06-01-2013, 07:51 PM
I've been following this thread since it started and it has certainly thrown up a lot of fascinating points for discussion. I wanted to say something about the several references to the term "disabled" and how some people don't have a problem with it.
I worked as a care worker for a few years with people with "learning disabilities", at the time "disabilities" was deemed to be the politically correct terminology but afterwards it got changed to people with "learning difficulties" and it may have even changed since but I'm not sure. But either way these people are still somewhat marginalised by society because of labels that are made up by people who surely have not encountered such people in their lives.
In some ways after I started working with these people I looked upon myself before that point as having the learning disability because I learnt so much from them, and why had I never learnt these things before.
How refreshingly wonderful it is to be with people who tell the truth and don't try and deceive like the rest of us do. When people ask you "how are you today?" the majority of us give the polite answer and try not to offend. When I used to ask that question of the people that I was working with I would sometimes be told to "go to hell and fuck yourself" and I knew where things stood. It was ok because the days when I would get a positive response and a big hug; I knew that it was genuine and honest. I wish I could be like that.
My Dad had cerebral palsy and was always termed as severely disabled, yet I have a scrap book full of newspaper articles about him that his parents made as he was growing up. So many stories written about this amazing "disabled" boy who went on to achieve things way beyond the grasp of abled people. I never had newspaper articles written about me and neither have the vast majority of us probably because we are just ordinary.
Everyone I have ever met who were so called disabled have an abundance of other qualities which are rarely taken into account, qualities that make them more able than the rest of us. It seems that when people are labeled mentally ill they have a tendency to use it as an excuse or reason to justify certain behaviours, although saying this I don't mean the people who have a genuine chemical imbalance in the brain which exhibits itself as psychosis or clinical depression. But a very small percentage of people in mental health services have that chemical imbalance, the majority have psychological disorders.
So in getting back to original question of the label of mental illness I suppose in light of what I've said I would rather be called "disabled" but that's more due to the fact that most of my heroes in life are classed as "disabled" They should change the term to "alternatively abled in ways that most of us could never comprehend."
I worked as a care worker for a few years with people with "learning disabilities", at the time "disabilities" was deemed to be the politically correct terminology but afterwards it got changed to people with "learning difficulties" and it may have even changed since but I'm not sure. But either way these people are still somewhat marginalised by society because of labels that are made up by people who surely have not encountered such people in their lives.
In some ways after I started working with these people I looked upon myself before that point as having the learning disability because I learnt so much from them, and why had I never learnt these things before.
How refreshingly wonderful it is to be with people who tell the truth and don't try and deceive like the rest of us do. When people ask you "how are you today?" the majority of us give the polite answer and try not to offend. When I used to ask that question of the people that I was working with I would sometimes be told to "go to hell and fuck yourself" and I knew where things stood. It was ok because the days when I would get a positive response and a big hug; I knew that it was genuine and honest. I wish I could be like that.
My Dad had cerebral palsy and was always termed as severely disabled, yet I have a scrap book full of newspaper articles about him that his parents made as he was growing up. So many stories written about this amazing "disabled" boy who went on to achieve things way beyond the grasp of abled people. I never had newspaper articles written about me and neither have the vast majority of us probably because we are just ordinary.
Everyone I have ever met who were so called disabled have an abundance of other qualities which are rarely taken into account, qualities that make them more able than the rest of us. It seems that when people are labeled mentally ill they have a tendency to use it as an excuse or reason to justify certain behaviours, although saying this I don't mean the people who have a genuine chemical imbalance in the brain which exhibits itself as psychosis or clinical depression. But a very small percentage of people in mental health services have that chemical imbalance, the majority have psychological disorders.
So in getting back to original question of the label of mental illness I suppose in light of what I've said I would rather be called "disabled" but that's more due to the fact that most of my heroes in life are classed as "disabled" They should change the term to "alternatively abled in ways that most of us could never comprehend."
wae aye man ye radgie