Interview with Bailey Patterson, May 26, 2022

THOMPSON: Okay. Got it. Okay. Hello, my name is Mack Thompson, and today I am here interviewing Bailey Patterson for the Disabled in Kentucky Oral History Project virtually over Zoom. The date is May 26, 2022. Bailey, I'm happy you're here. Okay, to start things off, would you feel comfortable sharing a little bit more about yourself?

PATTERSON: So like you said, my name is Bailey Patterson. I'm from this little part of Kentucky called Jabez, Kentucky, and it's a little bitty farm town in Southeast, South Central Kentucky. And that's where I grew up, and I went to high school in, like, the nearest city, which is Somerset, which is still, like, forty-five minutes away from where I live. And I go to college right now at the University of Kentucky where I am an interdisciplinary

disability studies and theater major, pre-law. And after college, I hope to go into law school and become a disability civil rights lawyer. And--(laughs)--for the sake of this project, I think it's important to say that I am disabled. I identify as multiply-disabled, so that--when I say that, I just mean, like, there's a lot of different disabilities that are comorbid with each other. (laughs) Yeah, so that's me.

THOMPSON: Would you feel comfortable, like, sharing, like, what some of the disabilities you have--or do you just prefer to just identify as disabled?

PATTERSON: Yeah, I'm fine sharing. So I think my primary disability--the first disabilities I was really aware of and that I feel like affect me the most are actually psychiatric disabilities. My first disability

that I was diagnosed with when I was really young was panic disorder. I have a very, very severe panic disorder, a very unique presentation, and that affects my life pretty much every moment of every day. I'm also autistic. I have ADHD. I have OCD. I experience psychosis. Those are a lot of, like, the diagnoses that I use. I also have chronic pain, chronic kidney issues, and POTS. That's--those are the main ones. There are a lot of other, like, smaller interplaying disabilities that, like, I can't think of off the top of my head. But those are the ones that I think of the most on a day-to-day basis.

THOMPSON: So, like, I know you talked about this some, but, like, how--like, would you--do you have anything else you would like to share about what--your disability journey and coming to terms with that?

PATTERSON:

Yeah, I could talk about that. So disability--I know I was--I say I was diagnosed with my disability, panic disorder, when I was very, very young. When I was first diagnosed with that, the term disability wasn't something that was in my vocabulary relating to myself. I was also diagnosed with autism around the same age, but that was never relayed to me--(laughs)--from my doctor, and that's--the autism is something that I had to, like, kind of come into my own once I got older and I got into high school and I started really specifying in my activism that I was--I was really passionate about disability justice activism when I came into high school, and that's when I became more aware of my

experiences and diagnoses as disabilities and not just, like, things I dealt with. And before that, I was--(laughs)--before that, I was kind of generally aware of, like, mental health activism, but when I started learning more about disability justice and naming, like, "I'm disabled. Here are the things that, like, disability justice means," that's where I've been able to, like, specify in my personal timeline my own relationship to disability, and then other terms that are related to disability, like madness and stuff like that.

THOMPSON: So, like, with that, like, terminology, like, you say that you identified as disabled and mad and, like, I'm just wondering, like, what these identities mean to you and, like, how you--like, you feel identifying with them, like, how this impacted you and your sense of health or whatever.

PATTERSON: Okay. So my relationship to disability is something that I feel like is very, very central to who I am

because I feel like it's something that I've always known I was, but, like, I said I didn't have the language to describe it until I got into high school. I didn't have the language of disability or the language of madness. But, like, when you are--a lot of times when you have disabilities that are especially present since the time that you're very young, you're always aware of your disability even if the adults in your life didn't give you language to process that. So I've always, like--a lot of autistic and mad and other disabled people have this experience, I've learned, like, where--feeling like you're othered from a very young age and people, like, try to find a lot of different things to describe it because, like, it's such a big part of your life. It's like you don't feel connected with the mainstream

ideas of what--(laughs)--you should be as a person. But, like I said, I didn't have the words to describe that. So once I found disability, it became--it took over my life. It changed my entire worldview. Disability justice and madness are things that, like--they're so central to my personhood, and especially madness is something more specific under the umbrella of disability that really affects how I even process my own reality. I choose to, in a lot of circumstances, like, de-medicalize and de-pathologize my relationships with reality and states of mind because, like, it's so--because madness is just such a great word to describe non-normative psychological states without applying pathology to that. So it's just something that affects me every day, so I've--now that I've learned the terminology

and I've learned a lot of the history and the academics behind it, it's so central to my personhood.

THOMPSON: So you ascribe--I'm getting that you ascribe more to the social model of disability or, like, the models of, like, it being--instead of, like, identifying disabled as, "Oh, I've been diagnosed with such-and-such," you're seeing it more as a cultural and social identity. Am I understanding that properly?

PATTERSON: Yeah, yeah, I am one of those people that thinks, like, disability is inherently a neutral thing, and then, like, each of--each one of us as disabled people get to, like, color our experiences with disability. So I color my experiences with disability very differently depending on what I'm thinking about. But it's all--like, it's so informed by society and culture and politics that

just the medical model will never be enough to describe what disability really means, and it's--on its own.

THOMPSON: So you're super involved with, like, disability liberation movements, Mad Pride, psychiatric disability, like, justice. Like, I would love to hear more about, like, how you got involved and how, like, your involvement, like, has changed perhaps over time or, like, what you're hoping to get out of that.

PATTERSON: Okay. Yeah, so like I said, I've always been aware of a psychiatric diagnosis and several psychiatric diagnoses that I've had since I was very young, and I was always--I don't know--when I was young, like, mental health awareness wasn't something that was any--on anyone's radar in my area. Maybe in, like, bigger cities or

in different areas in the world, but here, like, in Jabez, Kentucky and Nancy, Kentucky, and Somerset, Kentucky, mental health awareness was not anything that was on anybody's radar when I was diagnosed, and I kind of took that on myself. Like, I tried to become for the area, like, the go-to person who was the mental health activist of our area, and I was always just talking about it any time I got the chance in school to, like, bring forth a project, that was always the focus that I wanted to focus on, mental health, which was what I used to call it. I always--I was always very adamant in speaking out about mental health because, like, it was something that, like, wasn't talked about, but, like, I was the person who would just, like, beyond all social norms, just go ahead and, like, say stuff about--(laughs)--mental health even when it was, like, really socially awkward for me to have done so.

And then when I got involved in--in high school, when I started learning about the disability justice and Mad Pride movements, it switched. Like, once I learned about that, it kind of switched because mental health activism is something that is more of, like, a liberal sort of idea, and a lot of, like, mental health activism is surrounded around, like, "Let's be aware of these conditions," and it's usually conditions that have been more present in the media, like depression or generalized anxiety disorder. Those are the things that a lot--have gotten a lot of attention from mental health awareness, and that's really, really great. But it kind of stops there. A lot of mental health activist conversations, it's a lot--it's really focused on

mental illness as a purely biological phenomenon, and something that is solely and inherently the result of unbalanced brain chemistry is a talking point that everybody's probably familiar with. And then the solution to all of this is to talk about mental health, which is, I mean, a great solution, but also to engage more with psychiatry, to engage more with medication, kind of with medication, with different models of therapy, with--oops--(laughs)--with, like, inpatient treatment, kind of uncritically. And the Mad Pride movement is something that kind of says, like, "Let's throw all of that out the window," because it--the Mad Pride movement kind of says, like, "That's not the movement for us.

That's kind of, like, an assimilationist movement." Like, you know, in queer history, we talk about being assimilationists and trying to fit the narrative of hetero--cis heteronormative society instead of creating our own narrative, and Mad Pride kind of says, "Let's create our own narrative that doesn't necessarily conform to the standards of neuro-normative and a sane society." And it basically says, "We can create our own--(laughs)--our own ways of being. We can choose not to medicalize our experiences. We can choose to say that mental illness is a natural part of us. We can choose to say that mental illness isn't solely neurochemical. We can choose to say that mental illness is an experience that's too nebulous to define by medication and by the medical

model," while also saying, you know, "These things are tools for us. The medical model--the system is still a system we have to navigate where there are tools for us within that model." But ultimately things like carceral psychiatry, involuntary treatment, coercive medication, forced medication, psychosurgeries, things like that aren't the tools that we're going to use for our liberation in the end, and that we have to move beyond Western psychiatry as a form of salvation for people who are mad. And I've gotten into that since high school, and that changes everything that I've ever known about mental health, and it really resonated with me. So I've been doing activism for that ever since I--(laughs)--caught onto it. And a lot of the activism I do is--I mentioned at the beginning that I'm also a theater major. So a lot of the activism that I do is social action theater and theater activism. So

I write plays and I write interactive monologues and theatrical experiences, and I've had the privilege of two of those experiences being produced by the university since I got to college, and that's been great. (laughs)

THOMPSON: So, like, I guess with this for people that might not be as familiar with the idea of psychiatric liberation, I guess what you're kind of arguing, if I get--if I'm understanding this correctly is that this medicalization, this, "Oh, go to therapy, take chemicals." It's not like, "Take medicine, 'fix yourself.'" It's, like, ignoring that perhaps there's nothing to be fixed. Perhaps there are social problems in play. Perhaps--I asked you to be quiet. I'm sorry. Perhaps, like, there's other things going on that should be, like, addressed

socially, not--just, "Oh, you're experiencing this? Take medicine." Is--am I getting that right?

PATTERSON: Yeah, it's like--so, like, just thinking about, for example, someone who is schizophrenic. The dominant model for someone who's schizophrenic, like, you start experiencing hallucinations. The average is, like, college age, like, eighteen, twenty-one. And you go into the psychiatrist and they say, "You have schizophrenia, and it's important that you now take this medication and this medication and do this, this, this for your life, and your--for you to have a normal life." And what Mad Pride and mad liberation is trying to say is that, you know, that might be what you want to do, but it's not necessarily what you have to do. There's nothing--there's no rule in the universe that says, "You have to have

a more normal brain. Like, you have to change your brain to be more normal." So if you go in, experiencing delusions, hallucinations, and you say, you know, "I don't feel a problem with the way that my brain naturally is. Like, I understand that I experience what is called an unshared reality in the Mad Pride movement. I--my reality is different from the reality most other people experience, but I don't--" I can take that and say, "I don't necessarily feel that that's a problem that I have to fix. Maybe that's just I'm a different human and my brain works differently than what's common." And you don't--I don't necessarily have to believe that that's a flaw in me to be fixed. And then there are nuances between that where you can say, "I don't necessarily believe psychosis is a flaw that has to be fixed, but I still need to take some antipsychotics from time to time because that's how I accommodate myself

to function for this, that, or the other thing that I need to get done that day." So it's just--it's a different framework for looking at things, that you can just--you can color your experience however you like, and you can use the tools that psychiatry kind of has available, like medication, therapy, or you can choose not to use those tools. And mental illness isn't something that's inherently negative that needs to be fixed. It's something that's inherently neutral and you--the--(laughs)--it's basically self-guided. It's user's choice, really, is what I like to think about it as.

THOMPSON: So you talked some on, like, like, navigating and growing up, like, in Eastern Kentucky, rural, like, Kentucky, like, Appalachian Kentucky--I can't words apparently.

PATTERSON: It's okay.

THOMPSON:

And, like, your journey with, like, mental health, like, and Mad Pride activism there, and I was wondering if, like, you feel that your Appalachian and disabled identities intersect and interact in any way with that, and if you would want to talk--if so, if you would like to talk more on that.

PATTERSON: I would love to. I feel like Appalachian and--(laughs)--these--okay, these identities intersect so much. In Appalachia, I've seen this meme that kind of describe how I feel about how Appalachia a lot of times deals with the concept of psychiatric disability, and this is some kind of crude language, but we can think about it being used in a reclamatory [sic] way. "We don't put our crazy people in, like--(laughs)--we don't hide our crazy

people. We put them out on the front porch." That's a meme I've seen, and a lot of people resonate with that, and that's something that I resonated a lot with as an Appalachian person. Thinking back into my family history, there are a lot of instances of what would be defined as mental illness, and there are a lot of instances where people are--who are, like--the state kind of comes in and, like, essentially, like, does violence against people who are mentally ill. But the way my family conceptualizes that is not the way that the state conceptualizes, or that the modern--or that the dominant narrative--and what--conceptualizes it. And that--what I mean by that is just my family just conceptualizes that, "Oh yeah, we're all kind of crazy in this family. Like, we're all a little bit crazy." Looking back into our family tree,

like, we've had this, that, and the other, and, you know, it's a nondominant kind of perception where some things will be considered, like, gifts or, like, abilities to, like, see beyond or see--intuition, things like that, in my family. But--(laughs)--in my family, the thing that you have to--I have to remember is that a lot of my family members have been made wards of the state and involuntarily hospitalized in Eastern State Hospital, which, you know, at the time--I'm researching the case of one woman named Elizabeth, who is my second or third great-grandmother. (laughs) I'm not great at genealogy. But she was institutionalized prior to her death. She died in Eastern State Lunatic Asylum is what it was called at the time

when she was institutionalized there for--lunacy was the word used, I found out. She died there very quickly after she arrived. The cause of death is kind of tricky to interpret what they mean from her death certificate in a modern-day--in modern-day language. What I have kind of gathered is that she seems to have had a seizure and then died. Yeah, that's something that is, like, it's really hard to think about. But then once you start to think about it and you start to ask around, it's like, a lot of families in this area have a story like that

where Great-Granny So-and-So was taken off at this point in her life and, you know, she never came back and, you know, we buried her up on such-and-such hill, and, you know, we don't really know. I mean, you know, like, it's something that isn't talked about a lot in terms of, like, actually getting to the bottom of things. Like, it's not talked about in terms of, like, a medical model. It's just thought about as, "Oh, like, she was crazy," and that's not--there's not a morality applied in my family, like a lot of people might apply, like, "Oh, that's bad that she was crazy." You know, that's not something that I feel applied in my family. I feel like my family just accepts it as a part of life, and--but that also comes with nobody

advocated for her. Nobody did the digging for her back then, you know, because she was just a poor Appalachian woman who was diagnosed with lunacy--today, who knows what that means? In today's terms, probably, maybe psychosis, maybe postpartum depression. She had ten children or something like that. And yeah, people--I've been trying to get to the bottom of a lot of this because it's something, like I said, is so present. It's so present. Everybody has a few what they call nutcases in the family, you know, and they don't really do any digging beyond that, and I think it's important to do some digging and do some post-death--(laughs)--avenging, almost, of these people who didn't have families who had the language or the know-how or the privilege

or the resources to advocate for them when they were alive, if that makes sense. Kind of rambled there. (laughs)

THOMPSON: No, you did totally good. That was, like, important information, and also, like--I mean, I think it's amazing that you're doing this research, and very important that you're doing with this, like, learning and looking back at what has happened, because this is something a lot of people don't know and erase these histories, especially of, like you were saying, poor Appalachian woman, like, experiencing this. This is something that we don't talk about, we don't hear about, and I think it's really critical that you're talking about this and these experiences that you are learning about. And you did say, like, she was a poor Appalachian woman, and then when you gave an example, like, of another great-granny or whatever, I'm just wondering, like, if you think, like, gender and, like, class and all of these other, like, things also, like, have a play in institutionalization, like, and who was institutionalized, or?

PATTERSON:

Yeah. When you look at these--I've been poring through records of the Eastern State Hospital, and you look at the cause of--I'm paraphrasing, this isn't the words that are on the original documents--the disease that they have, and you go through and you look, and the diseases are lunacy, mania, or alcoholism. Those are, like, the three diseases that are on the records of these things. Everyone, almost, on these records that I've seen so far is either diagnosed with lunacy, mania, or alcoholism. And you look at the ones that are--like, lunacy and mania, and it's woman's name after woman's name after woman's name after woman's name, you know? So.

THOMPSON: Do you have any, like, hypotheses of why that might be, or?

PATTERSON: I think it's a big,

great stew of misogyny and classism and ableism and all of those things coming together because, like, we have--in our cultural memory, we all kind of understand that there was one point in this past--in the past century where women were diagnosed with hysteria when they didn't meet this standard or that standard, and it could be any standard. If they didn't meet the standard for how they should act as a mother, how they should--when they should get married, how they should feel about men--and that's where androphobia comes in, how they should feel about men, how they should dress, how they should work, how they should--what they should like, what they should do? And then you have this diagnoses of hysteria that's kind of in our--still in our cultural memory that women were diagnosed with

back in those days, thinking, like, forties, fifties, around that time period, and given drugs, barbiturates, sedatives, or performed psychosurgeries on--lobotomies. We still have that in our cultural understanding, and we still can kind of think about, "Okay, at that point in time, hysteria was a diagnosis--a medical diagnosis that was given out to people who didn't fit the dominant level of sociocultural economic privilege." So we can conceptualize that diagnoses can sometimes exist as, like, social control as a way of saying, "This person didn't do this right, so we're going to put them over here in this box, and we can punish them in these ways

for that." And I think it just extends further back than we have in our cultural memory. So back in those times, like, that I'm talking about--my great-great, however great--(laughs)--grandmother, the early nineteenth century, or the early twentieth century, 1900 to 1910, somewhere around there, she was--like I said, she had had, like, ten children. She was probably exhausted, probably wasn't working as much as she was supposed to have been, probably was just not acting in the way that would've been seen as fit for someone of her social standing as a poor Appalachian woman, and that probably had a lot to do with--(laughs)--why she was diagnosed with lunacy back then.

THOMPSON:

Yeah. That totally makes sense. Thank you for sharing that with us. So, like, do you think that your hometown or, like, I guess that, like--you've stayed in a couple of different places, but, like, do you think that they are, like, accessible to you and your needs? And, like, how does that compare, that now you're in--at UK for college? Like, do you think that it's, like, better, worse than Lexington? Like, comparable?

PATTERSON: I think there are ways that my--that where I live is more accessible to me, and then less accessible to me. In terms of transportation, I've recently got my permit, but I don't know if that--I still don't know if that's ever going to translate into a license. I'm still, you know, trying to see how that's going to affect

me. But public transportation is nothing--(laughs)--here where I live, not a concept on anybody's brain. There are some services for disabled people in the community like RTEC buses, disabled and elderly people, but I don't think that's anything I qualify for, and I don't think that's anything that could be of help to me. I understand the process of, like, getting help from that is, like, very difficult and something that's not accessible to most people. On the other hand, Lexington isn't the best place for public transportation, but it is something that exists in Lexington. You can get on a bus--(laughs)--and go places in Lexington. So yeah, that's something that is a point for Lexington in that--on that end. A point for my hometown, though, is that

it's a lot more community-focused, I feel, and there's a lot of power in an area being community-focused for disabled people--not all. Like, not always. Not every community that's community-focused is good for disabled people. But there's a lot of power in being able to live in a community where you can say, "Hey, like, I have this need," and most people in my area are disabled. I cannot name one person off to you--maybe some, like, kids in my area--but one person who doesn't have a health need that is a disability, whether or not they conceptualize it as a disability or not. And that probably has to do with, like, a lot of centuries of things culminating in, "This is a poor Appalachian area." And there are a lot of

disabling factors here that have gone on. So a lot of people are disabled. And so you can say, like, "Hey, I have this need here. Like, you know, like, our neighbor so-and-so is getting older in age, and then--and she is having trouble weeding her garden," just for an example. And we have the community structures kind of in place--not formal structures, but just, like, things that naturally are built in a small town like this to say, like, "Oh, well, I know so-and-so, like, my best friend's daughter loves to weed gardens and she's looking, like, to help--get help, like, learning more about gardening. She can come over and weed the garden." Just stuff like that that are, like, really important for--it's--that can really make a difference in disabled peoples' ability

to live their life in ways that they like. Just for--as another example--(laughs)--this is illegal, but, I mean, it's good. Like, I personally think it's good, even though it's illegal--like, fuck the law, but, like--can I say swear words?

THOMPSON: (laughter) Say whatever you want.

PATTERSON: Okay. (laughs) Yeah, fuck the law. So something that is really hard to access for many people is pain medication and pain management, so if cousin Jim has a kidney stone, and he knows if he goes to the hospital, they're not going to give him anything more than ibuprofen for his kidney stone, well, maybe uncle Joe has, like, one or two pills left over from the surgery he had last year, and, you know--like, it's just an area where community helps each other in terms of, like, disability needs, even if we don't conceptualize them as disability needs

because everybody is familiar with the concept of disability, even if they don't call it disability, if that makes sense.

THOMPSON: So you talked, like, a little bit about how there's a lot of--you talked a little bit about how there's a lot of disabling factors in Appalachia, and I was wondering if you could talk a little more about that and, like, what kind of factors you see as, like, causing a lot of disability in Appalachia or making it worse.

PATTERSON: So the first thing that comes to my mind is coal company towns. That's kind of, like, the number one thing that is, like, the blaring thing in my brain. But in my area--like, there's no coal mining in my area, even though it's Appalachia. Like, it's on the Western side of Appalachia. So my grandparents actually are from Pine Mountain where there is coal mining, and

my grandparents were coal miners. But--so a lot of health issues come from mining and coal. Like, just, like, every health issue you could imagine. It gets really bad when there are no worker protections and you're basically forced by poverty to do really strenuous labor for all of your life and really hazardous circumstances, and those health problems aren't addressed, and they can basically compound generationally. When, like, my daddy--when you're like, "Oh, my daddy was a coal miner, and my son's going to be a coal miner," those things compound over time. I also think about poverty-driven factors. Like, obviously that is a poverty-driven factor, but there's lots of other ways

that poverty can play a role. Not having access to preventative care for a lot of things. Like, we have the stereotype that, like Appalachian people don't have teeth, and that's, like, widely--(laughs)--because Appalachian people don't have access to dentists, stuff like that. There's also a lot of disabling events from being poor, and the only way out of being so poor that you have to work your entire life in the coal mine is to sign up for the military, which is something my grandfather did. He signed up with the Navy, and his--and this was during the time my grandmother was pregnant with him--with my father--the whole thalidomide thing was happening, the military wives being given the nausea drug thalidomide, and that caused congenital birth defects is what they're called

in medical terms. So that's something that, like, hit the area--(laughs)--I feel like. A lot of people went into the military. A lot of people are disabled from, like, primarily military things, like, you know, being in war, being in situations like that. And then just, like, other poverty factors, like the generational trauma from being impoverished, which can--we are now learning can lead to a lot of what would be diagnosed as psychiatric illnesses, like, that--the compound new generational trauma has an effect on one's brain processes. And then what happens there, compounded with general--generational trauma, and the way that your brain works due to generational trauma on top of still being impoverished, that's a great recipe for substance use. And then there are a lot of--

Oops, sorry about that. Then there are a lot of disabilities that come from that substance abuse, and how then there's generational trauma from how someone's substance abuse might affect the way that they--their relationship with their kids. And so there's trauma there, and it's just, like, all of these things, and poverty is, like, the central cause, and then it branches out in infinite ways, and we see infinite accommodations of disabilities in the area.

THOMPSON: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I feel like--(laughs)--I learned a lot from that, honestly. It's kind of changing the topic at this point, but I was wondering, like, you mentioned, like,

going to UK and, like, with that transition, I was wondering, like, first of all, like, how the, like, transition even--maybe not even related to disability, but in general, how that might've impacted you, but also, like, how UK is as a, like, school in terms of accessibility for you. Like, if you've had problems with that, or smooth sailing? (laughs)

PATTERSON: I feel like I'm still--I'm about to be a junior in college, and I feel like I'm still making the transition to college. I feel like a lot of that is obviously, like, COVID impact, but still, like, just the way my brain works, changes are not easy for my brain to process, and I'm having to learn to meet a lot of my needs that were previously just inherently met by my home environment, but now they're needs that I have to learn how to meet on my own, so that's been a--

That's been a tough process. Accessibility at UK. It could be better. (laughs) Just to put it lightly. Accessibility at UK. One thing that would change my life in particular, in terms of accessibility at UK--and I've had this discussion--I used to--I did have a job at the counseling center, but I have left that for differences in philosophy. I don't feel comfortable. Like, it was a position where I was potentially in the position where they would've potentially have expected me to refer someone to be committed against their will, and I will never, have never, can't do that. So I had to leave as soon as my contract was up on that position for differences in philosophy, differences in

morals. But one of the discussions I had when I was on that team, like, I tried to focus a lot of my efforts on, like, just helping, just trying to, like, highlight the mental needs of students at the university that, like, weren't being understood by the people who were in charge of things. One of the, like, discussions that we had that I kind of, like, sparked and tried to, like, lead, and then a lot of the peers that--my peers that were also college students, they were also working in this position. They also really concurred with is that UK markets itself as having free mental healthcare for all the students. "We care about your mental health, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." But it doesn't show up in any of the policies that it needs to show up in, and what I mean is that attendance, lateness of assignments, the way

classrooms are structured, stuff like that, it is an uphill battle to try to get accommodations for psychiatric category disabilities, accommodations around how much you can miss and not lose letter grades, how much--maybe if you need to turn assignments in late because, like, you know, last night I was having an X,Y or Z attack, you know? Stuff like that. The accommodations to get that are--it's an uphill battle that it shouldn't have to be, and I think that if the university wants to practice what they preach, they can write in laws into their policy, their senate rules, or whatever it's called that we have that allow lenience for students in attendance and turning assignments in because they will tell you that they understand that a lot of--(laughs)--pretty much

everybody in the world we live in today is dealing with struggles with mental health for one reason or another, and that might not be something that can be diagnosed as a psychiatric disability, but it's--everyone has mental health. Everyone experiences negative things that impact their mental health and impact their ability to get work done, be on time, be here, and I think if a university that claims to understand that wants to do something about that, they can practice what they preach and write it into their laws, and that would make the university infinitely more accessible for everyone, in my opinion.

THOMPSON: Yeah. I feel like what you're saying, like, makes total sense because, like, accessibility is going to help everyone too. Like, it's not just going to help people that need it most. It's also, like, if someone is experiencing trouble with something and they can't turn in an assignment on time, like, why is that going to punish

their grade just because they don't officially have a diagnosis of such and such?

PATTERSON: Right.

THOMPSON: It is a fear of hyper-medicalization you were talking about earlier.

PATTERSON: Yeah.

THOMPSON: So you mentioned some, like--the COVID-19 pandemic. (laughs) I was wondering how that might've, like, impacted you or the disabled community, like, the wider disabled community and, like, what you've learned from that. Or you can take this in any way you want to, honestly. (laughs)

PATTERSON: COVID is one of those things that, like, feels so central to the disability community, but it's one of those things that people outside of the disability community won't recognize as something that is so central to our lives because obviously the government kind of has left disabled people to die on this one,

and, like, it--(laughs)--that's just something that, you know, just sits in your soul, and you just have to deal with it. It's just, like, it's just one of those things. It's horrible, but just, like, moving forward. Yeah, so COVID has impacted the disabled community in many ways, especially just in that people who have, like, other, like, what they call comorbidities--people who have, like, risk factors, immunocompromised people, and the list goes on and on--actually what a lot of people don't know is that, for a lot of reasons, the people who--with various diagnosed psychiatric conditions are at higher risk for COVID, and, like, there's just--disabled people, any way you spin it, are at higher risk for COVID, are at higher risk for losing their lives to COVID,

are at higher risk for experiencing long-term complications with COVID. Even people who aren't disabled are--I think the statistic just came out from the CDC the other day--don't quote me on this, but I think it said every one in five adults who have had COVID are experiencing long COVID symptoms, which long COVID is essentially a disability. I mean, it's not essentially. It just is a disability, but a lot of people aren't recognizing that. So any way you spin it, this is central to the disability community. We can--like, you can talk about how the government hasn't prioritized the lives of disabled people by doing as strict of lockdowns as they should of, have--by lifting mask mandates when that never should've been a thing, how the university is complicit in continuing to lift mask mandates. I expect unless something major happens, I cannot see the University of Kentucky having any COVID policies

coming into this fall semester, 2022. I expect there to be no mask mandate anywhere. I expect there to be a free-for-all, essentially, pretending that this pandemic is over when it isn't, and that's going to affect disabled students--(laughs)--a lot because whether the university likes to admit it or not, there are disabled students who are at high risk for COVID who go to school and have no other options but to go to school. And they are going to--people are going to catch COVID, and there's no way around that. And I just hope it doesn't get as bad as it could get because the university is--has dropped the ball on that, and that's political of them. I--that is a political decision that they've made that is going to harm disabled students any way you spin it, and I hope it just harms disabled students as least as possible. I hope, like, luck showers down on us and, like, we don't

get hurt as bad as we think we're going to get hurt. But, you know, it's--(laughs)--the university has left it up to luck at this point. So yeah, there's just so many ways--things about COVID and disability, and in the beginning of the pandemic, there was that news coming out from different parts of the world that people--different--like, disabled people who have maybe intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities, were being given Do Not Resuscitate orders because they were deemed to have, like, no quality of life if they were to succumb from COVID, and that's essentially, like, eugenics policies, and all of this, like, waters down to this institution, that institution, and the institution below it, and the institutions above it do not care about disabled people enough to prioritize our lives, and when you don't prioritize our

lives, we do die. And that--that's not incidental. It's not a coincidence. There's something very pointed going on there politically, and it's very dark, and, you know, I hope we make it out of this, and that's all I can think of to say about COVID. (laughs)

THOMPSON: Yes. I probably should've asked this earlier, but I was wondering, like--because you were talking a lot with, like, the relationships with, like, poverty and disability and how you've seen that still in Appalachia, and I was wondering if you, like, knew anything about, like, government aid for people with--especially government aid for people with, like, disabilities and stuff and how--like, if you have any opinions about that and its effectiveness. If you don't, that's okay.

PATTERSON: I do know--I know a little bit. I know surface amount stuff about

social security, disability income type stuff, what is commonly called here in Appalachia, welfare. It's, you know, something that, you know--I know a lot of people who draw welfare, and I know it's a very hard thing to get into. I--it's said that, like, the first time that you apply, they may as well just throw your application in the trash. Like, they never let almost anyone get aid on their first time applying. You have to lawyer up and you have to apply a second time, a third time, before you get the aid that you need. And it's a poverty wage, is essentially what you're given when you get onto it. But what is kind of keeping people in the loop of being on it is, like, obviously a lot of people, like, they--their disability inherently implies that, like, they're not able to hold a

job in what we would consider to be, like, a normative 9:00 to 5:00 kind of job. And a lot of the work that disabled people are--(laughs)--interested in pursuing a lot of times isn't something that can sustain them because coming with disability, there's a lot of health needs, and one thing that the social security disability income can help with is your health insurance, which is something that disabled people need desperately. Health insurance is--(laughs)--so expensive, and when you're going to the doctor a bunch and you're needing to see all of these specialists--excuse me one second. I've got to plug my phone in. When you're needing to see all these specialists, your health bills are going to be absolutely astronomical. And so that's, like, one of the main reasons why disabled people are basically stuck

continuing to accept this program that isn't actually bringing them above that range of poverty. Like, if you're drawing--like I said, if you're drawing social security disability income, your wage, when it's calculated out, like, you're on the poverty line. And that's--(laughs)--something that--you know, it just continues to intersect and compound. Like, I've--like we've been talking about, it intersects and it compounds with every other thing, and it's just like a cycle of poverty because, what, you're disabled and you want to get married? Well, better hope that your--the person you're trying to get married to doesn't have, like, more than, I don't know, two thousand dollars in their bank account because, like, then you would lose your benefits. You would lose our health insurance, and you can't do that.

Want to have a kid? Well, I mean, if a disabled person has a kid, there's a great likelihood that that child will also be disabled, just, like, genetics. And now we're in--continuing the cycle of generational poverty--the poverty that's inflicted on the parent, passed down to the son, the daughter, the child--and then continues. It just continues. It's a cycle. (laughs)

THOMPSON: What do you wish people, like, knew about, like, disability and, like, the disabled experience? At least your disabled experience.

PATTERSON: I wish people knew that it is so central to the lives of those of us who are disabled, that it colors every experience we have in our lives,

and it is a source of great joy for a lot of us and a lot of experiences. It's a source of great misery when we're dealing with experiences like COVID and not having--and poverty and stuff like that. But it's an experience that affects every aspect of our lives and is not more inherently negative. It has its negatives. Like, we've talked about a lot of the factors that are harming disabled people, but there--like I said, there is a lot of joy there, a lot of joy in finding community, a lot of pride, a lot of love between disabled people and disabled communities, and I wish that that was something that was talked about more. Just disabled joy. The complexity of our experience. Disabled people, our experiences contain multitudes. It's, like, impossible to

succinctly define our experiences in one particular way, but I wish people knew more about our joy and our love and our community.

THOMPSON: Thank you for sharing that. That was a really important message too.

PATTERSON: Well, thank you.

THOMPSON: Just talking about the crappy stuff doesn't mean--sorry--doesn't mean there's not good things as well, and that's really important, and not a lot of people--not a lot of abled people are aware of that, I don't feel. Is there anything else you really want to talk about that we haven't, like, yet? Or that you want to add?

PATTERSON: I don't think so. I feel like I've rambled on about a lot of things. (laughs)

THOMPSON: I'm glad. Okay, so, I'm thankful to have you here, and I guess if we're done, then I can go ahead and end this recording now. Thank you for being with us today.

PATTERSON: Thank you.

[End of interview.]