Tag: Disability

Accidentally a Social Work Grad Student

~ M. Ashley ~ 1 Comment

I never wanted to be a social worker. I never would have considered it. The very idea never would have crossed my consciousness. But here’s how it happened that, through no fault of my own, I sit here today on the eve of entering graduate school to become, clearly, a world renowned social worker.

My undergraduate degree is in sociology. That was also not on purpose. I started undergraduate school in 1996 at Vanderbilt as a secondary education major wanting to be a high school math teacher, (the very idea these days that I would actually teach math makes me shudder. What a near miss that was!). Through the course of my education, I decided that my heart was much more with the humanities and I changed my major to English/Creative Writing.

Then everything went to shit. 

In my third year at Vanderbilt I ended up entrapped by some very bad men and before the year was out I was being trafficked. I’m not going to go into all the ins and outs here, but suffice it to say that it is impossible to earn a degree at a rigorous university while simultaneously being brutalized and trafficked for sex. I made it another year like that then had to drop out. It is a thorn in my soul to this day.

But let’s not dwell on that for the moment.

Fast forwarding to 2013:

I was seven years out of the trafficking, moved back home with my loving mother, and attempting to finish my degree. I chose the online sociology program at California State University, Chico because 1) it was online, and 2) they took the most transfer credit of any other affordable programs I came across. I had three and a half years at Vanderbilt and I wasn’t about to lose most of that to a transfer process that made no sense. So sociology it was!

I thought: Could be interesting. How humans behave. How society behaves. And why. Could be fascinating.

It wasn’t.

It was horrendous. The classes were pure indoctrination with professors that actively graded you down if you didn’t agree with them. Truly torturous. My best friend was finishing her degree with me and we joke to this day that we blocked most of it out. I’ve looked at my transcript a few times and it isn’t as funny when I see lots of classes on there that I truly do not remember. Just. Bloody. Awful.

So, as you can see, the very idea of getting embroiled in that world again was the last thing on my mind.

And so was graduate school. 

I live on a government benefit for the disabled as I have albinism and have been legally blind from birth. Graduate school might as well have been on Mars for how financially accessible it seemed to me.

But there was something in me that wanted to go, though not for anything sociology related. I had dreams of being a post-secondary English professor at a community college, teaching writing to kids who really need the help. The idea of that lit me up tremendously. I wanted it so much in fact that I sat reading tarot cards on it one day, (I’m a little witchy), and I heard my god friend whisper in my ear, “If you had the money to pay for graduate school, would you go?”

“Yes!” I said.

He replied, “Good to know,” and I thought that was the end of it.

But then…

One day in 2022, I got a bee in my bonnet to investigate the Department of Rehabilitation which helps people with disabilities find work. I got in touch with the man who headed the blind services department—we’ll call him Crispy Crespy—and at first I really hated the guy. It seemed like he was only interested in placing me in some job, any job, dead end or not. I told him I wanted to be a post-secondary English professor and he squashed that right off the bat. He said those jobs are hard to come by, not secure, and you usually have to work several schools to make ends meet, no one school giving you full time. (He wasn’t wrong, but damn dude.) Then I had the brilliant idea that I could be a court reporter. He squashed that too. He said they hardly ever work in courtrooms anymore and have to travel a lot, so no no no. (He wasn’t wrong, but damn dude, again.) So I told him I would do some research and get back to him. 

I hung up the phone and intended never to talk to him again.

But then…

I was involved in a twelve step program for eating disorders that year and one of the things we did was outreach calls for support, both making and receiving. I hated it, but I desperately wanted to get over my eating disorder, so I did it anyway.

One fine morning my phone rang from some unknown number and, grumbling and grudgingly, I picked up the phone thinking I was doing outreach service. It was Crispy Crespy. He said, “I see you have a bachelor’s in sociology. Why don’t we send you to graduate school for social work?”

I just about dropped dead in shock. Practically panting I said, “Absolutely!”

And that’s how this whole ball got rolling. Not because I ever intended in a million years to be a social worker, but because I accidentally ended up with a sociology degree then accidentally picked up a call I never would have picked up had I known who it was.

It does not escape my attention that I was picking up a call to do service and was thereby entered on a professional path all about service. Spooky.

It also didn’t escape my attention that my god friend had heard me, really heard me, and gave me this amazing, unbelievable gift that I never would have anticipated in a million years.

And more on that: 

In 12 step, the phrase Higher Power is used a lot and abbreviated as HP.

Crispy Crespy went on in that phone call to say that he wanted to pay for all new glasses (I hadn’t had new glasses since 2016), and an accessible computer. I enthusiastically accepted.

I got tested for my new glasses a few weeks later and a little while after that the computer man came to my house. I was expecting just a laptop, but I saw him unloading box after box from his car. I walked out to greet him and asked, “Are you moving in?”

He laughed and said no. That was all my computer equipment.

Crispy Crespy had granted me a new (used) laptop, printer, a 27” monitor, and a fancy rolling computer bag. Wow!

Now here’s the kicker:

I opened up the computer box and do you want to guess what brand it was?

HP.

The printer too.

HP.

I almost fell on my butt laughing. Here I was picking up that outreach service call to do my HP’s work and I ended up with new vision (the glasses) and a whole host of computer stuff all initialed with a flourish: HP!

Kind of knocks your socks off, don’t it?

So why am I just now on the eve of starting graduate school having been approved in 2022?

Well…

In 2021, my dear mom broke her leg and became bed bound. I was taking care of her full time and every ounce of my strength was consumed with that. 

In 2023, she got very ill and was in and out of the hospital for months then, when she did finally come back home, she required even more care.

In 2024, she went back into the hospital for months and this time did not return home. She died in April. In March, exactly a month before she passed, I suffered a perforated ulcer brought on by all the stress, and had to have emergency surgery. The recovery from that was long and agonizing and I really wasn’t back on my feet again until the end of August.

I applied for social work graduate school at California State University, Northridge in December 2024 and, much to my shock, was called in for an interview in March. Two weeks later, much to my even greater shock, I got the notification: I was in! 

It still blows my mind. 

We got an email a week ago that said out of 250 applicants for the online program, they only let in 51. That floored me. I had no idea it was that competitive. I’m grateful I didn’t know beforehand the admission rate was only a little over 20% or I may not have applied.

But I did apply, I did get in, and I will be starting on August 25th. Eek! And yay! And Eek!

I decided to start blogging about my experience as a social work student and in the social work world, as I will have an internship at a continuation high school beginning the week of September 2nd. I hope the blog will be maybe a little enlightening and a lot entertaining. By all accounts, this is a wild world I’m entering and I couldn’t be looking forward to it with greater excitement.

Until next time when I will probably be blogging about the bumpy yet often hilarious journey my pre-academic and internship career has already been.

See you then.

-M. Ashley

Exceptional Vehicles (creative nonfiction)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

All you people take driving for granted.

I can’t drive because I’m legally blind and it is one of the most horrible kinds of crippling, or at least I imagine it is. Having never been an independent driver, I wouldn’t know.

I don’t know what it’s like to have a notion to go somewhere and just go. Cold night, playing Freeze Out like my dad used to do with us girls in the car—all four windows down, whoever rolls theirs up last is the winner—but with only myself as competition. I’ve never had to keep myself awake with only myself and the double yellow lolling out endlessly before me in the dark dark desert between here and Las Vegas.

I don’t know what hitting 100mph is like on that same highway, in the middle of the night, when I’m sure the CHP isn’t watching.

Yellow line, lulling you to sleep. Blaring the radio to fight it, Botts’ dots rumbling your eyes open again. The danger. The responsibility. The irresponsibility. The win when you get there somehow, miraculously, safe.

I wish I could stand somewhere alone that I drove to alone that I decided to drive to alone, and that no one but me, alone, would know about it.

Freedom. A grass is greener freedom as my side of the fence is on foot or riding the bus or in a cab or mooching rides from patient friends.

It’s hard to be independent when your broader movements are, by necessity, dependent—when, at the very least, the bus driver is going to know where you came from, where you went, and, if you ride enough, most of what your story is.

I sound bitter.

I am a little bitter.

No one to blame but the DNA. I was born wing-clipped in Southern California. Apparently my genetic material never heard the song “Nobody Walks in LA,” or heard it and thought we would be the exception.

Special genes do make one exceptional.

I am exceptionally half-sighted. I am exceptionally good at scheduling my errands around my friends’ errands so I don’t trouble anybody too much.

I am exceptionally blessed with the gift of the gab and, by lack of automotive freedom, have gained masses of unlikely friends all over the country. There is not much else to do when you’re stuck in transit together, breathing each other’s air, than to become compatriots.

Rwandan refugee cab drivers in Nashville—that ride share guy in DC who asked me what color palm trees are—the Uber lady whose dog just died yesterday—the bus driver who wouldn’t take my ticket without putting on gloves first (she was new and we weren’t virus-stricken yet)—the disability cabbie who brought his family along at eleven at night to pick me up from work, his wife sweetly piping up into the conversation from the backseat—the Pakistani guy who asked me to marry him—the Russian guy who also asked me to marry him—that other guy who asked me to use my employee discount to buy him a coffee pot “for church.”

I suppose all of these, in truth, are my own kind of exceptional vehicle and, once-in-a-while bilious drivers’ envy aside, my clipped-freedom grass is brilliant green because of them.

-M. Ashley

Ophelia’s Opal (poetry)

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

When my grandmother knew she was dying
she picked out an opal for me,
had a ring designed
and sized it,
for the short time being,
for her own hand.
I was an infant then, recently diagnosed
lifelong colorless and could-be blind.

My grandmother was a force—
a farm girl who took beatings
for sneaking away to read,
a young woman who left her family
to work among foul mouthed boys
at the Pentagon during WWII,
a single mother,
a stone wall,
razor tongue,
acid wit,
first female management at the FAA.

She held me at the hospital
in a hallway while the final diagnosis
was pronounced to my parents
in a tiny, sterile room.
Her breast was warm,
though the breathing behind it was labored.
Her embrace was soothing
though her hands were not soft
from folding crust-cut sandwiches in wax paper
for her children or grandchildren’s outings
of uncomplicated youth.

She explored my hot face and closed eyelids
with her wise yet diminishing fingers,
the opal slipping forward and upside down
under her nearly exposed knuckle,
resting against my forehead,
cooling a spot just above my eyes.
She leaned forward and blessed me,
“My dear little Michelle-y,
I do hope you can see.”

-M. Ashley

Exceptional Vehicles

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Let’s talk about driving. What goes unnoticed? What do we take for granted?

All you people take driving for granted.

I can’t drive because I’m legally blind and it is one of the most horrible kinds of crippling, or at least I imagine it is. Having never been an independent driver, I wouldn’t know.

I don’t know what it’s like to have a notion to go somewhere and just go. Cold night, playing Freeze Out like my dad used to do with us girls in the car—all four windows down, whoever rolls theirs up last is the winner—but with only myself as competition. I’ve never had to keep myself awake with only myself and the double yellow lolling out endlessly before me in the dark dark desert between here and Las Vegas.

I don’t know what hitting 100mph is like on that same highway, in the middle of the night, when I’m sure the CHP isn’t watching.

Yellow line, lulling you to sleep. Blaring the radio to fight it, Botts’ dots rumbling your eyes open again. The danger. The responsibility. The irresponsibility. The win when you get there somehow, miraculously, safe.

I wish I could stand somewhere alone that I drove to alone that I decided to drive to alone, and that no one but me, alone, would know about it.

Freedom. A grass is greener freedom as my side of the fence is on foot or riding the bus or in a cab or mooching rides from patient friends.

It’s hard to be independent when your broader movements are, by necessity, dependent—when, at the very least, the bus driver is going to know where you came from, where you went, and, if you ride enough, most of what your story is.

I sound bitter.

I am a little bitter.

No one to blame but the DNA. I was born wing-clipped in Southern California. Apparently my genetic material never heard the song “Nobody Walks in LA,” or heard it and thought we would be the exception.

Special genes do make one exceptional.

I am exceptionally half-sighted. I am exceptionally good at scheduling my errands around my friends’ errands so I don’t trouble anybody too much.

I am exceptionally blessed with the gift of the gab and, by lack of automotive freedom, have gained masses of unlikely friends all over the country because of it. There is not much else to do when you’re stuck in transit together, breathing each other’s air, than to become compatriots.

Rwandan refugee cab drivers in Nashville—that ride share guy in DC who asked me what color palm trees are—the Uber lady whose dog just died yesterday—the bus driver who wouldn’t take my ticket without putting on gloves first (she was new and we weren’t virus-stricken yet)—the disability cabbie who brought his family along at eleven at night to pick me up from work, his wife sweetly piping up into the conversation from the back—the Pakistani guy who asked me to marry him—the Russian guy who also asked me to marry him—that other guy who asked me to use my employee discount to buy him a coffee pot “for church.”

I suppose all of these, in truth, are my own kind of exceptional vehicle and, once-in-a-while bilious drivers’ envy aside, my clipped-freedom grass is brilliant green because of them.

-M.