Some disabilities are more obvious than others. Many are immediately visible, especially if someone relies on a wheelchair or cane, but others are not as apparent. People who live with invisible disabilities face unique challenges that can make them vulnerable to receiving disparate care.

1. Being Able to Pass: They can pass as normal, healthy, average people, which is great and definitely helps ease their everyday lives, especially in interactions with strangers or getting their foot in the door in a situation like a job interview but not so great when trying to get a diagnosis for a condition that exists but being made to feel it’s all in their head.
2. The Fear of Stigma: When a disability isn’t immediately obvious, people sometimes doubt it exists and/or accuse those who suffer from invisible conditions of simply seeking attention or looking for special treatment. As such, some prefer not to talk about the illness or refrain from seeking care.
3. Difficult to Diagnose: Invisible conditions are more difficult to detect by healthcare providers, leading many such conditions to go undiagnosed or be misdiagnosed. Research has reported that the process of being diagnosed with a learning disability for instance, often involves collecting multiple conflicting diagnoses by healthcare providers over a long period of time. 
4. Narrow Perception of Disability Definition: Most people define disability as external. There are however, debilitating conditions that are not immediately apparent but none the less disabling. These types of conditions demand a new way of approaching disability, one in which we don’t stick to a definition based solely on the use of assistive equipment or someone’s external appearance.
5. Conforming to the Ableism Culture: Historically, disabled people were often segregated. For example, they were taught in separate classrooms and schools or were institutionalized. As a result, disabled people sometimes went to great lengths to hide their disability and “blend in,” they preferred to conform to the culture of ableism for fear of being identified and labeled as disabled. The need to hide a disability carries on today, Caroline Casey, a legally blind woman in her Ted Talk “Looking Past Limits,” talked about how she hid her disability from her colleagues at work for 11 years. She was too scared to tell them the truth, “terrified of standing out or appearing needy” she however, did not get the help she needed as a result of her fear until her disability deteriorated.
6. Invisible to the Person with the Disability: Invisible disabilities may sometimes be invisible even to the people with the disability. Roy Richard Grinker, a professor of anthropology, international affairs and human sciences at George Washington University, recently described a student who had felt inadequate until she entered college. “Getting diagnosed with A.D.H.D. was one of the best days of my freshman year,” she told him and her classmates, “because someone actually saw that I wasn’t stupid or lazy, that I just needed treatment.”
7. COVID Long Haul Disability: We now know that many of those who have “recovered” from Covid-19 will continue to face significant health problems for the rest of their lives. The pandemic will no doubt add to the ranks of the disabled, howbeit, some invisible. Many COVID long-haulers will want to return to the social norm of “ability” and it will not be surprising if people choose not to disclose their newly-acquired disabilities, but instead carry the burden of invisible disability secrecy and choose not to get care.

Disability should not be a person’s defining characteristic. A misunderstanding or judgment of a person’s biological, mental or physiological limitations can impact their comfort or desire to seek care as well as other people’s perception of their need for care.

What is your perspective? Comment below and let’s get the conversation going.

It’s a RAP (Respect science, Address systemic racism, Promote awareness of ethnic and racial health disparities)