Wtf is wrong with people when it comes to hidden disabilities?

[Whatthebarnacles]

Full on rant incoming! Ready to be flamed in the depths on MN hell for this but it really is a hill I'm happy to die on so whatever will be, will be!

I'm absolutely sick to the back teeth of certain people on here who eye roll and sneer that those with hidden disabilities should be treated the same as neuro typical people.

Non verbal, lashing out? Report to police for assault - how dare they lay a hand on someone else 🙄

Can't sit still / constantly stims? Expel them from school - why should my "normal child" be affected?🙄

Stares and makes noises? Tell them you're uncomfortable and to stop immediately, we have the right not to be ogled.🙄

Can we please just stop it?! It's like the world's gone mad! All the years of effort to try and make people aware of hidden disabilities just seems to have crumbled an i've seen it happenn in here over the last 6 months or so more than ever. There seems to be an almighty wave of this incredibly farcical "BUT ME AND MINE" or "MY RIGHTS" just smash through the work that had been done and its depressing as shit.

Would you call the police or kick off on someone who spilled a cuppa over you then laughed? Or caught your face , if...

1. They were 4 years old? Nope, so why would you for someone with intellectual disabilities? You would talk to the carer. Rightly so.

1. If they had Parkinsons? Would you bollocks. Because you can SEE that disability and because its a physical one, then it can't be helped, right?

1. They were clearly ND?

There are countless people in here who would because, according to them, they do not have the right / there needs to be consequences / they're an adult regardless / i am woman hear me roar etc.

I cant get my head around the lack of understanding

And don't get me started on those who turn these things into "us women" need to defend ourselves. And faux outrage "would they have done it to a man? I don't think so!" Urgh. Yes... they would. A disability is a disability, a stim is a stim, a jolt is a jolt. Hair is dangly, splashing someone or spilling something is funny, stimming is calming on the inside whilst frantic in the outside.

Frankly, it turns my stomach. Why is the world so angry at people who are different at the moment?!

I can only presume that the number of people now having been diagnosed is pissing these people off. I've honestly never ever heard so much "just because they're xyz doesn't mean that..." in my life. See also "they need to learn" or "they should know"...

I fret for my son growing up in this. He doesn't stand a cat in hells chance.

YABU - Of course ND people, should be treated the same as NT people when it comes to differing behaviour, regardless of mental age or physical disabilities associated with their condition.

YANBU - MN is rife with it at the moment, I've noticed that too.

Annnnnd..... crucify me. GO!!

Wow
Very concerned about the lack of respect for education here

As an aside as an Architect I use Trig all the time. It’s especially important for land and building surveys and along with the Golden section also for design

Without Trig I would not have passed my Maths exams to get into Uni

Please don’t think education is unimportant. Those kids at the back that want to learn amongst all this disruption are the ones that are silently suffering. They may grow up to be kind and accepting but if they lose their career dreams along the way it’s highly unlikely.

I was sexually assaulted by someone with a disability. The police came to his defence. I was 11 and will never forget it.

There has to be a line op.

I think people do understand it's not their fault, but the outcome of an attack on a person doesn't change.

It's difficult for everyone involved.

I think what’s difficult is reading some of these threads on disability where people describe their experience of being hurt or inconvenienced or otherwise impacted by a disabled person. There are a huge number of disabled people in the world. They really aren’t committing the majority of these sorts of crimes. In fact they are far far more likely to be victims of crime themselves. The person causing your child upset at school is much more likely to come from a damagingly dysfunctional home life than have been born with a lifelong neurological disability.

The best place to educate our disabled children is with their siblings and neighbours so that they grow as part of our community.

Our children are already facing a future where they will be shouldering the burden of a huge elderly population. Why on earth would we not be doing everything in our power to limit the number of dependent disabled adults who cannot function in society? It’s short sighted and foolish to ostracise those that cannot function cope with help I’m mainstream school or indeed in mainstream life. If you do want to fight to protect your child then step up and fight for inclusion. Speak up when you hear racism, sexism or ableism because those are the attitudes that are going to drain their futures of promise and reduce their outcomes.

That's awful. I'm so sorry that happened to you.
I mentioned upthread a friends teenage son is very disabled with non verbal autism. He's big and strong and has no comprehension. He plays with himself a lot (then has a screaming meltdown if he gets cum on himself). He has also started putting his hands on women and girls in the street. My friend has had big multi agency meetings about how to tackle this. From what she's told me nobody has a clue what to do or a workable solution.
He also kicks animals while he's out if he's near one. A poster upthread said her son is very sorry afterwards if he hurts somebody, my friends son has no concept of 'sorry' or right and wrong.

Another problem I see is that a potential solution might be to have two or even three carers (my friends son only goes out with minimum two people as it is). Where are all these people coming from though? There's already a labour shortage as it is. One of my friends sons carers is leaving, she can't find anyone else. Oh, and she pays £21 per hour up north, still can't find anyone.

Your friend needs better professional support. What you describe is not that unusual with severely disabled adults and workable solutions can be found (not so much difficult as expensive and requiring a modicum of imagination).

What solution would you suggest?
My friends son has no concept of right and wrong, and it's just impossible for him to consider other people.

@Tapofthemorning This is exactly what I was referring to with my first comment on this thread. Advocacy around hidden disabilities was originally a good and somewhat necessary thing, because yes, they do exist and were generally rather unknown to the public for a long time.

But unfortunately, much of this advocacy has been so poorly done, and in a particular climate of our day, that it has actually led to an unintended impact on people with visible disabilities who are often far more vulnerable and more unwell. Hidden disability advocacy has often taken the stance that this group is the "most vulnerable" (lol, remind you of anything...) and the most overlooked and the most in need of special privileges and care. And crucially, it's a model of disability that encourages people to identify into it via identity based models and/or self diagnosis. With serious visible disabilities, that's just not how it works.

I'm not saying there are no serious hidden disabilities, btw. Of course there are. Just that the nature of the advocacy has been so ham handed and tangled up with identitarian politics that it has ended up pushing a false hierarchy. The reality is that most of the time (albeit not absolutely always) it still is actually visibly disabled people who are the most vulnerable.

You sound like a mens right activist complaining that women's rights are overblown! If you read the evidence base, particularly on stigma and social exclusion, you will find autism tops the charts and takes a terrible toll on the mental health of autistic people and carers. We could also look at the life expectancy of people with global neurodevelopmental conditions...

No, whatever issues the violent child has, (s)he is the one who should not be there if the school is unable to control the behaviour. Why should the bullied child have to suffer? Is the child with the problems more important than everyone else? No child will be safe in this environment, all will be worried that they will be the next target. The constant disruption will mean that no constructive learning can take place
When l was six, we had, what we thought at the time, was an extremely naughty boy in our class. Years later, l found out he was autistic. He had already been held back a year. On this particular morning, l cannot remember what he was doing that was even worse than normal. What l can remember is the teacher, who was near retirement age, tying the boy to the chair. He left our school after that to go to a special school. Of course, l cannot approve of the actions of the teacher, but I can completely understand why she did this. It was 1971, there were nearly forty five and six year olds in her class and no other adult in the room apart from the teacher. She would have been terrified that either the boy or one of us might be badly injured.

@NonplasticBertrand I am autistic.

I think @verysmellyjelly ”most vulnerable” has to have context. A learning disabled or autistic child who cannot communicate is far more vulnerable to abuse because they cannot advocate for themselves at all. In a flood or fire they are obviously better placed to save themselves than someone who is immobile.

@Itisbetter Yes, I completely agree with you there. And I would consider any child who can't communicate to be very vulnerable, no question.

We don’t really advocate tying children up because we don’t have resources to care for them. I’m sorry you had to witness that it’s very obviously clouded your views. It sounds like the child’s life would have been forever blighted by his care. Really upsetting to read about. Imagine if that had been your experience of school.

The vast majority of disabled people (whether disability is ‘hidden’ or not) have capacity and know right from wrong. It is really only a very small proportion who do not. Capacity is not something that can be learnt in mainstream schools.

If you put a child with severe ‘hidden’ disability in a mainstream class with children being taught GCSE History but they can’t read let alone follow the lesson then what exactly are they getting out of it? Sure the rest of the class might get warm and fuzzy feelings of being inclusive or ‘kind’ but the disabled child is being failed. If we want to limit the number of dependent disabled adults then a specialist setting where they can use their time learning life skills, to read, basic money-management, employability skills, etc is what is needed.

Also children from damagingly dysfunctional homes more often than not do have lifelong neurological disability. What they don’t have is parents capable of engaging with services to diagnose this, or the ability to provide the supports needed - often because they have lifelong neurological disabilities themselves. These disabilities can be caused by alcohol (FASD), drugs, or neglect.

@Itisbetter, my father used to help with swimming classes at the special school this boy was sent to. The boy was much happier in that environment and doing well. A mainstream classroom with forty other small children behaving unpredictably (in the boy's eyes) and perhaps making noises that hurt his ears was categorically the wrong setting for him. The smaller school with specialist teachers was the best place for him. He certainly was not "blighted for ever" because everything improved for him afterwards. However, had the teacher not acted in the way she saw fit at the time and, almost certainly at the end of her tether, having run out of all other options in her view, another child could well have been "blighted for life" by being badly hurt. Also, remember that it was a very different world in 1971.

I should add, sometimes the specialism of the setting is not to teach life skills but to provide an environment where children with specific disabilities can take a wide range of GCSEs and A levels. Children for whom the mainstream schools simply cannot provide a suitable environment.

@Kendodd that is a shocking story.

I know the professionals and his parents don't know what to do but, Jesus. There must be somewhere where he can live that keeps him and others safe.

I feel so sorry for this boy's mother. I hope she gets some sort of respite.

Do they know what has caused his disability?

You remind me of a post I saw where a autistic comic who was part-way through a successful tour of one-women shows to well filled houses, was explaining how she was just a disabled as someone with profound disabilities as sometimes she had to return to her house, (owned, not rented) which she lived in one her own, and crash for several days/week or two….

@AshKeys That's exactly the kind of thing I'm referring to.

I do 100% believe there are hidden disabilities that can make a person very vulnerable. But so much of the discourse and the advocacy is dishonest and overblown. If anything it does a disservice to all disabled people, in my view.

That's an interesting perspective, and I'm sorry you feel that way, but from my lived experience this isn't the case. I advocate for all disabilities: non-invisible and invisible. That includes developmental delays, physical disabilities which aren't visible and physical disabilities that are visible. I wouldn't pit my invisible physical disability, which causes me enormous trauma, against a physical disability which was visible or a mental health condition. It's not a race to the bottom and we work better as a team, not against each other. The very last thing I want to do is cause divisions among the people I stand with.

I think most people do understand that disabled people who hit out and hurt others are very often unaware of their actions and/or can’t control them.

Ultimately though, if someone is unable to be around others without hurting them, they need to be away from those situations, or managed extremely carefully.

The well-being of an unknown person in public isn’t my responsibility, but protecting my child is. If anyone threatens their safety, no reasonable parent is going to smile and accept that their injury or pain is excusable because the other person couldn’t control themselves.

I wonder @Violinist64 if you would feel traumatised if as a small child you’d been separated from your normal environment, away from your parents and siblings, surrounded by a class full of children with an adult in charge who tied you to a chair if you would feel it had no impact on your subsequent life experience. You are describing child abuse that you witnessed and justifying it.

Hidden disability advocacy has often taken the stance that this group is the "most vulnerable" (lol, remind you of anything...) and the most overlooked and the most in need of special privileges and care. And crucially, it's a model of disability that encourages people to identify into it via identity based models and/or self diagnosis.

@verysmellyjelly
Really?
I don’t think that’s true to any great extent.
I haven’t seen that type of advocacy at least and with a family member with autism who sometimes does have a invisible disability I’d be on the look out for it. (Sometimes his disability is very obvious but it depends on the situation.)
Overlooked I can understand, but most vulnerable/most in need of special care or privileges, no, but I haven’t heard people claim that?