Invisible disabilities, inspiration porn and cripplepunk.
You thought pride month was over, didn’t you? Let me introduce you to the second, equally as important pride month: disability pride month. As a disabled person, I think it’s pretty rad that I get two pride months. The disability pride flag is quite pretty, too.
The flag’s colours have the following meanings:
Red represents physical disabilities
Yellow is for neurodiversity
White is for invisible disabilities
Blue is for emotional and psychiatric disabilities
Green is for sensory disabilities
The faded black background is for mourning and rage, for the victims of ableist violence and abuse.
What’s it like to have an invisible disability?
The world, when having an invisible disability, is one of perpetual judgement. You’ll sit on the disabled seat on the bus, only to be told that you look perfectly fine and to move. Do you announce your diagnosis to the world, or do you let it slide? No one, not even other people with the same illness in some cases, believes you.
I have fully had another fibromyalgia patient say I don’t have fibromyalgia because I seemed too energetic. Yet when I am unable to get out of bed, I should try harder. “My cousin with the same disability can work a 9-5, you should be able to as well!”.
I spend my days wishing for a cure that will never come, mourning my lost abilities. Sure, there’s a possibility that they’re studying a cure for fibromyalgia right now, but some people don’t even believe its real, so what can I really do?
Inspiration porn
Disabled people are victims of inspiration porn, this is no less true for those with invisible disabilities. Very often news articles will be written about how *amazing* it is that an autistic person managed to get a job at all, not focusing on the fact that they’re burning themselves out in order to do so.
Disabled people will very often burn themselves out in order to fit into regular society, but that doesn't get clicks and inspire people, now does it? I burnt myself out on a regular 9-5 and now cannot work due to chronic pain, not very inspirational.
Cripplepunk and why it’s important
Cripplepunk, coined in 2014 on tumblr by Tyler Trewhella (RIP) is an incredibly important antithesis to inspiration porn. The principles of cripplepunk include solidarity, rejecting pity and inspiration porn, rejecting the “good cripple” mythos and embracing the other kinds of cripples.
“cripple punk rejects the “good cripple” mythos. cripple punk is here for the bitter cripple, the uninspirational cripple, the smoking cripple, the drinking cripple, the addict cripple, the cripple who hasn’t “tried everything””
- Tyler Trewhella on Tumblr
This is important as disabled people often have to play the role of the “good cripple”, we have an immense amount of pressure to “try everything” to cure ourselves, to be nice and pleasant people, to be inspirational. This is all horseshit.
The good cripple mythos is a one dimensional view of disabled people. It reduces us to objects rather than people, which is why the invention of cripplepunk, and later madpunk for the mentally ill, is so important. It shows that you don’t have to be a cardboard cutout of a person, you can just be you- a fully 3D person.
So being disabled is fun? You get to sleep in all day after all!
Oh, my sweet summer child.
I find the amount of rest I need nowadays to be incredibly frustrating. I can’t get shit done. I’m hoping that ADHD medication changes my energy levels slightly- but I’m not counting on it.
Being disabled is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, yet it’s also something that’s offered me a great deal of community. The #NEISvoid (No end in sight void) bluesky feed is immensely, oddly, comforting. To know that I’m not alone in the fact that there is no end in sight to my suffering is comforting.