A more in-depth question...

[conuly]

Why do I see nothing wrong with saying "that's not true" about black/gay/foreign/other stereotypes, but feel bad when it comes to various disabilities, even the one I theoretically have? I'm not just shooting off the top of my head, everything I say is based on my near obsessive perusal of various writings, and unlike black/gay/foreign/other people I actually am mildly disabled*, but when it comes up I feel like I should apologise. Why is this?


*_{So mildly disabled that my parents couldn't get a diagnosis when I was younger. Nobody knew about AS back then, nor (I think) HFA, and as far as anybody was willing to admit I was just a smart girl who didn't talk much. And couldn't speak clearly, but of course I had those very crooked teeth. And couldn't tie my shoes, but of course I was a lefty. That's obviously also why my handwriting was the worst in the class. And I couldn't do my homework, but of course that wasn't a big deal, because I was just so smart! And, oh yeah, there's that thing where my hearing is really good but I still can't always understand what people are saying, yeah, that thing? Oh, that's not a real problem, thanks! Bad sense of direction? Yeah, lefty again? That's why? Gee, who knew? Trouble recognizing people? Everyone does that? Really? Because they all know my name... well, if you say so... And so on.}

Comments

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

I think it's the same reason I feel like I have to explain ADHD to people, and even I disbelieve when other folks say they have it (I've only met one person who exhibits the same symptoms I do, on an even grander scale-- the other cases are "mommy didn't want to deal with me or the fact that I don't like school.")

Our society is very much a blame society. "It's not me, it's the disease!" And everyone, everyone needs a disease or disability to blame their behavior on. This makes it even more difficult for those who are truly disabled.

I may be totally off, but is that it?

[conuly]

In part, definitely... I hate the feeling of being a whiner. But it goes deeper, in that I talk to people who are definitely more "on the spectrum" than I am, and I compare myself to them instead of focusing on me.

Also, I suspect that if I listed all my problems in one post, I'd come out sounding far more disabled than I am. The same is possibly true for many of the people I'm starting to know, that I think of them as just so much more autistic because I can't meet them in real life and see how their descriptions of various problems matches up to reality.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

That's true.

I've also met people who describe themselves poorly, because things seem perfectly normal to them that aren't. One of my very close friends is a manic depressive, and he thought it was perfectly normal to go into a raging fury for absolutely no reason (he got that sorted out quickly, but still says it surprises him that it doesn't happen to other people). I hadn't met a "real" one before him, and now I'm always startled to see the poor diagnoses (a lot of women who have hormonal mood swings get diagnosed as bi-polar-- do you know what's up with that?) that get done.

I hate sounding like a whiner too, you're not alone in that. Things sound much more severe online, when you can get inside a person's head. In real life a lot of symptoms seem much tamer, for some reason.