You are worthless.
You are not capable.
You are weak.
Being Disabled is embarrassing.
You shouldn’t self-advocate.
You shouldn’t ask for that adjustment. Remember what happened last time?
Being Disabled isn’t always a ray of sunshine. There are daily trials and frustrations just to get through the day. At every corner, in every new space, with every new experience, there’s some form of ableism waiting to pounce.
Whether you’re born Disabled or acquire your condition later in life, you automatically sign up for a lifetime of ableism. Wahoo. Insert sarcastic eye-roll here.
Ableism is never far away. It lurks everywhere. In the workplace. Online. In person. In the environments we move through. In the everyday language people use without thinking. It’s always there, a reminder that being Disabled means navigating a society designed to exclude us.
And yet, non-Disabled people often praise us for simply existing. For leaving the house. For having hobbies. For working. For navigating society. They call us “resilient” or “brave” for doing everyday things. But what they don’t see is that society is made harder by the very ableism they uphold.
The truth is:
• We don’t always want to be resilient.
• We don’t always feel empowered.
• Sometimes being Disabled is shit.
• Sometimes it’s frustrating.
• Sometimes it’s exhausting having to constantly play the role of educator.
When our existence is constantly being framed as something to “overcome”, it leaves no room for us to simply exist, to be seen as individuals with our own experiences and feelings.
When you’re born Disabled or acquire a Disability, no one tells you about the cost of ableism. No one tells you about the psychological trauma of being constantly excluded, spoken down to, treated with pity, or positioned as a charity case. No one tells you that those experiences, sustained over years, begin to shape how you see yourself. That ableism itself shapes your experience of being Disabled.
Internalised ableism isn’t one thing. It’s not just giving up on self-advocacy, or feeling embarrassed. It can be an inner monologue telling you that you’re less than. It can be picking up a bottle to numb the pain of exclusion. It can be the voice that tells you not to speak up, not to ask for the adjustment you need, not to disclose. And it can also drive anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, self-harm, even suicide.
But no one prepares us for this cost. No one tells us that even when we do overcome a barrier, we’re stuck on a never-ending merry-go-round of internalised ableism. We don’t simply “get past it”. It waits there, ready to rear its head again.
Think about it. You’re born Disabled or you acquire a condition. You spend your life Disabled by society, boxed in by inaccessible barriers, segregation, discrimination, and still, you’re expected to overcome. To be resilient. But how do you “overcome” when some days you can’t even face leaving bed, out of sheer exhaustion, out of wanting to retreat from a world that refuses to include you?
Being Disabled is not a walk in the park.
Being Disabled is not a walk in the park. It’s more like a walk through a park filled with locked gates, surprise barriers, uneven paths, and non-Disabled people congratulating you for even showing up.
The constant praise for our “resilience” doesn’t feel like praise at all. It’s a reminder that society expects us to carry the weight of ableism silently, to perform bravery just for existing. Every time someone calls us “strong” for doing the bare minimum, it reinforces the idea that we are less unless we overcome, unless we push through, unless we prove our worth. That pressure seeps in. It becomes an echo inside our own heads. We start to judge ourselves for the days we can’t cope, the days we need to rest, the days we simply exist without achievement.
Resilience becomes a trap, a measurement of our value, and it feeds internalised ableism more than it frees us.
We cannot keep having conversations about Disability and inclusion without addressing the internalised ableism in the room.
We cannot continue to talk about Disability Inclusion if we’re not also talking about the good, the bad, and the internalised. We need the raw, unfiltered realities. We need to provide space to share, to lean in, to unlearn. And we need to be creating resources that support Disabled people, not just adults, but young people too.
We need to equip Disabled individuals with the tools and knowledge that far too many of us have gone without.
At Disabled By Society, we know internalised ableism because we’ve lived it. As a Disabled-led organisation, many of us have carried it with us for most of our lives. That’s why we’re so determined to break the silence, to create tools, resources, and conversations that don’t just tick a box, but lead to change.