Presumption of Guilt - My Disabled Journey

A year and a day ago, I started writing about my disability. I was dealing with a particularly rough patch of symptoms, and there was something therapeutic about venting to myself on the page. 366 days later, The Warhorse published the piece. It went live this morning.

Quick note: the rest of this post will make more sense if you've read the actual piece, linked above.

It feels a bit surreal, and I'm apprehensive about the reception because of the very nature of what I wrote. It's the most vulnerable thing I've shared publicly, and because I still feel like an imposter in the disabled community, I worry about this having some type of negative fallout.

I've learned a lot about myself and the writing and publishing process over the past year.

For one, it's hard to take feedback of any type when a piece is this personal. I'm fortunate to have developed a friendship with one of my former Michigan professors, Alex Ralph, a talented author and editor who generously took the time to read through multiple drafts along the way. The essay is far better thanks to his steady guidance, tracking all the way back to what he taught me in undergrad.

I also had to make edits to fit with what The Warhorse was looking for. That was tough, especially because I had to shorten the piece. I thought about posting the full longer version here, but upon reflection I actually think that the shorter piece is, well, just better.

There's one paragraph they cut which I had trouble letting go of (to their immense credit, there was a thorough back and forth about these edits). It's more of a stream of consciousness, so it was the right call to remove it, but I still want to post it here because I think it speaks to some of the internal dialogue I've wrestled with over the past eight years:

Does one become disabled upon government recognition? For compensation and health benefit purposes, sure. The process of obtaining that designation is complex and lengthy, so there can be a long lag in between submitting a claim for benefits and the official recognition as a disabled person entitled to benefits. It’s not as if the person wasn’t disabled prior to official recognition, so the disability must have started at least as of the date of claim submission. Even so, is the date of original application submission when one becomes disabled? Surely not. I wonder if anyone has ever applied for benefits on the same day in which the disabling injury actually occurred. And think of the kneecap compared to the conditions manifesting from toxic exposure — some injuries are clearer than others. So when exactly did I become disabled, and how can I begin to answer without agreeing internally on that threshold definition?

I don't think I'm alone in wrestling through those questions, or anything else raised in the essay.

One of my takeaways here is that I need to keep writing, both for myself and for public consumption. Writing serves as a forcing function to take a series of scattered thoughts and emotions and put them into some type of coherent structure. And specific to this piece, I've learned that sometimes things I write to myself can take shape into something that could be helpful to others

In short, more to come. In the interim, let me know what you think about this post and the essay.