It is summer and it is raining. I am sitting at a table of a conference room in a support agency of the judicial branch, in a seat reserved with perfunctory courtesy for college interns. Around the table, senior executives review the plan for the upcoming event, which has been insignificantly revised from that of last week, last month, and two years ago. Each speaker restates their role, which has been dutifully dictated by the agenda. One executive cannot locate his lines and jokes that he will need “reasonable accommodation.” In response, another teases that she is not sure that this can be arranged, as it may impose “undue hardship.”

 

This story is not worth telling. There is little suspense, and there is no conclusion. Still, I think about it after and know that it is valuable, and that it is urgent.

 

When I came to college from out of state, I developed my first among other chronic illnesses. If I were explaining my illness to an acquaintance, I might joke that I know every bathroom on campus, the number of stalls it contains, and how much time it takes to travel to the closest one given a location. If I were telling this to someone who cares about me, I might tell them of the constant energy drain and crippling anxiety involved in this daily arithmetic.

 

In my second year of college, I fell ill with Epstein-Barr Virus, ostensibly contracted during a trip I took as a member of the marching band. However, most people recover within a few months, I did not. The virus triggered a number of inflammatory responses leaving me varied permutations of problems each day: nausea, debilitating migraines, temperature fluctuations, dizziness, chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain, brain fog, rashes, etc. On the worst occasion, I was hospitalized during an episode of severe vomiting, migraine, aphasia and astasis.

Because of my illnesses, I have been forced to learn how to live differently. This is especially difficult as a college student. I have learned to budget time for breaks on my 15 minute walk to campus and to get the seat on the end of the row closest to the door. I have learned to manage my meals (which constantly make me sick) and to manage the pain I experience while in the classroom. I have identified which instructors are capable of understanding my needs in helpful ways, and those who are uninterested. I have learned to advocate for myself, even when doing so is not in the best interest of my academic standing. I have chosen not to equate my own dependability with the unreliability of my health.

 

Having a disability, and an invisible one especially, is extremely isolating. College is the time where most students are permitted to be self-centered and self-indulgent, because they are figuring out their futures. But this environment is not conducive to empathetic friendships, and many use the word anxiety interchangeably with stress.

 

However, to tell my story fully, I must also describe my privileges which far outweigh my disadvantages. I am lucky to be financially supported by a grandmother paying for my education, food, and housing. I am blessed to be still young enough to be on the insurance of my parents. I am also fortunate to have a wonderful boyfriend with the time and energy to care for me when I am unable to do so for myself. And while I am biracial woman, I am part white, meaning that my truth is not as inherently questioned by the medical community as other minority women in my position.

 

Problematically, disability analysis is conspicuously missing from education. When disability is acknowledged, it is regarded as an individual occurrence or a personal tragedy, not a social phenomenon that has shaped the world as we know it. Despite many people who are empathetic to students with chronic illnesses, institutions of learning are incompatible with our needs. Test centers made to accommodate disabilities often impose greater anxiety than they alleviate. Students who complete assignments early are unwittingly punished (I cannot begin to count the amount of times I have completed an assignment early for fear of worse health days ahead, only to have the prompt amended or time extended). Disability has been carefully detached from most disciplines, even though it is one of the greatest influencers in the United States (just look at immigration law history!).

 

Moreover, societal and academic values are irreconcilable with the state of being chronically ill/disabled. In particular, education in the United States, as it currently stands, makes self-worth contingent on productivity and performance. Working to the point of exhaustion is romanticized and mischaracterized as passion. Pulling an all-nighter has become the hallmark of a dedicated student (and a sick student, who my weak immune system makes me vulnerable to). Although I attended an extremely competitive school district in the San Francisco Bay Area, I feel that this assessment is well-founded nationally.

 

It is especially difficult to confront the relationship between my disability and my identity in an era marked by overt able-nationalism. Ableism persists at all societal levels, from the elementary school playground to a federal agency of the judicial branch. As a chronically ill college student, I am the product of institutions inattentive to my needs, but I am one of the lucky ones.

 

This is not a story worth telling, but this is urgent.