I am going to do something a little different today. Below is the experience from a friend who has an invisible disability.
I've been struggling with severe chronic depression and social anxiety for almost a decade and a half now. Unlike most people, I believe, I remember the exact day it started. I had just started getting sickly as a child, as suddenly I stopped excelling as an A student. I still hear the words of my beloved GATE teacher echo in my head as she explained to my mother that I was just getting lazy.
It wasn't until I had cancer the first time that it became apparent that I had a mental disability on top of my other medical problems. Suddenly, I needed special accommodations just to make it through high school. Suddenly, I was labelled, categorized as "disabled". And the label, the box, didn't bother me. I just felt like a scam.
Here, there were other students, I thought, with real disabilities. Anxiety and depression isn't a valid excuse to miss class. Students and teachers only ever saw me on my good days; on these days I would jam up and down the halls from class to class, getting my work done efficiently and unexpectedly well. I felt like I was disrespecting the other kids who had visible challenges, such as being confined to a wheelchair, having a heart issue, diabetes, and so on.
Only the school psychiatrist understood my depression and how it works. I had confided in her that I felt I didn't have the justification to be labelled as such when others had real life issues. "There are so many who have it so much worse than I do," I used to say. A letter had gone out to all of my teachers so they were made aware of my circumstances, there were meetings and appointments, and the like. Every time I saw them, I felt like they must have thought I was just someone who wanted an easy way out of regular school work, someone with just low self esteem (which is actually true), who just threw a fit when she had to work.
Because my afflictions aren't on the surface, it became easy for me to put on a smile and pretend they aren't even there--even around close friends and family. There are few days, no, moments, during which I feel like the chemicals in my brain are actually doing what they're supposed to, allowing me to function as a human being. They don't usually last long. I'm not crippled, but it is crippling to not be able to move from your bed because your heart is beating out of your chest, your blood is pounding in your ears, you lose all passion for the people and things you love, and all you want to do is end your life because of the pain tearing through your body. That feeling, that utter sadness and hopelessness, I have often felt, must be nothing compared to what other visibly disabled folks endure every single day.
Though I am assured the diseases I have are real and do matter, I still make an effort to plaster a smile on my face so I don't feel like such a whiny fool.
If you would like to follow my friend and editor, check out her pages--
Blogger: http://redsbreadslady.blogspot.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redsbreadsandbooks/
Editor: Esmé Nicolson-Singh (Redsbreadslady)
Editor: Esmé Nicolson-Singh (Redsbreadslady)
