Is mental illness a disability?

This is something I have had a LOT of difficulty with in the past, and if I’m honestly currently… I find this hard to admit given all the work I do offline within the disabled and mental health community and how on an intellectual level I KNOW that mental illness can be, and often is, a disability, but I find it very hard at times to accept that my mental illness (and my being neurodivergent) does disable me in many ways.

This issue is long standing enough that I actually wrote a blog about ti when I first started working with the york disability rights forums – ‘Am I Disabled Enough?’ Imposter Syndrome and Invisible Disability

The Equality Act says you have a disability if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial, adverse, and long-term effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

Now it’s not like we have to take and exam to be classed as disabled, we don’t go to a doctor one day and they go “congratulations you are disabled, here’s your certificate”. It’s one of those things where each individual must figure out theirselves if they identify as such or not.

However, if we go just off the above definition then anything that fits into the following criteria can count as a disability:

• has more than a small effect on your everyday life
• makes things more difficult for you, and
• has lasted at least 12 months, is likely to last 12 months, or if your health problem has improved that it is likely to recur.

My mental illness more than counts under this definition… I mean I often can’t do many day to day activities, I can’t reliably work, I struggle with most aspects of self care regularly, I doubt I’ll ever fully “recover”, and to date I have been ill for 16 years. But still I don’t “look ill”, noone could tell by looking at me – except for maybe when I am at my most ill. That may also be part of the issue, my condition ebs and flows, it fluctuates from one week to the next, from one day to the next, sometimes even from one hour to the next. Because I can do certain things at some times and not others I find it really hard to accept that I am not just being awkward, lazy, pathetic, etc, etc, etc… I feel a high level of imposter syndrome in many disabled spaces, feeling as if the people are looking at me, wondering what the hell I am doing there, like people feel I am co-opting heir space, looking for attention, etc, etc, etc. There is a chance that a lot of this is “in my head”, I do have a habit of overthinking things.

But this isn’t the only thing that feels at odds with my accepting that my mental illness may be a disability, the way society acts as if mental illness doesn’t even exist, the way I have to fight for accomodations from employers, educational institutions, the DWP, etc. The way even medical professionals often act as if I am somehow overreating or exaggerating my issues. All this, plus my general imposter syndrome, sort of adds up in my brain into convicing me that I am definintly not as ill as I think I am, that I really am just being useless and using my illness as an excuse, there is no way I am actually disabled. I am just co-opting the word and diminishing the expereinces of those who are disabled.

The thing is I would never make these judgements about anyone else. If someone else had the struggles I have there is no way I would invalidate or downplay their issues, there is no way I would question them if they identified their condition as disabling to them.

July is disability pride month, and there will be a lot of conversations and resource sharing, and I want to ensure that mental illness is a part of the conversation. The disability community is vast and varied, and although we cannot relate on every point there is more than unites us than what seperates us, the more I have engaged with others the more confident I have felt in my identity. Though granted the imposter syndrome is still there and might always be, and I am also starting to realise I have some internalised ableism going on, but I am hoping that the more I engage with the disabled community and the more I learn about my self the easier it will get to accept that my mind and body has limits and that I need to respect them.

My mental illness is a disability