Accommodating the Needs of Our Community
Moving Beyond Just Caring for the Disabled and Choosing to Care for Each Other
It is a real shame that I was treated to a massage at the Aji Spa (you can see where I took these photos, located outside the Aji Spa in Chandler, AZ 85226) before the election took place, because I definitely could use it afterwards! I have taken a lot of time since the election reflecting on what my role as a therapist is in helping people when a lot of their problems are larger than mental health. Therapy is limited in what it can do to help with access to basic needs, feeling ostracized by the community around them, and not having support when incapable of working enough to earn a living wage.
Most people these days don’t have any qualms about handicap measures required to be put into place to help increase accessibility. We have handicap bathroom stalls, wheelchair ramps, and designated parking spaces all around us in daily life. Mandating these accessibility measures was done through the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 (there were iterations before, and amendments afterwards, but this version of the law was the major step taken towards protecting the rights of disabled individuals). Many people at the time were against this law because they voiced that it would create undue financial hardships to make the changes necessary to be more accessible.
Yet, today, we are doing fine. The USA is known for being one of the most accommodating nations in the world when it comes to supporting those with disabilities. Businesses were able to manage, and those costs are just accepted as part of owning a business or creating a building.
Arguments don’t really exist today about whether or not to help disabled people, but they come more from defining what being disabled actually means. Physical disabilities are easy to see and are generally shown support. Invisible disabilities are what get argued about.
I have Type 1 Diabetes, which could be considered a disability. However, outside of my needed medications and medical devices, one may not see how this disease significantly impacts my functioning on a daily basis. For the most part, it is an invisible illness. While diabetes often gets used a tool for comparison to validate other struggles, there are still diabetics who get denied breaks by employers to go check their blood sugar and provide themselves with insulin, who aren’t permitted to eat on the job when their blood sugar is low. Yet the proof is easily found. It is testable, measurable, and well-known. So why are accommodations still denied?
Internalized ableism is why. Our culture still has a lot of those Protestant roots in our values, correlating productivity and working with morality. When we aren’t visibly breaking down, we are seen as not trying hard enough. We often feel that we are failing if we experience difficulties or if we need accommodations.
This is where a lot of people who are battling depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions face pushback. On the inside, they know they are having a hard time, often to the point that their functioning has steeply declined, but they feel shame, guilt, and question if they just aren’t trying hard enough. Even when they accept that they need accommodations or extra support, leniency as they try to get through the day, they are often met with others’ skepticism and disapproval. Yet, at least some people are able to get ADA accommodations and disability benefits for mental health.
What about those who are facing problems that carry no diagnosis? For example, take a mom who has 3 kids under the age of 10, is struggling to make ends meet after her husband died, has no local support system to help her, and she can’t afford day care if she works full-time, yet she can’t feed the kids and have a home for them all to live in without full-time employment. There isn’t a diagnosis for those problems that could be labeled a disability under current guidelines. Society has no issue with providing accommodations for disabilities, but don’t provide support to someone without an easily defined disability when they are having trouble functioning at that same level.
This is where I have been residing in my brain for the last few days. I am concerned about how cuts to funding around healthcare and education, less choices to make around the right time to start a family, and mass deportations and tariffs will burden the average family. These kinds of societal decisions should be made with great care, they should carry a heavy weight, because removing government takes away any semblance of a safety net that we may have had. We haven’t shown care to our neighbors struggling. We were far too worried about the “undue financial hardships” that supporting our more vulnerable members would bring.
I normally like to share at the end of many of my blog posts a more positive view, a way out, a new perspective to consider. I am tired of holding onto hope when the world around me is showing no signs of wanting to help lift it from my shoulders (many therapists are feeling this way right now). My only inkling of hope I can offer is this: governments are made up of people coming together to protect and care for each other, and nothing stops us from doing that even without the government label. There are many kind and caring people out there, so be the supportive community for them when you find them.
