2:23pm July 23, 2015

You don’t have to like being disabled

realsocialskills:

This is what I think disability acceptance means:

Facing what your abilities are and aren’t

Accepting yourself as already having value

Living your life now and doing things you care about.

Not putting your life on hold waiting for a cure

But, some kinds of acceptance talk end up putting destructive kinds of pressure on people. And I think:

It’s ok to like or dislike being disabled. It’s ok to like some aspects of your condition but not others

It’s ok to want treatment and to be frustrated that it isn’t available

It’s ok to pursue treatment that *is* available

It’s ok to work hard to gain or keep certain physical or cognitive abilities, and to be happy or proud that you have them

It’s ok to decide that some abilities aren’t worth keeping, and to be happy or proud about moving on from them

All of those things are very personal choices, and no one’s business but your own

None of them are betrayals of acceptance or other disabled people

The point of acceptance is to get past magical thinking.

It means seeing yourself as you actually are, without being consumed by either tragedy or the need to focus on overcoming disability. It means accepting where you are, and living now, without putting your life on hold waiting for a cure.

Acceptance creates abilities. Acceptance makes it easier to be happy and to make good decisions. But acceptance does not solve everything, and it does not come with an obligation to love absolutely every aspect of being disabled.

Thank you so much for this.
There’s not likely to be a cure for any of my disabilities any time soon, nor do I particularly want one. But there are a lot of things about my executive function, sensory processing, and control over my movements that I dislike and wish I could change. I work hard to prevent them from interfering with my life. I have sought help with some of these things and will do so in the future.
But what’s changing is that feeling of utter shame, of being a broken and failed human that used to seize me every time I became aware of one of these problems–That wanting to run away from myself or crawl out of my own skin. That panic about whether, if anyone knew, they would leave me in disgust, because who would want to deal with me? I wouldn’t want to deal with me. It takes a long time to lose a programmed reaction like that, but I am gradually letting it go.
People who are socialized in a healthy way and accept themselves can still recognize things about themselves they dislike and want to change. It might be something smaller than the average disability, like the sound of their laugh or how irritable they get in the morning. But still, recognizing one’s imperfections is compatible with acceptance. That all-consuming shame is not. They are not the same thing.
I know at one point I used to fear that if I let go of shame I would lose my motivation to improve myself. It’s not true. If anything, I feel more motivated and have more energy to do so when I see myself as worth improving.
TL;DR, acceptance means letting go of shame. It does not mean liking or refusing to change everything about yourself.