The difference between a disability and an excuse let's start the discussion.
This post and the video are going to generate some heat but
it’s something that needs to be talked about we see that this is something
that not a lot of people get as well that there is a major able-bodied disability
but I am talking when it is obvious to the person that they are capable of doing
things for themselves but don’t have the motivation to do it for themselves or
they want to do it but they get angry when people suggest that they could do it
for themselves. Or they get angry when people
call them out on it and this is where we need to define what is the difference between
a disability and an excuse and what can we do about it as a disability is
something where people do need help and they can be helped and accept
that help but when they aren’t able to accept that help or see that they can do
it for themselves we see that people are aware of it and don’t often want to be
able to be helped or they get angry because they are used to being excused.
After all, they have a disability and as we see in the video and blog post about
what is a vulnerable adult we see that people with a disability don’t lack competency
it’s the situations that they are placed into that they are at risk of harm or
abuse and we see that this is where we need to be very careful around what we
see and say about disability.
I am also talking from personal experience here where we
know that people are able and willing to change and take accountability for their
bad behaviours so we see that there are several different types of disabilities
and the ones that are most likely to use their disability as an excuse are psychosocial
disabilities so things like Autism, ADHD, and mental illness where the thinking
is altered but we see that people can and are willing to call out bad behaviours
in what they are seeing and support workers are being taught about positive behaviour
management and we see that this is where redirection of difficult and
challenging belabours need to happen and we also see that with a support worker
that they might not have the skills needed to work with this client and get frustrated
and they cycle of maladaptive behaviours happen because people will
continue to do this as they are getting attention.
We also see that if a person has negative behaviours that
the support team know that the person can control we see that this needs to
be shut down and this can be often by structure and disabling to a person
who is used to getting what they want all the time this can become difficult to
deal with and we see that it is challenging behaviours and people will start to
not be accommodating to your needs if you're not willing to meet them in the
middle and this is something that we see all the time in the disability community.
That people know what will get attention and this is what they will do we
see the rise of content creators faking illness and disabilities for views see that this isn’t ok and it also harms the disability community as people
then feel that it's ok to “test” whether a person has a disability because people without disabilities are doing it for views on tic tock and
other media platforms and this needs to be regulated and people with the disabilities
are often calling out the person without the disability but this calling out
is often seen as ‘trolling behaviours” because people are used to
getting away with anything they want and often manipulative behaviours because this is considered rude to question whether someone has this disability
but a person who has the disability calling out a creator that doesn’t politely and respectfully is a different ball game.
I am also needing to define that this isn’t the case for everyone
with a disability some do amazing things with very little family
or paid support and we see that people need to be aware of this and that by
being aware of this people can seek out and support people with a disability
in the content creating community.
I am also seeing that this accountability needs to happen
both ways and in ways that are respectful to all involved what is someone’s
excuse such as I am disorganized and therefore I must have Adhd when they
clearly don’t is such a disrespectful thing to say and we see it all the time
as well as other words that have become
a slur and offensive to the disabled community but we need to be careful not to
get caught up in woke culture as to have a debate around disability access we
need to risk being offensive and being offended, this is a really interesting angle
to look at because people often feel that they have to say and do
the right things if they know that the person has a disability.
This is often why I find it is better to wait to disclose it
and to be able to understand the persons point of view a lot more then I disclose
that I have a disability and it took a really long time for myself and my
family to accept that I have disabilities but when it comes to the Australian
classification of disabilities I am very high functioning but at the same time
I have complex needs in that my disabilities are a combination of disabilities caused
by brain trauma and disabilities caused by my health conditions leading to me
needing health related supports and we see that this is quite interesting due
to the fact that people in the past have seen me self become my own best advocate
but they see that the person that they
see has “higher needs” therefore I can’t be disabled and I am using it as an excuse
but I see this as a lack of education around disability as to become a direct
support worker you only need your certificate three in support and I see that
this is great to have some formal training but some providers don’t even have
this at all due to this being such an area of need and an area that is essential
to the community.
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