ON DISABLED STUDENT STATUS (original) (raw)

In my current role of outspoken mental health destigmatiser I would like to apologise and I would also like to uncomfortably admit that there have been times when I have been part of the problem. Like the fact that I am a feminist but have had Blurred Lines, despite how much I vocally despise it, stuck in my head and have listened to it on repeat to try and oust it from my brain on numerous occasions, thus increasing the number of Youtube hits it had bla bla bla.

I am, for the most part, (I mean look at this blog for goodness’ sake) open about mental health and my issues therewith. I often feel ashamed about it but not to the point where I will try and hide it at all costs from the people around me. As much as I hate my self-harm scars, in the summer I will wander round in a t-shirt and shorts rather than cover up in a long-sleeved top and jeans and overheat. As much as I hate having to say I’ve been ill to explain missing a deadline, at university I will send an e-mail outlining the fact that I have struggled to get out of bed or read or concentrate and I will get the essay done when I’m better rather than turn in a passable half-arsed piece of work written underneath my duvet and not really learn anything. I don’t wander round purposefully making people uncomfortable; if they’re uncomfortable, that’s my problem, not theirs.

Actually, sometimes I do abuse the fact that I know I can very easily make people uncomfortable – there have been numerous occasions when I’ve been creeped on in nightclubs and all I’ve had to do is brandish my arms and divulge my scary-sounding diagnosis and then stand back and watch the creeper disappear. (NB this doesn’t always work, once the creeper retorted that he had been hospitalised once and that we had so much in common and I had to bolt after shouting “JUST BECAUSE WE BOTH HAVE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES DOESN’T GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO TOUCH ME”.)

I know I may be in a way contributing to the problem by deliberately playing on people’s assumptions and prejudices to get them to go away, but when you’re drunk and in a small, dark sweaty hellhole, going into the finer points of feminism and why it isn’t OK for you to be hounded because x y z isn’t really an option. I’d rather go for the shock tactic. I’m not apologising for that.

What I would like to apologise for is this. Last year I was the Disabilities Rep for my college Equal Opps committee, and multiple times when somebody I didn’t really know asked me what rep I was I’d tell them and then catch them giving me a quick once over. I could pretty much guess their reaction “BUT, BUT, BUT YOU DON’T SEEM TO HAVE A PHYSICAL DISABILITY” and I’d have to look uncomfortable and they’d look uncomfortable and that would be the end of that. Or, I have told people and then said “Well I’m a disabled student” and then they said “What?” and I’d say “Yeah well I kind of erm struggle with erm depression and erm I’m eligible for disabled erm student erm status so I thought I’d just erm apply you know?” and then I looked uncomfortable and they looked uncomfortable and that would be the end of that. Or they’d say “Well you’re not really disabled are you? Like you’re not ‘can’t walk’ disabled” and I’d say “Yeah I know I just get sad now and then haha you know” and that would be the end of that.

What I would like to say to “Well you’re not really disabled are you? Like you’re not ‘can’t walk’ disabled” (this is an actual quote I haven’t made this up) is this:
1) Well observed. No I do not have any problems with my mobility.
2) Disability and being disabled is not a term restricted to those who have mobility impairment.
3) I struggle with a long-term mental health problem that can negatively affect my life and my capacity to function. Whilst I do not have the struggles that, for the sake of argument, somebody with mobility issues might have, I do have my own struggles that set me back in comparison to my non-disabled student peers.
4) Disabled student status means that people have to legally acknowledge my illness and can’t be dickish about it. It also means I get access to therapy when I’m at university that helps me to learn to manage my problems and gives me support. This makes people treat me equally to and means I can function on the same level as my peers.
5) This is why I have disabled student status

Now I feel less guilty for all the times I haven’t said this. As you were.