On any given day, when a neuroqueer person has to decide on visiting a hospital, they embark on a tedious process of researching their ailment, making it their top priority. But why? From researching about the hospital and reading detailed reviews to balancing very positive and negative reviews and being overly cautious about the names of the doctors or staff to watch out for and avoid? Yes, it sounds like my kind of day every time before I meet a doctor for my health needs. But this is mainly because of how medical spaces view chronic health issues, right? Like those hospital files projecting happy “fit and able-bodied” families with their kids laughing and smiling, as if they received the best care. 

It’s unclear whose anxiety this portrayal alleviates—certainly not mine, as my lack of trust in the system persists. From constant dismissal to hearing phrases like, “Don’t research via Google, it will be false,” many such common conversations occur in doctors’ cabins overrun by patients and burdens. And when you are queer, and neurodivergent in a space that constantly wants to erase you, for you to feel guilty for having that disability. As if, you have that disability but to a lesser degree, so it’s not very serious or in need of attention. That despite the doctor working so hard on making you better, you are not persistent enough. All these experiences are sometimes bound by how our bodies remember interacting with the outside environment. Some of these experiences and pains sometimes make you forget about how it is to be human. 

Pain is such a “painful” process and how much it affects your ability to function in a physical or remote space. Pain consumes your mind until you cannot focus on anything, and society expects people with chronic pain to function at the same mental level as able-bodied people. Maybe they see productivity as consistency and that people can acclimate to it. But pain is pain! The fact that we have to remind ourselves that chronic fatigue from our mental health illness and neurodivergence isn’t something we can just work our way out of. 

Are we aware that doctors may have shortcomings, and furthermore, that the ethical standards within the medical community, as well as the training doctors undergo for patient interaction, tend to perpetuate ableism? We also have to look at how harmful it is for insurance companies to look at health conditions and patients’ treatment solely on a cost-analysis basis. And how the academic institutions require doctors and other health practitioners to keep aside ethical considerations just to keep up with the competition. This adds to the ableism we ultimately experience. The fact that our symptoms don’t make us a

bad person is a message we want to reinforce everywhere. Disabilities come with a lot of symptoms and multivariate experiences, and a lot of people around us, including disabled people, view this in a negative light or categorise them as good or bad. 

For example, getting breakouts and acne is not okay, but losing weight is okay and more socially acceptable. Taking up space and attention is not okay. What we are missing out here is that these variant symptoms do not make anyone good or bad, and we are not a bad person for experiencing these things or talking about them. I want to add more, but I will end by saying this: everyone around us constantly tells us to “prioritise your health and look after yourself,” but when people realise the fact that when our well-being becomes our first priority and everything else takes precedence, there is a big “OMG moment” that sprouts like a cordyceps mushroom in the mind. There’s big trouble brewing if these health conditions are chronic and painful. 

The people who previously asked you to take care of yourself become upset because suddenly you are not taking care of them and their advice, but rather you are looking after yourself. Prioritising yourself and your health means neglecting your work, your social life, and looking after yourself, which means that you will not be investing energy into looking into other people’s needs that do not have much of your part to play into. 

This is a reminder that if you have disabled and chronically ill people in your life and you extend your solidarity and empathy to them, it’s important to avoid getting upset if they prioritise their well-being. Take a moment to reflect and re-evaluate.