January 2026 - Jan Mariet's A Day in the Life

The Roles People Play During Oppression and Atrocities

Throughout modern history, the same pattern repeats itself. Large-scale cruelty is rarely powered by millions of villains, but it is often enabled by silence of the majority.

This image shows the five ways people respond to oppression and atrocities. Perpetrators are less than 5 percent. Bystanders are around 60-70 percent. Upstanders are about 10-20 percent. Protestors are around 5-10 percent. And rescuers are around 3 percent. The article defines each group.

In modern history, when governments or powerful interest groups intentionally create or incite oppression and atrocities, a similar human pattern appears again and again. A very small group, usually less than five percent, become the perpetrators. These are the people who plan, authorize, or directly carry out the harm. Some believe the ideology they promote. Others want power, status, or protection for themselves. And some are motivated less by belief and more by the opportunity to act on their worst impulses when they believe no one will stop them.

The largest group are the bystanders, often around two-thirds of the population. These are ordinary people who see what is happening and do not step in. Most are not cruel. Many are frightened, uncertain about the facts, worried about their families, or convinced that one person cannot make a difference. Silence often grows from fear, confusion, or social pressure rather than agreement. Some comply because they fear punishment if they refuse, but many simply find safety in just going along.

Next are the upstanders, roughly ten to twenty percent. These are the people who speak up in conversations, question what they are being told, write, teach their children differently, or quietly refuse to cooperate. They may not take dramatic risks, but they do not stay silent. Their motivation usually comes from conscience and a belief that everyday choices, no matter how small, still matter.

Then come the protestors, usually five to ten percent, who take resistance into public view. They sign petitions, march, organize meetings, or join collective efforts. They believe that numbers and visibility can shift the direction of events, even though they understand there may be consequences to their actions.

Finally, there are the rescuers, often fewer than three percent. These are the people who step in to protect someone, hide them, warn them, or help them escape. They act even when it is dangerous. Their motivation is typically deep empathy, strong personal morals, or a direct personal connection to the person at risk. They are rare, but their actions can save lives.

These percentages are not exact measurements, but they show a repeating lesson. Large-scale harm is rarely carried out by huge numbers of villains. It is often driven by a small, organized minority, allowed to continue by widespread silence, and interrupted by smaller groups who choose to speak or act despite the risk.

A Point to Ponder

In terms of American slavery, how many of African descent think or say, “If I had been there, I would have fought back,” or, “I would have run away, and then come back to save others, like Harriet Tubman.” I would wager a large percentage of people of African descent would imagine themselves in this role, and yet, what percentage actually did this? Less than 3 percent.

And how many of non-African descent would have seen themselves as rescuers, like conductors and those who operated safehouses in the Underground Railroad, who helped escaped slaves to freedom and to avoid recapture? Many of us would see ourselves in that role, and yet, what percentage actually would have been rescuers? Again, less than 3 percent.

And yet, no matter what we imagine, the truth is, most of us would have been bystanders. That is a point we all need to ponder.

Patterns Repeat Themselves

This list is not meant be exhaustive, but is a sampling of the most well-known examples that follow the typical pattern discussed.

The Holocaust (1933–1945, Europe)
Small groups organized and carried out persecution, large civilian populations remained passive or fearful, resistance movements formed, and a very small number of rescuers hid or protected targeted families.
Armenian Genocide (1915–1917, Ottoman Empire)
State-directed perpetrators, widespread public silence or compliance, scattered protest or refusal, and rare individuals who sheltered Armenians at great personal risk.
Rwandan Genocide (1994, Rwanda)
Organized militias and officials led violence, many citizens did not intervene out of fear, some resisted or warned neighbors, and a small number hid or escorted victims to safety.
Cambodian Khmer Rouge Regime (1975–1979, Cambodia)
Centralized perpetrators enforced brutal policies, most civilians focused on survival and remained silent, limited internal resistance occurred, and rare acts of protection or concealment took place.
Bosnian War and Ethnic Cleansing (1992–1995, Balkans)
Armed factions committed atrocities, many civilians were immobilized by fear or uncertainty, protests and peace efforts emerged, and isolated individuals protected neighbors despite risk.
Apartheid Era (1948–1994, South Africa)
Government and enforcement bodies upheld oppressive laws, large segments of the public complied or stayed quiet, organized protest movements grew over time, and smaller numbers offered direct protection or aid.
Military Dictatorships in Latin America (1960s–1980s, multiple countries)
Security forces and officials carried out repression, many citizens avoided involvement to protect families, civic protest and advocacy groups formed, and a small number sheltered dissidents.
Genocide and Forced Removal of Native American Peoples (1600s–1800s, North America)
Government and settler perpetrators enacted displacement, violence, and forced assimilation policies; many settlers and citizens remained silent or benefited indirectly; some protested or refused participation; and a small number of individuals and religious groups hid, fed, or advocated for Native families.
Slavery in the United States (1600s–1865)
Slaveholders and legal systems enforced enslavement, large portions of the population accepted or ignored it, abolitionist movements protested and organized resistance, and a small number of people actively sheltered and helped enslaved individuals escape despite severe legal penalties.

Across different centuries and continents, the details change, but the social roles often look similar. A small, organized group drives the harm, a large portion stays silent out of fear, benefit, or uncertainty, smaller groups speak or protest, and a very small number take direct personal risks to protect others.

Still Within Our Grasp: The Promise of a Nation – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

“Life Unworthy of Living” Response – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Still Within Our Grasp: The Promise of a Nation

The image shows one hand reaching for another, and says, "I don't share my thoughts because I think it will change the minds of people who think differently. I share my thoughts to show people who already think like me that they are not alone."

Our country’s original promise is still within our grasp. It has not vanished. It has not expired. And it can be rebuilt, one deliberate, intentional act at a time. We do not have to agree on everything, but we must agree on the foundations on which this nation was built. We can work toward shared goals: safety for our children, dignity for one another, and a real path for every citizen and invited guest to have a livable job, a stable home, enough food, and access to complete medical care.

Throughout human history, the Oppressor has always thrived on chaos, deception, and dissonance. Today is no different. Tomorrow will be no different unless we make the choice for it to be otherwise. Those who attempt to bury us beneath verbosity, rapid-fire whataboutisms, and scattershot questions designed to derail honest conversation are not seeking truth. They are sowing cynicism. They are cultivating hopelessness. And we have had enough.

We are tired of the lies. We are tired of the excuses. We refuse to deny what our own eyes can see simply because we are told to. Our moral courage will not be broken. Our spirits will not be cowed.

We are the hopeful. The fixers. The builders. The balancers. The believers in democracy. We are the ones who understand that our forefathers’ vision was not a finished product, but a starting point, a framework upon which a nation could grow. Have we made mistakes? Countless ones. Have we reached our highest ideals? Not even close. But we are standing on a battleground that tests whether this nation can long endure, and the answer, still, is yes.

We believe a better life and a better country are possible. And we intend to redeem our nation’s promise through positive, persistent effort: that we are one nation, conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal. And while the names we use for God may differ, God, Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, or the vast universe that surrounds us and to which our energy returns, the rights themselves do not change. They remain the same, and they belong to us all.

by Jan Mariet 01/28/2026

The Roles People Play During Oppression and Atrocities – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Cancer Always Has the Final Word

Image of a teal ribbon, which is the symbol for cervical cancer.

It doesn’t matter if the ribbon is pink, or teal, or any other of a myriad of colors. It means another person has heard those heart-stopping words: You have cancer.

Once those words are spoken, disbelief does something strange. From that moment on, you barely hear anything else that is said. Or maybe you hear it, but you don’t understand it. You certainly don’t remember it. The words bounce around the room like sound effects in a movie theater, echoing without meaning, until everything turns into a kinetic blur.

And if you happen to be alone when those words are spoken, the first time you try to say them yourself, they come out one of only a few ways.

Sometimes they are choked out through sobs, leaving the listener struggling to understand what you are trying to say, only knowing that whatever it is has shattered you.

Sometimes they come as a low, gravelly whisper, barely audible, but powerful enough to silence the room.

And sometimes, you don’t say them at all. You keep them locked inside, afraid to even whisper the words you are certain you must have misheard, even though deep down you know they are true.

The unfairness hits hard. Why me? Reality hits. Why not me?

All the qualifiers the oncologist offers, “We’ve caught it early.” “The chances of getting this under control are promising.” “Surgery alone may take care of things.” They ring in your ears. But your heart and your mind hear something else entirely. They see the worst. The awful realization that your life might be ending, and that there is still so much you planned to do. Wanted to do. Needed to do.

The people you might be leaving behind.
The good you always meant to do.
The changes you intended to make.
The challenges you believed you would someday meet.

All of it floods your thoughts and your body at once. It spins together into a blinding, hopeless spiral of the life you could have had, if only you had known.

But don’t we all know that life is finite? Fragile? And yet we are stunned when that truth becomes more real than we ever imagined it could be.

Reality is something we push aside while we live our daily lives. Sleep. Wake. Dress. Eat. Work. Repeat. Over and over, without much thought.

The plans we always meant to follow through on slowly slip away with each step we take and each quiet thought we set aside. The day-to-day cycle becomes the pattern. The pattern becomes everything. It spins until we barely recognize that there was ever anything else.

Until the word, barely spoken, speaks: cancer. And the pattern changes so quickly it disarms us.

Now the pattern is appointments. Recovery. Radiation. Chemo. Maybe immunotherapy. So much stops mattering. The world shrinks almost overnight.

Nausea. Retching. Exhaustion. Malaise. Shrinking. An endless fog of confusion. Alternating devastation and hope.

We live for the day this aggressive pattern ends. We wait to be finished. To be well. To continue our lives. We believe that once this is over, everything we dreamed of will still be waiting for us. But cancer always has the final word.

For some, life itself ends the conversation. For others, the collateral damage left behind by the disease, and even more by the treatment, forces life to be reordered. Reorganized. Reassembled. Reimagined.

The things we mourned when we first heard that word are no longer possibilities. We recover. We mourn. We go on. But we are never the same.

Regardless of the ribbon color. Despite the unpronounceable name that both specifies and reduces our lives. Not even when survival is the outcome.

We return to a pattern. A slightly altered one. Waking. Dressing. Eating. Working. Resting. Dreaming. A life reshaped by a single word that still echoes, long after it was first spoken: cancer.

Cancer Changes Everything – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

“I’m Fine” – The Reality of Surviving Cancer – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Products That Make Life Easier When You are Battling Cancers of the Mouth, Tongue, or Throat – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Products That Make Life Easier When You are Battling Cervical Cancer or Cancers in the Abdominal or Pelvic Area. – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Where Were You? – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Navigating Care as a Medically Complex Patient

What Care Exists for Medically Complex Patients, What’s Missing, and Why It Matters

A patient is at the elevator in a medical building seeing the long lists of medical specialists in the building and trying to remember which doctor she is supposed to be seeing today.

Living with multiple interacting conditions means navigating trade-offs, dealing with fragmented care, and finding your way through systems not designed for medical complexity. This article explores what support actually exists for medically complex patients, where care breaks down, and why coordination and integration of care matters.

What Does It Mean to Be Medically Complex?

A person is often described as medically complex when they live with multiple chronic or serious conditions that interact with one another. These conditions are not neatly separated. They affect different body systems, require different specialists, and often demand treatments that overlap or conflict. Care becomes less about fixing a single problem and more about managing trade-offs.

For medically complex patients, care often requires choosing a priority condition. This is not because other conditions matter less, but because treating everything at once can do more harm than good. Multiple medications can interact, side effects can accumulate, and energy, resilience, and recovery time are limited resources.

Sometimes the choice is between partial relief and total exhaustion. Other times, it is between managing pain and protecting organ function or deciding whether a treatment will make life more livable or simply increase appointments, medications, and side effects. These are not choices patients should have to make alone, yet they often are.

When Specialty Care Misses the Bigger Picture

Specialists are experts in their fields, and that expertise matters. Problems arise when care stops at the boundaries of that specialty. Many specialists focus narrowly on the condition they are trained to treat, without fully accounting for the other conditions a patient lives with. Treatments are prescribed in isolation, as if the body functioned in departments rather than as an integrated whole.

When a treatment improves one condition but worsens another, the patient is left managing the consequences. The specialist may see success, while the patient lives with side effects and a reduced quality of life.

The Illusion of “Coordinated Care”

Specialists often say they will “coordinate care” with the referring physician. For medically complex patients, that phrase sounds reassuring, but it rarely reflects reality.

In most cases, the referring physician is the patient’s primary care provider, not the many other specialists actively involved in treatment. A medically complex patient may be seeing a rheumatologist, nephrologist, gastroenterologist, dermatologist, hematologist, and internal medicine specialist at the same time. These providers are not routinely communicating with one another in meaningful ways.

When a specialist says they will “keep your other doctors in the loop,” what this usually means is that visit notes or test results will be electronically transmitted to one or two providers listed in the system. These records are often received by support staff, uploaded into the chart, and marked as completed. They may never be reviewed in real time by the other treating physicians. Even when they are reviewed, they are rarely discussed across specialties in a way that considers how one treatment plan may affect another condition.

The Burden Placed on Primary Care Providers

As a result, primary care providers are often left attempting to coordinate complex, overlapping care without the time, access, or support required to do so effectively. The average primary care physician can see a patient only every six to eight weeks, sometimes longer. For a medically complex patient, that span of time is significant. Medically complex patients often need to be seen by their PCP on a more regular basis, especially when conditions flare, or when side effects from one treatment make other conditions worse.

During those weeks of waiting to see their PCP, medications may be started, stopped, or adjusted by multiple specialists. Side effects can add up, conditions can flare, and the patient’s health can decline substantially before the next primary care appointment is even available.

This is not a failure of individual physicians, it is a structural problem. The system is not designed to support the level of communication and responsiveness medically complex patients require. What results is care that forces patients and primary care providers to bridge gaps that should not exist in the first place.

What Is a Critical Care Manager?

A Critical Care Manager is a healthcare professional who helps coordinate care for patients with serious, complex, or high-risk medical needs. The role exists to bridge gaps between providers, treatments, and systems when a patient’s care has become too complicated to manage through routine appointments alone.

Despite the name, a Critical Care Manager does not work only in intensive care units, and the role is not limited to end-of-life care. In outpatient and chronic illness settings, Critical Care Management refers to coordination-based care for medically complex patients. It is often provided by a nurse, nurse case manager, social worker, or care coordination specialist working within a medical practice, hospital system, or insurance plan.

The core purpose of a Critical Care Manager is coordination, not making specific diagnoses.

What Does a Critical Care Manager Actually Do?

A Critical Care Manager focuses on the full scope of a patient’s health. This may include coordinating communication among multiple specialists, reviewing medications for interactions or conflicting goals, tracking changes across conditions, helping prioritize treatment when everything cannot be treated simultaneously, identifying red flags early, assisting with referrals and authorizations, and helping patients understand how different treatments interact.

For medically complex patients, a Critical Care Manager may be the only professional who consistently sees the entire care landscape at once.

How Medically Complex Patients Qualify for Critical Care Management

Eligibility varies by healthcare system and insurer, but patients typically qualify when they meet several criteria, such as having multiple serious chronic conditions affecting different body systems, conditions that conflict in treatment, frequent specialist involvement, a high medication burden, functional decline, or elevated risk for complications without close monitoring.

Medical complexity is defined by the interaction of multiple conditions, not just by the number of diagnoses a person has. A patient whose conditions must be balanced against one another is often more complex than someone with many conditions treated independently.

Many patients who qualify for Critical Care Management never receive it simply because it is not offered or explained, and they don’t know to ask. There are eligible patients who have no idea the service exists, despite evidence that effective care coordination reduces emergency visits and extended hospitalizations. This benefits both patients and insurers, yet access remains limited.

How Critical Care Management Differs from Typical Primary Care

Primary care physicians are essential, but the structure of primary care limits what can realistically be provided to medically complex patients.

Typical primary care involves brief scheduled visits, a focus on immediate concerns, limited coordination time, reliance on specialist notes, and long intervals between appointments. Primary care providers are not set up to coordinate complex care. They simply do not have the infrastructure to follow up with a plethora of specialists, track medications from multiple doctors, determine possible drug interactions, and take urgent calls or texts from a medically complex patient when they are in crisis or need immediate assistance.

Critical Care Management-supported care offers ongoing oversight, active monitoring between visits, intentional cross-specialty communication, early intervention when problems emerge, and a designated professional responsible for coordination.

The difference between primary care and critical care is not skill or commitment, it is timing and infrastructure.

Why Critical Care Management Matters

For medically complex patients, the greatest risk is not a single diagnosis, it is fragmented care. When treatments are prescribed independently, the patient becomes the coordinator by default. The patient may have a thorough understanding of his or her diagnoses, but this still doesn’t make the patient a medical doctor. When patients have to coordinate their own care, it becomes unsafe and eventually unsustainable.

Critical Care Management fills a gap between specialties and competing diagnoses. When done well, it reduces medical crises, prevents harmful treatment conflicts, and supports decisions that prioritize overall stability rather than treating one condition or set of symptoms at a time.

Critical Care Management vs. Chronic Care Management

One of the most confusing aspects of complex care is overlapping terminology. Critical Care Management and Chronic Care Management are often abbreviated the same way, but they are not the same thing.

Chronic Care Management

Chronic Care Management is a Medicare and insurance billing program designed for patients with two or more long-term conditions. It typically involves documented care plans, periodic check-ins, medication lists, and minimum time requirements for billing.

These services are often administrative and may be handled by office staff or third-party vendors. Chronic Care Management can be helpful for stable patients with predictable needs. It is not designed for patients whose conditions interact or change rapidly.

Critical Care Management

Critical Care Management is a care model, not simply a billing category. It focuses on real-time coordination, prioritization, and risk management. It recognizes that medically complex patients cannot safely wait weeks between appointments while conditions evolve.

Why the Difference Matters

Many patients are told they are “already receiving CCM” when what they are receiving is Chronic Care Management. That reassurance often collapses when real coordination is needed.

Basic documentation does not prevent medication conflicts. A monthly check-in does not catch a cascading medical decline. Shared records do not necessarily equal collaboration.

What Is Physiatry?

Physiatry, also known as Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, is a medical specialty focused on improving function, quality of life, and overall stability for people with injuries, chronic illnesses, disabilities, and complex medical conditions.

Physiatry looks at how multiple conditions interact and how they affect daily life. The goal is to help the patient live a good, productive life rather than a cure at all costs. Improving a quality of life for those who are medically complex is the goal of physiatry.

What Is a Physiatrist?

A physiatrist is a medical doctor who specializes in physiatry. Physiatrists are medical doctors who are fully trained in disease processes, medications, and medical risk, but whose clinical focus is on integration rather than treating conditions in isolation.

Physiatrists commonly work with patients whose care does not fit neatly into a single specialty.

Why Physiatrists Matter for Medically Complex Patients

For medically complex patients, the central question is often not Can this be treated? but Should it be treated now, and at what cost?

Physiatrists are trained to engage with that question directly. They understand that stability, function, and living a “good” life are legitimate clinical priorities.

Why Most Patients Are Never Told Physiatry Exists

Physiatry is frequently underutilized because it does not align with diagnosis-driven referral pathways that insurance companies use. It does not “own” a single disease. As a result, patients are often referred only after injury or crisis, rather than earlier when coordination could prevent decline.

Insurance Coverage and Access Barriers for Physiatry

Physiatry is generally covered by insurance, including Medicare, but long-term physiatric care is often difficult to maintain. Insurance coverage is commonly tied to discrete events rather than ongoing complexity. There also aren’t many physiatrists and they are unevenly distributed throughout the United States, making access difficult even when coverage exists.

A specialist may consider a treatment successful, even when the patient is left coping with significant side effects and a lower quality of life. What looks like success on a chart can feel like loss to the patient who must live with the side effects.

Medically Complex Patients Deserve Both Coordination and Ongoing Follow-up

Medically complex patients are often labeled as difficult or noncompliant, when the real issue is a system not designed to manage layered, interrelated conditions. Effective care requires coordination and ongoing follow-up.

What Medically Complex Patients Can Ask For

Patients can ask who is coordinating their care, how treatments interact, whether someone is viewing the whole picture, and whether physiatry or care coordination might help.

Advocacy does not mean demanding perfection. It means asking for care that acknowledges reality.

A Final Reminder

Medically complex patients are experts in their lived experience. Their bodies, symptoms, and limits cannot be reduced to isolated diagnoses or single appointments. Care delivered in pieces will always fall short for patients whose lives are shaped by overlapping conditions.

Complex care requires coordination, communication, and ongoing follow-up. It requires systems that recognize continuity as essential rather than an optional component. When responsibility for integration is placed on the patient instead of the system, the gaps in care that occur become predictable as well as harmful.

Listening to medically complex patients is not a courtesy, it is a clinical necessity. Until care models reflect that truth, patients will continue to shoulder the burden of navigating systems that were never designed for complexity in the first place.

Here are some more articles by Jan Mariet that you might enjoy reading.

Why Our Healthcare System Often Fails the People Who Need It Most – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Can I or Should I? Living With Disability, Risk, and Hard Choices – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

The Disability Catch-22 – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Do you have a comment or question? Feel free to let me know below.

What “Four Hours of Activity” Really Means for a Chronically Ill Person

Chronic Illness and Work

People love to talk about whether chronically ill people can work. You will hear people say, “If you can get out of bed and sit in a chair for four hours, you should be able to work half time.” The implication is clear. If they wanted to work, they would get themselves up and do it.

So many chronically ill people wish it worked that way. They ask themselves over and over, Can I hold a job? Can I show up and be reliable? Can I be productive for a few hours each day?

Why Four Hours of Activity Is Not the Same as Four Hours of Work

But here is the question that almost never gets asked. What if you can work, but working takes everything you have? What if your chronic illness does not stop you from earning a paycheck, but it does destroy your ability to have a life outside of work? What if it leaves you without the strength to do your laundry, cook your meals, clean up after yourself, shower, or wash your hair? How can a person survive long term when their most basic needs are not being met? This is the part people gloss over.

When a medical provider determines that a chronically ill person can be “active for four hours per day,” those hours are often imagined as clean, uninterrupted blocks of productive time. People picture sitting, typing, standing, teaching, or attending a meeting. What they do not picture is everything that has to happen before and after just to exist as a human being. Being able to be active for four hours is not the same thing as being able to work for four hours.

For someone with a chronic illness, thirty minutes of work may need to be followed by hours of rest just to continue functioning. When their body is pushed beyond its limits, exhaustion is the result. Without adequate rest after exertion, that exhaustion can turn into a flare that leaves them bedridden or homebound for days or even weeks.

The Hidden Energy Cost of Basic Living

Then there are the everyday tasks of basic self-care, which are often dismissed by non-ill people as “non-activities.” For many chronically ill people, these tasks are not only work, but they are also exhausting work.

Laundry is a good example. For a single adult with no spouse and no children, doing one week of laundry sounds simple. Gather clothes, start the washer, move them to the dryer, fold, put away. For someone without physical limitations, that might add up to forty or fifty minutes of active time, spread across a couple of hours.

For someone with a chronic illness, that same laundry often requires pacing. Standing too long hurts. Lifting wet clothes strains joints or a spine. Folding may have to be done seated, with breaks. What once took under an hour can now take an hour and a half, sometimes spread across an entire day or multiple days. And afterward, there may be nothing left.

Grocery shopping is another task people underestimate. Making a list, driving to the store, walking the aisles, standing in line, loading bags, unloading at home. For many people, that takes an hour to an hour and a half.

For someone with pain, fatigue, dizziness, sensory overload, or limited stamina, it can easily take two or three hours. That does not include the recovery time afterward. Online ordering avoids walking, but it still requires planning, decision-making, unpacking, and putting everything away. It also costs more, which many people who are unable to work simply cannot afford.

Cooking is not just “making dinner.” It involves deciding what to eat, standing to prep food, chopping, lifting pans, and monitoring heat. For someone without limitations, that might take forty-five minutes. For someone who cannot stand for long periods or who experiences brain fog or tremors, it can take twice as long and often has to be broken into stages with rest in between.

Then there are the dishes. It might take ten minutes for one person. But it may take twenty or thirty minutes for another, especially if standing hurts or hands fatigue easily. If dishes are postponed because there is no energy left, the task only becomes more overwhelming later.

Even hygiene tasks are not minor. A shower that takes ten minutes for one person can take thirty or forty-five minutes for someone else once balance issues, heat intolerance, fatigue, and recovery time are factored in. For some chronically people, showering is the only major task they can manage in a day.

Brushing teeth is not always a two-minute job. Getting dressed is not always a five-minute job. Compression garments, braces, orthotics, pain with bending, the need to sit while dressing, or the use of dressing aids can easily turn these tasks into twenty- or thirty-minute efforts.

Packing a lunch sounds trivial until dietary restrictions, limited hand strength, and the mental energy required to plan ahead are considered. Every decision has an energy cost.

None of these tasks are optional. They are not hobbies. They are not leisure. They are basic survival.

And then there is the part that often goes completely uncounted: getting to work and getting home. A commute is not just time spent in a car or on public transportation. It requires sustained attention, physical positioning, sensory processing, and stress management. For someone without limitations, a fifteen- or thirty-minute commute each way is an inconvenience. For someone with chronic pain, neurological symptoms, fatigue, or mobility issues, it can be a significant drain before the workday even begins.

Getting to work may involve stairs, parking lots, elevators, crowded buses, or long hallways. It may require standing, balancing, or sitting in positions that worsen pain. It often means managing symptoms quietly while trying to arrive looking “fine.”

A fifteen-minute commute in each direction quickly becomes thirty minutes of energy expenditure. A thirty-minute commute becomes an hour. By the time a chronically ill person arrives at work, a large portion of their daily capacity may already be gone. When the workday ends, getting home is not a relief. It is another demand. Another stretch of sustained effort.

That return trip often uses the last usable energy of the day. Whatever is waiting at home: laundry, food, dishes, personal care, now has to be done with whatever remains, if anything remains at all.

Why Chronic Illness Makes Consistent Work So Difficult

And this assumes something else that is rarely true for people with chronica illness: predictability. People with chronic illnesses are chronically ill. Their capacity is not stable. One day, they may not be able to get out of bed at all. The next day, they may be able to be active for an hour or two. Later in the week, they might have a rare, good day and manage five or six hours of activity.

Employment does not work that way. Most jobs require consistency. They require reliability. They require a predictable schedule. There are very few part-time jobs where someone can show up only on the days they feel well enough and stay home without consequence on the days they do not.

For many chronically ill people, the issue is not willingness or motivation. It is that the nature of their illness makes them unreliable by design.

There is another reality that is rarely acknowledged. Many chronically ill people require accommodations in order to work safely. They may need specialized equipment, adaptive technology, a modified workspace, or a physically accessible environment. They may not be able to climb stairs, stand for extended periods, walk long distances, or safely navigate workplaces without ramps, elevators, supportive seating, or ergonomic workstations. These needs are not preferences. They are requirements.

Yet when chronically ill people apply for jobs, employers are often wary. Even when accommodations are legally required, it is easier to hire someone without additional needs. The presence of accommodations can quietly move a qualified candidate to the bottom of the list.

Pain, Medication, and Employability

Pain adds another layer. Many chronically ill people live with daily pain and require prescribed pain medication to function. These medications are legal and medically necessary, but they can cause grogginess, dizziness, slowed reaction time, or unsteadiness. Even when taken exactly as prescribed, they can make someone appear less alert or less energetic.

This does not make someone incapable. But in a hiring system that values speed, stamina, and appearance over accommodation and understanding, it often makes them the least hireable person in the room.

As a result, chronically ill people, even those who are highly educated, skilled, and experienced, are often pushed toward the least desirable jobs, if they are able to find work at all.

Why the Math Doesn’t Work

When all of this is added together, something becomes very clear. If someone has four hours of usable energy in a day, those hours are often gone before work ever begins.

They are spent getting ready, maintaining a household, feeding themselves, managing hygiene, traveling to and from work, and managing pain. You cannot show up to work unwashed, in dirty clothes, with unbrushed teeth, because you did not have the strength to care for yourself first.

The idea that those same four hours can simply be handed over to paid work ignores the reality of how chronically ill bodies and chronically ill lives function.

This is why statements like “you can work part time” or “you can manage to go to one class” are based on false assumptions. They count the visible activity and ignore the preparation, the travel, the recovery, the unpredictability, and the structural barriers. They ignore the energy budget entirely.

Able-bodied people often see the things they do easily as “non-activities.” Chronically ill people do not have that luxury. Every task must be planned, measured, and weighed against what it will cost later.

And sometimes, even when something is technically possible, it simply is not doable.

The truth is not that chronically ill people are unwilling to work. The truth is that life itself already consumes so much of their daily capacity that there is little to nothing left for anything else.

When all of the invisible labor is acknowledged, there are not four hours of activity left. Often, there are only minutes. And how many employers will hire a person for only minutes per day? They won’t, of course. And the chronically ill person will still face the negative attitudes and judgement of strangers who simply can’t understand why they won’t just “stop being lazy and get a job.”

These realities are rarely understood or accepted by able-bodied peers. Without understanding the energy cost of basic living, it is easy to assume a chronically ill person is lazy, unmotivated, or unwilling to contribute.

The reality is very different and until that reality is understood, the math will never make sense.

Here are some other articles by Jan Mariet on similar topics.

Reimagining Accessibility: Undoing Ableism Among Disabled and Medical Communities – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Can I or Should I? Living With Disability, Risk, and Hard Choices – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Living with Invisible Losses: Finding Meaning in Chronic Illness – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Why Our Healthcare System Often Fails the People Who Need It Most

A frustrated man holding a stack of medical forms, standing in line at a medical office.

So much of our healthcare system operates on a quiet assumption: that if care is needed badly enough, patients will know what is needed and how to find it. Our system assumes people understand the process, recognize when something requires escalation, and know which doors to knock on and how hard to push.

It assumes patients can accurately identify their symptoms, organize their concerns, and clearly articulate all of it during a brief appointment, often scheduled weeks or months in advance. It assumes they will remember everything they meant to say once they are finally in the room.

It also assumes they will have a medical provider willing to listen, that they can stay focused long enough to say everything that needs to be said, and that they can respond thoughtfully to specific questions as they arise. Many of those questions require reflection or consideration of things the patient may never have been asked to think about before, yet patients are expected to answer clearly without being given adequate time to think or organize their responses.

Illness often makes these expectations unrealistic. Fatigue dulls concentration. Pain often distracts a person from focusing. Brain fog interferes with memory and language, making clear expression difficult or even impossible. Anxiety, especially in medical settings, can further impair focus and confidence, particularly within a typical 15-to-20-minute appointment. Yet the system treats clear communication as a prerequisite for care rather than a support that should be built into it.

Access to quality care should not depend on who has the energy and knowledge to navigate a process that assumes clarity, stamina, and fluency at the very moment people are most unwell.

Layered onto these expectations are the built-in barriers to our healthcare system, where adequate care is far from guaranteed. The system is fragmented. Specialists, primary care providers, insurance companies, pharmacies, and hospitals often function independently, with little coordination or communication. The burden of managing care falls on the patient, and when someone cannot fill that role, gaps in care are inevitable and critical details are lost.

There is an unspoken expectation of medical literacy. Patients are assumed to know which specialists exist, what their roles are, what tests are appropriate, when symptoms warrant escalation, and how to push back if care stalls. Without that knowledge, the care that exists on paper isn’t really accessible to those who need it.

Insurance processes add another layer of difficulty. Prior authorizations, denials, appeals, narrow networks, step therapy, and coverage limits all require persistence and familiarity with complex systems. Care may be available in theory but functionally unreachable without time, energy, articulation, and knowledge.

Time itself is a barrier. Short appointments leave little room for complexity. Long wait times favor those who can reschedule, take time off work, arrange transportation, or sit in waiting rooms for hours. Many people simply cannot do these things.

Another barrier is the availability and willingness of medical providers to appeal insurance decisions that block necessary care. For patients with limited or lower-reimbursing insurance, physicians are often paid less for visits to begin with. When insurance companies require a provider to submit or pursue an appeal in order to approve treatment or services, the time spent on that process is typically unpaid.

As a result, doctors may be unable or unwilling to devote the hours required to challenge wrongful denials, particularly when reimbursement is already low. This creates a system in which patients with certain types of insurance face greater obstacles to receiving care, not because the care is unnecessary, but because appealing for it is financially unsustainable for their medical providers.

There is also a built-in bias within our healthcare system. Some patients must work harder to be believed or taken seriously based on disability, gender, age, weight, race, medical complexity or mental health history. That extra effort requires mental stamina and persistence that many people simply do not have to give.

When access depends on being able to navigate a complex highway of systems, and on a person’s ability to self-advocate, those with the most resources are more likely to succeed. People with flexible schedules, supportive families, financial stability, higher education, or prior experience within healthcare systems often fare better. Even when low-income advocacy is available, there are usually long-wait times to gain access, and to utilize such services, a person has to know they exist in the first place.

Those who are sicker, more cognitively affected, more isolated, or more financially constrained are more likely to not receive the services and care they need, not because they are unwilling to try, but because the system demands capacities their illness has already taken away from them.

This creates a quiet but profound inequity. The people most in need of care are often the least able to obtain it. True access should not depend on endurance, fluency, or education level. It must not rely on knowing the right terminology, asking the right questions, or pushing in exactly the right way at exactly the right time.

A humane healthcare system would reduce friction and frustration instead of creating it. It would provide built-in coordination, clear communication, and meaningful support for patients trying to access care. It would recognize that many people cannot serve as their own advocate, administrator, and educator while they are already ill, and that not every person has a close family member or friend who can assist in transportation, advocacy, follow-up, and administration.

Access should not depend on who has the energy and knowledge to navigate a system that assumes clarity and capacity at the moment people are least able to provide either. When care depends on endurance, familiarity with complex systems, and persistence, illness itself becomes the barrier. A healthcare system that makes being sick a disadvantage is failing at its most basic purpose. It is structurally inequitable, and it ensures that those with the greatest need are the least likely to receive care.

Florida Winter Weather: Calm Skies, Sudden Storms

Image of a home on a pond, in the midst of a winter windstorm. The palm trees are being whipped around, and fronds are lying everywhere.

The sky is dark, and the wind is whipping the palms into a crazed, circular frenzy. Waves ripple across the pond, capped with little white crests, and even the hooded merganser ducks, with their grand black-and-white crests, who usually bob and sway no matter what the wind may bring, have sought shelter elsewhere. The rain is light but circular, driven first one way, then another. Some say the wind howls, but this wind sounds more like a blender on low speed, churning in a relentless whirl that pauses for a moment before surging back again.

And to think, yesterday was seventy degrees and sunny.

This is winter in Florida. Spontaneous and restless, as if all the warmth and sunlight have spun away like a passing tornado. Tomorrow we will gather up the bird feeders and garden flags strewn across the yard, and set right the tipped lawn chairs and side tables.

The pond will once again lie smooth and placid, its surface mirror-like, while the noble black-and-white ducks dive beneath it in search of dinner. Weather here is somehow bigger than the worst snowstorms of the North, and yet just as predictable as a red sky warning of an incoming storm. This is Florida weather, and there is nothing else like it in the world!

Reimagining Accessibility: Undoing Ableism Among Disabled and Medical Communities

Ableism is the assumption that being able-bodied or non-disabled is the default, the goal, or the standard everyone should be measured against. People who do not fit that mold are expected to adapt, work harder, or accept being excluded.

Ableism comes in many forms. It can be intentional or unintentional, external or internal, and it often appears as judgment, disbelief, or praise that comes with conditions. At its core, ableism is the belief that some bodies and abilities are more valuable than others.

Ableism is prevalent not only in the non-disabled part of society, but even among those with disabilities and within the medical community that interacts with them. One common form shows up as judgment. It often sounds like, “I have this disability and I manage to work, so she should be able to work too.”

This way of thinking assumes that all disabilities function the same way, that all bodies respond similarly to effort, and that outcomes are purely a matter of willpower. It ignores differences in severity, progression, pain, fatigue, comorbid conditions, and access to support. It also ignores the fact that some people are paying an enormous physical and emotional price for what they are managing to do.

Another deeply ingrained form of ableism is the belief that if you want something badly enough and are willing to work hard enough, you can achieve it. Many of us were raised on this idea. For people with disabilities, this belief can be especially damaging. Some push and push, convinced that if they just try harder, success will follow. Instead, they worsen their condition, exhaust themselves physically and emotionally, and slowly break their own spirit. When they fail, they blame themselves, because they truly believe success would have been possible if they had worked hard enough. That belief itself is ableist, even when it comes from within the disabled community.

Intentional ableism occurs when barriers are known and deliberately ignored or dismissed. This includes business owners who refuse to add ramps or accessible entrances because they believe it would ruin the appearance of a building, even though they understand it excludes wheelchair users.

It appears when employers decline to hire qualified candidates after learning they need accommodations, without ever discussing what support might make the job accessible. It shows up when events are consistently held in inaccessible spaces and disabled people are told they can look at photos later or simply miss out.

Intentional ableism also includes denying legally required accommodations because they are viewed as too costly or inconvenient, or framing disabled people as burdens rather than as members of the community. In many cases, accessibility features are added only after complaints or legal action, and even then are implemented in the most minimal way possible.

Another type of ableism is unintentional. Most unintentional ableism is not about being unkind. It comes from assumptions people do not even realize they are making. It can sound like telling someone, “If I can push through the pain, so can you,” without recognizing that another person’s body or condition works very differently. It appears when spaces are designed with stairs as the primary entrance and accessibility is treated as an afterthought, even though exclusion was never the intent.

Unintentional ableism includes praising disabled people for ordinary tasks because those activities are assumed to be extraordinary, or believing that assistive devices alone have solved accessibility problems. Comments like “You do not look disabled” are often meant as compliments but still reflect harmful assumptions. It also appears when activities are planned around long periods of walking or standing, and organizers are genuinely surprised when someone cannot participate.

A third type of ableism is external. External ableism comes from the world around us. It exists in systems, policies, environments, and interactions that assume non-disabled bodies and minds are the norm. It includes buildings designed with stairs as the main entrance, workplaces that measure productivity without accounting for pain or fatigue, and public spaces that technically meet accessibility requirements but are still functionally unusable.

External ableism also shows up in attitudes, such as questioning whether someone truly needs accommodations, assuming disability limits intelligence or worth, or praising disabled people only when they appear to overcome their limitations in ways that make others comfortable. These messages are reinforced through social expectations, media portrayals, and institutional practices that treat disabled people as exceptions rather than as part of the population.

The fourth type of ableism is internal. Internal ableism happens when cultural beliefs about productivity, independence, and worth are absorbed and turned inward by people with disabilities themselves. It can look like believing you should be able to do something because others with similar diagnoses can, even when your body is clearly telling you otherwise. It shows up as guilt for resting, shame for needing help, or pushing past safe limits because you were taught that effort equals worth.

Internal ableism can also mean minimizing your own needs, delaying the use of assistive devices because they feel like a sign of failure, or blaming yourself when accommodations are necessary. Over time, this pressure erodes self-trust and self-compassion, leaving people feeling inadequate for limitations that are not personal failings.

Disabled people are often just as affected by external and internal ableism as their non-disabled peers because they grow up in the same ableist society as everyone else. Long before a disability is acquired, recognized, or diagnosed, most people absorb cultural messages that equate productivity with worth, independence with success, and limitation with failure.

Those beliefs do not disappear simply because someone becomes disabled. Instead, they are carried forward and applied both to yourself and to others with disabilities. When disabled people judge another person’s limitations, compare coping strategies, or assume that effort should lead to the same outcomes for everyone, they are often drawing on standards they were taught long before they had reason to question them.

Many disabled people have also been rewarded for acting as if they were able-bodied for as long as they could. Pushing through pain, minimizing symptoms, and avoiding accommodations are often praised by teachers, employers, doctors, and even loved ones.

Over time, this reinforcement teaches people that acceptance comes from appearing capable and low-maintenance. When those expectations can no longer be met, discomfort, judgment, or resentment often follow. This fuels external ableism toward others with disabilities and deepens internal ableism directed inward.

There is also fear at the center of this. Disability is unpredictable, and progression or decline can be deeply frightening. Judging another disabled person for needing more help can become a way of distancing yourself from that fear, as if believing “that will not happen to me” offers protection.

Internal ableism often grows from the same place. Admitting the full extent of your limitations can feel like giving up or confirming the very stereotypes society fears most. As a result, many disabled people hold themselves to impossible standards and, without intending to, reinforce those same standards in others.

Medical ableism adds another powerful layer to this experience. It appears in how chronically ill and disabled people are viewed and treated within the healthcare system. Medical care is often guided by the assumption that the goal is a return to a previous version of normal, rather than helping someone adapt to a changed body and build a sustainable life within new limits. When recovery to a former level of function is not possible, care may stall, shift into dismissal, or quietly withdraw.

New or worsening symptoms are frequently dismissed as “just part of the disability,” even when they represent meaningful changes in function or quality of life. Chronic pain, fatigue, neurological symptoms, and digestive issues are especially likely to be minimized.

Instead of being investigated, they are folded into an existing diagnosis and treated as something the patient should simply endure. Over time, patients learn that reporting symptoms may not lead to help and may even mark them as difficult.

Quality of life is also often undervalued in medical decision-making. The focus tends to remain on lab results, imaging, or disease markers, while daily function, comfort, and dignity are treated as secondary concerns.

For many chronically ill and disabled people, some level of pain or limitation is unavoidable. The goal is not perfection, but a life that is manageable and meaningful. When that reality is ignored, patients are left surviving rather than living.

Pain management exposes medical ableism particularly clearly. Some patients are denied necessary medication because of fear, stigma, or rigid policies that fail to account for individual circumstances. Others are labeled as drug-seeking simply for advocating for relief that would allow them to function at all.

At the same time, some patients are given pain medication dismissively, not as part of a thoughtful plan to improve quality of life, but as a way to end the appointment without engaging in deeper care. In both cases, the message is the same. The lived experience of the disabled person is not worth sustained effort.

Medical ableism reinforces the idea that disabled lives are inherently less, or that suffering is an acceptable condition of chronic illness. It discourages collaboration, dismisses patient expertise, and places unrealistic expectations on bodies that have already changed. Recognizing medical ableism requires a shift away from restoring a past that may no longer be possible and toward supporting a new normal that prioritizes safety, dignity, and quality of life.

Ableism is not just something that happens to disabled people. People with disabilities are just as likely as those without disabilities to be influenced by ableist thinking. It is so deeply woven into our culture, our work ethic, and our way of life that no one, no matter how well-meaning, is fully exempt. It is something we must all actively unlearn.

Actively unlearning ableism is not a one-time realization. It is an ongoing practice of noticing, questioning, and changing how you think, speak, and act.

It starts with awareness. This means paying attention to your own assumptions about productivity, independence, pain, and worth. When you catch yourself thinking that someone should be able to do something because you can, or because another disabled person can, pause and ask where that expectation came from. Many of these beliefs are inherited from culture, not grounded in reality.

Listening to disabled voices is essential, especially voices that differ from your own experience. Disability is not one-size-fits-all. People with different conditions, severities, resources, and support systems will have very different limits and needs. Believing people when they describe their pain, fatigue, or barriers, without comparison or judgment, is a key part of unlearning ableism.

Unlearning ableism also means redefining success. Instead of measuring worth by productivity, endurance, or independence, it means valuing sustainability, safety, dignity, and quality of life. Rest is not failure. Needing help is not weakness. Using accommodations is not giving up. These shifts are often hardest for disabled people themselves, because internal ableism is reinforced by praise for pushing through at any cost.

Another important step is examining how you respond to accessibility. When accommodations are inconvenient, slow, or expensive, do you see them as burdens or as basic inclusion? Do you view accessibility as optional or as a fundamental part of participation? Challenging those reactions, even silently, is part of the work.

Finally, unlearning ableism requires self-compassion. Everyone raised in an ableist culture will reflect it in some way. Catching yourself in ableist thinking does not make you a bad person. It gives you the opportunity to choose differently. Over time, those choices add up. Unlearning ableism is less about perfection and more about the willingness to keep noticing, learning, and adjusting.

Thoughts from the Author: There are many adaptations that help people with disabilities function in an inaccessible world. Wheelchairs, rollators, canes, crutches, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, visual enhancements, eye-tracking technology, and more. These tools are valuable and often essential. But when the world itself remains inaccessible, the presence of adaptations can give able-bodied people the false impression that accessibility has been solved.

A person in a wheelchair still cannot cross the gap to board a train. A person using a rollator still cannot climb an outdoor flight of steps with no railing, like those found at historic and grand sites across the country. Someone using crutches may be completely exhausted after navigating a gravel path with exposed roots and brush. An able-bodied person may see a wooden pier and assume it is accessible, without realizing that uneven boards can exhaust a rollator user or leave someone using a cane or crutches constantly off balance.

A temporary ramp placed over a few steps at the entrance of an otherwise accessible restaurant may be too steep for a wheelchair user to navigate independently. Relying on strangers for physical safety turns participation into a risk calculation rather than a simple outing.

Most people with disabilities understand that not everything can be made accessible. A historic colonial manor cannot have its second floor made accessible without altering the history being preserved. Narrow hallways that are too tight for wheelchairs or rollators cannot simply be fixed.

But in modern construction, accessibility is still too often treated as an afterthought. It is framed as a regulation to be met cheaply, while millions are spent on dramatic staircases and revolving front doors. Disabled access is routed to side entrances or long zigzag ramps that lead to less prominent doors, sending a clear message about who the space was designed for.

Older buildings are frequently retrofitted with small wheelchair lifts that require finding someone with a key and waiting for another person to operate the equipment. From experience, that person is often located in a part of the building the wheelchair user cannot reach without the lift. This raises serious safety concerns. In an emergency, disabled people are once again forced to rely on strangers, potentially putting multiple lives at risk because exits are inaccessible.

And yet, many people without mobility disabilities believe the world is fairly accessible now. The harder question may be whether those of us who are disabled, but not visibly or mobility impaired, sometimes hold the same belief. Ableism is not just something that happens to disabled people. It is something we all must actively unlearn.

Other articles you might enjoy include: Can I or Should I? Living With Disability, Risk, and Hard Choices – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

The Disability Catch-22 – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Designer Shoes and Disability: Why Judging Others Is Obscene – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Can I or Should I? Living With Disability, Risk, and Hard Choices

A hostess at the hostess stand of a fancy restaurant is talking on the phone, answering a question. Her answer is, "Yes, we're accessible, once you get past the front steps." There are three steps patrons must get up to eat in the restaurant. Some able-bodies people don't understand that isn't really accessible at all.

Being disabled doesn’t always mean I can’t do something. Sometimes I can but doing it would come with a cost that more able-bodied people do not see and do not understand.

The truth is this; able-bodied people rarely find themselves in a position where they have to choose between doing something they really want to do and incurring long-term pain or even an injury that could put them in the hospital. For people with life-limiting conditions, we have to face this option often.

So, the question isn’t can I, it’s should I? And most of the time, the honest answer is no.

Will I sometimes do it anyway? Yes. But that choice has to be rare and made with caution, because even when I can do something, I will still pay for it later with pain, fatigue, soreness, a flare, or even a long-term injury.

Sometimes the situation truly warrants that cost. If a child were injured at the bottom of a stairway, and there was no one else to help, I would take that risk without hesitation, even knowing it could hurt me or cause me to fall. Some moments have a moral component that calls for action despite the risk.

But that is a rare exception. Something like visiting a new nightclub, eating at a fabulous restaurant, or any kind of optional outing that requires me to risk a fall or a broken bone is a situation where I can’t afford to take the risk. In those cases, the cost is not reasonable, and saying no is the responsible choice.

Living with a life-limiting condition means constantly weighing the risks against the consequences. Every yes has consequences. This is not about fear or unwillingness. It is about reasoning, responsibility, and life experience. When I say no, I am not being difficult or dramatic. I am making a deliberate choice to protect my health, my safety, and my ability to function tomorrow and beyond. That is not weakness. It is wisdom learned the hard way.

Here are more reflections on living with a disability, chronic illness, or a life-limiting condition.

When Change Sneaks Up on You – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

My Story Isn’t Public Property – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Designer Shoes and Disability: Why Judging Others Is Obscene – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Disabled People Don’t Need Permission to Enjoy Life – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

We’ve Been Gaslit So Long, We Gaslight Ourselves – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life.

Busting Disabled Parking Myths: Facts About Handicap Placards

A bright yellow background with colorful cursive words that say, "Don't Judge a Disability by its Visibility."

Busting Disabled Parking Myths

Disabled people are facing increasing harassment for using disabled parking placards (handicap hang tags & license plates). Let’s get the facts straight.

Myth 1: “You don’t look disabled.”

Fact: There is no single “disabled look.” Many disabilities are invisible, fluctuating, or not obvious to strangers. Some conditions, such as lung or heart disease, may not be visible at all but can severely limit how far a person can safely walk.

Myth 2: “You are too young to need a disabled parking placard.”

Fact: Disability has no age requirement. Children, teens, and adults of all ages can have serious medical conditions that limit mobility, endurance, or safety.

Myth 3: “Disabled parking is only for wheelchair users.”

Fact: Disabled parking is for people whose disabilities affect mobility, pain, fatigue, breathing, balance, safety, or the ability to walk distances, not just wheelchair users.

Myth 4: “If you can walk, you shouldn’t have a disabled parking placard.”

Fact: Being able to walk is not the same as being able to walk safely, repeatedly, or without severe pain or exhaustion.

Myth 5: “People get disabled parking placards easily.”

Fact: The application process is medical, evidence-based, and often difficult. Many people are wrongly denied and must appeal.

Myth 6: “Disabled parking misuse is widespread.”

Fact: Fraud exists, but it is rare. Media outrage exaggerates the issue while ignoring the real harm caused by the harassment of legitimate placard holders.

Myth 7: “Challenging people protects disabled parking.”

Fact: Public policing harms disabled people, not fraudsters. Enforcement is the responsibility of local authorities, not strangers in parking lots. Disabled people do not owe anyone an explanation of their disability or why they use a disabled parking placard. If a placard is displayed, a medical professional and the state have already determined eligibility.

Disabled parking is an accessibility tool, not a privilege. Trust the system, respect the placard, and let disabled people move through the world without fear of confrontation. Disabled parking exists to reduce harm and increase access, not to invite judgment or interrogation. Most disabled people are already navigating pain, fatigue, and medical uncertainty. The last thing they need is to defend their legitimacy in a parking lot. A little restraint and respect go a long way.