Agreed. When I have a meltdown or a panic attack, I don’t want to do either, and it’s more than issues of outside perception. They’re exhausting and take so much of my energy. I don’t want to break down and cry cause the clothes I wanted to wear and had planned on wearing and had relied on as being available are suddenly overwhelming in their feeling. I don’t want to be so sensitive to smells all the time. I want to be able to “do the thing” instead of being caught in a negative cycle of things getting messy > increased anxiety about wanting things clean cause the mess us overwhelming > being overwhelmed by the anxiety and unable to declutter > the clutter grows > eventually it reaches critical mass and I clean. Usually after having a panic attack.

Fortunately, over many years, I’ve developed many coping mechanisms to reduce frequency of these events (with the exception of the last one. That cycle is eternal), but if I hadn’t and these happened on the regular? I would definitely consider myself disabled.