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Twice Invisible: Disability and Estrangement in Student Life. By Amber

Hi everyone, my name is Amber Seedat and I am back as a guest writer for my second blog at All of Us. My last blog ‘When the Person Who Understands You Is Also Hurting’, I talked about estrangement and how my boyfriend shares this background, which can make things complicated but also less lonely. Today I am digging into also being disabled and how that intersects with my estrangement, something I know is super common in our community.

Through my writing, I share honest reflections on community, resilience, and what it means to build belonging and support systems when the traditional safety net of family isn’t there. If you’d like you connect, you can find me @invisible_not_imagined on Instagram.

I’m an estranged university student navigating higher education while living with chronic illnesses. Through my writing, I share honest reflections on community, resilience, and what it means to build belonging and support systems when the traditional safety net of family isn’t there.

When people picture student life, they often imagine independence, friendships, late-night study sessions, and a safety net quietly waiting for them in the background. There is an implicit assumption that if things fall apart, someone ‘at home’ will help pick up the pieces. For some of us, that safety net doesn’t exist. For some of us, our lives at university are shaped by absence just as much as presence.


I am both disabled and estranged from my family. Each identity on its own comes with challenges, but together they form a complicated, often invisible intersection that shapes every part of my student experience. It is an intersection that rarely appears in university brochures or widening participation campaigns. It exists in the gaps
between support systems, in the paperwork that never quite fits, and in the quiet moments where you realise nobody has anticipated your reality.


Estrangement means navigating adulthood without the traditional family structure many people lean on. No emergency phone call for rent when student finance runs out early. No spare room during the summer holidays. No parent to help you move into halls or celebrate your achievements. Estrangement is not simply distance; it is a rupture that continues to echo through every milestone.


Disability adds another layer. It shapes how I learn, how I move through spaces, and how much energy daily life demands. It means navigating assessments, adjustments, medical appointments, and the constant task of explaining myself to systems that require proof of struggle. It absolutely impacts how much I can access community. Disability turns everyday tasks into logistical puzzles, and when you combine that with estrangement, the puzzle becomes more complex than most people realise. The way I like to describe is that it is like having a missing puzzle piece in the set. Everyone is trying to find a solution – a piece to fit into it. But when there is no knowledge regarding this matter that cannot be done.


Financially, the overlap is brutal. Being estranged already means managing rent, food, and bills alone. Being disabled often means additional costs that nobody warns you about – transport, equipment, therapy, medication, or simply the extra time it
takes to exist in a world that is simply not designed for you. Student finance assumes parental support that isn’t there. Disability funding assumes stability that estrangement disrupts. Somewhere between these assumptions, students like me are expected to survive. Alone. Fighting and trying to stay alive.


Emotionally, the intersection is even heavier. University can be isolating for anyone, but estrangement reshapes that loneliness into something sharper. Holidays become difficult. Campus empties, and suddenly you are reminded that you don’t have a place waiting elsewhere. Disability compounds this by limiting spontaneity and
making social life more complicated to navigate. Friendships can feel fragile when you are constantly balancing exhaustion, pain, or anxiety alongside coursework and survival.

There are moments when systems make you feel invisible twice over. When a form asks for parental details with no alternative option. When support services focus on one identity without recognising the other. When conversations about disability assume family support, and conversations about estrangement assume physical health. Each interaction becomes a reminder that your reality sits outside the categories institutions (wider and society) are comfortable with.


What makes my situation both painful and strangely comforting is that the person I love the most in this scary world – my boyfriend – is going through the exact same thing. Like me, he had to flee from a domestic abuse situation. Like me, estrangement followed. And like me, he’s now navigating adulthood, education, and healing without the traditional family structure that many people rely on.


There is a quiet solidarity in that shared experience. We understand each other’s silences, the practical worries, the invisible grief. We celebrate milestones that others might take for granted, like renewing a tenancy, finishing a semester, or simply making it through a difficult week. We are building the safety net we never had, thread by thread, together.

Still, resilience is not romantic. It is exhausting. It is waking up every day and
choosing to keep going when stopping would feel easier. It is learning to advocate for yourself in rooms where you feel small. It is surviving systems that were never designed with you in mind and still daring to hope that they might change.


Yet there is strength in survival. There is power in naming the intersection that so often goes unseen. Being both disabled and estranged has taught me
independence, empathy, and a fierce determination to create the stability I was never given. It has taught me to value chosen family and small victories. It has taught me that even in the absence of traditional support, connection can still exist.


We are not rare. We are simply overlooked.


And perhaps the first step toward change is telling our stories out loud — refusing to remain invisible, even when the world struggles to see us.


Remember do not try and hide. Be seen and be heard!

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Specific to this Blog

There are several advocacy and support lines out there for care experienced and estranged students.

Wider Support