Personal Experiences & Disabilities

    For a considerable fraction of my life, I always thought that a disability physically hindered one from completing day-to-day tasks. Although this is partially true, I failed to regard those who struggled with disabilities cognitively. Growing up, I had a family friend who had a son with a cognitive disability and a physical impairment. On the outside, their family always stood strong and displayed the utmost love and affection, but looking back I can recall the difficulty he had when interacting with others and how it impacted the parents. In recent years, working in the hospital has exposed me to a greater population of individuals with physical impairments. From amputees to paraplegics, interacting with such hopeful individuals makes the work worthwhile. Despite my exposure to these people, I will never understand what it feels like to be in their shoes. Many patients refuse to call for help when having difficulty completing tasks, as they don't want to feel like a hindrance. Although it is my job, I take pride in being able to help those who need it. 

    Many automatically assume that those with disabilities can't function in everyday life, however, those individuals are proven wrong every day. People with disabilities go on to have lives just like those who don't have something holding them back. The only difference between the normal person and those with disabilities is, they have learned to adapt. A common example includes the Paralympics, where we have the opportunity to see people compete in sports that others believed they never had the chance to do. With prosthetics, equipment, and other parts of their body, they can do things any other athlete can do. Moreover, there are those with cognitive and intellectual diseases that can complete school and obtain educations that many doubted they could do. As a society, we fail this population by declaring disability as a negative term.

    Now that we see those with disabilities completing day-to-day activities with no trouble, able-bodied individuals label it as inspirational. Although there is nothing wrong with being inspired after seeing someone become greater than what they were expected to be, we give people with disabilities back-handed compliments. We put these people on display to inspire others to rise to the challenge, but we fail to recognize the position we put these people in. They are already aware of the cards they've been dealt in this game of life, and using people with disabilities as "inspirational porn" emphasizes the disadvantage they can't change. Understandably, there is no harm in complimenting those who have accomplished great things will be disabled, but it is critical to understand that they are as human as anyone else without disabilities.