When I was in high school, I knew something was wrong with me. There were many days where I felt like I had lost all purpose in living. I remember crying a lot in my high school years. My chest would feel tight, the air would get thick, and my mind would race with negative […]
Class and Disability
Invisible disabilities and class
I’d like to open a discussion about class and invisible disabilities. I am a lower-class womyn with a disability called Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. I come from a poverty background in Brooklyn.I incurred this disability because of the work I did to get out of poverty in my 20’s. I am now 65 and have had […]
Psychiatry and the Imposition of Upper Middle Class Values
Psychiatrists do not have objective tests to confirm their diagnoses. They are often imposing Upper Middle Class values on their patients and then calling it “scientific” diagnosis. The National Institutes of Health in May of 2013 declared the methods of American Psychiatry as “lacking in validity” and that “patients deserve better”. Their key criticism was they have […]
The Others
Recently I was walking on the platform at a subway station. I didn’t knock into anyone, nor did I ask anyone to move. I just put myself in the queue, like all the other worker bees. A woman grazed me as she hurried past me, bumping my cane and almost forcing me to fall. I […]
Becoming “The Others”
There are so many ways to suddenly become disabled – a fall, a virus gone rogue, bike accident, stroke, tick bite, infection that causes blindness or deafness or loss of a limb, a car running a red light. All of us are one moment, one misstep away from our lives being turned inside out. Because […]
Shame, School Lunch, and Passing
When I was in sixth grade, my family was eligible for free school lunches. I attended a small country school, without much class diversity, mostly farmers, some without indoor toilets in their homes. Even so, when I gave my lunch ticket to the student appointed to collect them, I noticed and she noticed that there […]
Poverty and Disability: the Vicious Circle
I first started to look at disability as a class issue when 18 of our members from Piedmont Peace Project and I attended a national peace movement conference in Atlanta. Six of us were disabled and three in wheelchairs, including me. No other group had visibly disabled people present, although I’m sure some hidden disabilities […]
The Class Nightmare of Disability
Seeking instant invisibility? Displacement from society? Separation from the shared life expectations of friends, family and colleagues? If so, become disabled. Visible or invisible, commonly recognized or incomprehensible, causing odd tics or socially-unacceptable behaviors, your disability will likely make you actively ignored by others or looked at like a circus freak. (“Mommy, why is that […]
