For me, I never ever felt the ownership or any identity with any community of disabilities. I didn't grow up being told that I was a disabled child.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I used to think of myself in terms of who I'd be if I didn't have this pesky old disability.
When you hear the word 'disabled,' people immediately think about people who can't walk or talk or do everything that people take for granted. Now, I take nothing for granted. But I find the real disability is people who can't find joy in life and are bitter.
I do not identify as a person with a disability. I'm a disabled person. And I'll be a monkey's disabled uncle if I'm going to apologise for that.
I put up a huge wall of denial. It was years before I was able to break through it... accepting that your child has a disability, especially one like LD that cannot be seen or easily diagnosed, is one of the hardest things to come to terms with.
None of the people I grew up with had identity problems. We all had perfectly marvelous lives.
It feels amazing to be a role model for people with and without disabilities.
For me, disability is a way of getting some extremity, some kind of very difficult situation, that throws an interesting light on people.
Every person with a disability is an individual.
For me, and for many other people with disabilities, our status as disabled people is one of which we are fiercely proud.
I identify very proudly as a disabled woman. I identify with the crip community. I didn't invent the word 'crip'. It's a political ideology I came to in my late teens and early 20s.