Nobody Taught Me the Rules of the System I Was Born Into

We’re all born into systems that were built long before we arrived. Funding rules, eligibility criteria, forms that ask the same question five different ways. Nobody hands you a manual.

I remember sitting in a meeting early on, listening to someone explain why a support I needed didn’t fit the criteria. Not because I didn’t need it. Because the system had been built around a version of need that didn’t look like mine.

That happens more than people realise. A system gets designed with the best intentions, then real people show up who don’t fit the boxes it was built for. When that happens, it’s rarely the person who gets asked to change. It’s expected to be the other way round, and that’s backwards.

I think the biggest misunderstanding is that navigating a broken system and fixing a broken system are the same skill. They’re not. I can teach someone to navigate one. That’s useful, and I do it often. But navigating something and improving it are two different jobs, and only doing the first one means the same walls stay standing for the next person.

That’s what system advocacy means to me. Understanding how the system actually works, then using that understanding to change it, not just survive it.

Have you ever understood your own situation clearly, but felt like the system in front of you didn’t understand you at all?

If you want the tools to navigate systems and start reshaping them, that’s exactly what the Self Advocacy Collection is built for, coming soon. Link in bio, lighteningup.com.au.

Madeleine x