The shame that comes with being disabled.
Or more exactly with all the things you are failing to do like abled people.
All the things abled people will judge you for.
Hygiene. Punctuality. Eloquence. Autonomy. Self-reliance. Intelligence. So many other things.
You lack them and people look down on you, because for them, it's a given. "Everyone can do that." (Invisibility)
If you can't, they call you things.
As if our disabilities are our fault or as if it doesn't really exist. As if it's an inconvenience. As if we are an inconvenience.
And if we speak up about this, they call us other things.
They want us silent. They want us invisible.
How many times did we heard or read that they want to "cure" us? It's not because they care about us.
It's because we're an inconvenience to them. It's because they are scared to be like us, so they need a cure "just in case".
In the meantime, they either want to erase us from their sight or commodify our lives and conditions to make divertissement or cautionary tales.
Our lives, our disabilities, our voices and words, our stories, they're are not ours anymore. They are theirs to use or destroy.
How do we reclaim our naratives?
By getting rid of our shame, first.
By never suffering being silenced or invisibilized, second.
We own our life, whatever they say. We own our pride, whatever they say.
Shame has no place in our disabled life.
Shame is on people that judges us.
