Illustration by Danielle Krysa

Independence has never come easy for me—but it’s always been vital. I was born premature in 1989 with undiagnosed dyspraxia, a neurological disorder that permanently affects memory, coordination, and processing speed. Because my development was delayed and I was held back in kindergarten, I heavily relied on my classmates throughout school. I nodded my head to fake that I understood, but wondered why I felt slower than everyone else. My conservative, Catholic parents called me demanding and needy, encouraging me to settle for whatever nice guy I could find to support me one day—but I was adamant that I would take care of myself when I got older.

I was finally diagnosed with dyspraxia in my early twenties. I’d sought a psychological evaluation because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t keep a job. I was tired of failing to make it on my own and going back to live with my parents. Their look-the-other-way approach, frustrated name-calling, and refusal to acknowledge my struggles only made me feel worse. I used alcohol and sex to cope with the abuse. I felt like an outcast—it seemed like my own family didn’t even love me. My older brother committed suicide when I was 11, and I often felt like he was the only one who would have understood what I was going through. Like him, I was an artist who dropped out of school and was struggling to find my place in life.

Before all this, I’d dreamed of being a writer, graduating with a degree in communications, and getting a job at a well-paying magazine. I knew I was talented, and my teachers agreed, but my highly-graded essays couldn’t make up for the fact that I had trouble retaining information. Tests were difficult and held me back, forcing me to drop out of university. But I was determined to not give up. Even as I was failing classes I had already repeated, I decided to become a freelance writer and start my own magazine. I hoped it would allow me to work in my chosen field, use my talent, and become a better route toward achieving financial independence. After all, if I couldn’t hold a job, what good was a degree and thousands more dollars in debt? So, in 2010, I started FLURT, a socially-conscious magazine for young people who wanted to create a better future. I honestly believed that if I worked hard enough I would get it off the ground and would be able to support myself.

But as most entrepreneurs know, success doesn’t happen overnight. I didn’t have any form of stability to fall back on and the stress of living in poverty pushed my health to its breaking point. I moved constantly as I tried and failed to hold the most basic of jobs. As I strived to balance it all, my freelance writing and my magazine were both pushed to the side. In 2010, at age 21, I successfully applied for income support—a shallow safety net for those who are struggling to support themselves—to help me get on my feet. After a few years, I applied for Alberta provincial disability benefits. It’s a more sustainable program for those who are with living with a permanent disability, but also it’s incredibly difficult to get accepted.

The first time I applied for disability benefits, I was rejected. Unfortunately, it was a year before I received my dyspraxia diagnosis and without it I didn’t know—and couldn’t explain—why I couldn’t keep a job. For the following year, I continued to scrape by on income support, feeling hopeless. I felt trapped in the welfare system, scrolling through online “gigs” as a potential long-term way to get out of the hole.

Finally, in 2014, I made it off the waiting list for a $200 psychological evaluation. After two days of cognitive tests, a doctor said that I met the criteria for dyspraxia. It immediately made sense to me. I recognized many symptoms as part of my everyday life: poor visual perception, difficulty remembering things, bad motor skills, and trouble with speech. This lengthy report became the key ingredient to the collection of letters from doctors, social workers and previous employers—as well as the entire contents of my years in therapy—that I would need to get accepted into the disability benefits program. In 2015, at 26, I finally felt I had the support I needed to achieve independence.

After six years of renting rooms in houses where I felt like I had to walk on eggshells, I was able to rent my own apartment long-term. The amount of anxiety I’d felt these past years began to slowly lift, and I started believing that I would be able to feel happy and safe in the years to come. Instead of constantly being worried about how I was going to support myself, where I was going to live, and what I was going to eat, I could focus instead on my getting my freelance career and magazine on track in a peaceful environment that felt like home.

It was this entrepreneurial spirit that brought my partner and me together last year when he struck up a conversation about my magazine. We were instantly attracted to the other’s drive to be independent and fulfil their career goals—me in the magazine industry and him in tech. We agreed early on that we didn’t want to get married or have children, and that work would take the full centre of our lives. Because of this we talked about long-distance possibilities if he had to move for work, and agreed I’d stay here since starting the process of applying for social assistance somewhere else would be both exhausting and difficult. If we wanted to be together, we decided, we would make it work.

But I struggled internally with the difference in our bank accounts. Even though he made five times more than I received from social assistance, I still wanted to pay for myself on dates and occasionally take him out as well. Even though he would cook for me when I ran out of food and let me borrow money until my next pay cheque (which just put me behind the next month), I always found myself in the same position: broke and feeling like our relationship wasn’t on even ground. He’s the most supportive man I’ve ever met, but he didn’t sign up for this and I didn’t want him to.

I was also shocked to learn that if we were to move in together and become common law, I would lose my financial independence. Since my partner earns more than $3,812 a month—the household income limit for a person on disability benefits—I would be forced to give up my social assistance. It doesn’t matter than I earn nowhere near that amount, benefits or not. His income, in the government’s eyes, would count towards my own. Like many people who’ve applied for disability benefits in Canada, trying to find out information like this was difficult and confusing. When I was finally able to meet with my caseworker and sign the papers a few months after getting accepted, I asked for her to explain the cut-off system to me. She responded with a joke about how if I ever met a rich man—well, she didn’t need to finish her sentence.

I was angry. After six years of commuting to meet with countless doctors, therapists, psychologists, and social workers, filling out piles of paperwork, the stress of an appeal, and the damaging effect it had on my mental health, I was now faced with the unfair, impossible choice of financial independence or living with the person I loved. I felt like I’d rewound to the 1950s. I imagined myself at a top-level university that promised a stable, prestigious career, only to have a university professor tell me that once I graduated I needed to decide between a husband and the field I worked in.

Today, all but the most conservative would call that ultimatum outrageous. We understand, as a society, that women have careers not just because they need the money but because having financial independence gives them a sense of purpose and control in their lives. Why did the government assume that, just because I had a disability that affected my ability to work, I’d jump at the chance for a man to take care of me? As much as I tried, I couldn’t shake the question: Can you truly be a modern woman with a disability?

What the government is telling people who are on disability benefits, especially women, is that instead of seeking independence, the better choice would be to find a rich man—or, really, just any man. The Institute of Women’s Policy Research has, after all, declared that women in North America potentially won’t have an equal wage for another 50 years or so—a man doesn’t have to be rich to out-earn us. And, if women without disabilities have a hard enough time making it in a man’s world, I wondered, where does that leave those on disability benefits? I knew there must be more women out there, like me, who imagined a life with someone—only to face a threat to the financial independence they’d worked so hard to achieve. Because having your benefits yanked from under you and then having to rely solely on your partner for your basic needs doesn’t just curb your independence—it destroys it.

As I contemplated the consequences of my relationship, I couldn’t help but think of those women who had forgone their benefits. What happened if they wanted to leave their relationship?

Lola is a 20-something woman living in Alberta with Hashimoto’s Disease, an autoimmune disease that attacks a person’s thyroid. Like all of the women I interviewed, she asked that I give her a pseudonym because of the stigma associated with living with a disability. I can relate. Since I’ve been on social assistance family and friends alike have felt the need to tell me how I’m just not trying hard enough. Because Lola is in a common-law relationship with her partner, she hasn’t applied for disability benefits because he makes too much money for her to qualify. But that doesn’t mean she’s financially stable.

Instead, she works as a server despite “feeling like death” and “starting her day with an arsenal of medications.” Lola has expressed concern about how her partner treats her and her pets—mishandling both when he gets
upset. She’s wanted to leave the relationship multiple times, but she says she keeps forgiving him because he does a lot to help her. When it comes down to it, she believes that her hands are tied and she needs to keep pushing for survival.

Like Lola, Marci (who also asked that her name not be used) is a 20-something woman living in Alberta who has been common-law with her partner for 10 years. Even though she struggles to support herself and lives with bipolar disorder, Marci hasn’t been able to apply for disability benefits because her partner earns over the threshold. While she appreciates her partner’s support, this dependence has taken a toll on their relationship. She says she’s been forced to confront the terrible reality of feeling trapped because there’s no better alternative. When I last spoke to Marci, she and her partner had taken a step back from their relationship. She’s now in the process of looking into reapplying for disability. Like Lola, Marci finds surviving day-to-day hard enough—never mind jumping through the hoops of applying for disability benefits. It took me six years to successfully navigate the system, find the courage to contact doctors, and then to get all the paperwork I needed (and even then I had to appeal because the language in the paperwork wasn’t clear).

I can relate to Marci and Lola, who, despite desperately wanting financial independence, know that sometimes the most viable option is the one that gives you your best shot at survival. Even though I knew living with my parents hurt my confidence and mental health, I didn’t have the resources to leave. Income support allowed me to distance myself from my parents, and disability benefits let me cut them off completely. Having the latter gives me a sense of freedom. I don’t have to worry about relying on anyone else for survival; I can make decisions based on what I truly want. But for those who are still in vulnerable situations, other options are often homelessness—something I’ve experienced as well. And believe me, after a week of sleeping on a gym mat and wandering the street, a warm place to live, even somewhere that’s abusive—well, it isn’t even a question. This makes me sure that fewer women would find themselves in shelters if they were able to have social assistance regardless of their relationship status.

“The government expects people who are common-law to share incomes,” a social worker told me over the phone. And while this sounds like a fine deal if you’re in a relationship where you’re okay with that dynamic, it’s a poor one overall. Many women also want to share a house and start a family, and these extra expenses on one person’s salary exponentially raise the likelihood of living paycheque-to-paycheque—or make such goals simply impossible. Not only does this put all of the pressure on the breadwinner, but it can create a dynamic in which the person with a disability feels like a burden—an awful place to be in a relationship that’s supposed to be based on love and support, and when the rest of the world already underestimates those with disabilities. Even worse, if the relationship doesn’t work out, they’ll have to apply for disability benefits all over again after giving them up.

Of course, I could lie to the government. Like many couples who live together and aren’t on disability benefits, I could say I’m living with a roommate or have my partner take over the lease to avoid tax deductions. But I’m not going to do that. Lying to the government just adds to the stigma that people on social assistance are lazy and misusing people’s tax dollars. After all the work I’ve done to get to where I am, I’m not going to risk having my financial independence taken away. Instead of the Alberta government giving people no other option than to try to get around the system, it should take a hard look at its old-school views and remember that women are equal to men. Women with disabilities shouldn’t have to worry about losing their benefits because of how much their common-law or married partners earn.

Marci says that she has no idea what the future holds. She’s scared, and like me, the lack of stability and support has only made her mental health worse. She believes she’ll either get some kind of support and be able to finally focus on her needs—or she won’t. It feels like a gamble, and if she loses, she’ll have to continue to struggle with part-time work and stay in her relationship for survival instead of love. “Not every couple shares money,” she says. “The people applying for disability are not the ones living in mansions with happy, healthy marriages. The people applying are the ones who need it. The government shouldn’t be able to say some disabilities and living situations are more or less valid than others.”

I’m not sure what the future holds for me either. I currently live a life full of purpose while working on my freelance writing and magazine, and my partner and I are happy living separately for now. But maybe one day we’ll get tired of making the trek to and from each other’s apartments and decide we want to share the same space. Whether or not he takes a job outside Alberta, we’ll always have to live knowing there’s going to be distance between us. It’s true that respecting the others’ need for independence is a key component in what makes our relationship so great, yet having that independence forced on us isn’t what I expected when I told myself that I would one day take care of myself.

As a woman with a disability, I acknowledge that I’m lucky to have disability benefits in the first place; it’s incredibly difficult to qualify. Speaking out about the flaws within the system comes with a fear of biting the hand that feeds me. But progress has been made to increase disability benefit amounts and to raise awareness of how a person can afford to eat on social assistance. More and more women are writing about what it’s like to live with a disability to break the stigma that we’re lazy and misusing tax dollars. I’m happy to be one of them, and I feel confident that if we keep working to tell our stories we’ll come to create change. We need to keep fighting for our rights as citizens—and we can do it. After all, we’ve felt what it takes to overcome so many obstacles already.

On air with Calgary community radio station 90.9 FM CJSW, a non-profit based in the University of Calgary // Photo by Bryce Krynski

THE CHEERY BANTER between a cartoon moose and flying squirrel has rung out over Calgary airwaves every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. for the past 14 years. Dedicated listeners know what the goofy bit signals: it’s time for radio magic.

“And now…”

“Hey, Rocky!” Bullwinkle interrupts. “Watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat.”

“But that trick never works.”

“This time for sure.” Bullwinkle is undaunted. “Presto!”

In drops a charging drum beat and bass line by Juno-winning band Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. Then, we’re off on another two-hour radio-making experiment on CJSW 90.9 FM, Calgary’s campus and community station. A crowd has assembled in the on-air booth on the third floor of MacEwan Hall at the University of Calgary to hear that storied show intro for the last time. After kicking off the weekend for countless Calgarians over the past decade and a half, Chad Saunders has just kicked off his final show.

“Well hi, everybody. Welcome to My Allergy to the Fans here on Friday, January 8th. So exciting—2016! I hope everyone got their calendars all in order, preferably from their favourite restaurant or mechanic shop and you’re just ready to go. This is the last My Allergy to Fans …”

Saunders stands in front of the microphone, chair pushed back, arms akimbo. CDs and records are strewn in piles to his right. A laptop is flipped open to his left. The sound board, a wide flat console with dozens of knobs, lights, and buttons, concentrates the room’s myriad audio devices at his fingertips.

CJSW’s on-air booth resembles the bridge of some sort of steam-punk spaceship. Cassette decks and turntables rub shoulders with sound mixers and a fleet of monitors. The station’s Twitter feed streams on a screen fixed to the wall while another provides access to the digital library— a growing collection of 7,600 albums. Saunders, however, prefers the frenzy of analogue, manually mixing from vinyl, CDs, cassettes, and his laptop. He manages this flurry of activity while taking calls from listeners and zipping out the door and past an illustrated skateboard deck that reads “The Chad Saunders Music Library” to find the perfect gem among 100,000 meticulously filed albums.

Voted Calgary’s favourite radio personality for six consecutive years, from 2008–2013, Saunders’ inimitable brand of slapdash radio has been incubating since he first walked through CJSW’s doors back in 1990. Over the past 25 years, the lanky 43-year-old has been a volunteer, board member, program director, and served an 11-year tenure as station manager. But now with his full-time gig as the director of operations and special projects for the National Music Centre ramping up with the opening of a new 160,000 sq. ft. facility, Saunders has made the tough call to retire the show. We’ve gathered in the booth to witness him try and pull a rabbit from his hat one last time.

“I see my pals from Blist and Matt Masters,” Saunders looks through the glass at the band setting up in the performance studio. Masters is an alt-country musician who ran as the NDP candidate against Stephen Harper in the last federal election. Sabo Forte and Andy Sparacino, who played the character Tron in the Fubar movies, comprise hip hop duo Blist. The unlikely collaborators, who dub themselves Blasters for the next two hours, are here to mark the end of an era. “They’re getting all warmed up and ready to go,” says Saunders.

With unruly brown hair, a runaway metabolism and goofball sense of humour, Saunders is a charismatic host. But his popularity also speaks to the power and potential of community radio. On CJSW’s airwaves, Saunders had the latitude to take chances. Listeners never knew what was going to happen next. In December, I heard a song in which Fabio, the Italian fashion model, softly intonated about his favourite ways to surprise his girlfriend. That same show included an excerpt from the Baby Pac-Man Read-Along Story Book, as well as vintage soul, garage rock, and plenty of local bands. The freedom Saunders had to speak his mind and play what he wanted allowed for a level of originality not possible on the more regimented mediums of public and commercial radio.

The appeal of community radio’s one-of-a-kind content is enhanced by how listeners are part of the action. Stations rely on their audience for funding, but also to become volunteers and to produce shows. Community radio is participatory from the moment you tune in; listening is a form of self expression. Whenever I see CJSW’s green-andwhite sticker on the back of someone’s car, I feel an instant kinship—an ally in an ongoing effort to realize a weirder, more progressive version of Calgary. The sense of belonging fostered by community radio offers another dimension to listening, one that goes far beyond the passive consumption of entertainment.

All these elements—local focus, crowdfunding, active listeners, and originality—that helped build such a loyal following for My Allergy to the Fans also positions community radio to flourish in the 21st-century media landscape. The relentless tide of free content on the internet has upended the economic model for broadcast television and print publications. Commercial radio is still profitable in Canada, but new online competitors materialize regularly. Community radio’s grassroots, guerilla-style approach to broadcasting presents a resilient media model for the digital age. Examples are starting to emerge of community stations like CJSW stepping up to fill widening gaps in local media coverage.

CJSW’s Donation Wall, designed and illustrated by Silas Kaufman // Photo by Bryce Krynski

CANADA’S BROADCASTING ACT recognizes three sectors—public, private, and community—that make use of the nation’s radio frequencies, which belong to citizens as part of the public domain. The Canadian Radio and Television Commission, which regulates the broadcasting and telecommunications spheres, defines community radio’s role in terms of creating content “rich in local information and reflection.” The medium must also meet the needs of the community not addressed by CBC and private commercial stations. Volunteers are involved in every aspect of running a community station (the main difference for a campus station is that students must also participate).

In 2014, 165 campus and community stations were included in the CRTC’s annual Communications Monitoring Report. Together, they make up 16.3 percent of all the radio and audio services authorized to broadcast in Canada. Barry Rooke, the executive director of the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA), says the number of stations operating today is around 185. He estimates the community radio sector adds between five to 10 stations annually, although the growth of campus stations has flat-lined. The NCRA also has several member stations that don’t require a CRTC license because they broadcast solely with an online stream.

Community radio’s mandate to reflect the richness and diversity of local communities is becoming increasingly important as traditional media outlets continue to disappear. Twenty-two Canadian daily newspapers have closed down over the past five years. For example, Nanaimo’s Daily News and the Guelph Mercury shut down in early 2016. Each paper had served their community for over 140 years. The alternative weekly, FFWD, which ran the popular Best of Calgary survey that crowned Chad Saunders the city’s favourite deejay, published its last issue  in March 2015. And this past January, Postmedia downsized and merged the newsrooms of Calgary’s two major dailies; now one team covers local news for both papers in a city of 1.1 million. Parliament’s Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage formed a panel in late February to study the national crisis of local news coverage in print, broadcast, and digital media.

“People are starting to recognize that there is a gap,” says Rooke, “and they are looking for solutions to find content that suits their street and their neighbourhood.” For example, he adds, when Picton, Ont. station County FM launched in October 2014, it attracted 80 dedicated volunteers within a year. The local programming includes music shows, hourly news updates, and regularly-covered community events. Local stores have turned their dials away from stations in nearby towns and now blast their homegrown one, says Rooke. Having filled the void of local coverage, it’s been embraced by the community.

In addition to practical information about events and local issues, stations like CJSW offer organic and personal connections to manifold communities. At 30 years and counting, Megawatt Mayhem, a weekly two-hour show on CJSW, is Canada’s longest-running heavy metal program and a lifeline for that community in Calgary. The station is also home to several multicultural programs that broadcast in 10 different languages. Community radio is indissoluble from the spot where it’s created. People from a place engage others about that place. This rootedness—which includes old fashioned conversations replete with “ums”, “uhs,” and meandering digressions—keeps the medium relevant.

Ivan Emke, an associate professor in social and cultural studies at Memorial University’s Corner Brook campus in Newfoundland, has seen the transformative effects of community radio first hand. Emke volunteers with Ryakuga, a non-profit communications company that encourages rural communities to experiment with grassroots media projects. Ryakuga has helped several small towns in Newfoundland set up their own community stations. Emke defines humans as meaning-seeking creatures. We continuously process new information in an effort to make the world intelligible. A big part of how we create that meaning is through conversation.

“For isolated communities, including communities that are in the middle of huge urban areas that are themselves an entity or ecosystem,” says Emke, “they need to maintain some sort of control over the story about themselves.” The hosts of Megawatt Mayhem, Kevin Woron and JP Wood, have helped connect Calgary’s heavy metal community over decades of interviews with musicians, information about upcoming shows, and discussions about local bands. Community radio provides the forum for the kind of dialogue and exchange of ideas that allows individuals to rally around a common identity.

Maintaining a volunteer-run radio station, however, is no small feat. Rooke estimates that up to 40 percent of the NCRA’s 95 members are losing money or just managing to stay afloat. Revenues fluctuate wildly from station to station with about a quarter running on less than $12,000 annually. CJSW’s annual budget, by contrast, is $700,000. It supports seven full-time staff members and 300 volunteers, making it a flagship community station in Canada. As a community and campus station, CJSW raises 39 percent of its budget from a student levy. Some of CJSW’s financial stability can also be attributed to its location in a young and affluent city, but the station is also a fundraising superstar—by necessity. Every October, CJSW asks listeners for a significant chunk of its operating expenses. This past October, in the middle of a severe economic downturn, it raised a whopping $255,689 in under eight days, which is a national record for the sector.

Community stations depend on listeners, not advertisers, for survival—but investing during a funding drive also gives listeners a stake in the station. In this way, community radio offers a continuum of belonging versus passive entertainment. At CJSW, you can phone, tweet and, as of February, text the deejay in the booth. All these points of contact encourage people to ramp up their involvement: from listening, texting, and phoning to pledging money, volunteering, and hosting a radio show.

Certainly, something sturdy has taken root on the third floor of MacEwan Hall. This capacity to attract fresh ears while staying relevant to longer lobes is a big part of CJSW’s success. Volunteers range from ages 12–70. New people are attracted to the station while veteran members remain committed. Many Calgary bands, artists, and arts organizations have connections to CJSW. Kerry Clarke has been doing her Thursday afternoon show, Alternative to What, since she moved to Calgary in 1987 to work as CJSW’s program director. She put Saunders on the air for the first time back in 1991. Clarke works as the artistic director for the Calgary Folk Music Festival. Both Reggae Fest and Afrikadey!, big summer cultural festivals, were started by former CJSW deejays. “CJSW has really shaped the community,” says Clarke. “You talk about somebody who is doing something awesome in Calgary and quite often there is a route back to CJSW.”

“HAVE THE BEST TIME,” says Saunders. We’re almost at the show’s halfway mark and he’s chatting on-air with Hayley Muir, whose soul and rockabilly program, Dixie Fried, is moving into the 2 p.m. slot next Friday to take over after My Allergy to the Fans.

“I’m so excited. It’s like, I’m a little nervous,” answers Muir, who is also the singer for local punk band The Shiverettes. Muir and band mate Kaely Cormack founded Femme Wave, a multidisciplinary feminist arts festival, this past November. She started volunteering with CJSW in 2009 and has been doing a radio show almost ever since. Despite all the experience, she’s intimidated by the expectations around her new time slot.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Well, one of the callers this morning was like, ‘Oh, those are some big goofy shoes to fill,’ and I was like, ‘I know, right!’”

“They’re clown boots and they’re canoe-sized and we just float down the river in the summer in them.”

“Cool. I can do that.”

“That’s how you get to Folk Fest—just hide in the clown shoe,” says Saunders. He dedicates the next song,

“The Name Game” by soul singer Shirley Ellis, to Muir.

The exchange with Muir is classic Saunders. Leapfrog adlibbing is his thing: an off-hand remark expanded into a joke, which sparks into a running theme. He never planned a show the night before because he wanted to react to what was happening that day, whether it was a big news story or a gnarly bout of Calgary weather. In many ways, My Allergy to the Fans was a front row seat to the inner workings of a wild imagination.

One of his jokes is still going strong after 11 years. It began as an April Fool’s prank in 2005. Saunders, along with a few others, hosted the morning show as if the station had been taken over by The Cobra, a commercial station with the tagline “All Metal! All the Time!” The three hosts impersonated over-the-top characters reminiscent of the 1984 rock-music mockumentary This is Spinal Tap. Saunders, clad in a blonde mullet wig, aviator sunglasses, and a skin tight leopard print t-shirt, became Jett Thunders (the costume later added a pair of shimmering pink pants). And then Thunders somehow survived the prank. His trademark blonde mullet and pink pants still haunt Calgary’s music scene. He emcees concerts and music festivals and is the mascot for the Calgary Underground Film Festival. An ’80s-era, classic-rock super fan, Thunders gave a PechaKucha (a TED-style talk that uses slides) lecture in 2013 and regularly chimes in on local issues through his own Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Creative freedom—the ability to take risks, face-plant, and wear mullets—gives community radio an edge on its commercial counterparts in the digital age. And CJSW station manager Myke Atkinson believes it’s only a matter of time before commercial radio falters big. “It’s like a stack of Jenga bricks,” he says, “and they keep pulling one out and, at some point, there are no more things you can take out before the whole thing just falls apart.” Commercial radio’s increasing homogeneity, he argues, will be its downfall. Digital streaming services such as Spotify or Google Play already provide instant access to a greater volume and variety of music. And now Beats 1, Apple’s new 24/7 internet radio station, has live hosts curating shows from New York, Los Angeles, and London. Then, there are our cars: Once they’re manufactured to make listening through a smartphone as seamless as it is to press the button for radio, commercial radio, says Atkinson, is dead.

It’s been decades since commercial radio hosts have chosen what music to play. Letting anyone—never mind a whirling dervish like Saunders—play and chat about the music they love is too big an economic risk. Instead, program directors use software to calibrate each hour so that something appeals to everyone. It’s hard to see how this algorithmic one-size-fits-all approach can survive the rise of online music streaming. While community radio can be messy, it’s always fresh. This past October, CJSW started podcasting—every broadcast is available online to playback on demand. Web traffic has increased fivefold. It would be pointless to time shift commercial radio because it’s too similar from one show to another, from one week to the next.

Community radio’s inherent flexibility has also allowed CJSW to cover events and topics in original ways. In 2010, in the months leading up to the surprise election of Naheed Nenshi, CJSW launched an ambitious municipal election coverage project. Joe Burima, the station’s first full-time news and spoken word director, with the help of an intern and a team of 10 volunteers, interviewed all 88 mayoral and aldermanic candidates. “We felt that an ongoing issue with municipal elections—hell, all elections—is that the public did not have digestible information on candidates and their platforms,” says Burima.

The project put every candidate on an equal footing. Everyone from frontrunners to low-profile candidates were asked the same set of questions. Podcasts of the interviews with aldermanic candidates were posted online as part of an interactive map of the city. Interviews with mayoral candidates were broadcast during morning programs in the last two weeks before the election. Calgary’s 2010 municipal election had the highest voter turnout in over three decades. Fifty-three percent of eligible voters cast a ballot— a 20 percent jump from 2007. A bunch of factors contributed to the higher turnout, but CJSW’s coverage also developed its own momentum and became a respected source of information during the election.

“I WAS ALWAYS A QUITTER,” says Saunders as he brings up the levels on his microphone. The band is performing an ode to My Allergy to the Fans to the tune of Grease’s “Beauty School Drop Out.” Masters, Andy Sparacino, and Sabo Forte harmonize and diverge as they sing the farewell tune. Sparacino hits some surprisingly high notes for a burly guy with a red beard and penchant for trucker hats and flannel shirts. The song is funny, but also poignant.

“I quit that beauty school and for 14 years I just spent some time doing this radio show, but imagine all the perms that I saved the world from,” says Saunders. He drops the levels on the band to talk and then raises them again. “We’re going to do this for hours until you fade us out,” says Masters.

The Blasters pick up extra members as more musicians stop by to bid Saunders adieu. The performance studio is packed with instruments and crisscrossing wires, but the audio quality is excellent. In 2009, CJSW expanded from a dank hodgepodge of subterranean corridors to the airy environs of MacEwan Hall’s third floor. State-of-the-art equipment and bright open spaces give the station a more modern atmosphere. After moving into the new space, staff and volunteers set to work increasing the power of the broadcast signal from 4,000 to 18,000 watts, developing online podcasting, digitizing the library, and allowing listeners to text deejays in the booth.

Recently, CJSW launched Coming Up Calgary, an online event listing, including details for everything from Flames games to spoken word open mics. It’s a direct response to the shuttering of FFWD Weekly, whose listings CJSW hosts relied on to discuss local events. Coming Up Calgary is an extension of the station’s mandate, but it’s also a new frontier—a move beyond radio. Many volunteers also create their own podcasts, some of which quickly find traction and get thousands of downloads through iTunes.

Community radio remains beset by obstacles: fundraising, developing an audience, finding resources—it goes on and on. But the medium also has remarkable potential. Community radio is proving its resilience during a paradigm shift in how we learn and communicate about the places that we live. Calgary is a much richer place to call home because a ragtag collection of 300 amateurs have access to a broadcasting signal that reaches the city limits and beyond.

“Matt Masters and Blist, everybody. You guys are my Bruce Springsteen moment, that’s all I can say. Alright, gang. Signing off—My Allergy to the Fans. Blist, Matt Masters—thank you for joining me. Not enough words,” Saunders’ voice cracks. He hits play on his last song and The Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t it be Nice” floods through thousands of speakers and eardrums across Calgary. Radio magic.

Also in this issue: Amanda Van Slyke asks “Is welfare sexist?” in her new essay; Nadia Alam contemplates what it’s like to run away from home; Lisa Whittington-Hill hangs out with the Hervana; Saskatchewan makes huge strides forward in transgender rights; and more!

Want This Magazine delivered right to your door? Visit this.org/subscribe today. You can get one year (six great issues!) for only $27.99 or two years for $42.99 (an even better deal)!

Also, head on over here to meet our new art director Valerie Thai.

All of us at This Magazine would like to say a happy hello to our new art director, Valerie Thai. Valerie specializes in print design and illustration for socially conscious and sustainable companies. She was also the award-winning head designer and art director of Adbusters for five years running. We’re thrilled to have her on board!

To get to know Valerie better and to introduce her to our readers, we recently sat down with her and played six questions (that’s a thing, right?).

Tell us more about how you first discovered This Magazine. It was one of the many Canadian titles in the magazine library at the last publication where I worked at (Adbusters). It was great being exposed to different publications from across the country.

Where do you get your design inspiration? My inspiration seems to come from all over—art, music, my environment and daily life.

What’s the coolest design or art project you’ve ever worked on? A skateboard deck design I collaborated on for the We Are Contributors skateboard fundraiser. It was a one-off design that we illustrated and then wood-burned by hand into the deck.

If you could see any one work of art in real life, what would it be? Hard choice. Automatically, I am eliminating works that I can technically hop on a plane and go see. So, I wish I had seen Banksy’s Dismaland. It was only a temporary exhibit in England that took place last summer, but the sheer spectacle and scale of it all looked amazing.

Most of Team This runs on coffee fumes. What about you? What’s your stay-awake strategy? Yes, coffee for sure, with lots of sugar and cream. Music helps as well. Oh, and snacks (white cheddar popcorn makes an appearance often).

Favourite Canadian icon? Design: Bruce Mau. Activism: David Suzuki. Childhood: Mr. Dressup.

Illustration by Jori van der Linde

For a long time, no one understood why I hated my mother. After all, pop culture, Hallmark, and general wisdom tend to all agree that a daughter shares her deepest secrets with her mother. With her, I was supposed to feel safe, comforted, supported, and so deeply loved.

I can’t ever remember feeling that way about my mother.

I know it wasn’t always like that. From age four to 12, our family shuttled between cities, moving from Gaborone in Botswana, to New York City, then to Dallas all before settling in Toronto. It was me, my mother and father, and my two sisters. During that time, we often lived in crammed apartments, but mostly we were happy to be in each other’s company—at least it was nothing like the round-the-clock terror I would come to experience. I remember simple, joyful moments like watching chameleons change colour, playing skip rope, or singing at the top of my lungs to Celine Dion songs with my older sister, Asha, and younger sister, Tarana.

My family decided to settle in Canada in 1997 because our family’s visitor’s visa expired and we felt Canada had more relaxed restrictions. Once in Toronto, Ammu, my mother, developed a closeness to me, but spurned Asha. For reasons neither I or my sisters understood, Ammu invested in attacking and creating stories about Asha, who was 16, and her “relations with several men.” She used me to get information about Asha’s day-to-day activities. As a kid, I didn’t realize what was happening—at first. I gamely informed on my sister, telling my mother Asha visited with male friends after school, not realizing that what seemed normal to me was ammunition for my mother.

Asha figured it out before I did. She also realized something else, too. “Don’t you notice,” she asked me, “that every time you tell Ammu something, you’re suddenly not allowed to go out and play with all the other kids?” I did notice. I had also started to notice that she twisted my words and embellished what I told her. One time she told my father, who I call Papa, that Asha couldn’t visit her best friend, who lived on the eighth floor of our building, because “a lot of bachelors lived there”—a fabricated story presented as fact. Asha had been regularly visiting this friend, without issue, for years. My mother cut it off on a whim. Oftentimes, it felt like she was manipulating us because she enjoyed it—she was like Regina George from Mean Girls. We had no idea what would trigger her or when.

Once Ammu lost control of me as an informant, our home went on immediate lockdown. It was a confusing, depressing time. I couldn’t understand why my mother was out to get me and my sisters. Under orders, I’d come home straight after school to clean the house and do my homework. Unlike other kids I grew up with, I wasn’t allowed to linger after class, play outside, go to friends’ birthday parties, or attend sleepovers. I had no freedom.

I often overheard Ammu on the phone telling her relatives in Bangladesh that “I got stuck with these daughters that don’t do anything to help me.” I would cry to my friends at school, confessing my mom’s lies, manipulation, and suffocating control. Even then, I knew my peers found it all unbelievable—it was so far removed from their own lives—but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt heavily misunderstood, and by my early teens, I became angry.

At school, I earned a reputation as a rude girl. I wasn’t a bully, and I wasn’t popular, but I was aggressive. It was a ripple effect and the stone drop was my home life. My parents argued often and violently, my mom’s own anger spilling over. One time, as they fought, my uncle, who happened to be at the house that day, noticed me crying. Trying to resolve their fight, he brought me into the room, still crying, and said to them, “Look at what you’re doing to your daughter.” They were baffled and asked me: “Why are you crying?” As they dismissed me, I dismissed everyone around me.

I grew to hate myself. Both of my parents constantly told me that I was incapable of being smart. My hair was too curly. My butt was too big. My nose was too big. I was chubby. I saw myself as both ugly and invisible. Aside from the abuse, my parents ignored me. I hated them. As a Muslim family, my mother forced me to do my daily prayers—even as I grappled with my religious beliefs. I would sit on my mat and pray to this supposed God to get me the hell out of there. If he was real, I hated him too.

And yet, I wanted to love my parents. I yearned to figure out a way to control Ammu, so that I could turn her into a good mother, just as she yearned to control me.

Even though I wanted to leave my house, it seemed impossible. For Muslim Bengalis, it simply isn’t culturally acceptable. My parents, like some (but certainly not all) members of the Bangladeshi community, don’t believe in young, single, and unmarried girls living on their own—a belief that was drilled into me. By the time I’d turned 20, a young woman living independently was something I’d only seen on TV or in the movies. None of my friends had moved out and most couldn’t understand my urgent desire to leave. Mental abuse wasn’t on their radar, and my curiosity about leaving home was seen as a potentially dramatic decision. I didn’t take the leap because I believed that I couldn’t. The cultural mentality was too strong and my mom’s abuse was too scarring—a powerful mix.

It was also incredibly isolating. It felt like everybody believed I should tolerate the mental abuse and neglect. Many people suggested or outright advised that I forgive my mother regardless of the pain she continued to cause. I was told she was the only mother I had and that I was lucky to have one. I felt like I couldn’t go to anyone for help. I was a very angry bird trapped in a cage I thought I didn’t have the key to.

Then, in my early 20s, I finally got the break I needed. In 2010, Ammu and my younger sister, Tarana, moved to Bangladesh. She had been hanging around with the wrong crowd after school, smoking, and had tried to run away from home twice. Trapping her there was my parents’ solution. And selfishly, I was reaping the rewards of their departure. My mom was gone.

Without her there, I became unexpectedly close with my dad, a man I didn’t really know or understand. We shared our fears and traumas of my mother. Before then, she’d forced me to wear the hijab, despite my misgivings. While I didn’t feel connected to her Muslim faith, I recognized that wearing the hijab was a choice that symbolized a devotion to Islam. I felt like a liar donning something that represents something so meaningful. Now I finally could take it off., since I never wanted to wear it to begin with. I also dropped out of university to go to college instead. I grew into myself at a rapid pace, feeling at ease in my home situation for the first time since we arrived to Toronto.

It all disappeared the next year. My father received an offer to work in Nigeria and Asha decided to experience living and working in Bangladesh. The only person that wanted to stay was me. Tarana and Ammu were to return; I wasn’t allowed to stay home alone. My fall back into depression was sudden. Now that I knew I could have a better life, I didn’t want to go back to an abusive one—one that didn’t even feel like my life at all. I was withdrawn and quiet.

When Asha and my father came back the next year, my rebellion began full swing. I became committed to leaving my house—even if I didn’t see how I could. There was no one to guide me in the Bengali community. I didn’t know where to look for help and I felt trapped in my own anger. And I felt so alone. But I was determined to leave.

In November 2011, I hit my limit. I was in my room and Ammu was in the hallway, badgering me from a distance, recounting an old, favourite story of hers about a personal wrong. Exhausted, I finally stood up for myself and told her that she could keep talking but that I would not listen, not this time. My cell phone rang, then, and I reached to answer it. She realized I meant it. In a flash, she sprung at me, raging. Before I could even register what was happening, she was choking me. Asha heard, then came running in and grabbed her away from me and out of my room, locking the door behind her.

***

Later, when I told people I ran away from home, they wouldn’t really understand. “How could a 23-year-old run away from home? Don’t you mean you moved out?” I explain; sometimes they understand and sometimes they don’t. I realize that many of those who ask these questions don’t understand the cultural pressure I faced, or my parents’ mentality—both of which decree a woman living alone is unacceptable. They’re confused because, by the time I moved out, I had a well-paying job. I could move into an apartment and wasn’t forced into homelessness. To add to it all, my older sister came with me. From the outside looking in, my story didn’t seem traumatizing enough.

While my mother could be violent, she was predominately an emotional and mental abuser. This seems to be difficult for people to understand or even believe—something I find not only offensive, but appalling. In the years I’ve spent living alone and sharing my story, I’ve discovered that mental or verbal abuse by parents towards their blood-related children isn’t treated as seriously as spousal or partner abuse. As a society, we’re more concerned with possible parental physical and sexual abuse. It has to seem outrageous for us to acknowledge it hurts. Take, for instance, the ads that appeared in Toronto’s subway system earlier this year for Covenant House, a long-standing youth shelter in the city. One, in the style of a cross-stitch hanging, reads, “Home, shut up or I’ll knock your teeth out, home.” It’s powerful and important. But, I wonder, how do you convey the nuances of emotional abuse on a subway ad? Why does someone have to have scars or be raped or even dead for abused children and teens to receive care?

The general public sees severing ties with an abusive spouse or partner as an acceptable act. Yet, when I spoke to most people about my decision to sever ties with my abusive parents, the immediate response from friends, and even some mental health practitioners, was to forgive and rebuild with them. What most people failed to realize is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to rebuilding with abusers of any kind. They also failed to understand the psychological implications of re-establishing a relationship with abusive parents after having cut ties with them: how it can stall a healing process, while further instigating depression, rage, and a slew of other mental health issues.

I’m hoping this will change as more people speak out. I was heartened to see, for instance, that former Edmonton Oiler Patrick O’Sullivan addressed his father’s emotional cruelty and abuse in his new book Breaking Away: A Harrowing True Story of Resilience, Courage and Triumph. Even though his career as an professional hockey player brought him great success, he was always looking over his shoulder in fear after games. “There’s a lot of people that don’t even know it goes on, it’s a very private thing, ‘it’s not my business anyways.’ A lot of people don’t want to know because it puts them in a tough spot. They think they saw something, they’re not sure, they don’t want to know anymore. That’s got to change.” At 31 years old, he has trouble sitting still and sensory triggers can immediately implant a memory of his abusive father.

Over the years, I have met adult victims of parental abuse, and a lot of them share similar experiences to mine. Regardless of heritage, the feelings of loneliness and being misunderstood because of abusive parents, and particularly an abusive mother, are common. We victims have a deep understanding of one another, and I’ve shared more than one high-five with other survivors because we’ve made it to the other side, alive and mentally healthy.

I once asked Asha how many times she thought of calling the Children’s Aid Society in our youth. She admitted, “Many. The only reason I didn’t leave was because I knew I’d get separated from you guys, especially if we went through the foster care system.” She’d sacrificed her own mental wellbeing because she wanted to make sure that Tarana and I weren’t alone with my parents or split up in foster care or shelter systems. If she had called, though, we wouldn’t have been alone. In 2014–2015, the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto worked with more than 21,000 children who called because of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, caregiver capacity, and caregiver-child conflicts. The latter, which is what I experienced in my upbringing, is one of the things children are least likely to call in about, according to the CAS’s 2014–2015 annual report.

As a teen, the only time I ever seriously thought of leaving home was when staff from Covenant House did a presentation at my high school. The information stayed lodged at the back of my brain, but I soon learned how doubly traumatic it can be to live in a house of strangers who come from their own trauma. It scared me enough that I eliminated that option from my mind. If I were to be free, it would to be in safety, not another abusive environment. I wish it had been easier for me to find out more, solid information.

Public education around the solutions and processes of running away from home needs to be more prevalent, louder. Children of abuse grow up in a contradictory and confusing emotional world. Some children also normalize parental abuse until they are exposed to a different relationship dynamic—like when, one day on the subway, I saw a woman and her daughter share stories and giggle with one another for the first time. My mind was blown. I couldn’t even think of being that physically close with my mother. When kids don’t understand that what they are facing is not safe, someone has to be the voice that speaks out for them.

***

Asha decided to leave with me after the choking incident. Together, we moved to an apartment in the west end of Toronto. On an April morning, while my mom was away at work and my dad was living in Guyana for another international gig, my sister and I woke up at 7 a.m. sharp. Nervous, we called our movers to confirm they’d arrive on time. We’d also prepared emails that announced we were officially leaving home. They were crafted months in advance, and sent that evening to my dad and my younger sister.

For my mom, we had prepared a printed letter, sealed in an envelope. It took months to edit and keep concise, on the advice of our counsellor at Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic. We’d come to the clinic earlier for help: it had a counsellor dedicated to supporting women that run away from home. We were to hand the letter to Ammu and leave immediately after we gave her the news face-to-face. The letter said that she had pushed us to do this. It indicated that we would be safe and that we would not be in contact with our family for at least three months or until we were ready. It was a memento of closure for us, and a piece of evidence in case of an emergency. The paper trail was important, according to our counsellor, should the police need to be involved in the event that my parents escalated to violence.

We took out the empty boxes we had hid in our closets, taped them and stuffed them quickly. We didn’t have to be that urgent, but we were filled with anxiety. It felt like my mother could come home at any moment. We put our clothes in garbage bags, and the movers took our furniture as we watched our rooms empty in the quickest hour of my life. After leaving our things untouched in our new apartment, we headed back to my parents’ place to get my dad’s car. We picked up our mom from work and told her we were all going to our family friend’s apartment. She was giddy from the surprise.

As I parked in my family friend’s garage, my heart was beating loudly in my chest. I called a cab as soon as we arrived. In the 15 minutes it took for the cab to get there, I told Ammu that we were leaving. It didn’t even feel like I was in my body, but I somehow managed to tell her that when she returned home, we wouldn’t be there, and that our rooms would be empty. We began to gather our things and leave for the door as she grabbed us, begging us to explain more. We said nothing. I was so scared I thought the room was spinning. The family friend told her simply, “Let them go.” The door shut, and we heard her wailing.

As I jabbed the elevator button, I grew so nervous hoping she wouldn’t come out of the door trying to do something. We headed to the elevator and I felt numb. It was a defence mechanism I’d used ever since I was a child, exposed to my parents’ public fights. I remember thinking, “This is it, we’re all alone.” I felt like no one would support us, and I also felt sad that I was cutting ties. I didn’t want them as my parents, but I did want parents. I felt orphaned.

The cab ride back to our new place was silent. I hugged Asha tightly and we listened to a CBC Radio Show talking about abuse. I asked the driver to please change the channel. We met a few friends at a restaurant. We ate a warm meal, even though we didn’t feel hungry. Our phones rang all night, voicemail after voicemail. One was from the family friend asking us to move my dad’s car from their parking spot. Another was from my mother, demanding to know why we did this to her. A third was from my dad in Guyana demanding we go home right now or else he would kill us.

I laid on the bare mattress of the new apartment, scared and crying. I had never felt so alone in my life, and anyone I could call would not understand. I wish I knew at the time how empty their threats were.

I wish my friends understood how hard of a decision it was to cut the umbilical cord, instead of viewing my actions as selfish. I wish more people in my life at that time understood how painful it was to not be understood—or even to just be heard.

***

As I write this, it has been three months since my last visit to my parent’s house. While the process of separating from my parents has been full of up and downs, I am now experiencing adulthood and zero dependency on my parents, and it feels exciting and scary all at once. While I feel mentally, financially, and physically healthier and safe, I am sad that I feel I have to do it alone and without the support of my parents. While I feel stable, it’s still daunting to carve out a self-created stability, in all respects, all by myself.

In Christine Ann Lawson’s Understanding the Borderline Mother, there is a chapter called “Living Backwards.” It focuses on how adult children of parental abuse can move forward by first understanding their mothers and then recreating the self. In many ways, I feel as though I’m 17 years old and experiencing my life, not 27. Sometimes I get mad thinking, “Why did it take this long?” I can confidently (and sadly) say that there are more victims that I can possibly personally speak to who are still affected by their parents’ abuse. It is much rarer to connect with adult children who have moved past their lives as victims into a more stable existence, and that alone is scary.

Overall I feel so much healthier. But it took four years of therapy and seeking out my own education on meditation, self-growth, and self-love. I took initiative because I didn’t want to move through the world in my traumas as so many adults do. I feel proud of the courage I take everyday to do what is safe and healthy for me. For the first time in my life, I am my first and only priority. Unfortunately, there are a lot more people who don’t have this experience because of fear, confusion or the way the world around them misunderstands parental abuse. We must strive for clarity and understanding in a broader context to give a voice to children and youth living in mentally and verbally turbulent homes.

I can only hope that other survivors, like me, actively search for the key that will unlock the cage they are in so they can finally fly to their freedom.

More recently in the foreground of Jian Ghomeshi’s trial and his acquittal of all sexual assault charges, defence lawyer Marie Henein’s designer shoe collection, her “architectural-inspired” hair and courtroom attire were also heavily debated as deliberate choices on the part of arguably one of the most polarizing legal figures in our immediate collective memories. Were these clothing choices a foreshadowing of what would be her razor,-sharp dissecting courtroom strategy? Were the red bottoms of her Christian Louboutins meant to warn of the figurative bloodshed awaiting Lucy Decoutere on the stand?

Our clothing is a second skin, our social epidermis. Our chosen threads are by far one of the most powerful tools we use to convey our social selves, our feelings, beliefs, and our aspirations. Clothing can be rebellious, resistant; it can signify aggression and authority as well as it can embody assimilation and passivity. Intriguingly, that the same garment has the capacity of being all of these or none at all in different spaces and at different times. There is power in our clothes, how we perceive ourselves in them, and how others perceive us.

I have had items of clothing be my best friend at times—my ride-or-dies. I’ve mourned their passing when they are no longer wearable, when their seams had had enough. I’ve had clothing speak to and for me, help facilitate my confidence when I ran low in that department. Similarly, clothing can betray us. Nothing is worse than when a stranger has to inform you of an open zipper. Or, when clothes demand we take stock of our financial reality when a well-hidden price tag, the accomplice to a “wear and return” scheme, makes itself visible to those around us and a good Samaritan, unaware of the aforementioned deception, pulls the tag off and your stomach drops—your backstage is now your front stage and you are exposed.

Clothing, its meanings, and how we relate with it is complicated. Are we its hunter or its prey? Beyond its capitalist agenda, clothing choices, far from being a mere personal preference, are highly social, political, and filled with emotionality. In the end, we may wear our clothing but in what ways do our clothes wear us?