![]() He didn’t complain: He had grown up with a “kind of disability code that was common then: minimize the impact, hide it, sweep it aside as a mere personal detail - and get on with your life,” he writes.ĭisability pride, “is the opposite end of the spectrum,” he writes. They insisted he attend grade school with his non-disabled peers, before such accommodations were required by law.Īs one of the first wheelchair-using students at Harvard University, Ben had no choice but to navigate a campus that was just starting to build ramps and equip buses with lifts for wheelchairs. They shouldn’t be exceptional.” A kind of disability codeīen grew up in New York City with parents who had “the emotional and financial resources to try and give me as normal a life as possible,” he says. Disabilities and chronic health conditions shouldn’t make you feel bad about yourself. ![]() “It should all be part of disability pride and understanding. “There are a lot of people out there with things that don’t show and that people don’t understand,” Ben says. Lyme disease, long COVID, autism, dyslexia, and anxiety are all examples of disabilities that are invisible and yet have profound implications on the ways people live and work. But the short-term benefit of simply getting through the day can get in the way of the longer-term goals of creating a world with fewer obstacles and more disability pride, he notes. The obvious answer is that it’s easier to hide an invisible disability like colitis than to cope with people’s reactions.
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