>> My name is Patti Clay.
I'm a mom, a sister, a daughter, colleague, employer, supervisor.
Who when I was around 23 started with a disability.
By the time I was
about mid-thirties started using a wheelchair.
>> Patti Clay is the bureau chief
of the Community Living Division for the state
of Connecticut's Department of Rehabilitation Services.
>> Work also has benefits of offering an opportunity for me
to show what I can do.
It's very, it becomes very difficult
when the social messages that you get all the time
from various places, are that you don't have a lot of value.
That -- well look at you, what can you do?
I mean, I've had people say that directly to me.
Work provides me the opportunity to at least demonstrate
that I can do something other than what people expect.
And I enjoy it.
>> Patti says everyone has a different understanding
of disability, however assumptions can
be discriminating.
For instance, a few comments she has gotten.
>> Gee, do you think you can do that job?
That's a pretty stressful job, you know.
Pretty big job.
I guess I am more shocked by the people even in this building,
many of whom I've worked around for a very long time
who will ask me questions like;
"How many hours a day do you work?"
I'm like, "Which job?
This one or the one I do to moonlight and teach online
at a graduate program, you know, at a college?"
>> Patti struggles with work life balance like everyone else,
including in the areas of times she works, relationships
with family and friends and leisure activities.
>> Truthfully, I don't think I keep them in balance.
Work probably dominants because it's work and wages
that allow me to do other things.
Family is wonderful, but I have a very small family.
And they're far flung so we don't get together a lot.
I felt very strongly about the fact that family is family,
they're not my caregivers.
Because I don't drive
and because I may require some help while I'm
out with someone I think that's intimidating for people.
And, not everybody feels up to that.
And I get that, you know.
But it does limit friendships a good deal.
It's the rare person who makes the effort
to go the extra mile, to be a friend.
So, on my end of that I try to make sure that I do ask people
to do things, to go out and do things.
I try to do it in a way that it's most convenient for them.
I want to do what everybody else does.
I want to go hiking.
I like to soar in a glider plane.
I like to go out on a boat.
I like to sail.
You know, any of those kinds of things.
Don't assume that I wouldn't want to do it
or it's not doable, because I've done all of it.
You just have to figure out how to do it.
>> Patti is retiring in the Fall of 2017.