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Am I Disabled?

aeon.co

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Re: Am I Disabled?

#51

Post by TheOperator »

Thorrez wrote: post #40
User23 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to an NFB[1] convention and ask them. [1] https://www.nfb.org/

I think if I were to do that, it would be considered rude. But this seems to be related to what the author is saying. How disabled is disabled enough? The author is autistic, but to most people she appears non-autistic, and she didn't even know herself until age 42, and people question whether she's disabled enough to be considered disabled.

You can be diagnosed from childhood and people will still question an Autism diagnosis if you can hold down a job. Which is why the correct answer to this question is always no unless accommodations are absolutely nessecary.

Re: Am I Disabled?

#52

Post by hansbo »

anodyne33 wrote: post #7

This came up for me a few years ago when I was filling out a job application. At the voluntary self disclosure stage it listed epilepsy among the list and it stopped me in my tracks. A few brain surgeries later and I'm no longer epileptic, but it did make me ask this exact question. For several years, my onset with in 2012 at age 36, I considered it more of a bummer and inconvenience and never thought about it any ot…

I also had complex partial seizures - borderline, I think, because I retained consciousness, but lost the ability to speak and understand language. I remember going skydiving many years ago, and filling out a form where they asked whether I had disabilities, including epilepsy. I marked that I had epilepsy, and then but the paper at the bottom of the pile. Not sure what they made of it when reading the papers after the fact.

I also did a shift in whether I considered it a disability or not. In the beginning, it felt like just a tiny part of who I was. But as time went on, the seizures increasing in frequency, and the anxiety related to the seizures going up as well, it started to make a larger and larger impact on my life and, maybe more importantly, my self-image.

I think it is interesting how the same thing can seem so different at different points in time.

Re: Am I Disabled?

#53

Post by supermatt »

I feel there is a difference between having a disability (a condition) and being disabled (a state of being).

If a condition affects your ability to do something, then it is a disability.

As someone with ADHD and ASD, my ability to do certain things is substantially impacted by my condition. I am fortunate enough that I am able to adapt my environment to my condition, reducing the impact, and do not feel the need to seek concessions elsewhere. As such, I do not identify myself as a disabled person, but I do have a disability.

Others (even with the same condition) are not quite so lucky. Their disability has substantial impact on their day to day lives, and they need external assistance - they are "disabled".

Re: Am I Disabled?

#54

Post by TheOperator »

himujjal wrote: post #38

Why does the first world have the smallest of problems? Everytime i open social media someone has some disease I have never heard of but when googled has the same symptoms of a basic cough. lol. You should come to India. People here are quite chilled out when it comes to physical or mental problems. They dont see a form and go well. This hurts my feelings

I don't see a form like this and think "This hurts my feelings :(". I see this form and go "Oh shit, so do I say I'm disabled and get discriminated against now, or do I say I'm not disabled and then get retaliated against for dishonesty later?". I've been rejected from jobs before for being disabled and being disabled is expensive.

Here is how "chill" the situation is in India by the way: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/feb/27/i...

Re: Am I Disabled?

#55

Post by marsvin »

As a person with diagnosed fibromyalgia this is sadly a quite common thought for me, too. Fibromyalgia is usually invisible for other people. On outside it looks the person is tired or grumpy or in some kind of brainfog. It just sucks a lot of energy during the flareups. On good days, I'm okay with it, we are on same ride until there are better treatments available.

Re: Am I Disabled?

#56

Post by bzb6 »

At least here in my country it’s a medical tribunal that tells you if you’re disabled or not, and even tells you how disabled you are with a percent. It’s an easy question with an easy answer.

Re: Am I Disabled?

#57

Post by Faaak »

This reminds me abouts Kubecon Europe 2020's survey which had questions like: "what's your race", and "what's your gender".

As a European, this was a huge WTF moment (my co-workers had the same moment). Why would you ask something like that ?

Re: Am I Disabled?

#58

Post by [deleted] »

supermatt wrote: post #53

I feel there is a difference between having a disability (a condition) and being disabled (a state of being). If a condition affects your ability to do something, then it is a disability. As someone with ADHD and ASD, my ability to do certain things is substantially impacted by my condition. I am fortunate enough that I am able to adapt my environment to my condition, reducing the impact, and do not feel the need to…

[deleted]

Re: Am I Disabled?

#59

Post by anon9001 »

edgyquant wrote: post #36
kayodelycaon wrote: post #11

I think this is a pretty good writeup on how disabilities are dealt with in society. For myself, I'm bipolar. I've had significant difficult my entire life but I didn't know why until recently. Being bipolar has a severe impact on every aspect of my life. In relation to work, it's just painful. I need accommodations to handle a 40-hour work week. I need a regular schedule. I can't be on-call during the night because…

I also deal with bipolar but I actually attribute being able to work in startups to it. I mostly have up days so I can go 10 hours without losing interest a week and a half at a time. But this comes with the downside of having a handful of days a month where I legit couldn’t churn out a couple hours worth of work no matter how hard I try. Luckily the places I’ve worked don’t care too much as I can make up for it the…

Heh, that sounds like how I manage to hold down a job with ADHD, except my "up days" are because I took stimulants.

If I knew in college what I know now, I would have 100% had all the paperwork to be considered "disabled" by the government. I tried to do the right thing and emulate a successful adult life, but it's been a pretty miserable experience so far.

At this point, after so many years in tech, there's no way I could convince the government that they should cover my health care and pay me a stipend because I'm so disabled that I can't work.

There's not much else to do at this point besides push through to retirement, one day at a time.

Re: Am I Disabled?

#60

Post by hrktb »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #11

I think this is a pretty good writeup on how disabilities are dealt with in society. For myself, I'm bipolar. I've had significant difficult my entire life but I didn't know why until recently. Being bipolar has a severe impact on every aspect of my life. In relation to work, it's just painful. I need accommodations to handle a 40-hour work week. I need a regular schedule. I can't be on-call during the night because…

There is such a bias towards regularity, I feel like an alien when trying to question why we should care.

I had a coworker that might have been bipolar as well but didn’t really explicit it, and we felt we shouldn’t dig. In a week to week basis work was done. We were a team of 7 so someone being on or off at a given time had little impact, hell any member could be warped into another project for 3 days and come back later, nobody was dying, nobody really cared, we just re-shuffled tasks and go on with our life.

But she had points ducked from her evaluations every quarter for not having a regular schedule, and submitting sick days without notice. Nothing else in our job was predictable (and we had no on call shift), but it was sacro-saint to have a regular presence, and my bosses looked personally attacked someone could not respect the set rythm.

They were all smart people, but it was maddening.

Sorry for the rant, but It still pisses me off years later.

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