Several weeks ago I was supposed to write on the differences between Disability Culture and Able Bodied Culture for the Disability Carnival, which already happened so I missed the boat there. I kind of struggled with the topic, as I am far from the Queen of Disabilityland nor is there one pat answer. I still don't exactly know how to answer that question so that nondisabled people or disabled people don't get pissed off at me. It is a minority culture like every other, Black, GLBT, whatever, in a lot of ways. People identify with it to different extents. It is different based on geographic location and even more fragmented by disability. There is Deaf Culture in Rochester and D.C., Blind Culture in Baltimore, Crip Culture in Denver, and Deaf Blind Culture in Seattle, elite disabled athletics teams in Los Angeles, and of course there is Disability Mecca in Berkley. Those are the biggies, I suppose. But I discovered crip culture in the blind ghetto in Lincoln, Nebraska. And ran screaming away from it only to be forcibly plopped back into it in a musty cement basement in Jayhawker Towers in Lawrence, Kansas. And there is a little hub of disability culture in East Portland as well. There are pockets everywhere, and also on a national level. It ebbs and flows in importance in any one person's life. But, the most surprising thing to the nondisabled (whom I'm going to start calling NDs. I could do TAB--temporarily able bodied, but that irks some folks.), is that it exists at all.
How to define disability culture? Gods, I don't know. I can't put it into words, but it permeates nearly everything I do. It affects every interaction I have with the NDs. It separates us more than the physical attributes of our bodies in and of themselves as it is a whole different mindset about life than the mainstream Caucasian patriarchal ND culture. It, like all minority cultures, requires that we are literate in the mainstream culture and are required to traverse both territories with ease, but the mainstream culture is not, in turn, required to become knowledgeable about us. We must meet them all the way, they will rarely stretch their comfort levels to come visit our world.
I think if there was a defining mindset of disability culture, it would probably be the social model of disability. The mainstream is still and forever stuck in the medical model. To them, we are individuals with a personal medical problem; a deficit to be overcome. A personal tragedy that no one would want. To them, we need to be cured and have medical interventions and we wander around all the time wishing we were able bodied and feel some sort of self-hatred that we are not. It is a given that we would do anything possible just to become able bodied. Yes, we can survive in the world, but we could never be truly happy with our state of affairs, and we always function at a deficit. This decreased quality of life correlates directly to how "severe" our disability is. No other factor affects our happiness as much as how we function. The mainstream culture is about physical perfection. They define "dignity" not as being worthy of respect, but as being able to eat, go to the bathroom, walk, or read a book without personal or medical assistance. In short, disability is something that is BAD, BAD, BAD. No one would want that lot in life. It is a fate worse than death. Children are aborted so they won't "suffer" and the elderly are euthanized for the same reason. Suffering is inherent to disability itself. No other factors permeate or mediate the "suffering" of the disabled.
Disability culture works around a social constructionist model. First and foremost that the physical differences that make a person "disabled" are normal variants in the human condition. Much like homosexuality is thought to be on a continuum of sexual orientation that stems from normal variations in humanity, around 10% of people's sexual orientations fall at the edges of a normal bell curve. Any type of disability is really just the edges of the normal bell curve. Society is set up for that tall chunk in the middle, and those on some imaginary line called the other side of average are not considered when accommodating populations. That would take a lot of work to widen our scope of accommodations. Instead of just saying, "Hey, we as a society are not going to put forth the resources to accommodate everyone," they say, "we are going to lay the problem on you. Something is wrong with you. We will call you disabled. And less than. And as having a deficit. We will not respect you or your needs, so there is more for us. The problem is not in our exclusion of you. The problem is you." It is not so different than arbitrarily deciding that people with dark skin are less than and not worthy of personhood. Or that people who happen to fall in love with someone of their same sex are not worthy of full personhood. Or that women are not worthy of full ownership of their bodies. It is all the same. It is about how a certain group in power maintains their power by systemically excluding others. It is about oppression.
People with disabilities do not sit around all day pining about their lack of ability to see, hear, walk, whatever. They are just living their lives like everyone else. They don't think of themselves as having something missing. As having an inherent deficit. They mostly just think that they have what they have and they are who they are--a whole person, a worthy person. In turn, disabled people see other disabled people in the same way. This, I think, is the basis of the culture. Our mindset is different about our personhood. We all get it, the NDs don't. We understand what it means to be human. What the essence of life is. Our inherent dignity is self-evident. They struggle with that. And it often separates us from them.
There are other elements of disability culture that are more practical and visible to us. We do have somewhat of a shared history. Many of us know that our brothers and sisters from earlier generations who had the same disabilities as us were often abused, persecuted, killed, cursed, used as medical rats, gassed in Nazi death camps, falsely imprisoned, taken from their homes, sterilized, and otherwise humiliated. Many in the world still are. So there is also the civil rights fight that holds us together. There is a bit of a "Never Again" mentality and a strong need to fight to maintain the victories we've gotten and to go on for more. There are common heroes and events that only we seem to know of. The Denver Bus Protests in the 70's and 80's, Justin Dart, ADAPT and Ed Roberts, Mouth Magazine, Mary Johnson, Deaf President Now!, and the continued fight for the ADA and other civil rights legislation.The whole "right to die" heist that the nursing home and health insurance industry is pulling over on everyone, (including my church.) People are of course involved in the movement in varying degrees if at all, but they mostly all at least know of and support these issues. I guess there is a bond there, as well.
Then there is the bond we share as "consumers" "patients" "clients" "inmates" of the disability service industry. Which is a huge money making/sucking business that employs a whole lotta people who are mostly nondisabled. Its a love hate thing. We need it to survive but wish we didn't. If we were accepted into society, our needs for special services would decrease dramatically, so we fight to keep it while fighting to abolish it at the same time. Or at the very least wish we at least had control of our own services. Most of us can share our horror stories of medical and therapeutic debacles, SSA nightmares, Voc Rehab indignities, nursing home drudgery, social worker, housing, legal and other service manipulations that have to be done. We become experts at working the system and share information and tips with each other. What is the latest SSA income limit? What are you putting down for your work related expenses? How did you get Voc Rehab to let you put "Doctor" as your career goal when the "book" says someone like you can't do that? Who's the best therapist at Craig Hospital? Who can get you the most equipment? What city has the best housing authority and where are the accessible apartments? I really noticed this one when my mother was ill with Cancer. My family were complete "system" virgins. They didn't know how to work it, nor did they want to learn. I had forgotten how much of a shameful thing it was for the NDs to even have to partake in the system. Yet, how they bowed to its authority as if they had no rights. Just a simple thing, like my sister actually TELLING the DMV that my mother had brain surgery and that her license should be revoked. My mother was not able to drive at that time and she wasn't driving, but now that the DMV knew, they held all the power. You just don't do that!!! I thought. YOU keep it on your terms, don't let a bureaucracy make those decisions for you! I was astounded at that at the time, but I realize it was just a disability culture thing. Also, they didn't know how, and weren't comfortable with working the social workers for all they were worth. It was a privacy issue for them.
Privacy is another interesting difference between the two cultures. The NDs have a lot of it and don't realize the privilege it is. They have a sense of entitlement about their own privacy, but then don't seem to realize when they are invading ours. We are used to people coming into our homes, helping us with personal things whether it be reading our mail or helping us shower. We are used to being evaluated and assessed. Both formally and informally by the "public". The Public. Every disabled person knows what that term means. NDs don't really use that word in the same way. For us, the public is the term we use to categorize the masses who stare, ask stupid questions, say stupid things, treat us like demi-celebrities or run to the other side of the street. I don't think the public knows that these incidences don't happen in isolation for us. They happen every. single. time. we enter the outside world. So that is why we don't say, "guess what happened to me today? Some stranger on the street asked me if I was sorry I was ever born!" Shit like that happens constantly, although maybe not THAT bad all the time, but you are on constant display every time you leave your house. That is why we don't talk in terms of 'a stranger said this', we talk in terms of "the public" as a whole entity.
I also noticed something along these lines of privacy as a cultural gap with the whole in-law debacle about my blog. What I felt was tactful and constructive and also well-known criticism, they were shocked by. This was a good lesson for me to learn, as I hadn't thought much about it at the time but now I see it everywhere. I think many disabled people are quite comfortable with their human flaws and are very used to hearing about them from others. We are constantly evaluated in terms of strengths and weaknesses. We cannot pretend to be perfect and hide our weaknesses as much as others. Even when they are wrong, the public already has preconceived notions about who we are and what our lives must be like. So we are more comfortable just being who we are and saying, hey, I suck at this or I'm good at this. This is what I do well, this is what I can't do. There is no real way to put up a "normal family down the street" facade and hide our weaknesses. We aren't allowed. When I wrote about D's problems with his parents, what I did was I publicly shined a bit of a light on a little crack in the facade of the family dynamics. We all have these cracks, it was not a big deal to me. But for them, it was like the luxury they had of putting on this outward appearance that every thing was hunky dory was ruined by me. I get it now. As disabled people, we just don't have that luxury all the time. We don't have that sense of entitlement. And I had forgotten that others do. So I think we are more sure of who we are sometimes and don't really give that much thought to what others think of us. We have more true confidence and are more true to ourselves--and others sometimes. So privacy is a very different cultural issue for us. We handle it differently and from a different perspective than the NDs. Some disabled people totally hog it for all its worth. Some just throw up their hands and give up because it takes too much energy to fight for. But we all know that no one thinks we are entitled to it.
I also think we handle rules, boundaries, and obstacles differently. Rules often don't work for us, so we have to go and find out how to make an exception. We are always ending up either being shut out by stupid rules or being excepted or having to fight to be excepted to the rules. Everything from airport security to the SATs to standing in line at a theatre to job interviews to driving to whatever. We are always having to find ways around rules and boundaries and obstacles. This does a couple of things. It makes you very resourceful. It makes you very good at the whole "working outside the box" sort of thing. It makes you very resilient as well. When you have to fight "no" at every turn, you win sometimes so it makes you learn not to give up at the first "no." This can also burn you out. It also has the potential of making you an asshole who thinks you are above all rules. There is a balance there that you have to strike. Disabled people get very good at this. It makes you think differently than the NDs. We tend to get really good at knowing the difference between a reasonable rule and one that is just the result of some power hungry load of bullshit.
Also, you are constantly being told that you either can't do anything or that you can do everything. People want to see you in black or white. They either want you to be totally disabled or to be able to pass as an ND. They seem to get confused by the ambiguity that most of us are somewhere in-between. Also that what we say we can do and can't do might not be what they expect and that seems to confuse them even more. I, myself, as a person who is not totally deaf and not totally blind, but the combination thereof makes for its own unique disability, get accused of either faking it one way or the other. A few years ago, I could hear way better than I can now. I had an easier time getting around. But I had a guide dog. Guide dogs seem to mean to people that I was totally blind but could hear. Even when I explained things to them, it made them think that I was way less capable than I was. Now, I have no guide dog and use a cane less often because I'm usually sporting two toddlers and a quadriplegic. Now people don't think I am as disabled, even though I have a harder time now. No matter what I explain to them, they can't get past their own notions based totally upon how disabled I LOOK to them. They think I'm either trying to pull one over on them by being nondisabled or I am faking disability. Hey, I'm just trying to be me. Deal with it. I think in disability culture, people take it more on face value what you can and can't do. Whatever you say you can do--fine. It isn't all about your appearance. I also think that disabled people sometimes have a better skill of setting up their own standards and boundaries for their own expectations of themselves, instead of comparing themselves to what is standard either for the able bodied or the archetype of their particular disability.
Disability culture is very fragmented. This is partly because of all the strands of different types of disabilities. We don't band together across disability as much as we should. Sometimes we get into the hierarchy thing. i.e. the deaf are the coolest, then the paras, blindness is somewhere in the low middle, and at the bottom is the mentally and cognitively impaired. Part of this is because people with physical disabilities have for so long fought to prove they do not have cognitive disabilities and have wished to disassociate from them. I think we need to come together more. The cognitively disabled and more significantly disabled are fragmented because by design, they are cut off from the rest of us by able bodied service providers and institutionalization. Also, we are fragmented because most of the time we do not come from families that share our culture. Most of our families are NDs. This means that the culture and the ideals are not easily passed down from generation to generation. People with disabilities have some of the same problems as GLBT populations in regards to families. We are often rejected, misunderstood, and attempts are made to fix us rather than accept us. It is extremely hard to grow up in a household where close family members have prejudices about who you are and your culture. This is one of the reasons that many people with disabilities, like the GLBT community, value the concept of chosen families so much. I heard a lot about ND men who've used donor sperm having a terrible time with it. I know a lot of quads who have used donors, including D, who don't even think twice about it. I think it is the chosen family thing. Many disabled people can't get married like D and I. And many disabled people do not feel accepted by their families and band together in odd little family configurations. There is nothing sadder than a disabled kid or young adult who hasn't found a niche in disability culture yet. They are stuck in a culture who doesn't see them as a whole person and who sees them as "suffering" and undesirable. These folks tend to do the worst and have the most trouble with their disability. There is a lot of self-loathing and pity there. These are usually the folks who don't suceed well in ND jobs and with their own healthcare needs, these are the folks who sometimes want to die.
This is why it is so terribly important for parents of disabled kids to not only mainstream their kids, but to connect them with the disability community. In order to survive, disabled kids need both. They need to be mainstreamed so they can understand and live amongst the dominant culture. They need the disability culture too, so they have the support they need to understand and put into perspective the bias that exists in the mainstream. They need a place to feel totally safe and to have relationships on a level playing field. They need to have positive role models and people who will teach them their own value and their right to be respected. They need a place where their privacy and their issues will not be put on display for the public. Connections in the disability community are essential in providing these things.
I was watching "Little People, Big World" this last weekend. The Roloffs live just up the street from me and I walk by the dad's office every day when I go to my gym, so it is kind of fun to watch that show and see all the familiar stuff. One thing I think they do an excellent job of is balancing the ND world and the LP world for their son who is also a little person. They have a lot of connections in the ND world and work to move very comfortably within it. They actively work to bridge the gap between themselves and the public. Which, face it, the burden is all on the disabled to do. NDs don't often try to bridge to us or even recognize the need. But they also make a real effort to give themselves and their son every opportunity to go to LP functions. They even fly in LP friends or fly their son out to spend time with them. They recognize the importance of the LP and disability community is vital to their son's success in life. My mother very often tried to keep me away from other disabled people. She meant well. She didn't want me to be further stigmatized by what happens when you travel in a pack. (The stares multiply dramatically.) But what she ended up doing was tell me that if these other disabled people weren't good enough than either was I. She enforced the feelings she had that other disabled people were "other" and "losers" and not desirable to be around. She didn't realize it, but by proxy, she was saying the exact same thing about me. I strongly believe that disabled people at least need to poke a toe into both worlds on a regular basis. Finding a balance that works for you is essential.
Zach, the teenage son on Little People, Big World, made some comment that the LP activities was a whole different world and coming back from them was kind of a bummer. On a message board I read, some NDs were really resentful that he said that. But then I looked down at the other messages on the board and saw that a number of them discussed things like the family's sex life, their "deformed bodies" , referred to them in derogatory terms, and made cruel jokes about them. Many other messages were well-meaning, but also made comments in regard to the "freak show" aspect of the show. This is life as a disabled person. Everywhere, on the net, on TV, in books, in the grocery store, we are talked about as curiosities, freaks, people to be pitied, or heaven sent "inspirations." I notice that often when I tell some ND about these incidences and others involving discrimination, the reaction is that it is too bad--but what is the big deal? It was just one stupid person. Or just one well-meaning but nosy person. But what I think people don't get is that it is NOT just one person. If it was, it wouldn't be a big deal. But when it happens to you every single day in every aspect of your life, it drags you down. It creates a mindset where you are waiting for it, preparing for it. It makes you not ever just assume that you are going to have a positive interaction with an ND. You have to fight this bracing yourself that you tend to do, because everyone deserves to be treated without judgment, even clueless NDs, but it gets hard sometimes. I don't understand why the NDs on this message board couldn't understand that about Zach.
I think I'm OK at handling the blatant stuff that happens with NDs. I don't get too bent out of shape over it and I tend to take it in stride. I try to use these opportunities to educate and get people over their hump of uncomfortableness. Lately though, I've struggled with another aspect of ND vs. D culture. It is my relationships with well-meaning NDs who don't do anything wrong specifically. I do know that their intentions are good. But they are doing the colorblind thing. They act like our disabilities are invisible and that there is no cultural difference and we are just like them. I don't think they know they are doing this. I think they are trying to be as inclusive as possible. But there is a difference in our lives. And the disability does become a sort of big elephant in the room and it does separate us. I would just like to acknowledge the separation. Its there. Its nobody's fault. Let's just admit it and work on bridging the gap and go on. D and I are involved in this family church group. We've only gone like, three times, and the people are all very nice and I like them a lot. They are not intentionally doing anything wrong, and are likely trying to do everything right with us. But D and I are getting quieter and quieter in these meetings because we are having a harder and harder time relating. Maybe when we get to know each other better, it will get better and we will sort of get past this wall that separates us. D and I do need to work on sticking our toe into the ND world more, so that is one reason why I've been trying to stick it out with this church. So on some level, its us that is the problem. Its not like we totally can't relate, we all have small children so it isn't as if we are totally on different planets. There are some areas where we can find the commonalities. But we sometimes feel like if we really told them some of our struggles and some of the stuff that goes on in our lives, they would sort of see us as the constant downers. We don't think our life is a downer. We just deal with stuff that they don't have to deal with. They talk about being busy with a million things. But none of the choices they have to make with their time is life or death. Our problems with overscheduling is often out of our control and has to do with life and death stuff. Get the wheelchair fixed or get the catheter replaced. Take Aaron to the doctor or mom? Take the kids somewhere fun or help dad with his latest emergency? This is our life. We struggle sometimes. And that's ok. We aren't trying to play "whose got it worse," but we would like to speak freely about some of our stuff without fear of making the whole room go silent. They talked about volunteering and the problems with getting all the responsibility dumped on them. Our problems with volunteering have usually revolved around fighting for people to give us any kind of chance and responsibility at all. They decide to do things that aren't really accessible to us, and we have to remind them of this. They do try to accommodate us after that, but it is hard to always have to be the one who says, oh...we can't do that. Or we can't do that without a shit load of help, um...are you willing to help us? It isn't that they don't have real problems, it is just that they have so many more options than we do in how to solve them. That's okay. That's the way it is right now. But it puts us in a very awkward position when we are supposed to be talking about all this Deep Stuff. We are just in an entirely different place than they are. I wish we could just find a way to say, Okay, we have these differences. Maybe we can learn from each other about them. Maybe we will get to that point someday, but for now it is really hard. I really want to like them and get closer to them. I want my kids to be friends with their kids. But I hope I don't muck it up. It is a fragile thing sometimes.
They did this thing that kind of pissed me off. I had to watch myself to not go off on it, and I didn't. yea, me! Again, I know it wasn't intentional on their part. They "outed" a disabled person for really no purpose. He was a childcare provider who had already babysat all of our kids. There was never an issue with him before to my knowledge. But he was possibly going to provide childcare alone, so it came up that he has autism. Some day, I will write a long and painful post about my career, and all the useless shitty "outing" that went on behind my back when I tried to find work. Outing in the disability community is a bit different than the usual meaning of the word in the gay community. Like with me or D, we are already outed as being disabled. We can't hide it. But it is not cool to have a discussion behind our backs about what we can and can't do. If a question arises, fine, come ask us. But there shouldn't be any, "Well, he's quadriplegic, do you feel comfortable with him doing X? Lets go around and discuss this without getting any input from him." For someone who has a hidden disability, even if he has disclosed to many people, you shouldn't disclose disability without someone's permission. This is the "nothing about us without us" thing. There really should be no discussion about someone's disability without them being directly involved in the discussion. There is a bit of a gray area here. Like, if someone wanted to go to an inaccessible restaurant, and you wanted to bring your friend who uses a wheelchair, then sure, say "That restaurant isn't accessible to my friend. We need to find an restaurant that is wheelchair accessible." Along those lines is fine. But any extended discussion "outing" about the person's disability behind their back is just not cool. The discussion about the child care person was nipped pretty early, and I know that they didn't know any better. But it is just another bit of a difference in cultures, I think. Its also a bit like the "N" word. I think disabled people give each other a bit more leeway with this than they do with NDs. It is a trust issue. We tend not to trust the conclusions that NDs will come up with. We are more comfortable with the topic of our own disabilities among the community. Again, these are generalities here. People will feel differently about this topic. But in general, this type of disclosure is not really looked upon kindly by the disabled community.
One fear I have in our family group thing is that sometimes people think that our problems are so bad that theirs seem trivial and then they don't feel comfortable talking about them. Another thing about disability culture is that we understand that all problems are relative to what you are used to. If you can see but one day you get a really bad eye infection and spend a week blind with patches on your eyes, you are probably going to have a miserable week. We get that, even though we get up every day and can't see. But we are used to it. It is no big deal to us. Its just our lives. (This is why doing disability simulations on "disability awareness day" are usually so terribly, horribly, bad. All it does is reinforce fear and helplessness instead of show people the skills we have developed to find alternative ways to do things.) So, you can talk about your broken leg, and you can talk about your busy life. Just realize that we are going to have different concerns.
Another issue that separates us and that we struggle with is reciprocity. People in the disability community help each other out when they can because they understand that the concept of reciprocity works in the disabled community just like it works in any community. We know the value of our disabled friends and that they can and will help us when we need it, so we can and will help them now. The NDs either go overboard helping us when we don't need it so they can get that charitable feel good feeling, or they stay away from us with a ten foot pole because they think if they help us, it will be all charity and there is no reciprocity that we can provide. Negotiating help with NDs, which is often necessary, is a very delicate process. They come to it many times from a position of power or superiority. I'm not saying that there aren't a ton of well meaning helpful NDs out there who are wonderful friends who have equitable relationships with us. I'm just saying that overall, NDs tend to feel like helping us is charity, not just being a friend who will need help some other time, too. It is imbalance of power that is easily abused. In disability culture, this imbalance of power is mostly eliminated. The problem sometimes, is that people with the same disability need the same kind of help. This is another reason disabled people need to join with others with different abilities. In college, I had a terrible time finding readers for my classes. Other students in the "system" (services for students with disabilities) were having a terrible time finding writers, notetakers, tutors, etc. Another girl with MD and I got together and helped each other out. She read for me and I carried her books and took notes for her. Several students got together and paired up to provide services to each other. This is one of the reasons D and I got together in grad school. I recognized that our disabilities most of the time could complement each other and that we could help each other out without all the able bodied bullshit that usually goes along with that. We also have hired cognitively disabled attendants at times. In my work at the medical school, I had my coworkers with cognitive disabilities help me with visual tasks and I helped them with writing letters, money, etc. I see this cross disability assistance more and more. I think it is a good thing. I think that getting our needs met within the community gives us more of an equal foothold when dealing with the NDs. We are less vulnerable that way.
I struggle with bridging the gap between us and the NDs. Part of it is sheer stubbornness. I don't see why I should have to do all the work. I think they should meet me halfway. But that isn't the reality of the situation. What is hard about being a disabled minority as opposed to a ethnic or gender based minority is that sometimes we just can't meet mainstream culture all the way. Black people can act white a la Cosby, and although this won't completely eliminate their problems, they have the ability to try to totally assimilate if they so choose. Gay folks don't have to out themselves and can totally blend in if they want. I'm not saying they should, I'm just saying they have that option. We sometimes don't have the option of meeting the NDs all the way where they are at. It is sometimes physically impossible for us to assimilate. I'm deaf. I can try 20 different ways to communicate with the NDs. But if they don't at least make an effort to communicate back, I'm screwed. D is quadriplegic. If there is no access to a building, there is no access. He can't get in. He can't fake it or pass because he can't even get in the door. Disabled people couldn't even get on the bus to protest their segregation. They had to leave their wheelchairs and lay their bodies out on the streets in front of the bus FOR YEARS to gain access to public transportation. And then there are those folks who are stuck in institutions whose lives are so controlled by NDs that they don't even have access to the the outside world at all, ND or otherwise. They have no voice. They are imprisoned. The gap that separates us is sometimes too wide for us to cross alone. We can't get there from here. And we can only hope that at some point, enough of the NDs will see the value in meeting us in the middle. I think the first step for them is to acknowledge that there is a river that needs crossing.
I remember visiting Galluadet University a few years ago. My ASL is for shits, and I had a guide dog at the time. I spent the whole afternoon there, and even though I struggled to communicate with every single person there, they all patiently and resourcefully struggled to communicate back with me. We got the job done. We bridged the gap. It occurs to me that I have just as much trouble communicating with hearing people as I do communicating with deaf people now. The difference is, that deaf people will meet me half way, and most hearing people won't. And it's not just the Deaf, who arguably have lots of practice with different communication strategies. Its the quads and the blind and the developmentally disabled as well. They value what I have to say, they value and understand and acknowledge my communication challenge. They respect me enough to listen. They meet me half way. That is the all important difference between ND and Disabled culture to me.
