Do we understand hidden disabilities as we should? Is it right for someone with a hidden disability to be forced into having to say they have one? The furore last week around Senior Councillor Rachel Garrick knitting during a budget council Zoom meeting was very interesting.  She is a Labour cabinet member who represents the Caldicot Castle ward in Monmouthshire, Wales. She is responsible for finance. She took part in a budget Council meeting via Zoom. In it, she could be seen knitting when facing questions from councillors on the budget she had put forward for the upcoming financial year. The meeting was a very serious one as members and officers were discussing £11.4 million worth of cuts. Clearly, this was no trifling matter. Conservative group leader, Richard John, shared the Council’s video stream of the meeting online, saying that it was completely inappropriate for Cllr Garrick to have been knitting during it. He considered her behaviour brought the Council into disrepute. He effectively said that, if she was knitting, she wasn’t paying full attention to the meeting. This prompted Cllr Garrick to effectively publicly “out herself” to the world at large and reveal that she suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. This is a rare inherited condition, which affects connective tissue and causes very flexible joints, as well as osteoarthritis. There is no specific treatment for it but it is possible to find ways to manage many of its symptoms. For example, by engaging in activities which a given person finds to be helpful. Cllr Garrick says that knitting helps her to relax her mind, focus, concentrate and cope with the pain that she gets in various of her joints from sitting for a prolonged period of time. She said it was akin to how fidget toys can help others. She believes that knitting enhances her focus and her performance, instead of detracting from them. This was the second two hour session she had been involved in over two consecutive days. She has also been working despite having a very unwell mother. In the past, when her condition was as it worst, she was bedbound and immobile and ended up having to give up a variety of things. She has accused Cllr John of failing to understand “hidden disabilities” and the concept of diversity. All the more so when she says he is aware that she is disabled and could have asked himself (or her in private) why she might be knitting in this situation. Just maybe this is a good example of a situation where someone should indeed ask themselves why someone might be doing something out of the ordinary, take some time to inform and educate themselves better about it and focus on that person’s output. Surely the key questions should be around Cllr Garrick’s focus and participation in that meeting, which, of itself, does not seem to have been criticised in any way.