Invisible Disability

There is a phrase that people often utter and I find it vulgar and ignorant and that is: "He doesn't look disabled" - a phrase I have heard describing others and also myself.  I have a disability in terms of my visual impairment and it causes a lot of problems in life.  I am what you would call well adjusted, meaning I live quite a functional life and in many ways most people would not even know I had any difficulty at all unless I told them.  This is an invisible disability by nature, something which is not obvious to see when you look at someone.

Physical disabilities are often visible, but these disabilities are a minority in comparison to the many conditions people live with and have to overcome.  Even the definition of a disability can at times be considered fluid as there are people who would not consider themselves disabled even with a condition that would be considered as such.  This all brings us back to the idea that there is an expected behaviour that people who are disabled should conform to, for other people to be able to see they have a disability.

The problem I have with this sentiment is the way it is used with negative connotations.  It undermines what a person has achieved and overcome.  People who are well adjusted are often deemed to be fraudulent, or they are deemed to be deceptive.  I have had this said to me too, people who lack the understanding of how my Nystagmus affects me are often surprised by what I can read up close and what I can see at a distance, to the point where I have been accused of making it up.  The only saving grace for me with Nystagmus is the fact that my eyes constantly move, which anyone who pays close enough attention will see - which has caused confidence issues as I have discussed before - but that one visible aspect somehow redeems my claim.  If my eyes didn't move then people wouldn't believe me.  I find that quite infuriating because it perpetuates the idea that struggle has to be visible as well as the condition.  That you have to be seen to be finding things hard to do in order for people to believe you.

There are many diseases and illnesses that have no outwardly visible symptoms.  Even simple benign things like a headache are not visible.  If you had Cancer and went to a Doctor who refused to believe you had it as you "don't look like you have Cancer" you would likely be mortified.  I am a non violent person but even I would want to punch him.  To take the view that health and well-being are visual and that any deviation from that must produce a visible sign of that deviation is incredibly closed minded, and it is incredibly dangerous.  "I don't have it, I would know, I'd have symptoms" is an incredibly weak argument.  Many diseases for one have incubation periods during which no symptoms at all occur, visible or not.  Some you can even have for years before you show any symptoms at all.

People say we shouldn't judge each other by what we look like, a sentiment often reserved for referring to peoples' attractiveness - that sentiment needs to be extended to health too.  You shouldn't judge a person's health by what they look like.