When anyone deals with a mental, emotional, or physical disability, they may get an unfair press. Dealing with a disability often means we're blamed for our behaviour, for how we are. Living in an able-bodied world, we don't always fit.
We learn to cope from a place where we're already struggling. It's not a choice. It's how we manage.
Childhood experiences with a disability shape how we learn to cope, how we learn to survive. We adapt. This is not an excuse.
Disability is about how we cope and adapt within an able-bodied world. We are different, and we work with that difference – a difference that, even in 2025, still isn’t fully accepted.
It's also about accountability – accountability for other people's behaviour. And that should change when awareness starts. We shouldn't have to feel guilty for a disability we cannot do anything about. We cope how we're able to cope. We're not awkward for awkward's sake.
Even when no one says anything openly, relationships can still become strained. No one may blame us directly, but the tension is always there underneath. There is an awkwardness, a distance. It's unconscious. Nothing is said, but the relationship doesn't work the way it should – we feel it without needing words. That strain comes from years of misunderstanding.
When the disability isn't obvious or known, people often believe we have the same ability as everyone else and they judge us through that belief. But our behaviour simply put, comes from our disability limits. Understanding this can change how others see us.
Around disability, we shouldn't have to beg to be heard, to be listened to, or to be liked. Those things should be routine. Others should want to help, so that we too can fit in, but differently.
