Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

catapult.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 88 posts

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#31

Post by simion314 »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #20
adam-seeliger wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do, but you will never change people.

People used to think murder and theft were OK before religion came along. Society is a tool to change people. People most certainly can be changed... maybe difficult for individuals but across generations a lot can happen.

Can you tell exactly what you mean, it sounds like you are referring to a specific religion, the logic contradiction is that humans always had religions, mass murder still happened where the killed people were from other group. Also remember how the US slave owners would use religion to show black people do not have souls.

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#32

Post by ianai »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #5

TLDR: "Hell is other people." I wish I had more to add. I don't. No one in my family is quadriplegic, but we all three have special needs . Special is the new retard. As the author so eloquently describes, so many people see that and only that and erase everything else about you.

My mom has psoriasis. It’s no disability and I’m not making any indication toward that here. I grew up with strangers treating my mom like a lepper. We would be asked if she was contagious. Simple interactions like paying for goods at the grocery store became awful confrontations. There’s exactly one correct way to treat everyone in the world and prejudicially is not it.

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#33

Post by inteleng »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #28
scarface74 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always remember, a disabled person see's themselves as disabled only in the eyes of the people with prejudices. I really hate these aphorisms. I have a mild disability - I have cerebral palsy that affects mostly my left hand and to minor degree my left foot. While I've done a lot of things that most people haven't done - run half marathons, was a part time fitness instructor for over a decade, etc., I know I'm inconv…

Sorry, if you found my statement an aphorism it's by no means intended to undermine the difficulties. Iam glad that you've been able to do many things which people without disabilities find difficult to do; my statement is many disabled people get denied an opportunity to do it because of prejudices & cognitive biases.

Abishek: totally unrelated to this story, just letting you know there's a typo on your business' homepage:

"Time is an illusion, we are it's magicians"

the apostrophe is unnecessary, as "its" is possessive. Best of luck with your company!

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#34

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

inteleng wrote: post #33
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, if you found my statement an aphorism it's by no means intended to undermine the difficulties. Iam glad that you've been able to do many things which people without disabilities find difficult to do; my statement is many disabled people get denied an opportunity to do it because of prejudices & cognitive biases.

Abishek: totally unrelated to this story, just letting you know there's a typo on your business' homepage: "Time is an illusion, we are it's magicians" the apostrophe is unnecessary, as "its" is possessive. Best of luck with your company!

Ah! thanks, much appreciated. I will get it fixed asap.

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#35

Post by noir_lord »

scarface74 wrote: post #21
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #14

The prejudices which a disabled person faces or their partner in this case are humongous. I'm a dwarf with limb deformities, as CEO of a startup I perform the role of at-least dozen able-bodied people of my age each day. Still, since people who I haven't met personally don't know I'm a dwarf expect a 6ft Suite clad man at the business meeting; at the meeting I can see the sense of disappointment when they see me init…

Always remember, a disabled person see's themselves as disabled only in the eyes of the people with prejudices. I really hate these aphorisms. I have a mild disability - I have cerebral palsy that affects mostly my left hand and to minor degree my left foot. While I've done a lot of things that most people haven't done - run half marathons, was a part time fitness instructor for over a decade, etc., I know I'm inconv…

Agreed I have syringomyelia which causes intense pain and on a bad day I limp (imagine walking with your leg encased in water close to boiling point).

On a good day you can't tell.

I still cycle and swim and am in better than average physical shape for 37 but as soon as I tell someone it all becomes about my (mild) disability.

The drugs work and I live a normal life but they come with significant side effects.

Some of them are funny (they use gabapentin off label to treat premature ejaculation - so I had to explain that one to my GF early on), they also make me wooly mentally, it's not a bad feeling but I'm a bit of a space cadet for a while after they kick in.

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#36

Post by adrianN »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #25
adrianN wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. I'm pretty sure murder and theft are frowned upon even in groups of monkeys.

Find a citation yourself if it bothers you. Or you know, try to understand what im saying rather than nitpicking, pick another example like widespread racism and genocide which was once common and now isnt. Also read this https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e...

If you claim something like "society is a tool to change people" you should provide some argument to convince people. Since this is just an Internet forum, it doesn't have to be a double blind study, but claiming that murder was okay before religion just seems wrong to me. I could equally claim that society is just a natural result of people living together and being forced to share resources and does exactly nothing to change human nature, in fact, it is just an expression of human nature.

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#37

Post by carlmr »

sgentle wrote: post #16

I feel like there's this weird preciousness fetish that comes up around hardship. "Oh, you poor thing! Life must be so difficult and interesting for you. Please, tell me about your struggles, preferably in 15-20 minutes while alternating personal anecdotes with general observations about society." I see this in how we think about disability, but also poorer countries, where the gold standard is the noble African trib…

>poorer countries, where the gold standard is the noble African tribeswoman, carrying water for her family, living in a hut, eating soup made of sticks or whatever. Shame she has a cellphone and wears a t-shirt. It kinda ruins the magic.

I've traveled quite a bit in recent years, and there are quite a lot of fellow travelers who express something like this. Oh it's so sad that we can't see the REAL China anymore. Or something of the sort. Like other people are just their for your entertainment.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to have a time machine and visit ancient China, but there's a severe disconnect if you think people should continue living a certain way to fulfill your stereotypes.

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#38

Post by johnsonjo »

hammock wrote: post #22
urahara wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. This is a problem of lack of imagination and empathy. How do you think it can be fixed in mass? I think we need mechanisms that make people understand experiences of disadvantaged groups. Like maybe some VR app showing their reality + some laws that those who deny other groups problems must use it.

>Like maybe some VR app showing their reality + some laws that those who deny other groups problems must use it. Texas has this for abortions. The law requires that a woman get a sonogram from the doctor who will be performing the procedure at least 24 hours beforehand, during which the doctor must display sonogram images and make the heartbeat audible to the mother. It's controversial.

I think you made a nice addition to this discussion, but I think your comment possibly would have gotten less downvotes had you quoted the line before that one in the gp.

> I think we need mechanisms that make people understand experiences of disadvantaged groups.

Where the disadvantaged group you mention is the baby. I only say that it might help, because the part you quoted about VR seems almost completely unrelated to sonograms and abortions, but had you quoted the line before it then it would in my opinion be more closely related.

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#39

Post by taneq »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #5

TLDR: "Hell is other people." I wish I had more to add. I don't. No one in my family is quadriplegic, but we all three have special needs . Special is the new retard. As the author so eloquently describes, so many people see that and only that and erase everything else about you.

> Special is the new retard.

And so shall it ever be. While you hold disdain for the thing itself, no word that you use for it will ever be acceptable for long.

See 'euphemism treadmill' at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Evolution

Re: My Quadriplegic Husband and Me

#40

Post by simonh »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #14

The prejudices which a disabled person faces or their partner in this case are humongous. I'm a dwarf with limb deformities, as CEO of a startup I perform the role of at-least dozen able-bodied people of my age each day. Still, since people who I haven't met personally don't know I'm a dwarf expect a 6ft Suite clad man at the business meeting; at the meeting I can see the sense of disappointment when they see me init…

My first boss was a dwarf. She was a force of nature, one of the most powerful personalities I've ever come across. We didn't always see eye to eye, but she ended up running the department and deservedly so.
Post reply on HN