understanding for different disabilities?

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what are all WPers like with understanding for others with autism or AS,or-any other disability-eg,other developmental or learning disabilities such as downs syndrome,ADHD,dyslexia.......severe mental illness such as schizophrenia,bipolar......physical/mobility affecting disabilities such as CP,MS.........etc.


do have natural understanding for different disabilties-only for certain disabilities,or none at all?
are there any disabilities that find are too difficult to deal with?
do think not understand any disabilities enough and would want to or not?
do think people with disabilities that are mostly behavior based or are not obvious to sight get worse treatment/abuse/discrimination than those with obvious physical/mobility based disabilities?



Am was thinking about this today due to being a long time user on a multi-disability forum [it's users have anything from autism to un treatable cancer]and seeing just how ignorant many disabled people are of others with different disabilities,am used to think having a disability would stop people from being ignorant and nasty about others with different disabilities but that does not happen.
it's not just difference in disability that can get ignorance in but also in different severities as well,eg,some people with a severe type of a disability may say they have the only true version of the disability and those with a milder type are fakes and wannabes,but some people with a mild type treat those with a severe form as being lesser beings,burdens to them,good for nothing.


am have a lot of relatives who are definitely disabled or can be classed as having a disability,sister used to work with creative support [a MH and Ld group home and counciling organisation], went through special school education,special college education, and have lived in an institution,and residential care so disability is what normal is to non disabled for am.
am treat everything as the same whether it's living or not,and disability isn't something am avoid or think any different of,am think do not need to be educated about a disability to understand or respect.
am hate it when am treated lesser? badly,because others [especially when it's others with an asd] do not understand something am do but instead of asking about it,they assume something not nice,they would rather assume something than find out whats right and what isn't.
for example,those who assume are profoundly mentally ret*d or deaf if are non verbal-even if are responding to them so it's obvious are not deaf.

I don't understand every disability out there, but I donot judge based on it.

And my disability is invisible on the outside, so people don't understand as well that I can't take stress for example. I don't even feel like I deserve being called disabled however cause its not like I can't take care of myself.

I am embarrased to admit I am uncomfortable around people with severe mental disabilities. However, physical disabilities do not bother me at all. A person could be nothing but a head and I would not feel the least bit of discomfort as long as I could hold an inteligent conversation with them. I do not really know why people with mental impairments make me uncomfortable. It may be because I do not have any in my family and I have never been close with someone with a mental handicap. I'm not really sure though, but regardless, I cannot help my feelings.

I actually find myself very comfortable with disabled people. I used to be a little scared when I was younger but now I'm just curious and I like to learn more about particular disabilities. I'm mostly interested in mental "disorders" like autism, schizophrenia, mood disorders and I have read a lot about these conditions. I would try to have understanding for people regardless of mental or physical disabilities but I particularly empathize with those who suffer from mental problems.

Mostly because most of my friends as well as me myself have a lot of issues, physical and mental, I do have good understanding for people with other disabilities. That and the fact that I'm rather unobservant and clueless when it comes to what's "normal" and "abnormal" behavior, so simply being different doesn't bother me.

However, I do get angry if it feels like someone is just being a jerk, no matter who they are. If they have a (good) reason, I'd love to hear it, but I have little sympathy for just using it as an excuse to be mean to others.

It doesn't matter the disorder, I'm uncomfortable around anyone who is disabled... until I get to know them. However I don't know if that is just because of the disability or because I'm uncomfortable around EVERYONE before I get to know them. All I know is that for some reason I'm more aware of my discomfort when I'm around someone with a disability and care more for some reason. (Then the person usually takes my discomfort in a bad way and... well, not the best social situation.)

If I get to know the person a bit, I can care less one way or another. I just need to learn what "mask" to put on to begin with (so they don't take me wrong and think I am trying to insult them or think that I am uncaring) and how fast I can remove the "mask". So I guess it is the same as I am with everyone.

many years ago i attended a conference in el paso, texas, put on by a disability coalition. i was invited to be there - they paid my airfare and hotel.

when i got there, i found the meetings heavily attended by persons with physical disabilities. those of us who had "mental" disabilities were relegated to "second class" status, as we obviously had nothing wrong with us. i even encountered and watched a few other folks there encounter actual hostility... what the hell were WE doing there, anyway?

it was definitely a wake-up call. and not a good one.

People using their disability as an excuse for bad behaviour disappoint me. If they are mentally ret*d or in a psychotic break, they have a good excuse but not otherwise.

It's not like MR or psychotic people can't be jerks too. It's not a blanket excuse. It's not even an excuse to refuse to get help for something that you know causes you to hurt other people... Like if you're bipolar and you KNOW you attack people when you get manic, you had better be taking steps to keep that from happening; less dramatically, if you're an Aspie and your low social skills mean you accidentally say things that hurt people, you ought to be studying up on how not to say those things...

Anyway, I've got kind of an idea that I know more about being disabled than non-disabled people do, but that I can't know what it's like to be a specific person or have a specific disability. It's rather hard to know what it's like to have mental retardation if you got straight A's in high school, for example... I've never had chronic pain, so I don't know what that's like... I don't have to have anybody take care of me, so I don't know that, either... Really, the experience of having Asperger's/depression/ADHD/PTSD doesn't tell me anything more than what it's like to be one specific person with one specific combination of disabilities. (And the ADHD doesn't even count; it's nowhere near bad enough--almost a gift, sometimes.)

The experience of being marginalized, of having people assume you are less able than you are, of pitying you, or of expecting you to be some kind of "inspiration", like the runt puppy that grows up to win the dog show... I think I share that, in its generalities, with most others. It makes me very angry whenever anybody, with any disability, gets mistreated because their disability makes them vulnerable and there are jackasses around who don't think they're quite human. It just makes me sad whenever it happens because people just aren't thinking hard enough that the person in front of them is human, too...

Next quarter I'm going to a college where they've got a good disability-assistance program, and consequently a lot of disabled students. If I'm lucky I'll be able to meet some of them (there are support groups and tutoring and things), and maybe figure out what is different depending on the disability, and what is due just because you're disabled at all. I bet there's a huge difference in how people treat you between a visible disability and an invisible one and one that's not immediately apparent but gets obvious the second you interact. Also, mental vs physical... there's got to be a difference there too; most people assume you can't help having a broken neck; but they can get awfully annoyed at you for not being able to "snap out of it" if you're depressed.

Anyway, the answer is: I don't know whether I relate to other disabled people any differently. Many disabled people are NTs, with all the problems that brings. Others have neurologies that are different from mine AND different from NTs'; some of my friends have been non-autistic neurodiverse, because we decided to accept each others' weirdness... Some just have interests different from mine, and we'd bore each other. Some common experiences, I guess; but there's a lot of variety and it's not enough to predict anything. It's probably just a matter of figuring it out as you go, just like dealing with NTs.

I've really begun to find a certain kindred-ness to people with schizophrenia and Tourette's, after doing some reading and finding out how similar we all are.

with me despite what your disability is, mild or severe, noticable or not, i dont treat ya any different. i volunteer at a childrens specialized hospital, i never see the disability instead i see the person. i work with kids who are severely MR almost catatonic, kids who have no hair whatsoever i dont know the name of that disease on top of my head, or kids who have mild pddnos like my little, or kids who just have adhd, or ones like this little girl i knew who had tumors growing on her face where even surgery couldnt help her, yet when she smiled it was like the room lit up, or kids with cerebral paulsi who will scream hey over and over because thats the only word they can pronounce and love to hear it, and ill just smile. You can scream, bite, hiss, growl, drool, spit on me, throw things at me, do anything ill still accept you for who you are!

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Being Normal Is Vastly Overrated

Way before I was diagnosed with AS I worked as a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) on a Alzhiemer unit in a long term care facility. I had a deep level of understanding with them to the point where my nurse that I worked under would joke that she sometimes never knew where I was because I blended in so well.....HAHA Im the one in the scrubs, silly .
I have however been wary of a homeless woman with apparent mental problems. I think anyone would have been. I was waiting for my husbands bus and she came over to my window and asked if I was ok. My son was crying at the time and I told her that we were fine. She then asked me if her son was in my car. I rolled up the windows and locked the doors and she then proceeded to try to open the door where my baby daughter was. That was scary to say the least, however I still tend to be understanding when it comes to people with mental and or physical conditions.

Maybe she has a son or daughter, and got scared that you were kidnapping her. That can happen if you aren't thinking straight, like dementia or psychosis.

I'm pretty sure some of the people I meet when I go to a nearby big city have got some kind of psychosis, because they don't make sense when they talk and that's the most common reason. (I know, I know--I don't make sense sometimes either. So some of them could be autistic. Statistically, though, they're more likely schizophrenic... I did meet one guy I was pretty sure was autistic; he was wearing the standard sensory-overload gear and flicking his fingers like he was playing a piano or something, a lot like I do.) If they are scruffy and their clothes haven't been washed, I tend to wonder whether they have got someplace to sleep and eat and take showers... I have been in danger of being homeless a couple of times; one time I got to within six days of the end of my lease before I found another place for cheap enough and I could talk the landlord into letting me pay off the deposit slowly; another time my landlord kicked me out and I had to sleep on a friend's couch for a few months... so I guess my being afraid of that makes me wonder whether they are coping OK, because I don't think I could ever survive that way.

I'm fine with just about anything.

Not that there are never clashes on a sensory level -- some people have neurologies that make them do things that overload me.

And some people are just difficult for me to comprehend. Like if I am trying really hard with language processing already, and someone has a certain brand of confused logic, they can get my head spinning very fast. (If I'm not trying to understand, though, it doesn't affect me so much.)

But I don't take it personally or anything, those are just instances where my difficulties clash with other people's.

In mental institutions, it was nearly always the people labeled with bipolar who befriended me if anyone did. (People rarely did.) I sometimes wonder if it's because they were extremely social to the point of not caring if I seemed aloof (I remember one girl who would sit and talk to me for hours without needing a response). Or maybe it's because I have more than one family member diagnosed with that, and somehow I am bipolar-friendly as a result without even intending to be? I don't know.

I personally find myself relating to people who have brain damage or are diagnosed with dementia of some kind. Not just because I almost certainly have some (neuroleptic-induced) brain damage myself, but because I can so often seem to understand something in the way they respond and move, easier than I can understand most people.

Same with some (not all) people with intellectual disabilities.

My family is neurodiverse in several directions, also a lot of hereditary chronic health problems. So I'm used to a lot more variety than some people seem to be.

I can't stand the disability hierarchy where it's best to be a male para or quad and worst to be someone with any or all of, cognitive impairments, chronic health problems (especially those not readily defined), psych labels, autism, whatever else is "beneath people".

I also can't stand the thing KoR talked about with the "Severely disabled people are really disabled and everyone else is faking it," and the opposite where they go "I'm better than those people who are more severely disabled than me, throw them to the wolves as long as I get what I want." I always call that "Lower functioning than thou" and "Higher functioning than thou" (as a play on words with "holier than thou").

I also can't stand people who have to be the most severely disabled person around them, and viciously attack or minimize the disability of anyone who seems to 'threaten' that position. Same with the opposite where they minimize others achievements to highlight their own.

Can't stand when disabled people don't buy into the stereotypes for themselves, but want to play the stereotypes off of other people for status reasons.

Can't stand either the ones who are really blatant about believing the disability rights movement exists only for people with specific physical impairments, and even in some cases can be heard to say that some people are so severely disabled they ought to be considered something other than disabled so that people will stop thinking rights apply to them. o.O

Or when a group of disabled people go something like, "It's not my legs that matter, it's my brain," or else "It's not my brain that matters, it's my legs," and proceed to take it out on people who lack whatever they've got.

Could go on for ages because have been involved in many branches of disability rights for a long time.

I just wish I knew how not to stick my foot in my mouth too much. It's bad enough when you are with a non-disabled NT, because you could embarrass them; but if you're talking to somebody who's gotten bad treatment all their lives, and you say the wrong thing, you could really hurt them. (Or maybe you couldn't, because they'd have got used to it, and they'd just ignore you or get annoyed. It's still not good.)

Being Aspie means you say the wrong thing. A lot. And I guess I'm scared that I'll say something REALLY wrong and hurt somebody really badly. I've seen a lot of autistic people who've been hurt so often that they take offense at just about everything, trying to fight back before they're attacked (again), and others who've bought into it and practically think they shouldn't be taking up valuable oxygen... you see that, you know people have been hurt, and you get pretty paranoid about doing it to them again. If I found myself doing that, I'd feel like I was telling a dirty joke to somebody who just got raped.