ID: The words New Blog Post in the upper right hand corner. The title Disability, Social Media, and the great outdoors above the words What You See. Beneath that is an image of a beautiful wooded area with sunlight streaming in, beside a silhouette of a photographer.
ID: The words New Blog Post in the upper right hand corner. The title Disability, Social Media, and the great outdoors above the words What You Don’t See. Beneath that is an image of a line of parked cars with a silhouette of a person sitting atop one of the cars. In front of that is the same silhouette of a photographer, implying the line of cars in slide 2 is beside the wooded area from slide 1.
Outdoor spaces aren’t reserved for the able bodied. There are many ways to experience the outdoors while disabled. And having the ability to be outside doesn’t negate my disabilities. There are groups dedicated to disabled hiking (IG: @disabledhikers) and many national parks have accessibility information on their websites and on the NPS app. While I cannot hike at all anymore, I can still find ways to enjoy the outdoors.
A few months ago, one of my practitioners asked me to get a second forearm crutch and to walk for a specific number of minutes each day that increases every week. I’m currently at eleven minutes. I usually walk around my neighborhood at night. As spring has arrived in Washington state, I decided to go to a local trail for my daily walk. I posted a few photos of the greenery and my partner and I making funny faces on my personal social media, my forearm crutches just peeking into the edge of two images.
It was the first time in a while that I’d been able to walk in nature and I felt like celebrating the win. I’m also legally disabled and had several friends remind me that social media can be monitored by disability adjudicators. Currently social media is only used in cases of suspected fraud. But a congressional filing states that the Social Security Administration is “evaluating how social media could be used by disability adjudicators in assessing the consistency and supportability of evidence in a claimant’s case file.” Many would argue that social media is not an accurate depiction of life, showcasing the best days of people’s lives and often just the best moments of the best days.
Behind the scenes of the images I posted, my trip to the trailhead looked like this: My partner and I parked in a handicap spot at the base of the trail. Using both crutches I walked over muddy grass and the dirt path. There was a gentle incline for a portion as we entered the trail area. We walked for about five minutes until we found a small “staircase” of natural stone. It was not something I could traverse and I had hit my time requirement. So we stopped, took in the beautiful mountain covered by fog and the dewy grass and we turned around and walked the five minutes back to the car. We even stopped at a bench to make funny faces.
My physical therapist has always lived in WA state. She had a lot of recommendations of places that I had to go see. She referred to many as having beautiful parking lots and/or very short walks from the parking lot to the main attraction. There are ways to modify or seek out an outdoor adventure that is enjoyable for all ability levels.
One post on social media rarely gives the whole picture. I posted images of greenery with a local mountain as the tagged location. That is a fact. But I did the same ten minutes of walking I’ve been asked to do every day. I just changed the location. I made sure the terrain was flat enough. I stopped before I was fatigued and I spent the rest of the day doing more relaxing activities. My post was accurate but it was only a snapshot of one moment. As humans we work to fill in the rest of the picture. But when people have so little experience with and understanding of disability and chronic illness, they may struggle to fill in that picture accurately. At first glance, someone might see my post as evidence that I’m not “really” disabled. But that speaks to your mistaken expectations of disability more than it challenges my many medically evidenced disabilities.
Using something as inaccurate and self-reported as social media for federal investigations isn’t just ineffective, it may be harmful. Some will argue that people can just drop social media or never post to it. But that would mean forcing more isolation on a group notoriously isolated. Needing and accepting government support should not require that disabled people live a life of greater restriction and isolation. Being disabled doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the outdoors. It just means that I need to plan ahead and make modifications. I hope that people won’t mistake my thoughtful planning (crutches, safe shoes, weeks of walking a few minutes per day) and compromise (limited time walking, going to trails once a month or less, resting during the afternoon) as proof that I’m faking it. Outdoor spaces aren’t reserved for the able bodied.
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