Public Life After Disability

Disability, accessibility, and the quiet power of refusing to disappear

We’ve talked about learning to look for possibility as people adjusting to life with an acquired disability and how the questions we ask ourselves can support that process. Ideally, there comes a point where we’ve gathered enough information about ourselves — and become comfortable enough with our disabilities — that we’re ready to re-enter public life as disabled people.

I did this too soon.

Photo by Elevate on Unsplash

Intention and Safety

As I’ve written elsewhere, I was discharged from stroke rehabilitation able to walk short distances with a cane, but still really needing my wheelchair, and I was not at all comfortable with that reality. I thought people were looking at me with pity — not necessarily true, but my perception that they were, combined with my own internalized ableism, was enough to keep me using my wheelchair only in situations where no one knew me.

Ideally, newly disabled people can begin re-entering public life with intention and safety, confident in their right to be there and better prepared for the ableism they may encounter.

Out in Public Again

To avoid becoming overwhelmed, start with a plan to return to just one meaningful activity. As you decide which one feels best to begin with, you might ask yourself:

• What’s one thing that mattered to me that I stopped doing once I became disabled? Maybe you stopped going to the movies with friends on weekends, or attending your monthly book club at the local library.

• What feels possible to try again this month? Your attempt doesn’t have to be perfect — just intentional. Perhaps you don’t need to stay for an entire meeting if fatigue is a concern.

• What support would make that easier? Would a friend or support worker accompany you the first couple of times until you feel more comfortable again in the space and with the group?

Remember, this is about reconnecting with community at your own pace. As your comfort level grows, you can expand outings to things like:

• meeting a friend in public

• attending an event

• resuming a hobby

• trying something new

Maybe you’ll eventually want to go somewhere independently again, but there’s no rush. The important part is that you’re once again experiencing community participation through action rather than theory — the same way non-disabled people do.

It’s also important to go easy on yourself if this still feels like too big a step to contemplate at first, because it remains a deeply ableist world.

David B Younger, PhD, in his Substack, has written astutely about how ableist experiences can feel like “death by thousands of little paper cuts”:

“They don’t bring you to the ER. They don’t require overt care….Thousands of paper cuts add up. There’s a price. It’s not just the callouses. The callouses mean you get used to it, expect it, and ultimately feel like you deserve it.”

Each individual incident may not seem significant enough to make a fuss about, but taken together, the impact on disabled people is painful and exhausting. Over time, those experiences can make disabled people question why they’re even bothering to participate in public life in the first place.

It’s not just in David’s writing that I hear that fatigue and hurt.

Advocacy Starts Close to Home

My town wasn’t accessible — something I’d already known before my stroke — but after becoming disabled myself, I saw those barriers very differently. It became even more frustrating when Ontario’s government made a major public push around becoming fully accessible by 2025.

Spoiler: it didn’t happen.

Still, I’ve learned a few things about being a disability advocate in my own community:

• I ask business owners why their spaces aren’t accessible.

• If I don’t like their answers, I don’t have to give them my money. If they don’t care enough about disabled customers to make sure people can comfortably enter, exit, and move through their businesses, why support them?

• Every now and then, I can actually help create change.

There are businesses in my town that I avoid unless I have absolutely no other option, and I tell people why. I genuinely don’t care what the owners think of me. If I’ve asked about accessibility and been dismissed, I’m not going to quietly pretend that experience didn’t matter.

At the same time, I also talk about the places that are trying.

It’s been a joy working with our local hospital’s accessibility committee because the staff member leading it — a man with no visible disabilities — takes accessibility seriously even though the 2025 deadline has come and gone. I’ve been able to help make meaningful changes there simply as a community representative.

Don’t Let the Possibility of Poor Treatment Keep You Out of Your Community

Disabled people belong in public life.

Sometimes change starts quietly:

• asking a question

• refusing to shrink yourself

• showing up again anyway

But those things matter.

They’ve always mattered.

Stay safe and respect your limits - but never underestimate what re-entering public life does for you and for the people around you.