In the video “disability, the truth” people with different disabilities are being interviewed about their life and how their interactions with people are on a daily basis. There is a quote from the beginning of the video that explains how they see their daily life, “There is no burden about being disabled, it’s living your life”. This is one of the common misconceptions we usually have about people with impairments. That they cannot have as much fun as people without impairments or that they are incapable of enjoying their life.
In the video we get to meet several people all with different disabilities, some who were born with the disabilities and those who have gained them later in life. The central theme is about attitude and how misconceptions and stigma can destroy it. We learn that independence is quite important to the people in this video and when someone asks them if they need any help while doing menial tasks (like getting in and out of a car), the notion that they cannot do anything on their own might be reinforced. It is in human nature to want to help others, however it is also in out nature to want to be able to live a relatively normal life by ourselves.
When we think about disabilities today we often think of them as an amputee, wheelchair bound, maybe also blind or mentally handicapped. However there are a big spectrum of different handicaps that are more invisible then others. For example people with chronic memory loss or muscle dystrophy. These conditions might be just as problematic as others however since we cannot see them very well in normal life we tend to not think about them at all. For example a person with muscle dystrophy might be able to walk just fine from his or her car into a shop, only to have to sit down because of the strain from the relatively short distance. They might even be seen as inconsiderate or lazy because of their handicap.
So while most of the problems come from misconceptions being disabled can both have positive and negative impacts on your life, the impacts vary depending on what kind of disability and how long they have lived with them. The problem is usually that people do not understand what it is like to be disabled. Today we usually have access to all kind of tools to easy our way of life and the same is true for people with disabilities. They can usually function themselves and life ordinary lives. A wheelchair bound person for example can often go shopping by themselves, drive cars / motorcycles (with or without modifications) and generally do things that they want. One of the common things that were brought up was just this “I don’t need help to get out of the car, I have done it 10 times today already”. I think that it is important that we realize this, it is ok to want to help someone but they should be the ones asking for it if needed. Why do we actually think that they do need help all the time? It is probably because we have no idea how their lives actually are, and since it is a minority that are handicapped very few take time to educate themselves. The positive parts of the whole experience differ from person to person however a few people in the video mentioned that their outlook on life has changed a lot and they don’t take much for granted.
Non-excluding Design 