Expert Voices: Libby Linn

I would like to give a warm welcome to Libby Linn! Thank you for being a guest on this blog series. I know that your contributions and insights will be invaluable for the autistic and neurodivergent community. Let’s dive right in! 

Introduction:

• Interviewer is Tas
• Interviewee is Libby

Tas: It is great to have you on Expert Voices! Let’s dive in! Tell me, If you are comfortable sharing, do you have a visible or invisible disability? 

Libby: Okay, well first of all, I have an invisible disability. I’m bipolar and I also have generalized anxiety disorder. I’m compliant with medication. I have good psychopharmacology, luckily, which impacts my life, and I have quality psychotherapy weekly. So, I’m able to manage my illness well. 

Tas: Does being bipolar and struggling with anxiety create barriers for you at work? 

Libby: The only barriers I have with my line of work concern, work life balance. I want to be a social media marketer, whether it be from home, in the office or hybrid.

I currently work part time in daycare. I wear a different hat. I am a virtual social media marketing intern. Regarding what limitations. And, how my disability impacts my professional life is when I come home at night after my shift, there’s nobody here. It’s just me. And last week was International Loneliness Awareness Week.

Loneliness is bad for your health. There is current research. So that does impact my life because I want to show up and be on for work. I work with small children. It’s very demanding and if I’m not ready, work ready, it’s not safe for them. So if I’m preoccupied with the fact that I have no boyfriend during the day, it’s going to affect my work. 

Tas: It sounds like you have a hectic schedule! It can feel overwhelming juggling so many different work environments. Do you feel your workplaces are accommodating your needs as a disabled professional? 

Libby: Well, with my current internship, yes, because I felt so comfortable with the company and I felt so comfortable with the CEO who interviewed me for the internship. And I’m not an enrolled student, so it was very rare to get an internship at all.

Believe it or not, these days, I disclose and she said,”my mom is bipolar. My mom is manic depressive.” So I felt completely at ease.

Tas: It is so good to hear of a positive work experience! It can be challenging to disclose at work. There can be so much backlash, especially if there is a lack of disability awareness. Finding a supervisor that is empathetic to your journey is a gem. The perception of disability is consistently shifting as we evolve as a society. I am curious, looking back, how has your personal perspective on disability changed from past to present? 

Libby: Well, I am 57 years young, as you know. So when I got out of college and started my professional career in 1991, it wasn’t on the radar. I was scared to disclose. I was scared at work that someone would find out about my disability. People were not discussing mental illness. There were civil rights movements, but not like today. So right now it’s really exciting in 2025 that we have disabled LinkedIn and disability advocacy.

And this is very refreshing, especially with the current presidential administration. 

The only real barrier I have, again, is social isolation, because what is on the radar these days is work life balance.

And in order to be productive and effective, I don’t want any baggage. And if I disclose that at work, I have to be really careful that I’m not asking for a free ride. And that’s my private business. Every time I approach an employer or a potential employer, I have to weigh the disadvantages and the advantages. The pros and cons.

It’s exhausting. I don’t know how other mentally ill people feel, but it’s exhausting. So that’s the barrier to continue. 

Tas: I agree, you have to weigh the pros and cons before disclosing. Especially right now. It is not always safe and online. Finding a community is oftentimes online for the disabled community. It’s a way to connect locally and internationally with disabled folks. YouTube is a place I find disability advocacy and mental health content. I know you have a YouTube dedicated to mental health awareness and DEI. Why did you choose to advocate and promote DEI on your YouTube channel?

Libby: Well, my YouTube channel Awesome Hair Day is about my journey and other peers. Journey off of Social Security, Disability Income or SSI public assistance.

Transitioning to full time gainful employment without benefits, we earn so much that we’re no longer eligible for these benefits. And I started a channel about my personal journey because I haven’t achieved gainful employment yet. I couldn’t find any peer to peer resources. I couldn’t find anything on the internet or during my long, extensive research about peers who had switched from benefits to gainful employment.

Yeah, I could go to a benefits counselor and find out how my benefits would be affected if I returned to full time work. I understand what will happen to my benefits if I work full time and earn over gainful activity, but I couldn’t find anybody mentally ill, or with an invisible disability or a visible disability talking about the transition.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of excitement about people who were successful and did it, but I’m talking about the transition. The transition from poverty to fulfillment, at least economically.

I’m taking baby steps as a beginner. But people want to hear stories, people’s background. It gets personal, especially if you have a psychiatric disability because it affects your personality, your emotions, who you are.

Not that a visible disability wouldn’t, but honestly, I don’t know about visible disabilities. That humbly speaking, is not part of my world. I’m only talking about my experience. And I had a great interview that I posted a few weeks ago on Awesome Hair Day YouTube channel. I interviewed a woman that happened to be blind. You can watch it.

She’s a success story. She was on public assistance and now she’s an entrepreneur running her own woman owned black business, and she’s creating intergenerational wealth. So she’s great. That is a great interview. I invite you to watch it. So that’s featured. And that’s part of my mission to collect role models, quotes from people that have been on disability or SSI and then worked it out to transition to self-sufficiency and gainful employment and earning over the SGA.

Tas: Sharing lived experiences is the only way humanity grows. So it is amazing that you open your platform to the community! It makes me think of how much the perceptions of disability have changed since I was young. My mother fought to avoid having my invisible disabilities on my medical record. Do you think disability access acceptance has increased or decreased since you were a child? 

Libby: Oh my God, like totally increased, you know, now it’s almost fashionable to be disabled. I’m sorry if that’s offensive. It is like I had superpowers, you know, because the National Alliance for Mentally Ill had posters, billboards on subways back in the day that said all these people have mental illnesses.

Virginia Woolf, Abraham Lincoln, etcetera, etcetera. It’s very glamorous to be mentally ill. No, I’m joking, but part of talking about mental illness, part of my story and part of the dialog, I have a sense of humor. It’s part of my resilience against stigma. So it’s very relative. That’s just me. I can’t speak for other people. I can only speak for what I’m presenting on my channel.

Tas:Staying on the topic of generational disability awareness, what advice would you give Gen Z and Gen Alpha about DEI as it relates to disability? 

Libby: Well, I am a certified school teacher and I would suggest to the younger generation to do some research about what it was like in the civil rights movement for the so-called disabled in the 60s, in the 70s, in the 90s, around the millennium, because it’s deinstitutionalization and it started with JFK, and they did it because there was some corruption in institutions.

Tas: Thank you for sharing your lived experiences with us! I like to have a fun question at the end of these interviews, since we discussed a lot of deep topics. What is your favorite book, movie or TV series? 

Libby: I love Prime Video. I watch dated British family shows, like, Peak Practice, Where the Heart is, and now I’m starting Heartland. I really like seeing the English countryside. I’ve been around the world. I’ve been to 20 countries. I’ve been to Africa. I just got back in September from Portugal, Spain and a day in Gibraltar.

And I love traveling. I wore the Sunflower from Hidden Disabilities. So if I’m in a participating airport, I don’t have to disclose the whole airport staff, security, janitors, airline crew, everybody. They’re all trained in what this sunflower symbol means. And I can board early if I want. I can get accommodations for my invisible disability traveling.

So I do this all the time. I feel so proud that I want to wear this every day in real life. I invite people to check out the Sunflower Movement because it is extraordinary. And so needed.

Tas: I have the sunflower lanyard too! On my first plane trip last year I wore it and airport staff were so helpful! The TSA was very kind and patient with me. I also put in my accommodations request online a month before my trip. I highly recommend people do that. Each airline has their own process, so make sure to check their websites. Last, but not least, where can people find you and your work? 

Libby: Okay, so my YouTube channel is Awesome Hair Day. It’s not about hair, but I want to have an awesome hair day. And I’ll tell you the history of that name. Yeah, I want to have an awesome hair day because I take Depakote, so it’s a mood stabilizer. It’s one of my medications and it’s really hard on hair and it dries your skin.

It’s a side effect. Big deal. What’s the alternative? But you know I want to look presentable online and in my videos and in interviews. That has to do with my disability. So anyway, that’s what my YouTube channel is called, and that’s what it’s about. 

Tas: Thank you so much for being here! I know your lived experience will be instrumental in bringing awareness to the disabled community. Any final thoughts?

Libby: Well, our reentry in my world, at least a sense of humor, is really important.

I can’t make people be funny, I can, but in my world, I have to be funny. I have to make jokes. Maybe it’s tragic, but it is a coping mechanism, and I encourage people with hard backgrounds and challenges to have a sense of humor. I think it behooves you. Thank you very much, Tas.

Outro

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