A lot of folks have been writing about ableist language and what that means. My semantically obsessed brain starts with the words we as #a11y advocates and pracitioners use. Disabled is a problem. It means "apart" from able. All humans are apart from some "able". In GEnie BBS 1).
Jan 23, 2021 · 11:55 AM UTC
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days I was the disABILITIES (how it was represented) roundtable SysOp, where I first learned the term "TAB" for 'temporarily able bodied' which was an early exposure to the ideas I now have about language much less the idea that there is a person out there able to do anything! 2)
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So the word Disability cancels itself out. Inclusion? It implies exclusion. So when we say we must be inclusive, we are also reinforcing the concept of exclusion in our language. Physics: To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Surely, we do need common terms 3)
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And we all tend to choose terms that are difficult. The entire concept of Mind is abstract, yet we submit to the differentiation of mind/body. The only empiric data in psychology is either overwhelming observation of consistent patterns and when we look at an entire being. 4)
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Do Psychiatrists touch their patients? No. Do they test seratonin levels? No. Do they prescribe SSRIs if "depression" criteria is met? Yes, even when it's not. What we define as mental illness also does not look too hard if at all at true precipitating factors, rather assumes. 5)
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Do Psych folk ask about Traumatic Brain Injuries or medical issues? Do they even read a person's medical history? Even the assumption that Seratonin is a "brain" chemical is in research science being revealed to exist elsewhere. 10 years or so, it was found in our guts too. 6)
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Now we know 90 percent of our Seratonin is produced in our gut, some in our platelets, and some in our brain. We know so little yet beleive we know so much. Yet we base economic, physical and social constraints on differences that are simply life conditions of degree and number.
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My online life, education, career and 12 years of F2F joy with people as I traveled were hard-won. Few realized just how many conditions I was managing as I learned to mask them without intentionally doing so. And it wasn't until I was reevaluated in Las Vegas that the physical
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interferences in my life were completely woven in with the ones that looked "mental." In Junior High I was sent to the school psych because I chose biology and shop for "electives". It wasn't "healthy" for a girl, only 2 years after the DSM removed Homosexuality as a disorder!
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