Sphinx

The glass-half-full position is that a problem I didn’t know I had has been solved by the very thing that raised it in the first place. It had simply not occurred to me to wonder whether the still-lingering after-effects of the plague – aka Long COVID – mean that I am now someone with a disability, or someone who is disabled. It’s certainly true that my ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities – and, like, do my job properly, especially the research-and-writing bits – has been substantially impaired, to a greater degree than can be explained by simple old age and uselessness, but surely that’s not the same as being disabled? Well, no need to worry; the Equality and Human Rights Commission has declared that it isn’t. True, the EHRC’s recent record on racism doesn’t promote complete confidence in its judgements, but like other British institutions I can choose to believe in my recent problems being a matter of a few bad apples rather than a systemic issue…

From the perspective of a solipsistic blog, what’s interesting is the strength of my reaction to the idea that I could, or even should, have been thinking in these terms. Intellectually, I know that disabilities are not necessarily visible, not necessarily genetic or the result of an accident, not necessarily lifelong or permanent. But this is still all about a category of which I instinctively assume I am not a member.

The obvious explanation is that this is a legacy of childhood: of growing up in a society where “Joey” was a ubiquitous playground insult and people with cerebral palsy or Down’s syndrome were seen as infectious and terrifying – and where other forms of disability were seen as affectations by work-shy scroungers. As a good Grauniad reader I quickly learnt that none of this is true, but either part of my subconscious still believes it, or this failed to shake the more basic assumption that we’re talking, however liberally, about Them rather than Us. And crossing that boundary – even contemplating the idea that I might become One of Them – is scary.

This is reinforced by my basic, admittedly unhealthy work ethic. I was once characterised by my then Head of Department as Boxer from Animal Farm: “I must work harder”. If I’m not managing to write and publish, what am I? If I’m letting people down because I can’t get that piece finished on time, what am I? If I’m a weak link in the department and they start wondering if they made a mistake in appointing me, what am I? I have to keep believing that tomorrow I’ll be back to my old self, because the alternative is to fear that I never will be. (No, no one said that this would actually make sense). And the idea that I might accept that I am actually disabled, that I simply cannot function adequately at the moment, is tantamount to declaring that I’m not me any more.

Hence, my interview with Occupational Health – because I have managed to get that far in acknowledging that I’m not 100% and maybe should do something about this – consisted, in retrospect, largely of me explaining how things really weren’t too bad, I was managing the teaching fine (just getting very tired afterwards), it is only the research and writing and I’m sure that’s just temporary… I don’t want to be the sort of bad colleague who claims lots of special adjustments that he doesn’t really need; I don’t want to be the person who actually needs special adjustments and allowances.

I’m even having personal feelings about terminology; the so-called ‘person first’ language of ‘someone with a disability’ feels less terrifying, less of a dramatic step, less of an unwarranted claim to special treatment, less of an admission, than ‘disabled person’. Which perhaps means that I do need to accept the latter, if accepting the reality of my situation is a necessary step towards dealing with it properly. But the EHRC has now declared that I can’t. So here we are.