Eating Disorder is one of the most common forms of disabilities affecting people around the world. People don’t normally tend to think eating disorder is a type of “disability”. This may make others end up thinking that eating disorder is an extreme diet, a phase, or a personal choice. Eating disorder is a serious cognitive impairment influenced by psychological, biological, and social factors that affects all body types, gender, and races. People should be more aware that eating disorder is a complex brain-based illness that can lead into more severe health problems.

People get affected biologically from genetics, dieting, and puberty. Recent studies have shown that eating disorders may be hereditary, and the individuals who have a family member with eating disorder are more likely to develop one as well.

Anxiety, depression, trauma, and stressors may cause someone to get eating disorder psychologically. It is a sad irony that the person who develops an eating disorder start with a diet because they believe that weight loss can lead them to improve self-esteem, and gain more confidence. The reality is that continuously binge eating or under-eating can cause the individual to feel out-of-control, self-doubt and gain the feeling of “I don’t fit anywhere.”

Eating disorders bring suffering not only to the people who have them, but also their friends and families. Friendships and romantic relationships can be damaged or destroyed. People with eating disorders may become more emotional and withdrawn. If the person is an athlete, the coach will be worried about their health.

If eating disorders are not stopped, it can cause physical damage and even death. Kidney damage, liver damage, destruction of teeth, and menstrual cycle, (etc.) are all type of medical risks of eating disorders.

Many people with these disorders wonder if they are “sick enough” for care and treatment, but they should know that ALL eating disorders are worthy of care.

People with disabilities have always been discriminated against since the beginning of the human race. Some people argue that perhaps its just “survival of the fittest”. However, society’s ignorant mindset has really been the reason why disability discrimination is still prevalent today. Some things that need to change include, but are not limited to, inclusion, accommodation, and removal of social barriers.

Educational institutions and workplaces must be inclusive to disabled individuals. Public facilities need to be built with accommodations available. People with disabilities must be able to safely enter, exit, and use any public spaces. This includes bathrooms, elevators, public parking, etc. Additionally, Educational admissions should not decline students due to any sort of disabilities. Schools should provide accommodations such as additional time to complete course materials and having notetaking assistance. Employers should also not segregate job applicants with disabilities. Workplaces should provide equality and diversity training in order for all employees to recognized and understand the concept of disability discrimination. People with disabilities are often denied the right to work because of unconscious biases or lack work experience because of disability discrimination in the job market. This in turn leads to a percentage of disabled individuals to fall into the impoverished category where increased chances of discrimination occurs. Economic stability is needed for people with disabilities to access necessary resources that address their conditions.

Although there are laws implemented to protect disabled individuals like Americans with Disabilities Act, stigma against disabilities still cause people to find loopholes and not abided to those laws. Stigmatization is the root cause of disability discrimination because it makes social interactions difficult for disabled individuals. These social barriers need to be broken down. Some ways it can be removed are through advocating and educating the public. Normalizing discussion and holding people accountable will slowly dissolve disability discrimination.

Bioinformatics is the study of biological data using computers. It is a relatively new field, and as such, it is not yet accommodating to people with disabilities. This is a problem, because bioinformatics is a field that has the potential to help people with disabilities in a number of ways.

For example, bioinformatics could be used to develop new treatments for genetic disorders. It could also be used to develop new prosthetic devices and assistive technologies. However, none of this is possible if people with disabilities are not given ample input, as studies of disabilities lead by those without them tend to be just as harmful as they are helpful.

There are a number of reasons why bioinformatics is not yet accommodating to people with disabilities. One reason is that the field is still developing, and there has been little focus on accessibility so far. Another reason is that many of the tools and technologies used in bioinformatics are not yet accessible to everyone. In my lab, if you need a left-handed/ambidextrous mouse, you would have to bring your own.

While it sometimes seems like the rapid development of new technologies seems to leave behind those with disabilities, the very same technologies can be a massive benefit to those with mental and physical disabilities. Everyone in the field of bioinformatics has at least two computers at their disposal at any given time, allowing for a nearly paperless environment, decreasing clutter, helping to keep thins from getting lost, and helping dyslexics like me spell fancy words like “beta-adrenergic receptors”. I can always doodle on my tablet and I can have alarms and reminders set for myself to keep me on schedule.

As bioinformatics is a STEM field, it requires a Bachelors at the minimum, and that’s a huge deal-breaker for a lot of people. Watching friends with autism apply to sixty plus jobs without a single call back because they don’t have a degree and struggle with the rigid constraints of higher education is painful. However bioinformatics is growing so rapidly, once you graduate, and then probably graduate two more times, you can almost certainly get a job in a field where people are generally pretty liberal and accepting. It’s painfully obvious that the higher education system is designed to keep out people with mental illnesses as well as the poor, however if you can make it past that, there’s a lot of opportunity in a field that is fairly individualistic and allows for reasonable flexibility.

I definitely think that my OCD can be a big impairment to my functioning in a lab setting, but it’s also really nice sometimes when I can focus my obsessions towards the procedures, and I can use the drive to be in control of things to control my experiments as much as possible and get good data. Also if I want I can work with computers all day. Social interaction is mostly optional outside of an academic setting, and even there as long as you give your lectures and show up for your office hours nobody really cares how social you are. There are definitely professors in the department that only show up for class and leave right after.

From kindergarten to second grade I was in speech therapy. There were a lot of sounds and words I couldn’t say: R’s and Sh’s at the front of words and L’s at the end of words, to name a few.

TW: ableism, self-harm

Disability imposter syndrome is strange. I’ve been living with it since I was a little kid, and yet I still find it difficult (and oddly embarrassing?) to discuss, particularly with abled people. I was first diagnosed with ADHD, Anxiety, and mild Depression in elementary school. My mom arranged for me to have academic accommodations, much to my classmates’ dismay. They didn’t understand why a person like me, who seemed perfectly capable, got “special treatment.” But they didn’t have to worry about that for long: once middle school rolled around, I was denied accommodations because ‘I could pass my classes without them.’ In my school’s eyes, I wasn’t disabled unless I was failing. Being 12 years old, I believed them. When my symptoms got worse, I told myself it was all my fault. Overdramatic, lazy, stupid, annoying: my personality was the reason I was suffering, surely. After all, if I wasn’t cutting or having panic attacks or flunking my classes, I wasn’t disabled. 

Even back then, I realized those thoughts weren’t healthy. But I couldn’t help feeling like I wasn’t disabled enough to count. Sometimes I still do. 

About five months ago, I was recovering from my second bout of COVID, and I never really got 100% better. I figured the residual effects would go away after a few weeks like they did the first time, but they didn’t. I still struggle on and off with intense brain fog, chronic fatigue, breathing problems, and a slew of other symptoms. I, like so many others, am suffering with Long COVID, a diagnosis that is essentially a giant question mark. My doctors are hopeful it will go away on its own, as it has for some, but they really just don’t know. I could wake up tomorrow and be fine, or I could be like this forever. 

Sometimes I wonder if it’s all in my head. On bad days, I feel embarrassed by my inability to execute basic tasks and frustrated because I know the tasks should be easy. On good days, I find myself torn between the fear of another flare up and the fear that people will think I was faking it all along. Even to myself, I question the validity of my experience; I recently had to lean on a wall to catch my breath after a short walk, and I remember thinking to myself “I’m being so dramatic.” I was alone in an elevator.

That insecurity of being overdramatic, the fear of not being able to trust yourself, the belief that you’re “not disabled enough” to count — that is disability imposter syndrome at its finest. But I’m learning to fight it, to forgive myself for my limitations, to treat myself with compassion, and to advocate for myself because I am worthy of support. 

When you’re mind gets like this when the spirits of your past self haunt you with every misspoken word or awkward interaction you feel as if you’re trapped in a haunted house tip toeing around your own mind trying to dodge the parts of creaky wood that is your memories as not to alert the next specter itching for a scare you look to see the shards of glass that once we’re mirrors that you saw reflections of yourself in versions of you that no longer exist hoping the fractured parts of you don’t tear through those cracks and drag you back to times long wished forgotten some days you make it to the end successfully avoiding the haunted house that is your mind and other days the spirits have a hold that is simply to tight but there’s always another day to open the door and bask in the kinder light

When I was a young child I was extremely hyper and way too impressionable, at one point I wanted to be like my family dog so I started to eat cicadas and cicada shells after seeing him do it. I also modeled myself after one of my close family friends, Michael, who had a learning disability. We have apparently known each other since birth and he was one of my first friends. Of course, at time I had no idea that he was any different from other children. When I was about twelve I realized that he had a disability, and started noticing how unfairly those not close to him would treat him. Everyone around Michael would expect him to never act out and they would become visibly angry when he did something they did not agree with. I noticed that Michael started to become extremely reserved in public with anyone outside his close circle of people he knew would only support him.

One of his biggest supporters was my mother; Michael was often over, and my mom would set realistic goals for him to meet as well as teach him to be more confident. Whenever Michael reached these goals both he and my mother became ecstatic. Over the years Michael has become one of the most self-disciplined people I know; everyday he runs outside and goes to the gym, he plays ice hockey for a rec team, and only continues to grow as a person.

Michael learned how to read social cues and understands what is considered appropriate behavior, but the impressions he’s made on others when he was still learning has stuck. Many of those who knew him choose to pretend he doesn’t exist and are unwilling to compromise on their belief that he could not have changed. It’s always upsetting to see that all of Michael’s hard work is sometimes moot just because people can’t believe that someone with a serious learning disability could actually learn and be a productive member of society.

I think that if I had seen people like me– brown neurodivergent individuals– I wouldn’t be having such a hard time writing this. I tried writing about my experiences as a neurodivergent person, but I sounded like a poser when I read it back to myself. Like someone who’s trying too hard for attention. I tried listing out some of the experiences I have had as a neurodivergent person before backspacing almost immediately, I tried writing about how I have to watch and wait when I enter any social setting to learn how I should be behaving and talking. About how there have been so many instances in my life where I have miscalculated and said/done the wrong thing when I was so sure that that was the expected response. About how, for the longest time, I had a running list of rules in my head, all of them pertaining to social interactions. Little scripts for me to follow in any possible conversation or confrontation. 

 But, even now, listing all of that out makes me think that I’ve lived the life of the average individual. There’s nothing actually significant about any of what I’ve listed. A part of me KNOWS that this isn’t true, based on accounts from other neurodivergent individuals who have said the same thing. But, a bigger part of me is actually kind of nervous to post this. I know that I’m neurodivergent, but am I really? If someone asked me to demonstrate the ways that I am, I don’t know that I could. Or at least, that I could in a way that would really prove to them who I am. 

I think it’s hard for me to really believe that I am neurodivergent. Unfortunately, at this time, I don’t have the resources to pursue a diagnosis. A diagnosis that would be an incredibly grueling process for me, someone who is afab and a person of color. If I had known earlier on that someone like me could be neurodivergent, I don’t think all these doubts about my own validity would be swimming in my mind.

Mental health matters. Apparently that is what M.H.M stands for. Which is crazy because I had no idea that was a thing. I feel as though mental health is important until it interferes with your social life, or your academic life or extracurricular activities. Teachers and professors will swear up and down to take care of yourselves, and mental health is important but also seem to purposely make the course load hard and heavy, for the sake of force feeding the material down your throat. We talked a bit in class about how there should be less focus on attendance as a grade because sometimes people need mental breaks or a mental health day. However most teachers don’t have systems in place for mental health days. What I mean is that if you’re sick, you get a pass on coming to class and sometimes you have to have proof, so you get a note from the hospital and there you go…no penalty for you. What about your mental health? I feel like when it comes to your mental health the excuse has to be an extreme to get a day off from class like, someone died or some tragedy just occurred. And maybe it’s not as hard to get a pass off class for a mental health issue but it is hard to ask for one, because it also isn’t really all that talked about. 

I also wanted to discuss mental health in the household when it comes to different cultures. As a blasian woman, mental health wasn’t really discussed at all growing up. From my Filipino side, if you feel depressed, you’re not…you’re just sad and all you need to do is work harder and pray. For my black, African American side mental health has more of a negative stigma. It really wasn’t acknowledged at all. Mental health was seen as unlucky and if someone in the family was possibly mentaly disabled.. They weren’t, they would never actually get diagnosed until later. Two different cultures and yet the same reaction to mental health. Unfortunately knowledge and awareness of mental health has a long way to go.

I have a body, you have a body, we all have bodies. It is a part of the human experience to be born with one, live with one, love with one, grow older with one, and die with one. Whether they work well while we have them, however, is up to fate and our lifestyles. Bodies.