Thread by @Imani_Barbarin

Here’s a thread on Inspiration Porn and how the depression and anxiety it caused actually led me to drop out of college because a mental break exacerbated by inaccessibility (cause too many people think it’s benign) :

One of the things you become familiar with as a disabled kid is people constantly watching you. Not in a way that parents regularly watch and become amazed at their children, but actual strangers will pin their hopes and dreams on whether you smiled that day—they’ll tell you!

Also weird is how people put you in positions to be seen so that you boost their profile or that of an institution. Multiple times I’ve received awards I had no idea I was in the running for (they’re made up) and been paraded on stage.

People do things like congratulate you for being outside, grab at you for a hug for being inspired (I’ve even been kissed) and those are complete strangers a lot of the time.

No one asks for consent, no one delves any further into getting to know you, they all just do it.

Even some people you once considered close friends will editorialize your existence in their life as more meaningful simply because you’re disabled.

What they don’t tell you, is that once you stop being cute, you start to see what society really thinks about you.

My freshman year in college was hard for me. I had been a high school student with a 3.8 GPA, so when I got to school and began doing poorly in class,

I began to question every single award + accolade that had been thrown at me because I was inspiring. Worse yet, I began to doubt if I was really capable/smart, or if I had been passed along in school all those years because people had felt sorry for me or wanted to be inspired.

I was becoming more depressed, but I couldn’t tell anyone because it was more important for me to be inspiring to others than seek help.

Inspiring people don’t go to counseling, right?

Then, one winter, I got snowed into my dorm room for two weeks and fell behind in class.

I hadn’t really gotten close with anyone at school because I was more inspiring than an actual person. And through years of experience, every person who’d ever called me inspiring had left immediately after and never looked back. Eventually, my dad came and got me.

Whenever you share inspiration porn, you’re telling a disabled person in your life that you don’t actually see them. At best, they’re an idea for your own advancement and at worse you’re perpetuating a stereotype they have to live by.

These things aren’t benign.

Actual people are caused real harm by these things, myself included. It took me years (still taking time) to unlearn the internalized ableism brought on by the inspiration porn people are all to eager to share and even profit from.

So when a disabled person says stop.

STOP.