Embracing Disability Pride Month

Or Disability Wrath Month.

A pair of brown feet in yellow flip-flops, half-submerged in clear seawater, surrounded by sea-foam

I… think I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’m not just neurodivergent, I’m disabled.

I have no formal diagnoses; as a high-masking, brown, woman-presenting person in the Global South, I have a lovely circle of friends, a happy marriage, and a fairly boring-looking family life. Any mention I make of the possibility that I might be autistic and have ADHD (AuDHD, as we Chronically Online Folk like to call ourselves) is met with dismissal or scoffs of disbelief.

Because from the outside, aside from my dismal bank account and spotty resume, I appear to be a Very Put Together Millennial Indeed.

From the inside though, things are very very different. My brain is… honestly, I don’t quite understand my brain. But I know a lot of things are harder for me than they are for my peers.

Because of it, and the attendant trauma that comes with being Different, I cannot do things at the same pace as my peers. I cannot do things in the same way.

I get overwhelmed very very easily. My emotions are often much bigger than my capacity to regulate myself. I tend to think in absolutes and Make Everything About Myself. I misread (to frequent comedic effect, at least) social situations and say incongruous things. I have trouble lining up tasks and getting them out of the gate. I overthink every detail, and then get distracted by them. Every. Single. One. I get distracted by random sensations. I get distracted by the small sounds my body makes, the creaks of other people walking around the house, the hum of electricity in the walls, the song playing on repeat in my head. I get distracted by the fact that I am distracted. And when I finally find a way to rein myself in and concentrate on one thing, I have trouble keeping the thread. I have trouble keeping to a deadline. I go into meltdown mode when the deadline plancha presses down on my shit-executive-function sandwich. It takes me days and days, sometimes weeks, to recover from a meltdown.

And boy do I have meltdowns.

And anxiety attacks.

And panic attacks.

And stress-induced gastrointestinal issues.

And bouts of mental and emotional paralysis so severe that all I can do is stare into my phone, mutely screaming at myself to move please move.

I. Am. Disabled.

I need.

In needing, I take up space.

Dear Internet, I’m terrified of that. I hate taking up space.

But that’s OK.

It’s OK that I take up space.

I deserve respect.

I deserve recompense for my efforts.

I deserve to exist.

It’s OK that I take up space.

I have limits, and I have capacities. Acknowledging my limits allows me to work with them, and through that, further hone and expand my capacities.

And even if there are days weeks months years when I can’t do that — when all I can do is hold myself close and breathe- I still deserve to live. I deserve to live joyfully and full tilt.

We all do.