Let’s Talk About Disability Language

[paul-met-debbie]

I think there is too much emphasis on the subject to start with.

Why would anyone want to be identified with a bodily function-disorder like that? Why would you want to be adressed at all in that way? And if you do, why do you care about the specific terms used in that process?
If you really care about being referred to as cf-er, cf patient, person with cf, and also care about the difference between those terms, chances are that you are thinking too much about it.

If you let your life to be affected (or think it is affected) by the way people are talking about you, you have a severe problem of being overly selfconscious bordering on the paranoide. Your ego has run away with you and you don’t know it.

Do you really want to (care about) tell(ing) others how you want to be identified? This has nothing to do with either autonomy or authority. Real autonomy and authority would mean that you are absolutely indifferent to how other people refer to you as a member of some (illusonary) group like “people with cf”. You could not be bothered less because you are living your own life from within your own strength. You would probably not even feel identified yourself as cf-related. You are just who you are.

If the way other people refer to you or “your group” makes you feel inferior or inadequate, while the terms they use are in fact neutral and to the point in the context that they are talking in, then who is having or making the problem other than you, by taking something personal beyond all need?

Really I would think that there are much more important things to care, think or talk about than this. Little things like joy, love, compassion, truth. You have been given the gift of life for free, didn’t you? Now, use it and don’t waste your time thinking about language, identities, how you want other people to talk about you and other nonsense like this.

Paul

[luisa-palazola]

@jpaul I think you make a lot of good points. In a lot of ways, I agree — allowing yourself to identified by what the world groups you as and allowing that to bother your, gives the world more power. When, you indeed, have the power to decide.

But, I also agree with @tre-larosa on the importance of language. I think language and how you approach is also a reflection of joy, love, compassion, and truth. And, it can be done in a way that respects how the other person chooses to be identified — CF’er person with CF, etc. Part of being human is balancing the ego and the soul. Ultimately, kindness and respect are what is important 🙂

[paul-met-debbie]

Yes I agree with you fully Luisa, kindness and respect are important.
But we should always realize that it becomes much easier to relate to other people if we in the first place know who we really are. Then we can make contact on a different level that is not dependent on formalities like language. To feel (dis)respect(ed) in the end is just a game of the mind/ego, who wants to feel good or bad about it’s imaginary image of itself (which it imposes on our real self – or the soul if you want). It is always in our own power to realize that words, (verbalised) identifications are not about who we really are. We can let the mind play it’s game and make a lot of trouble of those concepts, or we can go right through it to the core of the matter: if the intention is right and based upon love and real knowing, and people want to meet eachother on the deeper level, words/phrasing do not matter. We should reach out beyond formalities like language and concepts of the mind. All identifications are in fact barriers between us and reality. Of course it is more comfortable to feel proud than to be ashamed about our person or (dis)abilities, but in the end, pride is a prison as well, constructed by the ego as a way of dealing with itself on a superficial level. If we go beyond, this all becomes trivial and looses it’s importance altogether.