Prior to the start of one one my classes, I went to a majority of my fellow students and asked them to tell me what, or who, they picture when thinking about disabilities, or being disabled. The responses were generally unsurprising, with many of them describing visible disabilities, such as someone who is paraplegic, a child with down syndrome, or their sister with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) who has to rely on a cane when in certain situations. These are all visible disabilities.
There’s currently a lot of talk online, on platforms such as TikTok, about invisible disabilities or illnesses and how society treats those of us who are seemingly “normal” as our disabilities don’t have visible presentations, at least not consistently. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), 61 million adults in the US are living with a disability, with 10% of those people reporting that they have an invisible disability. However, a stipulation to these statistics is that they’re self-reported. People may have a disability but feel as though it “doesn’t count.”
I was one of those people who used to feel as though some of my disabilities didn’t count, and I was in denial with the fact that I’m disabled. It felt like a dirty, negative word. I was also afraid to use a label for myself that others might try to argue with me about because I simply don’t “look” disabled. I didn’t fully come to terms with being disabled until I received a concussion that left me with a migraine disorder. Once this happened, I started to realize the reality of how much ableism exists towards those who are disabled, regardless of the level of visibility.
About 90-percent of the time, I do as much as I can to just keep working through the pain. I’ve spent so many days over the last eight years going to school, work, and taking care of life’s other obligations while being in pain. Many times, the people around me have no clue that the lights and sounds in the room are making it worse. They don’t know that my medication to stop the migraines are not actually working and that I’m getting absolutely no relief.
I’ve turned to social media on multiple occasions to simply vent about the way the pain makes me feel, and more than once have I been told of “alternatives” that I can use to ease my pain. These alternatives are to use certain kinds of essential oils, do yoga, and the worst suggestion of all– to just stop thinking about it, as apparently I’m only in pain because I’ve brought the pain onto myself by simply thinking about it. Not only have I faced this kind of ableism from people on social media, but also in the workplace. I try my hardest to keep going through the pain, but sometimes that’s simply not possible. Being reprimanded at work or getting hours cut, due to a call-out because I’m in too much pain to function, is simply unfair to myself and others who have to call out because of our disabilities.
I’m just hoping that sociatally, with all of this conversation surrounding disabilities on social media, that we can start to build a better world where those who are disabled are treated with much more respect. Equity is incredibly important in allowing everyone to be successful in their lives, and this includes disabled people. We deserve respect, equal opportunities, and understanding in the same way non-disabled people are.
