From my appearance most people will think I was born disabled, but I wasn’t [Carr was disabled from age seven, owing to arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, and has used a wheelchair since she was 14]. So I understand what becoming disabled means. Although I was only seven, I went from being one kind of person – popular, fit, conventionally attractive – to another. Suddenly I was not popular any more. Kids were scared of me and I was excluded from so many things because they weren’t accessible.
I was led to believe that unless I could walk and do everything for myself, I didn’t have a chance in life. I was quite ill as a teen, so I only went part time to school. Every holiday I went to Wexham Park Hospital. And most evenings and weekends were doing physio. It was miserable, because I was told repeatedly that I couldn’t be any of the things I want to be.
