disability

Reflection: Disability 1

A Reflection of Disability

Josh Trask

University of Colorado Denver

18 April 2011


Reflection: Disability

Many people of this world do not consciously do it, but they discriminate against those who are

either mentally or physically handicapped nearly every time they are confronted with it. They have

feelings of guilt and sadness when they are exposed to disabled people. These people will look the

other way and pretend not to notice or stare at the person and take upon themselves a look of pity. Most

everyone is guilty of this. It is a solid reminder of our own mortality and scares most people. In this

reflection, I want to converse my personal experience of being disabled for over a year and the

hardships and benefits of this experience. Though I am not disabled for life, I was able to grasp a good

understanding of what a person who is fully disabled has suffered, but also learned from their lifestyle

they have had to adapt to.

First off, what is disabled and what is considered “normal”? There is a dominant ideology of

what is normal. That is, a fully functioning body- use of arms and legs, muscle retention, usage of

fingers, etc, and also a fully functioning brain- memory ability, cognizant thought processing, problem

solving skills, etc. These “normal” bodily and mental functions/usages are applicable to most of the

people out there, hence dominant ideology, but when we see others who were not as fortunate as us to

have these abilities, we can tend to stare or look away, causing a sense of tension and stress. People

who have disabilities and aware of them tend to try to hide them the best they can in order to not be

shunned by others and treated unlike an equal. I was finally able to fully understand this after my senior

year of high school,

In November of 2005, senior year, I got in a terrible bicycle accident. I was not wearing a

helmet when I hit the curb with my front tire and went over the handlebars, landing directly on my face

on the concrete. I was rushed to Intensive Care at Swedish Medical Hospital and stayed there for a

week, going in and out of surgeries and my brain activity being monitored. I almost died as my brain

had bleeding into the right ventricle of the frontal lobe. Luckily, I survived to tell the tale. For over a


year and a half I was not able to function “normally”. I could not remember what happened three

seconds ago, I could not talk correctly, and I was not able to problem solve like I can under normal

conditions. The damage was very apparent, both mentally and physically. I was not able to speak

correctly and my face was basically a giant scab from when I made contact with the ground going

about 30 miles per hour. My grades for the semester were frozen by my teachers and returning to

school seemed useless as I could not retain any information. I am fortunate enough that I have gotten

much better since, returning to the person I was before the accident.

The point I am making is that I was disabled for a period of time and experienced what others

who are disabled experience on a daily basis. It was not easy to say the least. What others do not realize

is that even though they are only trying to be kind and helpful towards the handicapped/impaired, they

are only making it uncomfortable for the person. I remember people at school going out of their way to

open doors for me, get my assignments for me, buy me lunch, try to be friends with me even though

they have never spoken to me before the incident, teachers grading my work much differently than the

other students (the following semester), along with many other acts of “kindness”. What they did not

understand was, as nice as it was of them to be so thoughtful, it was awkward for me and made me feel

worthless and like I was a burden. I did not want people to treat me any other way than how they were

treating me before. It felt wrong and brought many emotions that we talked about in our lecture:

awkwardness, stress, and evoking pity and guilt. I did not want others to pity me as I felt that was the

only reason that they would do what the did for me. It made me feel like less of a human being and

more of an object that others looked down upon. Whether or not that is what they were thinking, I do

not know, but that is the way I was thinking of it at the time. I will never forget that and how it made

me feel as less of a person.

This has given me a different perspective on those who are disabled in any way. I am more than

happy to aid them however they need, but only if they want me to because I know how it feels if people


go out of their way to do so, and there are only two words for it: awkward and dehumanizing. Being

able to relate to both physically and mentally disabled persons from this accident has benefited me in

the long run as I do not look at them with pity/guilt like I would subconsciously before, but with

understanding. Not all is bad about being disabled somehow.

There is a ton of benefits from it. One example is your appreciation for life. I saw how that

could have been my last day on this planet and it made me look at life as something to cherish and

embrace. It made me look past the small inconveniences that would drag me down before and hold

onto the goodness in life. As Leslie said in class, “[disabled persons] do not sweat the petty things in

life, and that is something special that I wish more people could do with their lives. They are able to

focus on what is important and develop a good perspective on life. It is so freeing.” I completely agree

with her. Many of those born with some kind of handicap do not let the setbacks take over their

consciousness, but rather use it to see what is beautiful in this world. Yes, they are faced with their

disability every day, but many of them will not let this drag them down. They try harder to be a good

person and strive to become integrated into society in ways that are not so dehumanizing.

My handicap was not handled correctly when I worked for a construction company in the

summer of 2006. I did not want to be given special treatment, but I did not want to be treated like

nothing happened either. Fellow co-workers at the company would vocally communicate long lists of

what needed to be done at jobs. The problem was I had extreme short term memory loss at the time,

especially that which was verbally translated to me. When I was unable to remember everything that

my superiors told me to do they would badger me, calling me names like “stupid”, “moron”, and

“retarded”. The latter of those comments are what hurt the most. It changed my language usage. I,

along with many people of my generation, have used the word “retarded” in so many contexts that it

was not proper such as in the use of something that we did not care for or thought was irrelevant or not

wise. My accident changed my view of the word, showing me how discriminatory and crude the word


is. I see people who use the word as an every day phrase I look down upon them, almost with pity,

asking myself how these people could be so ignorant to the meaning of the word and the damage it can

cause to others.

There are different levels of disability/impairment/handicap. There are some who are like how I

was, unable to comprehend what is around them but can understand that they are at a slight

disadvantage in this world. This applies to hearing impaired persons. Some of them are able to function

normally by adapting to reading lips and then speaking or using sign language to communicate. There

are some to the other extreme where there is no collection of these thoughts in their mind, they live in

their own world. There are some blind individuals who were able to teach themselves how to work

amongst the general population without anyone even suspecting their impairment Most fall in between

these extremes though. These people can become very offended by the simplicity of our language and

offerings to them, as if we are looking down upon them. It is not the intent of most people, but this

happens multiple times on a daily basis to these people. It can bring strong feelings of insecurity and

depression on them. I do understand this as I felt, as I stated before, worthless and like a burden when

people did this.

Another good life example of mine with the disabled goes back to when I was only eight years

old. My brother and I started working at a horse ranch shoveling manure. The son of the owners, Doug,

was kicked in the head by a horse when he was 16 and still to this day has the maturity of a 16 year old

and the brain function of someone under the age of ten. He is 39 now. The damage he endured also

caused him to not be able to walk properly. His mobility is slow and drawn out and socially awkward.

As we worked at this ranch, my brother and I became his best friends. We would go out to dinner, to

movies, play video games, go bowling, etc. We treated him just like one of the guys and he loved that

because that is all he ever wanted to be. We would not be overly nice, but just treat him like a human

being. This is what made Doug happy.


I experienced his tension with him a few times as we would walk into the arena and people

would come up to Doug and talk in that near condescending voice, slowed down, high pitched, and

sounding like there was a question mark on the end of every sentence. He would never say anything,

but I could see the pain in his body language and facial expressions. It made me uncomfortable at the

time as well because I was such a good friend of his and understood his personality. He was always a

jovial man, almost as if he was ignorant to the fact that he had suffered this brain trauma. He knew, but

he did not let this effect how he was going to live his life (other than having to live with his parents for

the rest of his days.) He would wake up early in the morning, take the horses out of their stalls, clean

them, brush off the horses, de-shoe/shoe them, treat them with love and affection, and then join in on

the activities happening throughout the ranch just like “normal”. He never lost his place in this world,

an honest person trying to get by, accepting the good and bad as it came. I applaud him for his courage

and strength in overcoming his handicap.

Experiences in my life have lead me to understand the life of a mentally and/or physically

handicapped person. I have a sense of pity still, but I try to not let that effect the way in which I interact

with them. I treat them as equals and I know from personal experience that is what they strive to be

treated like. I feel no discomfort in helping them when they need or ask for it. I am happy to do so. I try

my hardest in not acting any different with them. They are human beings and even if they have some

type of disability I will not focus on that but on how can I relate to them and what can I learn from

them. Disabled people can make some of the best friends a person could ask for. They are, for the most

part, kind-hearted, loving individuals who want to be treated with love and affection, but not overly so.

They want to be considered “normal” and not be discriminated against in an form. After 2005, my

entire outlook on life and those around me changed. It broke me down, but I became a stronger person

and learned much about life from it. I was able to understand from my year and a half experience what

that lifestyle would be like. I still am able to relate to them as I can sometimes have short term memory


loss. It is embarrassing, yet I am able to let it not effect who I am. This is the same mindset Doug has as

well as many other disabled people I know. I would not be able to understand the same way if I was not

put in that place with my accident. It was an incident that, at first, seemed to hinder who I was, but in

reality made me a stronger, more well rounded individual and I am thankful that I am able to

understand the barriers that come with such disabilities more than most people do in the world.


Work Cited

Allen, B. J. (2011). Difference Matters. (Second ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

disability

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