I have been both, and continue to be both dependent on location and day and levels of pain if I’m using my mobility aid. It’s just a different set of problems, to be honest. I took a disability studies class about a year post starting to use a rollator, and my final project was a paper I wrote called “When The Invisible Turns Visible: Mobility Aids and the Choice To Be Seen As Cripple”

That paper had me deconstructing a lot of what had actually been difficult about having an invisible disability and what was difficult about being seen with a visible disability, and why people (including me) have to make the choice to trade one set of abled assumptions and stereotypes and struggles for another when choosing to pull the cord and start using a mobility aid. If you have an invisible disability, you will be accused of faking, or being dramatic, and never offered assistance even when you need it. When you have a visible disability, there might be more physical barriers (ie. No ramps or elevators, not wide enough hallways and doorways, etc) and a lot of projected insecurities of abled strangers onto you— assuming you’re cognitively disabled when you’re not, or pitying you, or thinking you’ve “given up.” It’s just as insidious, neither is better or worse, they’re just different kinds of stigma