February 20, 2024 • 59 mins
This is an encore episode while I focus on my teaching.
This week's guest is Sandie Roberts
Right from the start, I knew Sandie was deeper than her good looks as a model. Just four years into being a full-fledged member of the disability community, she's breaking the glass walls and the glass ceiling that surrounds this much-suppressed group. This is evident from the heading of her website: "Rolling into confidence, let’s create the life we deserve!"
Sandie uses her platform as a model to bring "normalcy" to the labels that society places upon us. She is a positive role model rather than a positive rolling model (sorry for the corny joke).
As I strive to point this show in a new direction, Sandie and I discussed the guilt that comes with becoming disabled as an adult: The misdirected guilt of being a burden upon our family.
Sandie was also comfortable discussing her recent online encounters with some very troubling people. You can read about that HERE on BBC News.
It's real, so let's talk about it.
Sandie's cover photo is by Deb Burrows
Note: Oftentimes, links are not available on platforms such as Apple, iHeart, etc.. They are available within this episode on our website at https://lifesaroadtrip.podbean.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Being disabled or having a chronic illness can feel like you're moving forward in reverse.
(00:21):
I'm your host Scott Martin.
Join me and my new friends in this underrepresented community as we talk about disrupting the
status quo and creating change within the world and within ourselves.
A life's a road trip.
Hop in.
Let's turn on some tunes and go.
(00:56):
With me in the passenger seat and this time on the left and managing the radio with Sandy
Roberts.
Sandy is a disabled digital content creator model, disability advocate and speaker.
After becoming disabled in 2019, she has found joy through acceptance and recognizing
that disability is not a bad word.
Sandy champions mental health and body positivity.
(01:20):
She has appeared on as a body confidence expert on ITV's This Morning TV, spoken on BBC
Radio, modeled in London Fashion Week and has been nominated as positive role model for
the National Diversity Awards.
Sandy works with brands to help them reach diversity, diverse communities and focuses
on her content on fashion and lifestyle, creating authentic videos and static posts.
(01:44):
Hi Sandy.
Hello there.
Thanks for having me.
Very good.
I want to first touch on and mention to the folks that they probably noticed your British
accents and you live in the consoles.
I've been in there.
Could you please describe it?
It's a wonderful, beautiful area.
I think the best way of describing it is when anyone who doesn't live in England imagines
(02:09):
what the countryside of England looks like, that's what the cox world looks like.
It's rolling green hills and pretty coxes of trees and stone cottages often with back
strokes but not always.
And little kind of villages with cobbledies, stone, little lanes that lead off into forests
(02:31):
and it's just magical and it actually does look like that.
It's beautiful.
So Sue and I were, we went bopping around Europe during the fall and we stayed in London for
five days but when we get back there we're going to rent a car and start going into that
area of Great Britain and Scotland and so forth.
(02:52):
I also want to mention that your family has been a Manchester United supporters but your
husband is a West Ham supporter.
So the American audience, this is the Premier League soccer football.
And I want to mention something that your poor husband is living through a season right now
where last I looked West Ham is two points from relegation.
(03:15):
Now the American fan should know if you were to take the NFL, National Football League
and put it in different countries and so what happens in the Premier League, the top four
teams at the end of the season move on to play in a major tournament called the Champions
League.
So if you had the top four teams from the NFL playing there against other NFL top fours
(03:39):
or top twos depending on the league, West Ham on the other hand is towards the bottom.
So the bottom three teams face relegation.
So there are different tiers of football or soccer leagues in England and if you get
relegated you move down.
So think of the New York Yankees having a terrible season and next year they're playing
(04:02):
in Triple A and the top Triple A teams can move up.
So there's a big issue for that and I don't know if you see it, I'm wearing an Arsenal
sweatshirt today.
So I'm an Arsenal sport.
Yes, a Gunners.
So I don't want to start talking about soccer or else I won't shut up.
(04:25):
I keep tabs, I'll keep tabs a little bit.
I noticed that you were in a fashion, was that the London Fashion Week for 2023?
Yes, so that was last week.
We have two every year so this was the Spring version and there'll be another one in the
autumn.
But yeah, it was a lot, I think.
Do you know what, I'm so tired that the days have blended into each other but I think
(04:48):
it was last week.
I have a feeling it was last week.
Yeah, there are some other people I keep in touch with that have attended there so I
would look that up on LinkedIn because they would post and we were doing some posts and
things.
It looks like you guys are having a great time though.
Oh, it was incredible, incredible.
There was a lot of media coverage for the first time we had a lot of media coverage for
(05:13):
the disabled community which we've been trying to get for a very long time and have not been
able to.
It was like screaming into the void before and so this time we felt like we were heard
and I genuinely, I've said it before but I feel this is the moment things have shifted.
(05:35):
I feel like there's a real difference in the air that this is when things start to change
for us.
So I feel like there's a real energy shift here at the moment so it's exciting.
The longer I've been doing the show and I'm in the second month now, I'm learning about
the disability community.
I am a part of it.
I'm a quite amputee but I haven't been on the outskirts and I think I might have a platform
(06:03):
now that we are getting a decent amount of listenership that I'm becoming an advocate
for it and I'm looking at it as if it were to follow the same path as the LGBTQ plus community.
Follow that pattern and things like what you just said, I think are important in it.
I might have a good opportunity for the disability community before.
(06:28):
Eight, I want to open something I found about you and it was something you wrote a while
back.
I was at work and they noticed how unwell I was.
Suddenly my face dropped and it looked like I had had a stroke.
I went to the hospital and told me I had a functional stroke which is like a soft well
malfunction in the brain.
It's great that you put it that way.
(06:49):
Over a few days my face and body rebounded but my leg movements never came back.
I discharged myself because they said there was nothing seriously wrong with me but I
still could move my legs.
I had a narrative of internal amm, I had a narrative of internal amm, ableism.
I just had to make any fuss or bother anyone.
(07:12):
I just didn't want to make any fuss or bother anyone.
My husband bought me a wheelchair and all of a sudden he had to become my caregiver.
He said I had a functional neurological disorder.
I remember I was diagnosed three years previously but I completely blocked it out.
Could you get into more of what the exact diagnosis was please?
(07:33):
Yeah, for sure.
I had this for all intents and purposes.
It's a stroke.
It looked like a stroke, the same effects of a stroke, the same symptoms of a stroke.
The difference is the cause, so it wasn't a electrical malfunction in the brain.
It was a software malfunction of the brain.
(07:58):
Actually, the long-term effects, I did go home.
I couldn't use my arms.
I couldn't bathe myself.
I couldn't go to the toilet for myself.
I couldn't use my legs either.
It was a much longer recovery than I led anyone to believe because of this internal ableism.
We've heard of all kinds of other isms.
(08:23):
I really struggle with my neurocapacity and I lose words and I've lost all the words when
we are prejudiced against other things.
We have to do those things.
We know about those but what we don't know about is ableism.
People don't aren't used to that word.
Ages, for example, we know what ageism is.
(08:44):
Everybody knows what that is.
Sexism, we know what that is, for example.
Nobody knows what ableism is.
Basically, that is just something against somebody because they are disabled.
We carry that ourselves internally because we've been programmed without knowing it through
society and through just the way that we've been brought up to just look at people with
(09:11):
a disability as somehow less than.
It can be very, very subtle.
We don't know that we're doing it.
I viewed myself as a burden on my family because in my eyes at that time, I couldn't provide
for my family in the same way as I had before.
(09:32):
I felt like I wasn't worth anything.
I couldn't see past.
It was so binary.
It was black and white.
I'm no longer this.
Therefore, I am nothing.
Obviously, I have been four years down the line now.
This was 2019.
(09:53):
I'm almost out of the anniversary, actually, of when it happened.
When your mind is so black and white, there's no room for any other possible existence of
another reality.
If I'm not that, then what am I?
(10:15):
If you've got nothing else, there is this void of nothingness.
You're left with this reality that means in the way that your brain is telling you that
you don't exist in the world in any way, in any meaningful way.
It was a dreadful time for me.
(10:38):
But luckily, I was able to pull myself up out of that space because some elements of my
functional neurological disorder, which is a system disconnect.
It's a problem with the signaling between the brain and the body, did get better to some
(11:01):
degree.
I started to be able to use my hands better and certain other areas of my life got easier.
I was able to look after myself in some aspects a little bit better.
I found myself being able to think, okay, there must be another purpose for me other
(11:24):
than going to an office and doing a job and earning a salary and bringing that home and
cleaning.
My purpose as I have a life force, so therefore my purpose as a human being to contribute
to this planet and all the other people on it, must be for some other purpose than just
going to an office and doing that old job that I used to do.
(11:48):
So what can I use this life force that I've been luckily, you know, left with?
What can I do with it?
And I chose to find a purpose that helped other people because I've been in so much
pain and so, so lonely that I didn't want anyone to feel like that.
So I used that as a bit of a rocket up the bum to kind of give myself a real kind of
(12:15):
kick and think, okay, I'm not dead.
I'm not dead.
I'm still here, therefore it would be a complete waste of life force if I acted like I was.
So let's not do that.
Let's use this life force that I've got left in me for some kind of good purpose and let's
make the life that I've got now better than the one I had before because actually when
(12:37):
you look back at it, what was I doing?
I wasn't helping anybody.
I was barely existing.
I was in pain all the time.
I wasn't doing anything for anybody that was good.
So let's just take this as an opportunity to really assess and really reset.
And so that's what I did.
Do you think that that came from you or were you attending sessions with a psychologist
(13:01):
to try to work on what was happening with you?
Where did it come from?
At the time it came from me.
I wasn't seeing anybody at that point.
What happened is it all started at the same time as COVID.
So yeah, I know.
We got married three months before I collapsed as well.
(13:24):
So that wasn't helpful either.
And then I sunk very low for a long time.
So I said this in this couple of minutes.
But that period of time with me looking into this black hole of doom lasted for quite a
while where I felt like a complete worthless burden on my family like I shouldn't be breathing
(13:48):
the air on this planet.
And I'd say probably a good nine months or so of me just feeling like I shouldn't be
here.
It was quite a long time.
And what happened then was I felt like I was temporarily disabled.
I didn't understand what functional neurological disorder was because the doctors had said there
(14:10):
wasn't anything seriously wrong with me.
I didn't quite understand because it looked like it was very serious and I couldn't walk,
I couldn't do anything.
But they said it wasn't serious.
So that unfortunately came from the mouth of a doctor that didn't know what FND was.
And in their heads, I hadn't had a stroke that was caused by electrical currents.
(14:35):
So it, and I wasn't dying.
So it wasn't serious.
But actually FND is incredibly serious and you can die from complications from the symptoms
of FND.
People have died from the symptoms of FND and it can be very, very serious.
And in my case, has ended up being very serious.
So it's unfortunate that wording.
(14:59):
So I think when I then went into a living centre to get treatment for FND, I went in expecting
to be told, this is what we're going to do for you.
And I thought I'd walk out of that clinic two weeks later and be the poster child for
(15:20):
look at this success.
Look, she's wonderful.
Look how clever she is.
And she's now walking out of this, you know, this miracle child kind of thing because I'm
an A type person.
You work hard at anything, you'll achieve it.
That's what I've always done my whole life.
Instead, I got in there to be told that you can't cure FND.
(15:42):
It's not a condition you can cure.
It's something that once you've hit this, once the trigger has happened, you can't
un-trigger it.
And because all of these neural pathways, these incorrect neural pathways have been being
(16:04):
created your entire life.
You can't turn back time and uncreate them.
So once that trigger has happened, then your brain starts using those incorrect neural
pathways, which are physical pathways.
They are actually carved in your brain.
You can't uncreate them and you can't undo the trigger.
(16:25):
So it's a very, it was a big shock to me.
And I had to go through this entire new processing time of, I took five days of crying solidly
because I was so shocked.
And that was a really big moment for me.
(16:46):
But I think I needed to hear it because then I was like, well, okay, this is reality.
And until that moment, I'd been living in this fictional future in my head of where I'd
be running through the fields, the cotswolds.
Perfect.
To be told that reality was what I needed because then I could build a real future in
(17:07):
this present moment.
This is what I've got now.
This is my actual life.
So what do we do now?
I think I needed that.
Well, there's a difference.
I'm just noticing when I talk to people, I've got my notes and I refer back to our communications
that we've had probably by email or else what I've read.
And I had one way of thinking it didn't pop into my head until I just heard you say, you're
(17:31):
four years out now.
I'm 30.
I'm coming up on 30 years out from becoming a quad amputee.
Year four, I had just finished my fourth season.
I was coaching college soccer football at the time.
And we had our worst season ever.
We were so actually ranked at the beginning of the season, but I just hit a wall.
(17:52):
So my year four, I hit a wall.
I was depressed and I ended up just saying, how was this?
I sold everything that didn't fit in my car.
My cat and I had it out west because that's where I was at year four.
And you're telling me where you were at year four, it's interesting.
The difference is on people and how things are.
I'm wondering in it, why I've always understood this about males, or ego with how we're raised.
(18:19):
My ego was getting away and I had to deal with that.
And again, now we're coming up on 30 years.
Yesterday I just happened to be looking through a bunch of my old stuff.
And I pulled out a magazine that was on the cover and my wife Sue, we worked together
at the time.
She looked at it, she said, you look different.
I said, what do you mean?
I have a lot less hair now because that was right after I got out of the hospital and
(18:43):
that was done.
And she said, you just look sad.
And it's making me think back.
So what you're getting into?
I want to go back to what you had mentioned about the black hole.
And you wrote a paragraph.
When a black hole settled over me and I felt I was making it up, there was no treatment
pathway offered.
(19:04):
That's what you were saying.
I was just sent home.
We were just left and I was suddenly disabled and felt like a complete burden.
I didn't even want to be alive.
That's what you were just getting into.
It makes me think of the five stages of grief by Elizabeth Kuhlner-Ross.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
And one thing I always wondered about was guilt.
(19:25):
I heard a lot of guilt in you about you don't want to be a burden.
Totally understand it.
We went through the same thing on that.
It's just fascinating how we all tend to go through different stages in the same way.
Kuhlner-Ross knew what she was talking about.
(19:47):
But the guilt thing I noticed is being something that should be added to what she had written.
It's just I learn a lot from talking with you guys.
I'm doing the show.
I'm getting as much out of it as anyone has listened to it.
So I appreciate what you're saying to me.
Do you know what?
(20:08):
Yeah, go ahead.
I was going to say I used to think of the stages of guilt as like the stops on a train
journey that you had to go through them.
And I don't think of that anymore.
I think of them as I'm a planet like Earth and they're my moons.
(20:30):
And I don't think they ever go away.
I think they're just not currently in the sky and I can't see them.
Because sometimes there's nothing in the sky and I'm absolutely fine.
And other times there might be one in the sky and I'm really struggling with let's just
say anger or whatever.
And then there's other times there might be two in the sky or multi-problems that I'm
(20:52):
struggling with.
And I never know quite what's going to come around because I haven't figured it out yet.
Or seasons are different or whatever.
But I feel that is much better way for me to understand my processing of this grief of
(21:13):
loss of my old life and this processing.
It's a cyclical kind of event that they just come because it can be triggered by whatever
else is going on.
Like you say, grief and this can guilt.
I feel a lot of guilt because I didn't listen to my body properly.
(21:35):
Like I lapsed at work with that stroke.
I should not have been at work.
I was sick with a chest infection.
But so much guilt.
Yeah, but you don't know what you're getting into.
No.
When you just went off into that realm, maybe think of how fake were you?
Have you ever been fake to others?
(21:56):
Oh, fine.
Yeah.
Okay.
You still do it?
We don't fake being sick.
Like people think we do.
We fake being well all the time.
Very good way to put it.
That's a great way to put it because that's what I know dragged me into my depression.
All the frick at time, I faked everything because I didn't want to be a burden on anyone.
(22:20):
And how do we get to that point where people can don't feel like they have to be a burden?
Sounds like you've been able to tackle it pretty fast, Sandy.
I think you said about the ego.
I wonder if for me, it was more my age because I don't have time for it to take a long time.
(22:42):
I'm 52.
Yeah.
So I was 40 something and I said, I just got married.
And if I was going to take a long time, then I'd be dead before I was okay with it.
So I don't have time to take my time.
Life is too short.
I just need to make the most of the time I've got.
And I think for me, probably that's the biggest driver for me.
(23:08):
Time.
Maybe it is.
Because I was 35 and just started my college career.
I was trying to work my way up the ladder.
And so it just makes me think of something.
So I substitute teach primarily at a high school.
I used to do it at a junior high starting a few years ago.
And there was this kid.
He was in eighth grade at the time.
(23:29):
And he was wheelchair bound.
I think I'm lucky.
I could tell he was faking some things, but he would still want to be in physical education
class.
And if he was more outgoing.
Now he's a sophomore in high school.
And I see him.
I never seem smile.
I've been in the same classroom with him, I think twice.
He's just become, he implants himself in the wall.
(23:53):
So he's not seen.
He's just, I don't know what's going on with it yet.
I really feel so worried for him.
And I think as he's gotten a little bit older, he's now seeing it or something.
He's noticing differences.
And I think that's just terrible, but I can't say anything to him.
He knows about me because the older kid's not about my handicap and stuff.
(24:17):
But he just, I just feel so terrible for him.
I don't know.
You've mentioned about age.
Maybe it's just going to take time, but gosh darn it.
He's 15, 16 years old.
And he's feeling terrible.
Like he's not part of anything.
Let's change a little bit.
So, I think it's just a little bit of an intro.
(24:38):
I'd rather you work with brands to help them reach diverse communities.
Could you talk about how you do that, please?
Yes, I primarily at the moment work on social media.
I work with a brand to advertise their products to audiences.
And that is so that it works two ways.
(25:02):
They need to be seen to be using diverse models.
So they need to tick that box.
They really do.
But equally, I don't represent every kind of disabled person.
So I would always say to brands, make sure you're using a diverse range of disabled people across all nationalities, ages, genders, everything.
(25:31):
But let's do start doing that as much as possible.
But we can't be what we can't see.
That was one of the things that happened when I stopped looking in words and started looking outwards and saying,
I'm ready to rejoin the world now.
And I actually want to be my old self, not the version of a disabled person that society seems to want me to be,
(25:56):
which is wearing, you know, jogging bottoms and just comfy clothes and hiding myself away.
I want to be this loud, vivacious, bubbly, bragarious woman that I always have been.
But how do I do that now?
I'm in a wheelchair because nothing looks the same.
So, okay, I'm going to go to the media.
(26:18):
I'm going to go to magazines and I'm going to look for inspiration.
But I couldn't find what I was looking for.
And that was really frustrating because things don't look the same when you sat down when you stood up.
And I'm midlife, you know, the time is very late forties.
And I don't want to be looking at somebody in their twenties or thirties because they're wearing different things to me as well.
(26:46):
It looks different on them, so I want to see what it looks like on somebody my age who sat down,
but there wasn't very many of those kinds of people.
And we shouldn't have just one representation of that.
Do you know what I mean? I should have multiple options.
So I found that was really difficult.
So I thought, I'm going to go ahead and do that.
(27:07):
So I reached out.
And I applied to a company who was hiring models because they didn't have any disabled models at the time.
And they picked me.
So that's where I started doing it.
I do have a bit of a history of doing some modeling, but that was when I was younger and nothing very big, just local stuff and sort of working with photographers and their portfolios and things.
(27:36):
I think I've seen you comment on someone that made a post and they showed the photograph of the gap ad with the little kid.
He's in cargo shorts and a nice top and he's missing his lower legs.
And he has prosthetic lower legs and here he is smiling and it's a full probably 15 feet tall and four feet wide hanging at in a gap store.
(28:09):
And that has been floating around and still being commented on over a week later by people in LinkedIn.
It's just fascinated to see and it really blew me away to see that.
So are you attending things like what you did this past week at the London Fashion Show?
Hopefully it is starting to get out and becoming mainstream.
(28:33):
But again, like I mentioned earlier, follow the LGBTQ plus model on what they've done.
But people like you, that's why I wanted you on the show was because you're a disruptor.
And I think we need that.
The thing is people, do you know this might shock you, but I have been turned away by a brand.
(29:00):
I won't name them, but I've been turned away by an agency working on behalf of a brand who wouldn't work with me because they said that the customers would be put off buying the things.
Because of seeing a disabled model.
(29:22):
And it's not the first time I've heard it.
But in my opinion, if customers are put off by seeing real people in all form, I believe that I'm a very palatable, digestible version of a disabled person.
(29:43):
And I don't think it's right that I'm the only type of disabled person brands use because there are many types of disabled bodies that are just as beautiful as mine that don't look like mine.
That are different shapes and sizes that are just as beautiful as me.
(30:04):
I don't believe we all have to look the same way to be acceptable and beautiful.
But if the public finds that challenging to see in my opinion that just proves we need more of it because it needs normalising.
If it's shocking to see somebody that doesn't look a certain way, then the only way to get over that is to see more of it.
(30:33):
I'm not hoided away, not locked in a way, not make out that it needs to be to be hidden.
And it makes me really frustrated.
And I will not at all ever condone any kind of behaviour that goes down those lines at all.
I will champion and scream and shout and do everything I can in the opposite direction of that.
(30:59):
I remember about 15-20 years ago when there was a push against all the Twiggy type models.
And we don't see Twiggy all the time anymore, modelling things, you know, the stick figure.
That movement has taken some time and there are actually brands that are making money off of just selling clothing to more full-sized women.
(31:25):
But here again, the disabled community has been around for a long time.
And I've had some people question me about this.
I've found it to be quiet.
And that's why again, I'm reaching out to people like you, disruptors.
Let's see what we can do.
Let's throw some at least some pebbles at glasshouses and see if we can stir things up and piss some people off.
(31:50):
So maybe there'll be some attention given to things.
I started doing this podcast because no one would buy my book because they said,
it's a great story, but you need a platform.
Okay, I'll get into this.
But now we're doing, but now I'm really getting caught up into this.
And this is the Rah Rah me coming out in it.
Let's go, you know, let's go chow some windmills.
(32:14):
Let's see, we can knock down.
Again, I think you're part of that.
I want to go to your website that's called Search for Silver Linings.
And the link is going to be on the Life's of Road Trip website, of course.
And the opening paragraph states,
after becoming suddenly disabled in 2019 and struggling to come to terms as my life was turned upside down,
(32:37):
I found joy through acceptance.
I recognized that disability is not a bad word.
Bravo, I applaud that.
And then, well, just, you go ahead and talk about what spurge you on to create that website,
and maybe it's about what you're just talking about, but just continue on, please, on your website.
(32:59):
Yeah, well, I wanted to have a hub where people could find me and where it could bring everything together.
I do have my social media channels.
I've got the blog there, but I wanted to also be able to have a little bit of a show reel.
There's a video there on the front page.
(33:21):
And just kind of like a home for everything that was to do with me just to kind of come together
so people could find me that just belonged to me, that didn't belong to anyone else,
that belonged to Instagram or Facebook or YouTube or anything else.
So that was it, but it required a lot of work to keep these things up, and I'm just a one man band.
(33:44):
It's been a bit neglected recently.
Well, it's good, you know, on the about pages, the video I think you were just talking about in it,
and there's a statement there, do not look backward but forward.
Tell us about that message. I have a feeling it's what everything is about with you.
Yes, I mean, I try and live by it because it's something I find challenging.
(34:12):
That's why I think to remind myself.
I tend to do that. I have tattoos on my arms.
Once there's patience and acceptance because there are things I need reminding.
I find it really difficult to let go of the things that I can't change.
And there are things in my past that I wish I could change.
(34:34):
There are things I wish I could do differently.
Moments that are key in my past that I just, if I had a time machine, I wonder, you know,
so I think it's really important for me to be really kind to myself and hold myself with tenderness
and say you cannot change the past.
(34:55):
All you can do is start where you are and look forward and just make the best decision with the information you've got now
and progress from this point with love in your heart.
And that's what I try to do. That's what I try to do with everything, everything in my life.
That's fantastic.
(35:17):
That's a good segue into leaving about two seconds open in case someone wants to drop
and add in here because the podcast has been getting some good numbers.
So we're going to pause for about two seconds.
Okay, we're back.
Let's get into, you know, you mentioned on there you're doing a blog and I want to get into the blog tab.
And there is an article from 27 July 2022 titled, How Very Dares You?
(35:43):
Yes, I'm 50 plus swimmer model and I'm fighting back.
In there you state, gosh, five or six paragraphs down.
I know what I know. I know how I feel.
And if I feel it, then I'm sure as hell that I'm not the only one.
I just love that right there.
Tell us more about that post or, you know, if you just want to go off on a tangent about that statement that you made.
(36:09):
So I think that one was about how I think I struggle with, as I mentioned, my capacity neurologically.
So F&D has really affected my viability to string two words together sometimes and to connect the dots.
(36:31):
I used to, at Electric University and teach and I was a very, very smart person when you spoke to that.
I could just talk for ages.
I mean, I still can talk, but I find it difficult to cohesively put my thoughts together sometimes.
And that's really frustrating.
So it brings on imposter syndrome quite a lot.
(36:53):
But I know that there's certain things inside of me that are bursting to come out.
And I believe and trust in my gut instinct.
And when, I think I wrote that because there was somebody, a celebrity, was saying that women at a certain age should be acting a certain way.
(37:16):
And I absolutely do not agree with that.
No.
Not at all.
In fact, I was interviewed about that exact thing today.
I don't believe that we have a limit on anything that, regardless of gender, that if we are happy, we should act a certain way.
(37:39):
As long as it's not hurting anybody, obviously, there's a caveat there.
But if something makes us happy, then we should do it.
And if someone doesn't like it, then that's their business that they're very free to go and work out and have their happy about, talk to whoever they want to about it.
That's fine.
I don't need anyone to be happy about what I'm wearing or what I'm doing.
(38:01):
I don't need them to be happy about it.
I'm not going to control them, but I'm equally not going to have them controlling me and what I'm doing and what I'm wearing.
So that's what I wrote about that post about it.
I think that carries over into maybe it was coming from about a year later that on 7 November 21, the title is Disability and Segregation, you wrote,
(38:26):
disabled people have a right to go to the ball, just like anyone else, a human right.
It makes no difference if you have to provide a ramp, an accessible toilet, an adaptive vehicle to get there, whatever is needed, you make sure it's there.
Because that is what needs to change, but whether or not the disabled people should go.
(38:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this is because I believe that disabled people face one of the last forms of accepted and legislated segregation in this world.
(39:11):
Segregation is no longer tolerated in so much of the world.
I know that could be argued, but I'm talking about legalized and legislated segregation, where we are told to go around to a different entrance.
(39:35):
We are told that we have to use a different area of the building where we are allowed, especially in this country.
It's legal for us to not be able to use a restaurant where our friends are because there's no bathroom for us to use.
(39:56):
So that should not be the case, and I think that if the reason is budget, then in my opinion, something else needs to go, because it's a human right.
And if that bathroom wasn't provided for a non-disabled guest, then that restaurant wouldn't be open.
(40:22):
So why is it okay for a non-disabled person to not have a bathroom?
If this is my issue, if it's okay for a disabled person to go into somebody's restaurant through the side alley,
around the bins and through the kitchen, past all the dirty napkins, and then to their table, is that okay for everybody to do that?
(40:48):
Would you want your restaurant critic to go through that entrance?
Because I don't think that they would. So if it's not okay for everyone else, if it's not okay for everyone else, then why is it okay for us?
Because they are stating that we are less than.
And by saying that it's not illegal, it's legalized saying that we are less than.
(41:12):
And I can't find the words, and I know that there's the other people that can pretty up with all these fancy things, but I am not okay with that.
It's not okay with me.
And the rest of the world seems to just figure out that that's okay until they join the one in five of us that are disabled, because they're sick, or they've had an accident, or they've got old.
(41:35):
And then they're like, hang on a second. What do you mean you don't have a bathroom that I can use? And it just happens to be down a flight of stairs?
Is that thing I have to come to your restaurant and dehydrate myself?
I have to get on a plane and not eat any food and not have a drink the entire time I'm on the plane because I can't use the bathroom, or whatever a situation is.
(41:56):
You know, what are you talking about? I can't do those things. Then it becomes their problem.
That's what pisses me. That's what it really...
People haven't figured that stuff out. They just haven't turned it around into that way of thinking.
But if you lay it out on the line and say, do you realize that you're okay with segregation? They're like, no, no, I'm not okay with segregation.
(42:20):
Yes, actually you are. You are okay with it.
I was just going to say, I used to teach social science and history so I have to throw out a premise in here.
We all remember about seeing coloreds only or no colors allowed and think it's the same sort of thing you were just talking about.
So that list, we've been through this before and we have to remember that we're not the first ones as a group of disabled community.
(42:50):
We're not the first ones that have to go through that. But we can learn from how that was handled.
It took a long time in the United States for things to come around.
I'm not in any way saying it's the same.
No, we just have to make sure that we're clear about it.
Yes, I'm not in any way saying but I'm saying that the segregation of how we're treated with access to buildings is what I'm talking about.
(43:19):
So I want to be really clear here because in no way am I trying to put us and the way that we're treated in the same way as people of color or any in any way am I trying to say it's the same, but is not the same.
You know what's going to come down to the same thing. It's going to be about what you know, going to get pushed off and pass it.
(43:42):
Yeah.
And I'm saying, yeah, I'm just not okay with it.
No, well, now that we're talking about something that's pissing us off, let's get into something a little bit more direct.
There was a recent article that appeared in the BBC News website titled influencer vulnerable on Instagram over disability fetishism.
(44:05):
That link to that article folks is going to be on the Life's Road Trip website.
We're talking about online harassment. What the hell.
It's not pretty. It's not nice.
It's very, yeah, it's a very dark side to the job that I love.
(44:31):
So when you're in the public eye, you, okay, so let's just say I have a business.
I have a shop, but my shop happens to be online.
I sell things. I sell concepts. I sell ideas. I sell the idea that you might want to buy this product.
(44:54):
I might want to, you know, that's what I do. That's what my shop is basically when I have my accounts online.
I talk about things. I talk about ideas.
But my landlord is Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, those platforms are my landlords.
They provide space for me to talk about my products, my things.
(45:17):
However, in the real world, we would have protection if the customers that were coming in were weirdos.
Let's just call them weirdos and perverts because it's just the nicest way I can call them.
We would have protection. If they weren't very nice, the landlords would be certainly in support of me saying,
(45:39):
I don't want those weirdos and perverts coming in.
So we're going to hire security guards or whatever. We're certainly not going to have them in the shop.
They would be fine with that. But the trouble is with an online play marketplace and where I am at the moment,
I cannot control who comes in my shop.
(46:00):
Because I'm a business, I can't have a private account.
I can't control who comes to my shop. And there are not enough...
...floss the words... settings and things like filters and settings for me to be able to get rid of these people.
(46:21):
And I am being, not just me, lots of people are being harassed.
But the difference is, when you are disabled, there is a very deep dark side to it because then people have a big fetish for people who are disabled.
And it's very niche, I suppose.
(46:44):
But there's a huge market for a huge market.
And because, I mean, met of themselves who own Facebook and Instagram, they class disabled people as vulnerable.
That's their description. They decided that we are vulnerable people.
And I would agree with them in that respect because I'm, you know, somebody who's not in a wheelchair,
(47:10):
doesn't appeal to these people who they're called devotees, who absolutely fetishise over somebody who's in a wheelchair.
So they're not going to appeal to somebody in that way.
I do. I do appeal to them.
And I receive so many messages.
(47:34):
There are protections I can put in my messages. I can put keywords to make sure I don't receive them,
but they go into a special folder, which I still have to check because messages from brands will go in there.
I had one this morning from an eyewear, glasses, I wanted to collaborate on a deal with me.
(47:57):
It has gone into this. So if I don't go and check it, I miss these deals.
So you still have to see these messages.
Or sometimes it will they'll kid you. I've had them the worst one ever.
The photograph was of a woman. The name was Anna. So it looked like a genuine person.
(48:18):
So I go in there to see if it's, you know, it's gone in there by mistake because sometimes you don't know why they've gone into these hidden messages.
You can't figure it out. So they've been put in there for whatever reason.
It was definitely not a woman called Anna. And it was, there was videos, there was photos, there was, it was just the worst case ever.
(48:41):
In fact, this particular one I've been told to go to the police with because it was that bad.
The worst I've ever had. And I can't on see this. It's going to be in my head forever.
And I'm being told to just block it. Just block it, Sandy. You can block it. And then that's fine.
(49:03):
But that's the equivalent of having somebody in the street flash me.
And then the policeman saying, well, just close your eyes because we're a bit too busy.
We're a bit too busy to go and investigate or arrest that flasher.
So if you could just walk on by with your eyes closed, that's probably the best thing you could do.
(49:24):
And we know that people that do these things, this is a gateway offense.
Flashing and online harassment is a gateway offense to stalking, which is a gateway offense to real life,
going to people in real life, which is a gateway offense to attacking somebody.
And these are things that lead to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.
(49:47):
This isn't something that people just think, I'm a bit bored, I'll do that today.
It does lead to other things. So it needs to be, we need to do more.
And when this started in 2021, this has been going on for a very long time.
When it first happened, my account got posted into a forum for these perverts and weirdos.
(50:09):
And I was getting a thousand-hour followers, a thousand-hour.
And can you imagine the amount of messages I was getting from those people?
So it was, I felt incredibly vulnerable, incredibly vulnerable.
And all I could think of was, have I ever given away where I live?
Have any of the photos that I posted?
(50:31):
Could they possibly have put together where I live?
I just felt sick. I felt so anxious and so sick.
But this is my place of work. I can't put my account to private because that's how I earn a living.
Am I supposed to do? It's a very difficult situation.
(50:53):
I don't have an answer at the moment.
I hope that there's some source in Great Britain.
Obviously the World Wide Web is worldwide.
So you can't have any governments there.
But hopefully there's a group within Great Britain you can go to.
And I know darn well because you're emotionally tied to this and you're not afraid to speak up.
(51:19):
You're going to have something to do about it and you're not just going to be working for disabled rights.
You could be now working for the rights of people that are making a living out of mind.
So, all right, let's change direction a little bit.
And this little sound will do that.
The sound of the VW Beetlehorn means it's time to shift gears with the road trip roundup.
(51:44):
There's five questions I'm going to be throwing you, Sandy.
Just kick back and answer them however you want to do it.
When road tripping, do you tend to do fast food or local diners?
Now I know Great Britain is nothing like United States.
Fast food after fast food after fast food.
But take it with a little grain of salt.
So when you're out road tripping, fast food or local diners?
(52:07):
I'm going to go with local diners.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you get a taste for things.
We do have, yeah, we probably because I would rather go and, yeah.
We are one of the few road trips in the States.
(52:28):
So I'd probably go and investigate and see what they've got going on there.
If I had to, I'd go to the fast food.
If that's what I had to do.
That was just a quick, yeah.
Totally understandable.
All right.
Question number two.
What's your dream car for road trip?
Now that could be something you grew up with in the family.
(52:49):
You have now or something you would just want to even rent.
Oh, do you like it?
I don't know the names of these things, but I can describe it.
It would be like a big RV, a big one.
I'd want a big, comfy RV.
Really?
Yeah.
Because then you come, because I'm all about comfort.
(53:10):
So I know, I love to know that I could like just pull up somewhere.
I could like pitch it down, whatever.
We could have a barbecue somewhere I'd like because I really love the outdoors and nature.
So I could love to know that I could go into the forest or into the woods or along the coast.
And we could stop and just see the scenery.
And I'd love to do that.
(53:32):
That would be the kind of vehicle that I would like to do.
A road trip in.
Fascinating.
I'll take that.
Okay.
Question number three.
Last cassette or CD that played while you were on a road trip.
That would have been pink.
Oh, I have heard of, okay.
(53:55):
I know what you're talking about.
Yeah.
Okay.
Just, is that more of a turn it up?
Sort of music or just casual.
Okay.
Oh, no, that would have been turn it up.
Sing it until my throat went.
And I couldn't speak anymore.
Okay.
Those are the best.
I had someone last, last week, I had a guest.
(54:18):
Did queen.
That was definitely crank it.
Just.
Oh, yeah.
For sure.
With a good speed system.
Yeah.
Okay.
Question four.
Just straight up coke or Pepsi.
Coke.
Okay.
Right.
Question number five.
Now this is you carry where this wherever you want to go.
Okay.
Favorite road trip memory.
(54:42):
That would have been with my three children when they were really little.
Just us three.
Going along the coast of Cornwall.
And when we were driving along.
It was a really difficult time in our lives.
And we were going to see our oldest friends.
And there's a bit when you're coming through the, we always went through the countryside.
(55:05):
And there's a bit when you just, you're waiting to come through the hills.
And as you crest over the top, you see the first glimpse of the sea.
And then all the sun is glinting off the sea.
And I can remember.
We're all kind of like waiting.
Where's the sea, where's the sea?
And then it's the first person to shout that.
Okay.
(55:26):
Oh, that's fantastic.
Oh, that's fantastic.
Family road trips are the best.
Yeah.
Very cool.
I want to, we're going to sign off here in just a second.
You and I see on for a moment after that.
Okay, Sandy.
So I'm just going to end it with.
Thanks for listening.
Ciao and chillax everybody.
Okay.
Very nice.
(55:47):
That was the longest interview that I've done.
I think we got into some stuff and I'm allowing myself to get more emotional on some things.
And you got into some things that really interest me.
And I'm learning and I'm learning and I'm learning about the disabled community.
And I think you are a disruptor.
(56:09):
And I really appreciate that.
You've got to be.
Oh, hello.
Hello.
Yeah, I lost you.
Sorry.
You're back now.
No, I was just talking about you again as a disruptor.
I really respect that.
And I'm starting to get reach out to more guests.
(56:30):
What was the gentleman that is he's missing.
Arms and legs, basically a black man.
Isaac.
Yes.
He and I've been communicating.
So I think Isaac is interested in being on a show.
We'll do that sometime.
Because he is, I believe a disruptor as well.
He has something to say.
(56:51):
And I think that what you're getting into.
You're noticing things are starting to open up a little bit.
And you're one of them right on the cosplay.
And you've got to keep pushing that.
Maybe it can.
One of the little sides can be an opening the door is through fashion.
And if you can get that up because there's money in fashion.
(57:13):
Yeah.
And that's where it's got to come from.
Got to change the way the people with the money think.
Yeah, exactly.
So maybe they'll open that up a little bit more.
Yeah.
No, I.
Okay.
No, that was great.
I don't think I'm going to have to really touch it up at all.
Except for my full pie in the beginning, which I can get around.
So we're cool on stuff.
(57:35):
All right.
And you're living in Cotswolds makes me think that's where my wife had never been to Europe before.
We were just there and we did Amsterdam and Paris and Bruges in London.
And I asked her, well, where do you want to go next?
She said, just go bopping around on Great Britain, get to Scotland and Ireland and through the Cotswolds.
(57:57):
I told her about that.
So very cool.
Well, if you do, let me know and I'll make sure to drop you some places you should definitely visit when you go to the Cotswolds.
Definitely.
There's some great pubs out there.
I'm sure.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, you take care.
We'll stay in touch on LinkedIn.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Bye bye.
Bye.
(58:18):
Thanks for listening.
Check out previous episodes with new ones dropping each Tuesday.
If you don't see a synopsis of this show where you're listening, visit our website at lifestoreodetrip.podbean.com.
For more information on this week's guest, this is your host Scott Martin reminding you that Lifes a Road Trip.
(59:05):
Thank you.
Being disabled or having a chronic illness can feel like you're moving forward in reverse.
(00:21):
I'm your host Scott Martin.
Join me and my new friends in this underrepresented community as we talk about disrupting the
status quo and creating change within the world and within ourselves.
A life's a road trip.
Hop in.
Let's turn on some tunes and go.
(00:56):
With me in the passenger seat and this time on the left and managing the radio with Sandy
Roberts.
Sandy is a disabled digital content creator model, disability advocate and speaker.
After becoming disabled in 2019, she has found joy through acceptance and recognizing
that disability is not a bad word.
Sandy champions mental health and body positivity.
(01:20):
She has appeared on as a body confidence expert on ITV's This Morning TV, spoken on BBC
Radio, modeled in London Fashion Week and has been nominated as positive role model for
the National Diversity Awards.
Sandy works with brands to help them reach diversity, diverse communities and focuses
on her content on fashion and lifestyle, creating authentic videos and static posts.
(01:44):
Hi Sandy.
Hello there.
Thanks for having me.
Very good.
I want to first touch on and mention to the folks that they probably noticed your British
accents and you live in the consoles.
I've been in there.
Could you please describe it?
It's a wonderful, beautiful area.
I think the best way of describing it is when anyone who doesn't live in England imagines
(02:09):
what the countryside of England looks like, that's what the cox world looks like.
It's rolling green hills and pretty coxes of trees and stone cottages often with back
strokes but not always.
And little kind of villages with cobbledies, stone, little lanes that lead off into forests
(02:31):
and it's just magical and it actually does look like that.
It's beautiful.
So Sue and I were, we went bopping around Europe during the fall and we stayed in London for
five days but when we get back there we're going to rent a car and start going into that
area of Great Britain and Scotland and so forth.
(02:52):
I also want to mention that your family has been a Manchester United supporters but your
husband is a West Ham supporter.
So the American audience, this is the Premier League soccer football.
And I want to mention something that your poor husband is living through a season right now
where last I looked West Ham is two points from relegation.
(03:15):
Now the American fan should know if you were to take the NFL, National Football League
and put it in different countries and so what happens in the Premier League, the top four
teams at the end of the season move on to play in a major tournament called the Champions
League.
So if you had the top four teams from the NFL playing there against other NFL top fours
(03:39):
or top twos depending on the league, West Ham on the other hand is towards the bottom.
So the bottom three teams face relegation.
So there are different tiers of football or soccer leagues in England and if you get
relegated you move down.
So think of the New York Yankees having a terrible season and next year they're playing
(04:02):
in Triple A and the top Triple A teams can move up.
So there's a big issue for that and I don't know if you see it, I'm wearing an Arsenal
sweatshirt today.
So I'm an Arsenal sport.
Yes, a Gunners.
So I don't want to start talking about soccer or else I won't shut up.
(04:25):
I keep tabs, I'll keep tabs a little bit.
I noticed that you were in a fashion, was that the London Fashion Week for 2023?
Yes, so that was last week.
We have two every year so this was the Spring version and there'll be another one in the
autumn.
But yeah, it was a lot, I think.
Do you know what, I'm so tired that the days have blended into each other but I think
(04:48):
it was last week.
I have a feeling it was last week.
Yeah, there are some other people I keep in touch with that have attended there so I
would look that up on LinkedIn because they would post and we were doing some posts and
things.
It looks like you guys are having a great time though.
Oh, it was incredible, incredible.
There was a lot of media coverage for the first time we had a lot of media coverage for
(05:13):
the disabled community which we've been trying to get for a very long time and have not been
able to.
It was like screaming into the void before and so this time we felt like we were heard
and I genuinely, I've said it before but I feel this is the moment things have shifted.
(05:35):
I feel like there's a real difference in the air that this is when things start to change
for us.
So I feel like there's a real energy shift here at the moment so it's exciting.
The longer I've been doing the show and I'm in the second month now, I'm learning about
the disability community.
I am a part of it.
I'm a quite amputee but I haven't been on the outskirts and I think I might have a platform
(06:03):
now that we are getting a decent amount of listenership that I'm becoming an advocate
for it and I'm looking at it as if it were to follow the same path as the LGBTQ plus community.
Follow that pattern and things like what you just said, I think are important in it.
I might have a good opportunity for the disability community before.
(06:28):
Eight, I want to open something I found about you and it was something you wrote a while
back.
I was at work and they noticed how unwell I was.
Suddenly my face dropped and it looked like I had had a stroke.
I went to the hospital and told me I had a functional stroke which is like a soft well
malfunction in the brain.
It's great that you put it that way.
(06:49):
Over a few days my face and body rebounded but my leg movements never came back.
I discharged myself because they said there was nothing seriously wrong with me but I
still could move my legs.
I had a narrative of internal amm, I had a narrative of internal amm, ableism.
I just had to make any fuss or bother anyone.
(07:12):
I just didn't want to make any fuss or bother anyone.
My husband bought me a wheelchair and all of a sudden he had to become my caregiver.
He said I had a functional neurological disorder.
I remember I was diagnosed three years previously but I completely blocked it out.
Could you get into more of what the exact diagnosis was please?
(07:33):
Yeah, for sure.
I had this for all intents and purposes.
It's a stroke.
It looked like a stroke, the same effects of a stroke, the same symptoms of a stroke.
The difference is the cause, so it wasn't a electrical malfunction in the brain.
It was a software malfunction of the brain.
(07:58):
Actually, the long-term effects, I did go home.
I couldn't use my arms.
I couldn't bathe myself.
I couldn't go to the toilet for myself.
I couldn't use my legs either.
It was a much longer recovery than I led anyone to believe because of this internal ableism.
We've heard of all kinds of other isms.
(08:23):
I really struggle with my neurocapacity and I lose words and I've lost all the words when
we are prejudiced against other things.
We have to do those things.
We know about those but what we don't know about is ableism.
People don't aren't used to that word.
Ages, for example, we know what ageism is.
(08:44):
Everybody knows what that is.
Sexism, we know what that is, for example.
Nobody knows what ableism is.
Basically, that is just something against somebody because they are disabled.
We carry that ourselves internally because we've been programmed without knowing it through
society and through just the way that we've been brought up to just look at people with
(09:11):
a disability as somehow less than.
It can be very, very subtle.
We don't know that we're doing it.
I viewed myself as a burden on my family because in my eyes at that time, I couldn't provide
for my family in the same way as I had before.
(09:32):
I felt like I wasn't worth anything.
I couldn't see past.
It was so binary.
It was black and white.
I'm no longer this.
Therefore, I am nothing.
Obviously, I have been four years down the line now.
This was 2019.
(09:53):
I'm almost out of the anniversary, actually, of when it happened.
When your mind is so black and white, there's no room for any other possible existence of
another reality.
If I'm not that, then what am I?
(10:15):
If you've got nothing else, there is this void of nothingness.
You're left with this reality that means in the way that your brain is telling you that
you don't exist in the world in any way, in any meaningful way.
It was a dreadful time for me.
(10:38):
But luckily, I was able to pull myself up out of that space because some elements of my
functional neurological disorder, which is a system disconnect.
It's a problem with the signaling between the brain and the body, did get better to some
(11:01):
degree.
I started to be able to use my hands better and certain other areas of my life got easier.
I was able to look after myself in some aspects a little bit better.
I found myself being able to think, okay, there must be another purpose for me other
(11:24):
than going to an office and doing a job and earning a salary and bringing that home and
cleaning.
My purpose as I have a life force, so therefore my purpose as a human being to contribute
to this planet and all the other people on it, must be for some other purpose than just
going to an office and doing that old job that I used to do.
(11:48):
So what can I use this life force that I've been luckily, you know, left with?
What can I do with it?
And I chose to find a purpose that helped other people because I've been in so much
pain and so, so lonely that I didn't want anyone to feel like that.
So I used that as a bit of a rocket up the bum to kind of give myself a real kind of
(12:15):
kick and think, okay, I'm not dead.
I'm not dead.
I'm still here, therefore it would be a complete waste of life force if I acted like I was.
So let's not do that.
Let's use this life force that I've got left in me for some kind of good purpose and let's
make the life that I've got now better than the one I had before because actually when
(12:37):
you look back at it, what was I doing?
I wasn't helping anybody.
I was barely existing.
I was in pain all the time.
I wasn't doing anything for anybody that was good.
So let's just take this as an opportunity to really assess and really reset.
And so that's what I did.
Do you think that that came from you or were you attending sessions with a psychologist
(13:01):
to try to work on what was happening with you?
Where did it come from?
At the time it came from me.
I wasn't seeing anybody at that point.
What happened is it all started at the same time as COVID.
So yeah, I know.
We got married three months before I collapsed as well.
(13:24):
So that wasn't helpful either.
And then I sunk very low for a long time.
So I said this in this couple of minutes.
But that period of time with me looking into this black hole of doom lasted for quite a
while where I felt like a complete worthless burden on my family like I shouldn't be breathing
(13:48):
the air on this planet.
And I'd say probably a good nine months or so of me just feeling like I shouldn't be
here.
It was quite a long time.
And what happened then was I felt like I was temporarily disabled.
I didn't understand what functional neurological disorder was because the doctors had said there
(14:10):
wasn't anything seriously wrong with me.
I didn't quite understand because it looked like it was very serious and I couldn't walk,
I couldn't do anything.
But they said it wasn't serious.
So that unfortunately came from the mouth of a doctor that didn't know what FND was.
And in their heads, I hadn't had a stroke that was caused by electrical currents.
(14:35):
So it, and I wasn't dying.
So it wasn't serious.
But actually FND is incredibly serious and you can die from complications from the symptoms
of FND.
People have died from the symptoms of FND and it can be very, very serious.
And in my case, has ended up being very serious.
So it's unfortunate that wording.
(14:59):
So I think when I then went into a living centre to get treatment for FND, I went in expecting
to be told, this is what we're going to do for you.
And I thought I'd walk out of that clinic two weeks later and be the poster child for
(15:20):
look at this success.
Look, she's wonderful.
Look how clever she is.
And she's now walking out of this, you know, this miracle child kind of thing because I'm
an A type person.
You work hard at anything, you'll achieve it.
That's what I've always done my whole life.
Instead, I got in there to be told that you can't cure FND.
(15:42):
It's not a condition you can cure.
It's something that once you've hit this, once the trigger has happened, you can't
un-trigger it.
And because all of these neural pathways, these incorrect neural pathways have been being
(16:04):
created your entire life.
You can't turn back time and uncreate them.
So once that trigger has happened, then your brain starts using those incorrect neural
pathways, which are physical pathways.
They are actually carved in your brain.
You can't uncreate them and you can't undo the trigger.
(16:25):
So it's a very, it was a big shock to me.
And I had to go through this entire new processing time of, I took five days of crying solidly
because I was so shocked.
And that was a really big moment for me.
(16:46):
But I think I needed to hear it because then I was like, well, okay, this is reality.
And until that moment, I'd been living in this fictional future in my head of where I'd
be running through the fields, the cotswolds.
Perfect.
To be told that reality was what I needed because then I could build a real future in
(17:07):
this present moment.
This is what I've got now.
This is my actual life.
So what do we do now?
I think I needed that.
Well, there's a difference.
I'm just noticing when I talk to people, I've got my notes and I refer back to our communications
that we've had probably by email or else what I've read.
And I had one way of thinking it didn't pop into my head until I just heard you say, you're
(17:31):
four years out now.
I'm 30.
I'm coming up on 30 years out from becoming a quad amputee.
Year four, I had just finished my fourth season.
I was coaching college soccer football at the time.
And we had our worst season ever.
We were so actually ranked at the beginning of the season, but I just hit a wall.
(17:52):
So my year four, I hit a wall.
I was depressed and I ended up just saying, how was this?
I sold everything that didn't fit in my car.
My cat and I had it out west because that's where I was at year four.
And you're telling me where you were at year four, it's interesting.
The difference is on people and how things are.
I'm wondering in it, why I've always understood this about males, or ego with how we're raised.
(18:19):
My ego was getting away and I had to deal with that.
And again, now we're coming up on 30 years.
Yesterday I just happened to be looking through a bunch of my old stuff.
And I pulled out a magazine that was on the cover and my wife Sue, we worked together
at the time.
She looked at it, she said, you look different.
I said, what do you mean?
I have a lot less hair now because that was right after I got out of the hospital and
(18:43):
that was done.
And she said, you just look sad.
And it's making me think back.
So what you're getting into?
I want to go back to what you had mentioned about the black hole.
And you wrote a paragraph.
When a black hole settled over me and I felt I was making it up, there was no treatment
pathway offered.
(19:04):
That's what you were saying.
I was just sent home.
We were just left and I was suddenly disabled and felt like a complete burden.
I didn't even want to be alive.
That's what you were just getting into.
It makes me think of the five stages of grief by Elizabeth Kuhlner-Ross.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
And one thing I always wondered about was guilt.
(19:25):
I heard a lot of guilt in you about you don't want to be a burden.
Totally understand it.
We went through the same thing on that.
It's just fascinating how we all tend to go through different stages in the same way.
Kuhlner-Ross knew what she was talking about.
(19:47):
But the guilt thing I noticed is being something that should be added to what she had written.
It's just I learn a lot from talking with you guys.
I'm doing the show.
I'm getting as much out of it as anyone has listened to it.
So I appreciate what you're saying to me.
Do you know what?
(20:08):
Yeah, go ahead.
I was going to say I used to think of the stages of guilt as like the stops on a train
journey that you had to go through them.
And I don't think of that anymore.
I think of them as I'm a planet like Earth and they're my moons.
(20:30):
And I don't think they ever go away.
I think they're just not currently in the sky and I can't see them.
Because sometimes there's nothing in the sky and I'm absolutely fine.
And other times there might be one in the sky and I'm really struggling with let's just
say anger or whatever.
And then there's other times there might be two in the sky or multi-problems that I'm
(20:52):
struggling with.
And I never know quite what's going to come around because I haven't figured it out yet.
Or seasons are different or whatever.
But I feel that is much better way for me to understand my processing of this grief of
(21:13):
loss of my old life and this processing.
It's a cyclical kind of event that they just come because it can be triggered by whatever
else is going on.
Like you say, grief and this can guilt.
I feel a lot of guilt because I didn't listen to my body properly.
(21:35):
Like I lapsed at work with that stroke.
I should not have been at work.
I was sick with a chest infection.
But so much guilt.
Yeah, but you don't know what you're getting into.
No.
When you just went off into that realm, maybe think of how fake were you?
Have you ever been fake to others?
(21:56):
Oh, fine.
Yeah.
Okay.
You still do it?
We don't fake being sick.
Like people think we do.
We fake being well all the time.
Very good way to put it.
That's a great way to put it because that's what I know dragged me into my depression.
All the frick at time, I faked everything because I didn't want to be a burden on anyone.
(22:20):
And how do we get to that point where people can don't feel like they have to be a burden?
Sounds like you've been able to tackle it pretty fast, Sandy.
I think you said about the ego.
I wonder if for me, it was more my age because I don't have time for it to take a long time.
(22:42):
I'm 52.
Yeah.
So I was 40 something and I said, I just got married.
And if I was going to take a long time, then I'd be dead before I was okay with it.
So I don't have time to take my time.
Life is too short.
I just need to make the most of the time I've got.
And I think for me, probably that's the biggest driver for me.
(23:08):
Time.
Maybe it is.
Because I was 35 and just started my college career.
I was trying to work my way up the ladder.
And so it just makes me think of something.
So I substitute teach primarily at a high school.
I used to do it at a junior high starting a few years ago.
And there was this kid.
He was in eighth grade at the time.
(23:29):
And he was wheelchair bound.
I think I'm lucky.
I could tell he was faking some things, but he would still want to be in physical education
class.
And if he was more outgoing.
Now he's a sophomore in high school.
And I see him.
I never seem smile.
I've been in the same classroom with him, I think twice.
He's just become, he implants himself in the wall.
(23:53):
So he's not seen.
He's just, I don't know what's going on with it yet.
I really feel so worried for him.
And I think as he's gotten a little bit older, he's now seeing it or something.
He's noticing differences.
And I think that's just terrible, but I can't say anything to him.
He knows about me because the older kid's not about my handicap and stuff.
(24:17):
But he just, I just feel so terrible for him.
I don't know.
You've mentioned about age.
Maybe it's just going to take time, but gosh darn it.
He's 15, 16 years old.
And he's feeling terrible.
Like he's not part of anything.
Let's change a little bit.
So, I think it's just a little bit of an intro.
(24:38):
I'd rather you work with brands to help them reach diverse communities.
Could you talk about how you do that, please?
Yes, I primarily at the moment work on social media.
I work with a brand to advertise their products to audiences.
And that is so that it works two ways.
(25:02):
They need to be seen to be using diverse models.
So they need to tick that box.
They really do.
But equally, I don't represent every kind of disabled person.
So I would always say to brands, make sure you're using a diverse range of disabled people across all nationalities, ages, genders, everything.
(25:31):
But let's do start doing that as much as possible.
But we can't be what we can't see.
That was one of the things that happened when I stopped looking in words and started looking outwards and saying,
I'm ready to rejoin the world now.
And I actually want to be my old self, not the version of a disabled person that society seems to want me to be,
(25:56):
which is wearing, you know, jogging bottoms and just comfy clothes and hiding myself away.
I want to be this loud, vivacious, bubbly, bragarious woman that I always have been.
But how do I do that now?
I'm in a wheelchair because nothing looks the same.
So, okay, I'm going to go to the media.
(26:18):
I'm going to go to magazines and I'm going to look for inspiration.
But I couldn't find what I was looking for.
And that was really frustrating because things don't look the same when you sat down when you stood up.
And I'm midlife, you know, the time is very late forties.
And I don't want to be looking at somebody in their twenties or thirties because they're wearing different things to me as well.
(26:46):
It looks different on them, so I want to see what it looks like on somebody my age who sat down,
but there wasn't very many of those kinds of people.
And we shouldn't have just one representation of that.
Do you know what I mean? I should have multiple options.
So I found that was really difficult.
So I thought, I'm going to go ahead and do that.
(27:07):
So I reached out.
And I applied to a company who was hiring models because they didn't have any disabled models at the time.
And they picked me.
So that's where I started doing it.
I do have a bit of a history of doing some modeling, but that was when I was younger and nothing very big, just local stuff and sort of working with photographers and their portfolios and things.
(27:36):
I think I've seen you comment on someone that made a post and they showed the photograph of the gap ad with the little kid.
He's in cargo shorts and a nice top and he's missing his lower legs.
And he has prosthetic lower legs and here he is smiling and it's a full probably 15 feet tall and four feet wide hanging at in a gap store.
(28:09):
And that has been floating around and still being commented on over a week later by people in LinkedIn.
It's just fascinated to see and it really blew me away to see that.
So are you attending things like what you did this past week at the London Fashion Show?
Hopefully it is starting to get out and becoming mainstream.
(28:33):
But again, like I mentioned earlier, follow the LGBTQ plus model on what they've done.
But people like you, that's why I wanted you on the show was because you're a disruptor.
And I think we need that.
The thing is people, do you know this might shock you, but I have been turned away by a brand.
(29:00):
I won't name them, but I've been turned away by an agency working on behalf of a brand who wouldn't work with me because they said that the customers would be put off buying the things.
Because of seeing a disabled model.
(29:22):
And it's not the first time I've heard it.
But in my opinion, if customers are put off by seeing real people in all form, I believe that I'm a very palatable, digestible version of a disabled person.
(29:43):
And I don't think it's right that I'm the only type of disabled person brands use because there are many types of disabled bodies that are just as beautiful as mine that don't look like mine.
That are different shapes and sizes that are just as beautiful as me.
(30:04):
I don't believe we all have to look the same way to be acceptable and beautiful.
But if the public finds that challenging to see in my opinion that just proves we need more of it because it needs normalising.
If it's shocking to see somebody that doesn't look a certain way, then the only way to get over that is to see more of it.
(30:33):
I'm not hoided away, not locked in a way, not make out that it needs to be to be hidden.
And it makes me really frustrated.
And I will not at all ever condone any kind of behaviour that goes down those lines at all.
I will champion and scream and shout and do everything I can in the opposite direction of that.
(30:59):
I remember about 15-20 years ago when there was a push against all the Twiggy type models.
And we don't see Twiggy all the time anymore, modelling things, you know, the stick figure.
That movement has taken some time and there are actually brands that are making money off of just selling clothing to more full-sized women.
(31:25):
But here again, the disabled community has been around for a long time.
And I've had some people question me about this.
I've found it to be quiet.
And that's why again, I'm reaching out to people like you, disruptors.
Let's see what we can do.
Let's throw some at least some pebbles at glasshouses and see if we can stir things up and piss some people off.
(31:50):
So maybe there'll be some attention given to things.
I started doing this podcast because no one would buy my book because they said,
it's a great story, but you need a platform.
Okay, I'll get into this.
But now we're doing, but now I'm really getting caught up into this.
And this is the Rah Rah me coming out in it.
Let's go, you know, let's go chow some windmills.
(32:14):
Let's see, we can knock down.
Again, I think you're part of that.
I want to go to your website that's called Search for Silver Linings.
And the link is going to be on the Life's of Road Trip website, of course.
And the opening paragraph states,
after becoming suddenly disabled in 2019 and struggling to come to terms as my life was turned upside down,
(32:37):
I found joy through acceptance.
I recognized that disability is not a bad word.
Bravo, I applaud that.
And then, well, just, you go ahead and talk about what spurge you on to create that website,
and maybe it's about what you're just talking about, but just continue on, please, on your website.
(32:59):
Yeah, well, I wanted to have a hub where people could find me and where it could bring everything together.
I do have my social media channels.
I've got the blog there, but I wanted to also be able to have a little bit of a show reel.
There's a video there on the front page.
(33:21):
And just kind of like a home for everything that was to do with me just to kind of come together
so people could find me that just belonged to me, that didn't belong to anyone else,
that belonged to Instagram or Facebook or YouTube or anything else.
So that was it, but it required a lot of work to keep these things up, and I'm just a one man band.
(33:44):
It's been a bit neglected recently.
Well, it's good, you know, on the about pages, the video I think you were just talking about in it,
and there's a statement there, do not look backward but forward.
Tell us about that message. I have a feeling it's what everything is about with you.
Yes, I mean, I try and live by it because it's something I find challenging.
(34:12):
That's why I think to remind myself.
I tend to do that. I have tattoos on my arms.
Once there's patience and acceptance because there are things I need reminding.
I find it really difficult to let go of the things that I can't change.
And there are things in my past that I wish I could change.
(34:34):
There are things I wish I could do differently.
Moments that are key in my past that I just, if I had a time machine, I wonder, you know,
so I think it's really important for me to be really kind to myself and hold myself with tenderness
and say you cannot change the past.
(34:55):
All you can do is start where you are and look forward and just make the best decision with the information you've got now
and progress from this point with love in your heart.
And that's what I try to do. That's what I try to do with everything, everything in my life.
That's fantastic.
(35:17):
That's a good segue into leaving about two seconds open in case someone wants to drop
and add in here because the podcast has been getting some good numbers.
So we're going to pause for about two seconds.
Okay, we're back.
Let's get into, you know, you mentioned on there you're doing a blog and I want to get into the blog tab.
And there is an article from 27 July 2022 titled, How Very Dares You?
(35:43):
Yes, I'm 50 plus swimmer model and I'm fighting back.
In there you state, gosh, five or six paragraphs down.
I know what I know. I know how I feel.
And if I feel it, then I'm sure as hell that I'm not the only one.
I just love that right there.
Tell us more about that post or, you know, if you just want to go off on a tangent about that statement that you made.
(36:09):
So I think that one was about how I think I struggle with, as I mentioned, my capacity neurologically.
So F&D has really affected my viability to string two words together sometimes and to connect the dots.
(36:31):
I used to, at Electric University and teach and I was a very, very smart person when you spoke to that.
I could just talk for ages.
I mean, I still can talk, but I find it difficult to cohesively put my thoughts together sometimes.
And that's really frustrating.
So it brings on imposter syndrome quite a lot.
(36:53):
But I know that there's certain things inside of me that are bursting to come out.
And I believe and trust in my gut instinct.
And when, I think I wrote that because there was somebody, a celebrity, was saying that women at a certain age should be acting a certain way.
(37:16):
And I absolutely do not agree with that.
No.
Not at all.
In fact, I was interviewed about that exact thing today.
I don't believe that we have a limit on anything that, regardless of gender, that if we are happy, we should act a certain way.
(37:39):
As long as it's not hurting anybody, obviously, there's a caveat there.
But if something makes us happy, then we should do it.
And if someone doesn't like it, then that's their business that they're very free to go and work out and have their happy about, talk to whoever they want to about it.
That's fine.
I don't need anyone to be happy about what I'm wearing or what I'm doing.
(38:01):
I don't need them to be happy about it.
I'm not going to control them, but I'm equally not going to have them controlling me and what I'm doing and what I'm wearing.
So that's what I wrote about that post about it.
I think that carries over into maybe it was coming from about a year later that on 7 November 21, the title is Disability and Segregation, you wrote,
(38:26):
disabled people have a right to go to the ball, just like anyone else, a human right.
It makes no difference if you have to provide a ramp, an accessible toilet, an adaptive vehicle to get there, whatever is needed, you make sure it's there.
Because that is what needs to change, but whether or not the disabled people should go.
(38:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this is because I believe that disabled people face one of the last forms of accepted and legislated segregation in this world.
(39:11):
Segregation is no longer tolerated in so much of the world.
I know that could be argued, but I'm talking about legalized and legislated segregation, where we are told to go around to a different entrance.
(39:35):
We are told that we have to use a different area of the building where we are allowed, especially in this country.
It's legal for us to not be able to use a restaurant where our friends are because there's no bathroom for us to use.
(39:56):
So that should not be the case, and I think that if the reason is budget, then in my opinion, something else needs to go, because it's a human right.
And if that bathroom wasn't provided for a non-disabled guest, then that restaurant wouldn't be open.
(40:22):
So why is it okay for a non-disabled person to not have a bathroom?
If this is my issue, if it's okay for a disabled person to go into somebody's restaurant through the side alley,
around the bins and through the kitchen, past all the dirty napkins, and then to their table, is that okay for everybody to do that?
(40:48):
Would you want your restaurant critic to go through that entrance?
Because I don't think that they would. So if it's not okay for everyone else, if it's not okay for everyone else, then why is it okay for us?
Because they are stating that we are less than.
And by saying that it's not illegal, it's legalized saying that we are less than.
(41:12):
And I can't find the words, and I know that there's the other people that can pretty up with all these fancy things, but I am not okay with that.
It's not okay with me.
And the rest of the world seems to just figure out that that's okay until they join the one in five of us that are disabled, because they're sick, or they've had an accident, or they've got old.
(41:35):
And then they're like, hang on a second. What do you mean you don't have a bathroom that I can use? And it just happens to be down a flight of stairs?
Is that thing I have to come to your restaurant and dehydrate myself?
I have to get on a plane and not eat any food and not have a drink the entire time I'm on the plane because I can't use the bathroom, or whatever a situation is.
(41:56):
You know, what are you talking about? I can't do those things. Then it becomes their problem.
That's what pisses me. That's what it really...
People haven't figured that stuff out. They just haven't turned it around into that way of thinking.
But if you lay it out on the line and say, do you realize that you're okay with segregation? They're like, no, no, I'm not okay with segregation.
(42:20):
Yes, actually you are. You are okay with it.
I was just going to say, I used to teach social science and history so I have to throw out a premise in here.
We all remember about seeing coloreds only or no colors allowed and think it's the same sort of thing you were just talking about.
So that list, we've been through this before and we have to remember that we're not the first ones as a group of disabled community.
(42:50):
We're not the first ones that have to go through that. But we can learn from how that was handled.
It took a long time in the United States for things to come around.
I'm not in any way saying it's the same.
No, we just have to make sure that we're clear about it.
Yes, I'm not in any way saying but I'm saying that the segregation of how we're treated with access to buildings is what I'm talking about.
(43:19):
So I want to be really clear here because in no way am I trying to put us and the way that we're treated in the same way as people of color or any in any way am I trying to say it's the same, but is not the same.
You know what's going to come down to the same thing. It's going to be about what you know, going to get pushed off and pass it.
(43:42):
Yeah.
And I'm saying, yeah, I'm just not okay with it.
No, well, now that we're talking about something that's pissing us off, let's get into something a little bit more direct.
There was a recent article that appeared in the BBC News website titled influencer vulnerable on Instagram over disability fetishism.
(44:05):
That link to that article folks is going to be on the Life's Road Trip website.
We're talking about online harassment. What the hell.
It's not pretty. It's not nice.
It's very, yeah, it's a very dark side to the job that I love.
(44:31):
So when you're in the public eye, you, okay, so let's just say I have a business.
I have a shop, but my shop happens to be online.
I sell things. I sell concepts. I sell ideas. I sell the idea that you might want to buy this product.
(44:54):
I might want to, you know, that's what I do. That's what my shop is basically when I have my accounts online.
I talk about things. I talk about ideas.
But my landlord is Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, those platforms are my landlords.
They provide space for me to talk about my products, my things.
(45:17):
However, in the real world, we would have protection if the customers that were coming in were weirdos.
Let's just call them weirdos and perverts because it's just the nicest way I can call them.
We would have protection. If they weren't very nice, the landlords would be certainly in support of me saying,
(45:39):
I don't want those weirdos and perverts coming in.
So we're going to hire security guards or whatever. We're certainly not going to have them in the shop.
They would be fine with that. But the trouble is with an online play marketplace and where I am at the moment,
I cannot control who comes in my shop.
(46:00):
Because I'm a business, I can't have a private account.
I can't control who comes to my shop. And there are not enough...
...floss the words... settings and things like filters and settings for me to be able to get rid of these people.
(46:21):
And I am being, not just me, lots of people are being harassed.
But the difference is, when you are disabled, there is a very deep dark side to it because then people have a big fetish for people who are disabled.
And it's very niche, I suppose.
(46:44):
But there's a huge market for a huge market.
And because, I mean, met of themselves who own Facebook and Instagram, they class disabled people as vulnerable.
That's their description. They decided that we are vulnerable people.
And I would agree with them in that respect because I'm, you know, somebody who's not in a wheelchair,
(47:10):
doesn't appeal to these people who they're called devotees, who absolutely fetishise over somebody who's in a wheelchair.
So they're not going to appeal to somebody in that way.
I do. I do appeal to them.
And I receive so many messages.
(47:34):
There are protections I can put in my messages. I can put keywords to make sure I don't receive them,
but they go into a special folder, which I still have to check because messages from brands will go in there.
I had one this morning from an eyewear, glasses, I wanted to collaborate on a deal with me.
(47:57):
It has gone into this. So if I don't go and check it, I miss these deals.
So you still have to see these messages.
Or sometimes it will they'll kid you. I've had them the worst one ever.
The photograph was of a woman. The name was Anna. So it looked like a genuine person.
(48:18):
So I go in there to see if it's, you know, it's gone in there by mistake because sometimes you don't know why they've gone into these hidden messages.
You can't figure it out. So they've been put in there for whatever reason.
It was definitely not a woman called Anna. And it was, there was videos, there was photos, there was, it was just the worst case ever.
(48:41):
In fact, this particular one I've been told to go to the police with because it was that bad.
The worst I've ever had. And I can't on see this. It's going to be in my head forever.
And I'm being told to just block it. Just block it, Sandy. You can block it. And then that's fine.
(49:03):
But that's the equivalent of having somebody in the street flash me.
And then the policeman saying, well, just close your eyes because we're a bit too busy.
We're a bit too busy to go and investigate or arrest that flasher.
So if you could just walk on by with your eyes closed, that's probably the best thing you could do.
(49:24):
And we know that people that do these things, this is a gateway offense.
Flashing and online harassment is a gateway offense to stalking, which is a gateway offense to real life,
going to people in real life, which is a gateway offense to attacking somebody.
And these are things that lead to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.
(49:47):
This isn't something that people just think, I'm a bit bored, I'll do that today.
It does lead to other things. So it needs to be, we need to do more.
And when this started in 2021, this has been going on for a very long time.
When it first happened, my account got posted into a forum for these perverts and weirdos.
(50:09):
And I was getting a thousand-hour followers, a thousand-hour.
And can you imagine the amount of messages I was getting from those people?
So it was, I felt incredibly vulnerable, incredibly vulnerable.
And all I could think of was, have I ever given away where I live?
Have any of the photos that I posted?
(50:31):
Could they possibly have put together where I live?
I just felt sick. I felt so anxious and so sick.
But this is my place of work. I can't put my account to private because that's how I earn a living.
Am I supposed to do? It's a very difficult situation.
(50:53):
I don't have an answer at the moment.
I hope that there's some source in Great Britain.
Obviously the World Wide Web is worldwide.
So you can't have any governments there.
But hopefully there's a group within Great Britain you can go to.
And I know darn well because you're emotionally tied to this and you're not afraid to speak up.
(51:19):
You're going to have something to do about it and you're not just going to be working for disabled rights.
You could be now working for the rights of people that are making a living out of mind.
So, all right, let's change direction a little bit.
And this little sound will do that.
The sound of the VW Beetlehorn means it's time to shift gears with the road trip roundup.
(51:44):
There's five questions I'm going to be throwing you, Sandy.
Just kick back and answer them however you want to do it.
When road tripping, do you tend to do fast food or local diners?
Now I know Great Britain is nothing like United States.
Fast food after fast food after fast food.
But take it with a little grain of salt.
So when you're out road tripping, fast food or local diners?
(52:07):
I'm going to go with local diners.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you get a taste for things.
We do have, yeah, we probably because I would rather go and, yeah.
We are one of the few road trips in the States.
(52:28):
So I'd probably go and investigate and see what they've got going on there.
If I had to, I'd go to the fast food.
If that's what I had to do.
That was just a quick, yeah.
Totally understandable.
All right.
Question number two.
What's your dream car for road trip?
Now that could be something you grew up with in the family.
(52:49):
You have now or something you would just want to even rent.
Oh, do you like it?
I don't know the names of these things, but I can describe it.
It would be like a big RV, a big one.
I'd want a big, comfy RV.
Really?
Yeah.
Because then you come, because I'm all about comfort.
(53:10):
So I know, I love to know that I could like just pull up somewhere.
I could like pitch it down, whatever.
We could have a barbecue somewhere I'd like because I really love the outdoors and nature.
So I could love to know that I could go into the forest or into the woods or along the coast.
And we could stop and just see the scenery.
And I'd love to do that.
(53:32):
That would be the kind of vehicle that I would like to do.
A road trip in.
Fascinating.
I'll take that.
Okay.
Question number three.
Last cassette or CD that played while you were on a road trip.
That would have been pink.
Oh, I have heard of, okay.
(53:55):
I know what you're talking about.
Yeah.
Okay.
Just, is that more of a turn it up?
Sort of music or just casual.
Okay.
Oh, no, that would have been turn it up.
Sing it until my throat went.
And I couldn't speak anymore.
Okay.
Those are the best.
I had someone last, last week, I had a guest.
(54:18):
Did queen.
That was definitely crank it.
Just.
Oh, yeah.
For sure.
With a good speed system.
Yeah.
Okay.
Question four.
Just straight up coke or Pepsi.
Coke.
Okay.
Right.
Question number five.
Now this is you carry where this wherever you want to go.
Okay.
Favorite road trip memory.
(54:42):
That would have been with my three children when they were really little.
Just us three.
Going along the coast of Cornwall.
And when we were driving along.
It was a really difficult time in our lives.
And we were going to see our oldest friends.
And there's a bit when you're coming through the, we always went through the countryside.
(55:05):
And there's a bit when you just, you're waiting to come through the hills.
And as you crest over the top, you see the first glimpse of the sea.
And then all the sun is glinting off the sea.
And I can remember.
We're all kind of like waiting.
Where's the sea, where's the sea?
And then it's the first person to shout that.
Okay.
(55:26):
Oh, that's fantastic.
Oh, that's fantastic.
Family road trips are the best.
Yeah.
Very cool.
I want to, we're going to sign off here in just a second.
You and I see on for a moment after that.
Okay, Sandy.
So I'm just going to end it with.
Thanks for listening.
Ciao and chillax everybody.
Okay.
Very nice.
(55:47):
That was the longest interview that I've done.
I think we got into some stuff and I'm allowing myself to get more emotional on some things.
And you got into some things that really interest me.
And I'm learning and I'm learning and I'm learning about the disabled community.
And I think you are a disruptor.
(56:09):
And I really appreciate that.
You've got to be.
Oh, hello.
Hello.
Yeah, I lost you.
Sorry.
You're back now.
No, I was just talking about you again as a disruptor.
I really respect that.
And I'm starting to get reach out to more guests.
(56:30):
What was the gentleman that is he's missing.
Arms and legs, basically a black man.
Isaac.
Yes.
He and I've been communicating.
So I think Isaac is interested in being on a show.
We'll do that sometime.
Because he is, I believe a disruptor as well.
He has something to say.
(56:51):
And I think that what you're getting into.
You're noticing things are starting to open up a little bit.
And you're one of them right on the cosplay.
And you've got to keep pushing that.
Maybe it can.
One of the little sides can be an opening the door is through fashion.
And if you can get that up because there's money in fashion.
(57:13):
Yeah.
And that's where it's got to come from.
Got to change the way the people with the money think.
Yeah, exactly.
So maybe they'll open that up a little bit more.
Yeah.
No, I.
Okay.
No, that was great.
I don't think I'm going to have to really touch it up at all.
Except for my full pie in the beginning, which I can get around.
So we're cool on stuff.
(57:35):
All right.
And you're living in Cotswolds makes me think that's where my wife had never been to Europe before.
We were just there and we did Amsterdam and Paris and Bruges in London.
And I asked her, well, where do you want to go next?
She said, just go bopping around on Great Britain, get to Scotland and Ireland and through the Cotswolds.
(57:57):
I told her about that.
So very cool.
Well, if you do, let me know and I'll make sure to drop you some places you should definitely visit when you go to the Cotswolds.
Definitely.
There's some great pubs out there.
I'm sure.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, you take care.
We'll stay in touch on LinkedIn.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Bye bye.
Bye.
(58:18):
Thanks for listening.
Check out previous episodes with new ones dropping each Tuesday.
If you don't see a synopsis of this show where you're listening, visit our website at lifestoreodetrip.podbean.com.
For more information on this week's guest, this is your host Scott Martin reminding you that Lifes a Road Trip.
(59:05):
Thank you.
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