AN INTRODUCTION: Disability Online

This icon makes the rounds on

May 1^st, known to the blogging

community as Blogging Against

Disablism Day.

I'm not the first person to blog about disability in the arts. This is something I couldn't be more happy about.

The fact that "disability blog"—with quotes, mind you—turns up over eighty thousand results on Google is worth celebrating. Fifty years ago, at the beginning of the disability rights movement, such a wide-reaching forum on the topic would've been unimaginable, nothing more than an advocate's dream. Today, I'm able to type the letters C-I-D-P into a search bar and find message boards, Facebook groups, local meetups, blogs and vlogs—a whole international community of people who share my diagnosis.

When I was thirteen, this blew my mind. In one afternoon, after I'd summoned the courage to Google my new diagnosis, my community of fellow diagnosees exploded from a desolate island of one to a nation of thousands, their voices all reaching me through my screen and speakers. Shouting their indignation at doctors IN ALL CAPS. Shaking pill bottles at their webcams. Passing around links to blogs and forums like shared bottles of champagne.

As I marveled at this new community that I had suddenly and unexpectedly joined, an anxious excitement bubbled into my chest. I realized something then that would forever change me as a writer, as a student, and as a human being.

I had a voice as well. I could speak. And the people of this community would listen.

Without these lines of virtual communication, it's likely that I would've gone my entire life without meeting a single other person with my diagnosis. That's the miracle of the digital age. The world is no longer an enormous, unnavigable expanse dotted by detached and distant communities. In the past few decades, it has shrunk at an exponential rate. A well-placed "@" sign can allow anyone with a Twitter account to communicate with celebrities, political figures, and news stations. A viral image or article can sweep all corners of the internet in hours. The largest online servers—such as World of Warcraft, with ten million subscribers—are more densely populated than some countries (Austria and Switzerland have around eight million citizens; Ireland has half of that).

For the disabled community, this has been the greatest possible blessing. For the first time in history, we are not merely isolated instances of illness, or injury, or genetic difference. We are united. We have created an ongoing multicultural discourse to which anyone, of any nationality, and of any range of ability, can contribute.

That's pretty damn exciting, if you ask me.

My goal here is to add my own voice to this discourse. My focus will be on narrative—storytelling—because as a writer, that's what I know best. (For the same reason, I'm also likely to gravitate toward physical disability, although I will certainly link to other bloggers who are better equipped to discuss mental, emotional, and sensory disabilities.) I hope to examine storytelling projects that speak to the contemporary individual's experience of disability, and to share parts of my own story as well, strengthening the existing network of narratives while also adding to it myself.

If you have any storytelling projects you'd like me to review—television series, graphic novels, films, video games, short stories, or anything else that fits the bill—please feel free to recommend them in the comments section below.
Meg