My health should not scare you.

Hearing Loss. Chronic Illness. Hearing Impairment. Crohn’s Disease. Although medically necessary (and even then), terminology surrounding disability is not kind to the soul. It does not uplift or inspire, and it does not translate well into conversation, making one person sound inferior over the other.

People often mistake disability for inability.

My accommodations are not an inconvenience; they are adaptations to the niche environment ableist society imposes. One of my biggest fears (that I have almost overcome - maybe) is to ask someone to repeat themselves. A knee jerk reaction for others is to feel hurt because I was not listening. But, what if we give grace to those who we do not know the identities of? For those who question my purpose of repetition, I never steer away from hiding my identity of disability.

I go through the ‘elevator pitch’ of my disability that most applies to the situation. There is a concept in music known as circular breathing, which allows a musician to play through a lengthy piece with only one breath, moving air through the nose and through the instrument. I feel this way as a chain of words together that rope stories from all over my life to tell a professor or teacher why I need them to repeat themselves. This is a big distinction from me wanting them to repeat themselves.

As the whirlwind of my ‘elevator pitch’ comes to a close, I notice the still facial reaction from the person in front of me. There must be gears turning or clicks happening in their mind. Perhaps, they are realizing that their own attitude of the situation was wrong. Or that maybe I shouldn’t have to require to describe my life story in order to hear two sentences.

Eventually, I hear the two sentences I waited for from the professor or teacher.

I do not have an inability to listen, but rather a predisposition to not hear everything.

When we unmask disability by removing negative connotations from the words themselves, we unlock potential to create culture over isolation. If you are curious to why this is a larger problem than you realize, check out the list of disability-related terms with negative connotations, which illuminates a great deal about the power of words.

Because able-bodied people have to make adjustments to their perceptions, they often can feel distanced, and sometimes scared to approach our humanity as they do with everyone else.

My health should not scare you.

My health, when I choose to talk about it, can be a dialogue of experience. There are valuable moments that mesh the culture of disability and ableism when the labels of who we are can be exchanged for the lived experiences that cultivate a shared humanity. I admit that my health scares me sometimes, yet the emotion that can be brought about when something ‘scares’ us can be oriented to all lenses without losing the unique experience we have.

I like to describe myself as a bathroom connoisseur, and as someone who has adaptive hearing. These labels speak to my skill, not someone’s perceived inability of who I am.

Are we as a society ready for a shift in language that highlights the strength or ability of those who identify as disabled? Probably not, but there is no doubt that I will get a kick out of making people confused.

How do you shift the narrative?