Most able-bodied people have an image in their mind of what they think a disabled person is and I’d bet the whole two dollars in my bank account that nine times out of ten that person is sitting in a wheelchair. Using this logic, me, a disabled person who can walk without obvious visual issues, must be lying about what is actually happening with my joints and bones. I will never know but, I think the image of a person sitting in a wheelchair is the same image that crosses people’s minds when they encounter someone like me, who can pass as an able-bodied individual.

Not to sound like an angsty young adult book, but gym class was where it was the most eye-opening. Like running the full four laps, instead of two, to add up to the yearly mile due to my accommodations consisting of advocating for myself and “trying my best”.  Looping around after two and my teacher urging me to do three, then four. Because apparently trying my best is the only thing holding me back from reaching my full potential during gym class. Teachers, whose key job requirement was to get kids to participate and work hard, couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea that just maybe I couldn’t do the things they were asking for. I think they saw it as I wouldn’t because who really wants to run laps around the gym at 8 in the morning. My permanently dislocated hip bones rubbing against each other every step I made wasn’t convincing enough because no one saw it happening. No visual evidence or it didn’t happen. 

 Doctor notes became my savior.

Soon I was handed a shiny gold key because too many kids would use this privilege if the elevator was left unlocked and unmonitored. Insert teenagers using my friendship as a way to gain a free ride and the words “you’re so lucky you didn’t have to walk up those stairs” repeated more times than I can count and I guess the administration was on to something. As time passed and I aged, more teachers became less afraid to speak up to the 5 foot nothing teenage girl standing by the elevator alone if they didn’t think I looked disabled enough. While refusing to acknowledge their own ableist ideas because I must be the problem. I was told to stand up for myself but it was only seen as talking back to someone who can give me detention. It’s gotten to the point where I stopped noticing the stares of irritation and confusion of the world around me.

At one point I became so over the whole charade that I argued back, it took four years but I finally stood my ground. Still, my gold key wasn’t enough to prove that I wasn’t just trying to catch a free ride and that my diagnosis wasn’t just laziness. At the end of 1st period, I was called down to receive a temporary pass but I have a feeling that the teacher, who obviously went to the administration,  expected more of a punishment for me. A teacher I have never seen before, and haven’t seen since, was about to force a disabled girl up three flights of stairs because again I wasn’t convincing enough as a disabled person.

For so long, I thought I was lucky, honestly, I thought that my school was doing right by me. Now, seven years with the same expectation to advocate for myself, I know it was shit deal.

Now, I know, seven years too late, that just because no one can see the chronic pain I have and just because I can walk and run does not give my school system or anyone the excuse to undermine and overestimate how truly normal I look.

Because all you are doing is undermining the six weeks I spent in the NICU because I was ten weeks too early. Undermining the stares I got from fully grown women at swim lessons because bathing suits will forever show my battle scars. And undermining anyone else that doesn’t fit your able-bodied idea of what you think a disabled person is. 

It’s a sad revelation I’ve come to that everywhere I go, I’ll be met with more questions than answers and more looks of disgust than looks of curiosity. Like walking away from my car parked in a handicapped spot and a Karen just waiting to tattle on the visually abled person taking a spot from someone who actually needs it.

I refuse to keep correcting ableist ideas when they arise, although I know I should. I refuse to be one of the only people in my school to correct others when they use the r-word. I wish I could ask people to be better and to stop jumping to conclusions in order to fill their own conscience with “good” deeds but I’m not going to look any more disabled the next time I ride an elevator or park in a handicapped parking stall at Target. I just won’t, I will still look like me, a girl who may or may not have a slight waddle to her step, which according to one boy in elementary school makes me look like a penguin. But I can change your ignorant first glance opinion of me about as much as I can change walking like a small tuxedo-wearing flightless bird.