Not 'disabled' enough 

Having a disability, you may sometimes face challenges when it comes to medical care or employment. Briar, an adult with cerebral palsy, writes about how she grew to understand that others around her may perceive her differently, and how she handled those perceptions. 

As a person with mild cerebral palsy, I have found myself in a position where I am deemed not 'disabled' enough.  It has meant that I have found myself caught between two worlds; the world of the able-bodied and people with disabilities. I feel that I have spent my life trying to justify my position within both these worlds. Although my cerebral palsy is not severe, as I have grown older, I have been diagnosed with several physical and mental health conditions that have created a divide between the two worlds. I feel as if I have lived my life firmly planted in the middle of these two worlds. 

I have often bounced in and out of services that were not suited to my needs because I remain caught between two worlds. At times my health has been so bad that I have needed to access medical services to rebuild my strength. When I have engaged with health services for people with disabilities, I've been turned away because my disability wasn’t severe enough. My body has suffered as a result of being treated by health professionals who were unaware of cerebral palsy. It felt like a constant battle to justify my disability regardless of the service I tried to access.

My deteriorating health has often left me in a position where I cannot work. Despite never wanting to end up as a welfare recipient, I have been left with no choice but to seek assistance from Centrelink. Once again, I wasn't disabled enough to qualify for the Disability Support Pension. I was sent to an employment service to help me find a job once I had completed my Master's degree. The employment service would not accept me because I had cerebral palsy.

I was referred to a disability employment service that did not know what to do with a person who was highly educated. They said they were “used to sending people with disabilities into assembly lines or places where they could learn basic life skills, none of which were suitable for me.” It was as if I was the only highly educated person with a disability they had ever come across. My ability to work was cut short with the emergence of my mental illnesses. It was only at that point that I qualified for the Disability Support Pension. Despite my approval for the pension, I still found myself straddled between the two worlds.

The introduction of the NDIS gave more Australians access to disability services and changed the way I engaged with the world. The NDIS gave me access to health professionals who were aware of cerebral palsy. With their help, I began to feel like I could embrace being a person with a disability. I had also hoped that I could finally access the disability world, and relate to other people like me. However, as I tried to engage with this world, I could see that I still very much fell in between the world of able-bodied and people with disabilities. Occasionally I have fleeting contact with others like me, yet for the most part, I still feel caught in a world where my cerebral palsy can be so oblivious to some, yet so magnified to others.

If you need help with managing your mental health and well-being, we have a number of information resources available on our site. Visit our Mental Health section for more information on the tools and resources available to support you. We also have a section dedicated specifically to Work on our website, so if you are looking for more resources around work and employment, you can find them here.