@RickiTarr

I don't know if my situation is the similar enough to speak up but I'll give it a shot and if you find it's not valuable I'll apologize a whole lot.

I struggled with this concept once I finally realized I have Autism. It's not physical impairment but it does makes things difficult for me that are *easier* for other people. I feel guilty about that sometimes but more often than not it's been a liberation admitting to myself and others.

@RickiTarr @RickiTarr I am lucky to be neuro-normative and without any chronic illness (other than old, fat, out of shape). My GF suffers from crippling anxiety, depression and ADHD executive dysfunction. There are good days. There bad days - and when its bad, she literally cannot function (no spoons!)

Noone else knows what its like to live in your head, your body. So noone else gets to say how you define how you _classify_ the living in your head and body.

1/

@RickiTarr I use it and accept it but I do have a friend in a similar place as you. For me, it is just part of me. I will wiggle it at my employer at times, like a stick.

Edit for typo

@RickiTarr in a fit of frustration, I asked my doctor, "Am I REALLY disabled?"

She turned it back to me with, "do your health issues affect your day to day life?"

"Yes."

"Then you're disabled."

Like most other things, disability is a spectrum. J is far more disabled than I am and always will be. He gets accommodations that I benefit from as his caregiver (SSDI, handicapped parking, etc), but that I'll never qualify for on my own. I'm lucky that I'm able to take care of him for now.

@RickiTarr
No I don't have a problem with the label, and never had.
It never occurred to me that I might have issues with the label (and I'm not sure if I'd call it a 'label' - it's just a descriptor).
If anything - although I've not thought about it before - I embrace it.

The first time I used the disabled label was when I was told that my hearing loss entitled me to a UK Disabled Rail Pass. I also consider my recurring depression and anxiety to be a disability. I also have intermittent IBS which is disabling when it occurs to.

@RickiTarr I 've had similar, fluctuating chronic illness, can mostly pass as normal, until I got so consistently sick I couldn't. That was a shocker to the psyche.

Things I learned:

Internalized ableism - shame about being vulnerable is socially constructed horseshit.

Internalized capitalism - just because I am not "productive" doesn't mean I am not valuable.

Disability Pride - that community has changed my whole framing, is very inclusive, and I can use my bits of ableness to advocate.

@RickiTarr I'm gonna come at this differently:

No matter what happens you have to be good with you first

Disabled or no it doesn't matter... you are you. You are awesome, someone you want to be or strive for or maybe you are working on it.

Now disability is subjective but anything that makes daily life harder is probably it.

But again you have too be good with you FIRST before you think on that... because if you are it doesn't matter

You can do/be anything ✊

@RickiTarr I fall into the same broad category, and often into the same thinking. I usually refuse to think of myself as disabled, but I basically don't want to give myself permission to be disabled. I take time for myself when it's bad enough. I'm lucky enough to be in a career where I've mostly been able to do that when necessary. I've been very privileged in that and other ways.

But I don't allow myself to judge others. I do not and cannot know what their experience is.

@RickiTarr Identifying as Disabled gives me community.

I know I share something with other Disabled people, even if their disabilities are very different from mine. I can advocate for them when I have the spoons, and they can advocate for me when they do.

Do I feel the sting of ableist society's stigma that says a Disabled person is worth less, worth-less, undeserving? Sure I do. It makes it easier to fight it when I know I'm fighting on behalf of others besides myself.

@RickiTarr The word disability doesn't live without context. What's the need to use or have the label? In one situation you will consider yourself disabled and in others not.

As far as discrimination the ADA defines disability very broadly so that essentially everyone who should be covered is covered. No one can deny you certain things using "because you are disabled" as a reason.

In the workplace, disability grants you access to accommodation which is what you need to be able to do your job, so your disability and accommodations live within a specific circumstance. In many work circumstances, not disabled, and in others disabled because an accommodation is needed.

When comes to identity which is harder for people. For myself, I am a person. I have a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. They are different than yours. Not better, not worse. I do not feel a need to explain this to myself in any specific language. I accept myself for whatever I am.

@RickiTarr I'm severely hearing impaired since birth. It's only recently that I started accepting that I am disabled.

It was never called a disability when I was young. It was as if "disabled" was reserved for people with visible disabilities. The stigma of that label is real.

But it *is* a disability. It has a profound effect on how I navigate the world. There are many things I cannot do or enjoy. I am disabled, and there's no shame in that. But I, too, feel that doubt about using the term.