Fixing It?

If authenticity represents a greater risk for disabled people, then how do you claim the joy Dr. Brene Brown contends comes from feeling connected which can only be achieved with authenticity and vulnerability? If societal expectations and perceptions of disability foster a disconnect how do you establish connection?

I have been struggling to answer these questions explicitly over the past week, but on some level my entire life. I know being authentic and vulnerable is not easy for anyone, disabled or not. My intuition says disability is a complicating factor like other marginalized group affiliations, but probably represents a dynamic with more impact than most. It is unique because society defines group membership by something the individual cannot "do", pigeonholes members into a tragic but brave category, and yet somehow ignores the fact that membership is a constant possibility. What my intuition refuses to cough up is the way to deal with disability so that it does not decrease one's chance to create connections.

I have some pieces of the answer, like shame. Dr. Brown defines it as the fear of not being worthy of connection – is there something about me that if others knew would make me unworthy in their eyes? Disability is in fact such a stigmatizing trait that we attempt to conceal, divorce ourselves from, and distract so others do not notice. Blind people wear dark glasses, learn to mimic sighted mannerisms, and my personal failing – become paranoid about clothes matching. People with scars cover them up. Deaf people sometimes hide their hearing aids. People with prosthetic legs avoid shorts. The list goes on.

I know and have sometimes parroted the rationalization behind concealment. We live in a world that perceives disability and the "defects" that define it as negatives. Hiding those traits facilitates social interaction. In other words, we do it to maybe avoid some of the crap dished out to us every day.

Yet in order to be authentic and vulnerable, disabled people need to stop hiding "flaws." This will in theory lead to a greater feeling of connectedness. My question, still unanswered, is whether the gain in authenticity can overcome the disconnect inherent in being disabled.

Long ago I stopped concealing my physical manifestations of disability, but I still experience shame. If people find out how much help I need, will they think I'm worthy of knowing? What if I seem incapable? Believe it or not, I experience shame simply by running into something while using my cane. Though I joke around about "sucking as a blind person," it's just a way of trying to coat my shortcomings in a layer of humor that might make them more palatable.

Maybe my problems finding connection are because I don't show my weaknesses. I equally know it is true that societal perceptions and expectations surrounding disability make connection more difficult. I am an imperfect being. The world is an imperfect thing. Guess we could all stand for some improvement.

Creating Disconnect

I am dissecting Dr. Brown's ideas about vulnerability and connection in relation to disability. She argues that feeling connected to other people makes life worth living and in order to achieve this, people need to be authentic and thus vulnerable. While I completely agree with her overall point, my immediate reaction was to wonder how disability fit into the picture. In my last entry Authenticity's Risk, I examined how the vulnerability is made more complex by disability. Even if it were possible to erase all those implications, societal expectations and perceptions of disability would still foster a disconnect between disabled people and our TAB counterparts. Obviously I have examined this issue before, but not specifically as it relates to connection/disconnection.

The first element is the "us/them" mentality. The physical or behavioral differences between disabled and TABs have been given a vast amount of significance that creates the two distinct groups. The artificial boundary promotes disconnect.

Then society fleshes out the us and them distinction with perceived implications such as abilities, limitations, potential accomplishments, and estimations of worth. No longer is it simply people who can see and people who cannot see. It is people who are independent and people who need help. More disconnect.

Societal structure and function also plays a role. With stair-dominate architecture, wheelchair users cannot easily access buildings and you literally have the physical separation of those who can get inside and those left on the sidewalk. Disconnect.

What about amazing? Even viewing a disabled person in a favorable light because of how they cope with their "situation" fosters lack of connection. It puts the disabled person up on a pedestal to be admired like a Chinese vase or rare bird. Disconnect.

I could probably go on for quite some time about how societal expectations and perceptions of disability foster disconnect, but I shall leave that as an exercise for the student. Rather, I want to think about this from a more positive perspective. Is connection across the us/them gulf possible?

Aside from the obvious solution of ridding ourselves of societal expectations and perceptions of disability – filling in the gulf -- I believe there have to be more feasible strategies.

Maybe my pessimistic nature is showing because I can only come up with methods requiring TABs to take action. Unfortunately, history has proven that TABs do not go out of their way not as a conscious choice so much as a factor of priorities and scarce resources like time. Still, what happens if the TAB hangs out on the sidewalk with the wheelchair users who cannot enter a building? Connection.

There have to be ways to erase the disconnect society has created around issues of disability. If you can pull it apart, you can put it back together, right?