Ellynne Davis

A month ago, my family celebrated a huge milestone, my father’s 76th birthday. Most people know my father as a former Commander in Chief for the Chicago Police Department, but I know him as a jack of all trades including being a civic leader, entrepreneur, and hero. Throughout his life, my father maintained a commitment to giving back to his community and fighting the status quo. This Juneteenth, the lessons from my father are at the top of my mind as I reflect back on previous feelings of anger and despair.  I find myself having deeper conversations about the challenges that face the Black community and not being content with the status quo. However, I look forward to learning from others, changing with the times and redefining the status quo. This year, I will be reflecting on how far we have come and how much more work we need to do.

Juneteenth is the day where many people across the country commemorate the true end of slavery. History teaches us that slaves were freed from the Emancipation Proclamation, but in truth, slavery still continued, and the status quo was maintained. Two and a half years later, on June 19, 1865, federal troops announced the end of the Civil War and ensured that all slaves were freed in Galveston, Texas, and the entire Confederacy as a whole. [continue reading…]

Graciano Petersen

True joy in the workplace comes from being able to trust your colleagues as well as showing up and being valued as your full yourself. Our identities are not always fully supported in our workplace, but we are striving to live in the shared value of honoring how our employees and apprentices identify and how those identities impact their work and their ability to perform their work duties.

As most of the people who work at RespectAbility have a disability, those disabilities impact how they identify and how they embrace work and what they need while working. I’ve been thinking about identity and work performance a lot because of how embraced I feel in my identities at RespectAbility, and also how the month of June honors multiple parts of my identity and the identities of others at RespectAbility. [continue reading…]

Riccardo Ricciardi

How does a “typical day” consolidate with the daily reality of living with Bipolar Disorder? The answer is simple. There is no typical day.

What is Bipolar Disorder?

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) defines Bipolar Disorder as a group of brain disorders that cause extreme fluctuation in a person’s mood, energy, and ability to function.

I’m not a health care professional. I’m someone who has lived with Bipolar 2 Disorder for many years and has gleaned, albeit minimally, from the peaks and precipices of this condition. Each person’s narrative is unique. This is mine. [continue reading…]

Shelly Christensen

The stories we tell of our unique lived experiences with disabilities and mental health conditions matter. It is a generous act when someone pulls back the curtain to tell their story.

Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a popular TED Talk called, “The Danger of a Single Story.” A single story is a generalization about a person based on stereotypes and stigma. Often people with disabilities and mental health conditions are seen only by virtue of a diagnosis or behavior, labeled by that one piece of information. The danger of a single story is that so much about that person is never revealed—the strengths and gifts they can contribute to others and the hopes and dreams that give them a sense of purpose and belonging. [continue reading…]

Leah Ilana Craig

I’m told there’s a power to “healing out loud,” speaking to one’s experience of working through, or living with a mental health condition, physical disability, chronic illness, etc. As I tell the story of my recovery from anorexia or living life with my chronic illnesses, I’ve seen this power myself in myriad ways. Still, when I was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID) in February 2021, I wondered if there was a limit in the power of healing out loud.

DID used to be known as multiple personality disorder. It is one of the diagnoses in the DSM that remains highly stigmatized. Often the subject of sensationalized media portrayals and wild misinformation, my own DID went unrecognized for years, hidden under layers of shame and fear and confusion. Being open about anxiety or even an eating disorder was one thing. Trying to find the courage to speak about my darkest secret out loud, that I shared a body with multiple alters formed out of great trauma, was entirely another. Would my loved ones accept not just me, Leah Ilana, but the other members of my system I was getting to know in therapy? [continue reading…]

Christina Lisk

I remember many beautiful things about Philadelphia Pride 2018. Mamma Mia had come to town, and the performers were marching in the parade. Their routines were vibrant, as though the streets were a makeshift stage, and all the world was invited. In my red skinny jeans and my rainbow wing scarf, I stood on the sidelines, keeping up with their routine as best as I could. It was my first Pride in years, the previous two stolen by a combination of undiagnosed Lyme disease, and pineapple-induced anaphylaxis. With an antibiotic under my belt and a newfound freedom in my joints, I was finally free to interlace my identities: pansexual, disabled, performer at heart. By my side was a close friend from college, her best friend from Atlanta, her girlfriend, and the girlfriend’s roommate: a Jewish nonbinary disabled cat lover with a knack for poetry and a love for the word “Jawn.” For all the wonderful visuals about Philadelphia Pride 2018, the one I remember the best is the sugar rush of being side-by-side with The Roommate. Pride is always a powerful recognition, but especially so when it is celebrated with someone who stole your heart away.

It had been a couple of months since they and I first met, sitting across from each other at a sushi dinner with my friend and her girlfriend. The Roommate was hard of hearing like myself, bringing a silent understanding to the conversation from the start. Anytime I needed something repeated, they were happy to oblige, and we always made an effort to ensure the other was heard. On the way back to my friend’s apartment after dinner, that was when I first felt their hands. The part of me still wrestling with internalized ableism told myself, “it’s impossible for something to be there, you’re just imagining things, no one could ever want you.” No amount of internalized ableism, however, could change the flutters I felt when their hands met mine or the smile I couldn’t take off my face. Back at my friend’s apartment, after dinner was over, she said something that still rings clear in my mind.

“This is the most relaxed I have ever seen you around someone you like.” [continue reading…]

When I was in high school, I didn’t know anything about pride. All I knew were the names the bullies gave me. They kicked me, shoved me, because I wasn’t a “real man.”

When I was in the military, there was still no pride. Nobody ever said anything, not even those of us who were not “real men.”

Then I moved to New York City. Under the insistence of a fellow I met while I was in the service, I visited the Stonewall Inn, where in 1969, gay patrons fought back against police attacks. I immediately understood where I had arrived. Here is where I learned about the history and the ongoing struggles of the LGBTQ+ community and the birthplace of the pride movement. [continue reading…]

Los Angeles, June 3 – As RespectAbility’s Entertainment Lab expands and returns with an in-person option, 20 individuals have been accepted into the Los Angeles Cohort of RespectAbility’s fourth annual Lab for Entertainment Professionals with Disabilities. RespectAbility, a diverse, disability-led nonprofit that works to create systemic change in how society views and values people with disabilities, piloted the Lab in 2019.

Now entering its fourth year, the Entertainment Lab aims to further develop and elevate the talent pipeline of diverse professionals with disabilities working behind-the-scenes in television, film, and streaming. Lab Fellows meet studio executives and other decision makers who advise them on various aspects of the industry and their craft. This also enables studios and production companies to learn about the talents and benefits of hiring disabled people to work in all aspects of the storytelling process. As such, Lab alumni currently are working at Disney, Netflix, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Showtime, and more. [continue reading…]

A few days before Pride Month begins this year, the third time without my step-dad, I find myself reaching for the bag of his old shirts without thinking twice, slipping one over my head and inhaling the remnants of his scent, of that pine-scented deodorant he always wore, letting the faded cotton wrap me up like one of his bear hugs.

My step-dad was my dad’s longest partner, from when I was six years old until my early twenties, and he remained in my life until the end of his. He died from the complications of lung cancer in January 2019. Denn, as I called him, short for another one of his nicknames (Denny), was an OG 80s queer punk, with multiple piercings he had done himself, tattoos of his own artwork—he was an indie comic book artist and illustrator. He also was the complete opposite of my bio dad. Together, the two of them, coupled with my god-father, a gay Tejano man, taught me everything I needed to know about accepting and coming to terms with my own queer identity as a lesbian years later. [continue reading…]