Some time ago, I stopped a cab to go downtown to run some errands for my mother's birthday. To my surprise, the driver was a woman, something that I don't come across too often, so I got in the front seat without a worry. As soon as I climbed in and put my crutches on my lap as usual, however, the driver immediately started interrogating me non-stop about my disability. She asked, "What's wrong with your legs?", to which I replied it was a birth defect. I thought that would be it, but then she continued. "Wait, so you're going to be like this forever?", she then went on, with a look of sheer shock on her face. I nodded, nonchalantly, as I buried my head in my phone and pretended to be texting so she would leave me alone, but it did not work. "But... but... there's got to be some sort of cure, right? Can you not have some surgery?". That was the last straw for me. "I've had twelve", I replied. She continued to ramble about how it could not possibly be that nothing could be done to "fix" me until I got off the cab, putting on a fake smile but fuming internally. When I returned home hours later, still visibly angry, I unloaded to my mother and she could not believe the woman's level of audacity and lack of respect, even though it had happened a million times before. Yet another awkward encounter with someone who looked like they had never seen a disabled person in their entire life.
For me, one of the most annoying things of having a disability is not being able to simply walk down the street without being met with unsolicited questions and comments about my condition by absolute strangers, who not only stare and sometimes point at me, but also immediately take it upon themselves to either give their opinion about what they think I need or satisfy their morbid curiosity. And while I often try to educate others, which is partly the reason why I started this blog, I am not always in the mood for it and simply want to be left alone like everybody else. Sometimes, I wish I could become invisible just to avoid unwanted attention, because something as simple as being out in public without being disturbed, which most people take for granted, I do not have. At this point, I'm used to it, but that does not mean it hurts any less when it does happen. Every now and then, like in this instance, it becomes too much and I lose it as soon as I get home, but for some reason I have never been able to defend myself in public, especially when the other person is older than me, out of fear of being disrespectful when it was the other person who started it. And, while the things I and other disabled people have been asked and told are infinite, there are several that we keep getting. I decided to share some of the most frequent and address why they are inappropriate, so hopefully more people will understand why they make us so angry. These are the ones that I could think of:
"What happened to you?": OK, first of all, nothing. The only thing that happened to me is existing. Second of all, why anyone would feel entitled to a complete stranger's private medical information is something that still blows my mind. If I was someone with no visible health issues, nobody would feel the urgent need to ask me about every little, gory, intimate thing that has ever happened to my body since I was a literal embryo. A useful rule of thumb in this situation is to ask yourself: "Would I ask this question to someone not disabled?" If the answer is no, then please leave us alone.
"Everything happens for a reason": I have been told almost every explanation for why I am disabled: that it is a punishment from God for my parent's sins, that I was posessed in my mother's womb (yes, someone actually told me this), some sort of blessing in disguise, a test to overcome, bad karma, the Universe teaching me a lesson, etc., etc. This one makes me particularly furious, because the sad truth is we don't know why bad things happen, and suggesting you do is simply not OK. If anything, it only made me feel like God absolutely hated me and enjoyed to watch me suffer, leading me to abandon the Church for many years. I used to hold onto those answers, because I thought an unpleasant answer was better than none at all, but now I have accepted that I will simply never know, and that is OK.
"You're too young/pretty to be disabled": And yet, I am both. I am a 25-year-old, I guess reasonably attractive woman who also happens to be disabled because those things can coexist. People with disabilities come in all ages, genders, shapes and sizes; we are one of the most diverse minority groups in the world. Crutches, wheelchairs and other mobility aids are not just for old ladies with titanium hips. This comment also heavily implies that disability equals ugliness, something that is sadly still very present within society's ableist standards of beauty.
"Oh, poor you!": Ah, the enless pity. I don't ever remember feeling sorry for myself when I was little until other people started saying this to me, showing me that I was someone one should, indeed, feel sorry for. I did not understand it, since I knew no different and considered myself to be normal, but as I grew up I became more and more aware of the reactions I was causing in other people, and figured out that this was how I should feel about myself as well. Over the years, that really started to affect my self-esteem and self-image, to the point that it became an endless cycle of wallowing in self-pity that I still have not completely come out of.
"You're an inspiration": This is what the late Australian disability rights activist Stella Young so brilliantly described as inspiration porn, or using a person’s disability as a plot device when it is not relevant to the story. This can look like labeling disabled people as inspiring when they have done nothing out of the ordinary, like running errands, or hailing someone as a hero for simply being kind and civil to a disabled individual, like in those viral stories where a popular boy takes a girl in a wheelchair to the prom in front of the whole class after ignoring her all year long and everyone talks about how amazing he is, as if treating her like a human being was an act of charity. It all suggests that our only purpose in life is to make non-disabled people feel better about themselves because "at least they are not like us". This not only hurts those with disabilities, but also those without, as it makes them believe that they have no right to complain about their struggles because we have it worse, which is absurd. Life is not a competition of who is struggling the most and who gets to talk about it while the rest are made to bottle it up.
"The only disability in life is a bad attitude": More along the lines of inspiration porn, this phrase wrongly puts the blame on the disabled individual themselves for the struggles they may be facing, rather than on societal barriers. While a positive outlook on life is generally helpful for anyone, a smile will not magically convert a flight of stairs into a ramp or turn everything that's ever been written into Braille. Besides, it is incredibly difficult to stay positive when all you encounter is one obstacle after another because the world you live in simply wasn't built for you, and people insist on giving you a hard time wherever you go.
"Have you tried...?": You may complete this sentence with almost anything under the sun, from yoga to essential oils and all sorts of other natural remedies. And while I have nothing against homeopathic medicine, and have in fact greatly benefited from it in the past, it is truly disingenuous to think that any of these things will magically heal my spinal cord injury. I have been living with this condition my entire life, so please trust me when I say it is incurable. There is nothing I can do to make it go away. Also, giving unsolicited medical advice to a complete stranger is never OK.
"I could NEVER live like you, I'd rather die": Really? REALLY? I cannot imagine a single scenario where it would be helpful for someone to hear you say that. This is, unfortunately, the most inofensive example of how deeply rooted ableism is in our culture. More and more people are now vocal about their belief that it is somehow better to be dead that live with a disability, because somehow all we are capable of in their eyes is suffering. This is why so many people support aborting children diagnosed with health isuues before birth, or euthanasia for non-terminal conditions. By doing this, they are trying to impose their own standards of what a good quality of life is on everybody else, as if their own criteria was the only valid one. Also, to those who say that, newsflash: yes, you COULD live like me, because millions of us already are. If you had been born with a disability, then you simply would not know any other kind of life and could not miss what you never had; if you developed it somewhere down the line, you would learn to live with it in the same way that you evolve and adapt many times throughout your lifetime. I am not saying it is easy by any means, but it is not the end of the world either.
I suppose I could go on and on, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. The reason why I share this is that the experience with the cab driver really reminded me of why these situations make me feel so upset, and the more I think about it the angrier I become at the double standards of basic social interactions. It almost feels like, the moment someone finds out that the person they are speaking to is disabled, all common norms of what is normal, polite and appropriate conversations fly out the window. If the thought of someone saying the aforementioned things to an able-bodied person makes you cringe, then maybe you should avoid saying them to anyone at all. Interacting with a disabled person should not be made awkward for us, because things are hard enough as they are and most of us just want normalcy. All I can ask for is that we think before we speak and analyze the intentions behind our words, because it can mean the world for others to simply be treated like everybody else. Thank you for reading.
Comments
Post a Comment