It could also mean that the details of their disability is none of your business.
Of course - but then I’m left to wonder why the person is telling me they are disabled. If you don’t expect me to do something differently because you are disabled, then I don’t know why you are telling me you are disabled. And if you do expect different treatment, then I don’t know how you expect me to know how to treat you if you don’t tell me something more detailed.
Let’s say for example, I’m having a party and one of the guests tells me she cannot attend because she’s disabled. Presumably she would like to attend but her disability prevents her- otherwise she would simply say she can’t make it. I would also think that she either wants me to change something about the party so she can attend, or wants me to take her disability into account when planning future events - because again, if she didn’t want me to do those things, why wouldn’t she just say " I can’t make it"? But I can’t either change this party or take the disability into account in the future if I don’t know what the disability is - the necessary changes are different if the issue is that she can’t get to my third-floor walk-up apartment than if the issue is that she is highly allergic to the seafood menu I have planned.
If I thought “can’t stand long” would be be the obvious issue, I don’t know that I wpuld bother to specify. Like, if I said I was taking my son trick or treating and someone said “can’t his dad take him?”, I would think “no, he’s disabled” to be pretty obvious. If someone had sparky thoughts about me or my husband based on that, I would think they were an asshole.
Yes, if someone says they are disabled, there’s some reason they want you to know. If they aren’t forthcoming with that reason it’s natural to ask questions. I guess they only have to provide minimal detail, and I understand the excellent point made by @DavidNRockies that disabled people are hesitant to discuss the matter in a judgemental society. Still, when someone points out their disabled status they have to provide enough detail so the other person understands what they mean or expect some questions, which hopefully are polite, non-judgemental, and to the point.
In what context are people randomly announcing they are disabled? If seems to me it’s usually given as an explanation for why they can’t do certain things.
“Would you like to come for a walk with me?”
“No thanks, I’m disabled.”
Or at a party, when asked what someone does for a living, they say, “I don’t work, I’m disabled.”
Is there a scenario I’m missing?
I’m the case of the party example, “I can’t make it, I’m disabled,” could result in the question, “Is there anything I can do to make it possible for you to attend?”
Or it could also mean, “I would come if I weren’t disabled, and I want you to know that the only thing keeping me from your lovely party is my disability.”
I believe that is entirely valid. However, as I view modern society I perceive that at least some people use the term either as an excuse for their behaviors/choices, or to garner special consideration. I suppose it is entirely up to the speaker whether or not they care how their words are received.
I was trying to find a non-work related example, because to be honest, the work-related examples mostly appear to be people playing games. But here’s one that happens to me fairly often at work - someone says they can’t do something because of their disability- but they don’t tell me what their disability is. I don’t mean in the sense of giving me a diagnosis if they have one - I mean they say something like “I have a disability and I can’t file” and nothing more. Sure, I can tell them to fill out the appropriate paperwork for an ADA accommodation ( and I do ) and some ( not all) of them actually fill it out and submit it - but depending on reason they can’t file and the accommodation needed, I might be able to do it without going through the process required for official ADA accommodations ( which often includes a doctor’s visit). I can think of at least four reasons why someone might not be able to file - they may be unable to read the labels on the folders because of a vision problem, they may not be able to carry the folders to the file cabinet , they may not have the range of motion needed to place a folder in the top drawers or they may not be able to stoop or bend to place a folder in the bottom drawers. There are varying ways to accommodate these issues and it is entirely possible that there is a reason I haven’t thought of for which the only accommodation is that the person no longer does any filing.
But if all the person says is " I have a disability and I can’t file" and won’t to give any further detail and gets upset if I ask , I don’t understand why they are telling me. They should just fill out the paperwork for a reasonable accommodation - which they will not get if they refuse to say anything more than “I have a disability and I can’t file”. At a minimum, they have to suggest an accommodation.
A work context makes more sense. I would say it’s incumbent on the employee to clarify what accommodations are needed. It wasn’t easy for me to disclose that I have PTSD because of the stigma of mental illness, but I did it, and I documented it, and requested something specific, which I was granted because it’s not like I go around all the time looking for excuses to not do my work. I just needed help in that instance. And in a less formal way I’ve occasionally requested permission to work at home to avoid any PTSD triggers at work, or even so I can freaking focus, because having an open office plan with ADHD is just miserable sometimes.
If that’s a request for “special consideration,” sure. If my employers would rather I do a shitty job than let me take a day or two from home to get a big project done, I think they would tell me. One of the reasons this job is such a good fit for me is they are more flexible than a standard work environment. And because they’ve been flexible I am able to make them a million dollars a year.
As for myself, I usually just say I have mental health limitations and leave it at that. I have recurrent Major Depression, Anxiety OS, PTSD and ADHD and any one of these things by themselves would be challenging, but dealing with them all, and having all these comorbidities constantly interact, requires a lot of effort just to stay on top of the basics.
Yes I am trying to represent the mental health side of disability here because there are a lot of things that limit activity and they aren’t all things you can see.
My uncle had it much worse. He was schizoaffective and was on disability, and some people in my family scoffed at him when he described himself as disabled. They called him lazy because he struggled to do his own laundry and couldn’t hold down a job, and I mean this guy spent his evenings arguing with ghostly apparitions and writing bizarre letters to the shadow organizations he believed were trying to kill him. The year he died he went into the hospital eight times in one summer. Some people just refuse to understand that not all disabilities are physical.
Or otherwise visible, even if they’re ‘strictly’ physical.
This is a quick browse for those interested in the subject (Note: PDF):
NB: mental illness definitely falls into this category.
There’s also an advocacy organization dedicated to the promotion of awareness of ‘invisible disabilities:’
Because it is a rather substantial problem.
No. ‘Disabled’ definitely does not only mean ‘uses a wheelchair’ (as @BigT mentioned above).
But context really is everything in terms of the OP: employment, housing, and a number of things that may be covered by ADA, Fair Housing, EEOC, etc., is very different from a casual/social setting.
Right. But even that conveys more useful information than simply saying “I am disabled”. In the other thread I cited, I did not know if the poster liked Alexa because they had no legs, or because their crushing depression made them unable to get out of their chair.
And I regularly encounter people who describe themselves as disabled, but have not been described as such by any doctor or entity. Self characterization as disabled is little more useful (or maybe less useful) than simply saying, “I don’t wanna.”
Now, see, herein lies the problem. I think in the last decade or so the term “disability” has become broadened to the point of absurdity. We’ve gotten to the point where we’re expected to see both of those sets of circumstances as equivalent. And yet I can’t. Yes, a person with crushing depression has feelings - really really big feelings. But people have agency and are able to make choices that aren’t aligned with their feelings. A person without legs can’t set aside their feelings and thoughts and stand up to switch on the lights - feelings and thoughts aren’t what’s keeping them from standing up.
I heard of an article about how laziness doesn’t exist, that people face barriers that other people don’t see. I was immediately skeptical and googled “laziness does so exist” and found a different article, “Does Laziness Exist?” (Does laziness exist? – Hawks and Handsaws) that talks about people seeing the world through “low-agency goggles” - in other words people see their barriers as bigger and more insurmountable than they really are. I think there may be elements of that with some of the more ambiguous disabilities.
I’ve never suffered from depression, but from what I understand, when someone is having a mindstorm, they need more than just a cane to be able to walk across the room.
I agree that attitude is important…I am willing to walk despite the pain and let me tell you that the pain can get so intense that sometimes I’m just stuck because I simply cannot take another step without resting and getting over the pain wave. I can understand why other folks might not be willing to do what I do because it just fucking hurts every single minute of every single day.
Perhaps something different in my brain allows me to think this is OK. Perhaps something different in someone else’s brain says “Oh, hell no!” We are both suffering from a disability, the only difference is that you can see my struggle but you can’t see how hard the person with an invisible disability is struggling.
Please try to be kind. It really helps the world a lot.
Presumably you get something out of being able to walk and do things for yourself. I believe that there are people who would rather lie back and be pampered - and now have a way to get that.
Here’s a concrete example that I think illustrates that difference in mindset. I’ve had people I worked with that gave me a hard time because I’m careful when using ladders. I told them that I wanted to avoid a serious injury that could leave me unable to walk. Independently of each other, they said something like, “But I’d be set for life!”
Some people get something out of being able to do things for themselves - and other people would like to be relieved of that burden.
If somebody actually tells you, “I’m disabled,” it’s vastly more likely that they’re referring to something physical. There are very, very few types of physical disabilities that prevent a person from saying “I’m disabled,” but there are several types of mental and cognitive disabilities that would prevent that.
I’m really in disagreement with you and I’m having problems putting it into words because I keep hitting the “lazy” wall.
Just because someone doesn’t want to be in pain all the time doesn’t mean they are lazy or don’t want to do things. They just fucking hurt too much to think about dealing with it. Mental issues aren’t seen, but hurt just as much.
And…I’m guessing that you have never had an injury or surgery that left you required to sit around and depend on other people for a long period of time. Its something like being under lock-down or stay at home orders. Not only is it as boring as can be, you can’t even pass the time pampering yourself because you can’t move.
Unless you have a whole lot of money and can pay someone to be at your side 24/7, you will end up waiting for someone to come and help you go to the bathroom or eat or get a shower or even just smooth the wrinkles out of your clothes.
Depending on other people to do things like that gets really old really fast.
If that’s how you feel about it, you’re not the sort of person I had in mind during that post. The people who would have seen a serious accident as a potential boon were dysfunctional in other ways.
I’m not sure why the views of dysfunctional people who imagine disability as being waited-on hand and foot have anything to do with the situation of people with actual disabilities.
I can’t help but think that if those same people were suddenly unable to do the things they enjoyed any more, and even unable to do basic living tasks they took for granted without a painful struggle, they’d probably have a bit of an attitude adjustment.
We tend to disproportionately be exposed to feel good stories about disabled people who have ‘beaten the odds’- those who ran marathons after being paralysed and the Stephen Hawkings of the world. That leads many people to assume that disabled people are somehow failing for not being that miracle person, and if they don’t fight their way through and ‘overcome’ their disability, well, they’re just not trying hard enough. It’s not a realistic view.
It comes back to the motivation of people to say “I’m disabled”. Other posters have brought up examples of people who’ve used an unspecified “disability” to get out of responsibilities they didn’t want - think of the woman in a6ka97’s post who asked for a job doing mixing and then said she couldn’t mix, or the people in doreen’s post who just flatly said they couldn’t file. My point is, some - by no means all - people who identify as “disabled” get something out of it.
It’s also hard not to be skeptical in some cases about whether there is a disability at all. Someone I know has never held a job for more than a few months at a time - he tends to sabotage himself by getting in arguments with the boss, or telling N-word jokes at work, or deliberately calling people by their non-preferred pronouns. The last I talked to him, he told me he was planning on “going on disability”. He wasn’t real clear on what “disability” was keeping him from behaving himself on the job.
And there are people who want to expand - and thus dilute - the term even further. A professor at Fordham published a paper in The Georgetown Law Journal in 2018 arguing that being black is a disability. (Blackness as Disability? by Kimani Paul-Emile)
My point in all this is, it’s getting harder and harder to take people seriously when they use that word. And that hurts people with actual disabilities.
You’d be surprised - my sister has allegedly been disabled for about the past 15 years. The other siblings and I don’t know what the nature of the disability is. We only know that she claims to be disabled because she and my mother use it as an excuse for everything she does that gets people mad*.But there’s nothing that she enjoyed that she can’t do - pre-disability she didn’t drive and didn’t really go restaurants or movies or parties or on vacations. Mostly what she did after work was read and watch TV - which is exactly what she does now. If she ended up needing a walker or a wheelchair , as long as she could use the toilet and bathe by herself ( and some people who use wheelchairs can), her life would be changed very little from her pre-disability life.
- For example, she didn’t show up to my daughter’s wedding - and didn’t tell my daughter or even me that she wasn’t coming. Even though she texted me in the morning of the day she was supposed to arrive about what her husband should wear to a pre-wedding dinner. Supposedly it was all due to her alleged disability - but while I can easily see a disability keeping her from attending, I don’t know of one that prevented her from adding " I can’t make it to the wedding" to the text exchange we had.