Celebrate your abilities | #ThisAbilityMonday

 #ThisAbilityMonday is a hashtag that I thought would be really important to me and my blog. It is. But so far, I’ve avoided it. As a physically disabled person, posting about my abilities has always felt uneasy to me. (The name is not trying to avoid or single out disabled people either, rather provide an alternative but equal narrative for all abilities). 

While some of this uneasiness could be my personality (I don’t really like being the centre of attention), I think a lot of it comes from the way society views disability. There seems to me to be a complicated situation of: disabled people being held to ‘nondisabled’ standards in terms of ability (so that disabled people’s abilities are seen as ‘lesser’, seeing disabled people as different (detached from nondisabled standards, not acknowledging that they may be able to meet this) and being completely singled out for their abilities. I believe that should not be a spectrum or hierarchy of physical abilities, instead we should recognise and celebrate our own abilities (and have them validated) whatever they are. 

I should say that I’m discussing the abilities of nondisabled people as if they are all the same, and I know that’s not the case. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. The reason I’m discussing it in this way is because society constantly feeds us messages about what we should be able to achieve and how we go about achieving it. 

I think this would help many, in terms of not feeling like what we do is ‘not good enough’ or ‘not the same’compared to nondisabled people. This is something that affected me quite a bit when I was younger, but now I’m more comfortable with what I can and can’t do. There is also the issue of, (if disabled people do share their abilities or accomplishments), they are often transformed into “inspiration” for others. Most of the time, disabled people are just trying to live their lives. Of course achievements should be celebrated, but not in such a glorified way that perhaps does more harm than good , and certainly not only because a person is disabled. The disability activist Stella Young did a lot of work on this.

Even for nondisabled people, getting rid of particular physical standards could help people feel happier within themselves. That doesn’t mean that people can’t or shouldn’t improve, but it would erase some of the social pressure to do so.

My abilities are my own, just as yours are yours. We should recognise each other’s differences without comparison or contrast; just through normalising them.  

Thank you for reading.

Ellie