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Episode Transcript

“Shalom everybody. I’m Liel K. Bridgford, and this is (Un)marginalised. Please note the following episode contains conversations about ableism, internalised ablsiem, fatphobia, the holocaust, and eugenics of disabled children, so please take care as you listen. And my guest this week is Pascha, a woman who like me, has Fibular Hemimelia, and that’s how we met. Pascha was born and raised in california, lives in Arizona, and has a career in the banking industry. Thank you for joining me Pascha, and welcome.”

“Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.”

“So to start our chat, can you tell me and our listeners Pascha, which intersections of diversity do you identify as navigating?”

“Well, I would say obviously the disability is something I identify with, and that’s, that’s kind of more of a recent identification for me. I think there was, and we can obviously go deeper into that, but I think that’s something I only acknowledged within let’s say the last five years of so.”

“Yeah right.”

“The good news about that is it’s allowed me to be more of an advocate both you know, socially and even in my workplace for people with disabilities, which is great. And I think another piece of my intersectionality, and and, I think it’s really pertinent considering what happened in the U.S this past week, is um, I’m half jewish, I was raised Jewish. I don’t really practice now, but it is a part of my DNA, a part of my identity. And so, you know, seeing various symbols attached to hate groups and things like that, is also rather jarring and a reminder of that, and a reminder of the not so distant past. So that is really been on my mind a lot recently. My other half is portugese, which is not latino, laughs, but bordering on. Um, that’s kind of it. You know, I would say that I’m you know, I’m still a caucasian woman, and that does afford me privilege in, in society. Um, but, and I’m a straight woman, so that’s an additional privilege I have. I grew up in a very very inclusive family, which I feel very fortunate. Especially in the climate we’re in today, where there does not seem to be a lot of tolerance around, so.”

“Just for context, because when we’re recording it is middle of January, 2021, so everything in the US that’s happened is the attack on the capitol. So just for context, in case, when this is released. Um, I’m curious about the disability, you mentioned that you’ve only started identifying with that in the last sort of five years or so. Can you recognise kind of a thing that happened, an event, or something internally, or was it a process, can you talk to that a little bit?”

“Sure, so I, you know, most of my adult life, I knew that a lot of the problems I had, you know, with anxiety, and depression and things like that, were based on feelings I had um, I had, sort of encountered as a child and sort of let it stew. And I think, something that we’ve talked about in our group. Um, if your listeners don’t know, I created an offshoot of a facebook group for people with fibular hemimelia. And I found that it was mostly parents and there were some, um, there was a lot of looking at everything through rose-colored glasses. And I was afraid that I felt like what we in the U.S. would call a Debbie downer all the time, because my experiences weren’t those of what the parents were expecting for their children. One day somebody from the group private messaged me and said hey, you know I have the same issues you do, um, psychologically. So I started an offshoot group for adults, that are having trouble. Because not every adults have trouble with it. But some of us, it had a really big impact on our lives. And I think being able to correspond with other people who have this deformity, and have experienced some psychological effects because of it, not just the physical, um, really opened my eyes. And one of the things that I know we have discussed on the board is that, there, you know, you were raised with this mentality that it could be worse. Um, that what you have isn’t so bad, it could be worse. You can have cancer, you can have something wrong with your organs. And so that really invalidates your feelings. You don’t want to see yourself as someone who is disabled because that’s not what you’re being told. You’re being told that you’re a normal child with just this one little problem. And so.”

“I had the same word used for me Pascha, I was told I had a leg problemI remember saying that.”

“That’s what we say, exactly.”

“I have a leg problem. What happened to you? Oh I have a problem in my leg, I was born with a problem.” laughs. 

“Exactly, I was born with a problem. Yeah, that is definitely a word that I used many many times. And what people didn’t know, and even my family didn’t know until very recently, was that I have been suffering this entire time with just a horrible body image and, and also they didn’t realise how much physical pain I was hiding because they kept saying it could be worse. So, I didn’t want to express myself as being that disadvantaged because, you know there are people who do have it worse. It was really connecting with other people who are having problems with it, that gave me the courage to say yeah I am disabled, I can’t do the same thing as a person with two normality functioning legs can do. Um, you know I have chronic pain because of it, and my body image is just completely shot , and it’s something that I’ve tried to work on accepting. But I can’t change that, and i still struggle with that every day. I’ve been trying , I’m 47 now, and I think when I hit 40 I really started to try and get some semblance of acceptance, just superficially that, ok I’m not going to hide my foot all the time. I was living in Arizona then, and I was tired of covering it up, I wanted to wear flip-flops. You know, I said screw it, I’m not going to hide this anymore. And that’s when I got, I have a tattoo on my foot. It looks like a stamp and it says you know defective, and there’s another stamp that says parts missing, and then on my ankle there’s a received stamp that has my date of birth on it. And I had hesitated to get because I didn’t want to hurt my mother’s feelings. And that was another thing. You know, she, I think, was also was concerned this might have been something she had done. I think the catalyst to being more open about it was meeting other people who like me, who have struggled with it. And the other thing that broke it wide open was, when I was 40, it took me until I was 40 years old to even know that this had a name. I thought I had amniotic banding syndrome. And my parents had always told me that my leg had got caught up in the umbilical cord and cut off the development.”

“Really?”

“Really! And one day I was going to put together a presentation for work and I came across a picture of a baby girl who’s leg looked exactly like mine did at that age. And there was also one of a frog, I will never forget that.” laughs

“Really? I’ve never seen that.”

“And I saw there was a different name attached. And  It said Fibular Hemimelia. And I thought what the hell is this. So I googled that and I start looking at it, and every single symptom is exactly what I have. That was just, I remember printing it out, my mother was actually visiting me. I remember reading it to my mother over dinner and saying this is what I have. And I, I was so,  I‘m not a very excitable person, and I remember, it was like I was floating on air, like a big weight has been lifted off of me, I could finally attach a name to what I have. Um, but at the same time, it led me down the path of seeking out more and more information, and connecting with the various groups on facebook, and just. It kind of opened up a whole new world for me. And also seeing what types of you know, treatments are available to kids today. But then you kind of hit a brick wall, because when you start exploring what can be done as an adult, sort of everything comes to a screeching halt. Because there is such a emphasis on paediatric orthopaedic care for this. And I’m thrilled, don’t get me wrong, I am so thrilled that the kids today have so many more options. And I’ve seen I would say, every decade of my adult life, I have gone to an orthopedic surgeon, and said you know, what do you think? And I remember in my twenties the guy I went to, I was humiliated. Not only he had no idea what I had, um, was obviously not a specialist in that field, but then he took my x-ray out to sort of like the nurses station area, and brought the other doctors over to look at it, because he has never seen anything like it before.”

“That’s horrible”

“And I thought, well this is a waste of time, you obviously don’t know anything about this. And I think people take their feet for granted until something is wrong with them. They don’t realise how much having a bad foot affects the rest of your body. And so.”

“Absolutely.”

“And so, you know, knowing that you’re stuck with that, for you know, the rest of your life basically. Um, not just the hassle of having to buy two sizes of shoes, and only being able to wear certain styles of shoes. You know it’s also just the pain that comes from it. And um, so you know, it’s sorry I’ve babbled so long I don’t remember the original question. Both laugh. But.” 

“That’s all good.” Laugh. “I hear so many people, and I’m the same, you know I’ve only started identifying with being disabled in the last few years, and I haven’t known about the word Fibular Hemimelia until maybe two year ago or three years ago as well. And I think people don’t realise that that can happen, that you grow up just knowing you have a problem, and you mentioned connecting with other people has given you that courage to be an advocate for people with disabilities, and feel more comfortable to hide your leg less perhaps. You know, have you noticed any other differences since you kind of said I am disabled and this is what I might need, or.”

“Not really other than being more vocal about it. I still have a lot of baggage to sort through. So, one thing I will say is that from an early age, I would say, you know, maybe my pre-teens years, like starting what here in the states would be referred to as junior high school or middle school. That coincided with sort of hitting puberty and also my parents getting divorced. And it’s sort of set up a perfect storm if you will.”

“Ok.”

“And I realised that you know, growing up in the 80’s, there was a very, you know in the 70s and 80s, women still wore high heels and panty hose to work and mini skirts were in style. And it was just like, it hit me, i’m never gonna be attractive. I’m never going to be physically attractive. Because I will never leave up to this expectations of how, what’s perceived to be an attractive woman would dress and be able to um, you know express herself sexually, and sexy laundeair, and all that kind of BS that you know, that we’re fed.”

“Yeah.”

“I, I turned inwards and unfortunately I started eating my feelings, literally. And so I started putting on a lot of weight. And to this day it’s something that I struggle with. Because I figured well if no man is going to find me attractive, I may as well keep eating. Because if I keep myself fat, I don’t have to, nobody is going to hit on me, and then I don’t have to reveal that I have this deformity. I was petrified that I would go out with somebody, and you know, even if I was thin. Because I did go through, I finally lost weight, by the time I graduated from high school I was normal, quote unquote, normal size. I should say socially or sociatally acceptable size.” laughs. 

“Yeah.”

“And I was petrified, because I was like, if I get hit on, is, and, you know, and things start to get hot and heavy, a you know, it caused a lot of anxiety. And so after high school I started back in with the eating again. You know I was like, no social life, just would sit home and would just gorge until I couldn’t eat anymore. The only thing that would make me feel better was being stuffed and sedated with food. And I blame myself for that, I mean that was my decision. And then to make it worse, people, when my mum you know, was in her heyday, um, she was gorgeous. And I had also been told once I grew up, you know once I became a teenager, oh you look just like your mother. That’s another thing that makes me sad, cause my mum was like 5,7. She’s 76 years old and she still has legs like Tina Turner, I mean they’re just fenomenal dams. So to add insult to injury, I have this mother who people say is beautiful and has these beautiful legs, but I got her face. And I feel like you know, it was wasted on me, because I have the shit body. And I know that’s so fucked up. You know, and it’s part of, this is something, I did go see a therapist tike, to finally start like, I’ve own up to all this. Everything I’m telling you today are things that I have only expressed to people recently. They were things that I didn’t want to acknowledge publicly or even to my closest friends before. But now I don’t care anymore. I think we’ve said that on the board, you know a few of  us who are in our mid forties. We’re like, you know we’re in our forties, we just don’t give a shit anymore. You know. Laughs. Everything is out in the open.”

“Which is great.”

“Yeah. I asked the therapist, I said you know, is it considered dysmorphia, body dysmorphia if you have legitimate reasons, you know if you have problems with your body. Because the obesity has also had a great effect on my body. You know I’m covered in stretch marks, I had gastro bypass surgery to lose weight, so I have what they call an anchor now, because I have a huge scar going down my abdomen, plus one that goes across my lower abdomen, you know and then I have scars from my leg surgeries. So I have this tremendous guilt that I feel like I never lived up to this expectation that I would be beautiful like my mother. And that makes me sad too. And I just, I can’t seem to, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to that level of self-acceptance. You know, that’s where I was going with the therapist, was how to get self-acceptance. And, and it was really hard for me because I’m a very. I tend to keep things very factual. And a lot of the writing that I see about self-acceptance is very newagey, like I can’t see myself buying it, would be the best way to put it.”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t relax enough to meditate, you know, I’ve got issues with anxiety. And, and those again caused by feeling anxious about how I look, and how I present myself to the world, and having this food addiction, and I’m proud of myself that I’m acknowledging it now. But at the same time I can’t seem to fix it, and I don’t know that I ever will. So i’ve resigned myself to a, you know, kind of like a life of spinsterhood if you will,” laughs. “So, um,”

“That’s a lot.”

“It is, it’s a lot, and it’s, and I feel like it’s all rooted. And I just like why couldn’t just accept yourself the way you were. Just like say you know what, fuck it, you know, look at my leg look at my foot all you want, you know, I’m a confident sexy lady. I cannot do that. I just, there is a mental block there, and I don’t know if it started with kids teasing me about lift, but I just cannot process that. My head cannot wrap itself around that concept.”

“What I want to say is, how you know, you’ve spent more than forty years living in a body that is, by society, society tells you is abnormal. And I think that’s really important to acknowledge that those ideas about being deformed and about not being attractive enough as a woman, you know, not having the legs that your mum had and. I think those are all things that we are told as people by society every single day. As disabled, especially woman. You know, and so we internalise that, I hope that makes sense”

“No it does,”

“It doesn’t come from nowhere.”

“It does, yeah. And I think things are getting better. There’s certainly a lot more self-expression today, and you know, when I grew up. I mean most people, tattoos were things bikers had, you know. My dad had one, but it was from his fraternity. And he could pull it off cause he’s kind of scary looking,” laughs. “And so.”

Laughs. “And he’s a man.”

“And he’s a man, so, you know, women with tattoos, it was oh you know, those are biker chicks. So I think today, you know, with the advent of acceptance of body modification. Um, things aren’t as bad. One thing that does encourage me from the boards too is, kids go into school now, they are, you know, on the first day of school they’re getting it out of the way. They’re going up and they’re saying hey, my name is blah blah blah, this is my leg, you know, ask me any questions you want about it. That didn’t happen when I was a kid. And I just remember very hurtful comments, and kids staring at me in grocery stores and pointing at my lift and saying mummy what’s wrong with her. And when I would talk about these things with my family they were like flabbergasted, almost to the point of like I was making it up. And I was like you don’t remember it because it wasn’t happening to you.” 

“Exactly.”

“And the most hurtful thing I remember was being in I think third grade I wanna say. And a girl in class broke her leg, and so she had cast and crutches and everybody was making a big production about it. And mind you, I had not had any surgeries around the peopleI was in school with. I had like a three inch lift on my shoe. And so the one girl in class, and I obviously will not mention her name, but I still remember her name, her face and everything about her to this very day. Giggles. She said she’s more special than you are. And I was like, as an adult it still infuriates me. Because A, I didn’t want to be special, I didn’t want to be, you know, I didn’t ask for this to happen, you know, it was completely out of my control. You think I like walking around with a block on my shoe? And attracting attention? I was just so, I still carry that with me, because I wasn’t trying to be special, I wanted to fit in, like any other kid.”

“Exactly.”

“And so it made me a very bitter person too. Um where I would turn around and be mean to other kids that were nice to me, just because I was projecting this onto them. One funny thing, I will share one funny anecdote about.”

“Yep”

Giggles. “Well you may not find it funny. When I was a senior in high school um, I was staying with my grandparents for a while, while my mum and I were in between houses. At that time my cousin Kelly, who’s really sweet, um, but she was like five years old at the time, and so would stay with my grandmother after she got out of preschool, or kindergarten. And so here I am, I’m a surly seventeen year old, who just wants to you know, get out of the house and go, you know, smoke weed or whatever with my friends.”

“Yeah”

“And so she, she noticed it one day. My grandfather would always sit in his recliner in the corner of the room, and he was an alcoholic and so he just usually be sitting there, you know, doing nothing,” laughs.

“Ok”

“A couple of scotches deep. And so she said what happened to your foot? And, cause she had noticed my toes were missing. And I said I was bad so grandpa cut them off. And she went screaming to my grandmother, she’s like grandma! If i’m bad is grandpa going to cut my toes off? Both laugh. 

“That’s so good.”

“And my grandfather and I were laughing. My grandfather was laughing hysterically. I always apologize to her about it, because she turned out to be the sweetest girl. Laughs. I think that plays into the, you know, making stories about it. Like, sometimes I’ll tell people if they notice it that Dad was in the russian mob and they kidnapped me and they cut of a toe until he paid.”

“Oh wow, that is intense.”

“And, well you know, you just, you gotta have some fun with it.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think you can start to accept it until you have a sense of humour about it. Which is why I got those tattoos, which is why I’ll make up ridiculous stories about it. I am encouraged because things have changed, you know, people with differences are not pushed back, I think. I’m very active in the diversability team member network at work because it’s important to me that people with physical differences are represented. When I was a kid, any kind of physical difference was associated with mental differences, you know, learning disabilities. So that was the other thing, was you know having a stigma that there was some sort of learning disability associated with the fact that I had a physical um, difference, and so that part of was hurtful as well, because I knew I wasn’t, I didn’t have that. That’s been my one sort of, you know, for lack of a better term, my kind of fuck you to the world, is, of you know, I had this problem and people associated it with some sort of mental deficiancy. But I’ve been able to create a successful career, you know live independently all of my adulthood,”

“Yeah.”

“And, and really just be a successful person, at least career wise, even though I’m barely holding it together sometimes mentally in my personal life. At least I can say, I’ve excelled in my professional life. And I think it’s also nurtured my sense of humour too. I’m kind of holding back here, but it’s, I do have a very sarcastic sense of humour, and it’s not just self depreciation it’s just in general. I guess, it’s shaped my personality in ways some people might find off putting but other people find humorous. I don’t hold anything back anymore. I still have a lot of issues to work through, but I’m completely open about my disability now. When you see me walking, you don’t know how exhausting it is. Because you don’t know that literally every step I take, I am making sure that I don’t have an obvious limp.”

“Yep, same.”

“But doing that for so many years it’s exhausting.”

“It’s a lot, from my perspective, just really interesting that I’ve also experienced kids telling me that I was the R word, which I won’t repeat. You know, and kind of implying that I had some kind of other disability, a learning disability of some kind. I feel like there’s almost like a need, a need to be extraordinary, or do extraordinary things, in order to kind of be enough, in a way. Because, that’s for me anyway. Like, because I’ve got this problem, quote unquote, of my disability, um, that makes me less than someone else, so I kind of have to in a way exceed every expectation in order to kind of be enough. And that’s something that I’ve internalised, and only recently started realise it was there and started challenging it a little bit. Does that kind of resonate with you?”

“It does a little bit. I think, I was kind of the opposite. I was a bad student. And I do a job that typically you should have a masters degree to do, and I never even finished my bachelors degree. I’m a terrible student. But I get hyper focused on one thing and I just learn the shit out of it. And the resignation comes from feeling like I need to be really good at my job in order to consider myself a success. It really isn’t a positive thing, that so much of my self-esteem, um hinges on my career success. Because I feel that I’m not successful in other parts of my life. Because of this disability. And not getting fulfilment or happiness out of my personal life puts all the weight on fulfilment in my professional life. And so it’s kind of like walking on stilts and just waiting to fall. And it’s unhealthy, but, it is what it is, I mean it’s just where, where I am.”

“Yeah, that’s understandable. And I find it fascinating because I think, because we chatted before about you know, the sense of feeling that you’ll never be as attractive as society tells you you have to be as a woman, to be worthy, and you know as women we are told that the way we look, as females, that is equals to our worth. And then if we don’t reach those standards, which are fatphobic, and ableist and racist as well, and all the rest of it. Then we place that on the career, for sure, that makes total sense.”

“Again, I think it’s an area where strides have been made. I mean I don’t think I wouldn’t have been able to be in the position I’m in um, as a woman, and a lot of what I do is associated with IT, so there’s sort of a stem component to it as well. I feel kind of fortunate that we are in an era where you know, interviews are done by phone now and you don’t need to get yourself gussied up and go into an in-person interview, because I always felt that I’d be rejected right away because I’m fat, you know. And they’re going to equate that with laziness, and they don’t know how good of a job I can do. These expectations of what a successful career woman should look like, giggles, um, those outdated notions.”

“Yeah.”

“But that’s come a long way too, I’ve noticed. That’s another thing I’m kind of on the fence on, because it’s like, part of me is, wants to be accepted for the way I am, but I know internally that it is um, it’s not something I want to be. It’s that I have this dependence. Ok I don’t feel good about myself so I’m gonna eat, ok well I’m going to try and do something about it, but now when go and try and exercise there’s so much that I can’t do because of my legs, that, now I just feel like eating all my feelings again. So there’s so much interconnectedness.”

“You know, there is that kind of sense of everything being kind of insulated, and um, that’s not how we work as humans, everything is so connected. And I think that’s what intersectionality kind of is about. And I guess, with what we’re talking about, I’m curious to hear your thoughts Pascha, what is, what is intersectionality mean to you?”

“You know, I, I acknowledge I still have a lot of privilege as a white woman. I’ll never know what it’s like to live as somebody with balck or brown skin. You know, I only know my own limitations as both a person with a disability that I’m able to hide fairly well, and also as a woman who is ethnically Jewish. And seeing so much hatred come up in this world. And those are the two main pieces of my intersectionality. I’m, I almost feel like I’m not qualified to talk about it.”

“I think it’s really important to acknowledge our privilege in society, and I think what’s interesting is that as someone who navigates intersectionality and diverse identities, I think it does, can make us more aware and have maybe solidarity or empathy.”

“There is a great amount of solidarity there. And last week brought up a good point, um you know, as far as seeing very disturbing imagery as a Jewish person. And and, being an anxious person to begin with, you know, I was texting with a good friend of mine down here, who is you know, very white, and grew up in a very white city. You know, I said oh it’s really terrifying as a jewish person to see that kind of imagery. And she sort of wrote it off like, oh all of our ancestors had problems. I was sort of stung by that. Because I, first of all, those are not my ancestors, those are like my grandparents’ cousins, who were murdered, so I look at it as anybody who I may have potentially met, had they not been killed, um I don’t consider that an ancestor, I consider that family. So that is fresh, and I don’t think a lot of people realise how young we start to learn about those things. Because most Jewish people think about what could happen again, and that we have escape plans, and we have you know, that we think about, how do we pass. Like, my last name is not Jewish, it was changed when my family came here. I don’t like it, but I’m grateful I have it. And I said I can always pass my first name off as Russain, even though it’s aremeich for Pesach. And I told her all this after she said I’m asking you this genuinely, as a Jew do you feel threatened by these things. And I said yeah, even though I don’t practice, I’m still ethnically Jewish and these people want me dead. And so, you know, from what I would say the age of five, I remember seeing pictures of you know piles of bodies and things like that. And so that part of my identity has really come up lately because remembering pictures of them measuring peoples skulls and noses and thinking oh I’m so glad I have a tiny nose. These things go through our minds, this is how we think from a very early age. So when we see somebody, you know, going, storming our capital in an Auschwitz sweatshirt, scares the shit out of me.”

“Yeah, you know, my grandma, cause I grew up in Israel and um, even though I don’t identify as Jewish as such, more as an Israeli, but I’m a Jew-Israeli, if that makes sense to people.”

“No, it’s our ethnicity.”

“Exactly, but you know my grandparents escaped, you know they had to run for their lives, and just lucky that they made it, and a lot of their family were murdered. And you know, my grandmother would talk to me about that regularly from a very early age. And she kept saying we have to remember so that it doesn’t happen again. And we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Um, that is terrifying. And I think really important as well, what you were saying about you know, you don’t practice, and I don’t really practice, but in the Holocust, it didn’t matter. laughs. It didn’t matter at all if you didn’t practice”

“It doesn’t’ matter”

“It didn’t make any difference, because if you had a Jewish grandmother you were considered a Jew and the aim was to kill you, and that lives with us, definitely.”

“Yeah, and it’s enabled, and it’s, and we kind of sail through life with it in the back of our minds but not really thinking, oh you know, we’ve made so many strides, this could never happen again. And then we see something like what happened last week, which is a culmination of I think four years of people really coming out of the woodwork, no longer in the shadows. I mean these. I mean we always knew that they existed, and there’s always been, through the years, there’s still been discretion of temples and people having their houses graffitied with swastikas and things like that. So when you’re in the capitol, literally in the capitol building of the country I live in, and you’re wearing you know antisemitic shirts, overtly antisemitic, and some that aren’t so overt. And you were able to get in so easily, I mean that really, is terrifying. and so, you know another thing Liel that I was thinking about too, when we talk about passing and, what would have happened if I had been there. Because deformed kids,”

“Yes!”

“You were either shot on site, like you couldn’t work so you would’ve been shot, or you would be sent to have horrible experiments, medical experiments on you because you, you had a deformity. And so that plays into that too. We’ve kind of come full circle because that, I think oh my god if something like that were to happen again, like I’m deformed, what happens to me. You know, so. That I think adds to the anxiety about it, because i remember them saying you know well disabled kids were just – . It’s a lot to process. And so when I, you know when I tell somebody who’s not Jewish and not disabled, that what happened in this country terrifies me, I don’t think they really are able to grasp. They don’t have the knowledge and the history that we’ve had to learn, what’s like and what our families have gone through and how, you know, just the things that fill our minds, and those images all come rushing back, that we see.”

“This is, like I’m literally feeling teary, because you might be the first person who feels exactly like I feel. And I have felt that since I was a very young kid. It’s incredible. It’s almost, I feel grateful on the one hand, that I was born when I was born, that I am here to tell this story and to, um and to live a good life, but also, just, it makes me enraged. “

“And how both of those pieces of our intersectionality literally intersect, and how things could have been. But we also don’t rest on our laurels about it. You know, we have to stay vigil, and you know, make sure, do our damn best to make sure it doesn’t happen again. My hope is that we have enough allies and that this country has becomes integrated and and, advanced enough now that those of us who are at that kind of disadvantage can sort of all bind together now, and create a very united front, and strong front against the hate. And so that we can you know, not have to think about those things.”

“Exactly”

“But they’re always going to be on our minds”

“Absolutely, and I think it definitely makes you know, every event like this, brings it up. And to try and stay optimistic like I think that’s really hard. Like you have to be actively trying so hard. Laughs. If that makes sense. Like I feel like other people have the ability to be optimistic that everything will be fine. And there’s an Australian saying, she’ll be right, that’s the saying, everything will be fine, that’s what it means. And that kind of really optimistic kind of view, and I just think, it doesn’t’ come naturally to me.” Laughs.

“No, not to me either. And I don’t know, it’s put me at a really anxious state, and I don’t feel that I’m very useful when I’m anxious. And of course all of this is happening during a pandemic, and as you know it’s horrible here. And so the one time I want to be near my family, I can’t be near them. It all just culminates and a lot of anxiety, so.”

“And Pascha, I’m really mindful, um you know, we’ve had, we’re having such a good chat.”

“I know, I’ve been babbling.”

“No, it’s been fantastic, I love it. I’m curious if you have a, you know, if someone was listening to our fantastic chat, who is struggling with navigating intersectionality, whatever it might be for them, what message do you have for them?”

“I would say, do the best you can to accept who you are. Don’t let it manifest. If you have problems with one or more of your identities, and especially if you’re disabled. If you have strong feelings about it, don’t hide them. Be vocal about it, and don’t let it fester, because then you find yourself as a middle-aged woman who feels unworthy and you know, laughs, and feels unattractive, and it didn’t have to be that way. And so, if I could go back in time I would’ve been so much more assertive. Be assertive and be honest. And if people don’t believe you, make them believe you. You know, it’s ok to say that you’re in pain, and it’s ok that you are, you know, yes you acknowledge that it could be worse, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less painful for you. So be upfront with it. Don’t wait until you’re in your late forties to come to terms with it, because you’re gonna feel like you wasted a lot of your life. If you have something holding you back, you know, be honest about it, go to a therapist, talk to somebody about it, reach out. I mean we’re so lucky, the internet is such a double edge sword but at least it allows you to connect with other people who have issues like you do, and so reach out because other people are going through the exact same thing that you are going through. And when you find support and you’re able to talk openly and freely to people about it, it is a tremendous weight off your shoulders.”

“What a great message, I love that Pascha. That’s fascinating. I don’t know about you, but I was always told, when people were teasing me, or you know, or worse, to ignore them”

“Yes”

“And they’ll eventually stop. And I think that. And that’s the message that’s been around for many years, but it’s not actually helpful.”

“It isn’t”

“It’s like, it’s not my responsibility to bear that, it is the schools’ and the family’s, and the community’s responsibility to make sure that these children and these people understand that that’s not ok.”

“And it’s ok to fight back, you know. It’s, it may not seem right, I mean you’re not necessarily, you don’t have to be the bigger person all the time, I guess is what I’m saying. laughs. It’s ok to fight back and show your personality. I really wish I had done that really early on in life. Because I think my life would’ve been different. But maybe this is just the way it was meant to be for me. So, be who you truly are, don’t hide it because of your disability. Just put yourself out there and own it. And have confidence.”

“What a fantastic advice to finish our chat on Pascha, it’s been such a pleasure. I loved our chat, we spoke about so many fascinating things.”

“I know” both laughs. “I apologise if i’m a little chatty, but you know”

“Not, not at all”

“It brings up a lot of stuff. I really appreciate you doing this. And I really appreciate that you asked me to do this.” 

“I like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I’m recording the podcast, the Warranjri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging. As we tell our stories, I want to highlight that traditional owners of this land have been storytellers for generations.

Like this show? To support the ongoing making of this podcast, go to my Patreon account, on www.patreon.com/LielKBridgford. You can also just make a one time donation on my blog. Go to http://lkbridgford.com/support-me and don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast. Until next time.”