Head-over-Wheels

When you see or meet someone who has a disability, if his or her disability isn’t the first thing you notice about him or her it is likely in the top five. That doesn’t make you prejudiced or insensitive. Our eyes note distinctive markers and our memories organize information by them. I, for one, have too much life to live to be truly bothered by your extra interest, even when it stretches to staring.

When you see someone who has a disability, you may wonder what disability he or she has and/or how he or she came to be disabled. This does not make you a bad person. Trust me. We all wonder.

But if you’re over the age of ten, please don’t approach a stranger and ask these questions or any derivitives of them.

If you’re thinking nobody really does that, you are wrong. Now some of the people who ask such questions are probably the same people who ask complete strangers when their (existent or nonexistent) babies are due and if they are breastfeeding them and give all sorts of unsoliscted advice, primarily in the form of horror stories.

There also seems to be a significant contingent among those who ask these questions that have no idea that these issues stretch beyond surface small talk and, if brought up in conversation by a stranger, are often offensive.

Most of the time, reluctance to share information about disabilities is not global. I, for example, have no problem sharing such information with people who already know me, even on a surface level. It’s definitely not a secret (at least for me). Somone might ask, I suppose, if it’s not a secret, why is it such a big deal?

Here’s the thing: we, who have disabilities, like to think we are so much more than a medical diagnosis. When you ask about our disabilities before even learning our names, you communicate otherwise. That makes sense, right? If not, the least you can do is blindly humor us on this point.

If you need another reason, there are at least two more.

First, personal medical information is just that–personal. We do not owe it to every stranger who is the least bit curious. I’m certainly not going to ask you how your last colonoscopy went!

Second, when we wait until you know us to share about our disabilities, we minimize the chances that you will make random mistaken assumptions about our abilities based on a disability diagnosis.

So please…

We know you’re curious about our obvious differences, but don’t ask questions about them until you have had a few other conversations with us. Thank you.

I once wrote  an essay about someone saying to me, “You look just like my sister. You have the same wheelchair.” (True story; I can’t make stuff like this up). In the essay, my thoughts on the afformentioned comment went something like this: “Oh, my bad. I must have put on my superhero tights instead of my skinny jeans this morning,” which would be hilarious and awesome if it worked that way. But the longer I have lived my life that just happens to include a physical disability, I’ve learned that the majority of the power to make me visible or invisible to you as a whole person lies with you.

In our interaction, in many cases, I’m right in front of you. I may even be talking perfectly clearly to a person next to me when you walk up to me. Even if I’m not talking, you can be certain I know what I need or want from you and/or from life.

But if you take one look at my wheelchair and decide the best approach is to talk around me, to question my companions about my abilities, my workout routine, my lunch order, etc., you tell me that none of it matters, because, whatever the answers, I’m invisible to you.

In that moment, the interaction will change. I will speak up. I (and my companions) will force you to see me–the person; not the wheelchair. I promise you, though, it will be a clipped interaction. Why?

Because in that moment, it doesn’t matter what I know about me–my functional skills, my academic and professional achievements, or my membership in a tightknit circle of family and friends. Regardless of all that, I feel invisible, if only for a moment. It’s a painful moment.

It’s also a preventable moment.

All you have to do is address each person you interact with (with a disability or without) directly and with respect.

If you have a question, ask it of the person it concerns. If you want to know what I can do or how I do something, ask me (maybe not in our first conversation, though). And if you need to know my lunch order, I’ve got that covered, but you can give the bill to the other person at my table if you want.

I know it can feel risky at times to speak directly to a person who has a disability when you don’t always know his or her capacity to answer or understand, but it is so important to begin there. When you do, you communicate to that person that, regardless of his or her capacity, you see and value him or her as a human being.

What do you have to lose by making the effort?