Invisible Disabilities ‘issues faced when parking’

CAMHS Equality Champions: Invisible Disabilities ‘issues faced when parking’

In our latest piece to raise awareness of invisible disabilities, one of our Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) young advisors who has myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) or chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), discusses some of the issues surrounding parking in a disabled bay when you have an invisible disability.

Issues faced when parking with an invisible disability – Young Advisor from CAMHS

Over the years, many articles have reported stories of people being harassed when they use a disabled bay because they are misjudged for not visibly ‘looking disabled’. In an article published by Lincolnshire Live, a young woman discusses how she was accused of ‘scamming the council’ by a stranger and was left in tears after she parked in a disabled bay.

People often think they are being helpful to those who they believe need the parking space, but in doing so they forget that there are others who also need that disabled bay, whose disabilities might be less obvious. The blue badge is an official document used to signify a valid need to use the disabled bay, however this is not enough for people. Some will still feel the need to confront those they perceive as not needing the space as demonstrated in the article above. Blue badges were only officially rolled out to those with invisible disabilities in 2019.

Having a blue badge myself, I’ve had disapproving looks thrown my way. I was at the beach with my friends when we parked in a disabled bay and used my blue badge. The women, a space over and also using a disabled bay, was staring at me and my friends even though my blue badge was clearly displayed and within her view. One of my friends who noticed her stares loudly said to me, “Do you need your stick?” To which I replied, “Yes”, and got out of the car with it.

Because we are a group of young women, I think this person felt the need to make sure we weren’t doing anything wrong and taking advantage of the space. However she didn’t stop to think I might actually need it and be well within my rights to do so. Luckily for me this was quite a mild interaction and no confrontation took place, but this isn’t always the case.”

This example is from Nikita who has hemiplegia, a condition that causes varying degrees of weakness and lack of control in one side of the body. She describes the issues she had when parking in a disabled bay at work:

“At work, the main car park located near my office often got full really quickly and the only other carpark available was a good walk away. You had to walk up hill to get to the office and sometimes if I wasn’t up to the walk I would park in the disabled bay – I got permission from the estates team because I have a registered disability – but it’s not a topic I wanted to share with my colleagues.

“One day, I parked in the disabled bay and my colleagues (who were starting their shift at the same time as me) saw me parking there. The moment I got into the office they questioned me – in front of the whole team – to which I said “you want to be careful how you speak to people because not all disabilities are visible.” One of my colleagues overheard and mentioned it to my manager who later pulled me to one side to ask me about it. Even though she’s aware of my disability, she said “well, do you need to park there? Have you got a disabled badge?” I reminded her that the estates team had given me permission to park there – to which she questioned. Since this encounter, I felt guilty every time I parked in a disabled bay.”

Unfortunately, there’s so much mistrust and gatekeeping over who people feel can and can’t use those limited spaces. I’ve also noticed, when out and about, some people choose to put a sticker in the window of their car to alert others to their invisible disabilities. This shows people feel the need to further explain themselves to avoid any judgements and confrontations when they shouldn’t have to.

If you would like to contribute to this work on invisible disabilities in some way, or if you know of any young people or parents/carers that would like to be involved, please contact Robin Tay, CAMHS Participation Worker, on robin.tay@nhs.net