Earlier this week, quite by accident – a one year old video from Dr. K – on The Healthy Gamer turned up on my youtube-feed. The video: ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N0LV0mqTYQ&ab_channel=HealthyGamerGG) which I found extremely interesting, explains how recent studies in neuroscience suggests that disipline is an emotion; built by the emotional state of resolutuion to do/be something. When we as humans feel this resolution, we act in accordance with it – which in the long run creates disipline. On the other hand, when we don’t do this, it’s because another emotion has taken over – usually the feeling of doubt.
As fascinating as this video was, it did make me question my own place in this equation. After all, all the resolution in the world won’t make my disabled needs go away. I might decide that I wish to go to sleep/ wake up at the same time every day – a typical example of disipline; but I cannot force myself to fall asleep, and will ultimately experience the damage, when I get massive seizures after 3 restless nights.
Some days, I wake up and feel seizures on my skin before it arrives; like a tidal current underneath my ribs. Or I wake up in the middle of a 12 hour long migraine; dizzy and nauseous. Those are the days where my body needs rest and slowness – and no amount of resolution is going to make my seizures not arrive, or my migraine go away. Those days my body will be too busy just existing. This is the case for many disabled people.
Yet, society still expects us to perform disipline – as if disipline was a uniform we simply forgot to put on. As if all we need is a better routine, a stronger mindset, or a bullet journal blessed by productivity gods.
And, funny enough – this lack of ability to perform the uniform of disiplin, is also a large creator of doubt. For disabled people – especially those of us with neurodivergent brains, this doubt is trained intoo us, often from a very young age – by a world and a society that measures our worth based simply on output.
Which again, makes disipline even harder to accomplish.
«You are not a burden. You are carrying one.»
– Unknown
Many of us were told from the start that something is wrong with us. That if we simply try harder, thought differently, moved better or masked more effectively – we could fit in. But we won’t. Not because we are broken or bad, but because the system’s aren’t made for us.
SO, what exactly does this have to do with the emotion of disipline?
Well, in the traditional sense, disipline demands consistency. This is difficult when your body needs daily shifts and changes, due to seizures, pain-flares or fatigue.
Difficult does not not mean impossible, however – and I do not think disabled people have to throw out the idea of disipline in its entirety.
But, we might have to rewrite it for ourselves.
For people like me – born intoo disability, navigating it’s weight and wonder on a daily basis, disipline cannot be measured in hours worked or goals crushed. It exhists instead in our resilience, our adaptions, and our refusals to give up on hope.
Sometimes disipline is just getting out of bed, even if it’s not at the same time every day – as the act of getting out of bed is resolution enough. At other times disipline might be listening to your body and simply staying in bed, making sure you get enough rest.
For me, disipline is writing a post every week, even if I am tired and in pain, as I told myself that I would do it.
At other times, disipline is saying no to things or people you know aren’t good for you, or asking for help when needed, – and letting people believe what they want about you and just continue your day(s) anyway.
«We can do hard things. But not all things. Not all at once. And not without rest».
-Glennon Doyle
Now, let’s be very clear; feeling doubt in ones own ability is not laziness. Doubt is what happens when you’ve been told your existence is too much for other people. When your daily efforts go unseen. When every headline, every cruel «think-piece» and every lazy professor-quote paints you as a societal freeloader instead of a fighter.
Whether I accept it or not, I was born with epilepsy. I have several seizures (big and ‘small’) every day. They leave me confused, exhausted, oftentimes wrecked and disjointed. And yet I still hear the advice try harder.
Even worse, for many years, I gave myself the same advice.
As such, the real question that we should ask ourselves, is what exactly are we supposed to try harder? We wouldn’t ask a blind person to simply try harder to see, or a paralyzed person to simply try harder to walk. So why are we allowing ourselves (or other’s) to do it to us?
Whether you believe it or not, your body isn’t broken. But people’s assumptions about it is!
As one of my best friends once said regarding my difficulty of getting intoo the workforce; I guess it depends on what kind of society you want to live in. I don’t want to live in a world where everyone are the same, and all other’s are kept outside.
So, I think it’s time for everyone who claims to support disabled people – to stop holding us to neurotypical, able-bodied standards.
Instead, we need systems built around sustainability, adaption and dignity.
«You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems»
– James Clear
So if you want to support disabled people in feeling empowered, capable and disiplined? Start by:
- Believing us when we say we’re tired.
- Making space for non-linear progress.
- Valuing slowness, softness and rest as forms of strength.
- Funding our needs without shame.
- Listening to us when we speak.
Because you cannot measure disipline in hours. You measure it in honesty. You measure it in survival.
You measure it in someone still trying to create a life worth living – even when the world refuses to help build it.
My idea? – If the world won’t help disabled people build it, let’s build it together, ourselves.
By redifining what sucess, disipline, and resilience look like – not by ignoring our limits, but by working with them.
By creating communities where pacing isn’t shameful, and rest is respected. Where resolve and resolution doesn’t mean perfection – but practicality and presence.
As such, disipline for us might mean holding onto joy in a system built to exhaust us. It might mean learning when to stop. Or when to start again.
And if you ever feel that doubt creeping up on you, trying to stop you from dreams and goals that really matter – remember:
you’re still here.
You’ve made it this far.
And that too, is discipline.
– Silje