By Ally Lloyd, Supervised by Dr Chiara Horlin (School of Psychology, University of Glasgow) Content Warnings: mention of suicide and self-harm and discussion of distress. Listen to this post Epilepsy is a neurological (brain) disorder that about 1 in 100 people around the world live with, making it one of the most common neurological disorders. …
By Ally Lloyd (she/her) “It is hard to distill, but I think that an accessible and inclusive climate movement looks like a space where care, listening and communication are built into every aspect of organising.” Being able to visualise a fully accessible and inclusive climate movement is an incredible thing. Today I was lucky enough …
This is a conversation between Charlene, who has experience of the My Sighted Guide service run by Guide Dogs, and Ally from The LUNA Project. Charlene has been blind from birth. Her experiences with education started way back when she went to boarding school for visually impaired people to learn braille when she had just …
By Ally, Beth, and Ross A note in June 2021: The need for accessibility is a common undercurrent in the lives of disabled people and something that never leaves conversations surrounding disability. Two of our earliest blog posts (published October 2019) were on this very topic, and much of what we talked about then still …
Part One of a three-part LUNA Project Series, by Rachael Banks and Ally Lloyd When Rachael said she wanted to write about the experiences of Disabled and chronically ill students at University, looking at what was working well and more importantly what wasn’t, I jumped at the chance to write alongside her. Even just from …
By Ally (she/her), 19 You can listen to it here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2AoKwfGWkohH7q0W8bocFV?si=e967735cce1f4928 I think that a year ago, if you had asked what I had lost and gained I would have struggled to think of what I had gained, and two years ago I would wonder why you were even asking. Now though, I feel able …
By Beth Dillon (she/her), Ross Tanner (he/they), and Ally Lloyd (she/her) Hospital stays are a seemingly inevitable part of having a long term health condition, and can be difficult for lots of different reasons. There’s the isolation, stress, worry, missing out on things and the fact that you usually feel completely rubbish. We are writing …
By Ally Lloyd (she/her) The loneliness that came with epilepsy is one of the things that has taken me most by surprise and that I have found the hardest to manage. I feel we all know the difference between emotionally and physically alone, but it feels an important difference to emphasise. Especially because I would …
By Ross Tanner and Ally Lloyd Last weeks post touched upon just how big a problem accessibility is, and how isolating and demoralising it can be for individuals up against it, and how widespread a problem it is in a way you may never have noticed. This makes having friends who both support you with …
By Ally Lloyd (she/her) Everyone knows socialising is important in maintaining friendships. In primary school your parents would encourage you to invite someone round and then they would return it and build the friendship, in high school going on those first trips shopping into town with friends was a bonding experience, and by the time …