You don't look"Disabled"...

Can you see inside? 

You look at me and you see an able person. I look "fine to you" and you hear the words "I am a Yogi" and you see this twisted pretzel of a person standing in a handstand or on one arm, all muscle and just smiling. Then you ask me what I do and I reluctantly let you know that I have been disabled for about 11 years now. You hear the word "disabled" and you see the symbol of a wheel chair that is on that blue disability tag that is painted in that parking spot in front of your local super market. You look at me and don't see any physical deformity, you see no wheel chair or blood huge marks or scars on my body. You see me walking (that particular day) perfectly fine. 

WHAT YOU DON'T SEE...or even consider is the inside workings of the human body. Do you know that all my bones, organs, brain...etc is fully functional. Why don't you consider this part of the human machine and that it might be in severe mal-function? 

Immediately I am a liar and can't possibly be sick enough to be "disabled". I am functioning fine this particular day and so I am NOT "sick enough" by your judgement. 

You didn't see me yesterday as I crawled on hands and knees from my bed to the bathroom in mind-numbing pain to vomit over and over. You didn't see me as I cried my eyes out because no injection or narcotic was strong enough to kill the pain of my deformed spine and nerve damage caused by this condition. You don't know all the side effects and repercussions that chronically ill patients have to suffer from their medications. The way I grasp at my painful intestines and cry because they don't function properly anymore. Can't think straight enough some days to make regular, every day decisions because of the brain fog that has clouded my mind. All of this now cloaking my emotions in depression and sadness at my lowest times. 

I spend more than half my life at multiple doctor's offices managing a blood disease. CAN YOU SEE that from where you sit? Can you see other people's (and my) nerves on my exterior to know that we are not broken inside? The answer is, NO. You can't know what a chronically ill person goes through when they are having a "bad day". Some chronic illnesses leave you with good days, and bad days. YES.....we chronically ill want to embrace every single good moment. When our body is functioning at it's best we went to take walks and hikes and whatever we can embrace to to that day. We WANT TO SMILE ! 

MY GOODNESS....we want to appear and be as "average and normal" as we can that day. Those other days which are so challenging for us and for people like me, so painful, that we want to REALLY LIVE....REALLY HOLD ON to those GOOD DAYS ! 

Still, this label of "disabled" apply's to myself and others like me. There are whole months worth of time when I am stuck in my house. Sometimes confined to my bed even. You---as an onlooker wouldn't know that by seeing me on a "good day". 

Please, rethink what you know about a "disabled" person or any person for that matter. Please don't judge someone's suffering. You can't possibly quantify their pain or distress. Perception and view point is everything in our lives. Be compassionate......and know that there is usually more under the surface than you see in everyone's outer shell. 

13 REASONS WHY "YOU DON'T LOOK SICK/DISABLED" IS NOT A COMPLIMENT ! 

disableism:

soooyeahanyway:

1. I am ill and I am disabled, and this is what I look like.
2. What do you THINK disabled or ill people look like?
3. It makes it sound like you think disabled people “should” look a bit gross or a bit wierd.
4. It makes it sound like I have to prove my illness to you.
5. It creates a hierarchy of what one ableist acquaintence called, “Like, you know. Disabled-disabled and normal people disabled. Like, you’re disabled but you’re also normal. You’re disabled but you’re also not really disabled because you’re also like us.” That is not okay.
6. It makes it sound like if I did “look disabled” then you’d either think less of me or you’d believe me more.
7. For the same reasons you shouldn’t say to someone, “You don’t look Jewish!”
8. For the same reasons you shouldn’t say to someone, “You don’t sound black!”
9. It often sets the conversation up in a way where you are the judge and you can either validate or invalidate my disability and how much it affects me.
10. Neither my illnesses nor my disabilities are totally invisible if you took the time to learn about them and decided to pay attention.
11. It makes you sound untrustworthy. It makes me think you’re going to be the kind of person that will jump to conclusions about my health if I don’t look or act in certain stereotypical ways. Can I laugh and have a good time around you without you implying I’m cured or dismissing my conditions? (Because it really sucks when you do that.)
12. It feels really dismissive and discouraging.
13. It is dehumanizing. 15% of the world’s population is disabled. We come in more shapes and sizes than able-bodied people do. Whatever a disabled or ill person looks like, that is what disabled and ill people look like regardless of your preconceptions.

As a person who is extremely visibly physically disabled, hearing someone say this to a fellow spoonie with a invisible illness cuts me to the bone. As stated above, it makes me feel like you think I am less than. It makes me feel like you think people who look disabled are ugly, therefore I am ugly. You must think so much less of me than you do this person who ‘doesn’t look disabled’. This is an insult and invalidating to all people with disabilities.

Source:
http://thischroniclife.tumblr.com/post/121574535999/13-reasons-why-you-dont-look-sick-disabled-is