This past weekend, I attended the Operation Snowball retreat. I was fortunate enough, additionally, to be one of the four teen directors. For us, this meant lots of stage time. I projected an image of who I am through my actions and behavior for around three-hundred people. They quickly picked up on my personality, humor, and the way I carry myself.

Snowball provides a very honest environment. This means that oftentimes, people are very open emotionally about how they feel towards others.

“You are such a strong person.”

The word strong is something that I get a lot on this weekend. Its frequency has caused the “compliment” to fall on deaf ears (no pun intended, since I’m actually half-deaf..). What causes people, usually strangers, to attribute this adjective to me with such conviction? I started thinking about how someone who may not know me well perceives me. They see my height, the way I laugh, my movement. The way I move. The way I move is different from you. A physical disability since birth causes me to move with a limp. This is not a device of sympathy; it is the perfect setup for locked eyes and misguided opinions.

People label me “strong” not because I am heroic and not because I have lived through a certain hell. People label me strong because they see that there is something that makes me different from them, and they see that I live through this difference (as I should) happy and unphased.

Our society is too often trained to believe that anyone who is visibly different and goes about life daily like any other person should is suddenly inspirational and full of strength. It is what I call the “Survivor Mentality.” We see it everywhere—video clips of people in wheelchairs set to inspirational piano music, a slideshow of an austistic child doing “normal people” tasks like washing dishes and playing with friends. I am offended by the word “strong,” because it means I have been defined by my difference. There is no other way to explain it when people you have never conversed with are so eager to let you know how strong you are for waking up every day and “surpressing” what they think must be hard-pressed sadness about a separating characteristic.

I understand how it looks through the eyes of someone else, like I need to be reassured that I am still normal enough to be part of the average human demographic. I don’t condemn these people for seeing me in a certain light of redemption because they don’t know any better. I am sure if I was in that position I would feel the same obligation: a duty to get your “good person” Girl Scout badge by telling someone who is different how normal they really can be if they try.

It is the insincerity and misguidedness of a stale compliment that has been bothersome to me: I wonder when, if ever, I will stop being labeled as a survivor of a difference and start being seen as a human who doesn’t want to be the hero.