Cam Wells

How do we engage with someone with a disability? This may in fact be the key question that either starts a new relationship or fails to do so. These rules that I have come up with are designed to make engaging with people with disabilities easier and are based on my 15 years of experience hosting a syndicated disability issues radio program.

Rule #1: Disability is Not a Singular Concept
When people hear the term disability there is always an initial series of thoughts that come to mind. Like anything, however, it will be subject to the individual, and their experience or attitude of the moment. My own perception of disability is a very large lexicon. My definition of disability is anything that impacts “normal functionality.” Though world estimates place disability numbers at between 20-22% of the population, this fails to account for conditions not yet acknowledged by the scientific and medical communities, as well as those people who will not accept they have a disability and as such will fail to report it.

Rule #2: Disability Does Not Equal Weakness or a Need to be Fixed
As a child I remember well dealing with the falsehood that disability equals weakness and a schoolyard bully who tried to stick magnets to my left leg to see if it was real on account of the limp I walk with. For children who don’t fit society’s cookie-cutter mold of how the world thinks we should move, see, hear, or think, it can be easy to smell blood in the water and try to prey on anyone with subtle differences. I learned in those years my disability is my true strength. The memory of that cruelty faced in my young days led me to understand that sometimes people find reasons to exclude others

To be fair, it is easy as an adult to look back and to see how little it takes to lash out at a difference of any kind. Parents, siblings, and friends of persons with disabilities who stand beside them in hard times tend to hope children see as they grow up that their lives do matter.
The assumptions described are not limited to children or youth, however. Perhaps one of the single greatest acts of cruelty I’ve ever experienced came just after my 30th birthday when I was in a relationship with a woman who attempted to use faith to “heal” my disability without my permission.

My life and my views may be shaped by my disability, but that does not mean I’m looking to change my attitude towards my identity because our instinct in society is to see a difference in a person and feel it must be fixed. I’m proud of my radio show, my job and my life in the church. I exercise and have a great social life, not to mention my own place to live. What part of this says “He must be broken?” Perhaps that I walk a little differently or hold a weight machine with a unique grip? No. To my mind this was crossing a line. No matter how my disability impacts me it is not a reflection on whether I can find happiness.

Rule #3: Inclusion is Not an Afterthought
It is neither fair nor productive to associate with a person with disabilities out of a sense of need to bolster one’s own public image. People with disabilities are worth getting to know. However the motivation must come from the desire to know someone for who they are. This also can be applied to employment settings as described by a recurring guest of my radio show, Sean Wiltshire of Avalon. Employment and international disability employment advocate work settings are about finding the best person for the job and with the right growth potential rather than meeting quotas. Sean’s work has carried him across the world to teach persons with disabilities their value as workers, and thereby showing them their value as part of the community.

A dear friend told me of a young woman with a disability struggling to find work and asked if I knew of anyone who could help. It was not more than 5 minutes later that I contacted someone at Avalon employment who said, “Have her get in touch with me.” She has Williams Syndrome, yet was unaware of the national agency geared toward supporting those impacted by it. This was a reminder that employers should not hesitate to hire employees with disabilities if they are qualified to do the job. In addition to those with disabilities, their parents, siblings, and caregivers are just as worthy to have their voices heard as those who can afford to be in the public eye. This is not to say large scale awareness campaigns don’t make an impact – they do, but it is critical to know the need for support does not stop only with people who experience disabilities themselves. For this young woman a simple act of a friend asking “How can I help?” might have opened the door to an opportunity for a job.

Rule #4: We are our Own Best Advocates
A late friend of mine, Dr. Marcia Rioux of Disability Rights Promotion International, traveled the world ensuring that persons with disabilities knew their legal rights and how to assert them. Those who believed in her efforts still carry the torch she lit years ago. A Canadian advocate, Ben Fulton, continues his case to change tenant laws concerning accessibility after being told by potential landlords they would not rent to him based on his vision impairment.

In the Accessible Diversity Course I designed I broke this down into three models of thought:
The Entitlement Model: a person with a disability claims more than others that they are owed compensation even if it’s not necessarily true.
The Victim Model: The idea that no matter what efforts a person takes to stand for their own rights the world shall not change
The Equality Model: this is based on the idea that a person with a disability is entitled to the same considerations that anyone else in society might expect. It allows for the recognition of the idea that accommodations are not an unfair advantage, but about leveling the playing field and creation of equal opportunity.

Rule # 5: Not Everything is Inspirational
A person with a disability may just be following their passion for no other reason than to follow their passion, yet so many of us insist on adding qualifiers such as “Oh it’s great a person with a disability did that.” This influx of praise, whether real or fake, loses impact past a certain point. In many disability circles it has become known as “inspiration porn.” It has the effect of seeming hollow and actually denigrating a person’s sense of self-worth and value. In my chapter design for Disability Defined, once presented to Canterbury/ Elder College in Windsor, I present this in a slide called “It’s called breakfast” which shows the graphic of a toaster stating that when a person with a disability makes toast it is presumably not meant to inspire others – it is about making breakfast which many people with and without disabilities do every day.

Rule #6: Ask, Don’t Assume
Someone contacted me regarding a petition they started for better police training after an incident where a man was tasered during an epileptic seizure. My contact knew that commercial media might hesitate at giving this story a fair push, but that I would not.
The petition is valid, yet I maintain that law enforcement training across disability sectors would be of use following a personal matter I faced concerning prejudice and insensitivity. As a stroke survivor, I walk outdoors for exercise generally to no hostile response, but about two months ago on a Saturday morning, I was walking near my parents’ home and a police officer failing to recognize my condition called me over to his vehicle asking questions which led me to believe he assumed I was intoxicated (which I was not). He asked for my identification and said I looked off on my feet. I explained I looked the way I do because I have nerve damage. He ultimately sent me on my way with no apology or regret at all. Being a reasonably intelligent, self-aware person, I could hold my own, but it left me wondering about all those with disabilities who face a society who assumes rather than asks. These stories are a fraction of those I encounter, but the disability community need never feel ashamed to ask for help in explaining our conditions. We are a proud, strong community and as a united presence, mountains can be moved even if only a tiny piece at a time.

Rule #7: Medical Science is a Baseline
Do not live by the textbook definition of what any given disability supposedly means. Doctors and researchers like to assume they are the all-knowing authority, however the drive and will of a person can’t always be accounted for. I’ve interviewed people who have lived through conditions that by all medical logic they should not have lived through. An example that stands out to me comes from a conference call I was invited to attend during the pandemic when I quite annoyed a practicing physician by accounting for something she hadn’t. She claimed that no one was more susceptible to Covid than anyone else. I corrected her by saying those with weakened immune systems most certainly are.
Her arrogance, I believe, came from the same place as those physicians who talk around their clients with disabilities rather than to them. I believe that assuming that because they have a physical disability they will not understand you is a fallacy at best.

Rule #8: Do Not Project
If you use only your own negative experience with disability to try to guide another in their process, they will most likely adopt your viewpoint if they trust you. It follows the principle of telling somebody over and over they are useless. There comes a point they will believe it and cease trying new things. A young woman I once interviewed who worked with visually impaired children had in my opinion a brilliant idea. She had defied society’s expectations by leading these children up a mountain called Gross Grind in Vancouver. Their success, while not solely based on her belief, was no doubt strengthened by it. I myself was told numerous times I would never graduate high school. After earning four college diplomas I can safely refute that presumption, but I had accepted what I thought until I proved myself wrong.

Rule #9: People are Not Cured in a Whirlwind
Possibly the greatest tragedy in disability life is the idea that those with conditions like schizophrenia may feel so fine after getting on medication that they think they no longer need it, causing an inevitable backslide. On the air I say “it is not about an immediate cure, it is about steps in that direction.” There is a certain vulnerability for those attempting to break the cycle of addiction or just for those with disabilities attempting to cure their pain to latch on to people they believe can “show them the way,” and to believe in the good intentions of people whose intentions may be otherwise. That being said, however, for a person with a disability dealing with a fresh trauma, judgment can be compromised and the need to believe more pronounced.

This ties into the side issue of those with addictions and various mental health concerns and consistency. People living with addiction may say something, believing it in the moment, and then a few minutes later have a very different outlook. The young woman in question was no exception. She was told she was cured and redeemed, and therefore believed it because it came from someone she accepted as an authority on the subject.

We all want the magic placebo that will ease our pain, but in going through true healing and the realization that life with a disability doesn’t mean the end of it, people can find a boundless strength to live with dignity and to add meaningfully to the world around them. These guidelines are a few signposts that may help someone keep a balanced perspective on disability life. We often see the world in extremes, but disability is not a curse by nature, but an experience which may propel someone to think in new ways. Like any other tool in this world, a disability can be used to build or tear down. It can be a catalyst for laughter or tears, but it rests with each of us to decide what it is and what it means.