Dusty Wentworth

  Different governments are using different language, but the machinery underneath is becoming remarkably familiar. In Britain, we are told the disability benefits system must become more “affordable”. In America, work requirements are described as “community engagement”. In Australia, tighter control of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is presented as “securing” it for future generations. Different countries. Different slogans. Much the same machinery. Eligibility is narrowed. Assessments become more frequent. Claimants must provide more evidence. Payments are reduced, capped or frozen. Disabled people are divided between a protected minority considered sufficiently severe and everybody else, who must repeatedly prove that their limitations are real. When the same pattern appears across several countries at roughly the same time, dismissing it as coincidence is inadequate. Calling it a single secret global conspiracy would go beyond the evidence. Pretending that these poli...

  When Disability Becomes Content: Who Gets to Tell the Truth? I am not a disability creator. I am a writer who happens to be disabled, lives with chronic illness and pain, and uses a wheelchair. That distinction matters to me. Disability informs much of my writing because it affects almost every area of my life. It influences how I travel, work, spend money, access public spaces and plan even the most ordinary day. But it is not the entirety of who I am, nor do I want everything I produce to be reduced to symptoms, seizures and suffering. My blog allows me to explore the complexity that social media often strips away. It is now read in 47 countries across six continents. My articles have also been published elsewhere, including in The Male Psychology Magazine . That is where I do the heavy lifting. Social media is primarily how I publicise that writing. It also gives me a way to share shorter pieces of honest lived experience, particularly for people trying to understand a new dia...