The Most Crucial Step to Embrace Your Disability Identity
“The Most Crucial Step to Embrace Your Disability Identity” on a purple background with a gradient ring on the bottom right corner and a pink swiggly line under “Disability Identity.”
The disability experience is quite diverse. Not only from an intersectional point of view but within the disability experience. There are so many disabilities which exist on spectrums and a person can have more than one creating unique experiences within a common experience. It is also something you can get at any time. Whether you were born with it, obtain it throughout life, or the normal experience of aging as a human being, disability can and will happen for you and your loved ones.
Having a disability since you were born (or since you were little), getting that diagnosis and celebrating the identity is exhilarating. But what about the people who remember what it was like to be abled and gain a disability along the way? We still live in a society that values people who are considered abled more than the people who are living with disabilities and adapt to an ableist society.
If you ever wonder why there are such polarizing conversations in the disability community, it is because of two reasons.
Our communities have been shut out, discredited and discriminated for years leaving our perspectives and experiences to be considered less important
We grew up in an ableist society that taught and showed us that access and disability inclusion is not a priority leaving it up to us to be resilient and resourceful for the same basic needs. And people know this.
The perspectives outside of the disability community still believe that being in our shoes is not an experience they want because it is a loss to them. This is a valid feeling. If you lived your life with all your senses, physical and mental abilities, it is a shock to learn how to adapt and live with the loss of an ability.
This is not always talked about. We have the tendency to move to the next treatment, cure, and devices to bring us back to “full ability.” It is the medical model that we live in and are driven by that takes a while to unlearn. There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve your quality of life, but the permission to grieve the loss of the life you once knew and experienced is not always given out.
The Permission to Grieve The Life You Once Knew
Let me give you the permission to grieve. It is not easy to remember what you had and realize that you cannot take the same approach to achieve the same goal. It is not easier by any means, but is not as big of a negative experience that is imposed on us by society. Yes, access and disability inclusion is still a work in progress however, you are never alone. While there are many different abilities and experiences, all of us connect through our experience living in an inaccessible society. While your experience is unique, it is also shared by a common goal.
I love being deaf, silence is actually quite nice. But I did gain a disability later in life known as my chronic pain that I will continue to see if I can improve on. It is a loss in my eyes. I lost some of my mobility. I lost some of my energy. I lost the predictability and privilege of being able to wake up and not worry about being able to move that day.
I gained a lot too. I learned to take care of myself, to value rest and relaxation, to create a balance of my ambitions, dreams, and goals, and to never take a good day for granted ever again. In order to get there, I had to grieve the ability I once had and still remember vividly. Without taking that step, who knows if I would be where I am now. Who knows if I ended up managing my chronic pain enough to provide the freedom I never knew I could find.
Grieving is a crucial step to embracing the disability experience. You are not going to feel like a superhero, you are not going to feel like you can take over the world but, you may reach a place where the new experience will actually help you. It may still suck to live with it at times, especially since our policies, physical spaces, and attitudes influence how we perceive our quality of life. However, I met some pretty cool people and we are working on trying to make it more accessible and inclusive for everyone.
Amanda