The History of Disabilities: My Takeaway

Dr. Keisling’s lecture over the history of disabilities was very informative and eye-opening. While I knew some general information regarding the history of disabilities, I did not realize how dark a lot of it was. I was shocked to learn that people who have disabilities were often grouped together with criminals and prisoners, and therefore, treated the same way. These individuals were institutionalized, mostly involuntarily, and then treated poorly due to overcrowding, neglect, and bad living conditions. Over the past 100 years, and especially in the past couple decades, knowledge and acceptance of disabilities have come a long way, but there is still definitely room for improvement. I believe that knowing the history of disabilities and how these individuals were treated in the past will help me to become a more empathetic occupational therapist and learn to better advocate for those in this population. 

An individual Dr. Keisling taught us about that really made an impact on me was Liz Weintraub. She lives with a disability and was actually institutionalized and dealt with the mistreatment from it when she was younger. This seemed to light a fire within her. She learned how to advocate for herself and then began to advocate for others who have disabilities as well. Weintraub continuously shut down others’ preconceived thoughts about her and what people thought she was and was not able to do in terms of education, careers, and life in general. She has held many official positions and earned awards relating to advocacy and has even testified against Brett Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court to fight for the rights of people who have disabilities, proving that her disability has nothing to do with what she is capable of. While I knew advocacy was important, especially as an occupational therapist, Weintraub’s story has proved to me the amazing outcomes it can have for even just one person. Moving forward, I plan to use Weintraub and her story as inspiration when advocating for others and as a hope for the future in paving the way for those who have disabilities.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Locus of Control

Locus of control is a phrase that refers to a person’s views about what causes different things and events to happen in his or her life, whether from their own doing (internal) or from outside factors (external). My OT class did an activity to determine whether we had a more internal or external locus of control, and I scored an 11, which is almost directly in the middle. I would say this is pretty accurate for my personality. While I do believe most things are within my control to an extent, one of my favorite phrases is also “que será será” which is Spanish for “whatever will be, will be.” I do the most that I can to handle different situations and get my desired outcomes, but I also know that some things in life are just simply out of my control. For example, when applying to OT schools, I did my best to maintain good grades in undergrad, have a great application, and apply to a variety of schools. However, after interviewing and doing everything I could on my part, it was out of my...
Read more

Imposter Syndrome

  Imposter syndrome is when a person does not feel like they are competent or intelligent enough to be doing the things they are qualified to do. It seems like this is especially evident in the healthcare field. And even though most people think they are the only person who feels this way, as it turns out, most people actually do or have at some point. This is something we have learned about a lot during our master’s program, and it has made me realize that I have also felt this way in multiple different situations. However, learning about imposter syndrome has helped me figure out what can cause it and what I can do to combat it. The times I have felt most like an “imposter” has been leading up to a fieldwork or being on fieldwork. There is always the anxiety of “I don’t know what I’m doing” or “I feel like I don’t know anything” or the fear of failure, but I also know that I would not be where I am if I wasn’t capable of doing it. From reading the article “Facing Imposter Syndr...
Read more

"Man from the South"

I enjoyed reading the Man from the South story from Roald Dahl. It was about a bet between an older man and a soldier. The solider was to light a lighter successfully 10 times in a row without fail. If the solider lost, the old man got to chop off his pinky finger. If the solider won, the old man had to give the soldier his Cadillac, which we found out later was not even his, but his wife’s instead. The soldier in the story thought that losing his pinky finger would not be that big of a deal and that “it doesn’t do anything for him anyway,” but assuming the solider lost the bet, he would realize that the pinky, along with the rest of the fingers, all serve a function in our hand strength and movements. The solider would have a difficult time completing his necessary tasks on his ship if he lost his little finger. The little finger provides a lot of hand strength for many different activities and losing it would mean losing a lot of strength. Navy soldiers have to do a lot of mai...
Read more