The Intersection of Midlife, Disability, and Fashion with Sandie Roberts

After becoming suddenly disabled in 2019, and struggling to come to terms as her life was turned upside down, Sandie found joy through acceptance and recognising that disability is not a bad word.

She believes that while life with a disability isn’t without its challenges, the world needs to change to accommodate the needs of disabled people to enable them to fully participate in society, rather than disregarding a whole sector of humanity as somehow “less than” and works hard to advocate for the disabled community.

Feeling as though she lost her sense of identify, she fought her way back to first accepting and then loving who she is now through self-development and therapy, creating a stronger version of herself out of the broken pieces of her life. She now champions the importance of mental health and refutes the shame culture around seeking help and is on a mission to encourage and empower others to live boldly.

She has featured as a body confidence expert on ITV’s This Morning and spoken on BBC radio as a disability and body confidence advocate a number of times and has modelled on television and in London Fashion Week. She has also been nominated as a Positive Role Model at this year’s National Diversity Awards.

She says -

“Humans are incredible, we are imperfect. We are strong. We are powerful. And we can change the world.”

After becoming suddenly disabled in 2019 and struggling to come to terms as my life was turned upside down, I found joy through acceptance and recognising that disability is not a bad word.