People With Disabilities Are Sharing Common Microaggressions They Experience And Here Are 30 Of The Most Ignorant Ones

This applies to anything that was made specifically for disabled people.

Recognizing someone for taking a teen with disabilities to prom is not being an Ableist. When my autistic son's school decided to give him the special task of being part of the football staff, there was a lot of congratulations and thank you's to the football team for including him. My son was being bullied and harassed at school. Once it was openly recognized that he was a member of the football team and that the players had his back, the bullies backed off. It's not a crime to recognize someone for treating your child like any other human being because it happens so rarely, it's necessary to showcase it to show others..people with disabilities deserve to be treated like anyone else. I just wish these gestures were more contagious.

THIS! 👏🏻

I'm too young to have multiple sclerosis, apparently. The typical age of onset is between 20-50 years so of course I don't have it. /sarcasm

I had a woman say this to me. She said I wasn't disabled so I should stay out of the handicapped bathroom stall. I told her that my medical conditions were none of her business, but since she brought it up. I fractured a vertebrae in my lower back and it never healed quite right. Sometimes it causes a muscle spasm to rip through my back causing me to stiffen up. Being able to use the handicapped railings to help me up and down from a sitting position avoids the spasms because I'm using my arms and legs, not my back and abdomen muscles. So yes, I do need the handicapped stall until they start putting railings in every stall.

I'm a part-time wheelchair user & get called "Fake Cripple" because I can walk :')

Also not ableist, people do this to everyone about everything.

My family was convinced my childhood anxiety, depression, inability to concentrate and hyperness was because I was the youngest and mom spoiled me. Even the school jumped on that. In the 60's. Such fun to have intense criticism and no support. My parents did their best.

If a person is capable of doing the particular job they should be paid the full legal wage.

I had no idea how many armchair doctors there were until I became disabled. It blows me away at not only their "solutions" but to their diagnoses as well.

Can you define what you mean about scapegoat? Not all homeless people have psychiatric disabilities and not everyone with psychiatric disabilities are homeless. But the statistics show that many people that ARE homeless have some form of mental disability. Some of the homeless people I've encountered are individuals dealing with PTSD, drug addiction, schizophrenia, or debilitating phobias. Aside from the drug addicts, many of them choose to be homeless because they feel safer there...that they won't hurt anyone. That perception is the fault of our government not taking mental health seriously enough to provide free services to anyone who needs it. We're not using them as scapegoats. We are saying that they need to be taken seriously and that the government needs to get off it's collective asses and take care of them because they do have disabilities.

How many diversity points do I get? I'm disabled, trans, & gay.

a NURSE at a special ed boarding school literally said "we all have depression".

Vouch for this. There is a restaurant in my town that says it supports Vets. Yet the only two handicapped parking spots have a loading area that's being blocked by a bike rack. The only ramp to get up on the walkway that leads to the entrance to the business is all the way in the rear of the establishment so people in wheelchairs have to travel all the way around the building to get inside. I've pointed this out to the owner and he just shrugs his shoulders and said "Oh Well."

The area where my mother lives is like this. Maybe half the streets have footpaths (or sidewalks, Aussie here), only on one side of the street though and the streets aren't wide enough for peoples visitors to park on the road, so they have to park on the nature-strip. There are also some asshats around who park over the few footpaths there are. So a lot of the time disabled, low mobility, people with prams and kids on bikes etc. have to walk, or ride on the roads. It's just plain greed from the planners, wanting to fit in as many houses as possible to get the most money.

This, oh my god, this.

I get it, but also not. I also am in awe of people with disabillity's just living their life because it's not always easy to just live your life with a disabillity. Going shopping, just random douchebags on the street, the lack of ramps if you can't do stairs, the people who give you compliments for being So "brave",... So being able to just be you and not filled with angry and bad feelings? Well done I say!

People complaining about this are just utterly unfounded. Fairness is not everyone getting the same thing, it is everyone getting what they need to succeed.

Good to hear that he is now an ex.

Absolutely correct.

Screw physically able! My future and my families future are dependent upon their ability to do their job. Inability to walk does not translate to inability to lead. Now as far as some of the current politicians that are physically able. Some of them need to go back to primary school to learn the basics of what it means to be human.

Depends on what the disability is. In my case, I'm overweight, diabetic and have high blood pressure. All of this lead to a fractured vertebrae in my back that never healed right. If I can lose the weight and get exercise, I can take the strain off that vertebrae and get off my diabetic medications, possibly making it easier for me to walk. So veggies can help in some situations.

Not everyone wants to be seen as a hero, some just.. want to help. They should ask first, but be glad they look out for you.

I used to have chronic migraines, and sometimes exercise would help (something with endorphins as nature’s pain killers). A relative has a chronic back issue (Bechterew) and exercise helps him slow down the disease. So yes, exercise sometimes DOES help. If not physically then at least mentally.

in plenty of states No ONE gets accurate sex ed because of religion based abstinence only BS, and non hetero sex is also almost never discussed. Its sad how this part of education is ignored for children because of religious prejudice.

I was fortunate enough to have several adult autistic people friends on autism websites. Several of them explained why they had meltdowns. Like one young man that said he loved these African Violets that his grandmother had. He'd smile when he saw how pretty they were. But one day he came home and found some of the petal on the ground, and someone had stepped on them. He flew off on his grandmother and she couldn't understand why he was upset. He explained, those flowers were the most precious thing to him. To trample on the petal was the equivalent of punching him in the gut. It was painful and disrespectful in his eyes. His grandmother realized why he was hurt and apologized. I always ask my son to explain why he's upset so I can see things from his view. It's helped to diffuse a lot of meltdowns.

Or that they will never find a partner or get married

I call my son "high-functioning" because that's where he is on the ASD level. It's not an insult, or being an ableist.

I get 'mentally ill' and 'sick' but I should be allowed to call someone stupid or dumb.

Sometimes a suicide (attempt) is exactly that, a cry for help from someone who feels overwhelmed, overlooked, unheard etc.

Yeah... I get that. But then again, it's not okay to treat people like garbage because you are tired and/or angry. If you do, the obligation to right the situation is on you.

Recognizing it and taking steps to get help in their younger days can actually help people progress by leaps and bounds as an adult.

Somebody is trying to be nice, but the compliment isn't 'good' enough? I get it that you hear this one a lot, but every time it is said to you it is meant as a sincere way of saying 'i respect you and look up to you'. I just don't see the bad in that. You can't blame people for not understanding what it is to have a disability, you can on the other hand respect the fact they are trying to say something positive and nice to you.

I am hearing impaired, and people are always trying to "catch" me at faking because in some situations I hear better than others. Yes, if I'm in a quiet room without ambient noise I can hear much easier than in a restaurant full of people. Duh.

I'm amazed when anybody has friends, TBH

Okay... or perhaps you are just short sighted.

Geez, my current therapist is ableist

They are needs different from normal needs. So they are special needs. People are really reaching to feel offended here.

Don't misunderstand, this isn't about a disabled person being suicidal; it's about an abled person who would rather die than become disabled.

Yea that’s jacked

For those who don't know, spoons are our expendable energy. Different tasks require a different amount of spoons, & ours are limited by our disabilities.

Right, and a few posts ago it was the other way around...

I think with this one, people in general want to be helpful and don't realize that they are causing more harm than good.

Add to that the classrooms in colleges that have only one or two desks for disabled people. Here's a thought...not everyone who is disabled is in a wheelchair..but we also aren't able to squeeze our butts into the school chairs that were designed for supermodels and small children. Put some more wheelchair accessible desks in these places!!

I had the same problem with my son's psychiatrist. My son has autism. The psychiatrist also diagnosed him with ADD and depression. He prescribed fluoxetine (anti-depressant), strattera (for ADD), and clonidine (for ADD). My son went from having autistic meltdowns to physically attacking me and his father as well as threatening suicide. I knew taking him off the meds cold turkey could cause more problems. I begged the Dr to take him off them and put them on risperdone (anti-psychotic that calms autistic aggression) which I had spent those 4 months researching. They refused. It took 4 arrests, one judge, and a court order for them to, in the judges words, "do it the mom's way now." My son calmed down, is getting the therapy he needs and has not seen the inside of a courtroom in over a decade.

I laughed at a guy the other day that thought that and elderly man that parked his Bentley in a disabled parking spot, clearly sporting a disabled placard in the window, wasn't really disabled. The elderly man asked why. They guy responded "Because you're driving a $200,000 car." I laughed and turned to the guy saying "So all disabled people are supposed to be poor?" The guy realized what an idiotic statement he made and just walked quickly to his car....

This one irritates me too. Should I be crawling on the ground screaming in pain for you to believe me?

Unless you're a trained professional with years of experience & knowledge.

In the US, there are laws that protect people with disabilities. I have encountered a few businesses that violate those laws and think it is ok to tell me so. They also had to rethink their stance once I reported them LOL. Stupid twats! (wait was I just an ableist because I used the word stupid? lol no)

I tried to learn ASL and, unfortunately, I had one of those professors that wouldn't allow us to talk in class, we had to sign everything from day one. I dropped his class, but before I did, I wrote him a letter saying that, while I understand that many deaf people find people that talk and sign as an insult (not sure why,) that many of the ones I've encountered read lips as well. And that to deny us the ability to speak during class limits us on our ability to help one another learn the language. If you want hearing people to learn ASL, let us do it whatever way we can. We want to communicate with you just as much as you want to communicate with us.

I once heard a principal say that he was going to love eventually being superintendent because he would have the disabled students segregated into a separate school from the "normal kids." I made sure every parent with disabled kids knew what he said. There was such a fuss created by it, he not only did not get promoted to superintendent, he was dismissed from his position in the school district.

My son is capable of doing most things. He learned early on that if he says he can't do something, we wouldn't make him do it. Since then, we've learned he IS capable of doing it, the "can't" comes in because he'd rather be doing something else. Gasp!*! Much like..wait for it...a regular run of the mill teenager. He's adamant about living out on his own. He's starting to realize how much is involved in living on your own and taking care of yourself. He's taking baby steps, but he's getting there.

Not sure this is ableist...people being uneducated douchebags..yeah..but not ableists.

Who the F*** does this?!? Intentionally trigger meltdowns? Are THEY mental? You can teach them to self-soothe without triggering a meltdown. If this is a psychiatrist, you tell them to stuff it and find another psychiatrist. There are some of them out there that are idiots with no familiarity on how autism works.

I know. I've seen these people. They play off how they're the proudest mom ever, then treat the kid like c**p and get frustrated with them as soon as they see no one is looking. I'm proud of my autistic son.

Let us be confident <3

So what would you call someone that shoots up a Church during Sunday service and then says they were justified in doing so because God commanded them to do it? Or a white person that bombs a synagogue under the shelter of NeoNazi white supremacy? Angry? Bitter? Driven? There are tons of people out there that are Angry, Bitter and Driven...and they don't go murdering people to feel better. It takes a person with a mental issue to take it to the final step of murdering another person. School shooters may not have diagnosed with a mental illness, but may be still suffering PTSD. A white supremacist might not have been diagnosed with a mental illness, but they may still have Overt Narcissism. Many people have these illnesses, but have never been diagnosed. But a sane person does not go around shooting up schools and places of worship.

I never mocked my son on his eating habits. When we learned he was autistic, we researched everything. We read that distaste for certain foods may come from the smell, taste or texture of the food. I found that my son likes eating raw broccoli or lightly steamed broccoli, but hates the texture of cooked broccoli. He likes cooked mushrooms, but not raw ones. And he doesn't like mayo because it's "too oily." Besides, he's not the picky eater in the family..my husband is.

I feel like this is being a little oversensitive, this is just a difference in word order or speech patterns. Saying its not ok to say "person with a disability" you must say "disabled person" is like saying (just an example) you can't say "person with a job" you must say "employed person". Many people's english language skills aren't good enough to know that there is a difference let alone understand why one is not acceptable.