For me, and for many other people with disabilities, our status as disabled people is one of which we are fiercely proud.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
For me, disability is a way of getting some extremity, some kind of very difficult situation, that throws an interesting light on people.
You know that the world is a better place when people can come up to a severely disabled person and say: 'Well done. You are an inspiration.'
It feels amazing to be a role model for people with and without disabilities.
Many of us, particularly those of us with disabilities who have faced persistent discrimination throughout our lives, not least when trying to find employment in the first place, take enormous pride in our hard-fought jobs and careers.
When you hear the word 'disabled,' people immediately think about people who can't walk or talk or do everything that people take for granted. Now, I take nothing for granted. But I find the real disability is people who can't find joy in life and are bitter.
The greatest feeling of accomplishment for me is the fact that I was an athlete who was somewhat disabled.
For me, I never ever felt the ownership or any identity with any community of disabilities. I didn't grow up being told that I was a disabled child.
I use the term 'disabled people' quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what's called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses.
We think we know what it's all about; we think that disability is a really simple thing, and we don't expect to see disabled people in our daily lives.
For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We're not real people. We are there to inspire.