Invisible and Silent Disabilities: Understanding What We Cannot See
- Dawn M. Keddy
- Nov 10, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 10, 2024
According to the Invisible Disabilities Association, approximately one in ten Americans are diagnosed with a severe disability, and of those, approximately seventy-four percent are considered invisible yet, despite their prevalence, invisible disabilities are largely unrecognized, dismissed, or misunderstood.
What Are Invisible Disabilities?
Physical, mental, or neurological conditions that are not visible from the outside, but limit or challenge a person’s movements, senses, or activities, are considered invisible disabilities. The severity of symptoms and manifestations of silent disabilities vary from person to person even within the same disability. For example, one person on the Autism spectrum can present as extremely high-functioning while another extremely low-functioning, with each having their own set of symptoms on the Autism spectrum.
While the list of invisible disabilities is exhaustive, let’s start by identifying the ones most commonly known and misunderstood.
Mental and Emotional disabilities:
This category of disabilities includes things like Depression, Anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Schizophrenia, and Schizoaffective Disorders, just to name a few. And while they are the most prevalent in this group, they have been so stigmatized that many people with the conditions hide them from family, friends, and colleagues, and often feel ashamed and isolated.
Maryland’s Coalition of Families, Tara Wetherell, describes an emotional disability as:
“A condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance:
An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors
An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers
Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances
A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression
A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems” (Wetherell, 2020).
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-ND
PTSD however, is one of the most misunderstood disabilities because it is traditionally associated with military and active-duty Veterans. In truth, PTSD has lasting effects on people of all ages, and from all walks of life. Whether we’ve experienced a singular traumatic event or trauma that is suffered over time, it alters how we view the world around us. It affects our sense of safety and challenges our logical reasoning abilities.
Cognitive:
According to the CDC, more than sixteen million people in the United States are living with cognitive impairment, though its prevalence at the state level is not known. A cognitive disability impairs a person’s ability to reason, think, remember, learn, and concentrate. Symptoms vary from mild to severe and differ between age groups and specific disabilities.
It is not uncommon for Cognitive Disabilities to be clustered under the Mental and Emotional umbrella of invisible disabilities however, disorders like Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), and Dyslexia fit more squarely in the cognitive realm, as they deal directly with a person’s ability to absorb and process information.
Auditory and Visual:
People who are deaf use sign language to communicate. And while there is a variety of signing languages across the globe, the most prevalent in the United States is American Sign Language because it incorporates not only words, but also grammar, syntax, and facial expressions which more accurately captures the essence of a conversation. Click here for sign languages around the world.
While blindness is easily detectable if the person is actively communicating, color blindness is not. This particular type of blindness impedes a person’s ability to identify the colors red and green, and sometimes blue. And since red is most often associated with “stop,” as in stop signs, street lights, brake lights, and even emergency flashing lights on first-responder vehicles like ambulances and firetrucks; this poses a tremendous risk to the colorblind population.
How Can We Recognize Them If We Can’t See Them?
Well, that all depends on our ability to look past what we think we see and whether we allow ourselves to ask what we might be missing. For example, when most people see an outwardly healthy person park in a handicapped spot, they get angry. Right? But what if that person has a physical condition that limits their ability to walk, like Fibromyalgia, Lupus, Cancer, or Multiple Sclerosis? Diseases of the organs that cause debilitating pain, weakness, dizziness, fatigue, and cognitive impairments could cause a person to require parking accommodations.
The list of invisible disabilities is extensive and includes a variety of cognitive, emotional, and physical conditions.
Invisible Physical Disabilities
This category can include illnesses, conditions, and diseases, like Deafness, Diabetes, Epilepsy, Lupus, Lyme Disease, and Narcolepsy if those diseases substantially interfere with a person’s normal Activities of Daily Living (ADLs).
The Invisible Disabilities Association’s pamphlet, Looks Can Be Deceiving: Understanding What’s on the Inside, Despite What You See on the Outside, provides an in-depth overview of the challenges people with invisible disabilities live with and the criticism they are subjected to in their struggle to fit in.
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