What does being disabled mean?
Mahesh
09 Feb 2003
One of the major change in life when a person becomes disabled or has a disability is the loss of opportunities to experience life. Life that all of us have is meant to be lived and experienced. A person with disability is deprived of these and is either forced or gets into a frame and is imprisoned from experiencing the small joys of life. Small privileges like buying a dress of his/ her choice, making a telephone call, finding a place to go in the evening are out of bounds. In most of the instances a step out of the house means expenses beyond the reach of the individual or the family inhibiting the person from socialising and living life. The life of a person with disability in many ways are mostly dedicated to taking care of the house while the rest of the family has something important to do or attend to. The result - "A creation of a life wasted."
Why has the situation to be like this? Can this be changed? Yes, if you decide to - I think this holds the key to unlocking the shackles of disability. One of the things we all forget is that we as persons with disabilities have the right to live, to go out, to use the public transport, school, college, hotels, attend public functions, seek employment, get married and pursue our dreams. When we come across obstacles we must make our voices heard and bring about a change.
Make yourself believe in "What is life if there are no challenges?" What I have learnt is by doing this we not only help ourselves but make way for others. Speak out/ write or discover ways of making a change. As long as you are justified by your actions do not get hassled as being labeled a 'rebel', even otherwise otherwise in most of the cases our family/ society treat us a 'not-normal'.
Distance away from your disability, go out of your bodies and indulge in free thinking.
If anyone asks you "Why do you want do?" you need to answer back "Why not?". If the "Taj Mahal" can be made accessible for a person like Stephen Hawking does that mean our lives is less precious?
Remember it is never too late to exercise your rights to live a life with dignity.
It is not wrong or atrocious to ask "I need to use the public bus" or "I need a toilet which I can use" or go shopping on a wheelchair. If we stand out in the crowd that is what we ought to do as a first step in raising awareness and negotiating towards the creation of barrier-free spaces. The barriers either physical or mental have been created by people who are not aware or sensitive to the needs of persons with disabilities and this is precisely what we need to do.
Negotiations till we are able to bring a desired change in the form of oral/ written appeals to the concerned authorities by quoting different sections under our constitution, the Persons With Disabilities Act / National Trust Act or the Mental Health Act, raising awareness through the media, mobilising people to express the injustice openly and filing appeals in the court could be some of the ways out...
Every small effort made by each person with a disability in getting back to life means creating a change in attitude of society in your vicinity and these together can make a change for a better today and tomorrow.
Make the efforts to be in touch with other persons with disabilities develop a network of friends and actively participate to create opportunities for others. Keep yourself an acheviable targets of doing one such task every week. The more we use our energies to find solutions to the problems faced by others the more we will find our balance to live a fulfilling life.