Invisible Disability Awareness Week presents a vital opportunity to take a breath and consider the ways in which society still ignores, denies, and misunderstands people who live with disabilities that are not necessarily visible. As a trauma therapist, I have seen the damage that skepticism and dismissal causes on the nervous system, and the damaging experiences that destroy trust, safety, and a sense of belonging.
Invisible disabilities include a multitude of conditions: chronic pain, autoimmune illnesses, neurodivergence, mental illness, traumatic brain trauma, and more. They all have in common that they are not necessarily visible to base on sight or sound. Due to this imperceptibility, individuals who live with these conditions will all too often experience doubt, indirect or explicit, about the authenticity of their experience. Statements such as “You don’t look sick,” or “You seem fine to me,” can be perceive as harmless, however, such statements can enforce the harm of erasure.
From a trauma informed standpoint, being disbelieved when you open up about limitation or pain can be experienced as betrayal trauma. Your body learns that the world is unsafe to be vulnerable in. Instead of accommodation or care, people often receive judgment or dismissal. This not only disorientates people, it can also activate trauma responses, hypervigilance, shame, and doubting self among them. This phenomenon can create a of cycle of internalized ableism, in which people start doubting their own reality just in order to meet the demands of a world that requires visible evidence of suffering.
Validation, as healing work, is a process of repair. Being consistent in one’s belief that the other person’s experienced reality is true without asking for proof can be very healing. It says: You are real. Your suffering is real. You deserve care. This subtle, however revolutionary, change prepares the foundation for the healing of safety, something that is lacking among people with invisible disabilities in healthcare environments, workspaces, and even relationships.
In order to reclaim a sense of belonging, we must redesign what inclusion is. Inclusion is not possible if it caters solely to what can be witnessed. Productivity- and performance-based systems tend to define worth by output, and don’t have much room for variable energy, fogged-brain, pain, or senses. Belonging as disabled individuals, particularly as people with invisible disability, necessitates redesigning these conventions. It entails construction, caring policies, and cultures that put access ahead of appearance.
There must also be a transfer in collective accountability. EXPLANATION AND EDUCATION should not always be the obligation of the people who are already fatigued by dealing with their conditions. It is critical to listen, listen really, to the people with invisible disabilities. By putting disabled voices at the center when we design policies, accommodate workplaces, and provide community care, we establish spaces in which people don’t have to always be on the proving ground.
In marking Invisible Disability Awareness Week, I urge readers to reflect on how belief itself can be a form of care. Ask yourself: How do I assume who is really disabled? How can I make spaces that respect needs I don’t always directly perceive? Restoring safety requires restoring trust, and trust is fostered in spaces where experiences are taken on belief without caveat.
For those living with invisible disabilities: you are not alone, and your experience is real. Healing is not just individual, it is also communal. Whenever we decide to believe, to adapt, and to advocate, we become part of the process of recreating a culture of inclusion. Being visible is not a condition on which legitimacy depends. When we learn to accept what we cannot see, we can start to live toward a reality in which every body, every mind, and every experience can be without apology, and in which safety and belongings are not privileges, but human rights.
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