When I first started working as a criminologist, my mom encouraged me to not disclose my disability to my colleagues or any potential employer. At this time in my life, I was 19 and I had suffered from Chronic Migraines for 5 years. This was advice I ultimately decided to ignore. While the advice came from a place of love, experiencing chronic pain is a core part of who I am and not something I can change. Pain is part of my life every day. Now, at 26, I have suffered from chronic pain for over a decade and have developed four other ongoing health conditions. 

Since working in academia, I have had a variety of experiences and responses related to my condition. This has included working with wonderfully supportive people on projects that have impacted state and national policy, as well as experiences of ableism. Balancing working in academia, completing my undergraduate and PhD studies, and managing my ongoing medical conditions has been challenging. Despite these challenges, working in Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) research has helped me understand my own medical experiences better, and reflecting on my lived experience of disability and addiction has fundamentally altered my own research practice. Through this blog post, I hope to share some of the experiences and lessons I have learnt as a person living with disability working in academia and discuss the value of incorporating lived and living experiences into research practice.

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