This is the thing...
the poll didn't specify physically disabled, or mentally ill, or someone with a sensory impairment. It just said "disabled". The results are a testimony to the fear of that word, and people's assumptions about what a disabled person is. There's a world of difference between, for example, Joey Deacon and any of the many, many people who experience mental ill-health - which includes members of my own family. It's very much the same school of thought that says "all disabled people use wheelchairs, they must do or they're not disabled". Basically, ignorance. And bearing in mind that only about 27 per cent of disabled people are born with their impairment, that's a lot of healthy people becoming disabled and losing out.

To be fair, I don't mind some help sometimes - when I drop stuff on the floor and can't bend to lift it, for example, which is made even more complex by having only one hand free to use (obviously, the other is holding on to my stick). What I resent is people who can scarcely able to take care of themselves and their own kids patronising me and asking if I can do something that I've never struggled with at all.
(Trauma, Sun 4 Apr 2010, 16:13, Reply)