An Invisible Disability

CW: sexual abuse, dehumanization

Struggling at an early age in the classroom because of ADHD and Autism and the labels that come with it, he always had a love/hate relationship with school. Because he excels at learning, he began homeschooling, which was a turning point that led to graduating at 16 years old. Those experiences helped him to appreciate the teachers who were helpful to him and has led him to considering education as a career goal. Because he feels that he doesn’t look disabled and often doesn’t feel he needs accommodations, he finds it revelatory that he might actually need to use those resources. That external perception of not being disabled has led to a conflict in his own mind. 

This episode was made possible thanks to our partnership with the Missing Voices Project. Based out of Flagler College, the Missing Voices Project believes that amplifying the voices of young people and their adult allies who live and serve in ministry at the intersections of disability, foster care & trauma, gender & sexuality, and racial reconciliation is necessary and holy work. We are grateful to Missing Voices Project for their support and for the bravery of these campers as they share about life at the intersection of queerness and disability. For more information about the Missing Voices Project, please visit www.missingvoices.org

Find out more about us by visiting our website, kindomcommunity.org. There you can find information about kin•dom camp and consider supporting our work with a one-time or recurring donation. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram @kindomcommunity to keep up with all the important information.

Transcript

music  0:00  

[Andy strumming guitar & Baylee's voice singing: "Oh let's build, let's build a place we can go”]

Narrator  0:07  

Thank you for tuning into kin•dom campfire chats, a podcast of kin•dom community. This podcast features the voices of LGBTQIA+ persons, both youth participants and adult staff, who attended kin•dom camp in Texas in the summer of 2024. We asked the camp participants to think of a question that they wished someone would ask them about their life journey. With a friend, and in their own words, the campers tell their stories of struggle, love, support, and a community found. We invite you to listen with an open mind and an open heart.

music  0:09  

[Andy strumming guitar & Baylee's voice singing: "This is the place”]

Narrator  0:56  

This episode was made possible thanks to our partnership with the Missing Voices Project who believes that amplifying the voices of young people and their adult allies who live and serve in ministry at the intersections of disability, foster care & trauma, gender & sexuality, and racial reconciliation is necessary and holy work. We are grateful for the bravery of these campers as they share about life at the intersection of queerness and disability.

speaker 1  1:27  

How has your disability affected how people perceive you?

speaker 2  1:34  

So I developed schizophrenia when I was around six years old, and then I got diagnosed a few years ago. And ever since I've been diagnosed, I can just tell that people really treat me younger than I am. They infantilize me because about a year after I got diagnosed with schizophrenia, I came out as trans and gay to my mom and my sister, and their immediate reaction was just like this pitying look. And I could see them. I could see like the cogs turning in their head, like, "okay", "is this real or are they delusional?" like, "are they psychotic right now?" And it's the same thing as like, or what was I gonna say, sorry? Like, I'm also physically disabled, and anytime I tell someone who knows I'm schizophrenic that I'm also physically disabled, they're just like, "oh, well, you're probably hallucinating your symptoms. You're probably not actually disabled. You're probably it's just all in your head. It's all in your brain. You should get on antipsychotics, and that will help." But I am on antipsychotics. I've been on antipsychotics for three years, and I still am disabled. So it's just very- people treat me like a little kid who's playing make believe with myself, and it's really annoying, because in reality, I'm more mature than most of the people that I hang out with or that interact with me, but people just because I'm psychotic, people just assume I'm always in a state of psychosis, and they can't trust anything I say.

speaker 1  3:33  

How has your trauma affected your identity?

speaker 2  3:40  

In a couple ways. The first way is more queer related, and people always say, like, there's a homophobic rhetoric that, like people are gay or asexual because they were like, sexually assaulted. And every gay person I've met, their response to that is to be like, "no, that never happens. That's not even possible." And that always gets to me a little bit, because that is why I'm asexual, because I was sexually abused throughout most of my childhood, and now I just that doesn't like, I'm not sex repulsed, but I just don't feel sexual attraction, because I think I just got like, overloaded with it when I was like, tiny and now I just don't have a desire for it. And then the second way this is, I don't know if this counts as queer. I've seen it's being debated online, but I was dehumanized by most people in my life. For a lot of my childhood, I was treated basically like a dog. And my brain's response to that trauma was to be like, "oh yeah, we're a dog. You're a dog." So I found a label called psychological therian. So basically, I am aware that physically, I am a human and like my I have a human brain, I have a human body, but mentally, my brain sees itself as a dog, and it treats itself like a dog. And when I stopped caring that people thought that was weird, and I just accepted that that was a part of me, and I started embracing that it really helped me thrive, and I'm happier than I have been in a long time.

music  5:56  

[Andy strumming guitar & Baylee's voice singing: "Oh let's build”]

Baylee  6:04  

Hi y'all, it's Baylee. I'm the Creative Director of kin•dom community. I’d like to talk a little bit more about kin•dom camp and how you can get involved. kin•dom camp is an opportunity for LGBTQIA+ youth ages 12 to 17 to feel safe and free to show up as their full selves. Campers will have the chance to experience traditional camp activities and recreation, plus some specialized programming to incorporate LGBTQIA+ history and culture. More information can be found on our website kindomcommunity.org/camp. If you have any questions you can't find the answers to, you can email us at kindomcamp@gmail.com.

Special thanks again to the Missing Voices Project for their support of this episode. You can learn more about their important work at missingvoices.org. Thanks for listening to kin•dom campfire chats. We are proud to be a safe space for these campers, and we are even more proud of them for sharing their stories. We hope you'll keep gathering around the campfire with us as we celebrate all of the stories that make us this kin•dom community.