CW: mentions of self-harm, depression, anxiety, suicide, bullying, ableism.
I’m seated in my living room in the armchair, computer propped on my knees as I ponder how to write this blog post. Distantly, the birds serenading the setting sun and the neighbors’ muted chatting drifts through the open windows. The sky is a faded grey-blue, wisps for clouds spread like butter across the horizon, and a soft breeze tugging through the screens. The trees wave their arms in the wind, and from my place in this chair, it sounds like nature is sighing a soft, sweet breath.
It’s a gorgeous evening, and I’m thinking about disability.
I’ve spent most of life feeling like I can’t claim that label for myself. It felt presumptuous and disrespectful to say I was disabled when clearly other people had it so much worse than me. I’m ashamed even to admit my own internalized ableism, but I also felt that if I was disabled, I would be weak. It would be admitting defeat somehow. Much of that is my own insecurity with centering myself and being different, but I know that the root cause of that is likely a culmination of many different experiences growing up.
I have a prosthetic eye that I gained after a scrape with cancer as a baby. Growing up, it made my life immensely difficult. Not only was I different in appearance that my peers, I also struggled to orient myself in the world physically. Driving, walking, and interacting with my peers physically was more difficult for me. I often had to be placed in a special position in my classrooms so that I could see the boards properly. I would frequently get in trouble for “not paying attention” when I’d run into people or objects. I broke things often as I struggled with no depth perception. When I revealed my prosthetic to my friends or peers, I was often laughed at or reviled.
It was a chaotic, isolating experience. And yet, I never felt that I was allowed to claim any of it. Whenever I would express how difficult having monocular vision was, I would often be met with well-intentioned comments that I should try to “be positive” or that it wasn’t “that bad”. I was told I was no different than my able-bodied peers. When I’d say I only have one eye, I would constantly be corrected with the phrase, “No, you have two eyes. One of them is just plastic.” If I ever tried to claim it was a disability, I was immediately told that I wasn’t actually disabled (“People that are in a wheelchair are disabled. You are not.”)
As an adult, I now understand the intention behind these sentiments. They were geared towards making me feel included and “whole” (as if disabled people somehow aren’t). When adults in my life heard me acknowledging my disability, they assumed that I was perceiving myself in a broken or negative manner. Their solution was to undermine my ability to claim my disability as they reassured me I was, “Just like everyone else.” It was well-intentioned…but it was ableist and very, very harmful to me.
My childhood saw me go through struggles with my mental health as well. I weathered chronic depression and anxiety from a young age, often rendering me unable to function as a human being. I recall vividly staying home from school multiple times as an eight-year-old because I just could not stop crying. I wanted to die before I even understood the sentiment, and that mentality followed me all through my school years. Where my peers were social, motivated, and enthusiastic, I went through the motions numbly. I swung between feeling nothing at all and feeling everything far too viscerally.
It was a jarring upbringing that culminated in me hospitalizing myself as a nineteen-year-old after I dropped out of college. I was self-harming and making plans to commit suicide, but somehow, I still had the capacity to reach out for help. I spent a few days in an in-patient unit getting my medications switched, lounging in scrubs, and seeing therapists. It was the best thing I ever did for myself, but it didn’t magically cure my mental illness. It only made me more capable of managing it.
Around the same time, I became more aware of other differences between me and my able-bodied peers. I was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), known as Sensory Integration Disorder at the time, as a young child. I went to occupational therapy for a year or so, and when I was more able to manage (ahem, hide) my traits, I was deemed “adjusted” by the adults in my life and my diagnosis went largely unacknowledged for years in an attempt to make me feel normal. It was only as a senior in high school, spiraling and struggling with the many unseen facets of SPD, that my mother divulged to me again my actual diagnosis.
I had previously known I had sensory issues, but it was always framed as a vague quirk or odd personality trait, not a neurodivergent brain. I assumed for years that I was just weird, and my inability to interact with peers like they wanted was a personal weakness. I honestly thought I was just…bad at existing. Having a diagnosis was groundbreaking, and I quickly realized why I struggled in so many things that my peers excelled in. They were viewing reality through a different processing system than I had and living in a neurotypical world put me at a unique disadvantage to them. It was a liberating moment of clarity…and a sharp reminder that my SPD was something the adults in my life had seen fit to hide from me.
Their resistance to my self-identifying as “different” than my peers led me to the inescapable conclusion that who I was was something to be ashamed of. I hid my disabilities from most people, even when they left me nonfunctional and unable to cope. I chalked up the negative aspects of my conditions to a personal failing, and I told myself that I just was too weak or lazy to cope. In essence, being unable to identify myself as disabled made me struggle even more.
I’ve spent my whole life wrestling with the sensation that I was imposing on other people by saying I had disabilities. I felt that I was unworthy of the label. Perhaps I was just grasping wildly for attention or brownie points in some cosmic scorebook. I wrestled with my desire to own my struggles with my prosthesis, my mental illness, and my neurodivergency. I wanted desperately to validate the “difference” I felt between myself and others, but I kept hearing those voices from my upbringing reminding me that disability was a bad thing.
If I’m being honest, I’m still struggling with internalized ableism. I feel uncertain and anxious even now was I write this, like I have to have permission first before I claim this label. I wonder if people will think I’m trying to be special or appropriate other people’s legitimate struggles. Perhaps I’ve made up all these difficulties just to throw my very own pity party. I’m not so different—I’m just an able-bodied person who wants to be special, right?
Thankfully, I have people in my life who have heard my insecurities and doubts and have helped me walk through the process of breaking them down. They believe me when I say that I am struggling or that I can’t do something, and I’m beginning to believe myself as well. Afterall, I know myself better than anyone else. I should be able to trust myself when I say that my experience is unique and often really fucking hard.
So, here I am. Disabled…and proud of it. I claim that label for myself because it gives me power. My past inability to identify as disabled took away the power to self-advocate, the self-empathy I should have had for my own struggles, and the pride that comes with being yourself openly. I let myself believe that if I was who I really am, if I was different and disabled, then I was less. I still regret all the days I spent feeling small and inadequate as I tried to hold myself to standards I couldn’t possibly meet. I regret that I believed so fervently that who I am was a weakness, instead of a strength. It pains me to think how much time I spent hating myself for being disabled, when really being disabled was never a bad thing. In fact, it’s a strength.
This won’t be the last time I write about disability. I have so much more to say now that I’m letting myself speak, and I can only hope over time that the feeling of unbelonging fades as those voices in my head grow quieter, and quieter. For now, all I can do is remind those voices that they are not welcome as I replace them with louder voices of affirmation.
I belong. I am disabled. I am proud.
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