Blessing Dada: "Disability’ Is Not a Dirty Word. Society Ought Not Treat it Like One"

Confronting your ‘isms’ — racism, sexism, ableism — starts with watching what you say and do. Use ‘disabled’. It’s not a dirty word. It’s an accurate descriptor. So, use it.

Disabled people are human. We deserve respect, we deserve to live. It’s a word used with pride. A word reclaimed, one that makes you part of an identity, a community. In itself it’s not a negative or a positive necessarily in terms of describing the person or experience, but something which combines with everything else to make you, you. It’s part of you and that part is important.

Image Description: “Confronting your ‘isms’ — racism, sexism, ableism — starts with watching what you say and do. Use ‘disabled’. It’s not a dirty word. It’s an accurate descriptor. So, use it.”- Blessing Dada

It’s also a word which tells us about its origins and causes. While its use can be seen as a reclaiming, the other part of it is acknowledging that it is us as a society that disable to begin with.

I’m a completely different person to who I was six years ago. Symptoms of my disability began to show when I was a very sporty and healthy 15-year-old and entered secondary school. I became progressively more unsteady on my feet and I developed sensors of pain all over my body and fatigue as the years went by. Fast forwarding to now, my condition had been slowly progressing to the point where I am unable to continue walking sometimes. I refused to use a walking cane even though I knew I needed one as my body would have frequent flare-ups. I have fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia is a central nervous system disorder, and can be described as a central sensitization syndrome, caused by neurobiological abnormalities. This acts to produce physiological pain and cognitive impairments, as well as neuropsychological symptomatology.

Fibromyalgia is still somewhat of a black box to the medical community. It is a diagnosis of exclusion; to get the label, you must have pain in all four quadrants of the body for more than three months. Often, you have at least some of the 18 fibro “tender spots” on your body—on your legs, on your shoulders, on the back of your head—that trigger pain when pressed.

The condition seems to impact the central nervous system. It affects the way the brain processes messages, seeming to misread everyday sensations as full-blown pain signals.

Its complicated and different for everyone. I speak on my own experiences here but hopefully someone reading this will know they’re not alone in this

I had been brainwashed by society’s narratives that I was too young to be unwell and that having a hidden disability would make me taken less seriously by medical professionals. I remember the tears and suicidal ideation over being gaslighted time and time again and would dread appointments. Now idgaf lol

The patronising terms “differently abled” or “special needs” make me roll my eyes. I’ve noticed that it is not people with disabilities using these terms but able-bodied people who need to feel more comfortable discussing the topic of disability.

There is no need to be uncomfortable. According to the Central Statistics Office in 2016, 13.5 per cent of the Irish population had a disability. That’s roughly an average of one in every 10 people. Chances are that somebody you know, somebody you care about, somebody you love is affected by a disability.

I have always felt that without positive discourse, without a sharing of ideas, experiences and feelings, a society can never improve. When people in the disabled community share these experiences, it can help to open a dialog so improvements can be made. Just as importantly, it’s a means for disabled people to commiserate over feelings of discrimination and otherness.

With this in mind, the most important thing anyone can do is to educate themselves about disability issues. Society is in dire need of education, understanding and a complete attitude change when it comes to disability. I don’t think I would have had such a hard time accepting my disability had society not conditioned me to see disability a bad, dirty thing, never to be spoken about openly.

Image text: I have always felt that without positive discourse, without a sharing of ideas, experiences and feelings, a society can never improve. When people in the disabled community share these experiences, it can help to open a dialog so improvements can be made. - Blessing Dada

No two people with disabilities have the same journey to acceptance. Choosing to be open about my disability was a personal choice. It was also made a lot harder for me by having a very hidden disability and also being naturally high functioning, especially with pain tolerance before I became unwell

As a population dominated by abled people, we have built a culture, society and infrastructure that is so inaccessible to some that it disables them.

We are the ones who don’t think to put in wheelchair ramps (at the most basic and bare minimum. We are the ones who don’t think about subtitles for deaf people. We are the ones who cut funding for teacher aids who might help a child with disabilities stay in a classroom with their peers. We are the ones who sit wilfully in disability seats on the bus and have few buses that can even carry people in wheelchairs. It’s society who cause the disability in our inability to make work, education, transport – life itself – equitable. And this pandemic has expose furthermore how ableist society is with an example of sudden changes to college being online. Society is to blame. Using the term disability acknowledges society’s place in that process.

If someone with a disability could move through the world equitably, disability might not be a relevant term anymore.

In conclusion: Being silent about my disability or not engaging with discourse or advocacy wasn’t an option for me, nor would I want it to be. We all want to be seen as an individual beyond a label that may change how people perceive us, and yet, disability is a part of who I am. 

Awareness and accessibility should be a reality, something we actively strive for which motivates us to reach out to disabled communities to find out what they need and what’s important to them. It’s not about equality but equity.

Not all disabilities are visible. Do not diss my abilities. Disability is just another expression of the human experience

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