Crip Chronicles: Disability Identity

Interesting thoughts on disabled identity.

Crip Chronicles: Disability Identity

I don't consider my disability as the main part of my identity, but I know that people who don't really know me do.

When I meet someone for the first time, I know that my cerebral palsy is what they see first. Usually after a brief conversation, people realize that the cp affects my body and not my brain, but sometimes they don't.

Sometimes it matters to me what people think of me, sometimes it doesn't. It depends whether I am only dealing with someone in passing, or if I will be working with or dealing with a person for awhile.

What bothers me is that people like to portray me as being really good at whatever to makeup for my disability, as if they balance each other out.

I'm not too hard on people for this tendency. The checking out of each other probably goes beyond disability.

And then there is the issue of disabled people checking each other out. What set of disabilities does that person deal with? Do they have a better way of doing things than I do? We can be way more critical of each other than the non-disabled are to us.

Okay...so I need more self-esteem.