Which, really, ties into your last paragraph anyway.

I have found that one thing I do more than I ever expected was try to help my clients de-pathologize their normal, human responses to stress and trauma. There is a way in which people with mental disorders and conditions begin to consider everything a part of that condition (I love the word condition, by the way; I had never thought of it – illness gives me twitches though sometimes it seems accurate, and disorder seems more accurate but still stigmatizing).

Like anxiety. It’s huge for most of my clients. Some of them have unrealistic anxiety causes or responses (presumed inaccurate paranoia, or panic attacks from being on a street, for example) but a lot of times their anxiety is really rational and reasonable given their experiences. One role I stand in becomes being a person who shares what is normally covered up – for example about my own anxiety and some of the ways I cope with or cover it up – in an attempt to pass on as a visceral experience that these feelings are normal, human, reasonable, and something to manage, not to feel ashamed of.

but is it not out-of-touch with reality to be suggesting that we need to change the language simply to avoid hurting feelings?

Now, I don’t mean to get all postmodern on you here, but could you please tell me what you mean by reality? I know, it sounds like a stupid question, everyone knows what reality means, right? Its whats REAL.

Unfortunately, reality isn’t nearly as solid as we would like to think. Thats especially true when we’re talking about language. The way you decide to frame something, the words you use to describe it, the messages behind those words that you apply to it, these things effect that you might want to call reality. The way you see something, or hear it, or interact with it (even if you have the ability to do these things) changes how you experience it. Your observations, the basis for how we determine reality, are influenced by your beliefs, fears, and desires.

So when you ask if something is “out of touch with reality” what you’re really asking is if it is in touch with your experience. The fact that you’re able to describe your subjective frame as “reality” is a privilege that comes with sharing that frame with a large enough portion of society that you no longer recognize it is your own.

My partner and I sometimes discuss the focus placed upon proper use of language by some individuals in the galaxy of activism and boundary-pushing. I’m usually OK with being described as a “disabled person” or even a “(legally) blind person”. This may be my other privileges talking (white, male, Anglophone, etc.), but to me it falls into the same category as being described as, say, a white person, or a brown-haired person. We tend to modify nouns with prefixed adjectives to save syllables; so long as the adjective itself is not inaccurate or intended as a pejorative (or, worse, patronizing), I’m not one to complain about the order of the words being used. I’ll even refer to myself using a certain older term just to get a rise out of her.

What I do get worked up over is the overcompensation that tends to create insulting euphemisms. No one has used the term “differently abled” around me in a very long time, but if it’s ever used again, the person saying it will be told that if they want my “different ability”, they can have it. “Challenged” also falls into this category. I know a part of my body doesn’t work as well as it does for most others; I’d prefer people be realistic about it, give me some help when (and if) I ask for it, and treat it like any other physical or mental characteristic that makes up who and what I am.

I find that I do tend to modify my behaviour to forestall challenging queries about how “disabled” I am. I like to listen to music while taking public transit. I find myself removing my headphones whenever I board a vehicle, as I worry whether a given driver will be suspicious upon seeing a person wearing headphones flashing a pass used by blind and visually impaired passengers*. Mind you, the headset sits around my neck, so it’s not as if I’m doing anything useful to hide it, but I worry that a driver will choose to act upon their own assumptions about how a visually impaired person should act in front of multiple people and make me prove I’m disabled or something equally degrading.

I’m afraid to look at the Wikipedia article; the thought of a “market model” framework for dealing with disabilities makes me gag. Frakking Randroids…

OK, done taking up bytes for now.

*yay TTC and CNIB for one thing, at least!