Maybe This Is why Disabled People are Lonely

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I went to school with a student in Middle School, he was disabled. He had a ventilator and a nurse with him 24/7. He was involved in a terrible accident that paralyzed him from the neck down.

I made sure to talk to him every single day of school and at every class we had.
 
Ak5 said:
I went to school with this student in Middle School, he was disabled. He had a ventilator and a nurse with him 24/7. He was involved in a terrible accident that paralyzed him from the neck down.

I made sure to talk to him every single day of school and at every class we had.

I don't think this is the same person. This video was taken very recently and from the looks of things you guys aren't the same ages.

Plus the kid does not have a ventilator.
 
Ak5 said:
No not that guy lol. Someone different.

Oh you were telling a story. I'm sorry. I misunderstood.

That's good you talked to him. =)
 
SophiaGrace said:
Ak5 said:
No not that guy lol. Someone different.

Oh you were telling a story. I'm sorry. I misunderstood.

That's good you talked to him. =)

Yeah, it was very tragic what happened to him. Honestly, even though I am lonely, there are plenty of people who are worse off.
 
That video actually makes me kind of sad. My experience of people with disabilities is very limited but you could see that little boy wanted to interact, he was aware of everything going on, yet the heartbreaking thing is he looked almost resigned to it, like it was normal.

I think most able bodied/minded people are lonely, not by choice so much as fear? I know how it feels to be stood on your own at a large gathering and due to self confidence feel I can't take part, but if I pushed myself I possibly could, whereas he doesn't have that choice and I can't imagine what that must feel like.

Then again, how many of us at that age, or even now, would take the time to interact with a severely disabled person? It's often easier to ignore something that is different than it is to understand it.
 
very sad, i hate to think that such things happen in our schools, there are paid educators to make sure things like that dont happen. There are a few disabled children at our school, i'm proud to say that my daughter is part of the friends project. It involves having lunch the the children and keeping them company in activities. She is only 11, and the educator says she is doing a great job since she is very social and outspoken, lol, shes very protective of her new friends.
 
whispers said:
very sad, i hate to think that such things happen in our schools, there are paid educators to make sure things like that dont happen. There are a few disabled children at our school, i'm proud to say that my daughter is part of the friends project. It involves having lunch the the children and keeping them company in activities. She is only 11, and the educator says she is doing a great job since she is very social and outspoken, lol, shes very protective of her new friends.

I had that. What'll happen when the teacher says "it's time to split you up" like mine did in the 6th grade?

Then started my difficulties making friends.
 
******* hell that brought me to tears. A few years ago I was watching a musical at a theatre, it was produced for children with loads of music and magic but when a group of disabled children came in (with carers) both the theatre owners and other families told them to go to the back to avoid being a bother. This sent me in a rage because not only did the back lack any sort of seating but there were a number of pillars there that blocked out views too. Thankfully the owners changed their minds when I burst into their office like a raging bull but it sickens me to think some people still think that behaviour is ok in this day and age.

Thanks for posting that clip, I’m going to look into doing some more volunteering work closer to the summer.

 
My sophomore year of highschool, there was an drastically autistic kid named Tim in my first hour. He was a freshman. The kid was seriously cool as hell. A couple of pricks, one being the captain of the varsity wrestling team, used to relentlessly pick on this kid. Poking him with their fingers to watch him jump. Mocking his mannerisms. I was the "baddest boy" in the class. Even the captain of the wrestling team (who years later I fought over a drugdeal gone bad) didn't want to fresia with me. I always talked to Tim. He was seriously one of the coolest people I met in highschool, hands down. Well, wrestling ******* kept ramping it up with Tim and I would routinely tell him to "stop" or "get a life" or "shut the fresia up". I used to always say to Tim "remember who your friends are". This was six years before Columbine so I never considered guns back then. But I was well-versed in rage by that age and could see it growing inside him. One day in class, Wrestling Captain poked him and threw something in his hair. Tim went primal. He went apeshit and beat the living fresia out of Wrestling Captain. I pushed his cronies back while Tim stomped his ass into the ground. Tim even charged at me, he was crazed. I yelled "Remember who your friends are, Tim!" followed by "If you touch me, I will kill you." LOL

Yep, Tim and I had an understanding.
 
OMG brought me to tears, too. How can I help these people? Sometimes I see a handicapped man and I want to give them extra attention/conversation but I worry if it will come across as my feeling sorry for them. What to do??? Poor kid. So vulnerable.
 
I have a good friend who is autistic. She went to a special needs school where one of the teachers bullied her. I was so disgusted. She is so sweet and good, and the thought that someone could bully her makes me so mad.
There are a lot of newspaper articles now about how disabled people are now being bullied in the street because of the way they are being portrayed as scroungers by the government. I hate the way the country is going, where the most vulnerable are being treated like dirt by officials.
 
Paradox: If you are disabled and you get a job like a normal person you are held up on a pedestal and people cat believe you actually are living a normal life.

If you are disabled and you actually get disability payment then you're accused of being a leech on society.

Catch 22.
 
Wow, that video was so sad. Just watching the other kids leave the room without even looking at him, urgh... :(

I've always made an effort to interact with everyone I meet, regardless of whether they are disabled or not. As a quieter person, I tend to hang out with people who are quieter or more isolated anyway.

Right now I'm pretty good friends with someone who possibly has some sort of social disability, in that he seems to find it really difficult (just from my observations) to gauge the moods and emotions of others. I think that's perhaps Asperger's?

He's a funny and friendly guy, but other people often judge him as being "unfriendly" or "weird" purely because he's not instantly engaging on an immediate, superficial level. That irritates me a bit, even though it's not my place to be irritated for him.

Unfortunately, I feel guilt myself sometimes for not fully interacting with disabled people - I know in my teens, I often became very shy around people with prominent disabilities, because I didn't want to say something offensive or ignorant and upset them.

I'd go as far as to say there should be some sort of mass education in society about disabilities. When you think about it, unless you do proper research into a specific disability because it plays a part in your life or the life of someone you know, it's an issue that not many people are very knowedgeable about.

That lack of knowledge and understanding in itself promotes segregation and isolation, not to mention bullying.

Losing some of my hearing has actually made me want to learn sign language - it's something I shall try to do when I've completed my studies. It really opened my eyes to how difficult it must be for others worse off than me...and how it's always possible to lose your senses and physical abilities.
 
I watched that video. It's sad all around.

Our schools should be funded and staffed so that no child with special needs is ever left "just sitting alone" for an extended period of time.

You can judge the decency of a society by how it treats the weakest of its citizens.
 
SophiaGrace said:
Why'd you lose some of your hearing? any idea?

The doctors reckon it was either like a really tiny "mini-stroke" in one of my blood capillaries or some kind of virus infected cells in my ear that don't regenerate.

I had a really heavy cold for an unusually long time, so I'm guessing the latter is the most likely. I believe officially it's called sensorineural hearing loss, though when the doctors did the tuning fork test on me, the results seemed to surprise them (they didn't really support that).

So I suppose I'm just an enigma ;) Thanks for asking though.
 
TheSolitaryMan said:
though when the doctors did the tuning fork test on me, the results seemed to surprise them (they didn't really support that).

?? What were the results?
 

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