Everything I eat turns to ash in my mouth some days.

Reading FWD/Forward, the new feminists with disabilities blog, and feeling sorry for myself because my disabilities aren't visible enough, or severe enough, for anyone but me and a few people close to me to give a shit. Because sometimes--too often--days like these happen, where everything seems to be behind a dull gray fog, and I take three naps in one day, and I'm lonely and my stomach hurts and I lie there thinking about things I could/should be doing and just thinking about them is exhausting me, so I take another nap. And then the real world comes crashing back in, and I have to go to work, and go to school, and explain why I still haven't done my late assignments, and I don't have an excuse. "I lay around my house all day" isn't an excuse. So I keep going, and hope the next day is better.

Depression is a chronic condition now. Part of my life. Better some days and worse others. Might always be that way, might not. I'm a lot better than I used to be. But I still have bad days, bad weeks. And honestly, I don't know how to explain them to other people without sounding whiny as fuck.

(I think I should start using my Happylite again. It might not help that much, but it can't hurt. Attack depression on multiple fronts, that's my strategy. Medication, therapy, mindfulness, simulated sunlight, kittens...)

IBS makes my life difficult in other ways. But IBS is easier. If I say, I had an IBS attack and I was in physical pain and had to lie down, that's understandable. Something people can relate to. Everyone knows what pain is. (That's not to say I would feel comfortable asking to lie down in the middle of, say, my work shift.) From the outside, depression can look like laziness. Which I already have a reputation for since I'm chronically late and a constant procrastinator. But I think those are more often a consequence of my depression/anxiety than a comorbidity, and they've just been a part of my life for so long that I don't know what's an illness and what's a personal failing anymore.

Anyway, I really like that blog and I admire the courage of the writers there. But I have trouble claiming the title of disabled for myself. Even though the spoon theory applies perfectly to me, the facts that (a) in my case it's not usually physical pain taking away all my spoons and (b) I'm not in an acute state of depression and anxiety like I was three years ago, usually keep me from saying out loud that I am disabled. I'd rather say I have mental illnesses, or I have chronic depression, or something like that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel like I often straddle the border between able-bodied (or -minded) and disabled, if there is such a thing. I'm not sure where I stand. Where I deserve to stand.