trying to find the words to describe how much i actually hate when able-bodied people (like myself) say things like “suffering from a disability” or “suffering from a mental illness.” this may be completely about nitpicky semantics, but in my personal opinion, i think it sounds condescending and paternalistic. there. i said it.
now. this obviously doesn’t mean that chronic pain isn’t painful, or that the side effects of medications don’t make people nauseous, this doesn’t mean that the physical manifestations of depression don’t make it difficult (and often physically painful) to get out of bed. but not everyone is “suffering” from their diagnosis- some folks may be. but not everyone. people are much more resilient than we give them and ourselves credit for. i don’t think people have not learned to navigate, survive, and live with having disabilities in a world not designed for them. they shouldn’t have to. but they do.
i think, more often, folks are “suffering” from ableism, and it’s trappings. folks are suffering at the hands of a society that pathologizes them, uses words like lame, retarded and crazy as synonyms for bad and abnormal, makes getting resources a million times harder, makes getting into the metro harder and sometimes impossible, keeps them from getting healthcare, restricts benefits, reinforces negative stereotypes about them, labels them as threat to society and someone (or something) to be fixed, others them socially and politically, and does everything in it’s power to prevent them from leading safe healthy, full, autonomous lives.
as an able-bodied person owning up to my own privilege, i’m in no position to decide what suffering looks like for folks living with disabilities. full stop. and i know that every person experiences their disability (physically and socio-politically) differently, and some folks with disabilities may really identify with the idea of suffering. and those voices are important. i imagine that there is not a general assembly consensus among people with disabilities around all forms of language, just like any other marginalized group. but “sufferer” is a label i don’t feel comfortable giving someone else. actually, i’m not even sure that’s a word. either way, i’ll let folks decide whether they are suffering or not. and isn’t that the basis of our autonomy? the ability to name ourselves and describe our experiences?
i think the word “suffering” coming out of the mouths of people who are not a part of that community and identity makes folks with disabilities sound unable to live happy, full lives solely based on ability- ill-equipped, less than “normal,” and therefore, less than human. i don’t think it’s ever helpful to compare oppressions, but as an example of shifting the paradigm, i might say that black folks suffered from slavery and institutions of racism. they did not, however, suffer from blackness. blackness is not the problem, just like a person’s disability is not always the problem, and isn’t necessarily a source of suffering. despite how often doctors, medical models and society will tell us that people need to be “fixed.” disability is not the problem, ableism is.
what are your thoughts about the language of suffering?
do i have this all wrong?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Crunk Feminists and quirkyblackgirl, alicia sanchez gill. alicia sanchez gill said: NEW blog post…finally! on #ableism and the language of "suffering" [from a #disability]: http://t.co/Jnssn64 [...]
I agree with you. I can call you whatever politically correct name you want to feel respected but if I am gonna blow you off and oppress you, it doesnt matter.I can call you your right gender pronoun and follow the rules but I dont have to hire you to work for me. I can emancipate you and proclamate you till I am blue in my face but still pay you lower and get you fired without sounding racist.My feeling is that alot of our compartments come from how we compartmentalize shit when we are sexually abused so as to not feel the hurt. And hurt still is there underneath the pretend and never really being cleaned and healed..so call me transphobic and ableist. These are things we use to keep each other at bay and no
I can see where you’re coming from. But on the other hand, at least when it comes to disabilities that are actually physically painful (which isn’t so rare in the realm of disabilities), it often feels appropriate to me to use the word ‘suffering’. I have serious chronic pain; I suffer. And I think the flip side of trying to emphasize that ableism is a problem by not using the word ‘suffer,’ is that it actually disappears my disability. I think that might be true for a lot of people with ‘invisible’ disabilities. Acknowledging suffering can be a really important first step, not just in thinking about what accomodations are useful, but in seeing someone as a human being worth taking seriously.
Also, this: “disability is not the problem, ableism is,” while I can see it is well meaning, is incredibly naive. Refusing to acknowledge the aspects of life with a disability that have nothing to do with ableism and everything to do with a pain so fierce it makes you pant for breath, and fatigue so total you can’t remember how to speak, makes your arguments lack depth.
hey karla, thanks for your response. i hear what what you mean- especially around “disappearing your disability.” i certainly wouldn’t want to erase your voice/experience. i definitely don’t want to minimize the very real physical and emotional pain that sometimes comes with having a disability. as far as physical pain, i think that is sometimes out of anyone’s control. only left up to the disability itself (and sometimes left up to doctors; getting the right diagnosis, getting appropriate care, medicines etc). but in terms of some of the emotional pain, like shaming, isolation, i think maybe the problem is less individual and more on a larger social scale- like folks with disabilities not being able to see each other because they are hidden in the media and hidden from one another- and i think that is a form of ableism.
like i mentioned in my post, i know that physical manifestations (and emotional and psychosomatic) manifestations are real. no doubt. i just don’t know if it’s helpful for me, a non-disabled person to say that folks with disabilities are suffering (with a broad, overarching statement) unless that is an identity you identify with. and it sounds like you do, so i will honor that, and recognize that lots of folks with disabilities have varying experiences/opinions about this. thanks again. so glad you spoke- i look forward to continuing the dialogue!
Its taken me a bit to identify exactly what bothers me about your view here. But I think its this: having a disability is not like having any other marginalized identity that I know of, because having a disability is not a social construct. There are things about the ability to do this or that activity that are social constructs, of course. I’m familiar with the social model of disability, and I like that approach to analyzing how open and well designed our society is. But when you act like my physical condition is solely a social construct you misunderstand what its like to be disabled.
If someone came to me with a medical treatment that would make me straight, I wouldn’t take it for a billion dollars. Being queer is part of my identity- to refuse to be queer would be to destroy myself. But if someone came to me with a medical treatment that would relieve my pain, I would pay all the money I have for it. And until you can understand the distinction between these two kinds of identities, until you can understand that disability is not like being an ethnic or sexual minority because it sucks all by itself, without any kind of ableism added on to the situation to make things worse, you have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to disability issues. I suspect that is what is making several of your commenters so angry, and I would suggest that you, as a would-be ally to disabled people, should understand our point of view before you go making pronouncements about what terms are and are not acceptable.
yes, yes.
karla. thank you for pointing this out.
that is really helpful for me. especially this:
“And until you can understand the distinction between these two kinds of identities, until you can understand that disability is not like being an ethnic or sexual minority because it sucks all by itself, without any kind of ableism added on to the situation to make things worse, you have no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to disability issues.”
totally willing to own that i don’t know what i’m talking about. i’m certainly no expert. even in the identities i’m a part of. i’m learning and new to this, and so grateful for your feedback, and the feedback of others. i know how exhausting it can be in general to voice concerns and point out people’s privilege. thank you for doing it here. its so easy (not always) to voice the ways we have been oppressed, not as easy to own privilege. still exploring this. thank you again.
I completely agree with you. I have a chronic pain condition and mental health issues, and though they don’t exactly make my life easier, I hate being labeled a “sufferer”. They are a part of my life. An often hard part of my life, but life isn’t easy for anybody. And there are good side, too, like the community aspect, the way I learned to respect myself and my body and to be proud of my achievements without always having to compare myself to others, the way I stopped putting pressure on me to achieve my family’s ideals… No one gets to label that as suffering.
hi lounalune, thanks for commenting! and i agree, life is not easy for anyone, but i also don’t want to minimize the real impact that ableism (sometimes combined with racism/sexism etc), and the physical pain of having a mental illness systematically plays in your life, perhaps. not because your disability makes you suffer consistently, but because ableism pretty much consistently does?
it sounds like “sufferer” is a word you don’t identify with at all? or at least when someone else is doing the labeling?
Wow. Fuck you. I ***DO*** suffer from depression and anxiety.
I can’t wait until the social model falls out of fashion. So sick of this po-mo bullshit I could fucking scream.
hi there, thanks for commenting. i hear you. and like i mentioned in my post, “i know that every person experiences their disability (physically and socio-politically) differently, and some folks with disabilities may really identify with the idea of suffering.” in know way am i seeking to minimize your ability to name yourself or your suffering.
i just don’t know if it’s helpful for me to name it. is it helpful for me to label people as suffering from the disability as much as it helpful for me to acknowledge the larger social systems with which i play a part because of my privilege. ableism. what do you think?
oh, and what’s po-mo?
I suffer from depression. I may be crazy. [insert further able-ist language]. Who knows.
What I do know is that if someone asked me to choose between ridding myself of depression, and ridding the world of able-ist language, my reaction would be to ask them if they were so stupid as to think that that choice would ever not go one way. I couldn’t care less what language you use; fix the actual problem in my life.
To think that your language matters even the slightest in comparison to the actual disability in question is narcissism of the highest order.
Sorry for the necropost, but thank you for posting this.
I suffer from insufferable jerks who insist on telling me that I suffer from autism. I can appreciate Karla’s and James’ positions. I can appreciate chronic pain is a cause of suffering. I can appreciate that depression is a cause of suffering. And I think it would be ableist to tell either Karla or James that they aren’t suffering. And I think that the phrase you used “more often” in relation to suffering from ableism rather than their disability has put a few people on edge.
But if one more person says the phrase “suffering from autism” near me, I’m going to knock their face through. Thank you for helping me see why.