Latest / Unbalanced with Cerys Davage / 68. Journey to self love and body positivity (ft. Jill Cabernel)

Transcript

68. Journey to self love and body positivity (ft. Jill Cabernel) · Unbalanced with Cerys Davage

• 0:10
  Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Unbalanced
• 0:13
  with Me, Kerry Savage. How are we all?
• 0:16
  The sun is shining out here and I'm absolutely loving it.
• 0:20
  It's really lifted my mood. And another thing that's lifting
• 0:24
  my mood today is the fact that I get to meet someone else and
• 0:27
  interview someone on my podcast today.
• 0:30
  Hi, Jill. Hi.
• 0:32
  How are you doing? I'm doing good.
• 0:34
  How are you? I'm good.
• 0:35
  Thank you. Thank you for waking up so early
• 0:38
  to do this podcast. What time is it over there?
• 0:40
  It's 8:00 in the morning. Oh wow, fair play to you.
• 0:44
  Thank you so much for doing this.
• 0:45
  Where are you based and what do you do?
• 0:48
  So I'm based in Vancouver, Canada.
• 0:50
  I grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, and that's in a very tiny town
• 0:56
  and that's where my family still live.
• 0:58
  And then when I was 18, literally like the day after I
• 1:02
  graduated high school, I moved to Vancouver for school and I've
• 1:06
  been here ever since, so about 15 years.
• 1:10
  And so for my day job, or I guess like my career job, you
• 1:15
  could say I work in post production for film and TV.
• 1:19
  But over the last year or so, I started on this whole content
• 1:23
  creator, disability advocate journey.
• 1:27
  And that's kind of where I realised that this is the kind
• 1:30
  of work I'm I'm more passionate about South, trying to invest a
• 1:33
  little bit more time into that. Amazing.
• 1:36
  I'm sure we'll get into the content creation that you do,
• 1:39
  but tell me a bit about your work and you know what that's
• 1:43
  been like as a disabled person. And yeah, how long have you been
• 1:47
  in that industry and how have you found it?
• 1:49
  So I've been in the film industry for, I guess since I
• 1:52
  graduated university, so 13 years.
• 1:55
  It's definitely hard being a disabled person in the working
• 1:59
  world, especially in like the film industry.
• 2:02
  And I found like as my disability, it's been a lot
• 2:08
  harder. Luckily, ever since the
• 2:10
  pandemic, I've been able to, to work from home.
• 2:12
  Before 2020, I, I would commute into the office every single day
• 2:16
  with public transit. And that's just exhausting, as
• 2:21
  I'm sure you know. So that's one of the reasons I
• 2:23
  really like doing the the content creation and I'm really
• 2:27
  hoping I can do it full time just so I can work for myself
• 2:31
  and I don't have to rely on an employer to say, yes, you can't
• 2:35
  work from home. That is a very common thing that
• 2:38
  I've I've heard, especially from disabled people, that being
• 2:42
  self-employed is just so much easier because you're the only
• 2:45
  one who really knows what you're going through.
• 2:47
  You're the one who knows what you need, and it's just you're
• 2:51
  not tackling the problems that come with being employed,
• 2:54
  especially by a big company and having to navigate your needs
• 2:59
  to, you know, like a team of people.
• 3:01
  So I hope that does happen for you.
• 3:03
  And it does sound like something unfortunately a lot of disabled
• 3:06
  people go through. Do you agree?
• 3:09
  Yeah. And especially like I've noticed
• 3:11
  in the last like year or two, ever since we've been moving
• 3:14
  farther and farther away from like the initial pandemic, that
• 3:17
  a lot of employers are like getting rid of their work from
• 3:21
  home accommodations, which is really unfortunate.
• 3:25
  And it's really concerning as a disabled person who has come to
• 3:29
  rely on that. And I, I know I spoken to so
• 3:33
  many disabled people who like work for like a traditional
• 3:36
  company, like a nine to five. And it's almost impossible to
• 3:41
  get accommodations. And of course it it varies by
• 3:45
  country and the laws, but Even so, I feel like there's a lot of
• 3:50
  discrimination towards disabled people in the workplace,
• 3:53
  unfortunately. Yeah, I think we're getting
• 3:57
  there, but there's still just a lack of education, isn't there?
• 4:00
  Yeah, yeah. So tell me a bit about your
• 4:03
  disability and your diagnosis journey.
• 4:06
  So I was diagnosed with a condition called Charcot Marie
• 4:09
  Tooth Disease, or CMT, when I was about two years old.
• 4:14
  It's a degenerative neurological disease.
• 4:17
  And basically the easiest way to describe it is like the brain
• 4:21
  can't communicate with the nerves properly, so it causes
• 4:25
  things like muscle wasting and sensory loss.
• 4:29
  It's sort of similar to muscular dystrophy, and in fact, it was
• 4:33
  classified as a type of muscular dystrophy for a really long
• 4:36
  time. Yeah.
• 4:39
  And something that can happen to some people with CMT is
• 4:44
  scoliosis, which is when the spine curves sideways.
• 4:49
  And I actually have a type of scoliosis called kyphoscoliosis,
• 4:53
  which means the spine curves both sideways and forwards.
• 4:57
  Yeah. So 2, two different.
• 4:59
  Yeah. So I was diagnosed with that
• 5:02
  when I was about 11:00. And then we tried bracing it for
• 5:06
  a couple years just to stop the curve from from getting worse,
• 5:11
  but that didn't work. So when I was 13, I had to have
• 5:15
  spinal fusion surgery, which is basically they take two metal
• 5:20
  rods and screw them into your spine to to keep the curb from
• 5:23
  getting worse. Yeah.
• 5:26
  So that's a progressive condition as well.
• 5:30
  Scoliosis, I guess you could say, because as you grow, the
• 5:35
  spine will curb more, but the purpose of using it was to to
• 5:41
  stop you from basically growing. So as of right now, it's my
• 5:46
  scoliosis can't get worse. I could have back problems in
• 5:49
  the future because of the surgery, but that's a whole
• 5:52
  other whole other thing that I didn't know at the time.
• 5:56
  But yeah. Wow, So you've got a double
• 5:58
  whammy there. And so with your surgery, you
• 6:03
  know, when did you go through that?
• 6:05
  And how are you finding your scoliosis now?
• 6:08
  Like does it affect you day-to-day?
• 6:11
  So my surgery when was when I was 13, I don't remember a lot
• 6:16
  of it. It was I'm 33 now so it was a
• 6:19
  long time ago. But also I think I blocked a lot
• 6:21
  of it out just like medical trauma.
• 6:24
  But all I remember it was being very painful.
• 6:26
  That's really the only memory I have of it.
• 6:29
  Like the curve has stopped growing so my scoliosis won't
• 6:33
  get worse. And like today, the way it
• 6:36
  affects me is I can't bend over at all.
• 6:40
  Also can't bend over because of CMT.
• 6:42
  So again, double whammy and things like walking and sitting
• 6:49
  for a long period of time. I, I get really bad back pain.
• 6:52
  I always say I'm like the worst person to sit next to like at a
• 6:55
  movie theatre or an aeroplane because like, I'm constantly
• 6:58
  contorting myself to try and get comfortable.
• 7:01
  Yeah. And then with with my CMT, it's
• 7:03
  so funny when I get asked this question, like, how does it
• 7:06
  affect you? Because I'm sure, you know, like
• 7:09
  when you've had a disability your whole life, you kind of
• 7:11
  adapt in little ways that you don't even realise.
• 7:14
  With my cmti have a lot of muscle weakness, especially if
• 7:18
  like in my legs. So walking is really hard.
• 7:22
  I'm always like tripping and stumbling and like walking up
• 7:25
  stairs. I need to hold on to a railing.
• 7:29
  So yeah. OK, so yeah, it does sound like
• 7:32
  our conditions are quite similar.
• 7:33
  And yeah, I have heard of your of CMT, but I don't really know
• 7:38
  enough about it. But I know that there are some
• 7:40
  crossovers, like you said, you know, it was classed as a
• 7:42
  muscular dystrophy for a while. So there's a reason.
• 7:45
  Have you found the little adaptations?
• 7:48
  Like have you found them? Like do you find that you're
• 7:52
  like beating yourself up over the fact that you're losing
• 7:54
  things? Because I definitely feel that
• 7:55
  way sometimes, you know, like if I tried to do something that I
• 7:59
  used to be able to do and then I'm like, oh, I can't do that
• 8:01
  anymore. Oh, that's, that's not good.
• 8:04
  And then, you know, I have to find another way of adapting it.
• 8:06
  How you find in that kind of process?
• 8:09
  Yeah, definitely feel that. With my CMT.
• 8:14
  I feel like the progression is pretty like slow, like it is
• 8:18
  progressing, but I don't notice day-to-day.
• 8:21
  Like, wow, I couldn't do that last month.
• 8:24
  It's more like, wow, I couldn't do that five years ago.
• 8:27
  So like things like walking a long distance, I find it's
• 8:31
  getting harder and harder. And yeah, I definitely beat
• 8:34
  myself up over. And it's like, wow, like you
• 8:36
  could do that five years ago and now you can't.
• 8:39
  And it's just, yeah, it's a hard thing to, to accept.
• 8:43
  But I mean, what are you going to do?
• 8:45
  It's you kind of just have to accept it and, and, and not, not
• 8:49
  worry about beating yourself up because it's not your fault.
• 8:53
  Yeah, and the way I try and see it is, you know, your body's
• 8:56
  doing the best it can. And yeah, there's just, we just
• 8:59
  need to give it some love. And on that topic, actually, I
• 9:03
  wanted to get into body positivity a bit because I've
• 9:07
  recently done an episode on body positivity and I was kind of
• 9:11
  inspired by you because you do a lot of that on your Instagram.
• 9:15
  And I guess we have like two ways of looking at this, you
• 9:20
  know, in for your from your perspective, because we've got
• 9:23
  the muscle wasting and the nerves and, you know, your body
• 9:26
  kind of slowly breaking down. So there's that aspect, but
• 9:28
  there's also the maybe more obvious aspects of your
• 9:32
  scoliosis. How are you finding that, you
• 9:34
  know, like your relationship with that?
• 9:37
  And I guess eventually we'll we'll get into posting it online
• 9:40
  as well. Yeah, it's my relationship with
• 9:45
  my body has definitely gotten better.
• 9:47
  So yeah, like you said, like I have kind of it from two sides.
• 9:50
  I have the muscle wasting, which is obvious, and the scoliosis,
• 9:54
  which is obvious too. When I was younger, I was
• 9:58
  thinking about this like I had my spinal fusion when I was 13
• 10:02
  and like here I was, you know, a 13 year old girl with a massive
• 10:08
  scar down her back and like a very obvious curve to her spine.
• 10:12
  And I hated my body. And like, those are such
• 10:16
  formative years. Like when you're 1314, you're,
• 10:19
  you're going into high school. And like, I felt like I couldn't
• 10:24
  wear the same cute clothes as on my friends.
• 10:27
  And like, at pool parties, I wouldn't swim because I was so
• 10:31
  embarrassed about my body. And when I was growing up, there
• 10:35
  was no social media, so I didn't see anybody who looked like me.
• 10:41
  And no one talked about, like, what it was like to exist in a
• 10:44
  disabled body and like how that impacts your body image.
• 10:48
  And I, like, carry that with me for a very long time, like up
• 10:51
  until just a few years ago. Because even now, there's not
• 10:55
  really many people around who say, hey, it's OK to have a
• 10:59
  disabled body. It's OK to be different.
• 11:01
  And like with body positivity, I think it's getting better, like
• 11:05
  with more people on social media advocating for it.
• 11:09
  But unfortunately, disabled bodies are are still left out of
• 11:12
  the conversation. So that's really interesting
• 11:17
  what you said about the fact that you didn't grow up with
• 11:20
  social media and you implied that as a negative thing
• 11:24
  because, you know, nowadays people hate the fact they've
• 11:26
  that they're growing up on social media.
• 11:28
  But I suppose, you know, if you haven't got social media, you've
• 11:31
  got magazines with, you know, body perfect, quote unquote
• 11:35
  models. And I guess nowadays you do see
• 11:39
  all body types on social media. So I really like the way that
• 11:41
  you've viewed social media as a positive thing rather than a
• 11:44
  negative thing, where it's easy to compare yourself to other
• 11:48
  Instagramers. Yeah, it's kind of a double
• 11:51
  edged sword. Like it's, it's really easy to
• 11:52
  compare yourself. But like when I was growing up,
• 11:55
  like you said, we had magazines and we had reality TV and that's
• 11:59
  kind of where all of our body image issues came from, so.
• 12:03
  And it's not reality at all, is it?
• 12:05
  No. I don't know why it's called
• 12:07
  reality TV. It's like far from it, but there
• 12:10
  we go. Just like CMT tooth Where?
• 12:13
  Where does that come from? Do you know?
• 12:15
  Oh my gosh. Does it?
• 12:18
  No, oh, no, It I get that all the time when I talk about it,
• 12:21
  they're like, Oh my gosh. So you have tooth disease, like,
• 12:23
  no. It's named after the scientists
• 12:27
  who discovered it. There we go.
• 12:29
  Which not the great, not a great way to describe a condition, but
• 12:35
  yeah. OK, well we've we've cleared
• 12:38
  that up, so you're too fine. Yes, cheaper Frank the.
• 12:41
  One thing, the one thing that's not affected.
• 12:44
  Perfect. I'm sorry to hear that.
• 12:47
  You know, your relationship with your body hasn't always been,
• 12:50
  you know, a positive thing. But I guess that's the case for
• 12:53
  a lot of women. And, you know, we've all had our
• 12:56
  struggles. We've all compared ourselves to
• 12:58
  to other people, you know, in our lives, let alone on, you
• 13:02
  know, social media or you know, famous people.
• 13:05
  But how you find in the world of social media now, like do you
• 13:09
  think, like you said, it is a double edged sword, but what's
• 13:12
  been your experience of it? Yeah.
• 13:14
  I mean, so far it's been a positive experience.
• 13:18
  I haven't had a lot of negativity a bit, but I mean,
• 13:22
  it's pretty easy to ignore those comments.
• 13:25
  But the thing I really enjoy is like I'm getting messages from
• 13:28
  from girls with scoliosis or CMT saying, Oh my gosh, like I've
• 13:32
  never seen anybody who like had a body who looked like mine
• 13:36
  before your account. So, so that's been really nice.
• 13:39
  And yeah, I think now that I'm a bit older, I think I can handle
• 13:43
  social media a little bit better than I probably could when I was
• 13:46
  20. That's, you know, was a point
• 13:49
  where I was had a really, really bad relationship with my body
• 13:52
  and just my disability in general.
• 13:55
  Like I didn't accept it. I tried to hide it.
• 13:57
  So, you know, I think with age comes wisdom, I think.
• 14:02
  So I feel like now is just kind of the right time to be doing.
• 14:05
  This is that What kind of inspired you to stop posting on
• 14:10
  social media? Yeah, so I have been thinking of
• 14:13
  doing it for quite a while, but I'm a pretty private person, if
• 14:16
  you can believe it or not. Like before my account, I just
• 14:20
  had like a private social media account, which is family.
• 14:23
  I had like 50 people on there and I never really posted.
• 14:27
  But I remember looking through like TikTok and Instagram for
• 14:31
  people with scoliosis and like how to dress with scoliosis.
• 14:35
  And I couldn't find anything really.
• 14:37
  And I even like, Googled how to dress with scoliosis and all I
• 14:42
  found were articles on like, here's how you hide your
• 14:44
  scoliosis. I'm like, that's not really what
• 14:47
  we want to do. Yeah.
• 14:49
  So I kind of thought, OK, well, maybe maybe there's something,
• 14:53
  you know, I could do here because I've lived with
• 14:55
  scoliosis for so long. Maybe I could help out other.
• 14:58
  People, that's amazing. And it's nice to be the voice
• 15:02
  that you wish you had when you were younger.
• 15:04
  Exactly. You relate to you on that.
• 15:07
  But yeah, it's just such a nice feeling when someone sends you a
• 15:10
  message saying I'm exactly like this.
• 15:12
  I mean, I know exactly what you're going through and how
• 15:15
  you're feeling because I'm going through it too.
• 15:18
  And there's just something so nice about that community being
• 15:21
  opened up and just feeling less alone in it.
• 15:24
  It really has like changed my aspect and changed my like, I, I
• 15:29
  guess lease of life in a way and like the way I did my condition
• 15:34
  because I haven't always accepted my condition.
• 15:38
  And like you said, you know, I didn't want people to know about
• 15:40
  it. It wasn't as much of an issue in
• 15:42
  school as in to try and hide it because it just wasn't very
• 15:44
  obvious. And as we all know, they get
• 15:48
  more obvious as you get older. So it's almost as if it just
• 15:51
  takes over and you're forced to accept it because it's just, you
• 15:55
  know, you can deny it as much as you want, but at one point it's
• 15:58
  going to just, it's going to beat you and you're going to
• 16:02
  just have to accept it because it's not going away, you know?
• 16:04
  So that's an interesting relationship, but knowing that
• 16:07
  there's other people that's also struggling to accept their
• 16:11
  diagnosis but also going through the same stuff, it's just it
• 16:14
  makes it a bit better to deal with.
• 16:18
  Yeah, for sure. I feel that way too.
• 16:20
  Like before I kind of started on social media and started like
• 16:23
  getting involved with the disability of community, I had
• 16:26
  never met anyone with CMT It it's kind of rare, but not, you
• 16:31
  know, so rare that nobody else has it.
• 16:33
  But yeah, it's been good to to meet other people with it and be
• 16:36
  like, and, and even people with without CMT, like people with
• 16:40
  muscular dystrophy, like when you talk about certain things,
• 16:44
  it's like, Oh my God, yes, they get it.
• 16:47
  Yeah, exactly. It's just such a nice feeling,
• 16:50
  but it's scary to be the one to put yourself out there to find
• 16:54
  that community. Like I wish there was someone
• 16:56
  else that I could have just messaged and be like hey I have
• 16:59
  this too but I just didn't find anyone so I had to do it myself.
• 17:04
  Yeah. Well, you should be very proud
• 17:08
  of the work that you've done on your social media.
• 17:10
  Tell me a bit about what kind of stuff you post.
• 17:13
  Yeah, so most of what I post, I like to just call it content
• 17:17
  that kind of shows what it's like to exist as a disabled
• 17:21
  woman. I talk a lot about body
• 17:23
  positivity, body image, the relationship between mental
• 17:27
  health and your disability. I don't do a lot of like general
• 17:32
  disability education just because I don't think I'm the
• 17:35
  right person for that. There's so many other people on
• 17:37
  social media who do it so much better.
• 17:39
  But sometimes I do, and I like to kind of address ableism when
• 17:43
  I can, mostly from experiences in my own life.
• 17:47
  Definitely. That's obviously really
• 17:48
  important and it is really important to raise our voices on
• 17:52
  things like these and just hope that they are going on people's
• 17:55
  pages and educate people, you know, one at a time.
• 18:00
  How have you found the disability community online?
• 18:04
  Oh, it's been so amazing. Like, like, I don't really know
• 18:07
  anybody with a disability in my personal life.
• 18:10
  Not not that they've shared. I mean, there's, you know,
• 18:13
  possibly, but it's been so nice to connect with other disabled
• 18:18
  people. And like you said, it's kind of
• 18:21
  like helped come to terms, I guess, with your disability.
• 18:24
  It's not a great way to say it, but you kind of feel a bit more
• 18:27
  accepted and like it's OK to just be yourself because I feel
• 18:32
  like so many of us in our personal lives, you know, we
• 18:35
  might not have someone with a disability that we know.
• 18:38
  So we kind of have to, you know, hide or disability or not talk
• 18:42
  about it. So it's nice just to be able to
• 18:44
  talk with other people who get it and you can be yourself.
• 18:48
  Exactly. Yeah, that's really important.
• 18:51
  You post a lot about fashion brands and, you know, kind of
• 18:55
  clothing that suit different body types, not just sizes.
• 18:59
  We're talking shapes as well. How important do you think this
• 19:02
  is to raise awareness of these things?
• 19:06
  Yeah, I mean, obviously fashion is not like the most important
• 19:10
  thing in the world right now, especially right now with
• 19:12
  everything going on politically. There's so many more important
• 19:16
  things to address. But I think fashion is something
• 19:19
  we kind of forget about, especially when it comes to
• 19:22
  disabled people. You know, I've talked about like
• 19:25
  how there's adaptive clothing, but unfortunately the adaptive
• 19:30
  clothing I've seen isn't like really cute.
• 19:32
  It's kind of just like basic and almost medical.
• 19:36
  And I think we need to raise awareness.
• 19:38
  The fact that like disabled people want to be fashionable
• 19:41
  too. And you know, those clothes that
• 19:45
  all these brands are making, it would be so easy.
• 19:48
  Not saying it would be the easiest, but it would be so easy
• 19:51
  to make everything like adaptive so that everybody could have the
• 19:54
  opportunity to to wear things. Yeah, exactly.
• 20:00
  And yeah, of course it's not the most important thing, but it is,
• 20:03
  it's an interesting view because I guess you don't really know
• 20:06
  about these issues until someone who's experienced the issue
• 20:10
  raises that problem. And so, yeah, I am learning a
• 20:13
  lot from your page, so please keep going.
• 20:16
  You recently celebrated an anniversary, am I right?
• 20:19
  I did, yes. My wedding anniversary, yes.
• 20:22
  Congratulations. What's the relationship been
• 20:25
  like between you and your partner?
• 20:28
  What's that kind of, I don't know, dating world being like
• 20:31
  and what's married life like? Yeah, that's a great question.
• 20:35
  Dating with a disability is hard.
• 20:38
  I didn't really do too much of it, to be honest.
• 20:41
  I met my husband on a dating app and he was the only one I talked
• 20:45
  to. Well, not the only one I talked
• 20:47
  to. He was the only one I talked to
• 20:49
  in person so when we first started I talked about this in a
• 20:53
  post. But when we first started dating
• 20:55
  I didn't really tell him about my disability.
• 20:58
  I wasn't at a point where I was accepting it myself.
• 21:02
  And it's, it's a hard thing. Like how do you talk about that
• 21:05
  with somebody? I think it was maybe about 3 or
• 21:07
  4 dates and he kind of asked me about it.
• 21:10
  I think he saw like I was having trouble on the stairs or
• 21:12
  something. So afterwards he, he asked me
• 21:15
  about it and I kind of talked to him about it and going back, I
• 21:18
  wish I would have just been like open about it from the beginning
• 21:21
  because it just kind of would have saved some awkwardness.
• 21:26
  You know, he's been great about my disability.
• 21:29
  It's kind of fun to, like, he had never had experience with
• 21:33
  disability before, so it's been kind of fun to educate him on
• 21:36
  things, too. And he's always telling me like,
• 21:37
  oh, I didn't know that. So.
• 21:41
  And, you know, teaching him to be, you know, a good ally.
• 21:45
  Yeah, I love that. And yeah, you should be dating
• 21:49
  someone that's fully accepting of your disability and doesn't
• 21:51
  make you feel like you're a problem or, you know, an extra
• 21:55
  baggage. Just accepting you for who you
• 21:58
  are. Yeah, and like in our life, like
• 22:01
  he, he definitely takes on a lot like to help me.
• 22:04
  Like I'm never the one to go to the grocery store because I
• 22:08
  can't carry anything. You know, he does all the heavy
• 22:11
  lifting, you know, and he helps me out quite a lot physically so
• 22:15
  that I don't have to spend my energy doing, you know, the
• 22:19
  day-to-day things. So.
• 22:20
  So that's great. So I think, yeah, if anyone's
• 22:23
  listening, wants advice, I think just, you know, find someone who
• 22:27
  listens and understands and wants to learn because, you
• 22:32
  know, any partner that you're with is not going to instantly
• 22:35
  understand your disability. And that's something I really
• 22:38
  had a hard time with and we kind of had to work through.
• 22:41
  Like when you have a disability, you know, this is hard and this
• 22:44
  is what I need. And you kind of just assume
• 22:47
  other people will know that. But no, you have to communicate,
• 22:50
  hey, this is hard, this is what I need.
• 22:54
  So yeah. Yeah, communication is key.
• 22:57
  Without that is literally what like keeps a relationship going,
• 23:01
  right? Yeah, that's really nice piece
• 23:04
  of advice. Thank you so much for sharing
• 23:06
  that. And thank you for sharing an
• 23:07
  insight into your it's your journey of love.
• 23:10
  Yeah, I want to go back to being a disabled creator.
• 23:15
  And obviously, is this something that you want to do full time
• 23:19
  eventually? Yeah, I would love to get to the
• 23:22
  point where it could be, you know, full time.
• 23:25
  Not sure how that would look like, whether it's, you know,
• 23:27
  speaking or just doing something like YouTube or maybe one day
• 23:32
  writing a book or something. Still kind of exploring.
• 23:35
  Right now I'm just trying to like, grow my, my, my community
• 23:39
  and try and find all those, you know, disabled women and girls
• 23:43
  who, who are struggling with their, their body image and
• 23:45
  connect with them. But yeah, it's definitely, you
• 23:48
  know, something that I would love to be able to do full time
• 23:51
  and work for myself. How are you finding your current
• 23:54
  work in the TV world? It's OK.
• 23:58
  The film industry right now has been kind of rocked for the last
• 24:02
  few years with like COVID and strikes.
• 24:05
  So working in film has never been stable.
• 24:08
  But it's even more unstable now, which is also a reason that I
• 24:12
  would love to go full time with content and have something maybe
• 24:15
  a little more stable. But yeah, like luckily I work
• 24:18
  from home so it doesn't take it out of me too much physically,
• 24:22
  just mentally. Well, make sure that you're
• 24:25
  resting enough and you're not using up too much energy.
• 24:29
  Is this something that you struggle with a lot?
• 24:30
  Like trying not to take up too much energy and burn out?
• 24:34
  Yeah, absolutely. I have a really bad habit of
• 24:38
  working too much and just pushing myself too hard.
• 24:42
  It's definitely something that I struggle with, you know,
• 24:45
  realising that rest is OK and that, you know, as someone with
• 24:49
  a disability, everything is harder for me.
• 24:52
  So, you know, something as simple as a work day is going to
• 24:55
  exhaust me more than someone who doesn't have a disability.
• 24:58
  And it's OK to be tired by that. But even then, like, it, you
• 25:03
  feel guilty and you feel kind of bad about yourself.
• 25:06
  Like, why is this so hard for me?
• 25:07
  And it's important to have like people around you who are
• 25:09
  supportive and be like, no, it's OK, like you rest because you've
• 25:13
  you've had a long. Day yeah, it's so easy to feel
• 25:17
  guilty but yeah, if you had a friend that was struggling you
• 25:20
  know you would tell them to rest so.
• 25:22
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's, but then I just get
• 25:27
  so bored, you know? If I do sit down for a bit, I'm
• 25:29
  like, OK, right, Come on, what can I do now?
• 25:31
  Can I just stay busy? But yeah, it is something that
• 25:36
  life is forcing us to do now is to just take things slow and to
• 25:40
  ration your energy, you know, in different ways.
• 25:44
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:45
  Is. Are there any misconceptions
• 25:47
  about being a disabled creator that you think you'd like to
• 25:51
  address? So I'll speak for myself here,
• 25:55
  but I think the biggest one I get is because I'm, you know, so
• 25:59
  open about talking my, about my disability online that I should
• 26:03
  be OK with a stranger coming up to me and asking me about my
• 26:06
  disability. There's a really fine line
• 26:09
  between sharing online and, you know, sharing what you want to
• 26:13
  share when you want to share it and having someone come up to
• 26:16
  you on the street and asking you what's wrong with you.
• 26:19
  It's a really invasive question, and unfortunately, I get it
• 26:23
  quite a bit than most people with disabilities do.
• 26:27
  I think people forget that disabled people, we're just
• 26:30
  people too. And you know, we we're allowed
• 26:32
  to have boundaries and, you know, we're allowed to go to the
• 26:36
  grocery store or wait at a bus stop without someone coming up
• 26:40
  to ask and asking us invasive medical questions.
• 26:44
  Yeah, that's something the public needs to work harder on
• 26:47
  because you can think some thoughts for sure, but to
• 26:51
  actually approach someone and say those thoughts are asked,
• 26:54
  those questions, it's not always necessary, you know, and a lot
• 26:57
  of them are just curious. And I like to think that they
• 27:00
  have, you know, your best interest at heart and they just
• 27:03
  want to know. But there are some that just
• 27:05
  come across, you know, too invasive and you know,
• 27:09
  everyone's different. You know you don't need to know
• 27:11
  why all the time. Yeah, I always think to myself,
• 27:14
  and I'd love to say this to people, but I don't think I'm
• 27:17
  confrontational enough. But it's like, what about my
• 27:21
  answer will change your life? Like it won't.
• 27:24
  You just want to know because you're curious, which I don't
• 27:28
  know if I guess is fine to be curious, but I think just yeah.
• 27:34
  But you know, not everyone is happy answering those questions,
• 27:37
  so you'll run. Exactly.
• 27:38
  Than, you know, rejecting. Or running a risk of like
• 27:43
  upsetting the person because you know some disabilities are
• 27:46
  traumatic or you know, or someone just wants to literally
• 27:50
  get on with their day and not talk to you, which is fine.
• 27:54
  Yeah, I hate when people ask what happened.
• 27:57
  I'm like, nothing happened. I just, yeah, I'm disabled.
• 28:01
  Nothing actually happened though.
• 28:03
  But thanks, thanks for your. Concern.
• 28:06
  Yeah, that that one gets me all the time.
• 28:08
  It's like what happened or what's wrong with you?
• 28:09
  It's like I was born. I don't know, like I I don't
• 28:13
  know if it's because like, yeah, I don't know if it's because,
• 28:17
  you know, maybe like you and I are are younger and they just,
• 28:20
  it doesn't click for them that young people could be disabled.
• 28:24
  So they think we like had to have some kind of injury or
• 28:28
  something, but yeah. I like to think of it as that
• 28:31
  I'm just educating people one at a time.
• 28:34
  You know, if I do get approached, you know, I just
• 28:38
  briefly just say like, oh, I have a disability.
• 28:41
  And hopefully then that'll give them the mindset that young
• 28:44
  people can be disabled and hopefully they won't approach
• 28:47
  someone else. So, you know, I'd rather do that
• 28:50
  and deal with it than, you know, ignore them and them potentially
• 28:54
  doing that to someone else, you know?
• 28:57
  Yeah, that's that's a really great way to think about it.
• 29:00
  I try to stay positive about it. Yeah, maybe I'm a bit too
• 29:03
  negative and and jaded with strangers because sometimes I'm
• 29:06
  just like, don't talk to me and go away.
• 29:09
  But. Maybe by the time I'm 33, I'll
• 29:11
  maybe. Yeah.
• 29:13
  I'll be fed up. I'm like OK, I've done my bit.
• 29:17
  Yeah, don't. Read, read it up, you know,
• 29:21
  anyway, well, I think that what you're doing is great.
• 29:24
  And maybe next time someone asks you about your disability, you
• 29:28
  can just just say, OK, here's my Instagram.
• 29:32
  You can find everything you need on there.
• 29:34
  Goodbye. That's a That's a great way to
• 29:36
  do it. Print out business cards.
• 29:38
  Just just hand them the business card.
• 29:40
  You don't need to. You go goodbye.
• 29:42
  I need one to get my bus. Yeah.
• 29:46
  Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast to share
• 29:50
  just a little snippet into your life with CMT and scoliosis.
• 29:56
  I would like to end this podcast by asking a question that I ask
• 30:00
  all my interviewees, which is, is there a piece of advice that
• 30:03
  you would give your younger self or someone that's maybe
• 30:06
  struggling with a diagnosis? Yeah, so I think the advice I
• 30:11
  would give my younger self or anyone you know, struggling with
• 30:15
  their diagnosis or to accept their disability is you don't
• 30:20
  have to spend your entire life trying to be normal and you
• 30:25
  don't have to hide the parts of you that make others
• 30:28
  uncomfortable. It's OK to just be you and you
• 30:33
  know, at the end of the day, you have to love yourself and that's
• 30:37
  the most important thing. And you know, the right people
• 30:40
  will love you too, disability or not.
• 30:42
  So, so yeah, that that's my advice is just be who you are
• 30:45
  and you don't need to hide yourself or your disability.
• 30:49
  That's so lovely and something I'm definitely going to take on
• 30:52
  board anyway because you shouldn't apologise for being
• 30:55
  you. You shouldn't feel guilty or
• 30:57
  ashamed to be you, so I love that.
• 31:00
  Exactly. Yeah, where?
• 31:01
  Can we find you on social media? So I'm on Instagram and TikTok
• 31:06
  at Jill Cabernell. And I will link the apps in the
• 31:11
  description below. Is there anything else you'd
• 31:14
  like to add before we finish? I just want to say it's like
• 31:17
  such a joy listening to your podcast, even though I'm not
• 31:21
  exactly a young adult anymore. Yes, you are yes.
• 31:27
  What is young adult? What's an old adult?
• 31:29
  But you know, so many good things you talk about.
• 31:32
  I'm like, Oh my God, yes, like that happened to me too.
• 31:35
  Like, and you talk about things that, you know, most people
• 31:38
  don't think to, to talk about, like going out on a night out
• 31:41
  with your friends when you're disabled, how physically hard
• 31:46
  and you know, almost impossible it is sometimes.
• 31:50
  So I'm just so happy, like younger people have someone that
• 31:54
  they can listen to and relate to because this would have been
• 31:57
  amazing for me when I was younger.
• 31:59
  Oh, thank you so much. That's yeah, exactly the goal
• 32:03
  that I'm trying to trying to hit with them with the podcast.
• 32:06
  So I'm so glad. I'm sorry you can relate to some
• 32:09
  of it. I'm glad at the same time
• 32:12
  because, you know, hearing that just makes me feel less alone as
• 32:15
  well. Like it really does help me when
• 32:17
  people feed it back. So I really appreciate that.
• 32:19
  Thank you guys so much for listening.
• 32:21
  If you reach the end. I love you all so much for
• 32:24
  listening today. Don't forget to follow Jill on
• 32:27
  social media and I can't wait to see where your social media
• 32:30
  journey goes. It's so exciting.
• 32:32
  Please keep posting. I will for sure.
• 32:36
  Thank you to Cure LGMD 2 I for sponsoring this podcast.
• 32:41
  If you want to watch the more podcasts, don't forget to
• 32:44
  subscribe on YouTube. Don't forget to follow the
• 32:46
  podcast wherever you're listening and rate the podcast 5
• 32:50
  stars because that really helps me out.
• 32:52
  I will see you guys very soon in another episode, but until then.
• 32:57
  Bye bye.