With the UK government proposing plans to change the welfare system and support more disabled people to secure and stay in work, many people in the disability community have real concerns about these changes and feel politicians have the assumption that people with disabilities and health conditions don’t want to work when in fact they do.
Paisley Smith, who is 29 and from Fife in Scotland, had ambitions to become a police officer. Here, she shares her experience of having her dreams crushed due to a debilitating health condition.
Career goals shattered by chronic illness
It has been clear for years that the UK government are out of touch with the reality of most of the population, however, this became more evident in October 2023 when Rishi Sunak announced that disabled people are being made to work. This has caused large amounts of distress among the disabled community as we are all very aware of how the Department of Work and Pensions treat disabled people already. With this news, I decided it was time people got to know more about disabled people.
For many of us, we were not born with a disability that prevents us from being able to work. I have Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), which causes my brain and nerves to send and receive the wrong messages resulting in chronic pain, muscle weakness, cognitive issues, tremors, and temporary paralysis to name a few.
Before developing this disorder, I was an active person. I loved sports, constantly being on the go, and pushing my body to learn new things. I showed a lot of potential when it came to business, social care, and creative arts, and planned on working towards a career in the police force.
Before my symptoms worsened, I had a work placement in a care home and as my symptoms worsened, I worked in a café with the owner’s intention of training me to be a manager. I was seventeen years old at the time.
It was at the care home where my symptoms started to worsen. Before, I would get pain in my shoulders, but as I had experienced that since I was thirteen, it didn’t bother me as much. It wasn’t until it started to affect my legs that things became more difficult and scarier as I grew up as a young carer for my dad who had Multiple Sclerosis and I feared developing a mobility disability.
While at the care home, one of my tasks was to set up the trolley for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was doing this task that made me aware of the worsening of my health. Every time I bent my knees to reach the lower levels of the trolley, I struggled to get back up and the pain was excruciating. However, I just put it down to a knee injury I had received when I was twelve. It wasn’t until I started work at the café that I began to realise there was more to the pain and the limiting of what I could do physically.
Each shift, I was in more pain than I thought was possible. It felt like if I moved my back, it would snap. Every day, I cried from the pain while on the way home and it became harder to move. That is when I accepted that it was time to speak to my doctor about what was going on. A year later, I was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder and saw the life I had planned and worked towards crumble.
Long gone were the days when I would wake up at 6am, jump out of bed, get ready for work and then either get the bus to work or take the one-hour walk before starting a 12-hour shift. Long gone were the days when I could do the same things as my friends were doing. Instead, I would wake up in agony, struggle to get out of bed and cry while walking the 10 steps to my bathroom. Long gone were the days when I could run around with my dog and travel to different places. The life I was starting to build for myself shattered and it wasn’t just my physical health that was affected by it. My mental health was too and the impact it had on my mental health made a sickness I had in my final year as a young carer, something I need to fear for the rest of my life.
You see, I don’t want to be disabled. After losing my dad, it is my biggest fear as I’ve seen how people who have the same or similar struggles that I have end up living life. I lost my dad due to it.
What my life could have been without my disability
If I could, I would be working and using my potential. I would either be a police officer or have a senior role in either the social care sector or in marketing. I would have a writing portfolio and write as a side job, ensuring that I get to experience life the way I want to. I would be travelling, doing sports activities, contributing more to society and the economy and loving every minute of it.
I would have my own home to live in, not having to worry about what would happen if I lived with my boyfriend. I would have visited my boyfriend’s country by now and the fear of if his family would approve of me would be gone by now.
My dog would get to be a normal dog instead of being trained to support and help me. I would get to spend more time with my niece and take her on holidays while possibly having my own children by now.
I had never intended to be unemployed. That was not part of my life’s plan, and it bothers me every second of the day that I can’t live the life I want to live. It bothers me that people who don’t have a clue are making judgements and people like Rishi Sunak are making out that there is a way for disabled people like me to work. If that was the case, most of us would be working.
The lack of adaptations and support in the workplace
Not only does our health impact our ability to work, but the lack of accommodation and understanding within the workforce plays a large role in our ability to work. Very few companies are willing to adapt to allow disabled employees to work without their health becoming more affected. Very few companies allow flexibility around work to coincide with symptom flare-ups during the day and very few companies want employees who have a lack of experience and long career gaps.
It doesn’t matter if we’ve taken that time to increase our academic knowledge as many of us have degrees and certificates in various fields to broaden our knowledge and skills while hoping that it will allow us to find a job that is suitable for our health needs.
I have a business degree, certificates in social care, childcare, and teaching English as a foreign language, and I’m working towards a level 2 certificate in counselling with the desire to gain more.
I enjoy researching topics relating to society, economics and psychology. I have started courses in editing. I have also helped writers with proofreading, editing, and ghostwriting.
I am not a “useless” member of society. Society has ensured that I am extremely limited in what I can do simply because my body and mind work differently. I am not someone who doesn’t want to work. I am someone who wants to work, living in a world that only cares about healthy people and is made for healthy people. The two are very different and me and others cannot be blamed for how healthy people have created and enabled the way things currently work.
The barriers of disability and employment
Unless the government want to implement employment laws, that come with repercussions if not met, that allow disabled who need adjustments to work, and ensure that disabled people will be employed, their plan to send us back to work won’t work.
The plan was not thought through thoroughly and disabled people were not part of this discussion. If we were, Rishi Sunak and his politicians would be aware of the obstacles that disabled people are facing when it comes to employment and the disability and employment acts would be adjusted to safeguard and support disabled people in employment.
Until the factors I have mentioned in this article are addressed, the chances of many disabled people currently out of work being able to enter work are next to impossible.
You can read more of Paisley’s work by visiting her Medium page.
Do you agree and relate to Paisley’s concerns on disability and employment? Let us know in the comments box, on social media or contact us to share your personal story.