Let's talk about the Social Model of Disability [CC]
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- Опубліковано 20 сер 2024
- How have the social and medical models of disability impacted your life and how you are perceived as a disabled individual?
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I really want to write more about the social model of disability around chronic illness at some point because there isn't so much written about this and the chronic illness community often leads towaeds a medical and sometimes charity model. In some ways our experiences seem to contradict the social model of disability but in reality I think the issue is just thst the way the social model of disability is talked about by others
doesn't always consider the needs of chronically ill people - not that it doesn't apply to us. This isn't the fault of those speaking about their own experiences, there's just a lack of voices talking about it.
I discovered the social model of disability when I had chronic illness so mild I'd attributed it to other pre existing impairments so my initial framework was all around the social model. I didn't want to be cured, and felt I was disabled by society. I've had to do some real thinking to work out the ways that applies to me now. It's different but still valid. So for example I think about how my Drs are more interested in getting me out of bed (I've been confined to bed a few years) or needing less care assistance where as I am more concerned in how best to improve my quality of life. What I can I be assisted with which might make it easier for me to see my friends, to look out of the wjndow, to be out if bed if only for 10 mins at some point in the future. There's a big emphasis from medical and social care professionals on not acting more disabled than you are... But maybe these interventions and equipments are what I need to help work with my impairments, and by not allowing me access I'm being disabled by society.
The biggy here is that a lot of us with chronic illness want treatment and to be cured, but when looking at it from a social model point of view this should be more because of our inherent quality of life due to our impairments, and not because society is disabling us. I hear things all the time like 'my illness disables me much more than society' and I'm just not so sure about that. What about the fact that nobody is researching in to many of our conditions? That means someone somewhere is making value judgements about out need for treatment and support. That sounds like society disabling us to me! . There is so much discrimination within healthcare practices which stems from ableism as well as many other intersectional oppressions that even when you try and view an impairment solely from a medical angle of treatment and cure, you can't help but come across a whole plethora of ways in which society is disabling us via our medical care.
I mention this because it's not always something that gets thought about and I'd love to see more written/vlogged/podcasted about such things. I know this isn't your experience Robyn and so not something you'd talk about, you just got me thinking. I often feel at the edge of two worlds - the chronic illness community and the disability rights community and I don't thibk people always get that I'm a person with multiple impairments some of which I see as integral to me as a human, and others I'd like to (and am actively seeking) treatment for. The chronic illness community has been using things like condition based awareness days and highlighting our symptoms based suffering as a means of activism for a long time and it makes me deeply uncomfortable that this is often framed purely around awareness and our bodies needing a cure with little acknowledgement of the structural oppression that makes our lives devalued so that we are left suffering, and with no integral message that we are still just as valid as human beings no matter what our level of impairment or suffering.
Im rambling now but I need to formulate my thoughts some time and get writing!
That is a super interesting point! I often think about this as well because there is a big push in the medical field to make chronically ill people "normal" and sometimes this can lead to actually a lower quality of life than if they adjusted the world to their needs by using mobility aids or what have you. But at the same time, some of the things that happen in my chronically ill body could kill me or are very uncomfortable inherently and I'd very much like to stop or lessen those things.
Really interesting points you make. I often wonder if the merging of people with physical impairments and chronic illness into one community - the disabled community, actually does both parties justice as often our lived experiences are often quite different and the way we wish to be perceived can be different. Although we share a lot of the same struggles when it comes to accessibility and discrimination so it's such a hard one. I know for me being perceived as sick is actually quite harmful but I am assuming that for you being perceived as just having physical impairments that can be worked around is too, because as you said there is not always a way for things to be adapted for you. I don't know man, it's tricky.
Robyn Lambird personally I definitely think we should all be one community, but I do think we need to talk more about certain things like the ways that the medical community can disable us. That could be by not believing chronic illness, or it could be by not providing the correct wheelchair to a non sick disabled person. I think it all stems disablism where our lives are not valued. I am disabled from lifelong impairments and also from chronic illness so I thought about things from a social model point of view before becoming chronically ill. I think it’s tricky because some things each community does can be harmful to the other. For example if a disabled person isn’t chronically ill but is perceived as sick then this can be damaging in terms of medical model thinking and not understanding that impairment in and of itself doesn’t need to be fixed. At the same time there needs to be room in the disabled community for people who do define as sick. Personally I’m not bothered by the aspects of my impairments that affect my mobility - I never had an issue with being a wheelchair user other than the access barriers I faced. But at the same time it bothers me that I’ve been made severely unwell (confined to bed for 4 years) by a chronic illness that is underfunded. I’m rambling but in the same way that medical professionals berate people for their choice of mobility equipment drs also place emphasis on walking and mobility for me far above qualify of life
. I think the chronic illness community is behind the main disabled community partly because many of us have been so disbelieved. So there’s awareness campaigns that concentrate on our suffering. I think the central point of all activism should be our validity as human beings. And the chronic illness community needs to begin integrating that. We shouldn’t have to prove our worth, we should be assisted. In some ways that is things the disabled community is already fighting for. But it might also be adequate medical care.
It’s 3am so excuse me not making as much sense as I’d like but I think the chronic illness community is already part of the disabled community in many ways, it’s just quite a disjointed relationship.
I'm jumping in a little late, but I agree on all counts. I have ME/CFS, a long history of mental illness/neurodiversity, and I'm transgender. The social model speaks to each of these identities differently. Being trans is definitely not an illness, even though I needed medical treatment to feel most comfortable. My relationship to my mental health is more complicated. ME is definitely an illness, and I want nothing more than medical interventions that will allow me to live my life again.
That said, I think a lot of people with ME are unnecessarily disabled by society - capitalism forces chronically ill people to keep working until our quality of life is destroyed, and if we can't work, we often live in poverty. Lots of people with ME would benefit from mobility aids, especially electric chairs, but have trouble accessing them due to lack of doctors' support, insurance company policies, and cost.
My mobility is significantly limited by my ME - I have muscle weakness in my legs, balance problems, and dizziness when standing. I live in a city where I used to bike everywhere, and I've managed to continue living my life by getting a power-assist bicycle. Now I'm too sick for that, but (thanks in part to UA-camrs like you, Robyn!) I've realized that I could benefit from an ultralight chair with power assist. I'm super excited to get the ball rolling.
What a wonderful perspective and explanation. Thank you for sharing!
This video has helped me with my college degree and has given me and huge understanding of what the social modle of disability is. Thank you! ❤
Great video Robyn, you explained this much better than a lot of articles did that I found on the net.
This is so thoughtful and well put! You are a friggin spark, Robyn, keep lighting up these conversations. Thanks for this video. ✨
Thank you!
This video is so amazing. I can't even find words to describe just how perfect it was. Thank you.
Hi Robin
I have cerebral palsy as well. but I can still walk fine. it's in my right arm and my eyes . I always love it when you post a video. I watch other youtubers with disabilities. You all are so awesome!!!
Thank you!!
Thanks for sharing your story. I learned a lot. Stay shiny!
Hi Robyn! I just discovered you today when I was doing some research on picking out a wheelchair and I came across your video (which was extraordinarily helpful!) about wheelchair types and what to consider. I've struggled with disability most of my life in some sense or another; when I was a child and teenager, I had juvenile arthritis that limited my ability to participate in physical activities. After that disappeared, I enjoyed a few years that was relatively free of physical troubles, but in the recent year and a half, I've developed some other disabilities. After a long process of hospital visits and tests and doctors using me as a pin cushion, I was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia, but the way it came about was rather unconventional. About a hear and a half ago, I started having problems with my mobility; I was having episodes where my legs wouldn't work and I couldn't walk, and a few times it happened to my whole body. After the third time I was hospitalized for my full body impairment, it came up through a conversation with a psychiatrist that I was suffering from pseudoseizures brought on by the stress my mental illness was causing. Since then I've been having to learn how to deal with my new limitations (I don't like calling them that, but I don't know how else to describe them; perhaps you have some suggestions?). One of the problems I've been running into lately is that people make comments to me about how I don't need a wheelchair if I can walk from the back of my car (from putting my wheelchair away) to the front of my car to drive myself somewhere, and even if I explain to them that I can still walk short distances or a few steps and drive, but I can't handle long distances sometimes, they still make these comments or pass this judgement upon me. Do you have any advice on how to deal with this kind of criticism I get? Are there better ways I can respond or things I can say to either help them understand or otherwise get them to stop making the comments to me and leave me alone to do my thing?
Any help would be great! Thanks!
-Xan
Hi Robyn, I though this video was really really great, I love who you are. I just posted this video to my social research and policy student discussion forum for my university course as I believe this will help my fellow students in understanding this issue better.
You have a talent for social media. Thank you for sharing. May God bless you.
Yours kindly,
Shaq :)
Wheelchair basketball is amazing! It broke me out of my shell :) now I'm in college for it! I am glad that you made this video.
These videos are pretty encouraging and help me to see disability in a different light and I thank you for that :)
Maybe, it is that is all I know or that I am still grieving the person I used to be but I do feel like I want to fix/cure my illness. In a way it has made me change for the best as I see things that I didn't see before but, again, I think, I'd give that up if it meant I could be who I was before :/
No worries, thank for watching!
And that's totally ok too, everyone's experience is different and every ones journey to acceptance is as well. I think it's also important to highlight that my lived experience as someone with a physical impairment is going to be very different than that of someone with a disabling illness.
I use both models depending on the situation. I love the social model, but I don't think it fully captures my experience. I do think some of the problems related to my disabilities are because of my disabilities. Some of them, like my fibromyalgia and ME, you can't actually accommodate for and have very little to do with the way society is set up. At other times I am hyper-aware that I'm experiencing problems because the world isn't built with people like me in mind. A lot of the time, I feel it's a little bit of both.
I totally get what you are saying. I guess that's the difference between the challenges faced because of a physical disability/impairment and having a chronic illness though?
Robyn Lambird Yeah possibly, though there are probably other disabilities like this that aren't coming to mind at the moment.
I completly agree with you Robyn! . Particularly i was born with cerebral palsy too( I hate the appellation of that ilness!!!) It sholud be a little change it leastways . Don't you think?Thanks so much for this!. Greetning from Poland. Oh may I have a personal question to you? Did you had any furry or other small friend(animal,pet)? If your answer is yes :what type? what gender? What 's him or her name? How old he or she was? If your anwers is no what was the reason(why)? Do you want to have it anytime? What type? I had a so many BFF who I cound't imagine life without them. Now I have got another BFFF who I call Surprise. She's my eight guinea pig in line but first with really lony hair(Abisian).I love her all of my spirit and hard. She's the only one person in my very small family who I want and can tell absolutly everything!
How about "Overcoming Obstacles with a disability"? Like you, I don't see myself as ever overcoming cp rather overcome the obstacles [despite my cp.] This is the social model that cripples people: the mindset that we can't, such as employment, and receive government money.
I would have to disagree, I believe the social model says we can, we can get employment if employers are willing to adapt, or let us adapt tasks to allow us to succeed. I can't overcome obstacles with out the opportunity to and this is what the social model seeks.
Hello Robin, I only just started watching you.
I have cerebral palsy, I get spassums in my left arm and leg.
Thanks!