On a Scale of 1 to 10: Identity and Invisible Disability

Abstract

A significant portion of the United States' population are invisibly ill or disabled. Given the drastic, life-altering changes many more may yet see as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a greater understanding of the social forces that delimit and devalue invisibly ill and disabled people is invaluable. Capitalism structures American government, work, and medicine. How do these realms specifically shape the self-perceptions and identities of invisibly ill and invisibly disabled people? This paper identifies how these institutions negatively inform invisibly ill and invisibly disabled peoples' identities. Autoethnographic data depicts how the combinations of interactions between these social structures can work in tandem to (de)construct and shape invisibly ill individuals' perceptions of self and disability.