Hidden Disabilities

By Dennis Green

I have debilitating arthritis and periodic bouts with gout. Yet, I've learned to walk pretty well most days, and most days I don't need a cane to get around. Most of my clients and friends would never imagine that I need to make accommodations to myself in order to function as I might with no disability at all. And I must manage my own health to a degree that people without chronic health problems do not, with diet, for example, and medication. That's the beauty of being human, we're all adaptaable to the aging process and our own limitations, and the relatively poor design we have inherited from the body factory.
Up to a point. A few days every year, I can't get around at all. Even walking down the hall to the bathroom is a major undertaking. On those days I re-arrange my schedule to accommodate the day or two or three of pain and immobility. And it is on those days that I am most in tune, I think, with those whose disabilities are far more limiting than mine. On those days I often think about people whose hidden disabilities are more disabling every day of their lives.
The hearing impaired, for example, may have hearing aids so tiny they fit completely inside the ear. That person with a hidden disability may be working strenuously to overcome background noise and sort out my voice when I am speaking to them from a collision of noise quite unlike what I, without any measurable impairment, might hear in the same situation.
My business partner is dyslexic, and unless she announces it to friends and clients, they may not appreciate the difficulty she has in spatial and sequential perception. (Dyslexia impacts not only seeing, reading and writing, but also can interfere with comprehension, fitting perceptions together in a logical sequence.)
She must accommodate her disability by taking a number of routine precautions, to insure that she has perceived things and comprehended them the way they were intended.
But both of us are aware of a little secret: Psssst! The distinction between disabled and "normal" people in our society is an illusion. Some of our clients are completely unable to to visualize any ideas or concepts we put before them. Others cannot see where we are taking their advertising without a polished mock-up designed to mimic the finished, printed piece. Everyone we know is "compromised," if you will, in one area or another. Some are good with details, some can comprehend only the broad strokes of an idea. Some friends do better with other people in person, while others are better on the telephone.
Some people have great difficulties with numbers, some with dance steps, some with verbs. Everyone is gifted with something, too. Some have nimble fingers, some have nimble minds. Some people are simply wonderful with animals, some with tulips. Workability works with a person's strngeths and gifts that make them valuable employees.
It may seem a small point, but whehter you are color blind or lacking in upper body strength or inclined to forget names, to be human is to have limitations. Thinking about your own personal limitations with a compassionate heart will teach you a lot about relating to people with major, even highly visible, disabilities. As social beings, who define our group affinities as we go, we all have "disabilities" in the broadest sense. As a group, a society, we define which disabilities are disqualifying, which accommodations are reasonable, which limitations, in others and ourselves, we can accept, live with, perhaps learn instead to celebrate the gifts. Dennis H Green, Creative Director
Lazzari and Green Associates