Lauren Melissa
Ellzey
Queens, NY
“I think that society was able to adjust more quickly to giving these accommodations for two reasons. The first being that, for the first time for many people, this idea of being vulnerable, being in fear for one’s health, became personal. And then two, I think money had a lot to do with it as well.”
Ryan Roach: What has your experience been like coping during the pandemic?
Lauren Melissa Ellzey: My process with coping came in stages. In the beginning, I was pretty calm. I was very happy when my school finally shut down, and I was able to stay home because I was concerned about the students. I was concerned for the staff. I was concerned for my loved ones. But I was especially happy when I was able to go home because I actually had an incident at my workplace where, because of me being Autistic, I always tell the truth, or almost always tell the truth. It’s an Autism trait. Lies are very difficult for us, and we can’t exaggerate or conceal the truth as easily as neurotypical people do. So, I got in a situation at my work where they were asking me questions to see if I could potentially have COVID, and because I gave such blunt, honest answers, they ended up publicly humiliating me in front of students and telling me to leave the building immediately, and that I was “a liability” and treating me like a lesser human being. And I was banned from the building and I was forced to go to urgent care to get a COVID test. And I told them there was no way I could get a COVID test because it was much earlier in the time where you couldn’t really get COVID tests unless you were highly symptomatic in New York City. So they said I had to go to urgent care, and I had to get cleared. So I had to go to urgent care at a time when I felt very unsafe because COVID numbers were rising, and I put myself in a danger – I guess a risky situation. And it all got cleared. And it got so bad that, because they publicly did it in front of the students, that parents were calling and telling them that, “Oh, the librarian has COVID-19.” It was absolutely shocking, and I know it happened because I didn’t communicate well, being Autistic, and because it’s a fear.
So when they finally did shut down the school, I was really happy because I was saying to myself, “If they’re going to be treating people like this, we shouldn’t be open.” Like, “If we’re that afraid right now, we shouldn’t be open.” And they actually closed the school – unrelated to me – they closed the school that day because they finally got approval to close.
So that was the first stage. The second stage was just relief that I could finally be home and not be in that situation of fear and unknown in that same way anymore. So, after that I was calm, I think because I had such a terrifying experience at my job. So, I was calm for a while, but then after a month I started to get very restless. Not wanting to go outside or anything, but just wanting to know when it was gonna get better – how it was gonna get better. Especially looking at the news every day, and it was getting worse in New York City.
And getting emails about people that I knew, or people that my housemate knew, that had died. It was a lot of unknown and starting to get restless, and starting to just want it to be over but not wanting to be unsafe, and just say, “Oh, we should all go out!” Because that doesn’t mean it’s over. That just means we’re being careless. But then after that, once things started to calm down and the deaths started to go down, it seemed like things could turn around. I started to feel better again. But it’s not over yet.
RR: During the pandemic, the government and media have deemed the chronically ill, disabled, and immunocompromised communities as “vulnerable.” What are your thoughts on the terminology of “vulnerable”?
LME: I think that the term “vulnerable” is a difficult one for many people to accept, first off. Like, to say, “Hi, I am vulnerable,” can be hard for a lot of people. So, I think the term itself was not a good choice. I think other people too, when they hear “vulnerable,” they think, “That’s not me, that’s someone else,” very easily. And so it created two groups: These people that COVID-19 is a problem for, and these people that think, “Ugh, now we have to do all this stuff to help these vulnerable people.” And I think that that was pretty clear in how people reacted – how many people reacted to it saying that, “It’s not my responsibility to take care of these vulnerable people.”
I guess I am a little vulnerable because I have some underlying health issues, but I didn’t think that I was. I don’t know because I haven’t caught COVID. So, I don’t know how it would affect me, but I do have a lot of blood sugar issues. I basically have half of diabetes, but I’m not diabetic. And I know that they were denying services to people – denying ventilators to people with diabetes. They were denying ventilators to other vulnerable people and people with disabilities, which is ironic to say.
We have vulnerable communities that we really need to take care of during this time. And a lot of those people who are vulnerable, if they were in the hospitals, they were denied ventilators in order to give ventilators to people that they deemed “more healthy.” So, I think that there was a lot of confusion and a lot of misuse of this word “vulnerable.” And I think that just goes to reflect the ableism that is already inherent in society.
RR: During the pandemic, society has been able to accommodate the general public with accommodations, like work from home, that have been asked for previously by the disabled, chronically ill, immunocompromised, and neurodiverse communities, yet these communities were typically denied. Why do you think society has been able to accommodate the general public when these accommodations have been denied previously?
LME: I think that society was able to adjust more quickly to giving these accommodations for two reasons. The first being that, for the first time for many people, this idea of being vulnerable, being in fear for one’s health, became personal. And then two, I think money had a lot to do with it as well. People could make money through telehealth and working from home when the only other option was then to close down. So, I think a lot of times, when we look at society, personal connection and money tend to be what makes change happen, and that has to do with power.
So I think those are the reasons accommodations were suddenly able to be given in ways they’ve never been given before. While that is upsetting for me that that would be the motivator to finally make that happen, I have been choosing to look at it in a different light, which is, “Well now that it’s been done, it’ll be harder to undo it, hopefully. And a lot of these services will continue to be made possible for the people that need them.” However, I do want to point out that a lot of the people with disabilities are essential workers, so they don’t get to work from home. Or they were the people that lost their jobs. A lot of the jobs that people were able to work remotely or work from home are jobs that were not accessible to people with disabilities in the first place. So, they didn’t even really get to get the working from home accommodation.