How going flatting helped smash my internalised ableism

We are sold this idea that hyper-independence is positive, something to aspire to. When I was a teenager, Girl Boss morning routine videos were dominating YouTube with tricks and hacks to maximise your productivity and keep up all the side hustles. An emblem of success and happiness in the landscape of late-stage capitalism. It shapeshifts and rebrands. Now we have That Girl, instead of the emphasis on productivity for the sake of work, That Girl is focused on fulfilment. It sounds alluring, but this version of a full life recommends cutting out friends who are draining to ‘protect your peace.’ The hashtag full of reels romanticising doing domestic labour entirely alone, self-care rituals and hobbies that prioritise developing individuality. 

It is cringe-inducing to admit that I had a Girl Boss era, starting businesses, calendar blocking and prioritising personal development over social time. That person feels so distant from who I am now, my body humming at a frequency I couldn’t sustain. I used to pride myself on my independence, even when that meant pushing myself and doing things that would cause intense pain or risk injuries. I bought into the myth of hyper-independence, subconsciously I attempted to conform and contort myself into a capitalist notion of success. Not yet understanding that my fear of one dominant disability narrative of being a burden was pulling me into another - one of success.

My need for perfectionism in all aspects of my life would cause me to isolate myself from others and limit opportunities for authentic connection. This felt at odds with many of my values, but I was stuck looping through the boom and bust cycle over and over again for years, until I crashed at the end of my first year of uni, unable to bounce back to the boom. During this time, I discovered disability theory; it was profound to have so many of my thoughts and feelings named and was a catalyst for no longer breaking my body at the altar of hyper-independence. Through reading disabled activists, researchers, and writers, I noticed a recurring theme - the concept of interdependence. I was drawn toward it, realising it wasn’t entirely new to me, that it had been weaved through my childhood. Growing up as a hippy home schooler playing barefoot in the Australian bush, I’ve always felt a sense of settling and coming home in spaces that offered more collective ways of being and challenged notions of societal conformity. 

Over a year ago I set up a flat with my friend Sophia, and her friend Lizzie - who I am now also good friends with! The first time we all sat together and discussed the possibility of the flat, we realised there was an alignment in our values. We expressed a desire for something a little different in a flatting dynamic - more intentional - to know and consistently connect with the people we lived with. After some stressful Trade Me searching and countless viewings of disappointing overpriced rentals, we found a little pink house with a garden, and full on 1970s interior. The chaotic patterned carpet always receives a visceral reaction from guests, it’s either love or hate. For us though, it was love; it felt like the right place to embark on this adventure together. Our first week of domestic bliss was marked by a bizarre and far too long bank appointment to set up a shared flat account, with the teller oscillating between attempting to banter with us and initiating extended conversations, to complaining and telling us off for trying to set up something so ‘complicated’ and wasting his time. We walked out of the mall with a shared emotional whiplash that is still a bonding experience to this day.

Intentions and theories are great, but the true challenge comes when putting them into practice. Even though my flatmates were aware of my disability, and I had communicated some of my access needs, I still felt discomfort in the idea of the fullness of my day-to-day reality as a disabled person being witnessed. I would choose to cook or clean when no one was around to observe me, I would hide away in my room on bad pain days. The fear of being perceived as a burden still hangs over me, but also no longer wanting to strive and prove myself as successful. What could an in-between look like? Free from internalising these two extreme narratives, and instead exploring what it is to just be. 

I began leaning into that discomfort and voicing aspects of disability that go beyond logistics, my flatmates responded with openness and curiosity, which embedded a sense of trust and safety between us.  Honesty and vulnerability underpin the way we communicate, this didn’t happen magically and I’m not trying to claim that it’s easy, sometimes it is messy, sometimes we make assumptions or say the wrong things. My flatmates have listened to my many rants about ableism, have listened when I express frustration around having to choose between ‘fun things’ and ‘important things’ because I don’t have enough spoons. As I started to accept practical support, I noticed I had more capacity to connect and have fun with them.

The three of us are all so different but we embrace that; it creates a greater awareness around how we all have needs, we all have things that we find more easeful and things that are more draining. I used to feel like it had to be balanced and subconsciously I still framed this mutual support as transactional. My flatmate offered to vacuum my bedroom but in accepting this physical support, I found myself resisting taking up emotional space. It took time to realise that allowing myself to express the emotional impacts of a pain flare - to open up and be vulnerable wasn’t adding a burden to my flatmates, it was creating space for us to connect. Community and collective ways of being are not a transaction. I also support my flatmates in various ways, coming alongside in the ebb and flow of their lives. It is this sense of presence that allows for true mutual support, for the small moments that feel like allyship in action. Unfortunately, our modern culture doesn’t leave much space for dynamics like this.  

Independence is a mythology designed to keep us disconnected from each other, cut off from our full humanness. It is framed as a desirable luxury, only accessible to the extraordinary and the elite. This individualism and isolation from each other are used because concepts of the collective threaten dominant systems of power. As disabled people it is part of our language, our culture, to give and receive mutual care, it is threaded through our history of survival.

Dynamics of interdependency can be dynamics of resistance, as disabled activist Mia Mingus writes: “Interdependency is both 'you' and 'I' and 'we'. It is solidarity, in the best sense of the word. It is inscribing community on our skin over and over and over again. It is truly moving together in an oppressive world towards liberation and refusing to let the personal be a scapegoat for the political.”

As someone living with a physical disability that is mostly invisible, my internalised ableism was so deeply entrenched, and I often balanced on a tightrope between two worlds - I didn’t feel disabled enough but I also didn’t feel able-bodied enough. I existed constantly compensating for this sense of ‘not enoughness’, it was exhausting. My flatting experience has been a safe training ground for interdependence to shift from the conceptual to the tangible, which has a ripple effect to other contexts and friendships in my life. Opening myself up to interdependence as an ongoing - and imperfect - practice has had a visceral impact on my quality of life and lifted some of the weight of internalised ableism. At home I feel a sense of ease in my disabled body, I do not need to strive or explain or justify myself. I can simply co-exist.