I didn’t always identify as disabled.

That might sound surprising. How can someone be disabled but not identify that way? At nine years old, I became disabled as the result of a car accident that also took the life of my father. I acquired a permanent brachial plexus injury (a form of paralysis) in my right arm and developed PTSD. 

But for over a decade after the accident, I didn’t talk about my disability. 

That silence came from internalising what society told me: that disability was something shameful, something to hide, something I should work hard to overcome.

When I finally began to speak about my experience, it was as if I’d been holding my breath for years. My healing didn’t happen overnight. It came in layers. And one of the most transformative aspects of that healing was unlearning the many myths I had unknowingly absorbed about disability and about myself.

The most harmful myths about disability

One of the most painful assumptions is that disability is inherently tragic. While the car accident itself was tragic, my disability is not. What required sympathy wasn’t my body; it was the isolation I once felt because society told me that disability was something to hide or overcome.

Another myth I wish we could do away with is the idea that disabled people are either heroes or helpless. This binary dehumanises us. It turns real people with real lives into caricatures: either pitied or placed on a pedestal. I’ve had strangers call me “brave” for things like going to the gym or ordering coffee—everyday acts that, for non-disabled people, go unnoticed. These comments may be well-meaning, but they reveal how narrow society’s expectations of disabled people really are.

The mental health link

I also want to talk about the connection between disability and mental health, which is often overlooked. I’m so grateful that Welldoing is creating space to explore the mental health dimensions of disability. Mental illness is a disability. My PTSD went undiagnosed for years because I falsely believed the adage “time heals all wounds.” 

A CDC study found that adults with disabilities report frequent mental distress almost 5 times as often as adults without disabilities. Disability and trauma frequently go hand in hand. Whether it’s trauma from the onset of a disability, from navigating an inaccessible world, or from enduring countless micro-aggressions and stares, the impact is real.

For years, I didn’t seek mental health support. In some Asian cultures, mental illness is highly stigmatized, viewed as a moral failing and not a real illness.

It took another traumatic event—becoming a survivor of violence almost 20 years after the car accident—for me to seek out therapy. Therapy has been a critical part of my healing. And while I now know a few disabled therapists, we are only just beginning to see the emergence of more culturally competent, disability-aware professionals who can support someone like me as a disabled Asian woman.

From shame to solidarity

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that healing doesn’t come from “fixing” ourselves. It comes from being witnessed, accepted, and included. That includes in our mental health journeys. Being disabled doesn’t mean being broken. It means living in a world that wasn’t built with us in mind. And it means working together to rebuild that world with more care, creativity, and compassion.

That’s part of why I wrote The Anti-Ableist Manifesto: to put language to these experiences and to give both disabled and non-disabled readers tools for challenging the myths that hold us back. Our community is not a monolith. We intersect with every other identity we hold, including race, gender, class, and sexuality. Those intersections shape our experiences in powerful ways.

I’ve also learned that joy is just as much a part of disability as pain is. In fact, there’s a deep, radical joy in finding community with other disabled people who get it. There’s liberation in claiming my story on my own terms.

And if you’re just beginning to explore these topics, I want to say this: You don’t have to get it perfect. The work of becoming anti-ableist is lifelong. It’s not about guilt or shame. It’s about curiosity, empathy, and collective liberation.

What I wish you knew about disabled people

If there’s one thing I wish everyone understood, it’s this: disabled people are not broken. We don’t need to be “fixed.” We need to be included and respected. We are people, living full, complex, joyful, messy lives.

Assumptions, however subtle, can be some of the most powerful barriers to access. These are the assumptions placed on us by a world still steeped in ableism. Assuming someone is less competent because of their disability. Assuming a life with disability must be inherently sad. Assuming accessibility is a “nice to have” rather than a fundamental right.

If we want to build an inclusive world, we have to start challenging those assumptions. That includes in the mental health field as well. We need to validate the lived experiences of disabled clients, hire disabled therapists, and integrate disability studies into therapeutic education and practice.

And just like anyone else, we deserve access. To buildings. To opportunity. And to the kind of mental health support that sees us not as problems to solve, but as whole humans worthy of care.

​​And the good news? These assumptions can be unlearned. Together, we can build a world that embraces all kinds of minds and bodies.

A note to anyone on this journey

If you’re reading this and navigating your own identity, whether disabled or not, I hope you know that you don’t have to have it all figured out to start healing. And if you’re searching for a therapist, please don’t give up. The right person is out there, and they can walk beside you as you unlearn the myths and discover the fullness of who you are.

You are not a burden. You are not too much. You are not alone.