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“Am I disabled?” For millions, there’s not always a clear answer

At some point in my childhood, my hands began to shake.

Not badly at first—I couldn’t draw a straight line, but I didn’t mind much since I’d never had any inclination towards art. As I entered my teenage years, though, the tremors got worse and started spreading out of my hands.

Although I tried to control the spasms in my face with ever-increasing doses of beta-blockers and anti-epileptics, by middle school I’d acquired the nickname “Twitchy.” In high school, my handwriting had gotten so atrocious it’d become a running joke among the teachers. And by the time I reached college, I finally admitted to myself that my neurological condition made a few things in life definitively harder.


Yet the first time a classmate recommended, after watching me take notes by hand, that I ask for an accommodation to help with written exams, I balked.

I told him I felt like anything they could offer would be unfair because I could use extra time to think over questions longer than other students. Besides, I type faster than average. My tremors, which this friend pointed out are explicitly covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (or ADA), are kinetic. That means that most of the time, they’re mild, especially when I’m at rest, though they spike drastically under certain conditions. But I knew in the back of my head that the real reason I didn’t want an accommodation was because it’d mean officially claiming a disability.

It wasn’t that I was ashamed of the classification. Instead, I felt like calling my tremors a “disability” would cheapen the word.

I’d grown up around adults with tremors who made no bones about them, and around people with far more obvious disabilities—like my hemiplegic mother. To me, a disability was something that interfered with pretty much every aspect of your life.

I felt like calling my tremors a ‘disability’ would cheapen the word.

I’m not alone in this. In forums and blogs, and among my friends with brain damage, serious mental illness, or other less-apparent issues, plenty of people want to know whether it’s accurate, acceptable, or functionally vital to call themselves disabled. But there just aren’t that many guidelines out there.

Yet after sustaining a serious of minor injuries with lasting effects on my chest and shoulder in recent years, making it incrementally harder to do select tasks, I've found my self questioning my status more and more.

So after scalding myself with hot tea and feeling something go pop in my ribcage while working out for the umpteenth, I decided it was time to try to resolve this debate within myself once and for all by reaching out to as many experts on disability identity and politics as I could.

"The first thing to know is that there's a difference between disability and impairment," says Professor Lex Frieden, a wheelchair-bound spinal cord injury victim and architect of the ADA.

“Impairment relates specifically to the kind of condition that somebody might have,” explains Frieden. “It’s kind of a general description” of whatever affects you physically or mentally.

Disability, on the other hand, is harder to define. There are legal definitions, the best known of which is the ADA’s, which counts any physical or mental impairment that limits at least one major life activity as a disability. But other regulations differ—under the Social Security Disability Insurance program, you need to be limited to the point of being unable to work. Different states have different barriers and metrics when it comes to measuring disability for parking permits or accommodations. And what counts as a “reasonable accommodation” by an employer is surprisingly hazy, which makes it a challenge to effectively argue an ADA discrimination case.

Frieden says that disabilities really come down to context and interpretation. “If you have a vision problem, for example, that doesn’t prevent you from driving, then you don’t have a disability when you’re driving,” he says. “But if that vision problem prevents you from being a professional target shooter, then you do have a disability” if that’s your dream vocation.

This conditional view of disability is a fine way of thinking about it as a legal or physical state. It helps us to determine who is eligible for which benefits. But a conditional view of disability doesn’t do much for someone who’s just trying to figure out whether it’s okay to think of him or herself as disabled.

For example, says Carrie Sandahl, the head of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Program on Disability Art, Culture, and Humanities, if someone has a disfigured hand that doesn’t actually limit his or her functional abilities, someone else can still see the difference and treat that person differently. The ADA has a provision protecting people who experience disability discrimination when they might not actually have a disability, so that individual might be entitled to some form of "disability" benefit or consideration. But even if the individual claims that benefit, he or she might still not think it's okay to identify as disabled if he or she is only perceived as such, but not physically prevented from doing anything.

The fuzziness of who’s roped into disability as a concept or identity, versus who’s entitled to a benefit, can cause serious issues—especially when people with disabilities police each other over discrepancies between one’s apparent identity and claimed community or benefits.

“You witness people with some impairments who are able to have more access to things than people with other kinds of impairments,” says Sandahl of her own experience. “You can call it a disability hierarchy… We’re able to come up with a bunch of ways to differentiate amongst us.”

Cheryl Green, an artist working with brain injury victims whose own brain injury is not readily apparent to many, describes a double whammy experience of what’s seen by some as a “lesser” disability: Non-disabled people discredit or disbelieve the impairment’s impact, going so far as to deny accommodations, as do more obviously disabled people, who decide not to welcome someone like Green into the impaired community.

“[This] might help people get things that they need and keep other people from getting things that they don’t really need,” says Green, who argues that even though she’s able to pass as fully abled in certain contexts, that shouldn’t affect her commitment to or identification with disabled communities. “It also makes everybody into a vigilante instead of focusing [on] what the actual problem is—the idea that we don’t need to make the world as accessible as possible.”

To someone like me who’s dead terrified of overstepping and getting rebuked for claiming something beyond my need or (in)ability, this isn’t a reassuring status quo.

Many of those who'd be considered by most to be disabled, at least from the outside, choose to shirk the label—even if they might be able to benefit from it.

That’s not always because internally they decided their impairments didn’t affect them enough to warrant the identity; often it has to do with judgments from the outside world.

That said, Frieden believes that if Franklin Roosevelt were politicking today, he might not feel the need to hide his disability for fear of losing standing with world leaders or the electorate. “I think we’ve probably made a lot of progress in our culture by having people who don’t have disabilities willing to claim they do in order to get some modest benefit”—as with those feigning some type of impairment to get better a parking spot.

But both Frieden and Green think we’ve got a long way to go before we reach full acceptance, especially for people whose disabilities are invisible. As Green puts it: “Wheelchair is cool. Blind is cool. Deaf is cool because you get those cool interpreters at concerts who are fun to watch. The little things that people can latch onto that they kind of like. But cognitive and intellectual disabilities—that is a group that is really, really kind of hated by society.”

Self-righteous able-bodied people have taken to policing what they see as fraudulent claims to disabled status. These folks, points out Frieden, are often making a slew of wrong assumptions about those with truly debilitating heart conditions or respiratory problems. Occasionally, adds Sandahl, individuals with less outwardly conspicuous disabilities might feel as if they need to use a symbol of their impairment, like a cane. But if that a cane-user’s balance issues are only intermittent, as soon as someone catches that individual walking cane-free, they’re sure to face an undue amount of scorn.

“That’s the reason why I think a lot of people with non-apparent disabilities have a hard time coming out,” she says, “because it’s difficult to signal to people, and then people are suspicious.”

Admitting we need support can feel like an admission of deep personal failure.

It’s all summed up, says Sandahl, in that regrettable pejorative idiom, “Use it as a crutch,” which has turned a vital mobility tool into something unnecessary to be transcended.  

“The medical model tells us that we should all be striving for normalcy,” says Sandhal. “That if we’re not [normal], we need to be corrected. We need to be rehabbed. We need special education. We need radiation. We should put our energy into approximating normal. Not only is it something we should strive for, but it’s our personal responsibility. So if we don’t try to ameliorate our conditions, then it’s [our] fault that [we] are impaired—that [we] haven’t tried hard enough… It’s just a perverse cultural construct.”

For Sandahl, who has mobility issues, this internal stigma forced her, against her best knowledge and logic, to avoid using a walking aid for a long time—until she blew out a hip. Then she opted to use a cane, only to develop scoliosis from relying too much on it. This led her to crutches, but she could only support her weight on her arms for so long, limiting her mobility. So eventually she decided to start using a wheelchair, which she admits made her feel like a lesser human.

“People will hurt themselves by not using an aid before they need it,” says Sandahl. I know from the pain in my joints and chest and twinge in my hands that I’ve done just that for years. And the twisted part is that, even as I write this, I worry that becoming disabled in my own mind will still feel wrong. As if I’d be an interloper, a fraud, rather than someone with a real need.

I've come to believe that if you know in your aching bones that you need an accommodation or a community to identify with, then you ought to claim your disability.

The problem becomes knowing the difference between what we need and what we want. I’m not entirely sure that I need people to help me carry a hot beverage every now and then, or if I just want one damn thing to go a little easier next time. (It sure would be nice to avoid tremor-splashing coffee on my next first date, though.)

I worry about making the wrong call. If I claim more for myself than I should, I’ll be one more person contributing to a diminished perception of others with more severe impairments. If I claim less than I should, my complacency might lead to more vigilantism against people with less evident but still impactful conditions. I also still worry about the way others will judge me for either identifying as disabled, or claiming an unnecessary benefit—or both. This continuing murkiness will probably drive me to claim a disability benefit on occasion and only situationally refer to myself as “minorly” disabled.

But that's just my personal calculation. If, like me, you’ve found yourself asking whether something's bad enough to merit help, or just to call yourself disabled, I hope you’ll give yourself permission to answer that question honestly.

This article originally appeared on GOOD.

Pop Culture

'Wicked' author says one line in 'The Wizard of Oz' inspired Elphaba and Glinda's backstory

Gregory Maguire says he "fell down to the ground" laughing when the idea hit him.

Public domain

The two witches in "The Wizard of Oz" clearly had a history together.

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book or listened to a piece of music and wondered, "How did they come up with that idea?" The creative process is so enigmatic even artists themselves don't always know where their ideas come from, so It's a treat when we get to hear the genesis of a brilliant idea straight from the horse's mouth. If you've watched "Wicked" and wondered where the idea for the friendship between Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) and Glinda (the Good Witch) came from, the author of the book has shared the precise moment it came to him.

The hit movie "Wicked" is based on the 20-year-old hit stage musical, which is based on the novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" written by Gregory Maguire. While the musical is a simplified version of the 1995 book, the basic storyline—the origin story of the two witches from "The Wizard of Oz"—lies at the heart of both. In an interview with BBC, Maguire explained how Elphaba and Glinda's friendship popped into his head.

 

Maguire was visiting Beatrix Potter's farm in Cumbria, England, and thinking about "The Wizard of Oz," which he had loved as a child and thought could be an interesting basis for a story about evil.

"I thought 'alright, what do we know about 'The Wizard of Oz' from our memories,'" he said. "We have the house falling on the witch. What do we know about that witch? All we know about that witch is that she has feet. So I began to think about Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West…

 glinda, elphaba, wicked,  In "Wicked," the two Oz witches met as students at Shiz University.  Giphy GIF by Wicked 

"There is one scene in the 1939 film where Billie Burke [Glinda the Good Witch] comes down looking all pink and fluffy, and Margaret Hamilton [the Wicked Witch of the West] is all crawed and crabbed and she says something like, 'I might have known you'd be behind this, Glinda!' This was my memory, and I thought, now why is she using Glinda's first name? They have known each other. Maybe they've known each other for a long time. Maybe they went to college together. And I fell down onto the ground in the Lake District laughing at the thought that they had gone to college together."

In "Wicked," Glinda and the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, meet as students at Shiz University, a school of wizardry. They get placed as roommates, loathe each other at first, but eventually become best friends. The story grows a lot more complicated from there (and the novel goes darker than the stage play), but it's the character development of the two witches and their relationship with one another that force us to examine our ideas about good and evil.

  - YouTube  youtu.be  

 

Maguire also shared with the Denver Center for Performing Arts what had inspired him to use the "Wizard of Oz" characters in the first place.

"I was living in London in the early 1990’s during the start of the Gulf War. I was interested to see how my own blood temperature chilled at reading a headline in the usually cautious British newspaper, the Times of London: 'Sadaam Hussein: The New Hitler?' I caught myself ready to have a fully formed political opinion about the Gulf War and the necessity of action against Sadaam Hussein on the basis of how that headline made me feel. The use of the word Hitler – what a word! What it evokes! When a few months later several young schoolboys kidnapped and killed a toddler, the British press paid much attention to the nature of the crime. I became interested in the nature of evil, and whether one really could be born bad. I considered briefly writing a novel about Hitler but discarded the notion due to my general discomfort with the reality of those times. But when I realized that nobody had ever written about the second most evil character in our collective American subconscious, the Wicked Witch of the West, I thought I had experienced a small moment of inspiration. Everybody in America knows who the Wicked Witch of the West is, but nobody really knows anything about her. There is more to her than meets the eye."

 wizard of oz, wicked witch of the west The Wicked Witch of the West has a story of her own.  Giphy  

Authors and artists—and their ideas—help hold a mirror up to humanity for us to see and reflect on who we are, and "Wicked" is one of those stories that makes us take a hard look at what we're seeing in that mirror. Thanks, Gregory Maguire, for launching us on a collective journey that not only entertains but has the potential to change how we see one another.

This story originally appeared last year.

Community

30 cheap and delicious meals frugal people swear they never get sick of

"I could eat one every day of my life if I allowed it to happen."

Image via Canva

Frugal people share cheap meals they love.

Groceries are a major expense these days. And grocery prices are continuing to go up in 2025, according to the USDA. Still, making meals at home versus going out to eat is cheaper, and a big way to save money. But getting creative with low-cost ingredients can be a hang-up.

In an online community of frugal people, member samdaz712 posed the question to fellow savers: "What’s the cheapest meal you actually enjoy eating regularly?"

They continued, "We all have that one budget meal that somehow never gets old. For me, it’s rice, eggs, and frozen mixed veggies with soy sauce and chili flakes. Costs next to nothing, takes 10 minutes, and I actually look forward to it."

The post wrapped up with a call-out for others' favorite and frugal meals. "Curious what everyone else’s go-to cheap meals are not the I’ll suffer through this to save money kind, but the ones you genuinely like and would still eat even if you weren’t budgeting. Always looking for new ideas that don’t break the bank," they added.

Frugal people happily shared their cheap (and yummy) go-to meals. Here are 30 cheap meals that they never get sick of.

"PB&J sandwiches. I could eat one every day of my life if I allowed it to happen. If I'm feeling fancy, I'll make a PB, banana, and honey sandwich. Then I'll pan toast with a generous amount of butter on each side until the bread is golden brown and the PB starts to melt. It's so decadent yet so cheap." - Kom4K

"Fried egg sandwich." - Major9000

"Every week-ish we make pinto beans, smash em up into a refried situation, melt some cheese, spread them on toasted torta bread with avocado. Then use leftovers in your eggs the next day or make burritos for lunch. You can never go wrong with a pot of beans." - BoardNo1459

"A pot of pinto beans with a link of kielbasa sausage and corn bread...Absolute baller." - Bigram03

"'Hobo-potatoes,' diced potatoes, onions, salt and pepper, mixed up in a bag of foil with oil and left to cook in the coals of a camp fire. Goes great with any protein and has more potassium per serving than bananas." - BlaqueNight

"Pasta and butter. Sometimes with grated parmesan." - RuthlessLidia

"Quesadilla." - babe_ruthless3

"Toast." - FrauAmarylis

"Pan fried tofu slabs braised in a pan with chopped kimchi, green onion, kimchi liquid or rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, bit of water to make it saucy, a tsp of sugar seems to help it meld together. Takes 10-12 min. Served over short grain rice. Optional toppings, toasted sesame seeds, chopped cilantro, sliced green onion. Edit: this was from The NY Times food, from Sue Li for exact proportions." - LavaPoppyJax

"Costco’s $1.50 hot dog and drink." - StarWolf478

"Rice and eggs for me too. It can be enjoyed in so many ways! My favorite is a crispy egg that’s still yolky on sushi rice with seaweed, salt and sesame oil." - theyrejusttoys

"For me it's an egg foo young - type dish! Stir raw eggs into leftover cooked vegetables (and optional protein, like leftover chicken or whatever you have). Ladle the mixture into a hot pan with a little oil, and fry up into patties. Serve over rice, and top with a drizzle of some kind of Asian sauce and a little hot pepper. You can look up a recipe for Egg Foo Young sauce, but that's not necessary; it tastes great with almost any kind of Asian sauce, or simply soy sauce. The cooked patties last for days in the refrigerator and can be reheated. Bonus: This is a fantastic way to use up any small bits of leftover veggies or meat. And if I have wilted vegetables that are in danger of spoiling, I just chop them up and quickly sauté them together, and freeze them in small containers. Now I have lots of veggies ready to go to make delicious egg foo young." - TIL_eulenspiegel

"For me, it’s instant noodles with a soft-boiled egg, some greens, and a splash of sesame oil. Dirt cheap but feels like comfort food every time!" - Wajid-H-Wajid

"Baked potatoes. So cheap, so good." - killyergawds

"Over-night oats. Eat it every morning before work." - Non_Binary_Goddess

"Nachos for the win." - HappyBear4Ever

"Rice and lentils cooked together." - RichCoast7186

"Potatoes, baked beans, fried eggs. Potatoes, corned beef, fried eggs. Rice (Mexican, Spanish, or Asian), beans, fried eggs. Cottage cheese, bran, frozen blueberries, milk. Home made salsa or pico de gallo on anything. Ground beef, rice, tomato and whatever else I have around. Rotisserie chicken, use the carcass to make soup with rice. Use the chicken that you can get off with tortillas and verde/enchilada sauce. With rice and beans. My advice, get really good at cooking rice, beans, and potatoes. Make sure you have a good selection of spices. Throw whatever extra money you have at whatever meats you can." - himthatspeaks

"Sweet potato black bean burrito a la moosewood. The most basic version is just a sweet potato and a can of black beans (but much better with an upgrade of caramelized onions and some cumin)." - Upbeat-Poetry7672

"Sardines on toast with a over easy egg." - Gandi1200

"Green bean casserole! Takes 10mins and lasts me all week for dinner and lunch." - Kihakiru

"Pan fried Spam, sunny side up egg, over rice. Furikake seasoning to taste." - Cajunsalmon

"I don't make meals I don't enjoy eating, but these are easy, quick, healthy and yummy. 1/2 rice , 1/2 red lentils + cubed veggies (frozen or fresh) eventually crushed tomatoes or coconut milk. Baked savory oats : shredded veggies +oats and eventually eggs or cheese or tomato sauce. Dhal sooooooo delicious. Split pea soup." - sohereiamacrazyalien


via James Breakwell/X

All parents have had similar convos with thier kiddos.

Raising kids is tough, but there's a lot of laughs along the way. Especially when actual conversations start, as kids begin trying to make sense out of the world around them, ask questions, and test mommy and daddy's resolve.

Back in 2018, comedy writer and children's book author James Breakwell, with four daughters who were all under the age of eight at the time, shared their hilarious conversations on X. From these tweets, it looks like comedy runs in the family. Here's a sampling of some Breakwell's funniest kid-inspired tweets.

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

While Breakwell's 7-year-old wasn't as heavily featured, when she was quoted, the sarcasm was palpable. Which makes sense, considering that kiddos begin understanding this mechanism around that age.

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

Kids really do say the darnedest things, and we love them for it. It one of the many, many ways then bring so much joy to the world. It almost makes up for the headaches and sleepless nights, doesn't it.

This article originally appeared seven years ago.

Walt Disney and Ray Bradbury.

The world’s greatest innovators think and behave differently from us mere mortals. They have a unique view of the world and are dedicated to their craft in ways that most would deem obsessive. But without that type of dedication, Steve Jobs could never have given us the Macintosh, Michael Jordan would never have been able to fly, and Michelangelo would have never painted the Sistine Chapel.

It’s hard for the average person to understand what makes a cultural innovator tick, which is why an interview with groundbreaking author Ray Bradbury on Walt Disney is so inspiring. It lifts the veil on what great artists see in one another that most of us can’t. Bradbury is the acclaimed author of classics such as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, who was a friend of Disney and worked with his legendary company as a creative consultant.

What did Ray Bradbury think of Walt Disney?

In a 2004 interview, Bradbury explained where the incredibly ambitious and creative Disney got his drive and determination.


“If there’s any secret at all, it’s because Walt, like myself, is not an optimist but an optimal behaviorist. Which means that every day of your life, if you behave well, you begin to feel well,” Bradbury said. “So that’s not false, that’s real. You get your work done every day, and at the end of a week, a month, a year, you’ll turn around and say, hey, look what I did. So you feel good. That’s real optimism. Optimal behavior.”

“He could look back at the end of each year and see his behavior, and it made him want to go on. A lot of people are pessimists because they’ve never done anything,” Bradbury continued. “If you go to bed every night having not done anything, you’re going to wake up unhappy, aren’t you? So the answer to that is do something every day. Be busy, for God’s sake, be busy.”

 walt disney, disney world, mickey mouse, disney company, disney theme parks, A statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.via Paul Beattie/Flickr

What is a behavioral optimist?

Although “behavioral optimist” isn’t an official psychological term, it’s one that Bradbury often used to describe himself. “I’ve learned that by doing things, things get done. I’m not an optimist; I’m an optimal behaviorist. We ensure the future by doing it,” he said. “Optimists and pessimists are blind. But I’m not either. I’m an optimal behaviorist. In other words, I behave at the top of my lungs every day. There’s no guarantee, but you’re going to have a heck of a lot of fun. You’ll come to the end of your life with the secure knowledge that you tried everything.”

There are just two critical things in life, he said, “Being in love with your wife or husband and being in love with your work. And then everything’s fine.”

If you’ve always dreamed of living a life like Walt Disney, using your imagination to entertain and uplift humanity, you can start by looking at life in the same way. Big goals can often seem too lofty when we think about the finished product. Instead, take small, consistent steps every day towards achieving your goal. Writing a 300-page book may seem like too much work, but if you write a page a day, you’ll have a book before the end of the year. The key is to stay focused and consistent, just like Uncle Walt.

What an amazingly kind gesture.

Closed adoptions—meaning adoptions with no contact between the biological parents and adoptive families—offer privacy, protection and emotional closure. However, it can understandably still be incredibly difficult for biological mothers to instantly and drastically remove their biological child from their life, even if they know they are doing what's best.

This was the case for Alicia Mae Holloway’s biological mom. In a video shared to her TikTok account, the dancer and television personality shared that her adoptive mother, Evelyn, “saw how hard it was” for her birth mom to give Holloway up for adoption. So Evelyn came up with a kind gesture that Holloway dubbed “the sweetest thing.”

“She was like, ‘okay, I’ll make you a deal. Every six months, I’ll send you a picture of Alicia and a little update in a written card of how she’s doing.’”

Getting those biannual letters out wasn’t as simple as dropping them off in the mail either.

As Holloway explained, she had been conceived during an affair her birth mother—a white woman, married to a white man, with three white children—had with a Black man. Not only could Holloway’s birth mom not afford a fourth kid, she feared what her “racist” family might do upon seeing a biracial baby, and told everyone that it was a stillborn.

All this to say, Holloway’s birth mom didn’t want the letters arriving at her home, potentially risking anyone from her family seeing it. Evelyn would therefore need to send the letters to a friend’s house.

But sure enough, Evelyn kept good on that promise. For 17 years, Holloways' birth mom got to celebrate milestones in her daughter’s life. Meanwhile, Holloway had no idea this exchange was happening.

“I get chills when I think about how she was watching me grow up and I had no idea,” Holloway told Today. “She knew I was a dancer and that I was doing beauty pageants and that I was a good kid.”

Holloway added that just before her 18th birthday, she was made aware of her adoptive mom’s kind gesture. And they even went to meet Holloway’s birth mom, an event Holloway that noted was in many ways more emotional for her two moms than it was for her, recalling that both women “had a long, long, long embrace and were both bawling their eyes out.”

As for Holloway, she told Today that she feels no ill will towards her biological mom. Rather, she sees the decision as “an act of love," that set her up for a truly “amazing life.” At the end of their meeting, after the important questions pertaining to family health history and whatnot, all she had to say was “thank you.”

And from the looks of it, she is as happy as ever living life with her adopted parents, who honestly could pass for her biological parents any day.

It's interesting to think about how none of us know our full life story, how many things both bigs and small remain mysteries. But when we are lucky enough to discover hidden truths, we unlock yet another part of ourselves.

This article originally appeared last year.