In Which My Kids "Look Normal"

The thing about invisible disabilities is, they're invisible. Shocking, I know. Overall, it's not a bad thing. People with visible disabilities often encounter a lot of prejudice just because of the way they look or act. I have a friend who has visible mobility issues as well as speech struggles that are quickly apparent, and she is often treated as if she is intellectually impaired even though, in actuality, she has a PhD and works as a college professor.

When people interact with Squirrelboy what they see is a confident, kind, and curious teenager who does well in school and interacts easily with both peers and adults. If they look a little closer they might realize that he makes a greater than average number of spelling mistakes, but, after all, he IS still a teenager and they're not exactly known for their excellent spelling.

What people don't see is that it can take him an hour or more to write a seven sentence paragraph for school. They don't see him asking me to read over every email before he sends it to make sure he hasn't made any grammar or spelling mistakes. They don't see him coming out of his room at 10pm freaking out over the fact that he forgot he had a math test to study for until he was trying to go to sleep and the million other things in his brain had begun to calm down.

People with invisible disabilities have the privilege of "passing" as typical. This is advantageous most of the time, but it does require mental (and sometimes physical) effort that can be incredibly draining to the person with an invisible disability. A friend of mine who has a child on the autism spectrum who "looks normal" shared this meme on Facebook today, and I thought the message was applicable to more than just autism.

Thankfully, Squirrelboy's struggles (and my own) are significantly fewer than the struggles faced by many, including those with "high functioning" autism. That doesn't mean they don't exist, however. What identifying my own struggles and helping my kids live with theirs has taught me is not to assume that "looking normal" is easy for everyone,