hello! Sorry in advance if this ask is insensitive or worded poorly or anything of the sort.
I've been doing a lot of research lately into how to write physically disabled characters, since I'm trying to add more of them to my stories. One piece of advice that I see a lot is to avoid writing about the disabled experience or making statements on what life with a disability is like if you're not disabled.
Now, I am not physically disabled but I am mentally disabled. I have OCD, DPDR, PTSD, and two phobias.
That all being said, I have two questions -
1. Am I allowed to make stories about the disabled experience?
2. When writing physically disabled characters, can I use my feelings about my disorders as a reference for how they might feel?
To elaborate, I know my feelings towards my disorders fluctuate a lot. Some days I grieve, some days I celebrate them being better than usual, some days I hardly think about them, some days I don't think about them at all, some days they’re all I can think about.
So, would it be overstepping to give my physically disabled characters similar thoughts/emotions/feelings towards their disabilities?
This wouldn’t be the only reference point I’d use, I would make sure to research the individual disability and what it’s like for those who have it as well.
If authors were only allowed to write about their own disability or experience, there would be so many stories that would never get told. In my opinion, an author researching a condition and writing a real human person with that disability is doing far better in the representation field than most that's out there.
The physically and mentally disabled experiences are definitely different. Just as invisibly vs visibly disabled experiences are different. Just as a sensory disability is different from a skeletal disability... you get the point. There is no single "disabled experience". Even within a disability, there is no specific experience unique and exclusive to that disability.
Most disabilities come with a variety of feelings about it. They're almost never all positive--it is frustrating that there are things you cannot do! Even for communities (or individuals) who take pride in their disabled identity, there is still a non-disabled majority who don't agree with that pride. And there are definitely conditions where every day you wish you didn't have them, especially terminal illnesses. Things killing you is no fun.
But I think for every disabled person their feelings fluctuate, though the exact emotions will depend on the person and their disability. It's not overstepping to give your character shame, relief, frustration, apathy, or joy over their disability--it's making them a full person with feelings about a major aspect of their life.
