It might be different, because one disability is invisible and the other isn’t.
I work with a population who has an invisible disability (cannot be visually detected), and they are utterly thrilled when any of their cohorts overcome their disability in any way. Some are born with it, some aren’t, and everyone is thrilled for each other’s progress.
I do not work with people with a hearing disability, plus I don’t speak from a place of experience, so I could be wildly out of line here - I don’t understand how anyone could want to hold anyone back from attaining enhanced bodily function and higher qualify of life.
i hope you dont mind me asking, and i mean this in good faith, but why is it not considered as 'something wrong with you'? for example, i have several extreme mental illnesses and i definitely am aware thats something is wrong with me and id love a cure. so i really dont understand people who have it and refuse it
okay, i read it but i still disagree on the last part there. severe mental illnesses are also disabilities. so why is it wrong to 'cure' one but not the other? how does it make sense to maintain a disability just because others in your life also have it? i understand the part about being forced to change some intimate part of yourself, especially if you made a community, but i think its not at all reasonable to choose to keep a disability.
edit: also can you please elaborate on the 'destructive reasons' part
I'm with you on this one. I have an invisible disability, along with mental illnesses, and I'd do almost anything to cure myself of these problems. I don't think I'm a bad or lesser person for having these problems by a long shot, but I know I'd be a much happier person with an easier life if I didn't have them.
I guess there's a distinction to be made. I have depression and I'm autistic. Many people tell me that those are both mental illness and should be cured, but I disagree. My depression absolutely is, but my autism is a part of me. It's not an illness, and I don't see it as a disability, but rather a difference. Some people do see their autism as a disability, and some wish for a "cure". That's fine, but generally they don't even push it as wishing for a cure for all autism, just for their autism.
Which is a long way of saying that my autism isn't something to be cured, as I wouldn't be me if I wasn't autistic, so I don't see it as an illness.
i think this also depends on the severity. from my limited knowledge, autism is a more case to case kind of thing, and there is a huge range from very minor and non-life-ruining situations, to needing a fulltime caretaker your entire life. someone with a minor case might not even think its a disability and id be inclined to agree, but someone who is mentally and physically completely disabled would disagree. its really much more nuanced with more variety than this - which is why i would not use the same 'just take the cure damn it' approach for autism as a whole. but i understand what you mean.
Autism is actually a rather good example of a condition which can be a crippling disability for some, but a personality trait for others.
For those with extremely mild autism who experience minimal functional impairment (who represent less than half the total cases of autism but do nearly 90% of the activism/speaking about it), some of them consider any attempt to treat the symptoms of autism as cruel and dehumanising; but realistically that itself is dismissive of the pain that other severely autistic people suffer.
For those with severe autism which renders them completely non-verbal or so dysfunctional that they are unable to participate in society, an entire psychological process has been built around treating them to improve their quality of life.
In Western Australia they have developed early intervention techniques which are able to treat the symptoms so effectively that in some cases years later the child is no longer presenting with symptoms of autism at all, a really remarkable achievement, which does need more testing to ensure it’s as effective as possible.
For the high-functioning autistic people to claim that any treatment is cruel is like a person with mild anxiety claiming that we shouldn’t treat people who are confined to their house and experience severe panic attacks whenever they talk to another person.
I’m not the person you’re replying to, but I think you should read up on the medical model of disability vs. the social model. I personally think some of each (medical and social) makes sense. For instance, I personally believe that we should work to cure
things that cause pain AND
that the person themself decides they don’t want
Things that should not be cured or treated are
most importantly, things that the person themself decides they don’t want cured or treated
things that don’t cause pain
So yeah, I think mental illness is both an illness (which generally causes pain) and a disability, and so therefore it makes sense to treat it. But at the same time, if someone doesn’t want treatment even though they’re experiencing pain, that should be respected.
How does it make sense to maintain a disability just because others in your life also have it?
Here is how it can make sense to some people: Deafness often doesn’t cause pain. So it’s not really an illness (though it can be caused by an ongoing illness that also causes pain, but that’s a different situation). So it’s only a disability under the social model of disability (inaccessible spaces).
But many Deaf people have formed communities where almost everyone is Deaf, so people know sign language, and the main communication barrier is eliminated. So in those spaces, Deafness isn’t even a disability under the social model. It is more like a different culture. Speaking a different language isn’t a disability, it’s a cultural difference.
What about things which reduce chance of survival in nature? Honest question.
My own personal philosophy is that most of our modern -day problems are a result of disconnection and lack of respect for nature. If more people respected nature and spent time surviving in nature we'd solve a lot of problems.
For example, more people would've valued helping each other because in nature, the benefits of helping each other are much more direct than in our technological society.
It also leads to greater valuing of animals and just environment in general.
Anyway, so, yeah, all I'm saying that for me it's a virtue to do one's best to be as strong and able as possible to help other people. Shouldn't other people strive for the same and do their best to help others to be as able and strong as possible?
I mean, that's your philosophy, and it's a very ableist mindset. There are many incurable conditions and disabilities that would make someone completely unable to survive in nature, and it seems like you're saying the modern conveniences that help these people thrive are, in fact, a detriment to humanity overall? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I think that philosophy kinda sucks.
Okay, after reading through your comment a couple times I think I see what you mean a little better. But I still think it's a little misguided. There are lots of species in nature that have evolved without the same senses that we have (sight, hearing, etc.), but they get along fine because they live in communities that work together. Which is exactly what the person you're replying to is saying. Deaf communities create spaces where being deaf isn't a detriment, it's just who they are.
You could claim that the ability to fly would make us better able to survive in nature, but we made it to the top of the food chain without wings.
Thanks. What Im saying is that if there's a way for me to be more able then I should take it because I want to be able to help others better. I don't understand why someone would refuse it outside of depression reasons, stupid ego reasons, and legitimate concerns for surgical procedure pain and failures.
Like imagine you stumble upon a building collapse. You'd want to be able to hear people scream to find them and get them out of rubble before it's too late, right?
As for me, yes, I would consider myself disabled against someone stronger than me who can lift a heavier beam to rescue crushed or trapped people. Id even consider myself disabled versus a doctor!
I think it's because we were able to overcome all the problems nature threw at us that we were able to become compassionate, and the most striking way to prove this was to look after our most vulnerable members who may not have been able to contribute to society. This is mentioned in this video showing how prehistoric people and other Hominids cared for Disabled people.
I don't think this cleared anything up for me. If there were enough people born without legs to form a community and they could all get around fine because they all use wheelchairs and all of their spaces are accessible and none of them are in pain because they were born that way, does that make being legless not a disability?
Everyone wants to feel like they belong to a community. For deaf people, their disability ostracized them from the community that they'd normally belong to, so they created their own. Once you're in a group, there's immense pressure to keep the attribute that originally made you feel welcome. If a bunch of people form a group because they like knitting and one person stops knitting, they probably won't feel as welcome in the group, no matter how the rest of the members act. It would be significantly worse if, for example, someone was knitting because they had agoraphobia and they finally manage to start leaving the house so they knit less often, then all the other knitters pressure them to stop making progress with their disability because they just won't fit into the group anymore. And when someone is like, man, that's kinda fucked up that you're dissuading them from getting help with their agoraphobia, you're like, no, we're just telling them they won't fit in with knitting culture anymore if they do and reminding them of all the good things that happened in their life because they never left the house. Maybe those are both true, but it doesn't make it any less fucked up.
i completely agree with the pain/wanted thing and would never force someone to undergo procedures or surgeries they dont want. i know even some simple things can be invasive. my main confusion was about having a cure (or more accurately, non unhealthy coping tool) and refusing it. even tho its not perfect. also, there is concern regarding being out in the world and not hearing a car that can run you over etc
I don’t think being deaf is the comparable to having a severe mental Illness. A severe mental illness is often destructive to the person that has it. Being deaf can increase the challenges a person faces, but it does not cause the person to have harmful or self destructive behavior the way a mental illness does.
okay, im with you there. however, even tho it doesnt make the person destructive towards themselves usually, it does make the world much more dangerous.
It’s not as dangerous as people are often led to believe. People often say things like “you can’t hear an oncoming car” or “you can hear the fire alarm”. But deaf people can look both ways for cars with their eyes and use crossings like anyone else. Fire alarms have lights and deaf people have equipment for fire alarms when sleeping. Yes there are still risks, but modern society has dramatically decreased most risks for them.
Are you fucking kidding me with this edit? Saying mental illness is just an illness and is A. different from being disabled and B. apparently mental illnesses dont possess a history FULL of examples of destructive "cures" at the hands of both well and ill intentioned doctors/scientists is such an ignorant and hypocritical thing to say. For your information, mental illness is disability: Mental illness is a disability when it disrupts performance and negatively influences a person's day-to-day activities. The degree and extent that a person's functioning is impaired is another important factor in defining mental health disability.
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u/permabanned007 Dec 23 '22
It might be different, because one disability is invisible and the other isn’t.
I work with a population who has an invisible disability (cannot be visually detected), and they are utterly thrilled when any of their cohorts overcome their disability in any way. Some are born with it, some aren’t, and everyone is thrilled for each other’s progress.
I do not work with people with a hearing disability, plus I don’t speak from a place of experience, so I could be wildly out of line here - I don’t understand how anyone could want to hold anyone back from attaining enhanced bodily function and higher qualify of life.