As someone who has suffered from clinical depression, health anxiety, and occasional suicidal thoughts, I can affirm that people with disabilities face a variety of structural and ideological challenges that have little to do with any potential limitations.
My mental health journey started at a young age. As a child in elementary school, I was bullied. Oftentimes, children would pick on me for my appearance in my wheelchair and say that I was too skinny. Additionally, I was bullied for struggling to participate in the gym. These criticisms over the structure of my body set in and triggered the roots of my general depression disorder.
The next phase started the summer after I finished elementary school. I was in the hospital for five months due to a catastrophic surgery. I started experiencing clinical depression from being in the hospital setting. As another result of that surgery, I started experiencing occasional suicidal thoughts, as I could not understand why all of this was happening to me.
Soon after leaving rehab, more depression set in. Because I was still unable to sit up for long periods, I could not attend public school. I was homeschooled through Home and Hospital for two years. Being stripped away from the social life I once had was devastating to me. I also developed more anxiety as I was the only student in the program, so I constantly felt pressured to know the answer to everything. I did not have any peers to rely on if I did not understand something.
In eighth grade, I was finally able to attend public school again. I was extremely nervous because I did not know anybody, and I was scared about how the kids would perceive my disability. It turned out that I didn't need to be scared of the kids but rather the germs. My immune system was compromised from not being exposed to germs for two years when I was at home. As a result, I had back-to-back illnesses for the first three quarters of the school year. This contributed to further health anxiety and depression from a further lack of social interaction.