by Sorcha Ni Dhomhnaill

Created on: April 26, 2009

If given the choice, most people would probably choose to live with an invisible disability rather than an obvious one. No one wants to stand out or be ostracized for being physically "abnormal" or unable to do certain things the way everyone else does. However, those living with invisible disabilities don't necessarily manage better just because no one else can see their difficulties. It's easy to anticipate what kinds of problems they might have. For instance, they are often accused of malingering or wrongly thought to have a mental illness when their problem is physical. Because of this they may have to struggle constantly to get basic needs met.

I am speaking from experience as a person who could be considered to have an invisible disability. In my opinion, the idea of what constitutes disability is largely a social construct and it affects what we see and don't see in other people. In many cases a disability with no easily recognized physical manifestation is not really invisible at all, just misunderstood because it does not fit society's idea of what disability looks like. Ironically, those with the visible marks of what is commonly considered a disability have to deal with unwanted responses of condescension and pity, while those whose differences don't fit the stereotype are often accused of trying to elicit these unwelcome responses without really "deserving" them. To put it another way, while physical effects of disability are often all the evidence people need to decide you can't do anything for yourself, if the effects are behavioral, psychological, or stem from invisible factors such as chronic pain, people will react quite negatively because they think you are trying to fit into that stigmatized category.

Sadly, this means that a disability may not be recognized as such even when it is apparent to everyone. Even worse, it may not be recognized at all by the person living with it. A person with a mental illness or high-functioning autism might be the last person to realize they are "different" somehow. If they were born with the disability they may take it for granted. In these cases the person will not only be misunderstood and mistreated, but they will not be able to advocate for themselves and might become quite confused and hopeless if they are unable to establish relationships or communicate effectively.

Those whose disability is primarily physical but does not fit the model may find their relationships suffer as well. They have the tough choice of having to constantly remind people of their suffering and risk being called a complainer or to try to cope without becoming overwhelmed. If the source of their problem can't be easily explained by a doctor, the temptation to pretend to be "normal" is even stronger.

No one can know for sure what another person is going through unless they have been in that position. Therefore no one can assume what it is like to be disabled, or not disabled, as the case may be. It has often been observed that there are many ways of being in the world that accrue many different labels, but the real marker of disability may be a lack of imagination to cope with whatever is facing you. This will only become more true as medical advances allow more people to remain alive and allow doctors to identify the mechanisms of disability in people who may not have even realized they had them. As the idea of invisible disability becomes more widely understood, the stereotypes surrounding disability stand to change radically.

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