My Pee Is Political

Writer’s note: content warning for ableism. And this experience doesn’t apply to me now as I now use support workers throughout the day, but it would still apply for so many others.

Video of My Pee Is Political performance. I am wearing a grey jumper and pink and grey tartan pants. At 02:30 a support worker enters and empties my catheter bag.

Transcript

I would like to begin by acknowledging the the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations, the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, eat, think, breathe and feel. We pay our respects to their elders past, present and future.

I often have to empty my catheter into the gutter, due to the lack of access to disability toilets, and it is the doors, they are often too heavy.

And the amount I have to pee each day. If I don’t keep my wee flowing through the catheter it gets blocked up and I wet myself.

Everyone says drink more water, drink more water and I do, but I can’t physically drink any more.

And I’m still blocking.

I often worry about what people will think of me peeing in the gutter, like I’m dirty, and shy away from me even more than they already do. I know wee is clean and mine doesn’t smell that much, but so much of society I think still sees it as yucky. I have only heard 2 people say yuck but 2 people is a lot.

Part of me couldn’t give a flying fuck what people think. I need to pee and you haven’t given me enough fucking toilets. Smell my wee right up there till your brain is full of urea. Your ableist world is forcing me to do this.

But then this happens:

I went to use a drain yesterday outside the op shop and a man asked, ‘Are you ok?’ I said ‘I’m fine’. But he kept asking and he asked a woman passing by, ‘Help I can’t understand her.’ The woman said, ‘She said she’s fine.’ The man said, ‘She isn’t’. She said, ‘No she said she’s fine,’ again. The man refused to believe her. Then she left, she left me with this man who, all good intentions aside, was harassing me.

I don’t like to say this because I am glad of people’s help, but I didn’t need help and I was just trying to wee.

He offered to pull my chair.

I just yelled at him.

He said, ‘OK, OK you’re fine,’ and finally left me.

You say words are mighty, but what if you have no words.

I started thinking maybe I should not go to the op shop on my own and this makes me cry inside. This society is making me even more disabled.

I love the pool, it’s lovely, I can exercise my whole body.

I have worked out that the easiest way to empty my catheter while I’m in the pool is to stick my leg over the edge and get a support worker to empty it into the bottle.

But someone has complained and the pool people asked me to empty my catheter in the disability toilets. A. The pool wheelchair isn’t always available, b. The disability toilet isn’t always available and C. it’s a lot of hassle.

I know my way is clean. The pool people have agreed it’s clean, but they ask me if I could please take it to the toilet.

Enjoy the rest of your night.

19 October 2019 for ‘Liquid Architecture’ at the Abbotsford Convent