If being a teenager is hard for everyone, being a disabled teenager can feel like a slog. No longer protected by the relative simplicity of childhood, you are confronted with the realities of your disabled body and, perhaps harder still to fathom, your place in a profoundly ableist society.
Failed by a system that leaves you dependent on care from your family while your peers explore independence, you will often feel trapped and isolated. Teenagers don’t want to be seen as different – or even be associated with difference – and so you are avoided, ostracised. It can be incredibly tough.
Memories of my own teenage years are still strong enough, 10 years on, to cause panic to rise like a wave in my chest. One of the things I most vividly remember is fear. Fear that I wouldn’t achieve anything, fear that I would always be lonely. Fear, most of all, that things would never get better.
While all this is going on, the state-funded support networks you are used to fall away, as the arbitrary leap from children’s to adults’ services is rigidly enforced. Which is where Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity comes in, providing specialist [...]