My Supports

By Deborah Trowbridge

For me the term support refers to the people or things in my life that enable me to accomplish what I need and want to do. 

My primary support comes from my husband.  He encourages me to pursue my interests, he adjusts his schedule so that I can do what I need to do, he supports me financially if needed, he makes sure I have transportation if needed, he assists me with computer issues, he asks me about how things are going, and spends time with me.  He is invested in me and wants to see me succeed. 

My daughters support me.  They are 13 and 15 years old and wish me well when I travel for work, respect my time when I need to do homework, help with the daily chores and display pride in my accomplishments. 

I have supports at work.  My supervisor respects me, seeks my input on work related issues, backs up my communications with teaching staff, supports my continuing education, is happy to hear about my work related experiences and enjoys getting to know me personally too.  I have several key coworkers with whom I work with as a team to accomplish our program goals.  We all have similar work ethics so I feel very supported by them in our day-to-day activities and especially when we have a deadline to meet.  We work together. 

I feel very supported by others in my place of work and in my personal life when people offer me words of appreciation or praise, especially when they know that I am considering pursuing a new goal which may be outside my area of experience. 

Things provide support for me as well: steady income to pay the bills, a place to live, healthy food, safety and security, and stability.   People and other supports enable me to go beyond myself confidently and grow.

If I did not have the support of my family, coworkers and/or other stable factors in my life, I would have to independently pursue meeting my needs and responsibilities and goals.  I expect I might feel burdened, lonely, or discouraged frequently.  I expect it would take me longer to meet my goals or I might not set goals for myself at all.  I would need to self motivate myself and/or start from scratch and develop new relationships and build trust in new people, all of which takes time.  Wow!  I am realizing how good I have it!

I try to imagine what it would be like if I was challenged with limited mobility of the lower half of my body.  If I couldn’t walk and needed to use a wheelchair, I would have to rely on a lot of people and environments that could accommodate me.  Since we live in an upstairs apartment, we would have to make our apartment accessible with an appropriate ramp (and landlord support) or move to a different and appropriate place.  I would no longer be able to access my upstairs office at work either.  There too, a ramp or elevator would need to be installed or I would have to relocate to a first floor office but only after negotiating was done with the program that exists on first floor.  I would have to rely on decisions from my supervisor and her negotiations with the other program director.

I would suddenly have to rely on my family and others to get in and out of our home, to work, the store and other public places and consider if they have wheel chair accessibility before going.  I would need to be accommodated with a special vehicle for transportation.  I would be limited with doing certain chores such as dishes, making meals, and going to the dog lot to feed our dog team.  I can see that I would have to overcome many obstacles and accept many changes to mentally and physically move forward.  Hopefully, I would continue to have the same supports as I mentioned in the beginning paragraphs (family, coworker, others, stability).  I expect my family would still be at my side praising and encouraging me.  I expect my coworkers would try, to the best of their ability and means, to do the same.  Without my life supports in this situation I might feel the same as I would without my life supports in my current situation: burdened, lonely and/or discouraged.

I expect that some of the potential benefits of my supports will be that I will develop closer relationships with people as they assist me and I depend on them.  I expect that I will create a greater awareness in our community of those with disabilities and I would be a very strong advocate of promoting access to public buildings that don’t already have it.  I expect I would advocate more than I already do for access, participation and suppott for children and all people with disabilities in our community.