Rethinking Normality: Disability, Mental Illness, and Contemporary Students’  Experience By Navya Rawat 

What I learned about students, mental well-being, and identity from Critical Disability Studies 

There is an unusual form of exhaustion that many young individuals possess. It is hard to articulate since it does not necessarily relate to physical fatigue. It is exhaustion  due to constant efforts to maintain pace with the world — with standards, deadlines,  impressions, productivity, social media platforms, academia, and striving for success without  knowing who we are. 

Students are supposed to always keep themselves going. They should stay productive,  motivated, social, emotionally balanced, academically successful, and future-thinking  simultaneously. Even during rest, there is a sense of guilt attached to it. Somewhere between  completing assignments, interning, attending classes, fulfilling familial duties, and using  social media, many individuals find themselves unable to do anything but feel insufficient. 

This type of pressure seemed like a natural thing for students for me. But then, after  participating in the course named Introducing Critical Disability Studies: Indian Contexts,  Global Perspectives, held by the University of Sheffield, I started questioning everything  about it: What makes so many young people constantly feel the need to be “normal”,  efficient, emotionally stable and able? Prior to this course, I had a very primitive notion about  disability. I used to think that disability means having problems with the body or a disease.  To make life easier for disabled individuals, accessibility meant installing ramps and  elevators. Nevertheless, this course helped me realize that this definition could not possibly  be true. The second major issue addressed within the sessions was ableism. Before taking this  course, my understanding of ableism was reduced to discrimination towards disabled people.

This concept became a tool through which I noticed how pervasive ableism can be  even in such mundane things as university practices that are not critically analysed. The  structure of education is organized in such a way that there exists an ideal student prototype  — someone who is capable of sitting still for prolonged periods of time, processing  information fast and efficiently, actively participating in discussions, coping well with stress  alone, being emotionally stable all the time, and performing excellently even under pressure.  People who fail to do so are perceived as lazy, uncaring, and careless. 

This situation becomes more complicated due to social media and productivity  culture. Productivity has ceased to be regarded merely as a skill but rather a person's very  essence in today's world. Social media is bombarding young people with idealized pictures of  young, successful individuals with impeccable routines, aesthetically pleasing study  environments, productive self-development practices, fitness, internships, and endless  motivation. Young people see constant portrayals of idealized success in front of their eyes  while silently dealing with exhaustion, anxiety, burnout, and self-doubt. 

At times, I even doubt whether the culture of productivity has become  psychologically unhealthy in modern times. It appears that there is hardly any room left for  slowness, vulnerability, uncertainty, feeling overwhelmed, and just being ordinary.  Youngsters feel compelled to work on themselves consistently, accomplish things, and  maintain their composure emotionally. Even taking time off becomes a source of guilt  because downtime is deemed wasteful. 

Here comes one crucial question: Does society still regard one as worthwhile when  they are unable to continuously engage in productivity? Perhaps the most thought-provoking  idea presented throughout our class is access intimacy, which means the sense of ease one  experiences when someone intuitively comprehends what they need without having to  repeatedly explain or prove anything. 

This idea resonated with me strongly as I understood the scarcity of emotional  availability within educational institutions. In most organizations, performance takes  precedence over belonging. Students are usually told to “manage” their feelings instead of

being open about them. In particular, India tends to take emotional turmoil very lightly. They  hear phrases like: 

“Everyone goes through this.” 

“Just concentrate on your studies.” 

“Don't think too much.” 

“You need to work harder.” 

As a consequence, emotional repression becomes normalized. Many young adults  keep putting on a good face externally while dealing with isolation, burnout, anxiety, poor  self-confidence, or emotional detachment internally. It has been observed from psychology  that emotional repression has a profound impact on mental well-being and interpersonal  relations, but endurance is usually encouraged over sincerity. 

The thing that bothered me most was the normalization of burnout in the student  community. They are proud to say they function on minimal sleep, they joke around with  their emotional fatigue, and they view stress as a sign of dedication. However,  psychologically speaking, chronic stress and emotional overload do not have benign  implications. They impact cognitive and emotional functioning, self-concept, interpersonal  interactions, and personal identity. 

Another preconceived idea which was challenged throughout the course is the one according  to which independence is always better. Modern society promotes total independence.  Students have to learn to deal with stress individually, figure out their own solutions, and  remain active no matter what emotions they might feel. However, the course emphasized  several times that interdependence, cooperation, and a supportive environment were essential.  It resonated with me personally because many young people nowadays experience isolation  despite being surrounded by lots of others. 

The conversations about an inclusive work culture left the strongest impression since  they allowed seeing disability as an opportunity for a new understanding of community,  creativity, support, and humanity. This way, instead of trying to push oneself into a particular  framework, people had to think about how systems could become more accommodating to  them.

Furthermore, this course also made me realize that accessibility must never be an  afterthought. This notion has radically altered my perspective on inclusiveness. Accessibility  is not just physical. A learning environment can be physically accessible but emotionally  inaccessible. There might be ramps and elevators available in the classroom, yet  psychologically speaking, the class can still be very unsafe for students who fear expressing  themselves emotionally and feeling vulnerable. 

Another critical component that formed part of the class content included  understanding how ableism intersects with various social issues, including gender, class, race,  and more. This particular issue struck me as being highly pertinent to my home country due  to the fact that not all students enter into their learning institution on the same footing as far  as their socio-economic background is concerned. While some students join educational  institutions with economic stability and emotional readiness, others have to deal with certain  economic, emotional, and psychological pressures before even entering school. As far as  India is concerned, education is not only about success but is linked with certain hopes and  sacrifices that families make. Therefore, when success does not happen, students take the  failure quite personally and sometimes even consider it unbearable. 

On the other hand, social media portrays an impression of everybody managing just  fine. There are always pictures of productivity, accomplishments, confidence, and success  that one can find on social media platforms. This comparison over time leads to loneliness  and inadequacy among the youth population. It is common for young people to start seeing  their incapability of meeting the unrealistic expectations set by society as personal  shortcomings without realizing the pressure from their surrounding environment. 

One thing that has always resonated with me in Critical Disability Studies is that  inclusion goes beyond making people welcome in certain spaces. Inclusion involves creating  spaces where people can express who they truly are without feeling compelled to hide  anything about themselves. 

This class made me wonder a lot and posed many questions: 

Why does our educational system celebrate burnout rather than balance?

Why does society treat vulnerability as a sign of weakness? 

Why do students experience guilt from getting rest? 

Why is the need to prove oneself through work so prevalent? 

Above all, who are excluded by such definition of normality? 

I do not know how to answer those questions, yet I do believe they need to be asked.This  generation is emotionally drained by having to always meet unrealistic demands. In a context  like that, Critical Disability Studies seems particularly relevant in reminding us of an  obvious, yet profound reality: human beings are not machines. 

And perhaps becoming anti-ableist is about learning to be more compassionate not  only toward others but also toward ourselves. To me, this class was not merely a theoretical  learning experience, but one that helped me gain a completely new perspective on  classrooms, institutions, mental well-being, and student culture. Perhaps the most important  contribution educational spaces can make to students in today’s society lies not only in their  success or rivalry, but in their ability to be themselves without having to continuously project  “normalcy.” For it is often through inclusion that something very basic happens: the creation  of spaces where one feels human before being expected to be perfect.

References 

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge. Mingus, M. (2011). Access intimacy. Leaving Evidence Blog. https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com 

University of Sheffield. (2026). Introducing Critical Disability Studies: Indian Contexts,  Global Perspectives. 

Wolbring, G. (2008). The politics of ableism. Development, 51(2), 252–258.