General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: On Being Disabled [View all]Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)I could actually function through it - but if I don't take the time to lay around doing nothing with my neck on a properly supported heating pad, the spasm continues for weeks.
But my point was more that even with a fairly severe disability for certain things, there are many things which I can do easily that would lead someone with a "people with "real" back injuries can't do this checklist" to decide I was faking it. Disability checklists (i.e. presumptions about how a particular disability will impact everyone with that disability) just don't work - and they make it a lot harder for those of us with anything other than the standard manifestation of a particular impairment because we not only have to live with the disability, but we have to live with the scorn heaped on us by those who believe we are faking it.
Personally, I'm not impaired from earning a living - I use my mind, rather than my body. But I could easily have ended up on permanent disability if I relied on my body to earn my living - for example if I had come from a different family, with different expectations about the importance of education or had decided (as a friend did) that his body was for rent; but his mind was not,