Am I Disabled?

Does it matter?

I’ve thought about this a lot over the last few years. My gastroparesis has slowly gotten worse, claiming more and more of my sick days and time from my family, not to mention my creative energy. It can be treated/managed with medication, and I’m in the process of trying to find the right cocktail of pills to keep the nausea and pain at bay while still keeping my plumbing moving the way it should. On top of that, I’ve been diagnosed with ADD and I’m taking medication for it. And while I haven’t been diagnosed with it, I’m 90% certain I’m on the Autism spectrum. And none of that’s counting my depression and anxiety.

Do those criteria make me fall within the definition of disabled? If so, whose? There’s the ADA, the SSA, the common parlance, or the medical definition. And does it matter? No one wants to be disabled. Being declared disabled can certainly help if you need benefits because you can’t work or you’re being discriminated against. Right now, neither of those things is happening to me.

I suppose the reasons I think about it are:

• I’m worried that it could happen to me in the future and I want to be prepared.

• Being able to say “I am disabled” makes me more than just an ally when I take a stand for disabled people’s rights. I have a stake in it.

• I’m intellectually curious.

It’s not so much that I want to be “in the club”, but that if I am “in the club” I just want to know it. It matters to me, and it certainly matters to our society. There are a lot of disabilities that are invisible. Or not always visible. I think of people who have to use a wheelchair but only sometimes. There are plenty of people who can’t work because of a debilitating illness. However, if you saw them in the grocery store you’d never know it.

“They’re not really disabled/handicapped.” That’s something I know they hear. People get mad because someone who looks like them has a parking placard. What they don’t know is that the person they’re questioning is having a good day. Other days, it’s pure hell to walk.

I feel for those people. I have good days. Days where I feel normal. My stomach is level and it doesn’t hurt. My outlook on life is good. I feel “human”. Which is a horrible way to put it now that I think about it. The people who have disabilities or handicaps are just as human as I am. Then I have bad days. Days where I’m either on the couch or in the bathroom. Days where I don’t want to see the sun. Where all I want to do is sleep.

My new medication is helping with the stomach issues, which is in turn helping with my mood. I’m still a far cry from where I was only a handful of years ago. I may never get back to the point where I go months between attacks. So, I take it one day at a time. And I think about people whose struggle is even worse than mine. People who have to go to the hospital every month for days or weeks. I know it’s not a competition. We can both be disabled. But I somehow feel the need to be validated.

Maybe that just makes me human.