Recently someone asked me to consider changing my language from ‘disabled’ to ‘people with disabilities’ – a term they thought more modern. I use the word disabled intentionally. This is why.
For the majority of my life, I haven’t identified as disabled. As a child I would mostly walk with crutches and have an apparent impairment. My leg treatments meant I wasn’t able to play in the sandpit, go to the beach or participate in sports class. The constant operations and hospital visits also separated me from everyone else. I didn’t feel I belonged with kids around me, nor with my family. A cold sense of being different has always simmered inside me. The only chance I had to belong was to have a ‘normal’ leg – an impossible achievement. My peers called me disabled, amongst other insults, and I took it to heart, feeling ashamed of my failure to fit in. I’d cringe at the word disabled when it was used by medical or social services. My family insisted I was ‘normal’. The words ‘disabled’ and ‘disability’ had negative connotations – in my mind, family, and society. It meant you were less than others. I constantly tried to fit in to the able-bodied group despite knowing I didn’t belong. Even at times my leg could be hidden, I didn’t feel like a real part of the group. It felt like wearing a mask and pretending it was my real skin – exhausting and saddening.
I also didn’t belong to any disability community. I’ve never met anyone born with Fibular Hemimelia, or any other disability. I saw people with visible impairments in hospital waiting rooms or clinics, but we all kept to ourselves. Despite being told others like me existed, I could not conceptualise it. I used to imagine kids like me in other places – they were like ghosts I was desperate to touch but couldn’t even see. It was a lonely existence.
I didn’t belong to any of these groups; the able-bodied group or the disabled – I belonged nowhere. In her book Hearing Maud, Jessica White describes her identity as being in between the hearing and the living worlds. I have often experienced a similar sense of (non) belonging. By (non) belonging I mean a feeling of being and living in between, belonging to none of the identification groups available to you.
At university I came across the social model of disability – a seed was planted. Several years later, when I became a mother, I faced further ableism and barriers I’ve managed quietly for some years – medical, social and internalised. It started at my first antenatal class where a midwife judged and shamed any parent who wasn’t ‘active’ enough and referred to them as a “sideline mum”, explaining how not participating in kids’ sport made one a second-rate parent. I walked away knowing I will forever be judged for being a disabled parent. Worries about being judged and mistreated, and concerns about the implications for my child fuelled my fear, resentment and shame.
Connecting with the disability community, reading, writing, reflecting and undertaking therapy – has eventually made me realise the ‘problem’ was never me or my leg. The problem has always been my disempowerment, marginalisation, silencing, lack of access, and societal expectations – all of which have led to my (non) belonging. Gradually I developed an understanding of how the social model of disability applies to me. I’ve always been disabled by the society I was operating in – by doctors who kept promising one day I’ll be ‘fixed’, by peers who bullied me, by a society that didn’t consider it worthwhile installing a lift at our school or home. I was disabled by people’s staring, by others attempts to hide my leg and by ‘professionals’ who judged me for not being able-bodied. Painful moments in my life were always born from society’s expectations and views of disability, others’ choices and behaviours. I have been disabled by disempowering and discriminatory practices and spaces. My body, different from others as it is, is not inferior in any way.
Once I freed myself of these expectations and views, that is – the need to be an able-bodied person, I became free to advocate for myself and others and live a better life. I liberated myself through changing my perspective, taking pride in myself – disability included. I’ve learned from many advocates about the use of disability-centred language (i.e. the word disabled) and it powerfully resonated with me. Nowadays I refer to myself as disabled as a way to 1. Reclaim the word which belongs to our community – letting everyone know being disabled is not an insult, but an identity. Just like I identify as a Melbournian. 2. Express my identification with the disability community and my pride, and finally 3. To express my adherence to the social model of disability, rejecting the medical model. I am disabled not by my impairment, but by the society in which I live.
I am still disabled by a society that doesn’t prioritise installing lifts or ramps in health, recreation, community and employment places. I would not be disabled by our society if it was accessible. I wouldn’t be disabled if my employment, entertainment and recreation opportunities weren’t restricted by spaces and practices made only for one type of people – able-bodied people. I would not have been disabled if my needs were considered just as important as an able-bodied person’s needs, if my way of living was just as valued.
This is why I identify with and deliberately choose to use the term disabled. It is not an insult anymore – we have reclaimed it. I am proud to be disabled because it made me who I am, and I have a community to belong to now. The deep permeating sense of (non) belonging is difficult to shake. I often feel like the different or inferior one in a group. Identifying as disabled gives me strength, hope and connection. Speaking with my support people builds my sense of belonging – it is still in the making. There are still days and moments I feel disconnected and alone. Connecting, reading or listening to others’ stories feels like holding the hand of a long-lost friend. I have found my people.
Identity is an idiosyncratic and evolving process. Some people with disabilities don’t identify with the word disabled. I choose it – thoughtfully, and deliberately. Disabled is not an insult, it’s who I am.
Liel K. Bridgford