ABSTRACT
This chapter intends to redefine the linguistic coordinates of the discourse on disability, understood as a resource and not as a disease or obstacle to overcome. Words matter, and to create a more inclusive society, we need to start again with language. Disability is a constantly evolving concept which must coincide with a parallel evolution of the language that conveys it. If this does not happen, language loses its main function to inform correctly. One of the disabilities addressed in this chapter is major depressive disorder, which today involves different generational groups, although it seems that the adolescents are the most affected. In Italy, it is still an invisible presence in society and often accompanied by a stigma that generates caution, fear, and reservations among people. The reading in this chapter, Una lingua chiamata speranza, is the translation of a 2017 Ted Talk in which the poet and activist Topaz Winters talks, with sincerity and frankness, about the role of words and poetry in the process of recognition and acceptance of this disorder and all its related symptoms.
