Monday, March 3, 2025
Happy Monday, my friends! As much as disability is a social construct used to classify people so too are the differences between visible and invisible disabilities. Before we go any further, we need to note that “visible” is not the same thing as “physical” and “invisible” is not the same as “mental.” People living with chronic illnesses, for example, often describe their disability as “invisible” while being very physical. So too do “visible” disabilities often carry significant mental components with them, independent of the marginalization experienced by disabled people. Today, as a person living with a chronic illness—diabetes—and a neurodivergence—ADHD—I want to focus on invisible disabilities.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, “Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common mental disorders affecting children. Symptoms of ADHD include inattention (not being able to keep focus), hyperactivity (excess movement that is not fitting to the setting) and impulsivity (hasty acts that occur in the moment without thought).”[1] ADHD is thought to impact over 8% of children and approximately 2.5% of adults, though those numbers are likely low given underreporting and underdiagnosis, particularly in adults. Despite the clinical definition, most people still visualize ADHD as a little boy who is unable to sit still in class or a child who can’t concentrate during a lecture. While those images are definitely true for some people, they fail to account for the numerous ways that ADHD can present, and they often allow people to fall through the proverbial cracks. Hyperactivity was never a problem for me. I was very content to sit, but my mind would wonder to just about anything else. I’m just old enough that cell phones and laptops didn’t invade my life until college and definitely old enough that fidget spinners and knitting during activities were not considered to be appropriate coping strategies. I doodled in my notebooks, stared out the window, and disassociated from whatever was happening. I still read all kinds of books, got straight “As,” met all the expectations, and so missed any identification as being “in need.” However, in college and then in further education and life it became clear that I had learned to cope. Reading is still fun, but I become so distracted that I’m a glacier reader.
My disability hides under the surface and any marks are largely hidden unless you’re working on a project with me or see me take medicine. It’s not a fluke of scheduling that I write my Monday Moments first thing in the morning right after taking my ADHD medication. These are times when my concentration is the highest. We have to remember that even the people who present with no disabilities or who appear to be the most active, physical, and able may be living with an illness or circumstance which impacts their life in ways we will never know. We particularly need to remember this fact when friends and colleagues say that they’re sick or need a day alone. Return to set schedules and in-person work might not seem like a major issue of our time, but flexible schedules and remote work can help people navigate their lived realities in ways that might be uncomfortable and unnecessarily burdensome otherwise.
What invisible disabilities do you live with? How do you need people and places to adjust to make your lived reality gentler?
Let us pray: Gracious God, you have made us each wonderful and beautiful. Help us build a world where respect and accommodation is given to all disabilities—visible and invisible—where each person has what they need to live comfortably, safely, and productively. Grant us the grace to remember that you created as we all and that you celebrate each of us in our diversity. We ask this in the name of your son who was made disabled for our sake. Amen.
Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Faithfully,
Ben
[1] Retrieved February 26, 2025, from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/adhd.
