How has your worldview towards people with disabilities changed?
I’ve come to realize that there are certain things I will never understand about living with a disability because I don’t have personal experience with it.
I’ve said and done things that I didn’t know were offensive and felt quite guilty when I learned my offhand comments or questions were hurtful.
You can have the best of intentions and still hurt someone, though. We all have blind spots and that’s one of the reasons why I like microagressions so much. Most of the entries involve people saying dumb things out of ignorance, not malice.
Rather than continuing to say or believe ignorant things I want to know the truth.
I know I much prefer it when others ask me about bisexuality, non-theism, childfree living or other aspects of my life they don’t necessarily understand. The only times I’ve been offended by such questions is when the person asking them has already decided who I am and is determined to hack the limbs off of my real answer until it fits into their box labelled “Lydia.”
Luckily, this sort of interaction doesn’t happen every day!
Readers, what are your favourite sites about living with disabilities? How would you answer anonymous’ question?
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Interesting post! A while back, I surprised myself by realizing how my expectations had changed over the years. Whereas I had once expected my friends to never say anything hurtful, I now expected them to (now and then) unintentionally say hurtful things. And whereas I once expected to never need to forgive and forget anything a true friend said, I now understood that I must forgive and forget.
Do you remember how you made that shift?