Is Mental Health a Disability? Let’s talk about it!
It’s Mental Health Awareness Month, and while social media fills up with quotes, green ribbons, and wellness tips, one hard truth remains: mental health is still missing from many conversations around disability. If it significantly limits a person’s ability to perform major life activities, such as working, learning, or engaging in social interactions. However, not every mental illness automatically qualifies as a disability-its classification depends on the severity and impact on daily functioning.
Why? Because unlike a broken limb or a mobility aid, mental illness doesn’t always come with visible signs, yet the weight of anxiety, depression, trauma, or burnout can be just as heavy, sometimes even heavier.
In many Kenyan homes and workplaces, struggling mentally is still seen as a weakness. You’re told to “toughen up,” “pray it away,” or “snap out of it.” But mental health conditions don’t work like that. They affect how we think, feel, function, and interact with the world. That’s not a weakness. That’s a health condition, a disability!
At Riziki Source, we believe that disability inclusion must include mental health. When we talk about empowering youth with disabilities, we’re not just talking about ramps, braille, or sign language, we’re talking about empathy, safe spaces, and understanding that a person fighting a mental battle deserves just as much support and access as anyone else.
Too often, someone struggling with mental illness will hide it just to keep a job, stay in school, or avoid being labeled. But silence only deepens the pain.
That’s why we must rethink what inclusion looks like. It means checking in on your colleague who’s been distant, it means employers offering mental health days without judgment. It means policies that recognize psychosocial disabilities as valid and worth accommodating.
Mental health isn’t just a private issue, it’s a workplace issue, a community issue, and a disability rights issue.
This month, don’t just raise awareness, raise the standard. Let’s build systems that support both the seen and unseen.
If we’re not talking about mental health when we talk about disability, then we’re not talking about inclusion at all.
