Rio Dakahara
Trustee, Blue Train Company NPO

Self-introduction

I carried out awareness-raising activities at an NPO supporting people with Hansen’s disease, HIV, and LBGTQ people from my first grade at junior high school to my third grade at senior high school. I was diagnosed with ADHD in my third year at junior high school, and developed a mental disorder as a secondary disability at that time.

At the same time as my disabilities were discovered, right before the entrance examination for senior high school, my home environment fell apart and I had to be temporarily placed in the custody of the child guidance centre. After this, the child guidance centre decided to put me into a mental hospital. This was in the form of “hospitalization for medical care and protection”. It was a ward with individual rooms divided into units, but voluntary access to the outside was barred by a double set of locked doors, so it was impossible to go in or out without a nurse, and we were observed around the clock by surveillance cameras. There were no public phones and we were not allowed to have mobile phones. Moreover, we could not be given any belongings, not even a single pen, without permission from the doctor in charge. While I was in hospital, I took and passed the entrance examination for a part-time senior high school. I was discharged from the hospital at the time of entering the school, and my senior high school student life began.

However, I had barely attended junior high school, either, and I could not adjust to the environment. I did not have any friends at school, my physical health deteriorated, and I was in and out of hospital during the three years of senior high school.

My encounter with the disabled people’s movement (2014 to the present)

When I was a third-grade senior high school student, a movement against reforms aiming to convert psychiatric hospital wards into residential facilities arose nationwide. Such a movement began in Okinawa, also, and I became one of the committee members of this movement upon the introduction of an acquaintance. This became the opportunity for me to start work at Hokubu Independent Living Centre (Nago City), and while active as a member of staff who was myself disabled, I also started working as a visiting carer for severely disabled people.

In 2018, I entered a correspondence course at university, studying the psychiatric social work course while working, and graduating in 2022. In February 2022, I left my job at Hokubu Independent Living Centre and am now active as a trustee of the NPO Blue Train Company and on a mental health project within the Japan Council on Independent Living Centers.

The details of my activities

Blue Train Company aims to build a society in which everyone, irrespective of disabilities and from childhood to old age, can enjoy living in their local communities. Our activities centre on grant-supported projects and support in the event of disasters such as floods. In addition, we carry out support for independent living by the criminally insane (support with applications for social security) and support with disability pension applications for mentally and developmentally disabled people. We also carry out a project to create spaces for these people in collaboration with groups of developmentally disabled people.

COVID-19 brought drastic changes to my life!

Right before COVID-19 spread, I was rushed off my feet by the demands of my job and by university lectures and examinations, and my health deteriorated. As COVID-19 became an epidemic, I was taking time off work, but I was somehow able to keep on at university through will-power.

I was already using home assistance (support with housework) and a guide helper, but with the anxiety of COVID-19 and my poor physical health, my support needs increased and I became unable to carry out my daily life with just the support I had used so far. In 2020, the members of Okinawa’s independent living centres came with me to negotiate with the local government. I met the criteria for severe behavioural impairment, and was moved from category 2 to category 4, enabling me to use nursing care for severely disabled people. At first, this was around 460 hours, but through repeated negotiations, it became 744 hours, and I was able to obtain a guarantee of 24-hour assistance.

I have convulsive seizures, and I was often taken to hospital by ambulance. Even though my temperature rose purely as a result of the convulsive seizures, up until the third wave of the pandemic I had several experiences of taking a PCR test and then being hospitalized in isolation until the results came out. Moreover, I was injected with Serenace so that I would not resist and forcibly hospitalized, even though this was on a regular ward. Unnecessary medical procedures took place, and I felt that society had really become unkind both to the nation and to my purse...

In times like now, more than ever

The world is this dark, and I often feel lonely, and yet... I believe that now, more than ever, it is important for people to form strong bonds, joining together beyond boundaries created by disability, age, or gender.

I want to go on flying through the sky. I want to revive various movements of disabled people and other survivors, making them like they were before COVID-19. I want to make a survivors’ movement to tell people about my experiences not just in Okinawa, but beyond.