Raw · Unfiltered · Essential
This one hit different. I sat down with Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn — artist, advocate, and my neighbor, which is honestly the most divine synchronicity — and what started as a conversation between two people who lived blocks apart for years without ever connecting turned into one of the most important episodes I’d ever recorded.
The Truth Bomb
“The Most Disabling Part
Isn’t Her Body — It’s the System”
Jessica lives with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Type 2 and she drops this truth early into the conversation. The world doesn’t disable her nearly as much as the infrastructure does. She calls it exactly what it is: a system that-
“feigns empathy but practices apathy.”
She talks about calculating exactly how much liquid to drink so she won’t need a bathroom in an inaccessible space. And she talks about using the speed of a powerchair to escape a sexual assault.
Survival for the disabled community is a constant, creative act of restructuring. And most of us have never had to think about that for a single second of our lives.
Let that sink in.
The Math of Survival
The Cost of Simply Existing
This part of the episode genuinely stopped me. Jessica breaks down what it actually costs to be alive as a disabled person in America. Read these numbers slowly:
Power Wheelchair
Accessible Van
Specialized Treatments
Full-Time Care
And here’s where Jessica believes it becomes a government-controlled caste system: to qualify for the Medicaid subsidies that keep people alive, you cannot have more than ~$2,000 in your bank account. Period.
It doesn’t stop there. Getting married — merging incomes — can mean losing the very insurance that keeps you alive. In a way, certain disabled people are penalized for love one another. We talk about it all.
The Metaphor That Will Stay With You
Porcelain Dolls of Capitalism
Jessica has a way with words that I wasn’t ready for. She describes how society treats disabled people as porcelain dolls — and once she said it, I couldn’t unsee it.
Society will gladly use disabled individuals as “inspiration porn”, Jessica explains — to increase profit margins, to make a brand look inclusive — but when it comes to actual civil rights, actual daily safety, actual access? The apathy is deafening. Jessica calls all of it out. Lovingly. Brilliantly. And with facts.
Why We’re Here
Gratitude and Criticism
Can Go Hand in Hand
Despite everything we cover — the statistics, the financial reality, the sexual assault, the aloneness of it all — this episode is ultimately about connection. About the true point of life. Jessica and I land in the same place: if we aren’t here to positively impact our environment and the people in it, we are missing the mark entirely.
You can be critical of a broken system and still be grateful for the life you have. Those two things don’t cancel each other out — they walk together. Jessica embodies that. This conversation embodies that.
I need you to watch this one. Not just listen — hear. Because Jessica’s presence, her art, her spirit — it all needs to be seen.
Now Streaming
Living in a Body That Doesn’t Fit Your Soul — Loving Kindness Everyday with Kindness Calloway & Jessica Elaine Blinkhorn
Kindness Calloway
Kindness is for You!