I feel like our society can be very narrow-minded when it comes to someone with a disability or someone defined as being a handicap. To get a better understanding of the meaning I looked up both definitions.
Disability–a physical, mental, cognitive, or developmental condition that impairs, interferes with, or limits a person’s ability to engage in certain tasks or actions or participate in typical daily activities and interactions
Handicap circumstance that makes progress or success difficult.
The definition of disability is very specific of the meaning. The definition of handicap is a broader meaning. I feel like society can be very judgemental when it comes to someone with a disability. It seems as though if you do not have a physical ailment society has a hard time believing that you have a disability.
I have run into quite a few interactions where I have mentioned to someone that I have a disability and they will say “You don’t look like you are a disability” Sometimes I felt I needed to go into detail what my “disability” was. But most of the time I would not explain it. Because I really did not feel like this person needed to know about the traumas in my life that have given me the diagnosis of PTSD.
My biggest struggle in public is using a regular bathroom stall. I struggle with the small confined space. So I will use the handicap bathrooms because there is more room. On quite a few occasions I have walked out of the handicap bathroom to seeing women looking at me as though they were questioning why I was in there. But again I do not think I needed to justify my reasoning. I know why I use the handicap bathroom and that is all that matters.
