Disabled people struggle with challenges that a non-disabled person will never fully understand, but that is okay because everyone has their own struggles. People sometimes think they need to relate to my disability to be able to connect with disabled people, and will claim to have a disability they clearly do not have. You don’t need to have my disability to be understanding of it, and I would rather you take the time to learn about the challenges of my disability than lie about having a disability you do not have. Most people that I have interacted with who say they have Spina Bifida actually have it but occasionally I will run into someone who swears they have my disability but say things that are impossible, and it’s very obvious you don’t have my disability. Most disabled people do not fake a disability, and it can be hard to tell who is faking and who isn’t because there are a lot of invisible disabilities, but fakers do exist and will slip up. How do you know someone is faking Spina Bifida? In this post, I am going to talk about a few things someone might say that are clear indicators someone is lying about their Spina Bifida diagnosis.
I developed Spina Bifida– In high school, I knew a girl who swore she had Spina Bifida but gave herself away when she said she had a surgery, and her doctor gave her Spina Bifida. I hung around with a lot of people with Spina Bifida, and I think that she felt a little left out, so she claimed to have it too in an attempt to try and fit in. Doctors can make mistakes during surgery and cause permanent disability, but Spina Bifida is a birth defect, and it’s impossible for everyone to give you Spina Bifida. It’s not a contagious disability, and anyone who claims someone gave it to them is lying to you. I think that she probably could have fooled me because she was a full-time wheelchair user like a lot of people with Spina Bifida are, but gave herself the moment, she claimed to have developed it. There are mild forms of Spina Bifida that are not diagnosed until later in life, but you can’t develop it, and if you aren’t born with it, you will never have it.
I was cured of Spina Bifida- There are new fetal surgeries that eliminate some challenges, such as Hydrocephalus, and people being born today aren’t struggling as much, but these surgeries are not cures and people are still being born with physical disabilities. I think at some point there may be a cure because doctors have learned a lot more about Spina Bifida, but currently, it does not exist. Anyone who tells you they were cured of Spina Bifida probably never had it in the first place and is lying to you because Spina Bifida is currently incurable, and no one with Spina Bifida would ever claim a cure. If there were a cure for Spina Bifida, everyone would know about it, and you should question anyone who is not a doctor who claims to know the secret cure.
Listen to the way they pronounce it-. When you are disabled, one of the first things you learn is how to pronounce your disability correctly because you need to know that to be able to educate doctors who may not be familiar with it. I think that the only people who may struggle with saying Spina Bifida are new parents who are still processing their child’s disability, but if full-grown adults are struggling, it’s possible they don’t have the disability they claim they do. I don’t know a single disabled person who can’t pronounce their disability correctly, and I have corrected many people in life because it’s important to me.
Sometimes you don’t know- If someone has done their research and truly doesn’t want you to know they are lying, sometimes you won’t know because not everyone with Spina Bifida has physical disabilities, and sometimes it’s truly invisible. We can’t always assume that everyone who doesn’t look disabled is lying about having Spina Bifida because not everyone has physical challenges, and sometimes you don’t know. You should never accuse someone as being a faker because someone doesn’t look disabled. Disability doesn’t have a specific look, and even though someone doesn’t look disabled, that doesn’t mean they are not because there are more invisible disabilities than visible ones.
When people tell me they have Spina Bifida, sometimes I know because I will see a visible scar where a spinal closure was done, but you can’t go off of that alone, because Spina Bifida can be invisible. Spina Occulta is the mildest form of Spina Bifida and usually isn’t diagnosed until later in life because it’s truly invisible. It is a lot harder to fool people who actually have Spina Bifida because we know things that someone without a disability would not know, but you don’t have to lie about a disability to fit in. Tell me about what disability you actually have because I always want to learn about different disabilities, and it’s okay if you can’t relate to my challenges. Disabled people do not have to have the same disability to be able to connect with one another because we connect in other ways. I have friends who have different disabilities and although we can’t relate to everything, there are a lot of things we can relate to. Most people do not fake disabilities and it’s something that the media wants us to believe, but fakers do exist, and a lot of the time you aren’t going to know if something is faking a disability unless you ask them. Have you talked to someone who claimed to have a disability they do not have? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
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