I feel like I exist on the border between being disabled and not. Living with mental illness inherently means I deal with invisible conditions. Unlike others, my illnesses are not severe, and they tend to improve the longer I stay in treatment. I can easily mask my illnesses and act as if they don’t affect my daily life. I can pretend I don’t struggle with anxiety and depression on good days; even on bad days, I can make it seem like everything is okay. Saying “I’m fine” has almost become a part of my vocabulary since high school, a way to avoid confronting or sharing my problems with others.
Getting help for your diagnosis is important.
Getting the proper treatment is important. Regardless of what recovery looks like for you, it matters. Many of us with mental illnesses face challenges, but we also experience victories, and we can discover ways to overcome our struggles. We deserve to feel good, to have more good days than bad ones, and to be in a position where we can genuinely enjoy life and live our best lives.
But there’s a “curse” or unintended downside to doing well. Comparison steals joy and leads to unnecessary guilt. When I look at my life and the lives of others—people who may be struggling with suicidal thoughts or panic attacks so severe that they can’t leave the house, or battling insomnia every night—my brain automatically makes comparisons. It makes me think that others have it worse, so I’m not in a base state by default. It makes me believe that I’m not struggling because there are so many problems out there that I don’t have or have never faced. It’s always a matter of wondering what could be “worse,” and because I’m not in that worse state, I feel like I have no right to feel how I do.
I wonder if I have the right to call myself disabled.
Terms like “high functioning” can be harmful for several reasons. For example, people would consider me “high functioning” because due to my depression and anxiety haven’t severely impacted my life. I can still work, manage daily chores, and engage in activities that able-bodied people do. Since I’m functioning well enough, I often question what right I have to identify as disabled.
I often struggle with this, and I still do, even as I type this. I feel I have to meet a standard for society to consider me disabled, but I don’t think I’ve met that standard. Honestly, I can’t recall significant instances where medical ableism has greatly impacted me, or where I have faced ableism in my everyday life. I haven’t lost friends because of my diagnoses, nor have I distanced myself from my family due to my illnesses. I use these measures to determine if I am “disabled enough,” and I don’t meet them.
But this is a self-critical form of thinking. If I met someone with my exact experience who identified as disabled, I would validate their identity in the disabled community. I would never tell someone that that isn’t the case. I would never tell someone that others “have it worse.” At the end of the day, I’d never tell someone, in so many words, that they’re not “disabled enough.”
So why do I do this to myself?
It’s the same question I ask myself whenever I sharply critique any aspect of my life or my feelings. My experiences with racism, misogyny, biphobia, and mental illness are real, but I often ignore how those experiences affect me, dismissing them as “not that bad” and not something that should bother me. Many of us are harder on ourselves than we are on others, but knowing that doesn’t automatically make my mind relax. It remains as critical as ever, highlighting every little way my life could be “worse” or how “good” I have it compared to others.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in therapy — in life in general — it’s that feelings are always valid.
Everything affects individuals differently. Two people can go through similar experiences and have vastly different emotional reactions. Those who have faced ableism and other forms of discrimination may have varying feelings about their experiences, even if the type of discrimination is the “same.” We are all unique with unique personalities and life experiences. We will never react the same way to the same situation, if being in the same situation as someone else is even possible. Therefore, we should not expect others to react the same way when dealing with similar issues.
Just because I don’t feel “disabled enough” doesn’t mean I’m not disabled.
My struggles are real, and what I’ve been through is just as valid as what others have gone through. My experiences and emotional responses are my own. There’s no value judgment about whether what I went through “justifies” my feelings or identification as disabled.
I don’t often feel “disabled enough,” but I am cognizant enough to realize that there is no measure of what is “disabled enough,” and there never will be.
Originally published on The Mighty
Photo by Maycon Marmo on Pexels
