Identity-based harm

Being harmed or targeted because of a disability

Being treated as less capable, less worthy, or less deserving because of a physical, cognitive, sensory, or psychiatric disability. Exclusion, mockery, exploitation of your vulnerability, or systems that consistently failed to accommodate or include you.

Harm around disability often comes dressed as low expectations, exclusion, or systems that simply were not built with you in mind, punctuated by cruelty that was more direct. Being treated as less has a cumulative weight. You were never less. The failures of imagination and access belonged to the world around you, not to your body or mind.

What can follow an experience like this

No two people carry the same experience the same way. These are some of the effects that people with this experience often describe. Having some of them, all of them, or none of them says nothing about how real what happened to you was.

Trust issues Trust that was broken, repeatedly, by people who were supposed to be safe. Depression Not just sadness. Shame Not guilt about something you did. Anxiety The background hum of dread that is always there. Loneliness This is different from pulling away. Learned helplessness When nothing you did made a difference, when effort did not produce safety, when asking for help did not bring help, the nervous system eventually stops asking. Chronic pain Pain that has been investigated and treated and remains. Hypervigilance The nervous system that learned to scan for danger all the time.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

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