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What makes a person "disabled" versus "having a disability"? I'm asking more than semantics--I'm looking for clarification about the assessment of people. Example: Social Security, when it decides disability, looks for a physical or mental condition that makes the assessed person unable to earn a living. In some instances, I've seen the clause "at their usual occupation" while in other instances, not. 

I was evaluated over a period of more than a year so that the Social Security Administration could be certain that they were giving me the nine hundred a month to live on, and all of the extras that come with it, for good reasons. In the process of being evaluated, I obtained glimpses of their thinking. Yet I'm still, to an extent, baffled by what it really means to be disabled. 

I do know there are many things I can't do that other people can. And most people never question their concept that anyone can do these things. They seem to lack a concept of someone not being able to do them. For example, I wouldn't be capable of driving to Lake Tahoe for a vacation with my wife. I'd get too flipped out by the stuff I'd have to deal with. How do you stay at a ski lodge? Or Reno. How do you go to Reno and gamble? Even if I had the money, I couldn't do it--I'd get paralyzed with anxiety. (Think of a housecat that has spent its entire life indoors. Then when it finds itself out the front door, it doesn't know how to handle this--she or he goes into shock and grabs onto the nearest item for dear life.) 

Long before Russia went to war with Ukraine, six or seven years ago, my mother and her husband visited Russia. My mother recounted that while in Russia, there was a minor mishap. But based on her description, if I could conceivably be in that situation, I'd flip out. An older couple can pull off an international trip that I can't conceive of, one in which a mishap occurred--that my mother apparently shrugged off! Why can't I do this? Answer: I can't travel because I'm schizophrenic and I've been taking heavy dosages of antipsychotics for nearly 40 years. 

I can give you hundreds of other examples. People do things on a regular basis that are far beyond me. Start with my initial problem, the paranoid delusional disorder, which is the psychosis, and add to that the effects of the medications--antipsychotics and mood stabilizers, that suppress brain function. 

In my past, before I got married to another mental health consumer, unemployability took me out of the market for a decent relationship. Women I dated or sought to date when I was in my twenties expected a man who could be a breadwinner and who could have fun. I am neither. My wife, I think, understands that because she, too, is disabled. 

According to the U.S. Government's assessment, I'm still disabled. They've assessed me over a period of a year and a half to determine this. It involved me filling out numerous questionnaires, getting the professional opinions of doctors and psychologists, and visits with government-hired doctors and psychologists. It was a pain in the neck, (or choose some other area of the body). 

I have abilities. I can write good copy. I can fiddle with electronics and can often make non-working gadgets work. I'm good with my hands in most ways so long as it doesn't involve dealing with the insides of cellphones, watches, or other tiny stuff. I have bravery. I don't give up easily on many things, and I can do many things well, and with painstaking consistency. I've taught myself how to meditate. 

On the other hand, I also have physical health concerns, and my knees have gone bad. Additionally, I'm mentally ill and medicated. The difference between "having a disability" versus "being disabled" is in how much your problems impair your ability to survive, to hold a job, and so on. 

You could have poor hearing, and that could be considered a disability. Yet if you can function well enough despite that, even in the circumstance you can't tolerate a hearing aid, you aren't "disabled"--you "have a disability." It is the difference between having a physical or mental issue but being able to function despite this, versus not being able to function well enough to survive without help. 

My niece, who in most ways is a very intelligent person, now middle aged, overestimates me. She believes I "have a disability"...but "can do a lot of things." She is under the impression that I underestimate myself. 

I can do many things, often better than ninety-nine percent of people. But because there is so much that I can't do, I'm limited. (And I am not invested in an identity or self-image issue because of it.) If I could do all the stuff that "neuro-typical" people do, I'd be doing that. People presume that I'm lazy, not motivated, or afraid to feel uncomfortable. This is just not accurate. 

Writing requires a very narrow domain of skills. It doesn't usually require bravery. It doesn't require dealing with multiple stimuli. It requires processing words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, ideas. It requires communicating with editors and sometimes with readers. It may require research, depending on the project. It requires that you are good with computers, unless you have piles of money to pay to an IT specialist. But it doesn't require multitasking or dealing with anything truly difficult. Yet, I've been published a lot. Not just in the Planet, but in many print and online publications. This impresses many people. I'm fine with that.  

Medication prevents total relapse into psychosis, but with huge drawbacks. The total disability is created by antipsychotics as much as by the brain condition. 

Antipsychotics are like using a sledgehammer to kill a bug. 

My last word in this week's essay: I advise doing what you can and accomplishing something. Don't worry about whether people tell you that you are disabled, have a disability, or try to tell you that you can't. You are potentially the best judge of what you can and can't do. Ignore, don't argue with, the naysayers.