When I started blogging, I decided that my main focus was going to be my disability because I live with a disability and that is a topic that I know a lot about. Most of my audience is disabled and can relate to a lot of my content but I do have a good chunk of non-disabled followers who read my posts. I think it is important for non-disabled people to read posts about disability written by disabled people because you are not disabled and there are a lot of things that non-disabled people get wrong about disability. I love blogging about my disability because it allows me to easily support disabled people and educate those who do not have one, but it is hard to write for a non-disabled audience. People with disabilities do not understand the challenges of disability to the extent a disabled person does and sometimes it can be difficult to explain things to people without my disability in a way that they can understand. I still do it to educate non-disabled people so they can better support disabled people and be less ableist. What are some of the challenges when blogging with a non-disabled audience? In this post, I am going to talk about a few common struggles I have as a disabled creator blogging to a non-disabled audience.
Non-disabled get uncomfortable talking about the negatives- When I blog about the hard things about my disability, sometimes it makes non-disabled people a little uncomfortable because people don’t want to hear about the hard things and want feel good content. My disabled audience understands that the hard things about my disability are a reality of life, but it can be difficult for non-disabled people to understand that. Talking about the negative my disability often makes non-disabled people sad which is never my intention. As a disabled blogger, I think it’s important to talk about the negatives and positives of my disability, but it can be hard because every time you talk about the negatives of a disability it fires up those trolls and people tell you that you should be more positive. I try and have a good balance of both the positives and negatives of a disability because if you only want to hear what is good about disability you don’t want disability awareness and you want feel-good content.
Sometimes it can be difficult to explain things in a way people understand- When I define medical conditions such as Hydrocephalus, I am not doing that for people who have Hydrocephalus because people who have Hydrocephalus know what it is and don’t need me to define it for them. I mostly do that for my non-disabled audience who do not have Hydrocephalus because even you have a medical condition that is relatively common you can’t assume that everyone who reads your posts will know what it is. You should assume that most people who read your blog are not going to have the same medical conditions as you and may not be familiar with half of them. As a disabled person, I don’t need someone to define Spina Bifida for me because I live with that disability and I mostly do that for people without my disability. I do my best to explain my disability, in a way that non-disabled people can understand but sometimes it can hard to break things down because if you don’t have my disability you can only understand it to a certain extent. I explain things in the best way that I can but sometimes I feel like I failed and don’t explain things as much as well as I hoped I would. As a disabled content creator, I think it’s so important to explain things in a way a child can understand because if it’s too complicated, people get bored and they keep scrolling. It is still hard to explain a disability to someone who has never experienced it because there are some things only disabled people will understand.
Sometimes non-disabled people completely miss the point– When I blog about my disability, I think about the topics I am writing about very carefully because non-disabled people do not understand disability to the extent a disabled person does. There are some types of posts I will never create because I don’t think my non-disabled audience would understand the point I am trying to get across and may get offended. Disabled people understand that calling a disabled person inspiring for existing as a disabled person is ableism, but non-disabled often do not understand and think that all disabled people are inspirations. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to explain my disability to non-disabled people, sometimes it goes right over a non-disabled person’s head because you can only somewhat understand a disability you have never experienced. My disabled audience gets it, but sometimes my non-disabled audience completely misses the point and gets offended because they think I am promoting something that I am not.
Sometimes you get a lot of people who claim cures- When I blog about my disability, I don’t have to worry about my non-disabled family members spamming my content with cures because my family knows that Spina Bifida has no cure and is not something I can snap out of it. Most of my non-disabled audience is family members, but not everyone who reads my content that is not disabled is family, and I have a good chunk of followers without disabilities who aren’t family. Disabled bloggers often get a lot of people who claim cures because disability makes people uncomfortable, and it can be a real struggle to explain to people that you can’t be fixed without someone telling you to stop being so negative.
Sometimes you get ableist comments– Ableism is a form of discrimination and social prejudice with the belief that all disabled people need to be fixed and that the abilities of non-disabled people are superior. Disabled people are facing ableism everywhere we go, and I even get ableist comments online. My comment section is set up for moderation for a reason, and although some people mean well and aren’t trying to be ableist, sometimes people are because it’s not always easy to get people to understand disability-related issues in the same way I do.
Blogging about my disability is so important because the only way we will ever break disability stigma is by talking about it, but it can be hard to blog for a non-disabled audience. Disability sometimes makes non-disabled people uncomfortable because people often don’t want to hear about the hard things about my disability and want feel good content which is not what my blog is about. It is so important that we do our best to educate non-disabled people, but at the same time, non-disabled people need to recognize that disabled creators can only do so much to help you understand what we are going through. Blogging about my disability is hard when you have a non-disabled audience, but I will still do it because we can’t expect people to change if we hide our disabilities and avoid talking about uncomfortable topics. What challenges do you face while blogging for a non-disabled audience? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
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