More and more I’ve been running into an interesting situation. By my therapist, by social services… and even the government office who pays disability income (despite I’m not a recipient; I have been there a few times for interviews).
As it is now more and more the focus is shifted towards “What can you do?” rather than someone on the spectrum (or any other disability for that matter) saying “I can’t do X”.
The absurdity in asking any of us what we can do is that we cannot use the word “but”. Since if we start using the word but, we already start saying what we can’t do. Thinking about this, one needs to be a semantic wordsmith to conjure up a sentence that’s so foolproof where you point out what you can’t do without them pushing you with your back against the wall; since it feels like they’re just preying on the B word.
Somewhere between all of this the word “ableism” floats through my mindspace… I’m not sure where exactly it goes in this equation, but I’m sure it can be added somewhere in this concept and conundrum.
I’ve found it, funny, up to the point of silly that when I tell them, I can do X, the initial response is an aggressive “well, why don’t you?”. I rather not tell them “but…” but the truth is; I’m well aware of plenty of my shortcomings, yet as it seems that people like me (and most likely you, the reader of this blog and member of this forum), are being scrutinized more than the average neurotypical joe.
The average joe says he can do something, will try, fail, and move on. If any of us will try and fail, and fail because of the shortcomings that can be attributed to our issues, we get berated and perhaps in trouble because “you should have told us”. But when I tell them “I can do this, but….” I get interjected and told “No buts!”.
And if I tell them, I can do X and Y and Z under condition A, I’m being to specific and I need to be more flexible and more along the lines of “you need to be more generic”.
The other side of the coin could be something like this;
“Fine… I can’t do anything.” There, problem solved. That way I don’t put myself in a precarious position that will get me in trouble.
However, when I have this stance, I’m not cooperative towards any route for gainful employment. When I ask for support, they ask me how said support should look like. Look… if I had a clear outline how a support plan would look, I probably would’ve managed college and become a social worker. Talking about outsourcing.
Look, I’m all for looking at options, but it’s getting to the point where demands are so ridiculous and a hard emphasis on what one can do; I don’t even know what I can do. I’m up to try a lot, but just like that big Hollywood movie machine that pumps out remake after remake, no one is going to take chances anymore. We all want guarantees. We all want that it works, no buts. I’ll give this development another 10 years until companies start taking people to court because “he said he could do this job, but apparently he can’t and thus we lost 0.001% efficiency”. Yes, exaggerated much, but I don’t think I’m that far off, that this is where we’re heading in terms of “what can you do?”. Telling someone what you can do, requires more than confidence, it needs the ability to back it up. And the truth is, like I pointed out before; I know my shortcomings, perhaps better than plenty of these “average joes”.
If I add up all these issues it’s really quite simple.
“You cannot have shortcomings!”
Thank you citizens of earth for having a proper understanding on what it is to be different…
Yeah, I think ableism fits in right here as well.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
As it is now more and more the focus is shifted towards “What can you do?” rather than someone on the spectrum (or any other disability for that matter) saying “I can’t do X”.
The absurdity in asking any of us what we can do is that we cannot use the word “but”. Since if we start using the word but, we already start saying what we can’t do. Thinking about this, one needs to be a semantic wordsmith to conjure up a sentence that’s so foolproof where you point out what you can’t do without them pushing you with your back against the wall; since it feels like they’re just preying on the B word.
Somewhere between all of this the word “ableism” floats through my mindspace… I’m not sure where exactly it goes in this equation, but I’m sure it can be added somewhere in this concept and conundrum.
I’ve found it, funny, up to the point of silly that when I tell them, I can do X, the initial response is an aggressive “well, why don’t you?”. I rather not tell them “but…” but the truth is; I’m well aware of plenty of my shortcomings, yet as it seems that people like me (and most likely you, the reader of this blog and member of this forum), are being scrutinized more than the average neurotypical joe.
The average joe says he can do something, will try, fail, and move on. If any of us will try and fail, and fail because of the shortcomings that can be attributed to our issues, we get berated and perhaps in trouble because “you should have told us”. But when I tell them “I can do this, but….” I get interjected and told “No buts!”.
And if I tell them, I can do X and Y and Z under condition A, I’m being to specific and I need to be more flexible and more along the lines of “you need to be more generic”.
The other side of the coin could be something like this;
“Fine… I can’t do anything.” There, problem solved. That way I don’t put myself in a precarious position that will get me in trouble.
However, when I have this stance, I’m not cooperative towards any route for gainful employment. When I ask for support, they ask me how said support should look like. Look… if I had a clear outline how a support plan would look, I probably would’ve managed college and become a social worker. Talking about outsourcing.
Look, I’m all for looking at options, but it’s getting to the point where demands are so ridiculous and a hard emphasis on what one can do; I don’t even know what I can do. I’m up to try a lot, but just like that big Hollywood movie machine that pumps out remake after remake, no one is going to take chances anymore. We all want guarantees. We all want that it works, no buts. I’ll give this development another 10 years until companies start taking people to court because “he said he could do this job, but apparently he can’t and thus we lost 0.001% efficiency”. Yes, exaggerated much, but I don’t think I’m that far off, that this is where we’re heading in terms of “what can you do?”. Telling someone what you can do, requires more than confidence, it needs the ability to back it up. And the truth is, like I pointed out before; I know my shortcomings, perhaps better than plenty of these “average joes”.
If I add up all these issues it’s really quite simple.
“You cannot have shortcomings!”
Thank you citizens of earth for having a proper understanding on what it is to be different…
Yeah, I think ableism fits in right here as well.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
