Why is it a disability?????

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Jamesy
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16 Aug 2012, 7:57 pm

Is it silly for me too start feeling resentful towards people and blaming them for my aspergers related issues?

nominalist
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16 Aug 2012, 7:59 pm

Jamesy wrote:

Is it silly for me too start feeling resentful towards people and blaming them for my aspergers related issues?

IMO, it is better to constantly work on bettering oneself. No one can really change others.

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SUSNET
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16 Aug 2012, 8:02 pm

Jamesy wrote:

Is there a reason why society does not want too accomodate us?

It's not necessarily that it doesn't want to, it could be that it doesn't know how or just isn't very good at it!

Dillogic
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16 Aug 2012, 8:06 pm

SUSNET wrote:

Look at the social model of disability.

Very simply; It's not the Aspergers that disables you, but society and other people not being able to treat you equally and accommodate you.

Easy enough?

Which is utterly silly and reeks of self-importance and that other word I seem to forget (ah, entitlement!).

If you're unable to function, you're lucky if someone can help you survive. No one owes the disabled anything.

PerfectlyDarkTails
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16 Aug 2012, 8:11 pm

nominalist wrote:

According to the social model of disability, which I partially accept, disability is a lack of accommodation. Once a condition is fully accommodated in a society, it is no longer a disability.

I get it like if say... Job Interviews where completely banned for example... Aspergers and other social disabilities could look very differently in a diagnostic point of view.

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Mirror21
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16 Aug 2012, 8:13 pm

OP: the same way that ADD and ADHD and OCD can be considered disabilities. The brain just does not allow certain things to happen the way they do for a standard brain. because we are not the majority we are disabled. because majority dictated social norms as well as jobs, environment etc. are not always able to be handled as it is handled by the standard majority.

Jamesy
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16 Aug 2012, 8:19 pm

Dillogic wrote:

SUSNET wrote:

Look at the social model of disability.

Very simply; It's not the Aspergers that disables you, but society and other people not being able to treat you equally and accommodate you.

Easy enough?

Any people u could turn too help you surivive?

Lucywlf
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16 Aug 2012, 9:58 pm

Jamesy wrote:

Is there a reason why society does not want too accomodate us?

Society doesn't want to put out the effort. It never does. It would rather you conform to it than to make allowances for you.

Think "lowest common denominator": when people get together they do what's easiest for the majority of the group.

CockneyRebel
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16 Aug 2012, 10:11 pm

Jamesy wrote:

Is life worth living if you have aspergers?

I'm AS and I'm happy to be alive.

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Webalina
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16 Aug 2012, 10:58 pm

Some very interesting comments here. I just recently have discovered my AS tendencies. I'm trying to think of it -- and even posted earlier as much -- as just a different way of looking at things. I didn't consider myself disabled because I didn't see how much my communication problems have affected me over the years. But reading these comments, a lot of it would explain why I've had trouble getting jobs (blowing interviews?), keeping jobs (trouble with verbal directions and socializing with co-workers), having intimate relationships with men (not picking up on social cues or understanding how those types of relationships start and work). The list goes on and on. Maybe it's adversely affected me more than I realized.

Verdandi
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16 Aug 2012, 11:38 pm

Dillogic wrote:

Read up on this stuff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability
http://www.ukdpc.net/site/images/librar ... ility2.pdf
http://www.scope.org.uk/about-us/our-br ... disability

I think the reality is somewhere between social model and medical model.

Also:

Quote:

Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.~Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), My Several Worlds [1954].

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
~Samuel Johnson, Boswell: Life of Johnson

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.~John E. E. Dalberg, Lord Acton, The History of Freedom in Antiquity, [1877].

"...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. " ~ Last Speech of Hubert H. Humphrey

"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." ~ Mahatma Ghandi

"Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest."
~Cardinal Roger Mahony, In a 1998 letter, Creating a Culture of Life

The greatness of America is in how it treats its weakest members: the elderly, the infirm, the handicapped, the underprivileged, the unborn. ~Bill Federer

"A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying,"
~Pope John Paul II

I do not agree with every specific sentiment expressed, but I do agree with the overall message: How a society treats its most vulnerable reflects on the society's moral and ethical worth. A society that owes nothing to disabled people is owed nothing by anyone. It is, at best, a tyranny built upon suffering.

I also like this Gandhi quote, which is why I do not accept "that's the way it is" as a valid answer:

“We must become the change we want to see.”

one-A-N
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16 Aug 2012, 11:41 pm

Jamesy wrote:

Is life worth living if you have aspergers?

Is life worth living if you have a disability? Of course it is.

Disability is not a fate worse than death. But our society often thinks that it is - which is a form of prejudice - and we soak up that prejudice all too easily. Many people are burdened with thinking less of themselves because of the social prejudice against disability. It is worth tackling that prejudice and unlearning it. Then issues like "Is Asperger's a disability?" won't be encumbered with unexamined social prejudices about disability.

Valkyrie2012
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17 Aug 2012, 12:10 am

Callista wrote:

Let's see...

I have problems organizing my own schedule, especially with stopping, starting, and switching tasks.
I have problems understanding other people's social subtext.
I am easily overwhelmed by sensory information, and this can cause shutdown.
I am prone to cognitive overload--having to "think too hard" for too long, especially in an unfamiliar environment or while socializing, can cause me to become very tired and need to rest.
I have trouble switching strategies while solving a problem.
I find it very hard to maintain relationships because I forget to contact people.
I lose track of time easily, so that I have a very unpredictable sleep cycle.
I often miscommunicate when trying to get across to other people.
I can become so fascinated with a single subject that I lose track of everything else, including my responsibilities.
New things are hard to get used to. When I moved, my new apartment did not feel like home for several months.
I do not easily detect and copy the emotions of those around me.
I do not easily absorb the dominant culture of the people in my area.
I tend to stim, which is harmless but looks unusual. I also occasionally echo people, and have minor tics here and there.

There are a lot of things like this. Taken together, this is a disability. That doesn't mean it's a tragedy or that it makes my life worse, but it does mean that I need accommodations, help, or extra effort to adjust my particular skill set to the world as it is set up.

I could have easily written all that... but will add a few too. If it were just a simple case of anger and meltdowns I would be so lucky! I have vision issues like visual snow, after burn imaging, ghosting etc, sensory processing issues. I once burned my fingers so bad that I had 3rd degree burns and didn't even realize it! I have severe audio processing issues... sound sensitivities and also I walk funny when sensory overloaded. I am extremely clumsy and trip and bump into walls a lot. I can't separate foreground from background a lot too. I have rigid thinking so that the first way I learned to do a task is THE only way to do a task... even if it is a long way and convoluted way. If I get interrupted I have to start all over or forget steps out! I have face blindness and even don't recognize my own mother at times. My sense of direction is so poor I once drove 150 miles South THE WRONG direction of what I had wanted to go before I realized it! There really are way too many things to list here... but I am 37 and live with my mother because I can't even think what to cook for myself at times or get so lost on focusing on a project I don't even go to eat or to the restroom. I think that says volumes in itself.

SHEILD
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17 Aug 2012, 12:16 am

Sometimes I see people who are severly autistic and I think it is, but then I see people like Amanda Baggs (see vid below) and I change my mind.

I think this is a case like I AM LEGEND (the book not the film) where Nevel felt that the infected were 'diseased' and 'strange' because there were more people who were not infected but when it was just Nevel who wasn't infected he became the oddity to be studied.

I think NTs just feel safer saying that we are, comforting themselves that we are 'sick' and 'unusual' and that way they know how to treat us. I feel like they're afraid to sugest otherwise, as though to do so might offend us or people with kids who are sevearly autistic...

Personally I don't think I'm disabled, I'm autistic and it is a part (not a whole) of who I am. Without it I wouldn't be me, and to sugest that I'm 'broken' in some way is insulting.

I don't think any of us has a reason to be ashamed of who we are. I think we should be proud of ourselves and our acomplishments -after all the bullying and shunning of society we still stick to our beleifs and find reasons to get up in the morning. That takes true courage.

There are things I can't do and there are things I can. Why is that any more or less than anyone else?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc[/youtube]

Verdandi
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17 Aug 2012, 1:11 am

Being autistic is certainly a part of me.

However, I am disabled. Viewing "disabled" as "broken" is insulting because disability is not "being broken." It's an acknowledgment that one has difficulties and impairments that are not typical for most of the population.

People get so hung up on the word, but disability is not inherently a bad thing. It's attitudes toward disability that cause problems far more than the idea of being disabled. Whether or not someone does consider themselves disabled does not change the fact that one either does or does not have impairments.

SteffiTheSmile
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17 Aug 2012, 1:27 am

Because it disables us on this planet.
I'm nearly as high-functing as you can get, but can't go to school, it's unlikely I'll ever work.
At-least most of us would probably be "okay, on our home planet", but yeah, it is disabling in the way the World works today.

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