Thoughts
Having a Diagnosis Younger Shouldn’t Mean More Paperwork, Not Less
· Madeleine Nicholas
…and nothing about us changes.
“Show them you still have the thing you were born with, as if it might have quietly healed itself while nobody was watching.”
💚 Have you ever had to prove something about yourself that should have been obvious from day one?
I found out early, which you’d think would make things easier. It doesn’t. The earlier your diagnosis, the more paperwork seems to follow you around for the rest of your life. Every application asks the same question wearing a different outfit: prove it again. Show them you still have the thing you were born with, as if it might have quietly healed itself while nobody was watching.
I’ve sat across from people whose whole job seemed to be finding a reason to say no. I don’t think they were cruel people. I think they were doing exactly what they were trained to do, in a system that rewards fewer approvals and a tidier budget at the end of the quarter. Somewhere in that setup, the person actually living with the condition stopped being the point.
A pre-existing condition should mean the system already knows your situation. Instead it gets treated like something suspicious, a thing to be managed down rather than supported. Nobody designed it to feel this way on purpose, as far as I can tell. It’s just what happens when the people writing the forms have never had to fill one out themselves.
Have you ever had to prove something about yourself that should have been obvious from day one?
If you’re tired of proving the same thing over and over, Self Advocacy Unleashed teaches you how to push back and get heard. Join the waitlist, link in bio.
Madeleine x