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For years, I thought of myself as not ‘disabled enough’ to use the word. It’s taken me a long time to figure out why I was so nervous to use the word, but all the reasons come down to this: ableism.
Reason #1: Ingrained ableism.
Ableism is so ingrained in many societies, that it causes people to not understand what disability actually is because they have simply never been taught otherwise.
For years, widespread ingrained ableism caused me years of misunderstanding what disability actually is. For years, I thought that because I wasn’t in a wheelchair or had a visible disability, that meant that I wasn’t a disabled person. And now I know that that couldn’t be further from the truth – disability doesn’t ‘look like’ anything. Disability isn’t always visible, and just because my chronically ill body and mind do not fit the misguided notion of what society think disability “looks like”, doesn’t mean I am not a disabled person.
Reason #2: Buying into the ableist notion that I have to reach a certain level of chronic illness before I am ‘sick enough’ to be considered disabled.
Living with chronic illness often means years of being told by people around you that there’s nothing wrong with you, that you are being melodramatic, histrionic, a drama queen. It also includes years of medical trauma, because many of those people telling you you are being hysterical, are doctors. When you experience years of medical trauma like this, it can be extremely hard to shake the notion that you are not actually sick, or you are not ‘sick enough’. For me, it took years to even acknowledge to myself that I was actually sick, and once I did, it took many more years of torturing myself that while I was sick, I wasn’t ‘sick enough’ to be considered as someone with disability.
But finally, after years of learning about chronic illness and disability, I realised: I am a disabled person, and I can describe myself as such. Because disability comes in countless wonderful forms, and every single one of us, our minds, bodies, and experiences, are all different to the next. But that makes us no less disabled – in fact, our differences make our gorgeously diverse community all that much stronger.
Thinking back, I can’t believe it took me as long as it did – but it takes a long time to acknowledge and cope with years of ingrained ableism and trauma. But it makes me sad to think I denied myself the purest validation and affirmation of who I am, and denied myself a loving and supporting community for far too long. Saying ‘I am disabled’ out loud for the first time was like a breath of relief – and the incredible disabled community I had around me celebrated with me.
So, ableism, and its many treacherous faces, are at the root of why it took me so long to use a word – and I know that many of us go through a similar experience. A word may seem like nothing to some people, but to me, this word means happiness, community, pride. I am disabled, and I love my word very much – and I hope you do too.