The realisation that life as a disabled man is founded essentially on a set of contradictions is very satisfactory indeed. To be sure, it was only in part a realisation; it was also, in part, an admission. I have always hated contradictions and paradoxes: they don’t sit easily in my head, seemingly defying the natural order of things. That is why I like the theory of evolution so much: if someone asks ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ I can reply ‘an egg laid by a bird similar but not identical to a chicken’. Simple. Yet in the world of disability I must embrace the paradoxes and the contradictions.

For example, I am special and normal. To brand myself as either is harmful. If I try to be normal, I’d endeavour to walk straight and talk more clearly, forcing myself to conform to an arbitrary idea of normal. It would also mean severing myself from disability culture, which I’m proud to be a part of. On the other hand, if I’m special why do I fight to be part of mainstream society, or take offence when people stare? Should I not accept my status as a freak and stop complaining? I intend to do neither, but relish in the paradox.

Another example is that of the disabled community. Similarly it sets itself apart from others by manifesting itself as an ethereal ghetto, while at the same time we demand to be included within society. We need it for unity, but wouldn’t it also segregate ourselves. On Monday I tried to frame this subculture of ours as a belief, thereby satisfying both needs. I still think the disabled community has what boils down to a belief system at its basis. In part this belief is, for want of a better word, a sense of pride in who we are and what ‘we’ achieved’; yet it is also a sense of common injustice and grievance. It is this that I have a problem with: there is no denying that the history of disability is a catalogue of atrocities, yet I had a happy upbringing in northern England, for the most part. I have all I need in order to live a happy, full life. I don’t believe I should feel the sense of injustice that is partly the basis of the disabled community.

Okay, that’s not exactly true. There is Hebden. Some would say I should forgive and forget; that I should let it pass, now I’m at university etc. but no, I cannot. I cannot forget those boys. It is only at special school that the things I saw went on. Segregation must stop – it can be stopped. ”That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.”

We thus have yet another contradiction: part of me says I ought to forgive, and in so doing sever myself. Yet none of us in the disabled community can forgive or forget, lest the atrocities of the past happen again. Whether it is founded on hope or hate, the disabled community exists and should continue to do so, for only together can we change things for future generations. At it’s centre are contradictions, but I no longer see that as a problem, they are simply unavoidable.