Pretend you are a creating a character for some kind of RPG video game.  You have a fixed amount to spend on a set of character attributes (for example, speed, attack, shields).  At this first level you don’t have too much to spend so you have to make sacrifices, your character has to forego speed and some shields.  What you are left with is a character that you will have to live with.  You will have to play to its strengths.  Being slow you’ll have to try different approaches to attacking enemies, ones that feature your attack attribute.

It’s a lot like that with disabilities.  The same way with stroke survivors where other parts of the brain take up the slack of the functions the damaged part was doing, those of us with disabilities must lean heavily on the parts of us that are still whole.  It’s not much of a secret that those of us on the spectrum often have additional disabilities (gastrointestinal issues, anxiety/depression, epilepsy, and others).  Multiple disabilities add up to more than the sum of their parts specifically because the wholeness you needed to lean on because of one of your disabilities isn’t there due to one of your other disabilities.  I am in this category, because I am bipolar and on the spectrum I generally do the initiating in relationships but because of my visual impairment I cannot drive to support groups and the places of the people I am pursuing (I guess I’m more of a social moth than a social butterfly).  I can’t even try churches because I don’t have the social acumen to negotiate rides to them.  For others on the spectrum their social anxiety (often due to past bullying/ostracism) may be by far their worst impairment.  These people are fine in familiar environments.

One thing I can unequivocally say is having multiple disabilities makes you a test case of how just your environment is.  We are Oliver Twist, not the Marlboro Man.