Why am I not disabled enough?
I don't have a place in paralympic sport. Yesterday the BBC showed a documentary about how the Paralympics is classified. each Paralympic athlete is given a classification as to 'how disabled' you are. now for those who have a stereotypical disability, e.g a spinal cord injury you will have minimal problems with getting into the classification system. However for me, as many know I'm paralysed from my hips down from functional neurological disorder (FND). I cannot be given a classification because FND isn't a recognised disability by the international paralympic committee (IPC). I know as much as I love wheelchair basketball that I can never compete because I'm 'not disabled enough '. If I were to get into a car accident and sustain a spinal cord injury then day to day, not a lot would change for me, I'd still be paralysed. but in terms of getting classified, I would be accepted as disabled, yet hardly anything would have changed only how I became paralysed. Playing wheelchair basketball allows me to be equal to those I'm playing against. I spend all my time looking up at people craning my neck to be able to look at them but for an hour I get to look directly across from me. I have people staring at me in everyday life like I'm a circus freak whilst I'm just trying to get on with life. but at wheelchair basketball no one cares, I'm not 'the girl in the wheelchair' I'm just Martha. But all the time I know I'm limited because my disability isn't accepted as real. If I was to try and compete in the able-bodied Olympics then I'd be laughed at because I'm disabled yet I'm not accepted by the Paralympics because they don't want people with similar disabilities to play. I don't have a place in Paralympic sport ...but it is not my fault.