What is ableism, anyway?

 In the last few years, I have started conducting “me-search.” I have had the privilege to collaborate with friends, colleagues, mentors, and role-models on projects broadly related to barriers faced by people with disabilities. As part of my “me-search,” I recently read a paper about a new self-report measure of symbolic ableism adapted from a measure on racism. 

Reading Drs. Friedman’s and Awsumb’s article about measuring symbolic ableism got me thinking deeply about the construct of ableism in relation to my lived experience. Before I share more, I want to acknowledge that many of these ideas are not my own, and have been shared by others, including these wonderful researchers in their piece. I am using their operationalization of ableism as a framework, and I have expanded on their constructs based on my observations, learning from others with disabilities, and growth in therapy.

The authors explore how opposition to disability rights seldom has been marked by overt displays of bigotry or hostility but instead is marked by outward warmth and support rooted in pity and paternalism. One of the sub-scales of the adapted ableism measure is called “Recognition of Continuing Discrimination." Whereas, in the original measure about race, this sub-scale was “denial of continuing racial discrimination.” Ableism is so pervasive and insidious that most are not even aware of its existence, let alone deny its presence. 

So what is this subtle form of oppression referred to as ableism? According to this scale, symbolic ableism involves individualism, a failure to recognize continued discrimination, lack of empathy, and believing people with disabilities make excessive demands. Let us unpack these components of ableism and look at some examples. 

Individualism

Ableism is upholding the rigid individualism that suggests everyone can and should be able to pull themselves up from their bootstraps on their own and without support. Ableism is believing success is only dependent on hard work. Ableism is believing people with disabilities are not at any form of systematic disadvantage; we live in a just world and people get what they deserve. If you fail, that is your problem. 

But, people cannot simply achieve no matter what happens to their bodies and minds. Although some illnesses can be cured, many people cannot simply overcome their disability. I will never have sight. And no matter how hard I try, I will never be able to do visual tasks. Individualism would say this is my weakness and my fault. Individualism would suggest that any failure is my doing. For a long while, I believed that narrative. I thought it was my responsibility to work twice as hard to compete. If I could not do something, it was because I did not try hard enough. Over time, though, I have come to accept I am a blind person in a predominately sighted world. I will always be at systematic disadvantages. No matter how hard I pull up on my bootstraps, I will not be able to lift myself out of this body. More radical still, I would not want to lift myself from this body. Our ableist society may say there is something wrong with me, but I choose to appreciate all my body gives me.

Recognition of Continuing Discrimination 

As is true across the “isms,” ableism involves gaslighting. People with disabilities are told they complain too much and their inability to get ahead is due to their faults. Ableism is the lack of recognition of systemic inequality for people with disabilities.  

Ableism often involves outward warmth, support, and appreciation. Most would say they would never want to disadvantage someone who is in a wheelchair. At the same time, that same person may leave a rental scooter in the middle of the sidewalk or take advantage of a friend’s handicap placard without seeing the contradiction. I have often been told, “just let me know and I will do whatever I can to help,” to then be told that my requests for accommodations are too inconvenient, burdensome, or difficult to provide. People believe they care deeply for people with disabilities while also failing to comprehend how their actions contribute to continued discrimination for people with disabilities.

Empathy for Disabled People

Ableism is believing that people with disabilities are incompetent and in need of assistance. Ableism is believing that the able-bodied know what people with disabilities want and need.  Ableism is associated with pity and paternalism. Ableism sends the message that people with disabilities are victims whose lives are inherently tragic. 

“You’re blind? But you’re so young! I’m so sorry!” “If I were you, I could not even get out of bed in the morning let alone do what you do.” Veiled in sympathy and flattery, these remarks lack empathy for the experience of what it means to be someone with a disability. I am living my life the best I can, just like everyone else. Some days it is easier to get out of bed than other days. Very rarely is that due to my disability.

In general, the disadvantages due to disability are often exaggerated. The suffering caused by ableism is under-recognized, but in my experience, the daily suffering caused by disability is overestimated and misunderstood. My struggles are not because I cannot see; my struggles are because systems are designed for people who can see and often people are reluctant to accommodate to include my means of interacting with the world. 

Excessive Demands

Ableism also takes the form of thinking people with disabilities are asking for too much and a drain of the system. People with disabilities are taking advantage of testing accommodations to get ahead. People with disabilities are exercising an unfair advantage by having extended time on classroom assignments. Receiving disability benefits from the government is a waste of tax dollars and enables people to be lazy and not work. 

Although the examples above demonstrate more flagrant forms of ableism, I am often subtly blamed for making excessive demands for accommodations. It is too much to send a digital copy of a paper handout before a meeting begins. It is too inconvenient to use the software that works with my accessibility tools. It is unreasonable to require a PDF to be accessible by a screenreader. Believing people with disabilities are making excessive demands is ableist. 

I am still wrapping my mind around the contradictions of ableism: people with disabilities need to work harder and also are pitiful and tragic; being disabled seems insurmountable, and if a person with a disability cannot overcome that is their fault; people with disabilities deserve support and also make excessive demands and drain resources. Ableism is comprised of seemingly paradoxical beliefs, and all of them oppress people with disabilities. Despite being painful at times, I am profoundly grateful to have the opportunity to contemplate the complexity of ableism in “me-search” alongside my personal journey. 

We All Feel Alone Sometimes

     Growing up, I was taught that feelings like sadness, disconnection, and isolation were dark, scary, and not to be discussed. When I expressed discomfort, I was showered with toxic positivity: “it could be worse,” “it will all work out,” and “everything happens for a reason.” Here’s the thing - we all feel sad, disconnected, and isolated sometimes - and with current needs to social distance, these feelings may be more present now than ever. Plus, as an affective scientist and therapist, I feel the need to add that these emotions provide important information about our motivations, relationships, preferences, and values. Experiencing loneliness does not mean that I do not live a fulfilling, joyful, and worthwhile life. Instead, embracing the loneliness I feel as a person with a rare disability has cultivated connection. 

    When I was diagnosed with Stargardt’s at age 17, no one I knew had ever heard of the condition. Until my mid-twenties, I had very limited connections with the disability community or people who had experienced vision loss. The lack of connection to others with similar experiences meant my process grieving, adapting, and accommodating my changing needs was a private one. Sure, I would share with my sighted family and friends which pieces of assistive technology excited me, but I didn’t have anyone to talk to about feeling left out, experiencing microaggressions, or encountering structural ableism. 

    Around the time I started graduate school, I began partnering with local nonprofits and discovered resources like Facebook groups, blogs, and youtube channels that offered information and a venue for connecting with others. I began educating myself in disability studies and the history of ableism. I read books, essays, and poetry, including works by a professor with Stargardt’s at Berkeley. At age 27, ten years after my diagnosis, I met someone with the same diagnosis for the first time. Since then, my brother has presented with the same condition, and I have become friends with a fellow Berkeley graduate student also with Stargardt’s. These personal relationships, alongside self-exploration in therapy and through this blog, have helped me understand the features of rare disability that can be so isolating.

    Feelings of disconnection result from a sense of being different, misunderstood, and not belonging. Having a rare disability means that I am regularly the only one in a given setting who needs accommodations or special assistance. I spent years wondering “why me?” and "how will anyone understand?" That anger and resentment masked my grief and prompted greater isolation. When I instead moved towards fully accepting my loneliness, I came to also recognize my need for connection with others, especially around shared vulnerability. I felt like I didn’t belong, the way others feel they don’t belong, and if we all feel that way, doesn’t that mean we all belong? I have discovered that the best inoculation to my feelings of loneliness is to own my story and connect with others to honor and appreciate what is beautiful and unique in the diversity of lived experience. 

    I have also learned how and why connecting with others does not mean continuing to promote toxic positivity. When someone insists, “it will all be totally fine,” they are suggesting that there isn’t really a problem and we shouldn't be stressed, which communicates that it isn’t valid to feel the way we’re feeling. Emphasizing “everything happens for a reason” in the context of tragedies like COVID-19, racial injustice, illness and disability, poverty and homelessness, and more is hurtful to those of us in the midst of those hardships. Hardships do not always happen for a reason, and being upset in these situations is justified. These attempts at "looking on the bright side" exacerbate feelings of disconnection and add insult to injury by shaming someone for their feelings. Although unintentional, the focus on the positive shuts down the conversation.

    I hope to normalize and hold space for the feeling of loneliness, especially for those of us with rare, stigmatized, or marginalized experiences. It’s okay to not feel okay. And it makes perfect sense that we feel isolated and disconnected at times. This does not mean we forever wallow in isolation. We can learn from our sadness and loneliness to make the most out of our situations. The only way we can really do that though is by accepting our circumstances, good and bad. I accept that my life with a rare disability will be lonely, and this loneliness does not prevent me from living a meaningful life. Instead, it is the acceptance of my loneliness that motivates me to share my story, connect with others, and advocate for and empower vulnerable and underrepresented populations. 

Myths About Blindness

Amidst the current resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, I have come across admirable efforts to educate. I have appreciated the black creators of literature, podcasts, music, and memoirs for helping me better understand racism. I have benefitted tremendously by the willingness of people of color to share their experience to inform white people like myself who have not experienced racial oppression.  I write this not to dilute or distract from the potency of racism in the United States, but instead because I wish to share in efforts to elucidate realities about marginalized experiences. Before my vision deteriorated, I admittedly had no concept for blindness.  My lived experience and connection to members of the blind community have given me a more nuanced perspective, and I hope to share this information to help answer questions or clarify misconceptions about blindness.

Myth: Blind people see all black.

Fact: Blindness is a spectrum, and many blind people have some functional vision. On one end of the blindness spectrum is seeing absolutely nothing. Though I haven't had this experience, I have heard that for most, the experience is not seeing all black, but instead is an absence of sight. Have you eaten something with your nose clogged - and not kind of clogged,  but completely totally clogged? If so, you have likely experienced being unable to taste. You could not describe the flavor because there is an absence of information. That lack of input is what blindness is like. There simply is no visual information. On the other end of the blindness spectrum is the threshold of legal blindness. A visual acuity worse than 20/200 with correction (glasses or contact lenses) constitutes legal blindness. This means that even with correction, the legally blind person sees from 20 feet away what a typically-sighted person can see from 200 feet. Although everyone’s visual experience is a little different, for me, when I saw 20/200, I could recognize people around 15 feet away and read print using enlarged text (e.g. 24 pt font). Complete lack of sight is rare; most blind people perceive some light and shapes.

Myth: Blindness is stable.

Fact: Many forms of blindness lead to differences from day to day and over the course of weeks and years. Blindness varies between people and within people over time. I experience fluctuations I affectionally referred to as “bad vision days.” My cause of vision loss is degenerative, which means it continues to change over time. Even within a day, my degree of functional vision changes dramatically. I hear this facet of blindness is hard for sighted people to understand sometimes. I like to describe it as more intense experiences of typical visual fluctuations. For example, most sighted people will have a difficult time seeing upon walking into a dark room after being outside in the sun. Most sighted people will experience eyestrain after using a laptop for long hours. For me, these visual changes are far more exaggerated and longer-lasting, and generalizes to other visual experiences like glare. 

Myth: Blind people like to feel faces.

Fact: I have never met or heard of a blind person wanting to feel others’ faces. That is all.

Myth: When someone loses sight, their other senses get stronger.

Fact: When someone loses sight, they may learn ways to rely on other senses more, and reliance on other senses can lead to changes in the brain. My senses of hearing, taste, smell, and touch work the same way they did before I lost my sight. I have, however, learned to use other senses in lieu of vision. To illustrate, I use my sense of touch to determine whether a surface is clean. Using my sense of touch instead of vision does not inherently mean my sense of touch is stronger. Over time though, I have spent years relying on non-visual senses and I have now trained myself to use these senses. For instance, I have learned to listen to books and podcasts at increasing speeds, often four to five times the average listening speed. Though I have no way of confirming, I imagine this has changed my brain's wiring. 

Myth: You can tell if someone is blind.

Fact: You usually cannot tell someone is blind. Though some people use assistive tools like white canes and guide dogs, many blind people do not. A Google search indicates that only 2-8% of blind people use white canes and 5% use guide dogs. The vast majority of blind people, like myself, often navigate without a visible form of mobility assistance. It is also a myth that you can tell someone is blind by looking at their eyes. While some blind people have forms of vision loss that influence their eye movements and focus, many blind people can and will direct their gaze to where they are focusing even with very low functional vision. I have been told I appear to make eye contact most of the time, despite the reality that when I look at someone they disappear into my blindspot.

Myth: Blind people wear dark sunglasses all the time.

Fact: Some blind people wear sunglasses or tinted lenses, some do not, and others’ use varies. Because there are diverse causes of vision loss and diverse experiences of vision, some people benefit from tinted lenses. Personally, I have learned that blue light blocking glasses are really helpful for reducing eye strain. I also wear dark sunglasses outdoors and benefit from green-tinted lenses when it is cloudy. I am especially sensitive to glare and will wear sunglasses inside if the sun is shining in, otherwise I usually only wear blue-light blocking lenses indoors. Lenses come in diverse shades - amber, green, yellow - and it can be helpful to work with a low vision specialist to try out the various options.

Myth: Blind people don’t care about appearance.

Fact: Many blind people care about appearances; there are diverse preferences just as there are with sighted people. Blind people can and do care to create an aesthetic in their style and in their physical spaces. How? Many blind people have had some sight and may have visual preferences. Many also rely on sighted people for assistance. My friends and family know my preferences, often better than I do, and help me identify items that express who I am. Again, blind people come in all varieties - some like doing their make-up, some like decorating their homes, some take immense pleasure in fashion. 

A key thread across many of these myths pervades across culture and identity, there is diversity in lived experiences, preferences, and expressions. Some blind people are obsessed with interior design. Some blind people use a cane. Some blind people wear tinted glasses. Not all blind people cannot see anything. And frankly, no blind people go around touching people's faces. A step towards mitigating bias and discrimination is creating empathy through understanding. Did this answer questions you had about blindness? Would you like to learn more? If there are other myths you’re curious about, please feel free to leave a comment or email. Admittedly, I find the longer I’m blind, the less I recall my preconceptions of blindness, and I may be missing key assumptions!

Black Lives Matter

Our country has failed to take action to protect American lives yet again. The global pandemic has disproportionately impacted black and brown communities, and as the country begins reopening, we have witnessed even more truly horrific and senseless murders and violence against black lives. Like many, I feel small and incapable of change. I have hesitated to write this, or post on social media, feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the systemic injustices contributing to these issues. I have questioned, who am I to say something? What would saying something do anyway? It is the longstanding silence and inaction that lets this continue. Even though it is difficult,  I have to use my voice and my privilege. This blog may not be the ideal forum, but I have to say something somewhere.

As I walked my dog after the Oakland curfew last night, I felt terror about the police and violence around me. I very quickly checked my privilege – I am a young white woman walking a white fluffy dog. I am not going to be a target. My heart broke upon the repeated realization that black and brown people are targets in ways I never have to feel, and it is a sign of my extraordinary privilege that I only fleetingly feel fear of the police. Especially after seeing the video of the woman in Central Park who weaponized race to target an innocent black man, I recognize inherently that I am part of the problem. My ancestors created this system. I am committed to doing the work to be part of reconciliation and progress.

I feel sadness, anger, grief, guilt, and outrage. I’m tired and overwhelmed and emotionally drained. I also recognize that my privilege shields me from so much of the pain and suffering black and brown communities feel, where there is more hurt, more desperation, more exhaustion. I see how devastating it is for our president to value things over lives; how hurtful it is for the media to criticize methods of protest; how scary it is not to be protected by the police; but instead to be targeted. I can only imagine the hurt that I do not see, that my privilege continues to protect me from.

Although I couldn’t possibly write this without briefly gesturing to the pervasive and chronic suffering people of color experience, I know that it is not my place to claim others’ pain. Instead, I hope to listen and learn, as well as share my perspective of identifying and claiming my white privilege. I can do better; I can be better.

How?

First, I’m listening to black and brown voices and learning to check my biases and assumptions. Because it is not the responsibility of my black friends and colleagues to educate me, I’m reading books, listening to podcasts, and watching documentaries. I’m humbly and nondefensively welcoming ideas on how I can become more self-aware and improve. I’m informing myself on how to best be an ally and an advocate. Some books that I have appreciated include:

• Between the World and Me
• White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism
• So you want to talk about race
• The Inner Work of Racial Justice: Healing Ourselves and Transforming Our Communities Through Mindfulness

Part of listening and learning means holding up nuance. This means appreciating that my truth is not the only truth. This means celebrating progress made and simultaneously shouting that it isn’t good enough. This means condemning police brutality and demanding police accountability while promoting positive examples of community policing. This means sharing diverse and complex stories of people of color, stories of suffering, and of thriving and of frivolity.

Second, I’m taking action to support. As a white person, I’ve found it helpful to pull from resources like these to identify actions like supporting black-owned businesses, boycotting companies notorious for exploiting prison labor, and increasing representation of diverse voices. I’m just getting started and am on the lookout for more ways to get involved, and wanted to share some of these resources for those interested:

• Anti-Racism Resource Guide
• #blacklivesmatter resources
• Anti-Racism Resources
• 75 Things White People Can Do
• How You Can Be An Ally to the Black Lives Matter Movement

Third, I’m giving what I can. As a graduate student, I can’t offer a lot financially, but there are so many organizations doing excellent work that could use additional support. Here are just a few: #blacklivesmatter,  National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center, United Negro College Fund, Black Youth Project 100, Color of Change, The Sentencing Project, Families against Mandatory Minimums, A New Way of Life, and Dream Defenders.

And finally, I’m using my voice. Although I’m listening and learning first, I also want to use my privilege to call attention to what is happening and amplify black and brown voices.  I can use my voice to advocate for change. I also hope to model speaking out, doing the work, and learning from my mistakes. To the black and brown communities who have suffered so greatly, the least I can do is speak up and say I see you, your life matters, and I am with you.

Crip Time

Over the past months of shelter-in-place, I have felt the disconnect between crip time and linear time. Crip time refers to the difference in time for people with disabilities. We're late because our available transit options take longer. We can't work 9-5 because our bodies can't. We engage in countless hours of invisible labor to get the accommodations we need. I've been writing a piece on crip time, as well as a piece on my debilitating eye strain migraines with all I do now on screens, but because of those limitations I have not yet finished those pieces.  So, rather than offer my own thoughts, I want to encourage you to read this beautiful essay that describes the diverse implications of crip time: https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/5824/4684

"Crip time is time travel. Disability and illness have the power to extract us from linear, progressive time with its normative life stages and cast us into a wormhole of backward and forward acceleration, jerky stops and starts, tedious intervals and abrupt endings. Some of us contend with the impairments of old age while still young; some of us are treated like children no matter how old we get. The medical language of illness tries to reimpose the linear, speaking in terms of the chronic, the progressive, and the terminal, of relapses and stages. But we who occupy the bodies of crip time know that we are never linear, and we rage silently—or not so silently—at the calm straightforwardness of those who live in the sheltered space of normative time."

Invisible & Hypervisible

I am often both invisible and hypervisible, in a paradoxical and misunderstood dialectic. Through the brilliant, witty, and endearing podcast AcadaDames, I was introduced to this terminology of invisible and hypervisible from black feminism to describe the experience of many women of color in academia. One of the hosts, Whitney, explained how she experiences this paradox as a tenured professor at a competitive research university. On the one hand, people often ignore or forget she’s in meetings and question her status, assuming “oh you must be a post doc.” There is an invisibility about who she is. At the same time, she experiences hypervisibility as a “token” person of color who literally stands out in white spaces.


I empathize with this paradox as a disabled woman in able-bodied spaces. I feel invisible when others forget about my disability and related access needs, express disinterest in how I access the world, or when people in my building avoid or ignore me when I’m using my cane. Though my cane is meant to signal that I may need space since I can’t see, I still want to socialize when passing in the hall - I just have to know you’re there! At the same time, (I'm told that) people stare at me. I stand out because there aren’t norms or models for how to accommodate blindness in able-bodied spaces. When colleagues instrumentalist my disability status by asking me to “speak on behalf of the disabled” or evaluate the accessibility of an event or platform, my disabled identity is made hypervisible.


Beyond the invisible and hypervisible aspects of my disabled identity, there is a hypervisibility and invisibility about how I work. At surface, my work is literally hypervisible to others with sight: my magnified screen can be seen from quite far away. I can’t subtly check my email without others seeing me bring my screen to my face, being able to read my magnified content or hearing my text-to-speech. My work is also invisible because I do everything, and I do mean nearly everything, differently than someone sighted. I “read” by listening. I adapt the conventional roles of clinical work by requesting that my clients read worksheets and responses out loud. The ways I access the world are often invisible to those around me.


I still succumb to pressures to appear able-bodied; at times I strategically seek to make my disability invisible. I laugh along when I haven't seen what's funny, I turn my screen away so others cannot see my magnification, I use headphones when using VoiceOver or text-to-speech so no one hears how I’m accessing materials, and I won’t use my cane if it’s not needed. I often don’t want to call attention to my disability because it may mark how I don’t fit in with academic or social norms. I find this to be one of the most tragic consequences of this visibility paradox. We are shamed into believing we don’t belong. Why is my way of doing things worse than yours? Why is my body not worthy of being seen as it is? Why do I need to change myself or how I access the world to help the able-bodied feel more comfortable? I've learned that my attempts to downplay my disability often backfire and promote additional invisibility and pain.


At times, I need to make my disabled identity hypervisible. An unfortunate lesson about reasonable accommodations that I’ve had to learn repeatedly is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. This means that I need to announce my low vision early and often to ensure others’ accommodate my needs. This hypervisibility comes at a cost: it can be both exhausting and limiting. Pre-empting access needs and alerting all relevant parties requires attention to detail, coordination, and lots of nagging. I am more than my disability and related accommodation needs, and the often imbalanced hypervisibility of this aspect of my identity, although necessary for communicating access needs, can trigger lack of belonging and perceived burdensomeness.


As seemingly contradictory as it sounds, I experience sight in a similar paradox of hyper visible and invisible. One of the complicated parts of being somewhere on the low vision spectrum is that I cannot relate fully to the sighted or the blind experience. In many ways, I have sight: I see colors, shapes, and textures. In other ways, I lack sight: I cannot read words strung together or recognize people or faces. To the blind, I am hyper sighted; to the sighted, I am hyper blind. Consistently inconsistent, I am blind and sighted, invisible and hypervisible.

Covid-19, what else?

As the global pandemic hold us captive, I find myself reflecting on the unique individual experience that culminates in shared suffering around covid-19. We’re all struggling through unforeseen challenges amidst these unexpected and uncertain times. The exact nature of those challenges is idiosyncratic, and, of course, intersects with identity. In this post, I’ll share a bit about my frustration, grief, and fear as an academic with a physical disability.


Around the globe, covid-19 has necessitated that companies and schools make accommodations: working from home, recording meetings for those unable to attend in real time, alternative formats of materials. Seemingly overnight, workflows have been revolutionized. The widespread search for adaptation has me thinking a lot about willingness and motivation. Now more than ever we have technological innovations that enable us to consider novel strategies for more flexible working and learning conditions. I’m so incredibly grateful for how rapidly my institution has established infrastructure to enable remote work. At the same time, I want to scream from the rooftops “why did it take so long!?”People with disabilities and caregiving responsibilities have been requesting accommodations like these for years. Those with chronic illnesses have pleaded for flexible attendance policies and the ability to record meetings and classes. I’ve begged instructors and employers to provide me with alternative formats, such as enlarged or digital materials compatible with text-to-speech or voiceover software. Although it is fortunate that advent of the coronavirus has necessitated additional adaptability and flexibility,, I am disappointed these steps are only taken once the able-bodied need them.


Accommodations historically deemed impossible are now widely available. The swift actions taken in the last few weeks confirm many of these accommodations have been feasible all along, there simply hasn’t been sufficient willingness and motivation. Because these requests have historically been made by the disabled, these requests have been seen as “too much:” too costly, too cumbersome, too individualized, too unsustainable. Now that the able-bodied have the same requests, companies and schools are now finding a way. My hope is that the uncomfortable and frustrating experience of learning new ways to live provides empathy for those with disabilities who must make adaptations all day, every day. Living in an able-bodied world as someone who is physically disabled requires creatively adapting and redesigning environments that were not designed for our bodies. My experiences adapting to my changing visual needs have taught me problem-solving, flexibility, patience, and persistence. Covid-19 is forcing the able-bodied to adapt and redesign now too, and I’m hopeful that experience will cultivate greater willingness to brainstorm and implement reasonable accommodations for others.


On the one hand, the shifts to remote work provide much needed and overdue accommodations, on the other, many of these tools and systems are still overlooking accessibility needs. I want to preface the forthcoming diatribe by acknowledging that I am voicing my own suffering, knowing full well that we are all suffering in different ways. My suffering is no better or worse, bigger or smaller, than your or anyone else’s suffering, it is simply my experience. My suffering has taken the form of lack of access and feelings of being unseen. The move to remote systems has required that I learn new software tools and protocols. I’ve been in frequent conversations with other blind academics as we’ve tried to learn these new technologies without sighted assistance. Sadly and unsurprisingly, many of these technologies are not intuitive or compatible with assistive technology. Additionally, during the academic year, I have a sighted assistant through the Disabled Students’ Program who helps me with particularly inaccessible tasks, but I don’t have that assistance now, which means I allocate more of my time to completing less accessible tasks, often leaving me feeling inadequate, frustrated, and exhausted.


Alongside these practical challenges, I’ve also felt the painful isolation of being unseen. When discussing the move to phone-based clinical sessions for my client, one of my clinical supervisors remarked “you couldn’t possibly deliver that type of intervention without being able to see the client!” Ahem, as a blind therapist I can never see the client. And I don’t believe that has made me a failed clinician. Likewise, in meetings and classes, many of my peers and colleagues commiserate about how hard it is not to see people’s faces and body language or experience the joy of mingling at the office. These benign and well-intentioned remarks make me feel isolated because I’ve experienced the difficulty and pain of of being unable to see others’ faces or engage in passive social interaction for a long time. My peers and colleagues validate each other about how unexpectedly challenging these conditions are, and I find myself wanting to shout, “It is hard, right? It’s lonely, isn’t it?” When I’m feeling less bitter, I want to offer how I’ve adapted to these and other obstacles presented by social-distancing, though I recognize that my colleagues are coping with temporary inconvenience, while I am coping with longstanding grief.


I’ve seen some compelling pieces that describe ways in which people with disabilities may be more or less equipped to navigate the challenges of social distancing (e.g. this thoughtful Forbes piece). People with disabilities are accustomed to being socially isolated, often because we’re misunderstood, excluded by design, institutionalized, or neglected. Many of the activities that have been taken away from the able-bodied during social distancing were taken away from me a long time ago. Depending on the disability, we may be more or less accustomed to solitude and isolation, and therefore may have an important perspective to offer about how to cope with lack of access to the external world.


A common thread in conversations about the pandemic is how “most of us” will be fine. I want to take a moment to talk about the “rest of us” who may not be as fine. Those with chronic health conditions and disabilities are often immune-suppressed and at heightened risk. There is now a widespread understanding that the healthcare system will not be able to treat everyone. So who will be chosen to receive care? Those most likely to survive. This means that many with disabilities and chronic illness will be deprived of treatment to preserve others’ lives. I understand that in times of scarcity we must prioritize, and I also want to hold space for the extraordinary pain of being determined by society as dispensable. I feel fear and sadness for my friends and loved ones who fall into this category, as the “rest of us” who are likely to experience diminished access to healthcare, irreversible health consequences, or death as a result of covid-19 are not any less human, any less loved, or any less valuable.


Whether we are part of the “most’ or the “rest,” we are still here, and we have a responsibility to keep living, keep growing, and keep fighting, pandemic and all. This absolutely does not mean that we proceed with normalcy, because nothing about this is normal. The messaging I’ve been receiving from several fellow academics is that this pandemic presents an opportunity to write more papers, analyze more data, and promote our careers (and apparently many grad students are having this experience). I want to challenge the desperate desire for productivity by suggesting an alternative. Hold space for yourselves and your emotions. I have experienced frustration adapting my workflow and fear for my loved one alongside immense gratitude for the joys in my life. I’ve enjoyed connecting with and serving my communities, and am now a fan of virtual yoga classes, book clubs, and coffee dates. I’ve relished in the time and space to connect with my loved ones, albeit in innovative ways. We are suffering, and we are alive. As we experience what it means to be alive during a pandemic, I hope we can also maintain our compassion, flexibility, and patience. We are all in this together, even if we are maintaining 6-feet of distance between one another.

Hindsight is 20/20, Even When Blind

The New Year provides an ideal opportunity to reflect on the passage of time, both another year and another decade. As a self-identified self-improvement junkie, this is one of my favorite seasons. I cherish the opportunity to assess progress and prioritize new goals. 

An area of my life worthy of reflection in 2020 is my lack of 20/20. And yep, I’ve now exhausted the vision-related puns. This has been the first decade I've lived legally blind, and along this journey I’ve learned about myself and my values, identity and intersectionality. I started the decade timid, insecure, and desperate to conceal my vision loss and its pervasive effects on my life. I used assistive tools, but I tried to limit the extent to which others saw me adapting. I jokingly blamed my vision-related blinders on being clumsy or having a poor memory, because I feared the repercussions of exposing myself. Over time, I’ve learned not to feel shame for doing things differently. I’ve gained skills using my other senses, such as listening to text at high speeds and applying make-up by feel. As I began accepting and embracing my vision loss and my disabled identity, I moved into more disabled spaces. I trained (and since retired) my first service dog, completed training in orientation and mobility (i.e. use a white can and listen to traffic signals), learned the basics of Braille, and wrote one published academic paper and over forty blog posts related to my lived experience with blindness. 

I’m grateful for these insights and experiences, and I will continue working on my relationship with my disabled identity in this upcoming decade. Living with a disability requires immense self-advocacy, and assertiveness has not historically been my strongest attribute. Whether I'm asking for a friend to guide me or negotiating reasonable accommodations from an employer, I hope to continue improving my ability to identify and communicate my needs across diverse settings. As an academic, I spend considerable time in my head. I love playing with new ideas and thinking about how to communicate them. But, I tend to get a bit stuck. I have nearly 50 somewhat-written blog posts that I “still need to finalize.” Moving forward, I strive to do more and think less in order to share more of my self and my work. 

In line with this goal, I am going to post this before vetting it thoroughly and tweaking it relentlessly. This is what it looks like to voice vulnerability and I’m doing it in 2020.