Stop Telling Me to Meditate!

Open any social media feed and you’ll be inundated with the gospel of wellness culture: juice cleanses, gratitude journals, green smoothies, and the mantra that "you can manifest a cure." This narrative promotes a simplistic view of health defined by optimization, quick fixes, and individual effort.

For those of us living with a disability or chronic illness, this message is not only unhelpful, it’s actively harmful. Our daily existence is not defined by optimization; it’s defined by maintenance, a relentless, non-negotiable cognitive labor that consumes time, energy, and sanity. This is the invisible mental load of illness, and it’s the exhausting, full-time job that nobody sees.

Defining the Mental Load

The mental load is the perpetual, high-stakes cognitive effort required to simply keep a complex, unpredictable body functioning within an inaccessible system. It is the core reason why disabled people often feel perpetually exhausted, regardless of how much sleep they get.

• Administrative Labor: This is the endless battle against bureaucracy. It includes the hours spent on hold with insurance companies, fighting to get a life-saving medication approved (prior authorizations), meticulously tracking bills to prevent medical debt, and coordinating complex specialist appointments across different hospitals and clinics. It is the full-time secretarial work of staying alive.
• Cognitive Burden: Every decision becomes a complex calculation. It involves constantly monitoring minute physical changes, tracking precise medication timings and side effects, and exhaustively planning for energy expenditure. Before leaving the house, a person must perform a risk assessment of every action: Is the distance too far? Will this trigger a flare? Did I remember the emergency supplies?
• Emotional Labor: Managing chronic illness means constantly dealing with setbacks, internalizing ableist microaggressions, and the deep fatigue of having to repeatedly educate, explain, and prove one’s condition to doctors, employers, and even skeptical family members.

The Doctor-Patient Divide

Few things highlight the gulf between wellness culture and reality more clearly than the common medical advice: "You need to exercise more."

For non-disabled people, this is a minor lifestyle suggestion. For someone managing a chronic condition, it often feels like an impossible, punishing demand that adds significant stress to the mental load.

The core of the conflict lies in the Effort Calculation. A disabled person cannot simply 'decide' to go for a jog; they must first answer a series of high-stakes questions:

1. Risk Assessment: Is this a day where activity will trigger a major flare-up, such as Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM) in conditions like ME/CFS, which could sideline me for days or weeks?
2. Energy Budgeting: Does the energy required to exercise (the logistics, the activity, and the recovery) mean sacrificing an essential task later, like cooking dinner or attending a vital doctor’s appointment? This is the core of the Spoon Theory in action—spending a precious spoon on a workout means going without necessary spoons for survival.
3. Accessibility Logistics: If the movement is outside the home, the load includes the hidden work of ensuring accessible routes, charging mobility aids, and preparing equipment.

When a doctor gives this advice without considering the patient's limitations, it places the burden of failure squarely on the patient. They feel shame for "failing" to follow medical orders, creating a cycle of guilt and eroding the very doctor-patient trust that is essential for effective care.

What Wellness Culture Gets Wrong

The mainstream wellness industry is inherently ill-equipped to address the realities of disability, often making the mental load heavier through its focus on individualism.

• Toxic Positivity and Personal Failure: Wellness culture suggests that you can solve chronic problems with mindset, implying that negative outcomes are due to a lack of effort or moral failure. This is a form of blaming the victim, demanding that the sick person simply try harder to overcome a complex physiological reality.
• The Time and Money Gap: Most wellness recommendations are a luxury. They are financially inaccessible due to the poverty trap of disability benefits (like low SSI asset limits) and the immense time drain of daily medical care. Telling someone with chronic fatigue to go to a multi-day retreat ignores the fact that they are already devoting every spare minute to survival.
• Maintenance vs. Cure: Wellness culture promises a quick fix and a return to "normalcy." The chronic illness experience, however, is a daily reality of maintenance and damage control. The goal is not always to achieve a miraculous cure, but to find sustainable ways to manage symptoms and prevent further damage.

The Need for Systemic Empathy

The mental load of maintenance is not a personal failing that can be solved with a new workout plan or a meditation app. It is a systemic burden placed upon vulnerable individuals by institutions that are structurally inaccessible and punitive.

To genuinely improve "wellness" for the disability community, the focus must shift from demanding individual optimization to demanding systemic empathy. This requires advocating for essential changes: better-funded social services, protection from archaic asset limits that trap people in poverty, and a medical system where professionals listen to, believe, and partner with patients, rather than simply issuing exhausting and impossible demands.

f you are currently carrying this mental load, please remember: Your exhaustion is not a moral failure—it is a logical response to an overwhelming system.

This is a very strong and impactful piece. The arguments are clear, well-supported, and emotionally resonant.

Here is the conclusion with a small, focused Call to Action (CTA) that encourages both self-advocacy and a shift in perspective for readers.

Conclusion: The Need for Systemic Empathy and Action

The mental load of maintenance is not a personal failure that can be solved with a new workout plan or a meditation app. It is a systemic burden placed upon vulnerable individuals by institutions that are structurally inaccessible and punitive.

To genuinely improve "wellness" for the disability community, the focus must shift from demanding individual optimization to demanding systemic empathy. This requires advocating for essential changes: better-funded social services, protection from archaic asset limits that trap people in poverty, and a medical system where professionals listen to, believe, and partner with patients, rather than simply issuing exhausting and impossible demands.

💖 A Small Call to Action

If you are currently carrying this mental load, please remember: Your exhaustion is not a moral failure—it is a logical response to an overwhelming system.

Here is how you can help shift the burden:

• For Patients: Normalize saying "I need time to process that" to your doctor. You have the right to defer or refuse treatment advice that risks your limited energy reserves.
• For Allies: When you see a disabled person struggling, don't ask, "What can I do to help?" Ask, "What is one small task I can take off your plate today?" and offer to handle that specific piece of the mental load.
• For Everyone: Share this article. Visibility is the first step toward empathy. We must stop framing survival as a failure of willpower and recognize it as a daily act of resistance against a deeply flawed system.

For Further Reading: The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O'Rourke