But what I do know is that these hierarchies exist — illustrated in many interactions just like that one — and my participation in that hierarchy, both to my own benefit and detriment, has very real consequences.
Trying to be “good” may have gotten me more blankets or special lasagna, but it says something sinister about how the stigma around mental illness operates.
Here’s what I’ve learned — and why I believe we need a more nuanced conversation about privilege and power as it shows up in mentally ill folks.
I Have (Some) Privilege Because I’m Positioned As The “Exception”
I struggle with severe mental illness and that, of course, comes with significant marginalization and strife. But because I’m so often perceived as friendly and functional, and therefore a kind of “exceptional” mentally ill person, I still benefit at the expense of other mentally ill people.
Namely, because I’m positioned as not “like them,” I am often treated better as they are simultaneously othered.
We see this kind of ableism most distinctly when we categorically divide up disabled people into “higher” and “lower” functioning — which can be a coded way of saying, “These are the people that can conform to society’s expectations of what a ‘typical’ person should be, and these are the people who fail to do that.”
I directly benefit from the ableist assumption that I am “exceptional” because I often present in the narrow way society holds up as the ideal — an ideal that expects psychiatrically disabled people to conceal their disabilities.