Thoughts on Thisability

It's been a while since I've had thoughts - 3 years according to this blog. They stopped when I decided to quit grad school and now I'm back in grad school and thoughts have returned (it's how I justify procrastination). It's funny that this is occurring to me while I am watching X-men, but I think I can relate to people from marginalized groups who are conservative and effectively vote against their group's interest. I think a part of it is not seeing yourself as part of that group. I'm not a POC (or conservative for that matter), but I am "a person with [a] disability". I absolutely refused to see myself that way growing up and was very hurt when someone pointed out. (I still don't love the idea, but I accept it). I put in a great deal of effort into being normal which resulted in occasional success fitting in and a tremendous success in denial. Reflecting on this now - wow, denial is a powerful thing. Somehow I haven't delved into it much before, but it probably had a lot to do with where I ended up professionally and personally. Professionally, I had a very difficult time finding a job and I suppose I knew that academia was the path of least resistance for the weirdos. The funny thing, though, is that every time I failed to get call backs from the interview I thought it was because I was not qualified or didn't say the right thing or whatever. I never considered that it might be because of my disability - even when an occasional interviewer screamed or jumped when I extended my hand. To be fair, I've bombed some phone and skype interviews too - I am not a perfect candidate or perfect interviewee. Yet the point isn't I've faced discrimination - it's that I hadn't even thought that I might be facing discrimination (based on disability, ethnicity/immigration status, etc). One time a friend asked me if I thought it might be because of my disability and I refused to entertain that idea. Acknowledging that my disability might affect my professional life was too painful, I guess. Personally, I went so deep into denial that I (a) didn't include photos on okcupid that showed my disability and (b) felt proud when people didn't notice it right away. I guess I thought that somehow it could be overlooked. It's such a ridiculous thought now, but denial is a hell of a drug. Well, it's been 2 hours since I started this and I got really distracted. Basically, the way we see the world is highly subjective - and sometimes the things that should be obvious are instead completely inaccessible to the very people you'd think would know better. It boggles the mind. It boggled my mind for a couple of decades.