Thoughts about "No Pity"

This week, I read No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement by Joseph P. Shapiro. When I finished it, I felt so incredibly stressed and frustrated, but also empowered.

It hurt to see how little our society and government think of people with disablities . In part, because if I'm disabled, then it's also what they think of me. (Obviously society approaches different PWD differently, but I am talking about on a general level, how society approaches disability and PWD.)

I have a lot of feelings about this book (and would highly recommend reading it), but what this post is about is the feelings this book brought up about my own identity. No Pity made it even more clear how important it is that people claim a disabled identity and that the disability civil rights movement is disability-led. The more people who are able to break the silence of the stigma and claim the label of disability for themselves, the stronger the disabled civil rights movement will be. And I want to be part of that good fight.

But the book also brings up my uneasiness about claiming a disabled identity. Because if I am disabled, I am only mildly disabled. Who am I to claim the label or to complain when people are institutionalized and denied even incredibly basic rights? There are so many other people facing so many more difficult things.

In my brain, I know that's silly--putting things on a scale of who is disabled enough. But in my heart, I still feel guilty.

Disabled or not, I want to be part of this fight for equality. And I will.

Am I Disabled? (Part 1)

It really depends on who you ask. According to the government? The laws aren't written especially clearly, but I seem to fit their definition sometimes. My school doesn't classify people, but I get my academic accommodations from the school disability specialist. My friend J jokes that when we go to the cafeteria we should get our food for free because "you're disabled." My best friend has been kind of avoiding talking about it, but she does know that I fit some definitions. She seems to agree with me -- in terms of identity, that's something I should get to decide.

So what do I think? I'm not entirely sure. I don't like the word disability. I feel guilty taking the label, because there are a lot of people with much more serious things going on. But then there are the weeks my health is extra bad and I'm stuck in my dark silent room avoiding stimuli for even more time than I'm used to.... Or the joking conversations where we try to find things that don't cause me pain and have a lot of trouble coming up with something..... Or the times I realize to what extent I plan everything I do around my body....

I know that when I read about the social model of disability, I see how society is set up to view me and treat me as lesser because of my health. And I see a place for myself and want a place in the disability rights movement. So does that make me disabled? I'm still on my way to deciding, and I have a right to change my mind. For now, I'm just saying, "according to some definitions" and I'm going to keep reading, writing, and talking about what disability and disableism means in this society and in my life.