Disabled people face daily abuse from the able-bodied. What can be done about it?

An entirely preventable mental health crisis of working class disabled people.

What I’m about to write isn’t new. It’s been known in the disability community for years. And yet, it still needs to be said in 2025:

We, disabled people, are subject to abuse on a daily basis.

I will always be mentally ill, no matter what happens. There is no magic solution to PTSD. You can’t be cured of it; you can only manage it. You can absolutely go into remission, but the memories are still there. And they will always trouble you.

Because they should trouble you. For example, if you’re a victim of rape, I don’t see why the victim should have to reframe their mindset so that it troubles them less. Sure, it’d be nice to be able to control when that happens, but fundamentally my point is that rape is bad. And people have a right to be upset when it happens to them.

People who think that is entirely up to the victim to manage, are abusers. They quite clearly are, because they do not understand why certain behaviours may be abusive. And if you don’t have a sense of morality and you refuse to gain a sense of morality after being informed and explained about what you’re doing is problematic, you’re probably an abuser and I have been hurt by you. And I don’t mean fellow disabled people. I mean healthy people.

I’ve suffered as a result of not having a childhood. I’ve suffered because the people who were supposed to protect me didn’t. I’ve suffered because of media portrayals of mental illness and disability.

I watched KPop Demon Hunters yesterday. And I don’t believe that new work by big corporations should continue depicting disability and mental illness the same way we’ve seen over and over. That there’s a struggle, and it’s eventually overcome by things magically getting better. It’s a form of whitewashing the disability experience. And it leads me to throwing stuff the wall because once again, my lived experiences are just ignored in favour of ‘good cinema’. I am sick and tired of this. I am sick and tired of my voice being excluded because it’s not ‘good cinema’ or ‘good reporting’.

The truth is, there’s no magic in disability. It just sucks.

I find a way to live my life in spite of disability. But I wish I had two hands when I go out so I could be a more effective, better journalist. I wish I didn’t have a random emotional crisis whenever I try to do something. I wish I was compatible with sitting in an office.

It’s this kind of magical thinking that leads to the abuse of disabled people, that magically we’ll find solutions to our problems without being given the resources to do so. As if we could just "inspire" our way out of poverty, disability, or any other misfortune in life. As if we’d magically grow back the brain matter that abuse destroyed, without effective medical treatment.

Three million people are currently waiting on NHS waiting lists and haven’t received a single treatment since they were referred. One million are currently waiting more than 18 weeks. These numbers are not shifting, despite the Labour government’s efforts, because they fundamentally don’t understand how disability works or what disabled people need. And anyone can become disabled at any time.

The abuse of disabled people, including cutting the last bits of support we get from PIP, Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity, and making it increasingly hard to access disability benefits, is just straight-up abusive. I think Keir Starmer is personally responsible, in my opinion.

Because he should know better. He’s a human rights lawyer. Why aren’t disabled people his first priority?

We are the ones who’ve spent years understanding the threats to the vulnerable. We are often working people, trying to work and help others in spite of our severe disabilities. And yet, we’re treated like fucking shit.

My poem Transition in Agony is still relevant today, even though I’ve finished the book around it. You can read it here on my website for free.

This may make me deeply unpopular, but I do still believe in degrees of disability, for example. I don’t think the government or a doctor should decide this. I think it should be entirely self-determined by the person’s level of distress, and that should be taken into account when the NHS prioritises people for therapy. People should be allowed to say how urgently they need the help, not have this decided for them. Because this, leads to waiting lists that fundamentally do not work, as they become completely arbitrary.

Some people may have the same conditions but aren’t as affected because theirs aren’t as severe. And then there are people who are literally housebound. I am towards the ‘mostly housebound, can’t go anywhere on my own’ end of disability.

Unfortunately, the NHS still relies on a 1960s model of equality. And if you don’t agree with it, doctors just tell you to go private. And when disability support is being cut, it’s an answer that may as well as be hurling abuse at the disabled person. To me, it’s a form of violence, just that it’s not socially acceptable to punch disabled people in the face to make them go away and stop bothering you in the doctor’s office as you can’t help them and you have no resources because the government never gave you any resources.

I don’t understand how doctors and nurses can go into work every day, thinking that this is OK. I support the resident doctor’s strikes because these people can’t go into work every day believing everything is fine, even though it leads to current care getting worse. I support the NHS staff that leave the NHS for this reason, because it’s at least the honourable thing to do.

I tried asking my local hospital, Wythenshawe Hospital as well as several Greater Manchester hospitals, for help with my mental health several times. Every fucking time, I’ve been sent home. I have self-harmed. I have tried to end my life. I’ve even had the police called on me. I now have an informal police resolution, a Community Resolution Order, all because I committed the crime of being mentally ill. I am challenging the police on this, but it’s going to be a long wait, because the courts and legal experts are also underfunded.

Do you know where mentally ill people end up when we don’t talk about mental illness out of concern for “the mental health of healthy people”?

Prison.

One in four people in prison have undiagnosed ADHD. And prisons are bursting, with mentally ill people who shouldn’t be in prison, but should receive mental health support.

Prisons have become the modern asylum, and no longer house real ciminals. Since it’s no longer politically acceptable to run asylums, we’ve rightfully adopted the community care model. But the underfunding of this model was entirely intentional, designed to punish the mentally ill for being mentally ill.

We know this. Progressive people have been saying these things for years. But the current Red Tories in power don’t care. They see mentally ill people as an obstacle, not an opportunity to lead.

It’s the same shit. People avert their eyes when they see suffering, because why should they care when it doesn’t directly impact them? It’s an abuse of power when you have the authority to fix our lives, but you choose to not to do so, for your own self-gain.

The reality is, a lot of disabled people end up becoming counsellors because so many healthy people won’t. We have to help each other because no one else will. And we’re so tired. We’re increasingly under-resourced, and we’re getting worse.

So please, forgive me when I say that healthy people (or people with very mild mental health issues) are awful. That’s my lived experience. And you will not invalidate my experiences.

They should know better. But instead, I’ll just be told what a travesty it all is at the next NHS mental health appointment, while I wait years for therapy that the system never intends to give me, as they make another excuse such as ‘you’re now under a different trust’, or ‘you are too mentally ill’ or ‘you need to not have ADHD so that you turn up to appointments, oh and we also won’t give you reasonable adjustments because everyone’s mental health struggles are the same’.

When it’s a pattern, it’s hard to not feel that this is all intentional. That this is a way to kill off the most severely disabled.

When you go to an emergency department, a heart attack patient gets seen first. Because they’re about to die without any treatment.

So why is it any different for mental health? Because that would involve recognising that we’ve been abusing the mentally ill all this time, and that’s politically impossible because why would you acknowledge publically you abused your power if you’re in power?

And that is why I am doing journalism, despite my disabilities. Because I want things so desperately to change. But that change won’t happen unless the healthy people advocate for me too, even though it’s hard and capitalism is stressing out everyone.

But it’s worse for us. It just is.

I leave you with my final words.

I am not ashamed of being disabled.

But I am ashamed that I have to live in this society.

Emily Chomicz