«My disability has opened by eyes to see my true abilities»
– Robert M. Hensel
There are weights you can learn to carry, and there are weights that can crush the breath from your chest. For years one such weight sat tightly on my body, making my stomac knot and my shoulders tighten. The weight is question? – a large student debt that my disabled, 40% work-capable body would never be able to pay back.
Of course, it should be mentioned that this debt was something I accumulated early on in my studies, at a time where my doctor heavily adviced me to [not] work and study simultaneously, and my grand ambitions still had me completely fooled intoo thinking that I would be able to work full-time when my studies were finished.
Since then, the debt has been sitting on my shoulders, keeping me down like a heavy chain fastened to the floor, binding me to poverty, suffocating my freedom – and reminding me daily of all my ambitions completely out of reach.
This week, the chain broke!
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After a long process of applying under a law I barely dared to believed in, I recieved the news; my entire student debt had been erased. Completely gone, overnight. Not because I fought harder, not because I «deserved» it more than someone else – but because my country has rules in place that recognize reality; when disability makes paid work impossible, repayment becomes an impossible punishment.
For two days now, I’ve been dancing back and forth in my bedroom; smiling, crying and dancing some more. Not because money suddenly rained from the sky, but because dignity did; the same dignity I felt was lost when I first recognized how uncapable of daily work I actually was.
Because for the first time in years, my future is no longer defined by an unpayable burden.
And, what makes this so wonderful is that this relief is not an accident. It’s law. It’s politics. Like an architecture of care.
«For every ramp built, every barrier lowered, every debt forgiven, there is a widening of the circle of freedom.»
– Judith Heumann
Laws like the one I applied for is not charity. They are there in place for all who apply, so long as certain standards are fulfilled – and certain rules followed afterwards, to make sure said laws are not being misused. To use this particular case as an example; In order for an application to be approved, you need to be at least 50% disabled (and provide legal documentation of this). When this is cleared, the amount of debt that is forgiven depends entirely on the amount of income you’ve recieved. if you (like me) earn beneath or on par with the national powerty line, the entire debt might be forgiven. If you earn a significant amount higher, despite your disibility, some parts of said debt might remain.
Furthermore, if I were to apply for further student loans within the next 10 years, the entire debt would return (which I think is totally fair!).
The important part is that the existance of such laws, recognize that disabled lives should not be lived under permanent punishment.
Debt forgiveness is one example, but there are several others; protections against discrimination, accessibility requirements, financial support for housing (when necessary), education or assistive devices. Each one is a doorway where once there was only a wall.
Now, are these things done perfectly? – absolutely not;
I have still been discriminated when applying for part-time work, people have been poorly treated in school and certain accessibility items are only available for certain disabilities. Betterment is always nessessary.
The difference is that I chose not to go to court when discriminated during a hiring-process, as I was simply too tired to bother. One of my mutuals on the other hand, recently recieved a massive settlement from his ‘county’ after recieving terrible treatment in elementary school, due to his disability. He chose to do something, and because of the laws, he won beautifully.
The truth is that withouth these kinds of protections, I – and everyone else with disabled conditions/ diseases, would be condemned to a life where every penny from our tiny disability-income would vanish intoo a black hole of interest and repayment. Without these protections, I would never breath freely and never dream past survival. Withouth these protections those of us with disabilities are practically punished for existing.
Instead, when the system does work, it hands out freedom to those who need it.
And that matters way beyond my life.
Across the world, disabled people live on the edge, balancing survival against systems that often prefer to punish us for what we cannot do, instead of supporting what we can. Debt forgiveness, income protection, accessibility-rights – these are not luxuries. They are scaffolding. They are bridges. They are the difference between being locked up in chains, or surrounded by possibilities.
When the chain breaks, a body learns to dance again.
And that is the kind of laws we should all be fighting for.
A reflection for you, reader:
Ask yourself: What weight am I carrying that isn’t mine to bear? And what systems, laws or protections exist that might break that chain?
Sometimes freedom isn’t won alone – sometimes it is written intoo law, waiting for us to claim it.
– Silje
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Further Books & Resources:
Disability Visibility: by Alice Wong
(Stories on the politics and power of disabled lives).
Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity by Simi Linton
(On the politics of disability studies).
Being Heumann by Judith Heumann
(Memoir of a disability rights activist).
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
– International law shaping disability rights.
For Norwegians:
Look up Lånekassens regulations on disability-related debt erasure
– (Insanely dry reading, but life-changing in practice).
