What if disabled people were allowed to simply exist without being expected to inspire anyone?

In this episode of The Sick & Tired Pod, Mel sits down with Laura, a lifelong wheelchair user with osteogenesis imperfecta (also known as brittle bone disease), artist and small business owner behind FairyNerdy, and host of Bad Attitudes: An Uninspiring Podcast About Disability.

Laura brings humor, sarcasm, and a refreshingly unapologetic perspective to disability. Together, Mel and Laura unpack the pressure placed on disabled people to be positive, inspirational, productive, and grateful—and why those expectations can be another form of ableism.

They talk about Laura’s relationship with disability as an identity, internalized ableism, visible versus invisible disabilities, and the invasive questions disabled people are often expected to answer.

The conversation also explores a reality many nondisabled people would rather not think about: disability can happen to anyone. Laura and Mel discuss why accessibility and universal design shouldn’t be afterthoughts—and why creating accessible spaces benefits far more people than we often realize.

Later, they get into Laura’s creative life: nearly 200 episodes of Bad Attitudes, building FairyNerdy, finding her niche as an artist, and navigating hustle culture as a disabled business owner. They also talk about perfectionism, letting yourself make bad art, learning to be a beginner, burnout, rest, productivity, and the pressure disabled people can feel to prove they’re one of the “good” or productive disabled people.

This episode is funny, candid, occasionally dark, and very much uninterested in turning disability into an inspirational story.

• Why disabled people don’t exist to inspire nondisabled people
• The problem with inspiration porn and toxic positivity
• Disability as part of identity
• Internalized ableism
• Visible and invisible disability
• Why strangers feel entitled to disabled people’s personal information
• The reality that anyone can become disabled
• Accessibility, universal design, and no-step entrances
• Laura’s Bad Attitudes podcast and approaching 200 episodes
• Creativity, perfectionism, and making “bad” art
• Building FairyNerdy as a disabled artist
• Hustle culture and disability
• Rest, burnout, and redefining productivity
• The pressure to prove your worth as a disabled person

Laura is an artist, small business owner, podcaster, and lifelong

FairyNerdy: fairynerdy.com
Social: @fairynerdy

Bad Attitudes: An Uninspiring Podcast About Disability: badattitudespod.com
Social: @badattitudespod

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