Also, a question: those of you who differentiate between disability and chronic illness for yourself (at least sometimes), why do you do so? Just curious.

I have for myself on occasion for two reasons: 1) the confusion over the legal definition of disability and the, like, actual definition and 2) disabled people can be healthy. My husband is disabled but very healthy. It’s not a value judgment, just different experiences.

So I think it can be useful to separate sometimes to describe my particular situation, although I think they can also be interchangeable and in many cases disability is useful as an umbrella term. I’m not presenting my take as the “right” one, but I am curious about others’.

Also I might use both in different contexts. In like an identity sense disability makes sense to me and I feel fine using it, but if I’m trying to describe my daily experience, chronic illness is just more accurate.

It’s a false dichotomy but like- my husband can’t get into the building if there’s no ramp or elevator, but if we both get sick he’ll be sick for a day or two and I’ll be sick for two weeks. Those seem like very different experiences to me in some ways (and not in others).

Obviously someone could have both those experiences fluidly or at the same time but sometimes they are separate.

Also I feel like gatekeeping happens on both sides- some people feel like they’re not “disabled enough” or included, some chronically ill people I know think disability is such a dirty word that they don’t want to own it

Often I see things like “I’m not a quadriplegic or something but I’m still disabled,” which is super funny to me because my autoimmune issues land me in the hospital or doctor many many times more than I think @HamOnWheels has been ever

so it’s a mix of a covering over of invisible disabilities and an underlying feeling in some cases that visibly disabled= automatically always ill and incapacitated, both of which suck

I’m also super interested in how some replies suggest that they would think of chronic illness as indicating more severe health/suffering/pain while for some, the word disability would indicate more severely bad health/suffering/pain. No take on that myself, just interested.

Also, the medical and social models are really interesting here too. Like in my case I’m literally disabled/ill because of a sickness- I’ve cried before just because I was so so tired of being physically sick and worn down and having what felt like a yearlong sinus infection.

Whereas I notice @HamOnWheels experiences more frustration and fear about inaccessibility- people’s assumptions in job interviews, inaccessible transit and buildings, no way to get around, inaccessible exam tables, etc. obviously there’s a lot of overlap but still, interesting.