by Stephanie B Bucklin, HHP
I have been experiencing varying levels of pain for more than two decades. Throughout those years, I have encountered many healers who believed they could fix me. Some offered treatments, therapies, programs, supplements, and promises. Poverty kept me from pursuing most of them.
Now I am standing on the edge of creating a consistent income. I should feel hopeful – and I do. But I am also angry. After years of trying to prove the reality of my disability, I was released back into the wilds of hustle culture by my disability attorney. Once again, the message was clear: If I can produce income beyond a predetermined amount, I must not be disabled enough.
But who decided that income capacity and disability were directly correlated? Who decided that earning money proves a person is not suffering? Who says I must remain in poverty to receive the help I need? Why are people with chronic pain or illness treated like their disability is invisible?
My questions are legitimate. The system seems to believe that disability and productivity cannot coexist. It does not account for what it costs a person to produce that income. It does not measure the pain afterward, the sleepless nights, the muscle spasms, the recovery days, or the other parts of life that must be sacrificed to keep working. It sees the money, but it does not see the body producing it.
“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice.” – Nelson Mandela
In the age of internet-based businesses, flexible schedules, remote work, gig work, artificial intelligence, and entrepreneurship, perhaps it is time to challenge the poverty mindset imposed upon disabled people. A person may be capable of thinking, creating, serving, teaching, driving, consulting, or building something meaningful – and still live with a disabling condition.
We are not either productive or disabled. Human beings are more complex than that. I am a seeker. It is in my nature to question. And lately, I have found myself asking:
- What if poverty is part of the disease?
- What if the constant fear of losing housing, food, transportation, medical care, and basic stability keeps the nervous system trapped in survival mode?
- What if the stress of not having enough intensifies the pain?
- What if poverty prevents people from accessing the very treatments, nourishment, rest, and support that could improve their health?
- What if forcing disabled people to prove their incapacity actually makes them sicker?
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced…neither persons nor property will be safe.” – Frederick Douglass
Upon losing my financial support, I went searching for opportunities. I found one – or three, or six. I have lost count. I am one week into a new job, and it is going well. I feel hopeful about my ability to create greater stability for myself. But I am also having significant pain challenges. On the night I wrote this blog, I had an evening rehearsal on top of a full day of driving. Now I am in so much pain that I have hit a brick wall. My whole body is in full spasm.
This is the part of working with a disability that the system does not see. It sees that I completed the work. It does not see what completing the work did to me. My determination has always been one of my greatest strengths. When I am given an opportunity to overcome this pain—or to overcome poverty—I become like a dog with a bone. I hold on. I keep going. I refuse to give up. But determination has a shadow.
When an opportunity appears, I am afraid to miss it. I know what it feels like to live without enough, so I want to seize every possible path toward security. I may push beyond my body’s capacity because I do not trust that another opportunity will come. My spirit sees possibility. My nervous system feels urgency. And my body pays the price, every time.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation.” – Audre Lorde
Perhaps the combination of major life stress, financial fear, excitement, and fear of missing out elevates my pain. That does not mean the pain is imaginary. It does not mean I have caused my injuries with my thoughts or that I can simply think myself well. It means my body is responding to the totality of my life. The structural injuries are real. The neurological symptoms are real. The chronic pain is real. And the stress surrounding them is also real.
All of these truths can coexist.
I do not believe I need to live like this anymore. But perhaps healing is not found in chasing every person who promises to fix me. Perhaps it begins by creating enough safety that my body no longer believes it must fight for survival every day.
- Maybe healing requires financial stability.
- Maybe it requires meaningful work that honors my limitations.
- Maybe it requires opportunities that do not demand self-abandonment.
- Maybe it requires recognizing the difference between expansion and overextension.
- I want to work. I want to contribute. I want to create, serve, teach, write, speak, and build a sustainable life. I also need rest, treatment, flexibility, nourishment, and support.
These desires are not contradictory. Disabled people should not have to remain poor to prove that they need help. We should not have to destroy our bodies earning money and then present the wreckage as evidence of our disability. Income is not the same as wellness. Productivity is not proof of physical capacity. Working through pain does not mean the pain is gone. And reaching a bureaucratic income threshold does not magically heal a human body.
Perhaps the question is not whether I am capable of working. Perhaps the better question is:
What kind of life and work would allow me to contribute without sacrificing my body to survive?
I am still seeking that answer.
But I know this much: My body should not have to collapse before it is permitted to rest. My worth should not be measured by either my productivity or my incapacity. And my path out of poverty should not require me to abandon myself along the way.
I deserve the opportunity to become financially secure. I deserve access to healing. I deserve support without being sentenced to poverty.
And so does every disabled person.
~S
Support My Healing and Path to Stability
If this reflection resonated with you, I invite you to support my GoFundMe.
I am actively working to create a consistent, sustainable income while living with chronic pain and navigating the physical consequences of pushing beyond my capacity. Your support helps me meet my basic needs, access healing care, and create enough stability to work without repeatedly sacrificing my body to survive.
I am not asking to be rescued. I am asking for community support while I build a more sustainable life – one rooted in healing, dignity, sovereignty, and meaningful contribution.
Every donation, no matter the amount, helps. If you are unable to contribute financially, sharing my story is also a meaningful form of support.
Support my journey here:
https://gofund.me/f4efefc91
Thank you for seeing the person behind the pain – and for believing that disabled people deserve more than survival. We deserve the opportunity to heal, thrive, and live with dignity.
With much gratitude,
~Stephanie
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