@blindishlatina: NOT MISSING OUT 🚨 You’re not missing anything by having people who don’t want to socialize with you due to your disability in your life. Anyone that you have to prove your value to is not a good person to associate with. Internalized ableism is real and I’ve gone throughout. Today I wanted to share some thoughts on how disability can filter people out of your life who aren’t good for you. I now welcome this process. As I’ve gotten older and more confident in my identity including my disability identity, the people I meet have been kind and more aligned with me. Please keep in mind: Sometimes the disability filter doesn’t always work because harmful people can also be attracted to us *because* of our disabilities. Stay alert for these. Does this resonate with you? 🤔 I’d love to hear from you. Full transcript below. 
Video Description: Catarina is a light-skinned Latiné woman with dark brown wavy hair. She’s wearing a black button-up top with white contrasting piping and sparkly drop earrings. She’s speaking passionately to the camera. Behind her is a white wall, wooden cabinet, and a purple plant in a red pot. Captions are in white with a black border. Video title in black text with white background: Disability can be a helpful filter for people 💡 #Disability #DisabilityAwareness #InternalizedAbleism #BlindishLatina Transcript: If you’re disabled, have you ever felt like people won’t want to be your friend? That they won’t want to date you? I’m deafblind and I have definitely felt that way. I was diagnosed with my condition, Usher syndrome, at 17 years old. So I went off to college and early adulthood with these feelings that, “Oh my gosh, people, how am I gonna get them to overlook my deafblindness?” Or “I’m an inconvenience, who’s going to want to be my friend?” I had a certain level of insecurity that I think other people could sense even if they couldn’t name it. Now everything changed for me as I got older and I found Disability Pride, watched the documentary Crip Camp, connected cross-disability beyond my identity, and started using a white cane. I became publicly disabled. That unlocked a new level of confidence for me and it flipped the way that I view my disability. Now I view it as a filter. My disability is going to keep people away who are not kind, caring, patient, and respectful of my access needs, and I don’t want those people in my life. 
So if you’re feeling this way, I invite you to flip your perspective as well. Think of your disability as an important part of who you are. That you are worthy just as you are, and that if someone doesn’t want to be in your life, that’s great that your disability was a filter and kept them away from you. Has this perspective helped you? Let me know.

Catarina | Public Speaker

Open In TikTok:

Region: US

Thursday 05 February 2026 00:57:29 GMT