cookinguptales:

yo it’s the middle of the night and I’m all wrung out, which means it’s a perfect time for a tumblr post about disability!

I’m here today to talk about euphemistic language. I’m sure any person with a disability knows the way able-bodied people like to talk around our disabilities. Really acknowledging a disability (i.e A LACK OF ABILITY) makes a lot of AB people really uncomfortable. I think a lot of that is the side effect of some well-meaning ideas… Children are often taught that everyone is the same down deep, and to think anything different is discriminatory. And sure, don’t be a dick about peoples’ differences. But refusing to even acknowledge them really only hurts the people who aren’t at the top of the power/visibility hierarchy. People are trained to interpret “we’re all the same” as “we are all like (or all should be like) those in power”. By downplaying differences, the actual effect is steamrolling cultural differences and disavowing individualized needs.

Let me break this down. Here are some stock phrases pertaining to disability that I’m sure a lot of you have heard. “Disabled people are just like you.” “They’re not disabled, they’re differently abled.” “Disabled people can do anything you can do. They can do anything they put their minds to.” Etc. Etc. You get the picture. You’ve seen the Very Special Episodes.

Now, that’s all patently false. Disabled people are not just like able-bodied people. They are disabled. They have different abilities and different needs. They do not automatically have “different” abilities. When a person loses the ability to walk, they don’t automatically gain the ability to teleport or something. It’s not a trade-in scenario. They cannot all do anything you can do. Sometimes, with effort, pain, and accommodations, they can achieve the same end result that you do. Sometimes they can even do better. But they can’t do them the way you can and often can’t do them at all. A person with a mobility disability can’t walk like you do. A person with a vision disability can’t see like you do. A person with a hearing disability can’t hear like you do. Etc. They can sometimes make up for that — but they cannot, by definition, do the things able-bodied people can do. Which is not some unspeakable evil; just one of life’s facts.

So what’s the big deal, you may be thinking. What’s wrong with euphemistic language? You’re just being nice. No. You really aren’t. You are disavowing their disability. That’s not something that PWD have the luxury to do. You can walk into a shop and think “wow, PWD can do anything I can do!” while someone with a mobility disability is still stuck at the entrance below a flight of stairs. You can think “PWD can do anything they put their minds to!” as you get a basic entry-level job that has requirements that PWD cannot, or are not allowed to, fulfill. (See: Cashier work, customer service, etc.) When you say that PWD can do anything an AB person can do, you are ignoring their disabilities, their struggles, and the accommodations they need to succeed.

Okay, you say. Social model of disability. We’ll just make the world accessible, all barriers will be removed, PWD will be just like me! No. We will never be like you. We have been running a mile to reach the starting line you’re waiting (im)patiently at. We have been going on experimental medications, doing physical/mental/speech/etc. therapies, training our bodies to use assistive devices. We’ve been running ourselves into the ground. And sometimes we’ll still never reach that starting line. Sometimes we’ll be too sick or too tired and there’s nothing accommodations can do to change that. When your own body is trying to kill you, there’s only so much a wheelchair can do. And if we never reach that starting line, we never reach the finish line that’s been set out for us as “normal”.

Because when we’re told things from birth, things like “you can do anything the other kids can do!” or “the only thing stopping you is your attitude!”, we internalize that. The secondary message to all those euphemisms is “you can be like anyone else — so why the hell aren’t you?” It isn’t a message of hope to PWD. It’s an impossible standard. “Why can’t I just get through college?” we think, ignoring the way that we stagger from hospital visit to hospital visit. “Everyone else does. I can be like everyone else. I can do anything they can do! So it must be that I’m not trying hard enough. I’m not working hard enough. I don’t hurt enough. I need to do more.”

PWD aren’t like AB people because they have to work two, three, a hundred times harder to reach the same point that AB people do. They have more financial challenges. More mental health challenges. They have to deal with pain, exhaustion, lack of accommodations, ableism, political institutions that want them dead. When you say “PWD can do anything!” you’re ignoring all the reasons they can’t. You’re telling them they have no reason not to achieve the same things as everyone else. You feed into the cultural idea that disability is just an excuse, just a hurdle that needs to be cleared in order for them to take place in “normal” society. It makes “overcoming” their disability a moral imperative. Because “we’re all the same” means they’re just like you. Or they should be. Because being AB is the cultural norm we default to.

Here’s what PWD actually need to hear:

“You’re not just like me. You face challenges I’ll never be able to comprehend. Holding you to the same standard as me as cruel. You may not be able to do everything (hell, who can?) but what you can do is good enough. You don’t need to earn your place in this world. Just living in it is enough. You’re not a drain if you need extra resources. You’re not a drain if you can’t create, produce, labor at the same rate as AB people. There are things you can’t do, and that’s okay. You don’t have to pretend to be AB. You don’t have to work yourself to the bone so you can be like the rest of us. You don’t have to kill yourself when you’re not. And I will fight with you so all of the roadblocks you have to face are as small as we can get them, so even if you can’t do everything, you can do more. I will fight for you when you’re too sick to do it yourself, because you are worth fighting for even when you cannot achieve.”

Because newsflash, assholes. None of us can do anything. None of us can do everything. No one’s gonna look at an AB person and say “Usain Bolt can run 45 km/h. You can do anything. You should aspire to run 45 km/h.” Because that’s stupid! Just because some people can do something, that doesn’t mean everyone can, and no amount of euphemistic language can change that! The only difference in this scenario is where we draw the lines between amazing, normal, and unacceptable. For some PWD, getting out of bed is amazing. It’s Usain Bolt levels of achievement. Don’t downgrade that to normal just because it’s normal for the majority in power. We’re not all the same. Encouraging people with disabilities to hit the same benchmarks as AB people (or exceptional PWD) is sometimes like encouraging (and expecting) some random dude to line up with Usain Bolt. And then you get surprised when we destroy ourselves trying to do it.

Here’s the bottom line. This idea that PWD are just like you? It hurts us. It makes us feel like we’re failing if we aren’t. It makes us feel like we aren’t enough if we aren’t. When we can’t do what you can, no matter how hard we try. No matter how much we hurt ourselves. When you say “all humans are the same, really”, you’re actually setting normality where you are. And for some of us, that’s a bar we’ll never reach. Some of us, frankly speaking, probably shouldn’t try. (Yes, it is okay not to even try to attain AB levels of achievement. Don’t hurt yourself for a fool’s errand. You can try if you want to (and I’m rooting for you to succeed) but don’t feel that you’re lacking if you don’t.) Ableism is saying that disabled people are only worthwhile if they can eventually do the same things able-bodied people can. Truly being an advocate for the disabled means being an advocate for them even when they’re fucking disabled. Don’t talk around our disabilities; that just means you’re not helping us live with them. Don’t treat a lack of ability like something too shameful to talk about, because all that does is – you guessed it – inspire shame.

For many people who are disabled, the best thing they can learn isn’t “you can do anything”. It’s “learn your individualized limits and respect them; it’s okay to have them”. Listen to your body, not to society’s ideas of what you should or should not be able to do. Push yourself, but not to the point of breaking. When someone gets nervous and tries not to talk about your disability, talk about it as loudly as you want. Demand accommodations. Talk freely about your life as it is, not as the inspiration porn people expect. Make them see you as you are. Because we’re not all the same. And that’s okay.

It hurts to admit that you can’t do something everyone says you can do. But there’s a special strength in self-knowledge. Love yourself enough to forgive yourself for the abilities you do not have. You do not need them to be whole.