What do you think about being told you're disabled?
When I think about the word "disabled" it means something or someone doesn't function, like we're broken alarm clocks. Having an impairment seems like a more accurate way to describe our conditions, rather than being told that we're essentially useless. I know what I'm saying is an extreme perspective, but if you use language in the way it was meant to be used, or take it literally, then yes, by definition we are useless. I know I'm not useless, I've survived, I have thrived, I can use my limbs, I can function properly-but no, I guess that's not good enough for the powers that be.
Also, when you've been told you're disabled all your life, doesn't that just go to your head and make you think that you aren't capable, or do you do everything in your power to prove people wrong?
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I haven't really thought about it tbh. Someone did say "nice wheels" to me this afternoon, but I just smiled and kept my thoughts to myself!
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I prefer to say I have disabilities for the same reason
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An excellent question! I prefer to say I have long term ill health rather than say disabled. I think like so many other things, being defined by a word and/or being defined as *whatever* by other people who do not know you is always a problem, particularly when terms like 'disabled' or 'unemployed' and many other terms are hardly neutral, they carry often negative and political connotations as we see currently.
I am stricken with CFS/Fibro and at worst I just exist when my body is wracked with pain, I have IBS, migraine headaches, nausea and other awful things.
I try to look after the house, keep up a routine, play the guitar and I am trying to write a number of books. I can generally not commit to anything and haven't written for months due to deteriorated health and depression and making the tea and keeping the house clean.
I have to say I veer between extreme despair and occasional highs of feeling hopeful. I feel my life is **** and the financial struggles we already have do not help at all. But after all that, we live in a reasonably nice area, council house nothing special, and we manage as best we can.
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I don’t really like the word ‘disabled’ either. I tend to use the expression ‘health problems’ as looking at me people can’t see anything wrong a lot of the time. Most of the time they don’t enquire further (I hope!). If they ask me what’s wrong, I rarely go into details and just say ‘you don’t want to know!’. I think it’s intrusive for people to ask things like that tbh. I will only share details with those I feel comfortable with-or, of course, with the powers that be!
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Well, everybody is disabled - nobody's perfect.
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Language is a complicated medium, especially English and how the way that we use a word can change. I have tended to use the word disabled, as that is the common word which is used, when I've spoken to people about mental health, in particular my own over the last 25 years. Both mental health and disability had a really negative image back then but at the time of the 3012 Olympics I almost thought the negativity was well on the wane across the whole spectrum of protected characteristics.
In the last ten years enforced austerity seems to have broken tolerance and understanding and stoked hatred. I still believe that the majority of people aren't against the disabled community but get carried along with their peers.
As with being gay, I feel like saying disabled raises my visability and visability is key to ending discrimination because most people find it had to be negative against a group when they have colleagues, friends and family who are part of that community. It's also one of the few things by which which celebrities can be useful, being open about being gay or disabled.
I do try to use alternative language when I can. I'm a councillor and wrote my council's policy on public toilets and I always use the term accessible toilets. For me a disabled toilet is a false premise as the toilet isn't disabled. But when a term is the norm, like disabled, then it can be useful to use it and then challenge it and the beliefs of the people who are using it negatively. I definitely don't dislike it as much as "differently abled" or such terms as they seem even more patronising, at least to me.
I do agree with you JD about how the negativity in which the word "Disabled" is being used at the moment will put additional pressure on our community. Most of my mental health issues can be traced back to things which were instilled into me by repetition, most so when I was younger. I'm glad that when I was young we didn't have social media which seems to polarise and divide people . The hatred which can come out in threads is scary but if it goes unchallenged it becomes the norm.
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i dont mind being called disabled.
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disabled is ok because its true about me but i HATE being called a spastic. I have a left sided weakness and damaged voice so i sound a bit strange. A couple of times i have been called a spastic by people of very low intelligence.
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Teenagers shouted feckin' spastic at me recently. Sod all you can do about other people's hang ups.
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I hate the word spastic as well because I've been call one by everybody all my life.
There is a lot of terms that I don't like, like special needs and learning disabilities.
Some people think I have a learning disability, I don't know why because I don't.
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sorry I disagree with that (everybody’s disabled). Nobody’s perfect is a totally different thing and dosent define disabilities
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If people don't know me or anything about me, their opinion of me and my life is completely irrelevant. They literally don't know what they're on about.
In my experience offence is in the eye of the taker and it isn't helpful, so I don't take it. At all, ever. How could it possibly help me? That's worked very well for me, as has using a wheelchair all of the time for the last 35 years.
We could choose to get upset, I prefer to get on with trying to enjoy my life. They're only words after all. Worrying achieves nothing and isn't good for our health. The term disability has been used since the 16th century, when it described a completely different thing to what it often does now. But it's just a word and impairment (etc) are synonymous with it.
Some people are more able than I. As I am more able than others in certain ways, and than the fittest marathon runner. It's all relative in the end.
Good luck
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I didn't say they were the same thing.
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Terminology games are stupid and pointless. It's better to spend your energy and emotions on something that brings real benefit, I think.
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For me it feels much worse when people just seem to have no understanding of my problems even after I've explained them to them and for them to just continue treating me like there's nothing wrong with me and expecting me to be able to do this and that like a regular person which I can't.
It's like your disability or mental illness is just thrown back in your face.
Imagine you can't walk, you're in a wheelchair and people keep expecting you to get up and walk, even though you've already explained to them you can't. It's like they're denying you have a problem, they're basically saying there's nothing wrong with you, pretty offensive imo.
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SCOPE have started changing the wording in documents and assessments that generalise complaints (Health) to make it easier for the DWP to pigeonhole people or health conditions.
As we all know, what is good for some is not good for others, medically. The word "disabled is to be removed and instead the word "Neurodiversant" is to replace it, since, yes, we are disabled, but everyone is different, and I cannot do half the things that others with the same conditions I have, (and I have loads) cope very well.
Yes, as stated above in some posts, I have good days (or what I call good days) and bad days, (or what I call bad days)
But you have to think, who are we comparing this with?
An example:- I have both legs removed, and you have ADHD. We are both disabled. But it does not make us unemployable, but when a form states "Are you registered as disabled," and does not allow you to explain how, then the barriers for employment start.
This is extreme, but it does go on and does not end with "one word" being changed.
An example of that is the budget being earmarked for the care and treatment of disabled people. Look, at the wording carefully. Halfway down, it drops the Disabled bit, and states that getting "people" into work is our priority….
This is now about getting people off the Dole and long-term sick and back into work as well.
These are TWO separate issues that we don't have any control over. But if a budget is set aside for "disabled" people, then use the term disabled in its proper context and don't combine other groups into the same budget. People on the dole through inactivity or people who are long-term sick are "Not disabled" but do require help to get back into work, but not at our expense.
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Hi! Now imagine how much it would cost to carry out a propaganda campaign and educate schoolchildren in schools so that everyone would know how one disabled person differs from another.
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