Stop Offering Me the Same Support as Everyone Else

Someone once offered me a support plan that was clearly built for someone completely different from me. Same forms, same checklist, same assumptions. It didn’t fit, and nobody seemed to notice it didn’t fit.

That’s what happens when services get built for an average person who doesn’t actually exist.

Cultural dignity means recognising that people carry different histories, languages, and ways of understanding the world into every room they walk into. A one size fits all approach isn’t neutral. It quietly favours whoever the system was originally built around, and asks everyone else to adjust.

I think real respect looks like curiosity. Asking instead of assuming. Building services around the actual person in front of you, not the imagined average person a policy document had in mind.

When has a service or a system tried to squeeze you into a box that didn’t fit who you actually are?

If you’re ready to stop shrinking to fit boxes that were never built for you, the Self Advocacy Collection is coming soon, built for exactly that. Link in bio, lighteningup.com.au.

Madeleine x