Served on a Platter

Note: this piece is targeted at a specific and very frustrating situation I had to navigate this past week and is also meant to educate.

"I'm still grappling with understanding." an individual I’m talking to says to me honestly.

And you seem determined to remain in that state. It's not within my purview to untangle the complexities of my disability for you. Why the insistence on delving into the minutiae anyway?

Are you fishing for tangible evidence? Hoping for a buffet of MRI scans on a first-come, first-served basis? Perhaps some blood test results served up as cookies? Or maybe a slice of medication list pie?

Shall I offer you my life on a platter? My essence? Should I summon the devil to make my disability visible? Lay bare my internal struggles so you can witness the constellation of scars along my visual pathway, triggering debilitating migraines? Render my immune system visible so you can witness its assault on my spinal cord, robbing me of the ability to perceive vehicles, bicycles, and at times, even stationary objects like poles or trees?

When will it be sufficient for you? To satiate your thirst for knowledge, driven by your ableist entitlement and distorted sense of hypochondria?

"I'm not intending to be impolite!"

Oh, you've succeeded. You're not impolite; you're callous. And there's nothing in this world that can rectify that callous attitude except for you.