hi!

CATP

hi there. my name is emlyn and im 39. im new to the site. i have a lot of disabilitys including classic autism,i am still mostly non verbal and comunicate with an ipad with proloquo2go,PECS,makaton, and typing. i live in supported living but spent most of my life in residential care for adults with severe classic autism with complex needs.

i also have mild learning (intelectual) disability-which limits a lot of my functioning to a level but people think i cant have LD because it looks like i type well. i use predictive text and a adon dictionary and thesurus so i can understand what some people may be sayingg, it can be very anoying as ive had people say to me a lot that people with LD cant do x/y/z like cant type sentances on a computer-i cant write and it took me years and years to do really basic reading but they dont see that,i also have personal care every day, im prescribed nappies because im doubly incontinent,and i use a PECS timeline,i live by it,but biased people see what they want to see.

i have lifelong severe epilepsy which has caused brain injurys targeting my memory,i forget every ten seconds or so which can make my emails,whatsapp msgs,posts etc a drag.

i became physicaly disabled in my late twenties wehn i was in a learning disability hospital waiting for a new placement and i was hauled on the floor and sat on so often on a daily basis,usualy i refused to do a comand,....

..............this had caused spinal crumbling,double drop foot, and severe widespreadd and worsening periphral neuropathy in feet,legs (up to knees,i will stumble and fall if i try to walk as ive got no feeling there) and hands and arms (up to elbows-though it not as bad in my hands/arms but i am losing muscle strength because of this condition and i am an active wheelchair user as my last wheelchair asessment said im not ready for power chairs yet-so ive recently bought a new lighter active wheelie,i cant remember the exact one but its a quickie -like my current one, ive asked for similar colouring-its a rigid frame and not a folding active chair this time,costed me around £3800 and my plan is to buy a invictus active wheelchair treadmill.ive got the money but im waiting to see how much it costs whenn my social worker finaly moves me to a new LD with complex needs service.

one of my only hobbies is DJing as most of my support staff cant drive which makes my motability car pointless really. ive DJed vinyl since 1999,back in 2001 i got offered a voluntary radio DJing job working across 3 big hospitals,a certin charity told them all about me so they were fully aware of my vocals (or lack of). i was very good in the studio on the mixing desk and the oldskool mp3 set up they had plus the technics 1200s ,but they comlaied about the lack of vocals and i was sacked-not something you woud see today i hope.

i had to give up DJing as i was moved to so many different residential care homes and none of them coud cope with my behaviors or challenging behaviors apart from the last one.

i started DJing again in october 2022 but everything is different now,its all electronic based,eg- DJ controlers ,mp3s etc.

i had so many issues relarning DJing again because of the daamgae to my memory but i now use a hefty gaming laptop and a pioneer REV-1(?) (all in one) DJ controler i think ,its fitted perfectly in a flightcase and has a shelf on top for hooking up the laptop.

my other hobies/interests are house music, DJ pete tong (i managed to see him do a set recently) building websites, making art, disability activism etc.

sorry, ive just realised the lengrh of my post lol, im sorry.i hope you are all ok. 

Beaver79

Hi @CATP Welcome to the Community. If you have any questions please ask. Have a look around and join in. You might like to start with the Coffee lounge under Categories for chats and games. Thank you for telling us your story. Take care.

Hannah_Alumni

Hello @CATP

Welcome to the community! Have you been getting around the forum ok? 

As Beaver said, we do have our Coffee Lounge. There are a few threads there on Music which I think you'd love. Like the What are you listening to? thread  

CATP

Beaver79 said:

Hi @CATP Welcome to the Community. If you have any questions please ask. Have a look around and join in. You might like to start with the Coffee lounge under Categories for chats and games. Thank you for telling us your story. Take care.

hi @Beaver79 thanks so much for the welcome.  i shall be lurking ASAP, cheers!

its funny you say coffee-id just drank one at about 5pm just before i came on here,expecting a crash in an hour though lol.

hi as well @Hannah_Scope thank you so much for the welcome!  id bore you to sleep if i rolled off the huge list of music i listen to,but if its DJing i only mix a few different types of house probably and thats it, my mixes are usualy focusing on progresive,slower trance under 130BPM (im not into fast banging music) with progresive house..or jackin,afro,tech,deep and funky house .

its probably easier to find something that i dont like and it usualy comes down to two genres-modern hardcore (as in the dance type) and hard house.

im currently in the midle (its taking a long time) of building from scratch a website aimed at disabled clubbers and DJs as well as unknown non disabled DJs,im hoping to make it similarish to 'mixmag' when it worked well 20 years ago,or 'we rave you' but more from the disabled persons view. its to both develop a magazine style site which shows acessible night clubs to go to,or decent specialist nights put on for us, DJ hardware that is more acessible to understand, or easier to use etc.as part of the site i had wanted to develop a 'e-pen pals' service for disabled and non disabled people without friends or support staff who can go with them to club nights,in the hope they might find someone similar, i even built a social network to act as the main base and this service was going to be completely free-i pay for everything with no advertising but ive trashed it all as i thought, no one including myself woud be getting an enhanced DBS for this,so how do people know whose safe and who isnt? it just put me off the pen pal part.

PS.

i am so sorry to both of you for being slow to answer back,and when i did youve had an almighty waffle off me,lol-sorry my short term memory is kerplunked.

life

Good to have you in the community @CATP. 👍

Hannah_Alumni

I also find it easier to say what I don't like when it comes to music   

That sounds amazing! Please keep us updated with that! I think a lot of places still don't think about accessibility so it's lovely hearing that you want to make a website dedicated to that