I have a special needs friend that really annoyed me this morning. It annoys me when someone who really has a disability or a handicap uses it to manipulate people into giving them every thing they want or into doing things for them they could actually do for themselves. It makes it harder on people who really need the help to get it if you have dealt with people who were playing on their disability to get you to do what they want or just because they are too lazy to try. My friend does have special needs, but I have seen how truly smart he can be when it is something that interests him, but if it is something he does not want to do it is always I can't so that. Today he was telling me he could not find his gloves, and he tried to say it was because of something his mother did with them. I was like wooooooooooo why is your mom minding your gloves. I told him when you take them off PUT THEM IN YOUR COAT POCKETS! Then you will always know where they are when you want them next. It is one thing when it comes to something one is really not capable of doing, but a 6 year old can learn to put their gloves in their coat pockets so they can find them when they want them. Then he said he had a nice pair of sports gloves and the dog chewed them up. To which I said again not the dogs fault. You left them where the dog could get them. Dogs chew things. I told him had they been in your coat pocket and the coat hung up the dog would not have been able to get them.
I totally realize there are many things special needs people really can not do, and I am fine with helping with those things, but I am done enabling someone with special needs to use their disability as a mental crutch to keep them from doing things they are capable of doing. We only get one life whether it is the life of a king with good health or the life of a pauper with no limbs, our life is our life and it is up to each of us to make it the best life we can. We have no right to make others feel sorry for us because we have issues, we need to work around those issues.
I feel I can say this because I myself have panic attacks and agoraphobia. The panic attacks are hereditary. I got them from my father, but the agoraphobia I brought on myself. I did not know it at the time, but I do now. I am working on the agoraphobia, because I realized it was my mental crutch. I used to be great at making excuses when I did not want to do something, but a long talk with my dad before he died gave me much light on that. My dad had the panic attacks, but even with them he worked every day he could till his physical health got too bad for him to continue. He told me you will have to do a lot of things in this world you do not want to to survive. I have thought about that many times over the years, and as I get older I realize I have lost most of the good years of my youth and adulthood. If I am going to make those precious years I have left better then the middle of it I need to make some serious changes and fast.
I am worried about my friend. He depends on his parents to do so many of the things for him he could actually do for himself. I am worried when they are gone he will not have a clue how to take care of himself. That would be really sad, because he is really high functioning, but he is using mental crutches to get what he wants and someday the people that are doing the things for him now will not be there to do them. I am worried he will not reach his full potential. He is always talking about things he wanted to do with his life and really can not instead of looking at the things he could do and do well. I have seen him when he is focused on something that interests him, and I know he can do far more then he pretend. There was one 6 month period I was so proud of him the way he was functioning you would not know he had any problems. Then something happened and it all went away. It was like a switch flipped in his head and his personality changed. I wish someone could figure out what changed and flip that switch back.
I told him there are people out there far worse off then you doing for more with their lives. It was that realization that made me start changing things in my life, and I really hope he sees it too before it is too late. I saw this little child that did not have any arms fearlessly jump into a pool and swim like a fish. Another child had no legs and she swam too. I have both my arms and lets and I have never been able to master swimming, because I allow my fear to stop me. Everyone who allows mental crutches to stop them from doing things they really want to do or things they should be doing need to throw the mental crutches away and learn to walk in what ever way their disability allows them. If you can not do things one way we should all figure out another way to do it, and not sink into a pool of self pity.
Just today I received a packet from the handicapped artiest. For those of you who never heard of them it is an organization that takes paintings painted by people who can not use their hands to do them. They use their feet or their mouths to make the paintings. Then this organization puts the paintings on cards to sell for the benefit of people who can not use their arms ore have none. This is a case of people with a disability not letting it drown them in a pool of self pity. No mental crutches there. We should all try to be like them.
jane_and.the_dragon
Nous a rejoint:
Worry about your character, not your reputation. Your character is who you are, your reputation is who people think you are.
ht
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