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You Don’t Look Disabled…Changing an Ableist Narrative
“It has been said that life has treated me harshly; and sometimes I have complained in my heart because many pleasures of human experience have been withheld from me…if much has been denied me, much, very much, has been given me…”
― Helen Keller, writer and activist. The Open Door
I am disabled, but that does not always mean it’s noticeable, you can’t look at me, and say oh she has a neuromuscular condition, because there is not one way any one person with any specific condition looks, there maybe characteristics that show a condition, but we are not all cookie cutter images of one another, we aren’t carbon copies, so when someone looks at me, finds out I have a disability, and there first reaction is to say, “oh you don’t look like someone who has a disabilty….” I inwardly shutter, and if the occasion merits it, I take the time to educate the person or people speaking.
1;) Not everyone with a disability is in a wheelchair, nor do we all look the same. There is no certain way anyone with a disability looks. And we don’t wear a sign that tells someone we are disabled, many disabilities are invisible, it doesn’t make the disability less debilitating, it makes there particular disability or disabilities less visible.
