So what is it to be disabled?

Are attitudes getting worse or are people just starting to voice their confusion about what it means to be disabled?

I wonder when so many people are being challenged over there apparent lack of disability whether it is that people have different definitions of disabled to the government and that they are just asking the question because they do not see an obvious problem as they expected to.

I saw this survey by Scope http://www.scope.org.uk/news/latest-attitudes-survey where so many people

·         65% of disabled people thought others did not believe that they were disabled (May 2011: 58%)

·         73% of disabled people said they felt others presumed they did not work (May 2011: 50%)

Are challenged by other peoples’ assumptions about what it is to be disabled.

So what is the definition:

“people who have, or had in the past, a wide range of impairments and long-term health conditions”. http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/inclusive-communications/your-audience/disability-definitions.php

or

A (or multiple) long-term health problem or disability that substantially limits a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/ih2003-2004/IH128userguide.pdf Box 1 definitions, page 3

Which tells you precisely nothing as far as I can see. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability#Theory ) goes into great length about the different models of what makes you disabled however any clear definition is completely lacking and realistically that is exactly what I would expect.

 No clear definition. However I fear the world out there requires a definition and each person will have their own and I guess this is why so many people get questioned.

Look at me for instance. I am disabled, I don’t like that I am and much prefer to say that I don’t feel disabled. However I have not been capable of work for several years and am still not in a position to hold down a job. I simply cannot handle the people aspect of work yet and as such I cannot avoid the fact that by the governments’ standards I am disabled.

That the world in general demands proof of this is no surprise to me. I can walk, talk, see, hear and generally appear perfectly normal. I am well educated and I can even be articulate at times; so to all intents and purposes I seem fine, why would they think that I am disabled? People who see me for a brief time don’t understand that what they are seeing is not all the time, in fact only a tiny proportion.

For me it comes down to this, what people cannot see and there is not test for they just cannot get their heads around as actually existing. They have no experience of it and therefore find it extremely difficult to hold it in their heads that these things can happen; particularly when the country is being encouraged to see people with disabilities in a very one dimensional light with very strict stereotypes’ that are not representative of the majority of people with disabilities.

For instance this is a report from the guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/05/holly-ferrie-case-study At 24, Holly Ferrie has to cope with disruption to her life on a scale few of her age could recognise. A complex and as yet not fully diagnosed arthritis-related condition causes her almost constant pain in her legs and feet. On occasions, her legs are seized by agonising spasms.

Yet Ferrie fears she doesn't seem disabled enough. People who don't know her, she says, find it hard to comprehend the severity of a condition that afflicts someone so young and is not immediately obvious. "They either get very confused or think I'm faking, or say, 'I hope the injury gets better soon', things like that," she said. "I've lost some friends over it. Pain is invisible and hard for people to understand."

Further down it is pointed out that she has a well paid job as a web developer but she is disabled.

The fact is that people just don’t get what it is to be disabled or what it can mean for your life. They see one thing ‘benefit scrounger, never had a job, don’t want one, won’t get one’ or something very similar to that and therefore react badly.

Most people have no real idea how many people, who are disabled, are working and the reality is that those who do qualify are more than likely to keep it very quiet unless for obvious reasons they can’t. As a population we are just not going to know how many people are in that bracket.

That so much of the coverage in the press and by government comment is so derisive is inciting the general population to anger and further to proactive abuse.

In May the poll found that half of the disabled people asked experienced discrimination on a daily or weekly basis - and more than a third felt that public attitudes towards them have got worse over the past year.

Four months later, the survey suggests things have got worse.

·         47% said people’s attitudes towards them have got worse over the past year (May 2011: 37%)

·         66% of disabled people say that they have experienced aggression, hostility or name calling (May 2011: 41%)

Almost half (46%) of the disabled people questioned said they experience discrimination on either a daily or weekly basis – a slight drop on the previous survey, but this remains alarmingly high (May 2011: 50%)

This survey strongly suggests that people with disabilities are becoming targets (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/05/benefit-cuts-fuelling-abuse-disabled-people) a situation that needs to be adressed. -One or two words of warning about these figures it was voluntary poll and it is more likely that people who have had problems are more likely to comment than those who have not so it is likely that the amount reported is artificially high.-

Open discussion is something to be welcomed abuse definitely not and it seems that this is what people are getting.

So for a lot of people, to be disabled means to be scared people will not believe that they have a life limiting problem, to suffer abuse from an unsympathetic public and to have to prove yourself every step of the way. A situation that is not conducive to recovery and integration into society.