Scarleteen

I'm not sure which forum is the best place for this, so feel free to move it if it's in the wrong spot. I just read the thread about whether to ID as a person with a disability or not, and it's making me think about disability and how I identify. I am 'different' in a number of ways and the only category of 'differentness' that I really struggle with still is 'disability'. I have a number of conditions which are diagnosed and have names and I get accommodations for some of them when I'm at school. But some of them, which fall into the more 'mental health' end of things rather than the 'learning disability' end of things I think I could use accommodations for. Except that how they affect me is really variable. And I can't predict how it'll happen. And shouldn't I try to be working through these things? Even if there is no 'should' about it, I want to because sometimes life sucks and if there are things I can do to make it suck less, that would be nice. I have my own coping strategies and a couple of my friends know about them to a small extent but I realized the last time I had a flare up that I lose more than a month worth of days every year to being non-functioning in any sort of measurable way in terms of work/school. But my family tells me I'm not disabled. And they said they knew I was struggling through elementary and middle school and it was really me taking things into my own hands that got me diagnosed in college. (for the learning disability piece). But even the learning disabilities affect my life outside of academics and school, and they also don't make me think that stopping school is a good idea. I'm really good at a lot of academic stuff. All of my conditions are invisible, though if you came to my apartment you might notice some things that are atypical in terms of how it is set up, and these are to allow me to work around some of the things caused by my one of my disabilities (?). I know I have a ton of internalized ableism. I also can do a lot of things and people tell me I'm really smart and usually the reaction people have to finding out about my learning disabilities is that 'I never would have guessed.' I don't want to talk about private health information with strangers all the time but I don't want to feel guilty about taking care of myself. I also don't want to be limiting myself in some way, and I'm not sure if it would be more 'limiting' to say I'm disabled or to deny it and pretend everything is fine. I don't even know what fine means? Am I really that different than others? I mean I think I am except am I really? Is this all internalized nonsense that I'm spouting here? Are there books about disability activism that people here would recommend? Is there some disability forum on the internet?

Thanks!

Sorry you've had a little wait on this, AvocadoLime.

I, personally, am a bit late to the party re. knowing what disability communities and information are the best, and where to find them, so I hope other folk can pitch in too. One I know comes highly recommended might not work for you, because I'm not sure if/how much you ID as a woman, but in the event that you do or partly do, then the GimpGirl community is great. http://www.gimpgirl.com But yes, there are a good number of disability communities on the internet, and some of them are excellent.

What you're saying doesn't sound like nonsense to me. Observing that we're different in some way from lots of other people, or from how we're "supposed" to be, is typically very confusing! And too, I don't think internalized ableism is anything to be ashamed of, because it's all around us, so how could we not absorb some of it? I think it's just about trying not to be held back by it or hurt anyone else with it.

In many ways, I think whether or not we choose to call ourselves disabled is of secondary importance. I think the central thing is more how we best go about our own life, which seems to be more at the heart of what you're asking about here. Generally, one thing I think usually doesn't help is the "pretending everything is fine" option; I don't think it matters much how you frame or what you call your needs/requirements, but trying to pretend you don't have them seems like it'll end up with you not having what you need, having a harder time and expending energy on doing things "the long way round" for you and presenting as "normal" (whatever on earth that is) to the world in general. It sounds like you're already pretty familiar with having things in the way they work best for you, what with having your "atypical" apartment arrangement - good for you

Personally, I don't think that calling oneself "disabled" in itself is at all limiting in any way. I think it gets framed like that a lot, because we get the message that disability = limitation/less-than. We're often presented with the idea that being disabled is Really Bad, and our world acts like that's a truth (it's not). So, often, people - especially but absolutely not exclusively non-disabled people - can be very invested in thinking that someone, especially someone they care about, isn't disabled. I strongly disagree with the disability-is-bad frame; I think disability itself is neutral, and that each person's experience of a particular disability may be positive or negative (or any mix and anywhere between) depending on the individual and the circumstances. (To be clear, I think that pain and debilitation are bad things; I'm not wanting to gloss over anyone's tough experiences.) Of course, I do very much understand that for some folk, calling themself "disabled" can result in people around them imposing a bunch of limitations - either practical or in how they interact with them - and that's part of the reason why I'd never want to be prescriptive by saying "IDing as disabled is a good thing". And, too, some people are labelled by others as disabled whether they like it or agree or not. But it's definitely not an either/or thing, disabled or fine: not everyone, sure, but a lot of us are disabled And fine . Personally, I find Id'ing as disabled freeing and life-expanding rather than limiting.

I don't think that a disabled person is necessarily very different at all from any non-disabled person. Again, we often get the message that disabled people are a very different kind of human - even sub-human, sadly - but we're not. Many disabled people's lives are often indistinguishable from non-disabled people's lives. Non-disabled people often do things differently to each other in order to function in the way that best suits them, so why shouldn't disabled people do things yet differently?

I think when people say "I never would have guessed", what they're really saying is "I am entirely unfamiliar with the wide range of things disability looks like/is". Maybe it helps you to think of people's reactions and attitudes as not remotely about you or about your conditions/disabilities, but about their own wrong beliefs? And, of course you don't want to discuss private health information with strangers. Sadly, one very broad commonality of disabled people's experiences is people acting as if private health information is an acceptable small-talk topic - some of the things people say/ask are jaw-droppingly personal! But that's their problem. Yes, it becomes ours when we're on the receiving end and it's not nice, but you have the right to remind them of what's generally acceptable manners in whatever way you want or can. In general life, "I need X" or "I need to do this in X way" should be adequate for a reasonable person.