Hi Friend,
I may not know you yet, but I have been thinking about you for many years. As I was trying to cope with another significant life-changing setback due to my disability, I started longing for a project like Rising Disabled. My mind knew that there were many other people like me in the world, but my heart was breaking, feeling alone, discarded and doomed.
For decades, I had managed to keep up in a society that is often too focused on the abilities of the non-disabled majority. Always with courage beyond frustration and the occasional tears, I was a go-getter. I had made a place, a career for myself, proving that I was intelligent, creative, competent, worthy of trust and praise at least as much, if not more, than the average able-bodied person. But then, life and aging happened, and my disability worsened.
After 40 years old, my tired body started breaking in new ways, so I tried to find new ways to work with my colleagues and employer. Sadly, those who were excited to hire me a year before, following sincere conversations about my disability, were set in their old ways, not willing to change their demands and expectations.
I couldn’t pretend I was Superman overcoming his disability anymore. I had a choice to make: go on disability and remove myself from the active working population or run myself into the ground. I thought I was too young to stop working, but if I wanted to save my health, I didn’t have a choice. Considering all the rules and restrictions involved with being on disability, I couldn’t see any hopeful option for the future. I was angry and depressed.
My family and friends offered love, but I wanted practical solutions to get me out of my pit and back to the life I had worked so hard to build for myself. I found nothing useful online beyond getting approved for government-funded disability benefits. Almost no solution was relevant to my situation, to the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being of people with disability who are underemployed, as if once you can no longer work, you fall off the face of the earth. I felt like I had become a ghost, some kind of social waste.
The healthcare system didn’t know what to do with me. When mental health providers feared I might put my life at risk, they would send me to the psychiatric emergency room, where doctors would turn me away with a variation of what I have been hearing since I was 8 years old when I ask help: “You are a very smart person facing disability. That is not something we can treat here, that’s just a difficult social situation.”
Well, four years later, my disability has not improved, but I can tell you I am well on the path of emotional, mental and spiritual recovery. I haven’t figured everything out yet, and I don’t pretend I ever will, but I am hopeful and happier, and my life feels purposeful again. Therapists tried to tell me that I would be better and more hopeful again, but my depression was so deep that I was resisting that possibility.
Like most people, when depression is at its worst, my mind was operating under the false logic that if I had been feeling hopeless for so long, it would take even longer to have a chance to be better. My mind was often thinking the 3 big lies of depression.
I was wrong. I started helping people in any way I could, even if I couldn’t change my new limitations. The more support I was offering, even if I couldn’t get much out of the house, the more I could relate to those I was helping. In so doing, my recovery progressed, little by little, but faster than I had expected, even if it was not always easy.
I have founded Rising Disabled because I believe the world is full of people living with disabilities like you and me, who deserve to find ways to give themselves a chance to feel better, to be excited and to dream again, to have hope with disability even after their lives took an irreversible turn. It’s a long journey, but it gets easier to find courage and new insights when we know we are not alone. Now, I’m dreaming that Rising Disabled will unite many companions on the way, empowering and witnessing new beginnings for us all.
Thank you for taking a leap of faith with us. We will share our wisdom with you and listen to yours. That’s how we all get to change and grow into an even better version of ourselves.
You can register for an upcoming online peer support group or learning event here.
Not ready for a meeting yet? You can still get started reading our weekly blog posts to help you take care of yourself and consider ideas to nourish your hope and sense of progress.
Your brother,
