The Disabling Effects of Mental Health and Illness
Within the discussion of mental health and mental illness, a topic that is rarely touched is how mental illness can become, and is, disabling. This means that when an individual’s mental illness and health becomes disruptive to their performance of day-to-day activities and impairs ones ability to function, it is considered a disability – One that needs proper accommodations in order for the individual to receive the support they need to regain their sense of self and functionality.
There are several Mental health conditions that can be and are disabling. These include: Anxiety disorders, Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Drug addiction, Mood disorders, OCD, Panic attacks, PTSD, Schizophrenia, and more. Along with these are neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and ADHD that can and are disabling as well. With a majority of mental health conditions having an onset age of mid teens to mid twenties.
Often times, we hear about the influx of support that others have surrounding mental health, that those who are impacted should be respected and met with understanding. But, this sense of support tends to drift away, or stall, when someone with a mental illness or neurodevelopmental disorder shows symptoms of their disorder that others may not want to accept as the reality, and will be less understanding towards. This becomes more apparent when individuals with disorders that are disabling ask for accommodations and resources in order to succeed and function at the rate of their peers. This is especially true within college and work environments, where our disorders have a large impact on our functioning without the proper support – thus leaving us to fend for ourselves, and risking negatively impacting our functioning even more, in order to have full access to our education.
What many people tend to overlook is that accommodations are not a ‘pass,’ ‘excuse,’ or ‘easy way out.’ They are not signs that we are ‘weak’ or ‘not suited’ for higher education or work. Rather, accommodations are support systems that allow us to function at the rate of our abled peers. Given that our disorders take a toll on how we function, accommodations do not give us a ‘leg up’ but rather even the playing field. What people fail to realize is that it is not us (those with psychiatric disabilities/neurodevelopmental disorders/etc) who are not suited for these environments, it is the environments themselves that are not willing to accommodate us and see us as worthy of succeeding. These systems will talk about how they support us, that they want us to succeed, but will turn a blind eye when a student is in need of support in a manner that the systems do not deem ‘necessary.’ They require that we strip ourselves of our humanity to prove that our disorders are disabling, to go through ‘updated’ re-evaluations that are often financially inaccessible and have a waitlist that is months long. And even at that, will not guarantee that the accommodations we need will be given to us. This leads us to push ourselves, to the best of our abilities, to function within a system that does not support us, while knowingly risking the further decline of our functioning.
When our disorders are disabling, accommodations are not requests, they’re needs. Accommodations are the tools that help us have full, fair access to our education, independence, and aids us in preventing a crash from overexertion. An estimated 20-30% of college students have a mental health condition that qualifies them for disability services/accommodations, yet, a majority of these students never receive the support they need due to misinformation and discrimination surrounding these conditions.
While skill-building resources like stress management, learning how to study, etc can be very helpful for students, these alone are not accommodations for disabled students. Accommodations and support looks like skill-building AND meeting students needs – providing multiple methods for a student to demonstrate their knowledge in the classroom; assisted note takers; extended deadlines; permission to record lectures if psychiatric medication cause side effects like brain fog or an individual struggles with auditory processing; daily check-ins; and so forth.
Supporting students with disabilities, whether psychiatric, physical, or neurodevelopmental disorders, requires that administration takes approaches that are effective and do not further harm these students or outcast us. It is educating the campus community about various conditions, how these conditions present themselves, responding in ways that do not always have to be ‘high alert,’ how to integrate us into the community and giving us access to our full education without leaving us to fend for ourselves. It is acknowledging our existence and not questioning our need for accommodations.
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