Recognizing and Recovering from Internalized Ableism and Shame
Recognizing and Recovering from Internalized Ableism and Shame
Human beings are much more that the sum of their parts
Nature Gave Me an Impairment, Capitalist Oppression Dehumanized Me and Made it a Disability.
Impairment refers to a physical, mental, or sensory condition that affects an individual's functional ability whereas disability is a social construct that arises when an individual with an impairment faces barriers to participating fully in society.
My impairment is much easier to live with than my disability because I’m not ashamed of my impairment, but am deeply hurt and ashamed by my disability.
When a person with a congenital or accidental impairment is mistreated or excluded repeatedly and pervasively solely because of their impairment(s) it can cause serious psychological damage in the form of internalized ableism and shame. In this article, I am going to discuss how I experienced and am working toward recovering from internalized ableism and shame. My goal is to help others going through the hardship of disability and the social violence of ableism to recognize what is happening to them, how to overcome it and how to collectively organize to protect ourselves from the oppressive forces that exist in our environment.
This is not meant to be a pity party or a sob story it is meant to show the feelings and psychological damage that came from ableism. Separating one’s inner lived experience from the outside social and political reality can be very challenging and confusing and is much more difficult to see from the inside as the one involved than from the outside as an observer. One of the first things I had to do was recognize this and give myself permission to take it slow and not beat myself up so much.
My experience of internalized ableism was complicated by growing up in foster care, hospitals and institutional settings without a family or father to help me define my identity and masculinity. For this reason, I experienced internalized ableism as a deeply felt belief that I was irreparably broken, a failure and less than a “real man” in a way that led to painful feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy.
Ableism in Academics - I didn’t recognize the ableism I was being subjected to when I was young because I was emotionally numb with blinders on basically on auto-pilot trying to find myself socially as a young teen and trying to make something of myself after aging out of institutional care at 18. After two years of adult upgrading at Scarborough Center for Alternative Education, with the help of friends, I was able to gain admission to York University as a mature student on scholarship. I was a good student but wasn’t able to carry a full course load due to my impairments. I asked for accommodations but wasn’t able to complete the overly complicated application requirements so I went without. Determined to complete my degree no matter what fought tooth and nail I took twice as long to complete my degree at a significantly higher cost than my able-bodied and privileged peers. I didn’t understand how that was a form of ableism then but do now. At one point in my undergrad, I was homeless so I went to the thrift shop and bought a suit and a briefcase so I could sleep on the subway hiding in plain view so transit police would think I was a tired businessman and leave me alone and I studied at night. Though I passed on a lot of campus fun to focus my energies on studying hard enough to earn a high GPA (3.9/4.0) and wanted more than anything to complete graduate school, without family support or necessary accommodations and being low on money I left university earlier than I wanted to with only a bachelor’s degree. Not having a family to cheer me on I skipped convocation and had my degree mailed to me. My girlfriend at the time was pressuring me to get married and start a family which as a foster kid is something I wanted more than anything in this world, so in 2001, I dropped out of the post-baccalaureate program I had started in Social Work and took a temp job.
Fast forward to 2017, I found the courage to try applying to graduate school again so I saved up the application fees and applied to Wilfred Laurier's Faculty of Social Work. On the night of the enrollment session, I arrived at the faculty of social work building to find a sign directing people up a flight of stairs to a conference room. Disappointed I laughed at the irony of a social work school being so blatantly ableist and spent another 20 minutes looking for an elevator and wandering the hallways looking for the room as there was no one there to ask and no accessibility signage. After my application was accepted I was told repeatedly that with my high grades and extensive work experience, I was a very strong candidate and would probably be admitted. I had some issues with application references and when I called in to explain why I made the mistake of disclosing that because I had been out of work on disability leave it was difficult to get the kinds of references they wanted. I was told by the social work admissions advisor that I should reconsider my application due to my disability because placements might not be accessible. I assured them I’d have an accessible placement and after dealing with the reference issue hung up. A few months later I was again told I was a strong candidate and asked if I wanted a spot on a finalist waiting list for enrollment. The deadline passed and crickets. I filed a Human Rights complaint and during the discovery phase, it was determined Wilfred Laurier had closed admissions to the session I applied to with two openings unfilled and I was the only person on the waiting list that didn’t get a spot. Legal disclosure also revealed that no visibly disabled candidates had been enrolled. In the end, the university was well-represented with more than one lawyer and I was pro se, the adjudicator acknowledged that while I was clearly mistreated the case would be dismissed on technical grounds. Having experienced similar outcomes before I wasn’t surprised but was deeply hurt and disappointed. Without meaningful enforcement of human rights and disability protection legislation nothing will change. The disability community needs a voice and a collective presence if we hope to ever have meaningful rights and freedoms in Canada.
Ableism at Work - Eight months after graduating I caught what I thought was my big break with a full-time permanent position working for the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto as a child protection worker. Ashamed of being lesser than others and afraid of the consequences I hid my impairments and lasted two years without workplace accommodations by working nearly 30 hours per week above my full-time hours free on my own time to keep up the appearance of being like everyone else. Unfortunately, this was unsustainable as I was injured on the job and only lasted another three years with on-and-off medical leave. From a professional perspective, I was right to hide my impairments and fake it to fit in because once my impairments were out in the open rather than provide accommodations and assist with my recovery the agency set me up to fail and gradually forced me out and that’s when things really started to unravel. I was never able to get another good job after that and with each employment failure that followed I hated myself and my broken body more. I’ve been to the human rights commission four times and as an impaired pro se litigant going up against seasoned attorneys, it never goes well so I don’t bother anymore. I learned that human rights are a myth. See my article from March 19, 2023.
Once you get put on long-term disability benefits it’s like being written off. There is no rehabilitation, identification of career strengths and weaknesses, no help to find employment you can do within the restrictions of your impairment, no re-education or retraining, and no effort to salvage the human talent that remains locked within a broken body. Right there you can see that I’m still struggling to be free of my own internalized ableism but it’s hard to stop seeing myself as a written-off loser in a broken body that can’t perform as demanded. The pressure to measure up and fit in can be overwhelming for everybody but is much worse for people with impairments beyond their control. Human rights and disability inclusion laws are useless and serve more as PR than a real thing that provides meaningful protection for people subjected to ableism in Canada.
I didn’t fight so hard to complete a university degree just to be written off in the prime of my life. I want to work and be a self-sufficient man that’s worthy of love and family so badly it hurts but my body and mind just won’t let me do things the way paying employers demand they be done. Psychologically because I’ve failed, been humiliated, been denied basic dignities and justice and hurt so many times trying to be normal and keep up I’ve lost faith in myself and don’t believe I can do it. This is internalized ableism and shame speaking. It says you can’t do it you’ll never be like them, you’re broken and will just get in the way, spare yourself the humiliation, you’re a second-class citizen who doesn’t get legal rights so just stay away from them because they don’t care about you and will never accept you… It’s a remarkably powerful inner voice.
Ableism at Home - People with disabilities are far more likely to be victims of domestic abuse and my real lived experience bears this out. For the sake of my children who may one day read this, I’m skipping the story of domestic abuse I survived and starting at the end. My wife of 14 years came right out and told me because I was a broken failure she was leaving me for a man who could walk, who could work a good job and provide for her princess lifestyle. After she left me despite doing everything I could to recover from my impairments to be a good and involved father and work out a joint custody order my wife leveraged my disability to estrange me from my children. I have a severe potentially fatal form of asthma and knowing that it would take away my parental autonomy she bought the boys a dog. When I tried to fight it the judge told me my disability is my problem and empowered her through ableist inaction to use my disability to damage my health, estrange me from my children and give the only family I’ve ever known and loved to him “the able-bodied man” to raise and protect. The message this sent me was that I don’t get to have rights and freedoms in Canada and that my impairment and the disability that follows are completely and solely my problem and responsibility.
After a period of brokenhearted defeat and deep depression, with the help of therapy and friends, I once again found the courage to fight for my rights and try to ‘man up’ for my children. I asked for help and was repeatedly told by victim’s services and social work agencies that men can’t be victims. The gender politics and serious lack of knowledge about disability abuse that exists in social work and family law today have seriously compounded my feelings of shame and brokenness. I haven’t dated and have been celibate since my separation more than 8 years ago because I truly believe from experience that women want a “real man”, a provider and protector and that after failing in my marriage my wife was absolutely right all the times she told me no woman would want a failed broken man like me. Time after time the message I kept receiving from every direction, employers, my wife, her family, my biological family, the courts, and even doctors, social workers, lawyers and judges is that I’m broken, incapable of being a real man and good father and that as a lesser person, I was undeserving of the citizenship rights, freedoms and supports that able-bodied “normal” Canadians get to enjoy.
How is anyone supposed to not internalize their brokenness, shame (and ableism) under that kind of generalized pressure? Making matter worse, when the Canadian Liberal government and our tragically ignorant attorney general David Lametti approved and pushed a poorly regulated program of euthanasia for disabled Canadians I applied for MAID because the message I heard yet again was that I didn’t deserve to live in Canada and that as a broken man, I was a burdensome dishonour to my country who should volunteer to die.
Of course, I’m selling myself far short of the well-educated, intelligent and loving man I am but that’s the nature of patriarchal shame and internalized ableism. It makes you believe that you’re “less than” because you’re broken and assumed to be inferior to able-bodied people. It makes you believe that you don’t deserve love and belonging because your disability is an undue hardship on the way society is and the way the majority population of able-bodied people want to live.
Finding My Voice and Fighting Back
So what to do about this? I live alone and don’t drink, smoke, do drugs, or gamble so I ate more comfort food (mostly warm oatmeal cookies and ice-cold milk) than I should and sought therapy, went to the gym to take part in do-it-yourself physiotherapy and accommodated sports, forced myself to socialize and make friends and started this peer support blog. Even though it’s been 8 years since my separation I’m still too afraid to risk dating with any seriousness but with friends’ support, I’m back out there and it’s a work in progress. I’ve been meeting women online but keep sabotaging anything more than conversation and friendship out of a lingering fear I’ll be rejected and humiliated because I’m “not man enough” for her. I’m actually not sure how people in wheelchairs have sex or manage their sexual autonomy so I am planning a future blog article about this topic. I’m flying by the seat of my pants into unknown territory and am learning as I write.
With a lot of therapy and help from friends, I’m getting better and don’t always feel like a useless burden anymore and I’m starting to find the courage to reach out and fight back.
I’m bearing my soul and the most vulnerable aspects of my life online in this blog for the whole world to see as a way of screaming at the top of my lungs that I’m not ashamed of my impairments and that the way disabled human beings are treated in Canada is unacceptable. I’m terrified to the point of having panic attacks and painful physical reactions but I’m not hiding anymore, I’m not pretending to be something I’m not anymore and I refuse to fit into the medical able-bodied model of society. It’s time for all people living with disabilities to stand together and collectively make it known
WE ARE HERE FULLY HUMAN WITH OUR IMPAIRMENTS OUT FRONT AND CENTER THE WAY WE WERE MADE AND WE’RE NOT CHANGING FOR YOU AND WE’RE NOT LEAVING SO GET USED TO US.
This is what The Intersection means to me.
#fuckdavidlametti #fuckbigpharma #eattherich #classwar ❤️🇨🇦
If you are a foster care or residential school survivor or a disabled Canadian facing exclusion and isolation and would like to share your story please submit your story to The Intersection at theintersectionstories@gmail.com
YOU MATTER AND YOUR VOICE DESERVES TO BE HEARD ❤️Robert Melanson