BADD 2010 Discussion

[jhameia]

So! Today was Blogging Against Disablism Day for anybody who paid attention to the disability blogosphere, and I thought I would ask - do you or anyone you know suffer from disabilities, invisible or otherwise? How do you deal with it in your respective communities? How does your family / community / township / state / province / country / region deal with disability? What are common attitudes towards disability that you face?

Me, I suffer from depression. It is, fortunately, not chronic, and I get it once every few months (I blogged about it if you want to see the tl;dr). The first resistance I ever faced in dealing with it constructively was from my mom - one time when I was 17 she demanded to know whether she "had to send me to the psychiatrist" and I said, point blank, "Yes". She kept quiet. My dad, when I first confessed I suffer depression, started collecting pamphlets about depression and leaving them around the house for me to read as if *I* was the one who needed to know about the symptoms. I'm not sure why!

Despite all this, I don't talk about it beyond my immediate family, and it rarely comes up in conversation with family friends, although I get the sense that since my own mother views me as a failure for my suffering, there'd probably be stigma as well. My brother has trouble finding a therapist for his depression as well (but he's picky and doesn't want a male therapist).

That's just on the invisible disability front.

I think Malaysia is totally horrendous when it comes to physical disability, particularly in Subang Jaya. When construction happened to prettify the area, my dad complained about the high sidewalks, and said fiercely, "when these people get old and have to totter around, I hope they are forced to use these sidewalks and suffer from their own decisions." But not all places are awful - shopping mall near my house has platforms between opposing floors which look fairly wheelchair-friendly. They've also installed an elaborate door system for their handicap toilet.

So, how about you folks?

Comments

[trouble]

My city is terrible for disability, in comparison to other places. I understand at least part of this is because Halifax is, relatively speaking, poor. And also was built on a grid because the British decided it was going to be built on a grid. Lunenburg is worse.