Hidden Disabilities
What is a "disability"? Is it just something that limits you more than those whom you are in comparison with?
When I hear "disability" I immediately think of a wheelchair. It always seems like my mind jumps straight to something obvious and limiting. But this is not always the case.
So many people here at Colgate experience debilitating stress, anxiety, depression, lack of motivation, emotional swings, etc. It is interesting to consider these as potential disabilities as we did today in one of the Colgate Conversations talks.
Normally, one thinks of disability as something "wrong" with the individual, that hinders their performance or participation in a way that is out of the ordinary, not normal. But today we talked about disability as potentially anything that holds us back from participating in class, or doing well on a test, making friends, or being happy.
For example: some people have a disability (some disease or mental handicap) that hits them at certain times and they seize. This can come in varying degrees. How different is this from the case of a person who experiences regular bouts of social anxiety and self-doubt that can cause the person to freeze-up, not participate in class, and generally limits their ability to participate in public environments/activities? Why does it seem so much more cut and dry to claim the first case is a real disability??
Many people around Colgate (students as well as professors) occasionally let the pressure of the rigorous environment here get the best of them. In fact, I think there are very few people here who have never felt like they had something to say in a classroom, meeting, or social environment, but felt limited because of something about themselves or the environment they were in.
This brings up two important points from our discussion. The first is the potential need to shift from looking only at a disability as something an individual has (an internal problem) to looking at what environment causes disability. The second is, how do we define disability? Can a majority of a populace experience some "disability" or does this word require minority by definition?
I see the rampant binge drinking on college campuses as a coping mechanism for people's crippling social disabilities. But I don't mean to suggest that we are all disabled on an individual level, I believe that there is something about this environment that disables us.
