Abuse of people with disabilities

[canadagoose]

I get the feeling there's been a prevailing culture in the Anglophone world of "social Darwinism" (a misleading term) being acceptable. "The longer hours you can work, the better a person you are", regardless of what issues you might have. If you're bad at PE, you're a loser, etc.[nb]There was a Scottish Tory on Twitter recently claiming he was better than his opponents because of the number of sit-ups he could do, and it just boggles the mind[/nb] Mental illnesses are still widely scoffed at, in spite of all the "ooh, let's talk about it" fluff campaigns. Neurodiversity is just cause for comedy amongst Normal Cunts (or fear - so many news articles seem to like framing autism as being a root cause of violent crimes), and remember the joke from Little Britain about Andy being able to get out of his wheelchair? It's not uncommon for people in wheelchairs to be able to stand up for short periods of time, ffs. That was only 20 years ago, almost.

As Kankurette said, the whinging about "identity politics" from the usual class-reductionists and centrist media wanks doesn't help. Generally, attitudes are terrible.

[TrenterPercenter]

The thing that makes me angry more than anything else.  Made myself homeless at 27 by not standing for it and taking the company I worked for to tribunal over their disgusting behaviour.  Had breakdown a year after.  Not going into it but probably the most important life forming thing I ever did.

[Jockice]

Jockice has a few tales (which he may or may not want to share again) that will turn your blood cold and/or boil your piss.

I've actually just watched this documentary (I had the Celtic match on last night which caused me a large amount of pain) and yes, I've been there. Not to the extent of being forced out of my house but I have been insulted and physically assaulted. And there is a general disbelief that this sort of thing would never happen without provocation as well, so I must have brought it upon myself.

I'm too tired to go into detail at the moment but I'll give you one example. Back in my crutches days I'd arranged to meet some work colleagues in a pub. It was quite near my home so I decided to walk it. I had to cross a road that was empty at the time and I was about halfway across when a car turned onto it from a junction about 200 metres up. And the driver then sped up so I had to actually jump off the road, ending up in a heap on the pavement. My glasses fell off and they didn't stop so I didn't get their number.

I got to the pub, mentioned it and was met with a general: "Yeah right, as if that would happen," attitude. Just attention-seeking again obviously. So I didn't mention it again.

Of course there is a vague possibility that the driver just didn't see me and just decided to speed up at that point for no reason at all. But to my dying day I'll swear they did it on purpose. I hope they've since crashed into a wall and died.

[Urinal Cake]

I get the feeling there's been a prevailing culture in the Anglophone world of "social Darwinism" (a misleading term) being acceptable. "The longer hours you can work, the better a person you are", regardless of what issues you might have. If you're bad at PE, you're a loser, etc.[nb]There was a Scottish Tory on Twitter recently claiming he was better than his opponents because of the number of sit-ups he could do, and it just boggles the mind[/nb] Mental illnesses are still widely scoffed at, in spite of all the "ooh, let's talk about it" fluff campaigns. Neurodiversity is just cause for comedy amongst Normal Cunts (or fear - so many news articles seem to like framing autism as being a root cause of violent crimes), and remember the joke from Little Britain about Andy being able to get out of his wheelchair? It's not uncommon for people in wheelchairs to be able to stand up for short periods of time, ffs. That was only 20 years ago, almost.

As Kankurette said, the whinging about "identity politics" from the usual class-reductionists and centrist media wanks doesn't help. Generally, attitudes are terrible.

You can't discount the role of religion (in this case Christianity) and how disabled people are seen within it. Are they being punished? Or are they like a leper who needs care like Jesus gave or just another ticket to heaven. These ideas have a way of becoming secularized.

Also talking about benefits and government, I think in other societies families are the ones who are tasked with looking after and protecting disabled people. Sometimes this was out of shame other times it was out of love. But it is implied it is a worthwhile duty.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Speaking of benefits, there are also some who have a genuine hatred of disabled people because they think they get a shitload of monetary benefits and other "perks" (like parking spaces and their own toilets) and either aren't "as disabled as they make out to be" or are a "burden on the system". Fucking Nazis, basically.

[sirhenry]

Also talking about benefits and government, I think in our society families are the ones who are tasked with looking after and protecting disabled people. Sometimes this was out of shame other times it was out of love. But it is implied it is a worthless duty.

Or, at most, worthwhile in that it keeps society safe from the unclean and abnormal.

[Kankurette]

Since we're all comedy fans, it might be worth thinking about how in British comedy there's a lot more emphasis on disability or "accidentally offending a disabled" being a kind of punchline. I'm not sure if Gervais is entirely to blame for that, but he's certainly the first I can remember - if anyone remotely physically unusual turned up in one of his shows, you'd know exactly what they were there for. Later, The Inbetweeners would do the same thing. Of course the defense is "we're making fun of people who treat disabled people badly, not the disabled people themselves", but it's a pretty thin line in some instances and implies that "we've all offended a spacker at some point, right?" as some kind of relatable observation. That almost definitely seeps into the culture, and as a result I think the UK has more derogatory terms for disabled people than any other English-speaking country (granted, the term "retarded" is still pretty common in the US, but not considered especially contentious because of how vaguely it's used).

I find Curb or even South Park's treatment of disability in comedy far more good-natured, anyway. It's not to say the US is completely without discrimination against the disabled, but it does appear to be something more or less everyone is sensitive towards (unless you're the former President - ZING).

I always liked the fact that Timmy was just one of the gang. Jimmy later as well.

ETA: I also really hate the idea that the best workers are those who make themselves ill. I've been there. It wasn't a good thing.

[Rev+]

Shite that doesn't even scrape the surface.  There's an abused disabled woman sleeping in the room next to me, but nobody cared before she landed here, and it took 2 years before she could be extracted from her family, who beat her for being disabled and therefore useless to them.  She's in for the bennies, obviously.

[Glebe]

Sorry to hear about what you went through Sir Henry, Jockice and anyone else who has suffered such crap. Missed this and don't have iPlayer in Ireland, but it sound's bloody harrowing... why was the woman in the wheelchair driven out of her home? And what kind of society allows sociopathic thugs to get away with such behaviour?

[Pink Gregory]

Frankly if someone's reached the 'From each according to their ability' without the 'to each according to their need' then they've got no place administering society.

[Jockice]

Sorry to hear about what you went through Sir Henry, Jockice and anyone else who has suffered such crap. Missed this and don't have iPlayer in Ireland, but it sound's bloody harrowing... why was the woman in the wheelchair driven out of her home? And what kind of society allows sociopathic thugs to get away with such behaviour?

She'd brought it on herself. They even had one of her neighbours shouting that at her. How many times have I fucking heard that myself? Being disabled brings out every bit of weirdness in some 'normal' people yet if you react at all you're the weirdo.

Basically, she had an adapted home and car and the braindead cunts on her estate were jealous. Although looking at them I bet there were quite a few benefits cheats among them. They even brought their kids out to jeer at her and apparently a disabled person in the other adapted home on the estate was starting to get similar treatment.

You can say it's society/the media/Ricky Gervais's/God's fault but as a disabled person who has had a tiny portion of what she's had (eggs thrown at my window a couple of times, car broken into three or four times, tyres slashed once. I haven't a clue who chucked the eggs - although as you can't see my window from the street they must have come onto the car park at the front to do it - and I can't prove any of the car stuff was targeted - there's quite a bit of car crime in this area - although with a blue badge on display and crutches in the back seat it is obviously a disabled person's vehicle) I just want to see those pieces of subhuman filth die slowly, painfully and alone while getting jeered at by disabled  people. Then we can sort out the political stuff.

One thing I can guarantee though. There will still have been people watching who will be thinking: "Well what happened to them is terrible, but they MUST have done something to deserve it."

[Glebe]

Fuck, that's awful Jockice.

Absolutely bizarre that anyone would take issue with a person with a disability having a home and car adapted to there needs. It's like the fucking dark ages.

[samadriel]

Have you tried burning Britain down and starting over? 'Cos, while Australia has severe problems with mental health, depression and suicide, we honestly don't go hissing and spitting, chasing disabled people like ghosts after Pac Man. I find British attitudes to disability simply bizarre, completely alien to my experience of the world.

[Paul Calf]

I'm sure mentioning this will annoy Shoulders, but I should add that I had a very close friend who suffered horrendously at the hands of the state, the people charged with enduring her welfare, her friends who abandoned her and strangers who would turn the rare trips she was able to make into an energy-sapping nightmare of bewilderingly corrosive social interactions. Engaged in a constant battle against the (then) Department of Social Security, she finally gave up and committed suicide in 2001, on her 27th birthday.

I have nothing but anger and contempt for people who mistreat and abuse people who might need their help, and on one occasion I received a light kicking for sticking up for a woman in a wheelchair who was begging for change near King's Cross station against some LolGaries from Burnley who thought it would be a good idea to smash the cup out of her hand.

Fuck them though. Fuck them all. If you want to live in a Darwinist hellscape of casual vernacular eugenics, fuck off to Texas or something.

[evilcommiedictator]

Have you tried burning Britain down and starting over? 'Cos, while Australia has severe problems with mental health, depression and suicide, we honestly don't go hissing and spitting, chasing disabled people like ghosts after Pac Man. I find British attitudes to disability simply bizarre, completely alien to my experience of the world.

You haven't tried to get a disability pension recently ;).
Also, since the start of the year, we're cutting back on people who help disabled and old people clean, mow, go out on trips - no new clients according to the government. Got Cancer and can't get up due to chemo? Get fucked, you don't need our help, you've got that cricket charity if you've got a very specific cancer

[earl_sleek]

Still shocks me how some people are still comfortable with using the word 'retarded'. Can confirm it received heavy usage in my teens, I should have known better.  But anyone who still uses it now seems yo make a point of still doing it, but to what end?

I remember it being used on CaB not too long ago, and people being funny about it when asked not to use it. 

[samadriel]

You haven't tried to get a disability pension recently ;).

I stopped getting my DSP a few weeks back because my girlfriend earns too much. Goodbye financial independence!

I definitely don't doubt that Australia is evil to the disabled on the bureaucratic level (I remember how hard it was to get the DSP in the first place, and researching how DSP applicants get evaluated revealed a system that could've been dreamed up by Joseph Heller). But almost every country is like that when it comes to the state supporting the disadvantaged. I'm talking about the base culture in general, the programming of people's gut instincts ("football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars"); Australians let the system treat the disabled like shit because they're complacent pigs who think everything they can't see must be doing fine. But whenever I see Australians actively exposed to the plight of the disabled, I see empathy and sympathy -- from people otherwise so ethically stunted that they'll still vote Coalition next time. I've never experienced or heard of the kind of searing resentment at pleb level that ALWAYS comes up in British discussions of disability.

Edit: actually, i can think of one exception -- my girlfriend's mother, who basically thinks all mental illness, including my own and her daughter's, is made up. She grew up in India; I don't know what that culture is like to the disabled, but it's not looking good in my anecdotal experience!

[bgmnts]

Well mental illness is relatively new, and its pretty iffy in terms of what is legitimate and what is a disability or not.
If you're growing in a poverty stricken area of India you're probably too busy trying not to die to worry about mental health.

[TrenterPercenter]

I'm sure mentioning this will annoy Shoulders, but I should add that I had a very close friend who suffered horrendously at the hands of the state, the people charged with enduring her welfare, her friends who abandoned her and strangers who would turn the rare trips she was able to make into an energy-sapping nightmare of bewilderingly corrosive social interactions. Engaged in a constant battle against the (then) Department of Social Security, she finally gave up and committed suicide in 2001, on her 27th birthday.

I used to work for a quite prestigious company that eventually moved into what is now "Welfare to Work"  who in it's initial stages was actually doing some great work and really improving the lives of people with disabilities moving back into the workplace and helping sustain and support them.  Then they starting becoming an early version of what these providers are now; I've got a load of horror stories and here is just one.

I volunteered to learn an in-house training course in sign language so I could better support my hearing impaired clients.  The course was delivered by a hearing impaired tutor who was excellent.  However for some reason one of the advisor from the JSA side of things for some reason was also on the course.  This lad kept mentioning some very negative things about our work (art was NDDP which was a government initiative for supporting disabled people "New Deal for Disabled People". 

Anyway at one point he did one of the Gervais style mocking voices n the room doing it when the instructors back was turned so  he could not be hear or read him; I told him to pack it in and complained about him it to my manager; nothing appeared to happened but he appeared to have piped down in the following session.  The session after that the instructor could not make it and instead his mother showed up; she was also a tutor and hearing impaired and mute, she preceded to start the session to get us to watch a training film; to which this cockroach did his impression again; again he was told to shut up but getting a few giggles from other Richard Hammondesque snakes he just got a bit louder, mocking the NDDP acronym; after a bit of arguing he eventually shut up. 

When the film had finished the tutor, to our amazement starting speaking to us all.  Turns out she was not hearing impaired at all and was teaching us a valuable lesson about assumptions.  If I could bottle the look of this cunts face honestly I'd savour it everyday; I spent years recalling it to enjoy and keep a visual memory of it; the abject shock of his face (doesn't help that he looked a bit like Paul Joseph Watson).  Anyway complained again asked my manager about the suitability of people like him being in this environment; but instead of any punishment he was promoted a couple of months later to my deputy ops manager.

This story at least has some humour in it around the cunt getting found out (at least by the tutor) sadly I have absolutely loads that are just disgusting and depressing; and done by people who your taxes paid for; I fought them as long as I could but in the end they ended up making me very ill by making my working life hell.

[Kankurette]

Well mental illness is relatively new, and its pretty iffy in terms of what is legitimate and what is a disability or not.
If you're growing in a poverty stricken area of India you're probably too busy trying not to die to worry about mental health.

Poverty is a major contributor to mental health issues, as is war. Palestinian kids growing up with PTSD, for instance.

I may have got the wrong end of the stick here but you sound like you're saying 'people have it worse than you, stop fucking moaning about your problems'.

As for mental illness being new, it isn't. See: Bedlam, soldiers with shell shock, my grandad's multiple suicide attempts in the '60s.

[bgmnts]

No I'm saying its understandable why some people don't view various forms of mental illness (depression, anxiety etc) as legitimate.

[Kankurette]

Then how do you explain middle class Brits who think that?

[bgmnts]

Ignorance or lack of empathy.

[TrenterPercenter]

No I'm saying its understandable why some people don't view various forms of mental illness (depression, anxiety etc) as legitimate.

Hmmm I think the problem is implying that poverty stricken Indians haven't got time to worry about mental illness.  That isn't how mental illness works.  It doesn't hold off until you've sorted out dinner.

[Paul Calf]

No I'm saying its understandable why some people don't view various forms of mental illness (depression, anxiety etc) as legitimate.

Mental illness absolutely does exist everywhere from the slums of Mumbai to the Malabar Hills. Drug and alcohol abuse is a massive problem especially in the South American favelas and the South African shanty towns, but everywhere there are people there are problems and there are the substances that they use to run away from them.

Slum- and street-dwellers don't just sit around starving. They pay rent for their huts and pavement spaces and have to eat. Many of them have jobs in the factories, building sites and taxi and rickshaw offices of the city. They are regularly abused and patronised by their bosses, customers and passengers who treat them as personal servants. Depression, anxiety and more serious disorders are at least as prevalent as anywhere else.

[bgmnts]

Hmmm I think the problem is implying that poverty stricken Indians haven't got time to worry about mental illness.  That isn't how mental illness works.  It doesn't hold off until you've sorted out dinner.

I'm not saying they don't suffer from mental illnesses.

[Jockice]

Hmmm I think the problem is implying that poverty stricken Indians haven't got time to worry about mental illness.  That isn't how mental illness works.  It doesn't hold off until you've sorted out dinner.

Ah yes. I once had an argument with someone who had gone on a gap year trip to India and was spouting off about how everyone was so happy despite the poverty and we should be more like them. It seemed never to occur to her for a moment that the reason they seemed so happy was because they'd worked out that they'd be more likely to get tips from a (relatively) wealthy westerner if they were nice to her.

i hate that sort of bollocks.

[Kankurette]

Gap yah tourists are the worst. I'm glad I spent mine doing office jobs in Cheshire/Liverpool.

I don't understand hatred of disabled people. I really don't. I know part of it is fear of the other and hatred of those who are 'different' but it just seems irrational to me. Like, one of my cousins has severe cerebral palsy, she's in her 20s and lives in a care home, and if someone was nasty about her in front of me I would go nuclear. Do people think they'll catch it from us?

[Jockice]

I don't understand hatred of disabled people. I really don't. I know part of it is fear of the other and hatred of those who are 'different' but it just seems irrational to me. Like, one of my cousins has severe cerebral palsy, she's in her 20s and lives in a care home, and if someone was nasty about her in front of me I would go nuclear. Do people think they'll catch it from us?

Because they're cunts. I've considered this question a lot during my life and this is the most comprehensive answer I can come up with. They're just cunts. With no excuses. The world would be better off without them.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Because they're cunts. I've considered this question a lot during my life and this is the most comprehensive answer I can come up with. They're just cunts. With no excuses.

This, and as Bronn says, there's no cure for it.