tryingmybest

I didn’t have a great day and sometimes just having someone reply or ‘talk’ to me reminds me that I’m not alone in this world. #Depression #Anxiety #tryingmybest

I can’t remember how exactly it was phrased (and I can’t even find it now), but the other day I saw a post on Instagram about being disabled and it was something along the lines of disability is society’s fault. I am aware looking back on it now that it’s probably more focused around more visible disabilities - for example, it’s difficult to get a job if you can’t get to the interview because there isn’t a lift and you’re in a wheelchair or can’t use stairs. However, the post really annoyed me, and the reason it annoyed me was because I’d just had an exam in college that went insanely badly. That sounds really superficial until I tell you the reason it went so badly was that I didn’t get to sleep til midnight and I overdressed because it’s been really cold up here and messing with my EDS and then I’m pretty sure I had a combination of PoTS and an anxiety flare so I literally froze up and couldn’t play. I have never felt so disabled in my life and it only got worse when I got my feedback back and found out I got the lowest mark out of all the violists in college, including the person who barely practised, when I know that on a good day I’m better than at least three of them. I know 100% I’m better than that and it’s really hard to get over because although I know it doesn’t define me as a person, I got that bad grade because of my disabilities and conditions.
It’s very hard to explain this to your average healthy person because if you say “I got this grade because of my disability” they automatically assume that it is the responsibility of the person grading you. When I say this, what I really mean is “I could not perform my best because my body let me down”. The same thing applies when I get locked out of my debit card because my brain swears the PIN is x and its actually y or go to the grocery store and forget the main thing I came to the store for, every single time, or submit an awful essay awful which I would not have put in had I not been sick and too stressed out to proof read (it was a group essay and obviously we put it in the day before the deadline). In my view, when you put the blame on society for disability, especially disabilities that are complex and affect much more than the thing they are known for, you are effectively saying that the only reason people can’t do things is because society isn’t allowing them to, which belittles the impact disabilities have on our lives. If I’m having trouble functioning today, it’s not because society isn’t letting me function. Yes some elements of society can make it easier for me to function, for example those badges you can get in England asking for a seat, but ultimately it’s because my body is not working the way it should and I think it would be much easier for us to function successfully if more people understood this.
#EhlersDanlosSyndrome #PosturalOrthostaticTachycardiaSyndrome #ChronicPain #tryingmybest #uni #Anxiety