Transcript - APRIL Youth Conference Peer Panel


who ran their breakouts yesterday how do
you guys think it went
okay i think i could have done better
but
i don't know we had some pretty deep
conversations in my breakout session it
was uh
yeah i loved it yeah i loved it
um yeah it was okay i was kind of tired
so i just had one person and then i came
to mel's it was so good i love deep
conversations
so something i actually i
think had someone from mel's group
coming to mine
but it was a i had my questions
they answered them all and
they actually got more it was more
informal at the end we were talking
about
different things and sometimes they'll
return to questions and i would ask them
some questions as well
everyone seemed to love it
awesome oh hey opal hey
all righty we have um our attendees
coming in
um welcome everybody we'll be starting
in just a minute or so
um but thank you for coming uh we're
excited for this youth panel um i see
people
introducing themselves in the chat so
feel free to introduce yourself in the
chat
um excuse me afterwards
feel also feel free to i use the discord
to connect with people
um and continue these sorts of
conversations um
that we've been having all week it's the
last day which is sad but it's going to
be a good one so i'm excited
what coffee you drinking today mels
today's coffee is a rebel from
uh dutch brothers i don't think we
actually have that down here in florida
yeah i think it's a uh west side of the
country thing
um unless anybody on the uh east coast
can tell me in the chat if they have
dutch brothers
over here wyoming never heard of that
i want to use code never heard of that
operator in here so um
i'm trying to troubleshoot that with
mary all right thank you melly
so yeah we'll be waiting just a little
bit just to get our cart set up and then
we'll be on our way
um i guess until that uh we're talking
about
coffee which is not the official subject
of today
i don't like i've heard on the east
coast dunkin donuts is really big
yeah and krispy kreme
oh yeah oh yeah for sure i have never
been to a dunkin donuts and i don't even
know if we have one nearby
we have one krispy kreme
uh it's about 30 minutes 30 to 45
minutes away
and then i think the closest one
from that one is about five hours away
geez mine's like 20 minutes away
by car but we also have something in
florida
at least where i live called
mama j i can't remember the name of it
but it says something called
boba tea oh yeah yeah
and we i get something called the blue
horizon
which is tastes like a raspberry or blue
raspberry snow cone
with the passion fruit bursting bobas
gosh i love boba oh i don't like the
texture
we're waiting for the capsules
okay um this is melly again i'm sorry i
just want to make sure that that
the caption person is not somewhere on
um if you are can you please um
chat or or state that you're here
masha that tiara is excellent
thanks opal
i like your shirt or dress or whatever
you're wearing i can see the
florals oh thank you i like this shirt
too
all right for those just jumping in um
we will be starting momentarily
we are just uh troubleshooting some
issues with um
our i forgot with our captioning
isn't this the same issue we had
yesterday as well
i think so i think it's the joys of
digital conferences and i think because
we're on uh a different um
zoom host than the rest of the
conference that makes sense
but we're all all out here doing our
best
i know i just made myself look
presentable
because i was still in pajamas like 30
minutes ago
oh don't feel bad i literally had to get
dressed within an
hour after i woke up because i had
another meeting before this i'm like
okay and still take my service dog
outside and everything i was like
okay this is gonna be an interesting
morning not gonna be able to eat but
that's okay
we keep um i guess a disability life
hack for
um those of us that struggle with like
uh
food and texture um my partner and i we
keep uncrustables
in the freezer at all times
because it just makes it like so it's
like okay that's protein
that's carbs all right we're ready to go
exactly i see in the chat from a fantasy
i love uncrustables honestly like just
sometimes eating food is so hard
yes especially when you're tired and
like
had a long day and you don't want to
cook
and also like i think i have uh
three things that i like so i'll forget
to eat
and then i'll get like sensory overload
and i can't then i don't want to eat
even more
oh awesome we're in gallery view again
sorry i
i i don't know we can't see the asl
and i i don't know how to fix it
uh-oh and we still don't have cart so
we're just waiting
well you know it's always the uh i'm i'm
liking looking through uh the chat on
their responses
um if anybody wants to add uh
what their favorite
um like sensory food is
like those foods that like no matter
what you can eat
i can do uh i have uncrustables
and then the uh cheesy roll up from taco
bell
and it's just a quesadilla and cheese
but
those two things i have never had that
mouse
buttons because i don't eat taco bell
often
yeah taco bell is cheap and when i was a
vegetarian for a year it's like the only
vegetarian restaurant
and now that i'm not a vegetarian
everywhere has like beyond
meat and i'm so mad about it i know
mashed potatoes mashed potatoes are my f
yeah gosh anything
italian in my mind
yesterday i worked so much i forgot to
eat lunch
yup that's a mood we have in the chat um
avocado and we have uh
hot pockets
um taco bell as well
oh yeah taco bell is life yes
um i think my food is either in
just steak because steak always is
something that calms me
claudette i brought claudette up to a
panelist but i don't have that can you
assign her please
she's a sign perfect
and also just a good bacon pizza
i am tragically allergic to bacon okay
that is true magic that is horrible
and it looks like we have our captioning
now
uh are are people able to see
the asl interpreter as well
if you can just put something in the
chat please
or something from fantasy we have no
i can see here i can see her as well but
that's all
gallery view
okay it looks like it just got changed
to gallery view and i just saw a caption
option show up yay
okay you're on mouse all righty
so first of all everybody thank you
so much for your patience um
as you've heard said it is not a zoom
conference without some technical
difficulties
but we made it through um thank you
so much for coming to this session today
um
i'm mels i use they them pronouns and i
am a
april board member one of the youth
seats
um and thank you for joining our youth
advocacy panel
um just a few housekeeping items before
we get started
if you uh you should all have a menu bar
you may need to move your mouse to see
it it is either at the bottom or
top of your screen depending on which uh
what devices that you're using
um we have please use
the uh as as we've already been using
please use the chat
for um just pretty much chatting and if
you have
any um questions please use the q a
i will be um doing my best to keep track
of the chat but questions will
always end up getting lost in there
because we're a chatty bunch
um and this will be based off of a lot
of audience participation
um and for questions for our panelists
um and then for um those of you who are
on the phone today
we ask that you press star 9 on your
keypad to raise your hand and then we
will unmute you
remember if you do join the conversation
please keep all background noise down
as much as possible for those on our
panel
if there's background noise where you
are at please mute yourself when you are
not talking
um for sign language interpreting you
can find the interpreter on the main
screen
if you do not see the interpreter make
sure that you are in gallery view
and that will allow you to see more than
one person at a time
um and yeah so let's give a short
introduction
of this um topic
so what we're going to be doing today is
working on a like we have uh
four youth panelists that have all been
doing advocacy in different ways across
the country
they're gonna talk a little bit about
their local work
and then um each is gonna take about um
five or so minutes to uh talk about what
they've been doing what work they um
have done what they want to do and then
we're going to be opening it up for um
questions and please post those
questions in the q
a and this is really the time to be like
how can i get involved or where did you
start or
um i think one of the questions is masha
why do you got a tr on right now i'm
excited to know
um so and then also for those uh
non-youth who are inside of the
attendance um
please feel free to like if you have
questions about um okay well
how do we make this a welcoming spot for
youth or things like that so this is
really a chance for us to have some real
conversations
um through this panel so post in the q a
and since mosh is the first one who
shows up on my list um
masha um would you you can you can start
hi everybody um my name is masha flynn i
am um your um
youth um sorry i cannot talk apparently
um youth outreach and media chair for
this year
um my pronouns are
hershey um and for those that
are visually impaired i have red hair
and i am a caucasian female
with a crown on my head um
so um for me i
am kinda all over the place when it
comes to advocacy
um i am a
peer specialist at my local um
sale which is wyoming independent living
so i work for them
and i'm also a pure advocate for them um
and then i kind of dabble in like the
disability world
and like the able-bodied world so um
i am a part of a organization
at my local community college um
that um is talking about um
inclusion and diversity um
i am also
um obviously
miss welch um the reason for my crown
and then i'm also wearing a sash you
just can't see it
um i am actually the current reigning
missile chair wyoming for 2020 as well
as 2021
um and that is an organization that is
forward thinking on like teaching people
of all disabilities about
advocacy um and empowerment
um and it is an organization that is
well it's a state organization for me
but it's
through a nation through a national
organization called
miss wheelchair america um which is
um which has
state competitions all over the country
um with women that have
their own platforms or forms of advocacy
that they
want to teach the world and my platform
is service dogs not just advanced best
friend but they
inspire educate and help the next
generation
i am currently a social work major at my
local community college
in hopes of starting my own service dog
business to mentor youth as well
all right then uh we'll go next to noah
all right hey everyone i'm noah
and i use he him pronouns i am also a
member to use steering committee
no not a chair i am
representing florida for the committee
right now
i work currently for publix which is a
supermarket that we have
that goes up to south carolina and we
are partnered with a company known as
united way
which helps us with anything we need
whether it be monetary or just a place
to stay
if we are having troubles with things i
am
for those who are visually impaired i am
caucasian
with blue eyes glasses a
shirt with the universal classic
monsters on it
blonde haired with a headset on
because it's easier for me to talk this
way and i
am also representing
my cell which is on the space coast near
titusville and melbourne and
they were the ones who set me up for my
first april conference this is my second
year round
and
no i'm not a mute can everyone else hear
me
yes i can hear you it's chica all right
thank you chica
because apparently victoria can hear me
right now
um just make sure this is smells make
sure that you are talking near your mic
but um yeah please continue alrighty
and another thing that you should know
about me
is i am ver i
am in the autistic spectrum with in the
subcategory asperger's
and i am also a
third-degree black belt in my school
awesome thank you noah thank you for
sharing um then we'll go on to opal
okay um can everybody
hear me and see me my mic and my
camera is working okay good up
hi my name is oppo bisa and
i use she her pronouns and for
those that are visually impaired
i am a caucasian female
with brown hair and i am currently
wearing
a red shirt um
but um so i have been
doing a lot of advocacy work
through girl scouts actually uh
i am trying to earn my gold award
so i have been which is basically
pretty much like the eagle scout award
but uh for girls
and so it's the highest award a girl
scout can earn
and so for that i am currently working
on on i made a slideshow to educate
students about the different types of uh
disabilities because um a lot of times
i see that
people with um disabilities get ignored
often by able-bodied people um
and i think part of that is education
like they don't know how to coach so i
am currently
developing a slide show to help with
that that i will hopefully be able to
present in schools
um all over and if anybody
wants me to share that with them so that
they can share it within their schools
and their organizations i can do that
and right now i'm also working on
i'm a part of the student voice
journalism fellowship
so that means i get the right one piece
of advocacy
journalism to be published and so that's
pretty cool that i get to do that
um but yeah that's
a little bit about what i'm working on
right now
alrighty and next we'll move to chica
hey everyone this is um chica um i live
in georgia
and i'm wearing a black dress and really
excited to be here
i use she her pronouns and i work at
disability link it's in atlanta
georgia and tucker and we serve the 12
counties in atlanta um
i currently got this job in
april and i got it through advocating
with my vocational rehabilitation
counselor
vr they didn't want me to give me a
paid internship where i could get
experience as my first job
out of my master's program and i did my
master in social work
internship at disability link and that's
how i got connected with the
um disability community i'm involved
with the national federation of the
blind
and i try to be as independent as i can
and i
am excited to be here um
do you guys have any questions
i live with my mom dad and my cousin
akash
and my sister manali she's in columbus
georgia right now
getting her medical she's doing her
rotation her medical
internship
alrighty awesome and thank you so much
to our panelists for sharing
uh we are going to start uh
with um questions so we're just going to
uh
go around between our panelists i'll be
um posing the questions please feel free
if you have any
um post them in the q a so far um
one of the questions that we have for
our panelists is
where do you feel most included in an
ableist society
um this is chica i'll say it first um
that i see most inclusive is when you're
open-minded and you just advocate for
yourself if someone
like doesn't say their name or describe
something then i usually just say
hey i'm blind can you please describe it
and i feel inclusive
around others that are open-minded
listening
and just showing love and helping me to
be
challenged and pushing pushing me like
my family and the disability community
i guess i'll go next for that one um
i feel most included when i'm
really around my friends since they know
that i do have disabilities and they do
try to
accommodate me but i also feel
comfortable around
my peers from in college since i don't
have to talk to them about
my disabilities and i can stuff advocate
for myself
if needed
i guess i'll go next um
where do i feel most included um
probably so
probably either here april
or every year um so
in montana that's where i'm from uh
we have the hope project which is
basically like
make-a-wish except that uh it's
just for kids in my state and
every year twice a year we do
reunions of all the kids that got wishes
um and so i don't have to explain
myself off to anybody there
um and we all just get to
sit around and have fun and be ourselves
and
that feels like a very
inclusive place for me
and unfortunately i don't think we get
to do it this year
because of provide but i'm looking
forward to when we can do it again
um i guess for me where i would feel
and where i do feel kind of most like
included and most
uh most aware is um
pretty much with all the with all the
work that i'm doing i mean
i'm involved with people that are
either have been a part of my journey
um throughout my life or um
have been an integral part of my
journey um or
you know with the committees and stuff
that i'm on you know
you get to know people and people get to
know you and get to know your story
and i just think that you know the more
that you involve
yourself as scary as it might be because
trust me i've been there if you kind of
jump in with both feet
and kind of just explain your situation
and explain your story
people are going to be more
i guess inclusive towards you rather
than against you
because they get to know the real you
and
get to know your story to where they
realize hey
just because she's in a wheelchair or
just because
you know they may have a disability
they're still
just like me you know so i think that's
one of those things where
um you kind of have to judge that for
yourself but you also have to realize
that people are going to have questions
um so you know and i've been able to
i've just had practice with filming
those questions a lot of the time so
i'd say pretty much anywhere really
all right so we're thank you all of our
panels for answering
um we're going to our next question
which is kind of the flip side of that
and i'm going to add a little bit to it
um where do you feel
most excluded in an ableist society
and what do you do in those situations
this is chica i guess i'll go first um i
would say
sometimes i feel discluded around
asian people that are either from india
or like
china and um they're sometimes
closed-minded
so i just um advocate and tell them that
i have a master's degree and then i'm
working
and i try to be as as friendly as i can
but it is
kind of hard and something i wanted to
add that is that um
we all have strengths um because today
in the um staff today in the staff
meeting they showed a clip of
charlotte's web
because it was a it was a presentation
from the youth coordinator
and um in that movie they showed that
we all have something to offer even
though we have a disability so
i just wanted to share that it's a good
way to be positive
and show that we have something to share
i guess i'll go next um i guess i feel
most excluded in when people
who think that well
i'm trying to get the right words to say
here but
i feel most excluded when people really
don't understand what's
like being with disabilities
since a lot of people i know at
my work who are not employees but
customers have said directory terms
towards autism
and i just let slide by because
i can't afford to lose my job but
i do try to tell people
or at least have a group of people with
me who know that i am autistic
and who are willing to stand up for me
even if i can't do to my position in the
company
oh opal you on mute oh yeah
yes sorry i i guess i'll go next
um thankfully i
do feel included in a lot of
situations but there are certain times
around like people that are my age
that i feel um kind of
isolated because they
don't quite understand how to
interact with me like i think they're
scared to
like say the wrong thing or that i'll be
quote unquote like crazy
and i feel very excluded in that
situation but thankfully like
knowing whom i act old friends are
really like it really helps
uh that i know who my actual friends are
and then the rest of the people
i can just ignore pretty well most of
the
time i can ignore the rest of the people
um i would say for me like
kind of simpler than what everybody else
said i mean
when and for those that don't know i
actually use a power chair
a good majority of the time hence the
miss wheelchair wyoming
but um honestly because i think
sometimes people see a person with a
physical
disability and just kind of
they make their own assumptions without
trying to talk to them
and so a lot of times at least what i'm
experiencing especially with still
being in college a lot of times the
younger
the younger students or whatever um
because i'm 25 but you know we have
younger students on campus and a lot of
times
you know they'll look and they'll stare
and whatever
but um and so sometimes that makes me
feel a little bit excluded and a little
bit uncomfortable
but um for me like i have
really bad social anxiety and
so a lot of times i kind of let my
service dog kind of take
the lead on that one because a lot of
times
um when people see another service
like see a dog you know in a vest and
stuff they
automatically assume that to be a good
thing
um and so they want to you know they
want to come up and pet it and stuff
like that
which is which is great in my
in my situation but not so great in
other people's situations for those that
have medical alert service dogs
but for me i use it as a as an asset and
a bridge
um for me because i have a hard time
talking to people
so um you know when people are petting
sawyer and like you know talking to me
about him and stuff
that gives me the bridge and the the
ability to talk to them because
then i feel more comfortable around them
um so i think it kind of goes both ways
and that's sometimes what people not
understand is that sometimes people with
disabilities can be
just as weary about talking to them as
they are to us
and i think that's just one of those
things where
we have to kind of learn to understand
each other and advocate for ourselves
so
awesome thank you and every time
i host a panel i always put some uh
write up a list of questions um just in
case some people are shy but today we
got
questions coming in the qa so keep them
coming and uh
i'm excited to get hear what our
panelists have to say
our next one is
um and i think this kind of goes off of
our last question um about ways that you
how have you experienced ableism and how
do
you address it
can you repeat that again yes
um how have you experienced ableism
and how do you address it
is that like being disclosed
yeah so um just people um excluding you
for your disability or um
passing judgments on you because of your
disability and how
just any kind of like really
discrimination based on
disability and how do you address it to
them
um well for me this is chica again and
um i usually um just um
tell people in the beginning like for
group projects
and like when i was in college
um i would just tell them that
i am blind but i'm still able to
offer like my good writing skills and
i'm
able to um help out in different ways
but i can like bring snacks and stuff
like that so i just tell them up front
that
um please don't um leave me out and
please describe things and try to be
included as best as i can
um this is noah so
a lot of times i am not excluded but one
of the things i have dealt with is
ableism is that people
don't expect me to either drive get a
car
get a home have a job and if i was gonna
say
something that i learned from a
co-worker just because i
have a disability doesn't mean that
i want you to think less of me if i
could keep my job
with you insulting me i would punch you
in the throat
because i don't care what people think
about me
i want you to know me for me and not
me for my disability
also mel said you get what k said in
chat
um i am thank you for yes i am currently
working on it um i may bring uh mellie's
attention to
that one as i am uh hosting the uh
questions
i'm working on it thank you perfect
thank you
i guess for me like when it comes down
to that term ableism
i mean i don't i know that
my disability is a part of my identity
it's but but the thing is it's just one
singular part
so i you know
it comes down to um kind of when
when when you're in those situations
it's not that i'm aware of the term
ableism because i try not to even be
aware of my disability
unless i kind of have to especially when
it comes to being in the able-bodied
world
um but when it comes to being at events
like this with
april and you know being the title
holder that i
am for this year and next year um i've
kind of learned to embrace the
disability and use it as an advantage
rather than
a disadvantage
and a lot of times i've i've learned to
have patients with certain with people
when they do ask questions because i do
kind of get
you know those i don't want to say
i don't want to say dumb but kind of
just ignorant
kind of questions especially considering
my
age and certain more personal things
which i get and i understand that they
are trying to
um they're trying to just understand
so i mean it kind of comes down to just
honestly being patient with um sometimes
the questions that people do ask because
they are still learning at the same time
well i can't guess i'll go oh
i have been lucky enough not to really
outwardly experience
a lot of direct
ableism maybe some
things that people didn't notice they
were doing
but um like
i get sometimes that people
think that i can't do certain
things or that i am
maybe have um cognitive
delays or i'm maybe not
as high functioning
iq wise as they are um
and as far as how i can bat that
is i maybe
say uh to
them like start
well not really bragging but telling
them
about like that i get
like straight a's and stuff and then
usually uh and that
usually um
stops them um treating me like i'm not
smart
awesome thank you everybody for sharing
um
our next question um i think this one's
going to be kind of uh
exciting and fun uh for those we have
people all over um different
the age spectrum for youth here um
but what do you want to do or be when
you're older
that is a fun question and i'll start
this time
i am actually currently in school for a
british history degree and i am going
for my doctorate to teach my local
community college
i guess i'll go unless someone else
wants to go um you can go
you can go okay um
but i really
would like to be a author when
i get out of school like i would like to
go to school for creative writing and i
know that
that's not a very steady
paycheck unless you get like
really super huge as a writer
but i would like to do mostly like
fiction children's teen fiction
um that sort of thing uh
but until that job
that's off the ground being an
advocate has been a very good experience
for me and it's been very fun for me
honestly so
maybe something in the field of advocacy
at least until my writing career um
takes white sort of
um i guess i can go really quick um
like i had mentioned before um i am
currently
um in the last year of my associate's
degree
for social work um while i
love working for wyoming independent
living and
hopefully i will continue that into the
future um i would hope to
um eventually start my own service dog
business um and kind of integrate
um able-bodied
youth and like college students and like
elementary school students
into a like mentoring program where
basically
it's kind of kind of similar to like
puppies behind bars
but without the prison side of things
um so basically i would give like a
middle schooler
um or a high schooler an eight month old
puppy and say okay you're gonna help me
train this dog
for somebody else with a disability that
way they learn like different skills of
like
you know responsibility selflessness
um but then they get to learn about the
disability community and just how
amazing those people in that community
can be
because i've noticed um in my
town and in my state of wyoming that
there
really isn't that much for um
school school-age kids or even college
students to do in this town so
i think that would be a very beneficial
program for somebody
or for a state like ours just because
we are such kind of an animal and like
agricultural driven state that i think
it would be helpful
um this is chica hey
i would like to get my um licensed
master social work
um and it's it's kind of hard but
um i'm gonna try to take the exam and
um i want to become a supervisor
and sorry for going back to the last
question
but i think that um with employment
some people including myself like
get pushed away or get discriminated so
it's important to stay
positive and just continue
sending out applications because it took
me a while
until i got this job that i currently
have
so
awesome thank you all for sharing and uh
as
i guess i have a little bit of a bias in
this but masha when your
service dog program gets off the ground
you gotta let me know because
my boy's only three right now but he'll
be retiring in
five years so i'll be interested
um our next question i got you
i'm the same way so i get you
perfect alrighty so our next question
that we have
uh what is one
thing you would change about the world
if you could just
snap your fingers and it was changed
i guess i'll go and how someone else
would go
you can go uh
um i would probably
i would just like snap
my fingers and probably get rid of the
idea
that um disabled people are
less than other
people and that we can't do stuff
uh to the same level that
able buddy people can um and then
also i would probably get rid of it i
wish that would just
go away
i'll go next um mine is
two different things but if i had to
condense them down it would be
just prejudice i would get rid of the
prejudice
that everyone has whether they be
against a certain religions
races ethnicities sexual orientations or
disabilities i would
get rid of it
that's awesome um i would say
um to make bollywood movies um audio
described
maybe in the future and also just
um make more transportation accessible
because
um it's a little bit far away from
where i live in gwinnett and i think
that is
a barrier for people to go and hang out
with friends
and also i agree i really hope covet can
go away soon
too
okay sorry i was answering a question
from one of our
um participants um
i think for me i mean
honestly i really honestly wish the
covet would go away because then i could
actually go back to my normal routine
and for those that don't know i'm one of
those people that
i can adapt to change but i don't like
change so this whole pandemic has kind
of gotten me
kind of thrown all over the place
mentally so it's not
it's not an easy thing to deal with when
you're having to be on zoom for
six to eight hours a day it's not um you
know it's
not normal so especially for me being in
social work you know you're used to
being around people physically and being
able to talk to them and stuff so it's
i would say that would be one of those
things is just let's
get over this pandemic already it's time
i completely relate and i think many of
us do too especially i think we'd all
love to be in person right now
um for this conference um
our next question um we have
if you could tell one thing to someone
that does not really understand the
disability community
or know much about it what would you
want to tell them
um i guess i'll go first this time since
i've gone last the last couple times
but um really
um because i have friends that are able
bodied i have a
friend my best friend works for me and
she and i are constantly having
conversations that just like how do you
handle those type of situations or how
do you handle this why do you handle
that
and i really think um that it comes down
to just
really that we are normal people um
just because we are having to do things
a little bit differently and just
because it's taking us a little bit more
time to do things um
does not mean that we're normal human
beings we make mistakes we
you know we have emotions we have
feelings
um you know and so i think it's just one
of those things where
he just as much as i hate to say this we
have to keep educating
um you know and we keep we have to keep
having those conversations with people
um so that they get to know us as people
without the disability or without the
equipment that we have um
you know and i'm sure that mel's can
relate to this you know i
completely adore my service dog i think
he's the greatest thing
that you know i've ever had in my life
however
there are days where he and i are not as
cohesive as we want to be um
you know there are days where he's going
to have a bad day and i'm going to have
a bad day and it's just not going to
work
um however because sometimes it's like
having a three-year-old on a leash a
three-year-old human
however you know
you kind of just have to roll with the
punches and realize
that that piece of medical equipment
or that piece of something is there to
help that person
mitigate their disability which means
helping them to
be more a part of society um
physically rather than mentally because
mentally we're all there
it's just physically our bodies or our
minds just don't always want to work
with us on a
given day
opal i see your hand
i was just um stretching the ugliness
i guess
um i really
think that the i like i said
i think that they need to learn that
we're just
people too the same as they are how they
can have
jobs and have lives and have
friends and um
and i think the sooner they learn that
the less our
disabilities are going to affect us like
like no one will really notice it
anymore once they all learn that we're
just normal people
i know all right go ahead opal
uh no you can no no i was
pretty much done all right so this is
noah
and one of the things that i would
tell is the fact that you need to
look at it from not
just your own perspective but the
perspective of
everyone else who is in this community
as well
because i have people who i am very
close friends with their family
who are disabled as well
one their children has brittle bone
syndrome
which is not a very good thing for him
since he
is constantly having to get a lot more
medical things done
but i also know that
it isn't being his life he's also he
doesn't need
help with things like what some people
who would
think that he would have to get
but also it's
you learning everything in life's a
learning experience and you need to
learn from every side of the coin
or you to be a more well-rounded person
within any community and that's the same
with ours
yeah i agree with everyone i think it's
important to be
open-minded and just tell
others that we're able to live an
independent life
we just use different accommodations
like for braille or audio and
that we just do things differently but
we still have a job and can live on our
own and
do the same things as other people can
awesome thank you so much for sharing we
have about eight minutes left and we've
got
two questions um so we're going to start
with the first one
and this came up a little bit earlier
but it's uh
how do you keep your temper in check
when someone says something negative
about your disability to you
or someone you know
oh man um i usually just stay calm um
maybe like a first i won't say anything
um just so it doesn't come out like
in a rude way but i'll step back
and um if i have the person's like
contact information then um i'll
email them later on or text them and say
hey next time can you um not do that
it's kind of like a hard situation
but you want to be rude at first but
it's important to step back so
i'll go next i think i cover this a
little bit
in the exclusion question that we did
earlier
but my way of dealing with that is
having a good support system on my side
and taking
deep breaths since i do a lot of
meditation at home
and it's taught me to stay calm
and also i just let lie by me because
it's usually happens when i'm at work
so i had to keep on flow or else we
could get way too behind and i could
risk fire
fire
um i can go next um i kind of already
kind of addressed this question with
this particular attendee but
i think it's really a learned skill like
because i've just learned over the years
that you know
you have to learn to two different sides
to every story
and you know because you never know what
that person's going through on a daily
basis
or what their story is because they
might just be
lashing out because they're having a
hard time in their personal life or
something like that
um i know that with my with my friend
that i have
because she's able-bodied but she's
never been around a person with a
disability before
and so there will be times where we're
out in public and
all of a sudden people will stare and
she'll be like why are people staring
like how do you handle all this like
because of the fact that i'm in a chair
and then i have a service dog that's not
a normal breed of service dog
and so i think that when it comes to
those type of things you really kind of
have to let it roll off your back
or if you know if people do stare you
smile and
you just move on with your day you know
um
and then when you are given that
opportunity to educate
you educate um i
was one of those people when i was
younger i always got so irritated when
people
would um not
be patient with me or not um understand
where i was coming from
but now i've kind of just learned to be
patient with them
because how am i gonna teach them if
they can't be patient
or if i can't be patient so
so i um
when people do something that's
maybe insensitive um
depending on the degree of how
insensitive
it is sometimes i like
rest on it because so that nothing
like rude comes out of my mouth because
i i don't like to be rude i like to be
seen
as a nice person um
um but then if it's just something
small just some small thing that they
messed up on that's
maybe slightly insensitive then i take
that opportunity to educate them that
maybe
okay that's not an appropriate thing to
say
but um
i didn't let it get under my skin really
all that off
and i tried to just use education
and and in the future they'll know that
that's not
an appropriate thing to say um and then
stuff
this is a little bit off topic but
sometimes i find that
people will be too careful about what
the
they say um like
people have um trouble saying they're
that um like
if they say that i'm on a roll they
think that's um wrong
um to say that i'm on a roll or
like accidentally say that um
oh meet me at the top of the stairs or
something um but i have to tell them
that
you didn't mean to say that
and not be um bothered by it
alrighty and we have one more question
we got about two minutes
so i might have to speed around it and
just
this is like could usually is a session
all on its own at april
um but we didn't have this one this year
uh just because it's more of an in
person
but um how do you feel about your
disability
and dating relationships intimacy
that's a rough one
and you don't gotta get too personal if
you don't want to
um
i guess i can kind of go um
it i will say it is a very complex
question
because everybody has their own um
situation um
sorry that is kind of a really tough
question because it's kind of hard to
like
explain it without getting too
personal um i think
for me it's it's kind of it just comes
down to
um what i
want to see in a partner and what i
think would
um benefit me kind of benefit
me in the long run and what's going to
balance
what's really going to balance out a
person
but then also just having someone that's
going to be understanding to
the fact that when you have a disability
time management sometimes has to go out
the window and sometimes you're on
disability time
and so sometimes there's going to be
crap that happens that you're not going
to
that they're not going to expect and so
it's going to be kind of like
you know there are going to maybe be
times where they're going to have to
become a
potential caregiver and as that person
with a disability gets older and
can't really um
do stuff for themselves maybe as much as
they used to when they were younger
um like i said it's kind of a complex
question but i guess that's how i see it
and it's kind of where
you once again you'll go back to
education
you know and those type of things
all right so i hate to jump in but we
are at the end of our hour
um in a bit the uh discord chat will be
updated so if anybody wants to continue
this conversation here
or have uh more conversations about this
um we can move it there and
yeah but thank you so much to our
panelists uh this has been
a great opportunity um i know i learned
a bunch about everybody and
different ways to uh like just
do advocacy so thank you so much
um and i guess our last thing is going
to be our closing ceremony so i will uh
see you all there if um my panelists can
stay
on um just for a moment but um everybody
else feel free to take a break
and we'll be getting back to um um
i'll see you all at the uh closing
ceremonies
thank you all for coming bye
anybody wants that i cho just
um send me your emails
like or something and then
and then we'll uh i'll get that to you
guys okay
run to the ceremony i gotta go
thanks mel this is the captioner i'm
logging off okay awesome thank you
all right so i'm just uh pulling up the
conference
thing real quick um you want me to stop
recording
yes please
it's nothing