Invisible Disabilities

I ‘don’t look sick’. I look ‘normal’ but I’m disabled. Both by my own definition and by the government’s:

‘A physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.’

I am not always open about it. There are people in my life who know me quite well who don’t know. I can ‘pass’ as able bodied as ‘normal’ and ‘not ill’.

I seem to have lucked out and acquired not one but two misunderstood and maligned illnesses, physical and mental.

I suppose the stigma I’ve already faced makes me weary about bringing things up. I suppose I hide it sometimes becuase it’s bad enough having to deal with chronic illness and get on with my life without the added bullshit of peoples misconceptions and ill-informed and often offensive comments. or becuase i spent so long aching to be ‘normal’ that now I can pass for it I do.

Sometimes I speak out, but sometimes, I’m ashamed to admit,  I hide; I just don’t have the physical or mental strength sometimes to deal with it.

But I’ll say it here. I have M.E , I have Depression.

Most people see me when I’m on a good day, when I’m functioning. That’s the trouble, that’s why I look so ‘normal’. People just don’t see me when I’m having a bad time of it as I rarely go out, I’m too ill to cope with uni, socialising, most things beyond bed and a sofa.I also get good at ‘faking it’ for other peoples comfort. Especially the depression. When people ask ‘how are you?’ I just say ‘O.K’. It’s not easy, or indeed acceptable or recommended to admit to a casual acquaintance you feel terrible and felt like throwing yourself under a car earlier.

It’s easier to say I was off with a cold, than explain my complicated medical history or delve into the depths of my flawed psyche.

‘Coming out’ as disabled is hard. It’s an odd issue; I feel guilty I spend so much of my life ‘passing’. Being able to fake it as the way my health is at the moment, I can pretend to be ‘fine’ for the most part. As much as I feel like a traitor, sometimes it’s just easier to pretened to be fine. It seems like I have enough shit to deal with being ill and trying to get through uni that dealing with other peoples misconceptions and having to explain everything is more than I can face.

I don’t want the painful memories of my adolescence dragged up. The doctors who said I wasn’t ill. The years I spent denying my depression becuase I thought it would mean I really was faking it after all and it was just ‘all in my head’. I can’t even remember half of my teenage years, I seem to have blotted them out. I just don’t like talking about it, in fact I’m getting tearful now.

As much as I wish I could be a flag bearer and waver for disabilty and invisible illnesses as I belive there really is a lot of work to do to create more understanding and tolerance. I can’t. I don’t have the strength.

I find it easier to fight other things, feminist activism etc, it’s less personal, it doesn’t touch such a raw nerve that’s liable to leave me in tears on a regualr basis. I just don’t have the pyshcial or emotional strength to be as open or active about the disability thing as I’d like.

This post has taken me longer to write than any other, and I’m still not happy. I still don’t think it’s relevant, coherent or worthwhile. But I’m posting it anyway becuase I feel my random thoughts on the issue have some merit, however small and disjointed.

Hopefully I’ll be able to pull a more coherent blog that actually says something tomorrow.