Living with a Psychiatric Disability

Content warning: mental illness, suicidal ideation, and discrimination about disabilities.

There is a reality within the disability community that can create a chasm and difficulty knowing if one belongs. This issue? Visible versus invisible disabilities. Visible disabilities are more evident to passersby — some examples that come to mind are people who use wheelchairs, those with prosthetic limbs or hands, blind people, and people who have Tourette’s, tremors, or an artificial larynx. This is not to say that people with visible disabilities spend time trying to alienate those with invisible disabilities from shared community. Living with an invisible disability often means internalizing certain emotions about what you “should” be able to do.

It is often oppressively difficult for disabled people to find:

Invisible disabilities have their own unique set of advantages and disadvantages. For example, it is often more possible for people with invisible disabilities to move around in the world without being “outed” as disabled. We are less likely to be seen as “harmless,” incompetent, or any other number of offensive and incorrect stereotypes. It is also harder for employers to initially reject us for employment.

Sometimes disabilities regarding mental health diagnoses are not taken seriously, making it harder for disabled people to ask for workplace…

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