There’s This Ableist Idea That The Default Is For People To Have Zero Disabilities And Mental Illnesses.

There’s this ableist idea that the default is for people to have zero disabilities and mental illnesses. That’s why there’s a concept of there being “too many diagnoses” - because people totally assume there’s like, a Perfectly Normal Human to begin with and that that idealized body has zero brain issues or disabilities.

And that’s so wrong. That’s just as wrong as assuming non-intersex, cishet middle-class white guys are the Perfectly Normal Human of which everyone else is an imperfect copy.

We’re not made from a mould. We have endless variations and they aren’t divergence from some Perfectly Normal Copy, they’re literally the way life functions. There is no perfect copy. There are only variations, some of which have the privilege of being normalized.

But privileged people see themselves as the default, and “too many differences” can seem “made up” to them, because they’re not used to relating to people who are different. Unfortunately we mentally ill/disabled people absorb this idea too and it’s really hard to unlearn it when we’re stuck in a society that’s constantly reinforcing it.

We have to be gentle with ourselves and with each other and work on normalizing variations like mental illnesses, disabilities, etc., so the focus can be on meeting the needs of people who have them instead of just surviving ableism.