Disability, Culture, and Society

Your first paragraph should summarize the article.

Your second paragraph should explain why you think the quote is important in the context of how it relates to the class material. In other words, put this article in dialogue with the class material; how does the article relate to the class material and vice versa.

Your third paragraph should explain why you think the quote is important in the context of how it relates to disability in society in general. That is, how does the article speak to social norms related to disability and/or the challenging of social norms related to disability.

Please remember to double-space your paper and aim for a full one page of writing.

EXAMPLE:

“Who am I to say I’m hindered when there’s nothing visibly wrong with me: when some days I function at 110 percent and nothing can hold me back”

The article referenced by the quote above is called “Anxiety is an Invalid Excuse.” More of a poem than an article, this piece reflects the inner turmoil that the author, Kelly Wynne experiences when she suffers from anxiety attacks. Each paragraph in the article is headed by the statement, “Anxiety is an invalid excuse,” (Wynne, 2016) - a generalized way some people view with anxiety, and is then followed by her contradictory accounts of her pain and anguish coupled with the pressure she feels from society to belittle her condition. She is a university student who has been diagnosed with anxiety, has been certified by the school psychiatrist as officially disabled, and must take anti-anxiety medication in order to minimally function at work and at school. She internalizes the stereotype that people with emotional and psychological disabilities are labeled with, such as the words “Lazy. Inadequate. Delusional. Crazy…too fragile to face life like a normal person” (Wynne, 2016, p. 2). Throughout the article, each paragraph reveals a facet of her life that she must learn to live with, such as needing her medication to function, or sometimes making up excuses for skipping social events that she dreads, or her feelings of guilt for qualifying as a disabled person when she feels that she is a fraud; she is physically whole, and her anxiety is not ubiquitous. Writing about her struggles seems to be cathartic for her, and at the end of the piece, she writes that despite her guilt and her inner shame, “I’m a fighter” (Wynne, 2016, p. 4) and the reader is left with the hope that she will be able to pick herself up and forge ahead through the stigma of her disability and through her own fears.

This quote relates to the DSST 310 class because it refers to a disability and the accompanying pain and societal judgement that a disabled person is made to feel when their disability does not match the disability model that society wishes to follow. In Module 1, we learned about the history of how disability has been viewed in the past. According to Disability: A Diversity Model Approach in Human Service Practice, authors Romel W. Mackelprang and Richard O. Salsgiver wrote, “Those with disabilities that are characterized today as ‘mental illnesses were thought to be possessed by demons” (Mackelprang & Salsgiver, 2015). Whether the disability of anxiety is approached with the traditional moral model or the medical model, this particular disability carries a stigma. The moral model would judge the individual as having committed a sin, incurring the wrath of God. The medical model would take the approach that the anxiety could be eliminated through the use of anti-anxiety medication. As Wynne points out, she takes her medication to alive her worst feelings, however, the medication does not provide a cure. The ableism that is implicit in society works against Wynne by making her feel guilty about accepting her disability, denying the legitimacy of her disability, and blaming her for the disability. She is compartmentalized if she admits to anyone that she has anxiety, which immediately puts a label on her as someone less than able. She faces denial of her disability because hers is a disability that is felt internally, and it is easily dismissed by people who equate disabilities with physical impairment. She writes, “I can’t say I have a diagnosis because everyone I tell is conditioned to think I’m either a deranged psychopath or I’m faking it because I’m simply too fragile to face life like a normal person…All of a sudden I’m the crazy, mentally unstable girl completely incompetent and incapable of any mundane task in front of me” (Wynne, 2016, p. 2).

Anxiety and other psychological disorders are conditions that are not chosen by the individuals who have them, just as other disabilities are not chosen by the people who have them. Although society has made some progress towards accepting disabilities and trying to not view them with shame or negative feelings, people like Kelly Wynne are still made to feel embarrassed for having what society might deems as a weakness in her mind. Instead of accepting that Wynne has challenges that she lives with daily, that sometimes make her have to change how she goes about her daily living, the general view of mental illness in society is that those individuals are not whole, mentally. It is evident that this stigma is still present, by the internalized self-hatred that Wynne describes. It is apparent that society has far to go to accepting people with disabilities as whole individuals with the equal rights to dignity.

References Mackelprang, R. W., & Salsgiver, R. O. (2015). Disability: A Diversity Model Approach in Human Service Practice. (T. M. Meenaghan, Ed.) Chicago, Illinois, USA: Lyceum Books, Inc. Wynne, K. (2016, October 20). Anxiety Is An Invalid Excuse. Retrieved April 2018, from Just Cut the Bullshit: http://www.justcutthebullshit.com/home/2016/10/20/anxiety-is-an-invalid-excuse