disability advocacy Archives - Jan Mariet's A Day in the Life

Ableism is a Real Thing, Even Among People with Disabilities

Ableism is discrimination, prejudice, or unfair treatment toward people with disabilities, often based on the belief that non-disabled people are more capable, valuable, or “normal.” Almost everyone in our society displays some form of ableism, from those who proudly proclaim “survival of the fittest” to those who are much more empathetic and believe accessibility is essential, as long as it does not cost too much or inconvenience society too much.

What I want to discuss today, however, is the ableism that exists among people with disabilities, as well as among those who do not have a disability. I think this is something we are much less willing to talk about, perhaps because we assume that having a disability somehow makes us immune from being ableist ourselves.

Sometimes it takes a fairly simple form. A person who uses a wheelchair may insist, quite rightly, that ramps are essential and should be available everywhere, but then question why every accessible restroom should need an adult changing table or a lift when those things can be extremely expensive and only a percentage of people in wheelchairs need them. Someone else may say that they absolutely need accessible parking because they cannot walk very far, but then wonder why someone who has a full-time caregiver needs an accessible parking space when they already have someone there to help them.

In both cases, the accommodation I need seems perfectly reasonable because I understand exactly why I need it. The accommodation someone else needs can seem excessive because I have never experienced the disability that makes it necessary. Having a caregiver does not mean that a person no longer needs accessible parking. That caregiver may be transferring the person from the vehicle, unloading a wheelchair or other equipment, physically assisting the person into the building, or dealing with needs that are not obvious to the person watching from across the parking lot.

There are also much more insidious forms of ableism within the disability community. People with physical disabilities are often very vocal about the need for physical access, while sometimes being far less understanding about accommodations for people who are neurodivergent. Someone may completely understand the necessity of a wheelchair ramp while questioning why someone with autism needs sensory accommodations, or why someone with ADHD might need an accommodation at school or at work. That prevalent “I’m normal, but they aren’t” mindset seems to be deeply ingrained in us as human beings.

The same thing can happen when a person with a physical disability questions accommodations for someone with a psychiatric disability, or when someone with one type of disability questions the amount of money, care, or resources devoted to people who are so profoundly physically or cognitively disabled that they may never be able to work, live independently, or participate in many of the activities that most of us consider part of everyday life.

I think much of this comes back to the way we have been taught to measure the value of another human being. We place tremendous value on independence, productivity, employment, education, and achievement. We admire the disabled person who manages to work despite enormous obstacles, and we celebrate the person who “doesn’t let their disability stop them.” There is nothing wrong with celebrating those accomplishments, but there is something wrong when we begin to believe that the person who cannot accomplish those things is somehow less valuable or less deserving.

This is where the subject becomes uncomfortable for me personally, because the more I have thought about ableism, the more I have recognized some of it in myself. I have been physically disabled since birth, but I was raised to believe that I was not disabled and that, if I tried hard enough, I could do anything anyone else could do. For most of my childhood, I managed to live that way, although not always successfully. As I got older my disability progressed, and some things became more difficult, my philosophychanged to, “I may have to do it a different way, but I’ll get it done.” That worked for a very long time, too, until eventually there were things that I simply could not do, no matter how determined I was or how many different ways I tried to accomplish them.

I have also worked with people with intellectual disabilities, and I have always believed that they deserved the opportunity and support necessary to live the fullest lives they could and to thrive. However, when I really examine my own thinking, did I always see their contribution to society as being every bit as valuable as the contribution of a physically disabled person who could still work, earn a paycheck, raise a family, or have a successful career? I would like to automatically answer yes, but I am not sure that would be completely truthful.

Even that, however, is not the full extent of what I have begun to recognize in myself.

In my late 50s, I reached the point where I could no longer work, and I applied for and received SSDI. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) requires a sufficient work history and the payment of Social Security taxes, and I cannot tell you how fervently I have said over the years that SSDI is not a handout, but an insurance program that I paid into throughout my working life. That statement is absolutely true, but recently I started thinking about why it has always been so important to me to say it.

Why did I feel the need to make sure people understood that I had worked for my disability benefits? Why was it important to distinguish myself from someone receiving SSI, which provides benefits to people who are aged, blind, or disabled and who have very limited income and resources? When I say, “I worked for mine,” what am I unintentionally saying about the person who receives SSI?

That person may have been born with a disability that prevented them from ever establishing a substantial work history. They may have become seriously disabled as a young adult, before they had enough time to earn the work credits necessary for SSDI. Their disability may have interfered with their education and employment from the very beginning of their adult life.

Does the fact that I was fortunate enough to be able to work for decades before becoming too disabled to continue somehow make me more deserving of help than the person who never had that opportunity?

I do not believe that it does, but I am beginning to recognize that some of the language I have used over the years suggests that, somewhere along the way, I absorbed that message too. I didn’t see it before, but now I do.

Ableism is not something that exists only in the non-disabled community, and it is not practiced only by people who are deliberately cruel or dismissive toward disabled people. Every one of us carries assumptions and prejudices that have been part of our culture for generations, including those of us who are disabled ourselves. We can be passionate advocates for the accommodations we need while still failing to understand the needs of someone whose disability looks completely different from our own.

Just as we learned these prejudices, however, we can unlearn them, and I think the starting point is simply being willing to acknowledge that we have them. We can begin paying attention when we find ourselves deciding that someone else’s accommodation is excessive, questioning whether another person’s disability is severe enough, or measuring someone’s value according to how much they can work, earn, accomplish, or contribute.

I will start by acknowledging it in myself. I have spent my entire life with a disability, I have advocated for people with disabilities, and I have genuinely believed that people with disabilities deserve the same opportunities, respect, dignity, and quality of life as everyone else. None of that means I have somehow escaped absorbing the ableism that exists throughout our culture.

What will I do with that self-knowledge? I wish I could give you a profound answer, but I can’t. I suspect that recognizing our own prejudices doesn’t make them disappear overnight. It simply gives us the opportunity to notice them, question them, and hopefully begin changing them.

Only time will tell how successful I will be, but at least now I recognize that they are there.

Living ‘On Disability’ Certainly isn’t Living the High Life – 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 Difference Between Surviving and Living – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

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

Accessibility Is Not a Privilege

A decorative image of the author using her upright rollator.

As a person with a disability, I often get frustrated when people treat my need for accessibility as if it were a special privilege. I have heard people say, “Oh, you are so lucky you have a handicap parking placard.” I am not lucky that I need one. I would give anything to park at the far end of a lot and walk in without pain, fatigue, or risk. That is simply not an option for me.

Accessibility is not a favor. It is a basic right in our society. We have laws that are supposed to protect that right, yet those laws are not enforced the way they should be. Too many people, both in leadership and in the general community, still do not see accessibility as essential, so they ignore it, assuming nothing will happen if they cut corners. Most of the time, they are right and nothing does happen.

Even with laws in place, people with disabilities have to do extra work before going out. They search online for entrance photos, call ahead to ask about elevators, ramps, and accessible restrooms. and make backup plans in case those features are broken or blocked. Most people never have to think about any of this. For a person with a disability, it is part of daily life.

As a person with a disability, this is my reality because accessibility is often overlooked or an afterthought. Sometimes, the automatic door doesn’t work. The ramp might be hidden behind the building near the trash dumpster. The front door may be open, but the door leading from the ramp may be locked. There might be an accessible restroom, but it could be out of order for weeks or down a hallway made too narrow by chair storage. I’ve learned to expect these problems, but I shouldn’t have to.

So understand, I refuse express gratitude for the bare minimum. I’m not going to gush with thanks because a public space has a ramp or an elevator. They are basic requirements that allow disabled people to participate in everyday life. They are required. Expecting us to be thankful for access to the world around us is so unfair.

Real progress will only happen when businesses and public places stop treating accessibility as a charitable gesture and start treating it as a core responsibility. This will happen when enforcement is taken seriously and accessibility is seen as nonnegotiable. Equal access is not a special privilege. It is a fundamental right.

I Couldn’t Even Get in the Door – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

Why Disabled People Are Still Shut Out of Leadership – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life

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

Why Disabled People Are Still Shut Out of Leadership

If you think ableism is just about rude comments or outdated language, you couldn’t be further from the truth. It runs far deeper than that. Ableism is structural. It is embedded in how our communities are designed and who is allowed to shape them.

You can see this most clearly when disabled people are shut out of leadership and decision-making roles—by the very glass ceilings and systemic inaccessibility that prevent us from rising into those positions in the first place. Yes, disabled people are sometimes “included,” but too often only as symbolic representation, limited to one narrow or convenient form of disability access.

These are not accidents. They are the predictable outcomes of excluding disabled people from authority and leadership.

This is what happens when disabled people are pushed to the margins instead of trusted as experts in our own lives. And it shows up everywhere.

No accessible entrances.
Accessible bathrooms used as storage for boxes and supplies.
Baby-changing tables mounted so high a wheelchair user couldn’t possibly reach them.
Inaccessible public meetings.
Housing policies built around a mythical “one size fits all.”
Services optimized for cost savings instead of human impact.
“Alzheimer’s” jokes tossed around casually.
Public meetings held without sign-language interpreters.
Schools without adapted facilities.
The R-word still being used as a punchline.

And the list goes on.

Ableism is so ingrained in our society that many people don’t even see it anymore. It’s normalized, excused, and minimized. Most people aren’t even aware they’re being ableist until someone points it out, often after harm has already occurred.

Representation cannot be merely symbolic. It is too important for that. Current statistics estimate that one in ten people has a disability. So why aren’t one in ten politicians disabled? Why aren’t one in ten CEOs disabled? If one in ten people has a disability, why are so few leaders disabled?

And while there is no single, universally agreed-upon statistic for daily wheelchair use in the U.S., multiple sources estimate that approximately one in forty people use a wheelchair as their primary mobility device. When was the last time you saw a top politician or community leader who was a daily wheelchair user? What about community planners, landscape designers, or architectural designers?

If one in approximately 40 people are wheelchair users, why isn’t a single member of the House of Representatives a daily wheelchair user? Why is only one member of the Senate an occasional wheelchair user? There are 535 voting members of Congress, and yet, only one is a wheelchair user.

If Congress reflected the general U.S. population, you would expect about 13–14 daily wheelchair users among its members. In reality, there is only one wheelchair user.

Obviously, some professions have essential physical requirements that naturally exclude wheelchair users. You would not expect to find NFL players who are daily wheelchair users, nor active-duty firefighters, combat soldiers, roofers, or commercial airline pilots.

These are roles in which the core physical functions of the job genuinely cannot be performed from a wheelchair. This is not discrimination; it is reality. It would be no more reasonable than expecting a deaf and non-speaking person to be an opera singer, or a person missing both upper and lower limbs to be a rock climber.

There are, in fact, a small number of professions where essential physical requirements naturally exclude wheelchair users or people with other disabilities, but they are the exception, not the rule. Yet these few examples are routinely used to justify exclusion everywhere else.

When we talk about the absence of people with disabilities, community and political leadership do not fall into that category. Our leaders come from a wide range of backgrounds, professions, communities, and educational paths. These roles are not defined by physical endurance, speed, or mobility, but by judgment, experience, and the ability to serve

The absence of disabled leaders isn’t accidental. Leadership in the U.S. has long been built around an able-bodied ideal, and when disability appears, it’s either hidden, reframed, or erased.

When disabled people are in leadership, systems shift. Barriers are anticipated instead of apologized for later. Access is built in, not patched on afterward. Exclusion is prevented, not explained away.

Nothing changes unless we, disabled people and those who support full accessibility, use our voices. Real change does not come from isolated stories spoken into the social-media void. It comes from collective pressure, shared advocacy, and disabled people showing up together where decisions are actually made — if we can get through the door, up the steps, or find accessible seating.

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

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.