Opened Doors

by Scottish Green Party member Sarah Anderson

Looking back, disabilities of one kind or another have played a large part of my life. I am disabled in more than one way, both hidden and visible and to greater and lesser amounts. When people ask me to list my disabilities I’m greater for the tick more than one box! The full list if anyone is inte

The first of my disabilities which impacted on my life was dyspraxia. I was in secondary school when diagnosed because I was so dyspraxic I had found coping mechanisms to use to cope with primary school. Looking back we always knew that there was something not quite right in my learning ability. I h

I was 14 when ME first presented. I grew up in a very rural area where I loved being outside and I went from being very active to being bedbound. As a 14 year old girl you can imagine how scary this time was. I was very lucky to have the support of my family who sought out a diagnosis and to find an

My PCOS and underactive thyroid are fairly recent developments in my life. By that time I had changed doctors and was now under the care of an amazing doctor practice who not only made it clear that in no uncertain terms did I have to prove that I was disabled but if I needed a house visit then I wo

Looking at my life from a political level yet again I’m lucky to have grown up in my family. I always grew up knowing how important it was to play your part in your community and although the party politics in my family do vary quite a lot – Conservative aunt, Liberal gran, Old Labour great grandfat

I was 16 when I joined a political party for the first time and I was local branch secretary. This was important to me for two main reasons. Firstly as someone with a learning disability being secretary could have been seen as a role too much to conquer and as a young women it was important that I w

Skipping forward to where I am now in politics I am the co-convener for both Rainbow (LGBTI) Greens and Founded member of Disabled Greens and I am the election agent for a candidate who has stood for Westminster election. I am very involved with Women For Independence and am involved with mental hea

There are times when I cannot be as active as I would like to be though. There are times when my energy levels just do not allow me to even leave the house never mind campaign or be politically active. At those times there is still the opportunity to do something when and where I can. This can inclu

One lesson I want to share which was given to me many years ago is to follow the spoon theory. Briefly every person wakes up in the morning with a limited amount of spoons. For each task they may use part of a spoon or even a full one or two. For a person who does not have energy sapping disabilitie

I hope that this blog has helped to show that even though there are real challenges involved when you are disabled and involved with politics that even someone who is housebound can do something and that it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that this is possible. I am really looking forward to