Invisibility

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be mad? Not pissing in your pants, drooling in your cereal mad, just occasional bursts of madness, which strike without warning, like lightning bolts from a clear blue sky.

Well, that’s how I live my life, always having to be wary that my mind will malfunction, like a gremlin lives within my head and tinkers with all of the delicate machinery, mischievously causing short circuits at inopportune moments.

Medication helps, but even that can cause problems, unexpected side effects over which I have no control. Like the twitching episode earlier, talk about embarrassing! I looked like a marionette whose strings were being jerked about by an overly rambunctious child, my leg was twitching one way, my head another. It’s frightening; too, you worry that you will be stuck like it forever. Nobody would be able to take me seriously looking like a Thunderbird puppet on acid, would they? People would just assume that I was a nutter, with no worthwhile contribution to make to conversation. They would talk to me in raised voices, pronouncing things oh-so-clearly, worried that I was too mentally subnormal to understand even the simplest things.

I’ve often wondered what it must be like to live with a physical disability, and I actually received a rather startling insight whilst out clubbing one night. There was this guy, early twenties, blonde, totally gorgeous, with a space all around him. Why the space, in a nightclub packed like an over-full suitcase? He was in a wheelchair. People didn’t know what to say to him, so they preferred to totally avoid him, as if his disability were somehow contagious.

Even now, many use appearances in order to judge people, the book by the cover syndrome. This guy had a fantastic sense of humour, and used it to overcome the problems that people had whilst talking to him. He confessed to being shocked that I was at ease with him straight away (while waiting for a taxi, I asked him if he could give me a lift on his lap, as it would be quicker and far more interesting!) It’s sad, though, because there are many people out there who maybe don’t have the confidence and the ability to put people at ease that he had.

Although things are improving, more needs to be done to ensure that people with disabilities are not segregated within society. People need to be educated that avoiding things that make us feel uncomfortable does not make those things go away, and it creates a group of people who are excluded through no fault of their own.

My disability is invisible, and I have to say that I am glad that it is. There is still so much unconscious prejudice against disability; it’s preferable to be able to hide what is wrong in order to avoid being marked with the stigma that is still attached to disability.

I am mad. If I tell people, it makes them feel uncomfortable. If I don’t, they merely think that I am eccentric. I have the choice. People with physical disabilities do not have that choice; have no way to hide it in order to make others more comfortable. The twitching has stopped, I am lucky, my disability is invisible. Sometimes, people become invisible because they have a disability. It makes people uncomfortable. People, get over it.

Clare Hill