Every time I see a flyer or article or Facebook post about someone who has a disability “isn’t letting it stop them”, I cringe. Every time someone does something exceptional and superhuman while simultaneously being disabled and someone says “what’s your excuse?” I want to punch someone.

I get it. Positivity is a major factor in being able to live with a disabling condition and not despairing about it. But as far as I can tell, your average inspiration porn isn’t aimed at people with disabilities. It’s aimed at the abled people who get something out of seeing someone with less means than them achieving more. I think there’s some level behind it that lets people say to themselves “It doesn’t matter what I have a natural ability for; what matters is how completely I’m willing to devote myself to something.” Because when someone with one leg climbs Mount Everest or what have you, they can say “Even if I lost everything, all I’d have to do would be devote everything I have left to one specific thing and I’ll be inspiring instead of pitiable.”

Because that’s what some of us have to live with being. Pitiable. We don’t want to be, but we are. We have lives that aren’t particularly inspiring or idyllic. We’re affected by our disabilities on a daily basis. And sometimes, we stumble. Our limitations limit us. We have to take breaks, and turn down opportunities, because our capabilities are lessened by our conditions. We struggle to continue living a mundane life, and that may be all we want for ourselves.

Even though it may grate against that pride we’re told again and again we’re supposed to never let anything take away from us despite not being sure we had much of it in the first place, sometimes we rely on that pity and kindness just to get by. Sometimes we readily accept the help and understanding of the ordinary who empathize with how much harder our lives are made by our conditions. And our days will be a little less difficult for it.

But every time your average, abled person is inspired by the disabled achiever, some of them will see the rest of us in their periphery, those of us who are not bound to wheelchairs or beds or reliant on technology at every moment, and instead of empathizing, they will sneer. What are we doing here, where the normal people are? Why are we working desk jobs instead of running charities? Why are we taking the elevator instead of taking the stairs two at a time? Why are we eating fast food, instead of a homemade salad from our herb garden that’s supposed to help us find solace in working with our hands and the earth? Why aren’t we doing all the amazing things they would do if they had a disability like ours? We’re not being inspiring, or radiantly humble, or existing despite a disability instead of alongside it.

If we were all training for Olympics, or hosting benefactor galas, or being outdoorsy out in all that outdoors, we wouldn’t be where they can see us being average, sometimes below average. They wouldn’t see us stumble or stop for breath. That doesn’t help them through their day. All it does is remind them of the fragility of the human body and their own mortality. Sure, they’ll hold the door open a little longer while we thank them for saving us that little bit of energy we weren’t sure we had in our reserves. But they’ll curse us in the back of their minds and think we can’t tell that we’re imposing on their generosity, that we’re shorting them on the intended exchange of pity disguised as praise for warm fuzzy feelings they don’t get from us. But that’s only if they know.

Far more often, laziness is ascribed before calculated conservation of energy. Taking the seat on the crowded train is a scathing indictment of our age group or ethnicity or gender. Murmured thanks are lazy and half-hearted, rather than grateful and breathless. Parking in the handicap space is a grievous breach of etiquette and an entitled disregard for our fellow man, rather than a tiny luxury that makes our stretched-thin days a modicum less stressful when we have so few opportunities to make it so. Sick days from work become a red flag of a lack of work ethic that must be passively discouraged but never confronted, rather than the hope that maybe just one day of rest will mean we can recover from our last incident or relapse and be productive and whole again.

Yet we still can never know if the ignorant yield more humane treatment than the informed. Should we have told our supervisor of our condition sooner and asked for minor concessions, rather than hoping we could keep up the appearance of health indefinitely? Did we guarantee that every benign and minor cause for termination would be considered more seriously even though we were told that our honesty was appreciated? Are our mundane achievements forever earmarked as “Less Than Acceptable, But Excusable” and doomed to come up short?

My condition stops me. It does so regularly, and usually with a sigh of resignation. But this is not because I am weak, underneath my disability. It is because I am human. It’s because life is difficult and unfair, and I do not have the time or disposition to stack the deck in my favor by garnering adoration for my exploits. I have a regular life to live, with every regular worry in addition to every additional worry my condition constantly puts on my mind. I let it stop me, because I know if I do not, I will stop later, for longer, and be forever diminished because I refused to stop and take care of myself.

But I am not a failure. Every time I am asked for my excuse, I will have an answer. Every time someone surpasses me and lives a life greater than mine, I will smile and hope their fortune continues. Every time someone better than I stumbles, I will pray that they will take strength from their struggles that I cannot find in mine.

And sometimes, I will take the elevator up one single floor, and remain silent when someone scoffs behind my back, because I know I don’t have the mana at the ready to take that one flight of stairs, and because I do not want to go through the steps of taking an additional floor and then taking the stairs back down just to spare their healthy sensibilities.

I hope you can forgive me for not inspiring you.