When I was working at the church, I didn’t look like I had mental health issues. I had underlying mental health issues, that I wasn’t dealing with. Which we all know came to a head when I got arrested for having a panic attack on an airplane.
Recently someone made a snide comment about the fact that I don’t drive. I didn’t get angry because this person doesn’t know I smoke cannabis, they also don’t know that I have been known to randomly pass out and fall down due to my anemia and my low hormone levels. I recently got my B12 checked, and after another blood test, it looks like I will need a B12 shot and possibly a blood transfusion if my numbers don’t rise high enough.
So what I am saying is that me trying to drive is like Trump trying to run for president again. Exhausting and most dangerous.
So most people don’t see anemia as a disability, but when you’re already dealing with depression, this is exactly why anemia is a disability. My body doesn’t produce enough of the right blood cells to keep me going, and because it’s been running on so little of the right blood cells for so long, I can’t absorb red meat the way that other people do, so it’s not that it won’t help, it’s that eating red meat won’t help enough.
Iron pills are great and super helpful but first, you have to have access to them and secondly, your body has to be able to absorb them, mine does not. Not in the way I need, so it’s looking like I might need a blood transfusion. Do you want someone who routinely passes out during moments of high stress to be on the road driving?
No of course not, but you have no problem pointing and laughing about the fact that at 39 I can’t drive. I would absolutely love to drive and have the freedom to go where I want when I want, but right now it’s neither safe for myself nor others, so I am making the responsible choice.
And that’s what many people with unseen disabilities do. We make the responsible or the easiest choice that provides us with the best amount of safety and comfort and often we get ridiculed for it by people who either don’t understand or don’t care to. “Well, no can’t you just try XYZ?” I’ve either explained already why those won’t work or that we’ve already tried it.
But please continue to listen to minuscule parts of my story and tell me how you would know or do better because you’re smarter than I am, my doctors are, and you’ve clearly thought of solutions that we haven’t already. It’s super helpful thank you.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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