Tyler Ingalls doesn't allow his disability to affect his self-esteem

An advocate for independence

By Beatrice Marovich, Staff Writer
Journal Tribune, May 4, 2007

Growing up in what was then rural Kennebunk, Tyler Ingalls used to skate to school. The trip, from his farmhouse where the family bred Belgian horses, was about three miles.

He was only about 13 at the time, and this was the beginning of his experience with inline skating – a hobby that still keeps him inspired today.

Now, living in more urban settings (first downtown Portland, now downtown Biddeford), he’ll shovel off skate ramps in the middle of winter so that he can practice.

His skates are old, but he has a mind for mechanics (when he worked at Play It Again Sports in Portland, he said, he was the go-to guy for repairs). He knows how to patch up his skates, or even to upgrade them – like a souped-up automobile.

His skates represent something essential to him.

“I feel freedom, when I’m on them,” he said. Then, almost as an afterthought, he admitted: “Trying to control something that, at times, can seem out of control. . . That’s powerful. I feel power and control.

Tyler is getting a better and better sense of how all of those elements (freedom, power, control) play into the rest of his life as well.

Some might look at his background and conclude that life hasn’t gone easy on him yet. He’s been working, for the first 30 years of his life, to overcome a pervasive developmental disability. Many with this disability can’t learn to read or write past a first-grade level.

For most of his life, Tyler’s been aware of his disability. And he’s diligently advocated for himself in the face of it.

“My father told me, when I was very young, ‘You have the right to be educated,’” he said.

When the two of them were out and about in the world, his father would point out landmarks, and essential symbols that Tyler would have to understand, and he’d teach him to memorize these things not relying on words, but on how they looked.

“You won’t be able to read this sign, but you’ll be able to tell that there’s a McDonald’s on the street,” he would say.

This valuable instruction gave Tyler the sense that there are always alternative ways to understand, or learn, something.

“Just because you can’t read, doesn’t mean you can’t pick up a tape recorder and ‘read’ a book,” he said.

He’s proud of the fact that, as a high school student, he worked his way up to the varsity wrestling squad, when some didn’t think he could make the team.

“The team finally did accept me,” he said. “But I had to earn my spot.”

It’s an example he looks back to when he’s searching for strength.

He left Kennebunk in his early 20s and spent several months living at the Brother’s Shelter in Alfred before he moved to Portland.

While he was there, he lived in his first assisted-living setting: An apartment, with a roommate who was trained to help him sort out things like finances.

Tyler has been affiliated with service organizations for all of this time. Recently, with the help of a New England service organization called Living Innovations, he’s decided that he wants to become even more independent.

He’s been living in a boarding house, in Biddeford, since last November. He’s cooking for himself (though he shares a meal with a housemate from time

to time), and relying more on out-of-house aid from Living Innovations to help him with the more complex aspects of independent living.

His goal is to save up enough for a security deposit, so he can finally get his own place.

But the combination of hard-earned, well-supported stability, and the ambition for new freedoms have pushed Tyler into totally novel arenas. Since November he’s been working for an advocacy group called Speak Up For Us (better known by the catchy acronym SUFU).

He travels the state, speaking with other disabled people. He gives presentations, for the Department of Health and Human Services, on how people with disabilities (who might rely on technology like electric chairs and scooters just to get around) can prepare for power outages and other disasters.

Tyler said that acting as a leader and a teacher, for the first time in his life, has given him a greatly expanded sense of what he can accomplish in his life.

“I was focusing on single goals,” he said. “Now I’m more focused on, “Let’s put a couple of bills into office. Let’s change the state of Maine.”

For the present, he’s working on starting up an advocacy group here in York County, where he’s hoping he might have more influence over the sort of programming he can provide: He’s interested in teaching a class on self-esteem.

“Right now it’s only me pushing it,” he said. “But, starting this new group, I’m hoping that I’ll have a little more leverage.”

The thing is, this is the lesson life has taught him. “It’s so important that people have pride in their life,” he said, “And to learn to be happy with what they have.”