Visible Voices

As someone who has bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, as well as anxiety, I have struggled to live up to my own standards at work. I expect myself to work harder to prove that I am good enough. I have to battle against expectations that I set for myself to prove that what I achieve is not simply a set standard for myself, but something worth celebrating.

My colleagues at City are very compassionate and remind me that my worth is not attached to a piece of work or achievement, so when I develop strong bonds with my colleagues I thrive in my place of work. I do flourish with human interaction. But if I allow myself to be isolated and disconnect from colleagues, I find things a lot harder. So, forming bonds at work is important to me and my well-being.

During my time at City, I have met some amazing people and built some wonderful friendships with colleagues, who always make sure I know I am important to them and that I have value. I am so very grateful for this, as it helps me to reinforce a positive view of myself when I struggle to do so on my own. Without these friendships I do tend to isolate myself and forget that I am important and that I am worthy of love and kindness.

Finally, I would state that though it is important to build relationships with those around you, your relationship with yourself is the most important. The ability to pick yourself up when things go a way you didn’t want them to, is a really valuable skill I have learnt over time.

One thing that has really helped with my experience of mental health struggles has been the reminder that I would never speak to someone else in the unkind way I speak to myself. I deserve to be spoken to with love and kindness the same way I would speak to a friend.

So, my message to everyone is that you should always treat yourself as a very dear friend. So, when your colleagues give you praise, take it in, let it break down the wall and feel it. They do mean it, and you are important.

Over the years I have organised Deaf Awareness training for my colleagues at City. This is really important as it equips people with confidence and an understanding of what it means to be Deaf in the workplace. Deafness is an invisible disability and not everyone realises I’m deaf until they meet me. Some people are natural communicators and find it easy to talk to me, however others need a bit more support.

I went through the same interview process as everyone else in my team so don’t feel any different. My team is flexible and works to ensure I can participate fully, for example, making sure a meeting is booked when I have an interpreter present. I feel fortunate to have a very supportive line manager. One year, they even learnt a Christmas Carol in BSL which was so lovely!

Being a BSL user doesn’t impact my ability to do my job, in fact, BSL is a very direct language and I’ve been told that this can be of benefit in the workplace as in some situations it can be a more efficient means of communicating complex issues.

I joined City more than a couple of decades ago first as an MA student and then staff. In the course of time my Multiple Sclerosis (MS), an incurable condition that causes problems with vision, arm or leg movements, sensation or balance has progressed and I now rely on a wheelchair to mobilize.

I’m based in the Rhind building which is largely accessible for people with mobility problems but when I need to be in other buildings I face barriers such as heavy fire doors to go through, faulty lifts and inaccessible toilets. It never occurred to me when I was healthy that I would have to pay attention to such issues. Yes, I didn’t appreciate what I had until I lost it.

The experience opened my eyes to the needs of people in different life circumstances than my own. As a disabled media sociologist myself, I started conducting research that revolves around EDI issues in relation to the information society, namely, participatory policies and access to information in the internet era with the intended impact to influence government policies.

Apart from my professional role, I have a deep personal commitment to tackling EDI issues and this has motivated me to take on the roles of Associate Dean EDI in SPGA and Co-Chair for City’s Disability Network. I thoroughly enjoy the roles and I’d like to leave a legacy.

But my everyday life is a constant battle, from lack of access to buildings and inadequate parking spaces to obstacles such as high doorknobs, narrow hallways, and of course cars parking in spaces that block wheelchairs.

On a more personal level, what I’m missing most is my independence - to be able to wake up in the morning, dress, walk up to the train station to get to work, enjoy a drink or two with friends without thinking about staying late and having to book transport to leave.

I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by a lovely family who have become sensitive to issues regarding disability and have given me the motivation to get on with life. Yes, I’m dependent on them for some things but I don’t want my wife to be a ‘carer’ or my 3 kids to have ‘caring responsibilities’.

I’m also fortunate to be part of a supportive community at City where I’m surrounded by good friends and colleagues. I’ve been around for so long and can tell you for sure that it’s impossible to be in the same place for years if people don’t respect you.

City has changed radically in the course of time I’ve been here and many improvements have been made, but certainly many more things should be done in the workplace to accommodate the needs of disabled staff and students. It’s my intention to work towards addressing them.

I’m a positive person by nature and friends and colleagues have seen me smiling a lot. This doesn’t necessarily mean happiness but it’s the way I am and I want to believe that it makes people around me feel comfortable. Body language is key to personal and work relations and the MS can’t take it away from me.

When writing my doctoral dissertation which was philosophical, it had not occurred to me that my own experience of being dyspraxic would be instrumental in the analysis of my study. Discussing the experiences of the students and hearing their stories, I found that they were often similar to my own, it was like looking in the mirror. Because of this I decided to be assessed.

When I was diagnosed with Developmental Co-ordination Disorder (DCD), the official diagnostic term for Dyspraxia, I needed to emotionally come to terms with my diagnosis. Although my initial reaction was one of relief, as I had always felt that there was something and others had always made comments that suggested they also felt this, I simultaneously felt ashamed but could not understand why.

This made me reflect on how, as a practitioner, I had not adequately questioned the labelling of students through diagnosis or reflected on the emotional effects both positive and negative that a diagnosis might have on a learner’s identity and the assumptions people may make about them.

Through the mutual experience of having a diagnosis and having conversations about it, I found that my own diagnosis actually brought me closer to the learners. Whereas I had always considered myself to be a carer with a responsibility to provide an opportunity for learners to discover themselves in relation to the society in which they are living, after my diagnosis I found that I was going through a similar process of discovery about who I was. I was vulnerable and the students were caring for me. In this respect we were all socially vulnerable and interdependent as human beings.

This was demonstrated when, after I had shared my diagnosis, some people both within professional and personal contexts, many of whom had known me for years, suddenly changed to one of confusion, distrust and patronization. However, it is important to note that not everyone treated me this way.

The majority of people wanted to support me. This gave my working relationship with the learners I support another dimension. I had a connection with them that I had not had before as I was experiencing first-hand with them what it feels like to be labelled. I had always thought that I never had a ‘them and us’ attitude but having undergone this experience, I realised that I actually had just that attitude before my diagnosis, I had not realised what it truly meant.

I found myself thinking back to my childhood. I was always losing things, putting my clothes on upside down and inside out, being laughed at for not being able to swim in a straight line, for feeling excruciating panic when I could not find my plane ticket after having checked it was there several times beforehand. I remembered how I would say the wrong thing to people when in my head I had meant to say the opposite, or ignore people because I had not processed that they were talking to me, then feeling ashamed and anxious at any social gathering.

I was constantly worried about what people thought of me and as a result always tried to please people. In contrast, my learners told me that if I was not who I am, I would not be the empathiser who always tries to relate to others as if she were in their shoes. They would not have someone who advocates for them in such a strong way, with such a strong voice. I would not be the creative and divergent thinker, the problem solver, the person who never gives up. I believe that I would not have developed these attributes if I had not undergone the experiences in my early life that I describe above.

Each person has their own life experiences, influences and perceptions that intersect and interact in a complex way. I am the daughter of a Slavic immigrant who fled communist Czechoslovakia and had to show great resilience, self-discipline and tenacity when creating a new life in Western Europe and my mother is of Scottish /English heritage. The varying values and influences that my parents were brought up with in their respective cultures were instilled in me by my parents when I was a child. Although coming from two cultures furnished me with rich and varied childhood experiences, growing up as a female in the 1980s and 90s, there were also cultural tensions between my Scottish/English family and Czech family.

My awareness of the interrelatedness of my own self-identity became salient through seeing and discussing the intersectionality of the learners that I work with. In this way, my learners taught me to better understand myself and it is through the writing of the dissertation and in discussion with them that I came to the realisation that teachers and learners are on a continuum. They are not working in parallel on separate trajectories but are connected in their humanity and their experiences, one teaching the other in ways akin to the concept of learners as teachers and teachers as learners.

After Completing my Computer Science degree at City, I transitioned into a full-time role as a Digital Literacies Assistant, where I am now contributing as a staff member. I was diagnosed with ADHD just two years before starting my degree, I wasn’t too familiar with what support would be available for when I transitioned to university, which made me anxious to start my journey.

When I first started my Computer Science degree, I encountered an additional layer of complexity due to my ADHD. Mastering coding skills was essential to complete my degree, which demanded consistent attention to detail. Overcoming the struggle of maintaining a structured thought process to quickly grasp mathematical concepts became essential in my academic journey.

I learnt what methods of studying worked best for me, writing things down helped with memory retention and allowed me to organise my thoughts. I became aware of Ally on Moodle in my final year, which was a game changer, I could easily annotate my lecture slides and keep them as ePubs to place into my eReader library for easy access.

Beeline readers were used during my dissertation, the colour gradients helped me focus on large amounts of text which was a similar method I used when developing code where my code spaces had unique colour gradients to aid my eyes and easily locate functions.

I also accepted that there was nothing wrong with asking for help from my course officers, who kindly provided me with a support plan which included extra time during exams and a separate room. For the first time seeking support felt comfortable rather than burdensome.

City’s commitment to supporting neurodiversity, evident in its digital accessibility initiatives and personalised support made my transition from student to a full-time staff member with ADHD straightforward.

Now, I am dedicated to meeting the digital needs of students and learning more about digital accessibility, I’ve learnt that providing an accessible version of any content I provide students can make all the difference, and I’m grateful I can practice this in an environment where support is not just offered but celebrated.

It is a cliché that you don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone – but it is so true.

I remember well the day in September 2021 when my vision changed forever. I was snoozing in the Portuguese sunshine after a long swim. I woke to find I could only see a large bubble in my left eye. At first I thought I was dreaming – but I wasn’t.

I’d had what is commonly referred to as an ‘eye stroke’ – a blood clot in the back of the eye which starves the eye of oxygen and blood. It is both irreversible and uncorrectable. It has left me with very distorted vision in one eye which can at times be quite disorienting.

It was a traumatic time and it has affected me in various ways. I struggle in dim light. Art galleries now challenge me rather more than they delight me. No more do mountain views on long walks take my breath away as they used to. I struggle with close work and this affects me on a daily basis. And despite one remaining good eye, I am less confident when I drive because my spatial judgement has changed.

Some days are better than others but it is my new normal and I have accepted that. I work with colleagues across City and have friends who have more significant issues in their life to cope with and they have my renewed admiration and respect.

In fact, you could say that the experience has opened my eyes. The care and support of my team and my many friends and colleagues at City has not in any way surprised me. But it has reminded me how lucky we are to be part of such a special and supportive community.

And in choosing to be very open about my experience has resulted in others sharing their own very personal stories. All powerful and humbling – testament to the human spirit and our ability to get on with life, despite whatever hand we may be dealt.

Moreover, I now see that there is so much we don’t see, so many disabilities are not visible, but they are there if we take the time to ask, listen and learn. Through our learning, we can resolve to work together to remove the obstacles that can make the very act of living and working so difficult for so many, rather than unknowingly creating or preserving them.