“You’re almost there.” a man’s voice disturbs my concentration as I tap my white cane along the curb edge waiting to feel the tactile pavement that indicates the bus stop.
“Yes, I know.” I say as my cane finds the raised lines in the sidewalk. I stop walking.
“I’m a bus driver.” he says as if this makes him an expert on helping blind people. “The pole is just to your right.”
“I know.” I say again this time with a tight smile.
“What bus are you looking for?” he asks excitedly, keen to help. “This is the 152.”
“Yes, I know,” I repeat through gritted teeth. “That’s the one I want.”
“Have a nice day.” he says cheerfully, as he walks away clueless that I’m offended.
But why are you offended, you ask? He was just trying to be helpful. What’s wrong with that?
Help is appreciated when needed. It is the assumption that we always need help that is offensive. Microaggressions like this happen all the time. It can be silent invisible hands that grab at me to pull me onto the SkyTrain, assuming I won’t be able to find the open door. The Uber driver who is surprised to learn that I have a job, and yes, that is where I’m headed to today. The strangers on the bus who used to praise my toddler for helping mommy. In all these examples, the underlying message I hear is you are blind therefore you must need help.
Those of us with disabilities raised in a culture that values productivity and independence, often have insecurities and doubts about our competence and ability. This is called internalized ableism. The combination of these negative internal beliefs and
microaggressions can erode self-esteem causing you to feel you must continuously prove your worth. The problem is, that those strangers on the street will never know how capable you are, and even those who know you might still underestimate your abilities at times. So how do you overcome the low-self-esteem that can result from continuous encounters like these?
- Firstly, find a disability affirming counsellor who understands your innate value without you having to prove yourself. You do enough educating through your daily life; you should not have to educate your counsellor about disability-related issues too.
- Practice self-compassion. Having a disability requires extra time, extra preplanning, extra problem-solving, and extra tolerance, and for some of us, a fair amount of masking around others as well. This is exhausting and can result in burnout. Acknowledge the extra work that you do daily and prioritize those activities that regulate your nervous system and/or help to refuel you. This could include rest, time alone, exercise, yoga, meditation, journaling and being in nature. Everything is harder when we’re tired, and even more so when experiencing burnout.
- Connect to your community. Living in a society that largely embraces a medical model of disability – one that believes something is wrong with our bodies but cannot be fixed – takes a significant toll on our self-esteem. Connecting to a community of peers who understand normalizes your experience of feeling less than. You are not alone.
- Confront and challenge your own assumptions about your disability. You may believe you are limited; however, when you are welcomed with an attitude of inclusion and willingness to accommodate, there is always a way to achieve your goals. My blindness does not disable me from reading if I can access print material in an electronic format on a computer with a screen reader. A person in a wheelchair is much less disabled when there is a ramp into a building, a working elevator, accessible seating options, and an accessible washroom. In this way, it is not our inability to use our bodies and brains in the same ways as able-bodied people that disables us, but instead the inaccessible environment. This is the social model of disability.
- Cognitive reframing: Believing we are not as good, valued, important as able-bodied people , or that we don’t have much to contribute to a friend, life partner, or employer can cause us to avoid putting ourselves out there. What if we started to consider our strengths and instead view ourselves as the interesting, resilient, excellent problem-solvers that we are. People with disabilities have a unique and valuable lived experience and perspective to bring to any workplace and relationship, and reframing the way you view your disability will help you to show up with more confidence.
So, the next time you feel talked down to, under estimated, or pitied because of your disability, remember that you are good enough exactly as you are!
