“The virtual space that has become a symbol of the distance between us has also been my shield,” writes Acker in an essay on Yahoo!Life. “That’s because so many of the workarounds that mark me as disabled have become normalized at a time when ‘Zoom fatigue’ is ubiquitous.”
Acker, author of the novel The Limits of the World and founder and editor-in-chief of Amherst College’s literary magazine The Common, has myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome. In her essay, she contrasts the accessibility of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic (“able to nap when I’m tired and lay down on the floor when my neck and back spasm”) with the complexity and strain of in-person public events (“engineering meetings so that others came to me ... skipping any activity that was not a high priority … need[ing] to carefully plan ahead” to ensure accommodations).
“Ultimately, I want the vaccine to make the world healthy and safe,” Acker says. “But when life in the slow lane comes to an end … [p]eople like me will again be disabled in the eyes of the world, unable to hide behind our screens.”