This post is my (late) contribution to Blogging Against Disablism Day.
One of the frustrations that comes with having various mental disabilities (in my case, “high-functioning” autism and clinical depression) is the way other people refuse to believe you have them.
My teachers and doctors always knew I had issues, and begged my parents to get me an official diagnosis so I could get further help, but they always refused–they always insisted, loudly and emphatically, that I was Perfectly Normal and there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with me. Even after I tried to kill myself and they could ignore the depression no longer, they still pooh-pooh’d the doctors who pegged me as autistic. They simply would not allow for the possibility–after all, no child of theirs was going to be disabled, not if they had anything to say about it!
I’ve gotten the same from many friends and acquaintances over the years–people who insisted that, since I rarely showed visible signs, I could not possibly be disabled in any way. Sometimes this comes across as accusations of “trying to get attention” or “stealing taxpayer money,” but usually, it’s worded more like, “But you look/sound fine to me!” (More than once, I’ve had people say to me something like, “I can’t believe you’re autistic. I think too highly of you for that.” Umm… wow. And I mean that in the worst possible way.)
On the surface, what’s going on is that, when people say they don’t see me as disabled, what they mean is that they don’t see me as lesser. Which, I guess, is good to know–I sure don’t like being seen as lesser–but the clear implication is that disabled people are lesser, and so their attempt to say that I’m “not really disabled” is actually a manifestation of their disablism. This bugs me.
I think there’s more to it than just the obvious, surface disablism, though. I think that another reason people have such a hard time accepting my disability is because I don’t fit The Narrative.
Continue reading ‘The Narrative’
