Trinity Student Medical Journal 2003

Disability Awareness

Florry O’Connell, 2nd year Medicine

Throughout life, when faced with certain difficulties or problems, we have three options.  The first is to ignore them and run away, lie to and convince ourselves that the problem does not affect us.  In doing this we numb ourselves to  reality.  The second option is to over exaggerate the problem; to view it as some kind of martyrdom that must be endured.  We busy ourselves around the difficulties we encounter, never once actually looking straight at them.  The third option is to stand solidly against the difficulty, examine it, realise the challenge involved, and eventual brush it aside.  This mechanism allows for growth both as an individual and as a participating member of the wider social environment.

When the word ‘Disability’ popped into my head, prior to partaking in a disability awareness module for 1st year medical students,  I  imagined myself as being fairly open-minded and well adjusted with regard to disabilities.  Everyone has the wish, and perhaps the need  to view himself in a positive light and see their actions as making the "correct" contribution in line with their belief system.  I was no different.  Whenever I saw a disabled person, I felt pity for all the things that I thought the individual was missing out on, whether it was the inability of the person to walk or see, or the fact that they could have had some kind of mental illness.  I admired them for fighting against the problem of their disability.  Now I understand that this was nothing more than a robust power trip on my behalf.  I believed that because I could run and gaze at a painting , and  did not suffer from any mental illness I must somehow have been better.  I was "normal" and a good person for believing that people unlike me needed my pity and assistance.  When I viewed the person’s disability as a problem, I imagined all that person  needed was a physical cure to allow them to make a proper contribution to society.  All these beliefs were internalised. Previously I had never questioned them.  I believed a paraplegic was characterised by his wheel chair, a blind girl by her dark glasses and stick, and that they  therefore needed either to be pushed or lead somewhere.  Passing a disabled person on the street a multitude of thoughts would flash through my mind:

"Don’t look, they’ll think you’re staring!"

"Don’t look away, they’ll think you’re avoiding them!"

These thoughts only made me feel more uncomfortable upon encountering a disabled person. I now believe that I was transmitting these feelings onto the person.

When I attended the first seminar of the disability awareness module, I was not expecting much.  If anything, I believed that my feelings would be reaffirmed.  Our task was to experience the world as a blind person, which was to  become a life altering experience.  By the time the seminar was over, something had changed in me.  The very act of listening to others speak about their impressions of the disabled made me begin to question all those internalised thoughts.  The image of myself as belonging to one category and all disabled people as belonging to another began to make less sense.  Had the social background that I had lived in for the last 18 years begun to disintegrate?  Every time a certain feeling emerged I would question it.  The problem as I saw it, began to alter its appearance from being specifically related to the person’s disability. It moved towards my interpretation and reaction to that disability.  This made me uneasy as strong beliefs no longer held true.

I thought the practical portion of the project would assist me in reaching a conclusion.  Whilst experiencing my surroundings as a blind person gave me an impression of the difficulties faced by the disabled in the community, it was only the tip of the iceberg.  Sure, going up and down the escalator felt different and unnerving with two patches over my eyes and when paying for a few items in Dunnes Stores putting my hand out in the wrong direction to receive the change was a different experience.  Feeling my way along the ATM to insert my card and collect the receipt was a bit humorous and knocking over boxes of tea in Bewley’s on Grafton Street was embarrassing.  However, throughout all this I was always thinking, "Only two hours left now", and knew I could never even comprehend the idea of living from day to day with blindness.  As my partner was leading me along the street some people moved out of the way but others seemed so taken up with their own lives that they did not or could not take much notice.  Perhaps the same thought of "Don’t look, they’ll think you’re staring!" was going through their minds.

While initially the task of being blind and trusting my partner enough to help me around the city appeared a bit daunting, I found the greatest challenge in this "disability experience" not to be related simply to a pair of eye patches and a two hour period.  I was never naïve enough to think that I could appreciate or understand all the difficulties faced by the disabled in our society. 

My real experience was related instead to my attitude and its change with regard to the problem as I had previously interpreted it.  This took place where the attitude had formed – in my mind. I began to think of the disabled not as a group to be pitied and helped at all costs.  They had always been facing up to the difficulties they encountered – social injustice, discrimination and exclusion – while I had been running away allowing these same problems to prevail.  If anything I needed their pity and help to realise my errors and flaws.  I am still questioning my thinking and will be for quite a while longer, after this module.  I now feel that instead of having to push a wheelchair or lead a blind person that I could walk alongside someone who is in reality just like me with a new-formed insight and view their disability as less of a problem or not even see it at all.