Disability and Passing: Blurring the Lines of Identity

6. Passing as Sane, or How to Get People to Sit Next to You on the Bus

6 Passing as Sane, or How to Get People to Sit Next to You on the Bus PETA COX F OR THE PAST FIVE YEARS, I have been taking public transport in Sydney, Australia. I ride on buses, trains, and the occasional ferry.1 My experiences have prompted me to develop the following rules for appearing sane on public transport: 1. Do not talk to yourself. This includes not mumbling obscenities under your breath about the late arrival of the train or bus or about the incompetence of the driver. It does not include pretending to talk on a mobile phone that then rings. For this you will be deemed a jerk, not mad.2 2. Avoid eye movements that are too fast or too slow. Do not stare at a person, although staring at the ground or toward the middle distance is fine. Try not to show your agitation by looking repeatedly around the vehicle. If you are concerned about someone or something coming into the vehicle, look up from your book or focus point every ten seconds, fix your eyes in the middle distance, and scan, using your peripheral vision. 3. Do not wring your hands or self-soothe. Keep your hands still, though not rigid. Playing a game on your mobile, with the sound off to indicate an awareness of other passengers, is a good middle-ground activity. 4. If you must avoid touching poles, seats, and other surfaces that could transmit germs, make this avoidance appear casual. 100 Î Peta Cox Where possible, remain seated until the vehicle has stopped so you do not need to grab anything for balance. If you have to stand in a vehicle, do not cover your hands with the sleeve of your jacket; rather, lean against a wall or balance pole with a part of your body already covered by clothing. 5. Do not attempt to converse with others. Asking questions that require one-word answers is OK (“Do you know what this stop is?” “Can you tell me the time?”), as are rhetorical questions (“Bloody hot day today, eh?”). 6. Observe the dress code. Try to look unremarkable—avoid wearing five different shades of pink or a wizard outfit. A clean appearance always helps.3 As these examples highlight, passing as sane occurs when a person who is experiencing psychological distress or non-normative emotional states or cognition manages to avoid displaying these states in the presence of others. “Passing” therefore occurs when others do not perceive the person as distressed.4 Passing is particularly important for people diagnosed with a mental illness, because the costs of not passing can be quite high—including, in some instances, nonconsensual treatment and involuntary hospitalization.5 This chapter uses feminist accounts of performativity to examine the complex relationships among acts of passing, experiences of embodiment , and identification as a person with a mental illness. Theories of performativity destabilize the distinction between “being” and “acting” and, in so doing, help us understand the experience of passing as sane as a complex undertaking that can either increase or decrease an individual ’s distress. Passing as sane often depends on a person’s embodiment, specifically how an individual’s body is held, placed, and experienced by that individual, as well as how others interpret this embodiment. Popular understandings of embodiment routinely position it either as a meaningless but unavoidable result of having a body or as an expression of personality. Scholars who use the concept of performativity dispute these understandings of embodiment and assert that certain repeated actions become culturally significant because they give the sense, both to the individual and to observers, that the individual is a particular type of person. Passing as Sane D 101 Although some feminist accounts position passing as a legitimate aspect of subjectivity, passing is more routinely considered a negative pursuit, the unfortunate result of personal shame and social stigma. For example, Tobin Siebers positions passing as a negative action in which, at times, people are “locked in the closet.” While this is true in some circumstances, it is equally true that some people find it comforting to be able to lock the door and protect themselves from the outside world.6 Thus, a deeper understanding of passing as sane leads us to understand such strategic actions in less absolute moral terms and acknowledge that the actions are legitimate choices regarding when and where attributes or identities are on display. To understand what it means to pass as sane, a...