Seeking Validation in a World That Doesn’t Understand My Disability

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Seeking Validation in a World That Doesn’t Understand My Disability

Itโ€™s been over a year since Iโ€™ve been able to walk unaided. For short distances, I rely on two walking canes, but for almost everything outside of the house, I need my mobility scooter or wheelchair. Despite this, Iโ€™ve been denied a disability parking permit time after time, because what I have isnโ€™t common or well understood. And itโ€™s not just the practical side of things that frustrates meโ€”itโ€™s the emotional aspect of feeling like my struggles are invisible.

Having a disability is hard enough to accept. On one hand, you donโ€™t want to be associated with it. But on the other hand, thereโ€™s something validating about your environment acknowledging what youโ€™re going through. Youโ€™re not lazy, youโ€™re not making it upโ€”you have a disability. Yet when that validation doesnโ€™t come, when Iโ€™m told “no” over and over, itโ€™s like the world is telling me my struggles arenโ€™t real.

Iโ€™ve tried snapping out of it. Iโ€™ve told myself to just walk, to just push through, to ignore the pain. But the truth is, it doesnโ€™t work. No matter how hard I try, my legs just wonโ€™t carry me. Something as simple as walking feels impossible, and it makes no sense. Iโ€™ve been here beforeโ€”about a year of this in the pastโ€”and I recovered then. But this time, itโ€™s different. No matter how much effort I put in, itโ€™s just not getting better.

What I need now is that reassurance that my struggle is real. Iโ€™m grieving my situation, while also fighting to prove its existence. I know it sounds strange, but thereโ€™s a deep desire for validation, even from something as cold as a government bureaucracy stamp. As absurd as it is to ask for reassurance from a system, it still hurts when it doesnโ€™t come.

Thereโ€™s nothing I want more than for everyone to be rightโ€”for me to function “normally” again. But right now, I just want to be seen and understood for what Iโ€™m going through.

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