Cars were designed with the thought that everyone has adequate strength in their right leg, so the gas pedal is positioned for use on the right. But if you can’t, then you’re in a bit of a bind - not because of your own abilities, but because most restaurants simply don’t provide an adapted one-handed rocking knife, for example. For instance, most people can use two hands, so it stands to reason that most restaurants will supply you with a fork and knife with which to eat your food. I learned that disability is not so much a “lack” of ability as it is a lack in the physical environment to accommodate people of all kinds of abilities. Thanks as well to an amazing Disability in Literature college course taught by a professor who was herself disabled, my own preconceptions of disability - and the shame that so often goes with it - were challenged. Somewhere along the way, I woke up and felt sick to death of hiding. Maybe, as my fellow peers matured, and grade school cruelty began to wane, I began to feel safer being seen, and when asked, to divulge a little bit more about myself rather than quickly explaining myself away. I kept it out of the way, an inconvenience to ignore if not actively hide, and if someone noticed or brought it up, I minimized it.īut somewhere in my personal bildungsroman, I started not to care as much. Since my disability is most often invisible, I tried not to bring attention to it, and by extension, to myself. But I am also invisibly disabled, because it’s often not obvious, and this has been tricky when navigating the waters of relationships and identity.īecause my body is in a sense cleaved into two differing halves, I have struggled with a cleaved sense of self – am I able bodied? Am I disabled? Am I disabled enough to warrant the term? Should I tell people about it or keep it hidden? For the majority of my life, I’ve opted for the latter. On the whole, I am physically and visibly disabled. My face has a vague asymmetry and I definitely have a crooked smile. My right leg is thinner than my left leg and a touch shorter. For whatever reason, I am only able to bend my ring finger slightly, which has been extraordinarily useful – nearly making up for all my other deficiencies (I can’t tell you how many things are possible with one “functional” hand and a bendy ring finger)! My palm is very flat, and my fingers are splayed out in a near calcified state. My arm appears thin to a worrisome degree and because my triceps are particularly weak, I have a permanent bend at my elbow that can’t be fully straightened.

On a second glance-or fourth, or twentieth, or when my disability is on full display (such as when I’m typing, or when I have my arm resting comfortably in a twisted, contorted manner, you would definitely be able to tell I’m not your average able-bodied lass. These people have a fascinatingly heightened awareness of others, if not of someone’s subtle physical differences, then of someone’s behavior in, as has often been the case for me growing up, trying to hide that difference. However, I’ve also learned that those few people who are observant are remarkably so. I’ve learned from my experience that most people aren’t especially observant, based on how many people are shocked to learn the presence and extent of my disability. It’s a mystery that will never be solved, only named: hemiparesis, or more generally, cerebral palsy.Īt first glance, you likely wouldn’t be able to tell I have a disability. Indeed, most doctors I have seen theorize it was a stroke that caused my disability, though no one can say for certain. I was born under strange circumstances where the entire right half of my body was significantly weak, much like what may happen if you suffer a stroke and one side of your body loses function or becomes paralyzed.

I am a disabled woman-a visibly disabled woman, but more often than not, an invisibly disabled woman. On the other hand, you can’t form a fist because your fingers don’t have the ability to bend or move in any dexterously significant way. On the one hand, you’re just like everyone else- normal to all appearances, fully functioning, unimpeded by the physical landscape. Being invisibly visibly disabled may seem like a contradiction.

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