COLUMN: I am not your inspiration
As someone growing up with a visual impairment, it was extremely difficult coping and learning to accept myself and the fact that I wouldn't be able to see as well as my friends and family.
Often kids poked fun, asked questions and made crude jokes at my expense. Being young and vulnerable, I did not know to appropriately respond. I received counseling to help with these and other issues.
Now as a junior at Central Michigan University, I take 18 credits, write for Central Michigan Life, attend the occasional party, regularly give speeches to classes and registered student organizations on disabilities and do everything a vivacious, young and ambitious CMU student does.
Yet, I am different because I have a visual impairment.
Being different is awesome. I loathe the notion of an unattainable normalcy. Ask someone what normal is, and what being normal entails, and they can't answer.
Still myself, and many others with a disability, are constantly told how 'inspirational' we are.
I am not one who is easily offended, but quite frankly, I find having heard that statement on a consistent basis irritating.
Telling someone with a disability – someone who does the same things you probably do every day – that they are inspirational, amazing, a gift from God or something equally absurd is simply unnecessary.
We fear the unknown. We resort to stereotypes to compensate for our lack of knowledge instead of making the effort to educate ourselves.
When you tell someone he or she is inspirational simply for being different, or for doing something differently to adapt to a particular situation they might be in, it indirectly implies it is unusual for that person and those like them to be doing these things.
Telling someone in a wheelchair they're inspirational because they go to class, cross the street and, heaven forbid, hang out at a bar, is probably not the most horrible thing they've heard.
However, it does further perpetuate this horrific idea that people with disabilities are less able, less capable and even less intelligent, just because of the situation in which they find themselves.
I am doing great things and making things happen. Don't tell me what I'm doing is inspirational or amazing. It's silly. It's not necessary. Instead, get to know me and others with disabilities and you'll realize we're just as wacky as the rest of you.
