Iron Railings

Definitions of disability affect people’s self-identity. Recognizing yourself as disabled and identifying with other people who are disabled and learning about their experiences can all contribute to understanding and interpreting your own experiences, and to knowing that you are not alone with problems you may have believed were unique to you. But being identified as disabled also carried a significant stigma in most societies and usually forces the person so identified to deal with stereotypes and unrealistic attitudes and expectations that are projected on to her/him as a member of this stigmatized group.

- Wendell, Susan. The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability. New York: Routledge. 1996. pg 12.

(The quote is courtesy of FWD/Forward - I haven't read and can't comment on the source.)

This ties in to so much I've been thinking about lately. I'm still not entirely sure whether I consider myself as disabled, partly because, given that the impact on my life is relatively small at least at the moment, I feel slightly guilty, as if I am co-opting the terminology. But on the other hand it explains so much.

It's probably no coincidence that I started to think that I might be considered disabled in some way at a time when I feel less disabled than at any other point in my life. It began around a year ago, when the disability support service at the university I work at (and previously studied at) held a one day workshop for staff. One session was a talk by a graduate who'd made use of their resources. I listened to her talk about studying whilst having PTSD, exhaustion, being unable to concentrate, needing a quiet space, not managing lectures at the end of the day, struggling to talk to lecturers. "Crap," I thought. "That sounds like me." Admittedly, I was purposefully avoiding seeking any help with the PTSD or anything round it at the time I was studying (this will come up later), but it was still a revelation; it had never occurred to me that it might apply to me. Then I started thinking about the dyspraxia I've always been aware I probably had, but had not really read up on or engaged with the concept in any way. It's changed how I think about myself a lot.

I think it's mostly a case of my environment and the resources I have around me. An environment which dismissed me as crazy* or lazy or a trouble causer* meant I was far more likely to either spend all my time trying to prove I was "normal" or accepting negative constructions of myself. And conversely, an environment in which I am generally accepted, and allows me to function reasonably well is more likely to make me think that my brain handles certain things in different ways, and to explore that.

At the moment I'm not entirely sure how I see myself; that's part of what this journal is here to work out. But I am finding a lot of the reading about disability to be relevant to me.

*There is nothing inherently wrong with being either of these, but here I am reproducing them in the negative and largely inaccurate way they were applied to me.