Today I became aware of the most ridiculous controversy in a long time: Shaq the ex-basketball player and others have accused Stevie Wonder of not being blind.
What is their claim, that at times he responds in such a way they don't understand?
First, there are other senses sound and smell for example, we already know that when one area of the brain is limited these other senses improve due to the reliance on them.
Yet that's not the full idiotic aspect on display it is that blindness is a spectrum many people can be legally blind yet still see shapes, outlines or impressions. Blindness doesn't mean anything but blackness 🤔 but do people care to understand the differences between vision impairments to legal blindness? 💢
Of course not because it doesn't matter in their daily life but when a disabled blind person is having their good name dragged through the mud due to false accusations of lying their whole life it is sad that we accept this outrageous behavior without punishing the abusers.
As a disabled person myself I take great offense to this.
If any of you have met me you might say But didn't you run marathons and can backflip or front flip while also boasting about your intellect how can you be disabled?
I have two core issues that impact me my disabilities are dyslexia which presents with dysgraphia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
I had been in treatment for dyslexia from 1st grade until about the end of high school. I would have reading coaches, writing coaches, and at times I'd have nasty professors who would openly mock me and how I shouldn't try so hard since people like me can't amount to much.
Invisible disabilities hurt worse when people downplay them. Even the person I mentioned loving so much and dating got into it with me when she didn't know me better.
I remember on a couple of occasions asking for her help due to having extreme difficulty with something and she didn't understand why and not only pushed back but yelled at me for having the difficulty in the first place.
A more recent example - I was cooking the other day at a friend's house got distracted for a moment and ended up leaving the oven on really low heat.
They screamed at me like I burned down the house and told me what a dangerous person I was to be around.
I for the rest of my life have to bring in paperwork at jobs to explain that I am on amphetamines (Adderall) due to my disorder because the prescription medication I'm on triggers drug tests as an illicit substance yet people laugh it off as a joke.
Do some people abuse the diagnosis to try and get uppers legally?
I would assume so🤷♀️ I wouldn't know though since for me like many with ADHD it makes me extremely sleepy and due to the stigma and shame for needing the medication I often try to go off it and when I do the symptoms come back horribly.
Struggling with ADHD feels so much worse today since I know what it feels like to not have ADHD raging out of control so it's quite disturbing going without the medication and feeling like I have lost myself.
As much as people joke about disabilities or discriminatory behavior they are quite real.
Picking on people who struggle with health matters isn't funny it's being a bully, for kids who do it one can say they aren't mature enough yet to see the harm yet for adults there is no excuse.
Humanity needs to be more empathetic to the suffering of others. I at times wanna bash my head into a wall because I can't stop being this way.
What's worse is my ADHD was impacted as a result of me having my genitals mutilated as a child.
So when I see someone attack a person with a disability I take it personally since it reminds me of all the mocking and ostracizing I've faced my entire life.
