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I Thought I Had Been Called Everything…
On a Facebook group (of course) for parents of gifted and 2E children, I was called an ableist. I was called this because I refuse to call myself “disabled”; I do not look at my ADHD as a learning or any other disability… How dare I?! These people worked hard for their disability and somehow, me saying that my view is that my ADHD is not a disability its a superpower, hurts them and their children. Also, I am a cancer to my child. I had to Google the term “ableist” as I had never heard of it, so here it is just in case any of y are ever accused of it.
The racism of low expectations justified, claiming that placing value on intelligence, productivity, and excellence would be considered anti-blackness. They have their heads so far up their sphincter that the lack of oxygen to their brain allows them to spew garbage like “abelism” and think it is valid.
Nevermind these ants and their made-up words.
Tell that commie cow to shut up.
Nuts!
I am not a fan of focusing on “disabilities.” Aligns with my preference to focus first on what we have in common, not what is different. Once we realize we have a lot in common, then if we find that we can accommodate differences by making adjustments, those accommodations become easier to take and to implement.
I live in Texas. Our governor uses a wheelchair. I keep forgetting that fact because he never makes an issue of it, and doesn’t use it to define himself.
One of my favorite personal episodes was years ago when I was a camp counselor for our church. One of the girls in the middle school group was completely deaf. The other kids kept forgetting that, and treated her just like the other girls, yelling encouragement in athletic activities. Kids calling to get her attention was funny to watch until (generally soon) one of the others would relay visual or physical action to get her attention. The girl’s mother was pleased that the girl’s primary experience was all that she had in common with the other girls, and that her “disability” was only a minor part of her experience.
And get the heck off FB, forever.
I’m going back a while here, but it’s one of my favorite school stories. My daughter’s fifth-grade classroom was the designated class for hearing-impaired kids from the rest of the school district. That meant there were three or four hearing-impaired kids in her fifth-grade class.
Facing this challenge for the school year, Mrs. Dameron had a great idea: teach all the kids American Sign Language. The kids loved it.
The end of the year came, and the kids went off together without their teachers or parents to spend a week with the naturalists at the National Seashore in Wellfleet on the outer Cape. They stayed in a dorm-like structure right on the water. (Yes, we parents were jealous. :-) )
The naturalists later said the kids drove them nuts. The kids would tell ten-year-olds’ jokes at the dinner table, and the naturalists had no idea what they were all laughing at. Worse, they kept wondering what the kids were conspiring to do. The whole week with these kids would have made a great movie. :-)
They need some lessons on how to be an introvert.
Recently I read a book on the life of the apostle Paul by Johnny Cash. Yes that Johnny Cash. His son, John Carter Cash, wrote an afterword to the book in which he related how as a boy he, John Carter, had smashed his finger in the door of a car. John Carter was worried that it would never be the same again. Johnny reassured him that it would heal in time, but if it did not, he should use it as a thorn in the flesh. By that, Johnny meant that he should use it to make himself better than he would have been without it. We all have opportunities to take advantage of the thorns that we pick up in our lives. John Carter went on to write that his father was now in a place where the thorns had all been removed.
Brother Kurt is right. Point at them and laugh. And let them know you are doing it.
Right. The commies. Not the disabled :-)
As the meme kids say now — laugh at them until they cry, then laugh at them for crying.
The commies.
This. It’s exactly the same logic that defines punctuality, belief in the scientific method, and favoring good grammar as “white” traits that should be derided and shunned.
Somewhere, in one of the lower circles of Dante’s hell, the anti-ableists (whatever they’re called; perhaps that’s it) and the co-dependents are having a party. Because–under the covers–I think they’re pretty much one and the same.
Another related neologism, perhaps more bizarre: “ablenationalism”.
I don’t think this has anything to do with low expectations. And to my recollection, I’ve never denied that “systemic racism” exists. It’s the Left’s term for the Left’s Great Society and all that it entails. After 60 years, the welfare society can’t be considered a mistake anymore, but a organized oppression.
I will relate my favorite story about a kid with a disability, although I have never considered him so. And I only saw him once.
During my senior year in high school, my friends and I were hanging out in the cafeteria hallway when a scuffle started further down. Soon a pair of junior high kids ran past us, pursued by half a dozen very angry older kids. Unfortunately that end of the hall was a dead end, and the fleeing pair were trapped.
The bigger kids had them surrounded, and started to close in. The big kids were very angry about something and the smaller ones didn’t appear to have any chance to escape a beating.
Just when the conflict was about to get physical, one small kid shouted to the other: “Quick! Play your eye!”
The other small kid popped a glass eye out of his eye socket and held it out as if it was looking at his attackers. Everyone was stunned! The attackers all halted, and their aggression quickly drained away. He stood his ground and then advanced, thrusting the eye at the bigger kids, who all retreated.
After a few moments the attackers all turned and left. The kid with the glass eye stood and watched until they were gone. Then he jauntily bounced the glass eye off the floor, it flew straight up, and he caught it on the way down. Perfectly executed. And he walked back down the hall as cocky as a little rooster.
You have hit on one of the deepest issues in the 2E community (since a amazingly large number of gifted kids are also ADHD). ADHD can be debilitating, and it can also be empowering. It can be a disability when you are unable to function in much of society due to an inability to focus on things that just don’t interest you. My first job out of college was selling used cars, and I am terrible with name, especially people that I am likely to only see for a short period of time (like showing them a car). To commit a name to memory requires a lot of effort on my part and I have developed a ton of tricks to get around that in my career (not selling cars, I was terrible at that and lasted less than a month).
At the same time, I have found a career that actually can benefit from my particular implementation of ADHD. As a consultant I am constantly barraged with new scenarios and processes and people which soothes me and my task swapping in my head allows me to design solutions while waiting for them to finish the sentence that I already figured out what they were going to say.
My son…well…he hasn’t gotten to that point yet and remembering things like turning in homework is a major issue and stress point. Its a darn good thing he has an IEP that allows him to turn in work late or he would have flunked multiple times already.
But, none of that gives them to right to insult you.
By the first sentence in the definition, everyone who calls it a “disability” when some poor kid has more energy than he’s yet learned to usefully channel into constructive activities is an ableist.
They told me I had ADD. Or ADHD. Maybe both. I don’t know. Whatever.
If I let the psychologists get their hands on me, I’m sure they’d diagnose me with something. They’d start by looking into ADD, ADHD, Asperger’s, or whatever else seemed like it might fit, but if nothing quite fit then they’d put a description of me in their manual and call it “Boone Syndrome.”
Meanwhile, I’m sure I don’t have any AD or ADH “disorder.” Maybe some extreme cases do. Most kids said to have these things probably just need education to be less boring. Or they need sports, trees to climb, or a culture that recognizes tree-climbing as socially acceptable behavior. Maybe boys-only schools. I don’t know.
For the record, ritalin did seem to help me in school for a couple of years. Then in 9th grade I noticed that I did better in school on the days I forgot to take the pills. So that was the end of that. My cute wife would probably say that I now self-medicate with caffeine and a MASSIVE list of things to do that I use to keep my brain organized.
Most of this stuff isn’t disorder. It’s just personality differences. A different society would have called me normal and labeled the people with the opposite personality traits defective. All this labeling is mostly silly.
“A system that places value on people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, intelligence, excellence, and productivity!?!?!?!”
Everybody looking forward to
SuperAbleism Bowl LVI?That’s why I stopped trying to be an advocate for migraine. “Ableism”is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of! I also have a host of problems, but I work with them, not use them as a crutch. I am not my disabilities! I am a whole person.
There is a great article in Quillette written by a former advocate and Ableism. It’s very insightful. It was written last year.
Yes. The Great Society did more harm to black families than any government program in my memory, at least. In far too many instances, it removed the father as the principle breadwinner.
And the principle guide in life for their sons.
When I am told that I have “Attention Deficit Disorder” I often object, and say that I don’t have a “deficit” or a “disorder,” my brain just works as most peoples did back when most people were hunters, and before we became farmers. I coined a term, to say that I have “Variable Attention Syndrome” or “VAS.” (Yes, I made the term “VAS” up all on my own.)
People who have ADD or ADHD are over-represented in two communities, prison populations and inventors. It all depends on how your use your variable attention. For example, when I am in Court, I can be as sharp as a tack, and my ADD/ADHD/VAS is a benefit, not a disability.
For example, today in settlement negotiations, I created a plausible argument that since the ex-wife had wrongfully claimed the child’s tax exemption in tax years 2020 and 2021, even though they had been awarded to my client, we would be entitled to receive the CARES Act $2,500 per child ($500 + $600 + $1,400), plus the six months of $250.oo per child, for an additional $1,500, plus $4,000 for the estimated benefit he had missed by her taking the tax exemption. My client was able to reduce his child support arrearages by $8,000.00.
I was a behavior problem when I was growing up. I came close to failing 4th grade, however I scored too high on standardized tests. My parents were told that I would likely be a high school drop-out. I was taken to see a Psychologist at Arizona State University, a Dr. Polly. After a day of testing, Dr. Polly had a one word diagnosis for me, “bored.” Mr. Ellsworth, my Fifth Grade teacher in 1965, had me sit next to the encyclopedias in the classroom. Our tacit agreement was that if I simply read the encyclopedia during class and didn’t disturb anyone else, he was good with that.
I am one of the best Trivial Pursuits players I have ever known. I also went on to score a perfect 800 on the Math SAT and then the GRE (“Graduate Record Exam” for college graduates.) How do you score a perfect 800? Just answer every question correctly in the time allocated.
If I had had it all my way, I would not have been blessed with ADD/ADHD/VAS. I would also be taller than both of my brothers. I would also have a full head of hair like them. But it is what it is.
And you still are; for example, look what you do with this comma:
However, what you do with these commas is just perfect, and makes me want to use a GIF from Dumb and Dumber:
Yeah, I suck at names as well but I never developed a trick for that one I just apologize and tell people up front that I will ask them again. My ADHD is really, a superpower, no one around me can even come close to getting done what I can get done and still have enough energy to be on my feet to cook dinner. Like you, I process information and have an plan of how to go forward before most people finish explaining the issue. And I can focus in on an issue that is perplexing me until I solve it, usually at 4am. If that is not a superpower I don’t know what is.
At no time did I say that anyone else’s ADHD is not a disability for them, nor did I ever say that kids shouldn’t have IEP’s. We need to remember that lawyers are not doctors and that legal terms for things like qualifying for school IEP programs, are not medical terms as well. Just because a law says you have to have a “disability” to get a support does not mean you have a medical disability nor does it mean you don’t. Further, just because one person with such “disability” doesn’t need any supports doesn’t mean others with the same don’t need them.
THIS! I feel this. I was diagnosed as kid and watched from behind one way mirrors, and poke and put through all kinds of tests and tasks. I am hoping to keep my granddaughter, who I am homeschooling, from all this and out of the hands of psychologists too.
Do you have a link? I would like to read it.
yep! only I am not sure I would give up my endless energy if I had a choice… I think I will keep it. LOL
Yup. In behavior, just about everything is on a spectrum, and anything you can name is probably a combination of other spectra.
There’s no exact center to normal, there’s no exact boundary to abnormal, and frequently, abnormal is not a problem. Even the most perfectly “normal” behavior brings “problems” of its own. Remember the teenager’s anguished cry at the utter misery, the rock-kicking, worm-eating deapir at being “normal”.
I tend to think that in most cases, children who act out in problematic ways (defined as you please, and by whomever) are suffering from Behavioral Affective Disorder. That’s right — they’re just being BAD. The point of which is that this crap which is so pathologized used to be handled, in the main, by discipline imposed from without unti it became internalized.
Parental abdication of the discipline role is the worst epidemic to hit this country in its history. A reputation for not taking an crap ALLOWS the parent to let things slide from time to time, which can be even creepier and more foreboding than a good-old rebuke.
I do think that that there ARE disorders such as ADD, ADHD, whatever, but that 95-99% of kids (let alone adults) with these diagnoses are simply different, and not problematic. The problem comes in when parents, teachers, doctors, and society conspire to pathologize children into a whole different mental state — the dependent victim.
Agree. I have diagnosed myself with SAS, Selective Attention Setting. I’m choosy as to whom I will allow to waste my time.
And we need more men like Ellsworth and Polly in schools. Glad to hear it!
I will try to find it. I usually use the search feature on the website. I’m horrible at linking articles on Ricochet.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that the DSM-III had homosexuality down as a mental illness.
Unfair, I suppose, but the point of that was to have treatment for people who were not coping well with being homosexual.
And my point in this is that there is the the part where a person can finally put a name to a problem they have and perhaps get help, and then there is the part where the wider society decides that those that have this problem are a problem. We rightly (to a degree) counter this through acceptance that some people have specific identifiable deficits and we’re ok with it – stigma is often cruel.
More cruel still is denying that such problems are a disadvantage when they clearly are.
Fat-shaming is wrong; fat celebration is even more wrong.