Disablity and relationships part one
So this has been an interesting post and video to work on because I had to look at my own relationships and that I am lucky to have a supportive family and this is something that sadly some people with disabilities don't have. However, we need to remember that we don't always have the full context of what the history is we see that sometimes we see what people need to have boundaries and this is where we need to understand that having a disability isn't an excuse to be mean, we all have different levels of understanding of relationships and how they work.
We also need to consider the decision-making capacity of the person as there can often be a gap between their physical age and their emotional age and this also needs to be considered when we see if they can maintain relationships and in this, I am talking about friendships as well as the potential for romantic relationships as well as with support workers and other professionals.
We also need to be aware that there may be circumstances where the family has separated from the person with the disability for their own mental health or due to the behavior's that a person could display, and this is interesting in the way we see that people often need to have a healthy outlet to express emotions and we see that this is an issue, as people with disabilities are often pushed into a box around relationships and often adults with a disability are treated like either a Teen or Child and sometimes this is appropriate but sometimes it's not, as it can often stunt emotional development and we see that people need to be aware of this that they might have stunted emotional growth and this can lead to what is commonly called "acting out." Or in the disability context, we see that these are called challenging behaviour's, and the disabilities that cause challenging behaviour's are most commonly, Brain injury, psychosis, and developmental disabilities.
However, we see that people need to be aware that some disabilities affect behavior and this is interesting in that we see that people need to see that people can develop relationships within their abilities. as people with disabilities have the same physical and emotional needs as everyone else and this is something that we see that needs to change.
We also need to be aware that disability isn't an excuse and if you have an NDIS package you may be able to use your support to build relationships. So this could be social skills training to develop the skills needed to build and maintain relationships. This goes into what is called informal support and this is something that needs to change, and we see that a support worker isn't a replacement for friends and family.
However you do need to manage your expectations of disability around what a support worker can do for you, and this is interesting to see the diversity of how a support worker's time is used, and it would vary from company to company what they can do. We see that people that we see that a support worker can be a replacement for a friend. They can facilitate friends but not replace them, and we can see that people often are depressed and often burn out their friends.
So disability and friendships can be challenging due to people wanting to "cure," so you will lose friends if you hid that you had a disability or mask that you have ADHD or are on the Autism spectrum there will be people who want to cure you or actively try to cure you in a harmful way. Such as "food trolls,' Or people who have a need to "save you from yourself," it's ok to be friends with them but we see that this isn't a great way to live because they could harm you and this is where learning boundaries come into play.
Then we see that people we see that there are people with disabilities who have amazing networks of both formal and informal support because they acknowledge the impact disabilities have on your life and take steps to mitigate them.
Some really basic ideas are to ask for help instead of struggling and this is something that you need to go to the right person for advice and to respect that person's time and expectations of what advice or help you can be offered.
Learn basic boundaries and learn to respect others' boundaries around time, resources, and advice. Boundaries don't mean isolating yourself it means having self-respect and self-discipline and respecting when people say no or not at this point.
We see that people might have strained relationships with family due to using their disability as an excuse and this can burn people out as we see that a person who cares for someone. They can care for someone at a distance, and this can look like engaging a care agency to help you care for and helping them to apply for the NDIS.
Then we see that there is a conversation to be had around disability and dating, so disability and dating deserve their own post as it is something that needs to be talked about but often people are discouraged from doing it due to people thinking that they would get taken advantage of.
However, we need to acknowledge the dignity of risk here and that a person does have the same physical needs as a person without a disability, and here I am referring to people with Psychosocial disabilities, not physical disabilities that are overt and a person knows their limitations.
So we need to educate the person about what is OK in relationships and not Ok and accept that they might have inappropriate behaviors that they can't control and that they need to be made aware of that isn't ok. This might be for example a person not understanding that they need to ask a person if they can come into their house if they haven't been invited. It might be teaching them how to share and how to express emotions healthily so a person might steal from another person, and not understand that this is wrong.
They might touch someone without consent and consent is a whole other blog post but the person might be touched adversely and react dangerously and this could trigger the person further. Being touch adverse or having a tactile sensitivity is something that we see in ADHD or Autism or we see that this could set a person off in a dangerous manner so we need to teach someone how to seek and maintain relationships and the difference between talking and communication as communication includes body language something that people with autism can struggle with.
There are programs such as the Spy Clues program that can help autistic adults and can be adapted to help adults. There is also the option to attend a Day Center that offers these skills, and Day Centers are increasingly becoming more skills-based and often can offer a safe environment for people who need this level of support, it also provides some respite to the family and other support workers to have some down time away from the person and to give them some rest and time to catch up in the house, however, if the person lives in the family home this could be something a support worker could potentially help within training the person to do housework and this could be part of there transition to supported independent living, where the person would need to be able to maintain relationships with people that they might not choose to live with if they could choose it from themselves.
We also need to consider the decision-making capacity of the person as there can often be a gap between their physical age and their emotional age and this also needs to be considered when we see if they can maintain relationships and in this, I am talking about friendships as well as the potential for romantic relationships as well as with support workers and other professionals.
Comments
Post a Comment