In this day and age, people may expect that people with disabilities are not only equal but even more privileged than most. Many imagined all the scholarships I would be eligible for, the top schools that would give me admittance to use as their “diversity pick,” and the endless opportunities I would be offered in the way of jobs based on my high grades. But through it all I learned mostly that privilege is far from the reality in which everyone expected. The truth is, you have to be economically disadvantaged to receive or be eligible for scholarships, job programs, and government benefits. Yes, I get to park 10 feet away from the Walmart entrance and skip the line at Disney World, but these “benefits” cannot detract from the fact that disability and privilege are a paradox.

While every teen I grew up with had a job, many forgot that finding one that suited my physical limitations and lack of work experience (as a result of the former) made quite the challenge for me and my family all through high school. Employers expect teens to do the dirty and physically demanding jobs because they’re all young and “able.” I couldn’t work at the summer camps in my wheelchair or with my service dog. I couldn’t work on a farm, become a lifeguard, serve in a restaurant or even a ticket booth. I tried not to let it bother me since I knew I had my whole life to work, and I found that was proof enough that it was not a big deal at the time. I just wanted to “work” hard as a student (a full-time feat), which is the kind of employee I became, working my way up to the position of Valedictorian by the end of it.

One year, however, an opportunity arose for me to work when I was fifteen at my local library, a place I had been volunteering at for two years. The program gave work to disadvantaged teens and was run through and paid for by a nearby university. My library was one of the establishments where they placed these students, and the library director was extremely excited to hear I wanted to work for her through this program. To my dismay, the battle for eligibility was out of her hands. Now, the only suitable job opportunity I had ever found would come with an unforeseen issue: my family was too “rich” to even qualify.

Ironically, the program was for disadvantaged teens, but my disadvantage was not economic, so I was seen as otherwise. What many do not understand is that my disability does have limitations, maybe even more than an economically disadvantaged teen. While they can at least enter programs, win scholarships, and find jobs that are suitable for their physicality, I am left to my own devices without a job, financial assistance, or eligibility. Yes, my parents make decent wages but they’re also in no way rich. I had little money to shell out to help pay for my college tuition and fees (besides the scholarships I won by academic excellence and not my financial situation).

Even scholarships meant specifically for disabled high school seniors said I was a perfect candidate...except for my parents’ incomes, which were too high to qualify. Out of the dozens of scholarships for disabilities and hospital tuition pools I found, I was eligible for ZERO (my grades not making any difference). All of my financial help for college came from academics, savings, and my parents’ own money. It’s not that I was a lazy teen or a bad money investor, I simply never had the opportunity to work a paying job because I was too privileged financially but unprivileged physically. Even now, I feel guilt for not pitching in more with the cost of my education.

So once I got to college, I expected opportunities to be based on things other than FAFSA or finances as if that was just a pre-college discrimination, but again there it appeared. I was too “rich” to qualify for Work Study which would have been a minimum of seven paid hours a week. Now, this would not have been such a big deal if there were job opportunities for my physical limitations on campus that were not Work Study positions. My friends without Work Study had jobs as bartenders, security guards, van drivers, ice-cream scoopers, and ball catchers for college sports games, all things that paid well but required physicality that I could not offer.

Some luck came when I was nominated to be a paid writing coach, which required me to take a four-credit training class for a semester before I could even claim the job. This year, at the age of nineteen, I finally got my first ever paycheck. With so many coaches and so few hours, however, four paid hours a week was the best I could be offered for the position. Many of my coworkers have other jobs on the side, using the writing center one as a way of making a little extra cash. But my fellow classmates have that ability to choose to do that. Most of them get to pay their way through college, or at least put it towards something like a new car or apartment. In contrast, with only 40 dollars a week coming in, I am far from helping my parents pay off my education.

Besides finding a job I can physically handle, many employers are not so keen (which they may avoid expressing publically) on having a service dog or even a wheelchair user working for them. Whether it's dog hair and drool or my inability to use both hands while moving across a room, not everyone is thrilled about hiring me. I can tell every time I ask about a job opening just by the way they treat me, and although I’m used to it now, it still hurts to feel like your worth is based on whether or not you seem to be a burden to the business.

With that, I can only wonder if my future career prospects will suffer too from my physicality. I have already given up almost all of my hopeful job paths which turned out to be too physically strenuous for my body or conflicted with the presence of a service dog. I still feel an ache in my heart knowing I would have made a great midwife, chiropractor, massage therapist, crime scene investigator, or anesthesiologist. The loss of my dreams has been the hardest part of this disability/privilege paradox. Just think, an able-bodied student can be ANYTHING they could imagine, not even thinking twice about it. All of my dream careers are well-paid, well-respected, and perfect for the woman in my mind with a passion for the human body, who is ironically trapped in a broken one.

Now, I must give up the high-paying salaries in exchange for a “desk job” that can accommodate my wheelchair and service dog.Of the dreams left in my arsenal, medical librarians and childbirth educators are surely not bragging about their paychecks, but I still love both subjects and the thought of what I can personally bring to the professions. Unfortunately for the latter, I’m still not sure anyone would want to take advice about giving birth from a woman in a wheelchair who will never give birth herself (for medical reasons). It's such a sad realization: I have so much to bring and share with the world, but my body shows others that I am not fit enough to fulfill these careers which are said to require much more than a sharp mind.

In this modern age, most expect that a person with a physical disability is getting hired over them, stealing their well-deserved scholarships, or living off the government. But that's just not true. This privilege that we believe to exist is simply an illusion. Only when a person is ECONOMICALLY disadvantaged can we offer them assistance, as if a disadvantage can only be seen in terms of money and nothing else. No matter race, ability, or intelligence, almost always it will make no difference unless you can additionally prove that you are poor enough to back up your underprivileged situation. For now, however, I will enjoy the thrill of a paycheck in the mail and keep a lookout for a perfect job opportunity which stems from an abled mind and not the workings of an abled body!