S1 E21 Shit2TalkAbout More Than Disabilities with Tara Geraghty-Ellis
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Jenn Junod
Hey Tara, thank you for joining. Shit. You don't want to talk about. What shit do you want to talk about today?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
I would love to talk about the fact that I have defied pretty much every expectation Every professional has ever had for me as a person with a disability and that's the shit that nobody wanted me to ever talk about and never once exposed because to, to this day they don't want people with disabilities to really surpass their expectations, Sam and I guess to for those listening and yeah, you didn't get the inside of being on our intro call.
Jenn Junod
So I have the inside scoop Tara and I had a conversation probably about two months ago now and just the way Tara described the shit she's done and, and being an author on top of all of that. And I was, I'm very impressed Tara in the fact of like how down to earth you are too and just like, I'm like, Tara is just super chill and has done a lot of shit.
So l let's reel it back some and tell, tell our audience about where, when you say that you have a disability in defying, you know, all expectations, what is your disability and how would you explain disabilities?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Ok. So first of all, I have to start the contextualizing with my diagnosis because that's where it kind of starts for me and for a lot of other people and I was born with Finda bifida, hydrocephalus, carry malformation, tethered cord.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
And I, a number of others, you just used a lot of big words that I don't know what they mean.
Jenn Junod
Yeah.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
So basically my main diagnosis is spina bifida, which is a, a curvature of the spine. Ok? Our spines always curve. Nobody has a straight spine, no matter what anybody tells you, nobody has a straight spine. But there's a very slight curve. Mine is a very, very pronounced curve and in fact, it's a very pronounced outward curve towards the stomach and there's another one around the going from right to left. So I've kind of got this weird shape going on in my spine.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
So that's my, like a backward, like I'm trying to picture it.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
It's, it's kind of, it's kind of like a backward s yeah, kind of like a backward. And so that from the day I was born that left a gaping hole in my back because you're looking, you're looking at me horrified. I wish the audience could see you.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
You, you know, because I mean, if you, if they watch on youtube, they will, if it's, you know, if they listen to it, they won't.
Jenn Junod
But yes, audience like my face. It's I I have a lot of facial expressions.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
And yeah, and right now it's horrified.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
OK. But basically what it, what it is is where, where the curvature is where the, where the spine curves dramatically. There's nerve endings that collect and they collect in what kind of looks like a half a tomato. If you, if you picture a tomato cut in half, that's what it kind of looks like a half a tomato. Now picture all of those nerve endings being poisonous.
Jenn Junod
Yeah, you're basically starting to describe that you have a snake in your back like a venomous snake.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
And, and here's the interesting part is that organically none of this is bad until I'm born. It's only when the baby is born and subjected to the environment outside of the womb that it becomes toxic. But as soon as the baby is born, that sack needs to be removed. And that's where the child born with spina bifida, has impairments because wherever that sac is removed, depending on how high or how low down the spinal column, it is, everywhere from that down is, has lack of sensation or
lack of performance. So mine is halfway. So it affects my left leg, it affected both legs at one point, and, somewhat, you know, my breathing and somewhat my be bowel and bladder but you know, that sort of thing. So that's sort of where that is in a nutshell underneath that diagnosis. There are a whole lot of sub sub diagnosis. Ok. So picture an umbrella that has multiple prongs and each one of them represents a another condition.
Jenn Junod
I'm still picturing that the umbrella has a snake wrapped around it that's venomous like I'm still, I'm still stuck on the snake.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Yeah. No, the snake is gone, the snake is gone and, and we're all good. So we're we're now dealing with the umbrella that's got all of these prongs that have that represent the sub diagnoses and I just have a very pron umbrella. And so I just have the mother lode of sub diagnosis and I just, I'm just, you know, blessed with having all of the and it, you know, you're, you deal with what you're given and none of it really matters to me.
Now. I mean, you could I could vet about the learning disabilities. I could vet about the headaches and all of this stuff. And at the end of the day, the person you're actually talking to is very blessed because despite it all, and despite my very colorful history and my very colorful life, I said here with double bachelor's degree and a master's degree and, I'm a coach consultant, trainer in the
disability field. I'm an author and that, and just to be clear, that doesn't mean that I submitted a poem in a, an anthology with 1000 other authors. No, no, no, I wrote my own book now.
Jenn Junod
to, to go into what you're saying too, I'm literally gonna Google right now. What is a disability and a disability is any condition of the body or mind impairment that makes it more difficult for the person with a condition to do certain activities, activity limitation and interact with the world around them, participation restrictions and II, I googled that it looks like it's from the CDC.
I, I mentioned that in the fact that the way that you've described, you know what's going on and you did, you said you didn't even mention the learning disabilities. I think a lot of people don't realize what there's such a huge, it's such a broad scale of what a disability is and how it affects each one of us. And so, for example, I'll I'll, I'll just turn this one on myself of, I'm horribly dyslexic.
I'm a DH D and school is a nightmare. It's an absolute nightmare. I hate school with an absolute passion. I love to learn. I hate school because I don't fit in that box because of my own learning disabilities. I have a hard time knowing what is straight in front of me to be able that structure, to be able to finish it myself. And luckily now I have like support pillars is what I call them, of my friends of my family, of my boss, my coworkers that go, Jen will answer all of your crazy
questions, but you still have to work on your job and they remind me to go back to my job. That's, that's a learning disability that a lot of people don't see where Tara may have disabilities that people can see. But then they don't consider how it is. A lot of people may not consider how that could affect learning disabilities and how amazing it is for the schooling that you've done. And as we move on with the story, the where you live and who you live with.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
And well, and that's the thing.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
I mean, when, when you consider you have non visible disabilities, I have both visible and non visible disabilities. And in my experience, it's my non visible disabilities that have been a heck of a lot harder to deal with then my visible disabilities because yes, there's a certain amount of stigma that I have to deal with just walking down the street, just dealing with everybody. because I just present differently and some people just are weird about that and that's becoming
less and less and less because that's becoming less accepted. But the notion that there's something that I can't see that's wrong with you that I have to somehow make allowances for. So it's imposing me. There's 1000 questions that, that pop up in people's brains. It's, it's what is it, how much time is this gonna take out of my, my day? How much do I need to accommodate this person? What does this actually mean? And can't they just get over it?
Jenn Junod
I hate that one.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Like more than I hate, I hate that one more than anything.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
You, you kind of, you kind of know when somebody parks themselves in front of you and they're using a wheelchair, especially a motorized wheelchair that they're probably not going to spring out of the wheelchair. Ok. If somebody has dyslexia and says I have a diagnosis of dyslexia or I have and anxiety disorder or I have I have major depression.
Jenn Junod
Yeah, I know, you know, once you name them, I'll just, you know, put how many fingers with it
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
that, you know, people, people are going. Yeah, that's nice. Ok? Don't get it. Ok? Don't get it. OK, don't get it. You know, it's kind of like over my head, over my head, over my head, over my head and the assumption being it's your problem, you're gonna fix it. And it's going to take me an exorbitant amount of effort to figure out how to make this work, whatever this is, it's gonna
take me a tremendous amount of work to make whatever our interaction is feasible. And I don't have that kind of time and I don't have that kind of energy so deal with your shit.
Jenn Junod
I like that. I, I've, I've, I've wondered in the fact that in how to share especially learning disabilities like, so what I call my real job, I mean, the podcast is a full time job by itself. But then I do have an actual job and I was able to start I can read a teleprompter which is reading out loud and reading as you are seeing it, which is really difficult for me because I skip words with my dyslexia, I put words, I'll skip lines.
I also put words backwards and the funniest one. And I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before is I read a sentence that had the words Penguins feces. That is not what the sentence said. The sentence says Pentagon faces.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
I have an equally funny 10, please share.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
OK, cause I, cause I have, I have, I have learning disabilities. As well, and one day I was writing a paper and I wrote, I wrote my paper. I'm a pretty good writer and I'm pretty detailed in terms of my editing skills. So that's not my, I have spatial dis learning disabilities. I especially I don't get things. And depth perception is real, really problematic for me. But on this particular day, I, I did come acro come across the fact that I do from time to time have a dyslexia issue as well.
And that's not entirely surprising considering my family history. So so I had written a paper and it was good and it was for history and I got it back and I think I got an A minus or something like that really good mark. Except on every page, there was a question mark, a question mark on every single page. And I think this was a 15 page paper. Why? Because the professor's name was Doctor Gentles and I wrote Doctor Genitals.
Jenn Junod
That is awesome.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Thank you for sharing and the spell checks didn't pick it up because genitals is an actual word.
Jenn Junod
Yeah. Yeah, I could see that and talking about your writing and that just makes me so happy. So thank you for sharing that one. Let's bring it back because we see how I hate to use the word successful because that is a very objective term and success is different to each of us. So we'll say, you know how rocking out you are right now, we'll go with that one. I tell us where this started, like, especially with growing up and how you went from dealing with the physical disabilities and the
learning disabilities and what that was like growing up and then going into and deciding that you can do college. Like, I guess the big question I have is what told you, you could do something when so many people were telling you you couldn't. OK.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
The short answer to that question is my mom because my mom always told me I could do anything and you always have to have that one person in your corner. She always insisted from kindergarten on up that I was integrated when integration wasn't a thing.
Jenn Junod
What is integration?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
OK. Integration is when you have Children with all kinds of backgrounds in the same class, all together.
Jenn Junod
OK.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
OK. All different backgrounds, all different needs are all together and they're all learning together. So when I was very little, very young, because I'm gonna, at some point, I'm gonna get in trouble with my darling husband for saying very little because I'm very, very little right now.
But when I was young, this integration thing, this notion of having Children with disabilities in regular school wasn't a thing. In fact, when I was born, my mom and dad were told to institutionalize me. Oh yeah.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Actually before I was born, it was my di my disability was diagnosed prenatally and my mom, my Irish Catholic mom, this is rich was told to abort w what do you do with the, what if your parents so ch chose to institutionalize you?
Jenn Junod
What would they do different? Like you would just hang out in a room all the time and be medicated and just chill your entire life.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh, ok. Yeah. Yeah. so my mom said no to abortion.
Jenn Junod
Thank goodness.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
My parents said no, we're, we're bringing her home.
Jenn Junod
Thank goodness.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
And my parents said we're going to try and get her into the neighborhood school. And my mom was my strongest advocate all the way along and she talked to the principal, the director of the school board, anybody she had to, to get me in and then she had to be on their case all the time to make sure that I wasn't being avoided that I wasn't being ignored that the Children were being encouraged to play with me, et cetera, et cetera.
So it was pretty constant all the way up and she was relentless. So that's where I kind of got my spirit from. And then I went to not a, not a regular high school, I went to the high school that my mom dreamed I would go to. My mom saw this, saw a school in my city and it was, it was one of those, Kilt parochial uniform, regimented nuns Catholic school then?
Jenn Junod
Ok. Was it a boarding school or like just a during the day?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
It was a, during the day school, but it was, it was very regimented and it was an all girls Catholic school. And that's the school that my mom wanted her daughter to go to whenever that happened. So when the school was still open, when I was entering grade nine, that's the school that my mom sent me to. And that was fine because I had been bullied zero to eighth grade, by boys and I didn't want to have anything to do with boys.
Thank you very much. So, I was happy enough to go to the all girls school and, I made friends and I did quite well. I got good, good is great. Not great, great, good enough grades. And, they had one special ed class. I had to take it three times because I was a special needs, child and they only had one class. So on the third try and it wasn't because I failed.
No, no, it was because that was the only class that they had. So they made me take it over and over and over again. Just because on the third try, I practically ended up teaching the class. So fast forward to end of high school, everybody was applying to university because that's what happened in my school. It was a 99 per point point 5% transition to university school.
So I applied to university. Then they had a big board meeting and I was told that I shouldn't applied to university because I wasn't appropriate for university because I had special needs. I should be applying to college. I said, but I want to become a teacher. And they all said, well, no, that's probably not a good idea for you because you have disabilities and you couldn't handle all the Children and any number of reasons all of which were bullshit.
So I, I went ahead applied and one of the, one of the schools that I applied to had a supplementary application. It happened to be the local university. All of my other friends got their supplementary applications and I didn't get mine. So I went to the guidance department and the head of the guidance department said, oh, I thought you decided not to apply to university. I saw your guidance counselor sh all your university applications.
Jenn Junod
How were doctors treating you during this time? And what were they saying?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
my doctors were treating me fine. Doctors at the pediatric level were basically fine. Everything ge generally went through my mother and was filtered through mom. The people I had a problem with were the therapists. And when I had to go to any clinics, I was paraded up and down in my underwear so that the therapist could get a good view of my gait and a good view of, how my hips moved and all of this.
II, I don't know at what point that began to bother me, but it has bothered me ever since. Let's just say that and the rest of them treated me pretty good. it was the, it's been the adult system that has sucked. The adult system has treated me with disdain, ignorance. No respect. And I think that's just pervasive.
Jenn Junod
What do you mean by that? Especially in, in the fact that, I don't know, a good way of asking this. So bear with me on this one of like, I've been to plenty of doctors that don't give me the time of day and have like no bedside manner. I'll, I'll say it like that and, and don't believe me or things like that.
So it's frustrating, but I'm just, I chalk it up to like, you know, the medical system. but I could, how did that show up for you? Like, what were in like, how did it feel or how did they show that they weren't being respectful or like, how did that show up for you
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
up until the age of 18? They were always dealing with my mother and my mom is very sweet. and she's legitimately didn't know a few things. So she would ask in a very sweet, nice way. Ok, doctor, I, I caught this part, but what about this? And what about this? And all the doctors kinda loved my mom and they kind of really just warmed to her. So she kind of got away with without asking all the questions.
And so we got the answers that we needed and she was able to get the information because she wasn't threatening. She wasn't rude, she wasn't asking too much. And then I turned 18 and the next time I had surgery after I turned 18, I started asking questions and they, they didn't like the way I asked questions because I'm a kid with a disability and I'm not supposed to know how to ask questions.
I got you because I'm not supposed to have a brain between my ears. so I'm not supposed to be inquisitive like that. And I'm just supposed to go along with the plan without knowing the plan and, this is for your own good. And I'm going, ok. Well, you're cutting into me. no, I wanna know where, why and what are we doing and what are the benefits and what are the consequences?
Jenn Junod
Yeah, it sounds like, oh, lay it all out for me. Yeah, it sounds like you had a similar experience with your teachers, from the high school or, up until then, like, till you turned 18 and then it happened with the, with your medical care. How did you decide that you were going to go to university?
Anyway. And what was that experience, like with University of working through the projects when it sounds like a lot of times people assumed, like, you couldn't comprehend what was going on.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
I knew better. See, that's the, that's the thing is that people can assume whatever the heck they want. But if, you know, you can, don't let them railroad you. That's one of the key things I always try to instill in people know what, know what you are capable of at your most core.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
And if you believe that you can just go do it and don't let anybody tell you otherwise because there will, there will be people who will try to, what would you say to people that didn't have a mom like yours or, you know, people that were their cheerleaders going through this and they're hearing, they can't do so much in life.
Jenn Junod
Would you have a suggestion for people like that that have gone through it? So that way they start to see their own light, their own possibilities.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Yeah. I think if you have, if you have a dream, if you have a vision of something better, like if you can dream it or if you can envision something that you want, that's the starting point. You don't actually have to believe that you can do it. You just have to trust that you came up with that, that, that is somewhere in you and hook into someone who can instill that in that belief in
you, in you. from somewhere and I'm on Facebook, come and find me. I, I do this all the time with people. because I, I believe in people when they don't believe in themselves.
Jenn Junod
I love that and I'm gonna ask a question. this one might come across weird and I, I've seen, and I've heard from many people and you mentioned about the boys bullying you and I can only imagine that was definitely more about the physical appearance. And that's me guessing there. So correct me if I'm wrong there. And something that I was made fun of c I have surgery when I was 17 was so many of the kids nicknamed me Lappy because my left breast never developed and my right one did.
So that was like the cool nickname that everybody wanted to give me and deal. And it was by no means is this a disability? You know, it's just a body part to me. Like that's how I, I feel about it. But for those who have disabilities, that physical disabilities that limit them and they have those really mean people around them or, you know, people that
aren't asking questions, how, what would you tell yourself back in, you know, pre ninth grade when those boys were making fun of you to be able to help yourself get through it
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
if I could go back to my 11 year old self. I would tell her two things. One tell someone you deserve to tell someone because this is not right and you don't deserve to hold this in two, you're worth it. And this, this is something that kids do. Some kids are just me. But if you can get through this piece, life's gonna get so much better.
Jenn Junod
I love that.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Just hold on because life will get so much better.
Jenn Junod
I love that. And something that really hit me during our intro call and this is to the audience, this is something that Tara like hit me with as like a quick recap of who Tara is is. She was like, yeah, I have physical disabilities, learning disabilities and I'm not supposed to live alone. I'm not supposed to be married and I am and I do and I'm like, wait, what ru run that by you one more time. So if you could kind of like walk me through that because why do they say you can't live alone?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Ok. So in a lot of, in a lot of countries, we in, in the US and Canada are quite fortunate in that we have certain liberties that there that a lot of the world does not have. Ok. But in a lot of the world, people with disabilities would literally not be allowed to live apart from their families. And if they were allowed, they wouldn't be able to exist apart from their families.
Ok. So that's what I mean. And when I was born, right up till the early eighties, when they started closing all the institutions or most of the institutions, some of them were still in existence, but very, very few when they started closing the mall, they basically just put people out on the street and said, you're now deinstitutionalize, have a good life and people didn't know exactly how to do that.
So they had to come up with social structures in order to provide the stability for people. So they came up with social housing, they came up with social benefits, these types of things. This doesn't exist u universally and it certainly didn't exist when I was first when I was born. So we're not talking ancient history, like we're talking within my lifetime.
People with my conditions, we're not supposed to live, live on their own or live in, live in community, live on their own. And right up until practically, yeah, I reached adulthood, the notion that you had a disability and you were getting married. That was mind blowing.
Jenn Junod
It was because that was revolutionary. Like I'm always curious how couples meet because I love their like meet cutes, I think is what they call it now or meet cutes. And I like, I, I don't know if that's the term but like, I'm curious, how did you meet your husband?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Our story is the best. Our story is the absolute best. OK.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
So we, we met on e hermit oh la la who talked to who first?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
I talked to him first.
Jenn Junod
Well, we already knew you were a go-getter.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
OK. So back story to the harmony was I was living in another province of Canada up until I moved back home and I only moved back home to live with my mom and dad because my mom got sick and I knew then that I had to move back that this was right at the end of my MS W so I finished school, packed up and traveled back home and I had been living with a good friend of mine. She's now a good friend. She was only, she was my roommate. I met her when, when we started living together and we both moved back to
Ontario. She moved up north for a job and I moved close to Toronto to be with my family and we kinda lost contact. But about a year later, we reconnected and she was telling me about this guy she met through eHarmony. And at first she was telling me how smitten she was and it was going great, blah, blah, blah. The next thing I knew he broke her heart and she was bawling on the phone. So I said to her, look, do me a favor for a month. Do anything that has nothing to do with men.
Jenn Junod
Ok.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Just take just take a break from all this looking for guys thing, you know, focus on yourself. And she said, ok, if I do that, then I want you to do something for me. Like, ok, what she said, go on harmony. And I said no, because when we were living together, we had done plenty of fish lab of life. Like all of them, we tried them all, none of them worked.
And I was like, oh, do I have to? She said do the personality profile. Don't invest, just look and see who pops up. And if you don't like anything, then don't spend a penny. Just take the personality profile. You are a social worker. You do like these things knowing about yourself. That's something you're into. So do that. I'm like, ok, that sounds slightly narcissistic and she's like, yeah, deliberately like shut up.
But anyways I did and with it about. That's a two weeks baby. I was, I started getting connections right away, like right away a lot, a lot of connections. And I was flipping through all the connections and no, no, no, no, no. About two weeks later I get this connection Todd from Brampton and I was living in the next city over so right away. Ok. It's close and this guy looks cute.
Ok. So, and he looks vaguely familiar, vaguely. I read the profile first sentence of the profile says you need to know that I use a wheelchair just like everybody else uses a car to get around outside of the house. The rest of the time when I'm in my apartment, I crawl around. So I'm pretty, I'm pretty quick getting around regardless of where I am.
Like, that's a really neat way of saying things. That's really cool. Ok. Intrigued. That's forward to. We have, we have our, we had our first date and our second date. and now I'm at, we need out at his place and no, actually the very first time we were talking, one of the very first times we were talking, I said to him, look, I'm not gonna be home because I have, I have a meeting tonight and he said that's ok.
I'm not gonna be available today very much. I said, ok, well, we'll talk tomorrow. So next day we were, we were chatting and he said, so how was your meeting? I said, no, my meeting was all right. I said, how was yours? He said not bad. I've, I've been doing this, this big bro, big brothers, big sisters thing for a while and it's kind of going a bit slow.
I'm like, oh, yeah. What organization are you with? You know, you know, totally thinking Big Brothers, big Sisters. It's like, oh, it's, it's this thing in the saga called Aon Elk, like that's where I was tonight. So we, we were both at the same place on the same day, just hours apart from one another. And I'm like, what meeting did you say you were? He's like, I was at this, we call it mentorship.
I'm like, so I said, when did you start that? I said what? But 15 years ago, maybe like you're taught for mentorship. Oh my God. That's where I know you from. He's like, so and so like he's, he's like, I don't get it. So I showed him a picture of me. He's like, oh my God, I remember exactly what you were wearing the very first time I met you.
Jenn Junod
How cute. So does, do you have to use a wheelchair too or you can walk? Yeah. Ok. So, and is he still in a wheelchair? How does that work with the two of you? I, I know I'm skipping ahead because I, I love your me cue but I don't wanna, you know, miss through the, the, the other details too because I do love your me cue. That is, that's so sweet because you guys actually knew each other beforehand.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
How, how yeah, just to, just to skip forward.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
we, we got engaged cause a year after we were dating cause I told him that I wouldn't not to bother asking me to marry him until we were at least a year dating cause I wouldn't say yes. So he waited a year and three hours and then we were looking for pictures for a a photo montage we were looking for pictures of me growing up and him growing up and then the two of us together.
Well, his mom or dad had taken a picture of a 10 year old hymn and an eight year old me that they had at a sporting event that they kept. So his mom and dad had a picture of me when I was eight years old.
Jenn Junod
That's creepy and really cute all at the same time.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
huh.
Jenn Junod
That is so ok. Oh, how, like, especially with, like you said you lived with a roommate, he lived alone. So it sounds like you two are still pretty independent, so able to live together, but with both having physical disabilities, does that make it hard to live together and rely on each other?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
You would think so. But, no, you, you might think so. But, actually, no, because we, we're very, we're very, very good at complimenting each other and what he's really good at. I'm really bad at and what he's, what I'm stronger in, he's a little bit weaker in. And so we really, really compliment each other and, we just make it work and we've got the most awesome relationship ever.
Jenn Junod
And how long have you been married? 13 years? Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that is wonderful. And I guess, like, fast forwarding a bit more. So, you mentioned that you have two bachelors, a master. You're a coach and you've written a book, right. huh. All right. So what is, tell us a bit about your book too?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Ok. So the book is called Visible and Empowered. And basically what it is, it's a how it's a, how to guide for people with disabilities of all ages. And, oh, I guess it's all diversities on how to live a great life. And it, it's basically how to make it through the health care system, how to make it through the social service system, how to apply for benefits, how to apply for accommodations and this is all Canada based, right?
Jenn Junod
Canadian based.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
It has international, it has international reference, I guess.
Jenn Junod
Oh cool. Ok. Yeah.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Yeah, I don't specifically use anything. that's Canada specific. It's, I guess, I guess as far as specific as I get is now in hindsight, it's probably more western if I ha if I had to be honest now that I know a little bit about some nation states that don't have a Western ideology. I can't claim that it's internationally based.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
and for that I, I'm kind of sad but you can have another book.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Yeah. Yeah. And when I, when I write the other book I already have it titled and when I write the other book I'm going to make it more amenable to all people cause it's not gonna be about particular politics, it's gonna be a about asserting your power, asserting your your individual autonomy and how, how to do that And how to thrive in life.
Jenn Junod
And, and I know we've covered quite a bit from how you grew up and the challenges you went through in school and also with the doctors and then you meet cute, I like your meet cute. And then also like what it's like living together. What are there any topics that you were like? I really wanted to cover and let the audience know about your journey that we didn't cover so far.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Yeah, I, I really want people to know about what I'm doing right now, which is I have a Facebook community called empowered to thrive and for those who are more I guess I don't wanna, I don't wanna see politically active but socially active more, more driven to create change in, in how things are and they wanna see things change. I also have a mem a membership site and so that's the, that's just built.
So we're, we're, we're building that and I am currently actually developing programs so that I can create partnerships between people with disabilities who are, who have talents and skills but are looking for jobs and people who are business owners and have job vacancies because of COVID.
Jenn Junod
That's cool. Yeah, I like that. Match up. I wish I, I wish I was at a point where I could hire at the podcast. I'm like any volunteers because we're still working on making money.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jenn Junod
I, I'll keep that in mind for the future though. And, and how do people like, what is, you mentioned the Facebook group? But how do people reach out to you on social media or on your website?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Facebook is, is the best way honestly, Facebook or email.
Jenn Junod
OK. And we'll have that listed in the show description.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
So, Face Facebook is the best direct avenue. I'm on all social media, but Facebook is the one that I hang out on. So if you're gonna, if you're gonna find me, you're gonna find me on Facebook.
Jenn Junod
Perfect. And what are some words of encouragement that you would wanna leave our audience with?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
If you have a vision of something that you think you want or something that you think you want changed, run with it, find the person, find a person who can be your cheerleader, your the person who can stand behind you and advocate and push you and be the strength, be the wind beneath your wings just like my mom was.
Yeah. So, and if, if you, if, if you find me, and you have that, that sort of notion that gee I wish I could do blah or I have this little tiny desire to do this but I don't, I don't have the first clue how we'll figure it out.
Jenn Junod
Ditto because hit us up on, Shit2TalkAbout, which is the all social media handles for the podcast. It's honestly, I've met so many incredi credible people like Tara that you hit us up. I may not know the answer. I'm gonna go probably don't know the answer but I know people and people have the answer.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Exactly. You know, I, I don't, I don't even pretend to know all the answers, but I, I know people who know people who know people. And I can, I can either point you in the right direction or give you the first step or I can take that first step with you and link you with the next person who will take the next step with you. So you don't, you don't have to take the journey alone.
Jenn Junod
Yes. Yes. And Tara, what is something that you're grateful for?
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Everything? Yeah. I'm, I'm grateful for opportunity. I'm grateful for graces. I'm grateful for contacts like you and I'm grateful for the enduring love of my family.
Jenn Junod
Oh, I love that. I'm something that I'm grateful for is people opening up and sharing their stories. It's not always the easiest to dig into the nitty gritty and talk about this shit and I appreciate it because it gives my hope is that it gives others the space to open up and share their stories and to know that they're not alone. So thank you, Tara.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Thank you. I really appreciate it. And I hope if somebody feels inspired to share their story or want help telling their story.
Jenn Junod, Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Just look for me, I'm here.
Jenn Junod
I love it, Tara. Thank you and talk soon.
Tara Geraghty-Ellis
Thank you so much. Talk soon.
We appreciate you listening to the episode. Please like follow and share on our social media at Shit2TalkAbout. That is shit. The number two talk about stay tuned on Wednesdays and Fridays for new episodes. This episode was made possible by production manager, Tom Nan, business manager, Bill Powell and your host, Jen.
