Blending In
On surviving college as a disabled student in a town/institution that often feels ableist as fuck
I’ll be graduating college in 10 days. I’m starting to reflect on what I’ve learned from this whole experience, how much I’ve changed, what I’ve lost, and what I’ve gained — plus, spiraling out about this new chapter of my life. But I haven’t had much time for that between the mountains of exams and final papers I have due in the coming days. But graduating is no small feat and I’m working on giving myself the figurative flowers I deserve.
I wanted to share this piece I wrote at the beginning of this quarter (around September), when graduating felt insurmountable, how I was deeply longing for elsewhere. I still am, however I don’t quite have the means or job to go elsewhere just yet and I realized there is no world where I can live with my Trump-supporting family at home. Plus, I got a cat who makes surviving feel easier and more playful (more on her later). But yea, this one is for my neuroqueer, disabled community out there, enduring institutions and situations that are not built for you.
“Change if you want to for yourself, not to keep someone or stay in a place/organization. Change because it is your path, not to contort into spaces you have outgrown.” - adrienne maree brown
When I first read this quote in Pleasure Activism a few weeks ago, I felt it down to my core. Like adrienne maree brown had spoken the words and feelings already vibrating inside me, sending them into a chaotic frenzy — bouncing off of each other and crashing at the center of my consciousness.
I’m someone who hates transitions. I cling to routine like a safety net, so it’s rare that I crave change. But right now? I’ve never wanted it more. And not just change, but a new chapter. An escape. An awakening. Here, in Isla Vista — my peculiar college town — I feel completely out of place. Like a clumsy giant moving through a world built for smaller people, knocking things over, drawing stares, and twisting myself into spaces I’ve outgrown. I'm longing to escape this discomfort, to end my chapter in this Southern California hobbit-hole. But first, I need to graduate.
By “graduate,” I don’t just mean shaking a hand and accepting a diploma — although even that feels deeply terrifying right now. I have a whole quarter left between now and that finish line. That means ten more weeks of clumsily contorting myself around this too-small-for-me town — going to class, meetings, work, grocery runs, Target trips. The boring yet necessary things you do to feed yourself and exist as a human being while getting your college degree.
At the end of each day, though, I savor the moment I step into my apartment — the only place in this town where I don’t feel like an out-of-place giant, but a human free to take up space, fill the sink with dirty dishes, mummify myself in my heated blanket, scream Caroline Polachek while making my fourth meal of Annie's Mac that week, and light concerning amounts of candles instead of the dreaded “big light”. My apartment is my sanctuary, and it’s a privilege to live alone — a situation that allows me to breathe (or scream) out the frustrations of feeling intensely out of place, and be gloriously, messily myself.
The apartment has two windows: a tiny one by my bed, where I accidentally flash passerby while changing, and a massive floor-to-ceiling one beside the couch. When I first moved in, my mom insisted on buying sheer curtains for that big window. They still hang proudly today, peppered with countless mystery stains, making them more of a sheer-polka-dot. I’m never sure if people can see me through them. Sure, I could step outside and check, but the thought of hobbling out into the street to look back up at my apartment feels unbearable. Too many things could go wrong — I could get stared at, yelled at, hit by one of the billion Toyota 4Runners that roam this godforsaken town. I’d rather live in my ignorant bliss, imagining the curtains protect me from the looks of passerby as I binge Drag Race UK for the third hour in a row.
I also spend a lot of time staring through the gossamer fabric. It’s not really something I can avoid, given the window takes up an entire wall of my apartment. From my lookout perch I watch young couples laughing on the apartment steps across the street, early morning joggers (are they ok??), failed attempts at parallel parking, drunk twenty-somethings throwing up into bushes on a Friday night, and like clockwork, a mob of students biking to class. In my apartment, the curtains are my sheer shield. But on campus, there is no such barrier, nothing to protect me from being seen.
I didn’t always fear existing on campus or leaving the safety of my apartment. There was a time when I enjoyed picking out an outfit every morning, donning my headphones, and strutting off to my next class, chin lifted, giving people something to look at. But after taking a quarter off last year and returning with a mobility aid — i.e., visibly disabled — my experience navigating UCSB’s campus took a turn. I started to take what I call the “Disabled Bus” to class. The University calls it the “Mobility Transportation Program,” but my nickname felt more apt for the university-provided golf carts and drivers that shuttle us to class. And by “us” I mean myself and maybe one other regular, joined by a rotating cast of students with ankle and knee injuries.
The “Disabled Bus” and I had a tumultuous relationship. It’s a great service, in theory, but in practice, it gets you to class on time about 40% of the time. The rest? You’re either 15 minutes late, 45 minutes early, or forgotten altogether. A dismal system for someone like me, who craves predictability, clear communication, and structure thanks to my neurodivergent nature. Not to mention the “Disabled Bus” honks its way through our overpopulated campus, threatening to further disable our student body. As the golf cart makes its slow, honking trek through the hordes of walking and biking students, they often ogle and gawk, making our mode of transportation feel less like a metal cart and more like an exhibit. And suddenly, I’m on display, separated by an invisible glass wall with no sheer curtains to hide behind.
This quarter though, I broke up with the “Disabled Bus”. I bought a parking pass instead. But even with my Subaru, Scottina, I still dread going to class. The moment I step out of the safety of Scottina’s doors into the masses of UCSB students, I’m that clumsy giant again — squeezing into miniature lecture hall seats, scooching between too-tight desks, and attracting those familiar double-takes
UCSB is supposed to be a progressive, diverse campus. And coming from the white-bread, preppy Connecticut town I grew up in, UCSB initially felt like a far-left utopia. After four years though, that utopia loses its shine, and it turns out it’s just another massive institution with ingrained and accepted norms for how people are expected to look, act, and move. Using a mobility aid doesn’t fit those norms, nor does wearing an N-95 to class (though if you heard the cacophony of coughing in my lectures, you’d understand). This isn’t just internalized ableism I’m projecting onto my environment either — my first week of classes this quarter demonstrated these norms with a scary clarity.
I found myself in three scenarios. Scenario one: I’m in a class of 60 students crammed into a classroom meant for 30 for a three-hour lecture. Feels like a pretty big fuck you to my immuno-compromised AuDHD ass. At one point, I simply get up and leave — it's impossible for me to sit still for that long, and I'm getting increasingly more anxious about the boy coughing up a storm directly to my right. Scenario two: I'm in a smaller class section. My TA — who is getting a PhD in education — immediately asks us to do an activity requiring us to stand and walk around the classroom for 45 minutes. An activity that assumes I have a body capable of such things. And if I don't? Clearly they don’t teach that in education school. Scenario three: my English professor (who I imagine is definitely on some hard drugs due to the sheer amount of far-off tangents he weaves into our lectures) is taking attendance on the first day of class. With glasses on, he peers down at the attendance sheet like it’s some sort of secret code. He proceeds to tell the entire class that it’s his first day of wearing reading glasses and they really help. Cue his first tangent, explaining, “this is what happens when you get older. Your body starts to break down, decay, and you need the help of things like these glasses.” Welp, feels pretty shitty declaring that to a 21-year-old whose body has already started that type of process.
Scenarios like these, and countless others, leave me feeling unsafe at school. Frankly, around a lot of people my age — especially in a town where it seems like everyone is drinking some sort of happy-juice that I don’t have access to. I’ve noticed myself falling back into old habits I usually reserve for my hometown: dressing more femme and forgoing my binders in order to cling to some semblance of safety. But even that doesn’t help — I just end up in a dissociative-anxious state, convinced that if anyone looked directly into my eyes they would immediately know that I’m freaking the fuck out. And I’m just so exhausted. Of hiding. Of the act. Of straining to keep my chin up and feeling like I need the protection of sheer curtains to feel safe in the world.
Growing up in Connecticut, just 45 minutes away from New York, I felt constantly called to it. And when I was around 14 and old enough to take the train there on my own, I started to understand the nature of that calling. I don’t think I could articulate it at the time, but New York felt like a sigh of relief. Each time I got off the platform at Grand Central, it felt just a bit easier to take up space than when I stepped on the train in the first place. As I grew older, I came to understand how I had to shroud and suppress my queerness, my transness, my aloof nature in my hometown, and when I went into the city, I could simply exist.
New York felt too close to home when it came time to apply to colleges, so California felt like the next-best alternative. But it’s been four years here and my body yearns for the smell of fall, the thick air before it rains, and the silhouette of a barren tree in November. I want to feel that sigh of relief again. And for the second time in my short life, I hear New York calling.
I don’t think it would be a less overwhelming place to be, sensory-wise. In fact, I’m quite certain it wouldn’t be. But I know that there, I would never feel like I’m in an exhibit. I imagine myself wearing what I want (black boots, baggy jeans, my binder with a soft button down), moving how I want (with my forearm crutch in a disjointed, beautiful clumsy manner), and looking where I want (straight ahead, down, anything that shields me from any sort of direct eye contact), and no one giving me a second glance. I imagine everyone in their own world, on their own mission, connected by proximity itself.
Maybe that sounds isolating to some. Maybe my memory deceives me. Maybe I’m romanticizing it. But I can’t stop thinking about how much less exhausted I could be if I could just blend in for once, just be another person in the crowd, not having to hide behind gauzy curtains.
It’s not just that though. In New York, I see people like me — walking down the street, sprawling on the grass of a public park, in niche coffee shops that sell $10 bagels. Queer, trans, and disabled people simply existing. Not heroes, not mentors, not “brave”, just living their lives in a buzzing metropolis. I imagine sensing their sheer presence and proximity, and immediately, feeling less alone.
But maybe I’m just not looking hard enough where I am — a likely symptom of spending most of my time behind curtains. For now, I’ll continue going to class, to meetings, to Target, and maybe I’ll even try growling at the next person who does a double take at my sheer existence. I’ll continue staring through my window, imagining a bustling New York City street, with adrienne maree brown's words echoing in my mind.
Definitely going to be checking out this book recommendation
Resonates with me - I mean that feeling of blending in… bcz as you said (and its true) it's difficult/exhausting to play along when you can't be 100% yourself… enjoyed reading this, your thoughts:)