all about anything, regardless of ability, right? So yeah, it’s a very well strange journey, but it’s- I’m hoping that it’s getting there.

2:15

It’ll get there, yeah.

Krystal:

2:18

It’s is frustrating, I know, because you know all these things and you want to fix problems and you know, but I think it’s a collectively, the disability community getting together and working together to show these things and explain the issues and then give people intelligible things that they can go forward with, you know, a new understanding of it. Yeah.

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Mark:

2:54

Part of what that goes wrong is at the outset, people assume that they’re right in the right or they know better.

3:05

And then when it starts from there it’s kind of a it’s not really a equal equal starting point.

Allan:

3:18

The problem is I suppose as society we we try to say we’re all different we’re all unique but then we still say but I’m the model of normal and everybody else off that is is different that we in one way we we try and say the difference but we we have the benchmark of from where we define different and that that’s still problematic isn’t it is actually if we say we’re all different if we’re equal then that’s fine but we still have this sort of starting point as it’s all relative isn’t it? It is, you know and that’s what we’ve got to move away from isn’t it really is that sort of especially in the physical sense that relative that we still have this perception that’s normal and everything else is different. We need to move away from that don’t we.

Samantha:

Yeah, definitely.

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Allan:

04:09

Making sure that you you have a rounded view from from society. So the second book I think is your your main focus right now and you’ve been doing a lot of events and engagement with people haven’t you and you know contributing to the conversation. So next month you’re or December, sorry you’re speaking to a group of dentists, aren’t you?

4:28

So that would be an opportunity for people in the dental professional get a little bit of insight into the world of people like Samantha and that that, things like that. It’s become a bit a big part of what you do now, isn’t it? Is having these conversations with, yeah, with people.