Trigger Warning: This blog post discusses suicide, which some may find distressing. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, please reach out for help. Contact your doctor, go to your local ER, or call the suicide prevention hotline in your country. In the United States, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text the Crisis Text Line at 741741. Both services offer free, confidential help 24/7.
Not having computer or phone access is the worst form of abuse and can scar you forever.
Independent phone and computer access is fundamental to one’s autonomy and overall well-being. It has always been a very important topic, but it has become increasingly more important in the past decade or so. For able bodied people, phone and computer access is a wonderful thing that makes lives easier for them, allows them to be more productive, and allows them to be connected at all times. But for us, disabled people, phone and computer access is a necessity and is vital for our independence and allows us to maintain some semblance of a normal life, it makes the impossible possible: enabling us to order groceries, medication household items, clothing, and gifts, allowing us to participate in telehealth appointments, helping us keep in touch with family and friends, serving as entertainment for us and allows us to work without being physically present.
This is just a drop in the bucket of what phone and computer access means to us. Denying and not helping us have phone and computer access is the worst form of abuse. You may think that I am being overly dramatic, overemotional, and exaggerating, but I am speaking from my own bitter experience of not being able to access my phone or computer for a year!
For 10 years from my surgery in 2006 until 2016, I struggled with accessing my phone and computer. I used them with the pointer and middle fingers of my left hand. I struggled every day and couldn’t do many things like reaching the right side of the keyboard (the furthest key I was able to reach was “j”), it took me many tries until I was able to reach so I needed to find creative ways to be able to type I wanted like using an on screen keyboard, I also had the problem of having my palm unintentionally touching the screen, constantly touching the wrong target, which constantly messed me up and was very annoying..
Over the years, it became increasingly difficult for me to use my hands to access my phone and computer, and slowly I stopped being able to do anything meaningful until the only thing that I was able to do was scroll through Facebook on my phone and wasn’t able to do anything on my computer and in June 2016, it became impossible for me to move my hands enough to use my phone or computer. I had absolutely no clue that it was possible to use your phone and computer not with your hands, what assistive technology was, and that people with even less movement than me i.e. Stephen Hawking, a British physicist who had a progressive form of motor neuron disease and used the computer with a switch controlled with a single cheek movement or what eye gaze, switches or voice control was and that there were ways to use your phone and computer without your hands.
I was forced to watch TV shows all my waking hours which was 16 hours a day to keep myself occupied. At first, I had no qualms or complaints, the prospect of watching TV all day was extremely appealing to me, who wouldn’t? After a few days of non stop watching TV shows, it became boring and even unbearable. My mind became like a piece of mashed potatoes from not being properly stimulated. I constantly had headaches and was so lonely and Isolated and was so dependent on my family for everything., even to turn on, and off and change the TV shows. I was seriously contemplating suicide- I kept wanting and hoping to end my horrible, lonely life. My family is from the older generation and doesn’t understand the importance of independent phone and computer access or its impact on one’s mental health, sanity, and self esteem that can last for many years even after the situation is rectified and is very hard to undo (which is something that I can personally attest to).
Even though I now have access to my phone and computer, I’ve been lucky to have discovered it on Monday evening, May 8th, 2017. I still suffering from many, many effects from the year I was without any phone and computer access and was completely cut off from the outside world. That year has scarred me forever and wounded me far more than anyone can imagine. Thankfully, I now have access to and use a multitude of assistive technologies, augmentative and alternative communication, software, and strategies that are all wonderful and are really enhancing my life and I can’t imagine my life without them.
P.S.
I know that I mentioned that I wanted to commit suicide because I was so lonely without phone and computer access. Please don’t be worried about me because I wouldn’t dream of doing that now. I am very happy, content and busy with my work as an accessibility tester and look forward to every day for an opportunity to further my knowledge in accessibility.