Rude Comments People Have Said To Me Because I Am Disabled

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We live in a world surrounded by ableism that is a huge problem that unfortunately only disabled people see because we are the only ones really affected by it. Many abled people have a really hard time seeing ableism or even knowing what it is so a lot of them say incredibly ableist things without trying or even realizing that it is offensive and wrong towards disabled people. When you are disabled sometimes people will say things about your disability that are just rude and makes me wonder why people say them. Some people may not even realize that it’s wrong but other people don’t even care and will continue to hurt the disabled community because it doesn’t affect them. I have had my share of hurtful comments that were said to me because I am disabled which I usually ignore but some things are just so wrong you can’t forget them. In this post, I am going to talk about some comments that people have said to me because I am disabled that were rude and slightly upsetting and you should stop saying them immediately!

You should consider speech therapy- I have a speech delay and some words particularly ones with r’s in them are very difficult for me to say and sometimes words aren’t as clear as I am trying to make them. I love it when people come up to me and say that my speech is terrible and that speech therapy obviously didn’t work. I did speech therapy as a kid because it was far worse than it is now and you could barely understand me but I have come a long way and it did work. It may not have totally fixed all my speech issues but it worked even better than you could have ever imagined and you can’t expect it to totally solve all your problems. I have dyslexia and some words will always be difficult for me to say and that’s fine if you don’t understand but you don’t have to be rude about it. Politely ask me to repeat it because I will gladly do so without hesitation when you’re nice about it and won’t even be irritated that you asked. I know that some of my words don’t come out well and I don’t get mad when you ask me to repeat things and I am only annoyed when you’re rude about it. My speech is nothing that I can change but is something that I have never liked about myself so much that I would avoid cameras to not hear myself talk. You are not helping by saying my speech is terrible but are probably doing more harm than good because I already don’t like that I struggle so much with pronouncing things.

You are a failure if you drop out of school- School has always been hard for me and I wanted to become an ASL interpreter but I couldn’t get through the first basic math class because my learning disability made it difficult. I stayed up at all hours of the night and went to tutoring but even with all that studying, nothing was enough to get a passing grade. I made the mistake of telling some friends and the only thing they had to say about it was that I was lazy and a failure for not giving it enough effort. If only you would have seen how much time and effort I put into my studies then you may understand it was not from lack of effort. College isn’t for everyone which is especially hard for people with learning disabilities because not all tutors understand how to teach people with learning disabilities and more time to comprehend it is not always an option. You are not a failure not able to finish school and I really hate it when people say things like this because you can be successful without a college degree. Sometimes you may have to work harder or won’t get paid as much as someone with a college degree but you can still be successful without one!

Your just lazy– When you are disabled people often don’t see or realize that it’s much more difficult to find employment than it is for abled people. Disabled people face tons of discrimination in job interviews that we cannot prove which makes it much more difficult to find employment. Many employers look at us and assume we are not capable of doing the job we applied to which seems silly becuase why would we apply to a job we couldn’t do. I applied for a job and one of the things they asked was if my doctor’s appointment would interfere with my work which I don’t even know if that’s legal to ask that. I looked for ten years and after so many rejections I gave up and decided I was probably never going to get hired and focused more on my blog. During the time of searching, I was approached by many people saying that if I wasn’t so lazy and tried harder I would have a job. I worked with many employment agencies to try and find a job and the reason I don’t have one is not from lack of trying but because employers don’t want to give disabled people a chance. Please stop saying these things because I would have loved to be offered a job somewhere where I could have gotten a steady paycheck but since I have a disability that is not going to happen and I have to work double the hours only to make a small amount.

You have a big butt- My butt sticks out a little bit because some of my muscles don’t work and my level of Spina Bifida affects that.I am always surprised when people come up to me and make the extra effort just to tell me that my butt is big and I should do something about it. My butt is not that big and even if it was there are no exercises you can do to strengthen muscles that aren’t there. Is it really necessary to make negative comments like these? I don’t know anyone who would appreciate comments attacking their body especially women who are more self-conscious about it. I used to let things like this bother me but now I don’t and I have accepted my body for the way it is and when people say things like this I respond with big butts are in without giving an explanation because with that level of rudeness you don’t deserve one. Accept people the way they are and don’t go out of your way to point out their flaws because we all have things that we could improve on!

When you are disabled people will say more rude things to you than if you were abled and expect us not to get mad but it’s okay to be angry. You don’t always have to put up with it but sometimes people need to be called on their ableism because that is how we learn. Some people don’t know what ableism is and even if it’s obvious to disabled people it may not be for abled people. For the most part, I ignore rudeness because you have to and if I got mad at every little thing it would make for a very unhappy life because people do things all the time that are aggravating! I try and not to take it personally when someone is rude and educate them instead because the only way you will create change is to make people more aware not by telling them off. I just updated my website so if you have trouble reading or loading anything please let me know and I will look into it. I want you to have the best experience possible so please tell me your thoughts so I can get better! What rude things have people said to you because of your disability and how did you handle it?