And that’s all I have to say about that. Because anything more only legitimizes the idea that I should have to continually seek validation that my disability exists from a third party (me being one party, my treatment team being the second, and a certain government organization being the third). It’s frustrating, and it makes it even harder to heal.
Share your similar frustrations if you want to. Or don’t.
As someone with diabetes and mental illness(mostly anxiety problems) I get frustrated with the number of people who give me unsolicited advice about how i should manage and treat my condition.
And with the mental illness the select people who don’t seem to believe in it and think it’s just laziness and all my fault. All I have to do to get rid of it is eat right and exercise more!!! I don’t need medication at all.
But mostly it’s all the unsolicited advice people will give that annoys me the most. Because most of it is inaccurate and out-dated and some of it is downright dangerous.
preach it brother …i have cerebal palsy and its bad enough to make doing things hard but mild enough that at a first few glances you dont know i have it and one of these days if someone just says im being lazy or im not disabled mom just talked ssi into saying i was … well people are gonna die…
i had several brain scans and physicals before i even knew what ssi was and moved in with mom …ive thought about having them check again just to shut people up and so they can fuck off and die via spiny cactus…,…
Blah-blah-blah. You don’t have to “justify your disability” - unless you are asking for something from someone. Who do you have to “justify your disability” to and for what? And how do you define “disability?”
I, for one, couldn’t give a rat’s ass whether you perceive yourself as “disabled” or not.
I was mostly-disabled for a while, and if I mentioned what I had I got lots of unsolicited advice. Now, almost all of it was well-meaning “Have you tried [diet, PT, woo] yet? It worked for my [friend, sister-in-law, guru]!!!”
But, *my God *was it draining to have to explain explain explain justify justify justify, trying not to sound dismissive or condescending.
So I looked up my condition and found a more technical name for it. That stopped them in their tracks. It’d be like instead of getting advice after saying “I’ve got a cold” you say “Oh, it’s a rogue strain of an alphacoronavirus, but I’ve got meds for it.”
That reminds me of the time I tore a tendon. When the docs said it was my Achilles, I got TONS of advice from everyone, but when an ultrasound showed it was my *flexor hallicus longus, *people just said “Oh, must hurt.”
Look, I know I’m quirky. I’ve known it since I was a very young child, and I’ve learned to live with it and be who I am, quirks and all.
Stop trying to get me to do drugs. Don’t tell me “That’s not drugs, that’s medication.” Yes, and if it does not work, you have another drug, another drug, etc. etc.
And my left hand is messed up. Don’t tell me my mind’s disabled and my hand isn’t.
In that position I’d be tempted to help the person understand what it’s like to be disabled.
And yet you feel compelled comment. Not only comment, but inquire. Are these the actions of one who truly doesn’t care?
Good. If only the rest of the general public was as unconcerned as you are.
The average person is nosy, uninformed, and a busy-body.
I had a customer recently making a collection of purchases: LOTS of olive oil. Several containers of lye. Safety goggles. Thick, heavy-duty protective gloves. I said that looks like everything you need to make soap from scratch. Turns out he was - seems his infant son had terrible skin problems. The kid had an allergist and a dermatologist and while things were better the kid still had problems. The man had such terrible problems finding soap that wouldn’t react with his son’s skin he had resorted to making his own soap, from scratch, so he had total control over the ingredients and had (finally!) a soap that wouldn’t react horribly with his kid’s skin.
The person in line immediately behind him then started in with the chemicals in our food, how his parents should not have eaten anything but organic produce, should have given up meat, the pharmaceutical companies were trying to kill us all, stop going to a doctor he just wanted to drug up the kid with killer drugs, and don’t even TRY to make your own soap, these two brothers she knew had goat’s milk from their (organic, of course) goats and used it to make wonderful soap and there’s no way an ordinary person could make this miracle soap, just use the goat’s milk soap and feed the kid goat’s milk and he’d be cured!
Why the fuck do people think total strangers want an amateur diagnosis and treatment plan?
The man thanked the woman for her concern. I said I also had problems with commercially made soaps, and I knew several people who had made their own soaps and wished him luck with his kid’s proble–
The next lady in line said in loud, whiny voice “Why are you telling him that? It’s like you’re trying to discourage him from following my advice!”
Um… not in so many words, but yeah - I’m not allowed, when on the clock, to say you’re an ignorant bitch attempting to practice medicine without a license. I AM allowed to wish a man good luck in dealing with a medical problem in his family.
Preach, ASL, Bay-bee, preach it loud and clear!
If someone has a cane and Guide dog, people know that person is blind. If someone is in a wheelchair, obviously that person has mobility issues.
Deafness is invisible. Too many people think the auditory nerve is somehow connected to the intellectual portion of the brain. (I don’t remember that being taught in any anatomy class)
So their reasoning is, if you can’t hear, you are stupid.
Gawd save us all!
~VOW
You’re misreading his post. He’s not asking you to justify your condition to him, but then he’s not giving you anything. The government, to whom it looks like you are requesting something from, whether that SSDI or just a handicapped parking permit is asking for you to justify why they should give you whatever you’re going to get from them.
The fact that a grantor of something sets certain conditions isn’t unreasonable on it’s surface, which is different than the specific hoops they are requesting you to jump thru.
Doesn’t do any good. Some folks are deeply entrenched in their ignorance and WANT to stay there!
~ VOW
I don’t think you understand the way I would be tempted to help them. Some people can only learn by experience.
If you mean by running over the ignoramus in the parking lot, yeah, I get it.
But you’ll just mess up your truck.
~VOW
So the person in your example could have said, “Please mind your own business and don’t comment on my purchases.” Not sure that sounds like “justifying one’s disability”.
From my perspective, I would fully support cashiers NOT commenting on my purchases - or even making small talk with me when I’m trying to make sure they don’t mess up when ringing me up, and making sure the bagger doesn’t damage my purchases.
I’m a store cashier, and one of our golden rules is never comment on a customer’s purchases. And I’ve had some really odd ones.
And I’m thin because I’m built that way, I walk a lot, and I only eat when I’m hungry, so stop offering to buy me food or asking me if I have enough to eat. And I don’t give a damn about how I look, so I persist in walking around looking like, as my sister said it best, “an unmade bed.” That’s the same sister who is a radical feminist lesbian, and she gets a lot of comments from the people she dubbed the “rah-rah’s” (radical religious).
My wife was assaulted by a woman that claimed my wife was “stealing from the government” because she has a handicap parking placard. My wife suffers from arthritis in her feet making walking difficult. The responding officer didn’t want to do anything so I contacted his superior and raised a ruckus. It’s not okay to push and shove someone because you don’t like something about them. I physically blocked in the woman’s car to keep her from leaving till the Sargent arrived. The woman was arrested and put in hand cuffs. The prosecutor filed 3rd degree assault charges, if it goes to trial it won’t be till sometime early next year.
When I was little, I learned that there was a difference between people who “couldn’t read” (that is, they had not learned to do so) and people who “read badly” (they had learned about reading, they knew the theory, but they had problems telling certain letters, numbers and/or symbols apart). The advent of the word “dyslexia” and of official diagnoses thereof has made a lot of people’s lifes better; maybe not quite easier, but at least they don’t get treated like imbeciles when they just have an eyesight problem that glasses can’t solve 
Dear, dear Nava,
The disabled, no matter what the disability, are always going to be treated like imbeciles. As a rule the ones who do the most and loudest “treating” are generally just a few IQ points above actual imbecility.
I have been sorely tempted, when treated like a drooling idiot because of my hearing disability, to turn to the perpetuator and say, “Hey, I’ll match IQs with you any day!”
My children just grab the back of my shirt, tug gently, and say, “C’mon, Mom, let’s go.”
~VOW
Keep in mind Dinsdale’s salary depends on them judging people’s medical problems so there’s a small chance they are biased.