Disability is Not a Competition.
I write often on this page about the need for ME patients to unite across the severity spectrum. However, there is a larger issue of competition within the disability community as a whole that is deeply rooted in ableism and is very counterproductive to successful activism. In this post I will break down the two main ways this competition persists:
The Disability Olympics
The Inspirational Success
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The Disability Olympics - What it is?
This sort of competition is rooted in the idea that disabled or chronically ill people must be "sick enough" to deserve treatment, accommodations, benefits, etc.
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The Disability Olympics - How it works?
This competition manifests as either judging others who are not seen as "sick enough" to represent a certain illness or comparing illnesses as more or less legitimate disabilities. It can also show up as feeling the need to post every hospital visit, medication, treatment etc. To "prove" how sick you are.
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The Disability Olympics - Why it harms?
Judging others' disabilities is never okay. Yes, it can be frustrating to see people with far milder illnesses get loads of followers because their lives are more aesthetic, but they are still suffering and when we internally try to judge who is "sick enough" to represent the disability community all we do is reinforce ableist beliefs that some people with disabilities are more worthy of care than others. Even if a post does not directly call out someone else, it can still be feeding into this narrative if it implies that a certain hospital admission or treatment makes your illness more legitimate than others.
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The Inspirational Success - What it is?
This sort of competition is based on the idea that successful people are able to "overcome" their disability by force of will.
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The Inspirational Success - How it works?
This type of competition manifests in posts about success and recovery. It frames the poster as being a successful person because they have achieved a goal "despite" their disability. It can also be combined with the disability Olympics by talking about where you were at your worst to prove how much sickness you have "overcome." For example the "I was bedbound and now I am a motivational speaker."
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The Inspirational Success - Why it harms?
While everyone has a right to be proud of their accomplishments and disabled people doubly so, this becomes a problematic behavior when you frame your story as a battle between you and your illness. This reinforces the ableist idea that disabled people are either successes or failures based on how hard they fought their disability. It assumes that disability and success are mutually exclusive and that being successful comes about by "defeating" the terrible chronic illness.
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The Trend
What both of these methods of competition have in common is that they are based on the myth that disabled people are either a success or failure based on how hard they are trying to "overcome" their disability or chronic illness. Whether this takes the form of being extremely sick or being extremely successful despite illness, either way, the need to prove ourselves comes from this internalized belief that we need to prove how hard we are working to fight our illness.
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The Truth
The reality is that every single disabled person is trying their best to live the best life they can. Whether someone is "successful" as a disabled person is based on the ableist judgments of a society that does not know how to comprehend the chronic illness and the daily struggles it poses. When we compete with each other based on these internalized beliefs the only winner is ableism.
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Disability is not a competition. Chronic illness is not a competition.
The need to compete is often rooted in two different types of competition both of which are ultimately expressions of internalized ableism.
The Disability Olympics is the need to prove we are "sick enough" to warrant respect and care. The reality is every chronically ill person deserves respect and care. There is no threshold at which you "deserve" medical attention, you deserved medical care for anything that affects your day-to-day life enough to seek it.
TheInspirationalSuccess is the opposite. Proving you have "overcome" enough hurdles to be worthy of respect. But there is no way to see all the invisible, systemic barriers that each person faces. Nor the privilege that allows some people to "overcome" when others fail. Everyone deserves respect for fighting their daily struggle.
I am not saying that having a serious medical issue does not deserve attention. I am not saying that doing something noteworthy does not deserve acknowledgment. But there are ways to present both that do not inadvertently feed into ableism.
If you have a serious medical issue to talk about focus on your experience and the personal effect it has on your symptoms and mood rather than on test results or medical treatment. Your suffering is what makes this an emergency, not which ward of the hospital you are in. Absolutely share your story, but do so in a way that validates others rather than putting down those who do not have access to the same treatments as you.
If you have a success story to share make sure you emphasize the luck and privilege that allowed you to heal. While you deserve to have your hard work and success acknowledged, do so in a way that does not imply anyone can copy your success. You were able to succeed alongside your disability or illness. That's great. But disability is not just an obstacle to overcome, it is a life-changing permanent part of you and that needs acknowledgment as well. As does the fact that not everyone's goals are compatible with their bodies.
In summary, sharing our stories is good and important, but we can do so in a way that does not feed unconscious ableism.
