The Unbearable Vulnerability of Being Disabled in Public
This blog short originally appeared on Instagram. Follow me at @disabledinthewild7
"Many days, I feel too vulnerable to leave my house, too fed up to subject myself to the gamble of strangers interacting with me, too tired to fight to occupy a corner of space. Inaccessibility over time tells me that I do not matter, I’m not wanted, do not belong. This land wasn’t made for me. So I stay in, keep to myself, avoid, cancel plans, carry anxiety in each fold and bend of my body, feel very alone and trapped and helpless." -Rebekah Taussig, from her book Sitting Pretty
This quote has been coming to my mind a lot lately. I've been getting out in the world more in the last couple of months than I have in the last eight years combined, and with that has come many wonderful things, like meeting new friends and having new experiences, but there's been some not-so-wonderful things too.
Like being super excited about going to an event just to get slapped back into the harsh reality that this world was not built for people like me, that nobody cares about my access needs, that able-bodied people don't understand and never fucking will...
Dealing with strangers who argue about my accommodations, strangers who interrupt my day to ask for my personal medical information, strangers who tell me that I don't actually need my mobility aids, and the people who seem all too eager to dismiss my feelings and sacrifice my peace for the sake of the abled stranger's "good intentions" and curiosity...
Being disappointed by loved ones who continue making rude and infantilizing comments when they should really know better, because I shouldn't have to explain for the 5th time that, yes, I have *always* been able to walk a short distance unassisted, and no, it's not worthy of such excessive celebration and patronizing praise.
I've been trying to get rid of this icky too-vulnerable feeling and the triggering sensation of being constantly misunderstood. Sometimes it feels like being disabled means being exposed to the world at all times; my body on display for incessant public comment. Sometimes it's unbearable. Sometimes it's just too much. I am an open wound and the ignorant abled are the bacteria that violate, infect, and fester; the world's inaccessibility the poured salt that only serves to sting.
It feels like it doesn't matter how much I plan or prepare or research, it doesn't matter how much I try to request information or advocate for myself or keep an optimistic attitude or ignore the unnecessary comments of able-bodied strangers who think they know everything... I can't control the world or people around me and I can't control how much it hurts. Like Rebekah says, it's the gamble we as disabled people take every time we leave the house, like some kind of cruel crip roulette: How will the world be inaccessible for me today? What awful interactions will I have with strangers today?
I long for the safety of isolation, the solitude of nature, and the comfort of a curled-up fetal position to protect myself from additional ableist wounding. 🎵 The sound of loneliness makes me happier 🎵 because at least when I'm alone- all alone, my body belongs to me. Just me.
Of all the grief I experience as a disabled person, it's this one that hurts the most: not any chronic pain nor any loss of function, but the world's apparent inability to treat me like a person.
🎵 Song Lyric from “Poison Oak” by Bright Eyes
