“You Don’t Look Disabled”: The Stare, the Judgement, and the Reality Behind the Parking Spot

By: Brandon Matthew Deen, Sr.

“You don’t look disabled.”

For many individuals living with invisible illnesses, this phrase is not a compliment. It’s an accusation a subtle challenge wrapped in polite tone. It suggests disbelief. It implies that disability must be visible to be valid. And for those who carry the weight of chronic illness, neurological conditions, or service-connected injuries, it becomes yet another burden in a world already full of them.

The line is often heard in parking lots, where strangers assess whether someone “deserves” to be in a handicap space. Some speak up. Others just stare. But the judgment is the same driven by the assumption that disability should come with obvious physical signs. And if it doesn’t, the person occupying that space must be faking, abusing the system, or misrepresenting themselves.

Disability Doesn’t Always Announce Itself 

The reality is that many disabilities are invisible. They don’t come with wheelchairs or walking aids. They don’t show up in the ways people expect. For individuals with neurological disorders, autoimmune diseases, or chronic pain conditions, the most debilitating symptoms often exist below the surface.

Multiple Sclerosis doesn’t show up the same way every day and that’s part of what makes it so hard to live with, and even harder for others to understand. Some mornings, a person with MS might get up, get dressed, and move through the world like nothing’s wrong. Other days, their legs might feel like they’re made of concrete. The fatigue hits without warning. Words don’t come as easily. Balance becomes guesswork. There’s no consistency just a constant need to adjust, to mask, to push through. And from the outside, it rarely looks like what it feels like.

To a casual observer, someone exiting a car and walking into a building may not look disabled. But what that observer can’t see are the hours of recovery that may follow. They don’t witness the mental toll of managing unpredictable symptoms or the anxiety of simply being out in public, anticipating judgment.

The Law Isn’t Optional It’s the Bare Minimum 

In many states, individuals with service-connected disabilities may qualify for a Disabled Veteran (DV) license plate. These plates legally grant access to handicap parking spaces, even without the traditional blue placard or wheelchair symbol. The law is clear. A DV plate is not a loophole it is a recognition of legitimate disability, issued under strict qualification standards.

And yet, individuals with these plates are regularly confronted by strangers. Questions like “Where’s your placard?” or “Are you really disabled?” are common. These interactions are not only intrusive; they are harmful. They force disabled individuals including veterans to defend their diagnoses in public spaces, sometimes in front of family, coworkers, or strangers.

Worse still, this scrutiny reinforces the false idea that disability is only valid if it’s visible. It places the burden of proof on the disabled individual, demanding performance over privacy and permission over dignity.

Assumptions Hurt Even When They’re Silent 

The discomfort people feel around invisible illness often leads to microaggressions, invasive questions, or unsolicited commentary. But beneath those surface reactions lies a larger issue: the societal expectation that disability must follow a recognizable script.

When someone doesn’t fit that script, the response is skepticism. This forces disabled individuals into a position where they must constantly anticipate and manage the reactions of others. It creates emotional fatigue on top of physical limitations, and it deters people from using resources they are legally entitled to all to avoid confrontation.

Disability is not one thing. It is not one shape, one sound, or one look. And insisting otherwise does real damage to real people.

Respecting Veterans Means Believing Their Injuries, Too 

Veterans with DV plates have served their country and many returned with long-term injuries or conditions that aren’t visible to the public. From neurological trauma to autoimmune complications to chronic pain, these service-connected disabilities are often deeply personal and deeply misunderstood.

To challenge a veteran s right to a parking space based solely on appearance is not only inappropriate it is disrespectful. The path to earning that DV plate often includes years of medical evaluations, disability ratings, and lived hardship. It is not issued casually. It is not open for debate.

Respecting veterans includes respecting the ways they live now including the accommodations they need and the conditions they carry, quietly, every day.

Pause Before You Judge

Parking in a handicap space isn’t an open invitation for scrutiny.

If someone has a valid placard or a disabled veteran license plate, that should be enough. But for too many people, especially those living with invisible disabilities, it’s not. Instead, they’re met with stares. Head shakes. Whispered comments. Sometimes someone confronts them outright demanding proof or questioning their right to be there. The assumption is always the same: “You don’t look disabled, so you must be doing something wrong.”

But disability doesn’t always look the way people expect it to. It doesn’t always come with a wheelchair or a limp. Sometimes it’s neurological. Sometimes it’s chronic pain. Sometimes it’s something you’ll never see in a ten-second glance or even in a full conversation. And yet, in that moment in a parking lot, strangers feel entitled to judge.

It wears people down. Because it’s not just about the space. It’s about the message underneath it — that unless you’re visibly struggling, your struggle must not exist. That you have to prove your pain or defend your diagnosis just to be left in peace.

That kind of behavior doesn’t protect accessibility it poisons it. It turns public spaces into battlegrounds for people who already fight enough behind closed doors. It reinforces the lie that disability has to look a certain way to be real. And it makes people who legally and rightfully use accommodations feel like they’re doing something wrong just by showing up.

Let’s be clear: it is not anyone’s job to police someone else’s body from a curb. If the placard is there, if the plates are legitimate, that’s where the conversation ends.

We talk a lot about accessibility, but we rarely talk about what it means to protect it not just in policy, but in practice. That means minding your business when someone parks. That means trusting that not all conditions are visible. And that means learning to make space, not judgment.

Because when we make people feel like they have to perform their disability just to be believed, we’re not supporting them we’re isolating them.

And we’ve got enough isolation already.